Dondero had been listening. He shook his head as Reardon walked back to him.
“You were a little rough on the man, weren’t you, Jim?”
“He shouldn’t drink on duty.” Reardon’s voice was cold, as much in anger at himself as in anger at Bennett. It was Bennett’s fault that he, a younger man, had to pull rank, and he blamed the sergeant bitterly for it. “Let him save it for when he’s home.”
Dondero almost said, Like you do, but decided against it.
“The guy practically doesn’t have a home anymore. Wife died not too long ago, four kids, one of them bad. I guess maybe it gets a little too much for him at times.”
“A lot of people have problems at home,” Reardon said abruptly. He sounded as if home weren’t the only place a person could find grief. “Bennett’s a patrol car driver. All he needs—or all the police department in general needs—is for one of the citizenry to report him for drinking while driving. Just once. Then Sergeant Bennett would have real problems, and so would we all.” He frowned blackly down the Embarcadero after the disappearing taillights of the patrol car. “That’s probably what he was doing in that gas station john—having a nip. If he hadn’t, he might have been where he could see something, like that killer coming out of the bar.”
“Oh, come on!” Dondero shook his head in surprise. “He was probably doing what everyone else does in a john, for crissakes! They don’t build toidies in patrol cars, you know. And if he hadn’t been there, he’d probably have been on a patrol somewhere around Army, fifteen blocks away at the time. And you know it.” He paused a moment. “Jim—”
“What?”
“You’ve got to quit taking out your personal problems on guys you run into—”
“What are you talking about?”
“I mean your scrap with Jan about drinking tonight,” Dondero said stubbornly.
“You think my—discussion—with Jan had anything to do with my chewing Bennett out for drinking?” Reardon waited, staring at Dondero belligerently. Dondero wisely kept quiet. “I said he shouldn’t be drinking on duty, and he shouldn’t and I know it and you know it and he knows it. So what does my having a few drinks at dinner have to do with the thing?”
There was a moment’s silence. Then,
“Nothing, I guess,” Dondero said quietly. His eyes came up, unfathomable. “You going to report him?”
“I don’t know.” Reardon ran a hand through his tousled hair and shook his head in disgust at things in general. “I don’t know.” He sighed. “Ah, to hell with it! Let’s go in and go to work.”
“Yeah,” Dondero said quietly, and led the way.
CHAPTER 3
Wednesday—10:15 p.m.
It was a small bar with sloping floor, smelling of stale beer and with a faint background odor of urine, dimly lit, with thick dusty curtains across the two front windows preventing any view of the street. The mirror back of the bar was stained with flaking mercury, black slivers missing like gaping teeth; before it an irregular line of bottles, all cheap brands, stood at ease. One of the pictures on the wall was an autographed photograph of an ex-ring champ, crouching over, his gloves raised defensively, but unfortunately not enough to block the camera. The other pictures were fly-specked prints of old sailing ships, with one aerial view of San Francisco that must have been taken about the time of the earthquake. If the tavern dated from the time of that particular photograph, it was a very old tavern indeed.
An ancient jukebox flanked the door on one side; on the other side a line of small wooden tables with cheap plastic checkered tablecloths ran along the stamped metal wall, ending in a partition separating the front of the saloon from the rear area. Here, toward the partition, the odor of rancid fried cooking mingled with the smell of beer and urine. An old-fashioned cash register stood on the end of the bar; behind the bar and above it a brass ship’s bell in need of polishing hung askew on the wall. Flies droned restlessly in the damp air and haunted the musty window curtains.
The body lay where it had fallen, undisturbed by either civilian or official. It had apparently slid from the chair, attempted momentarily at least to gain some support from it, and had then brought the chair down with it in its final collapse. The crooked legs were sprawled awkwardly in death beneath the small, scarred wooden table; one arm was flung wide, still holding the corner of the plastic tablecloth it had dragged with it, while the other arm cushioned the tilted head. The expression on the dead man’s face was more pained than painful, as if the corpse couldn’t really see the necessity of murdering an upstanding, fine fellow such as he had been, and rightfully resented it. Blood had run from one corner of the slightly petulant mouth to join another thicker rivulet which had flowed from beneath the extended arm, but both branches had congealed in a brownish puddle along a fold of the crumpled tablecloth. The patrolman stepped away from the corpse at the entrance of the two plainclothes detectives. He stood at attention. Reardon nodded to him.
“Did the patrol car sergeant call in your change of duty?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good.” Reardon tipped his head. “You take the outside duty. The patrol car’s back in service. Keep people moving along.”
“Yes, sir,” the man said, and went about his new job. Dondero marked the man’s badge number in his notebook and leaned back against one of the bar stools, lighting a cigarette.
Reardon studied the man’s face a moment and then squatted down beside the body, paying no attention to the other occupants of the room. He fumbled a wallet free from a trouser hip pocket without disturbing the delicate balance of the tablecloth, leafed through the papers there a moment, and then slid the wallet into his side pocket, coming to his feet. He nodded to Dondero.
“It’s our boy, all right.”
Dondero flicked ashes on the floor. “I know.”
Reardon turned toward the waiting bartender and then paused as several men came through the door weighed down with photographic equipment; the medical man followed, his black bag dangling, his young face the picture of disgust. And what do they expect me to find this man dead of? his expression seemed to ask—Dipsomania? Old age? Flat feet? He looked around the room in a bored manner, and then bent over the cadaver, obviously displeased with the man and the trouble he was causing.
Sergeant Frank Wilkins of the Technical Squad nodded to Reardon and then turned to consider the body over the doctor’s kneeling form. Wilkins was a heavyset man in his late forties; a frying pan across his face during the arrest of a drunken husband years before had squashed his nose beyond repair; it made his voice nasal and made him appear to be sneering when in fact he was the most modest and shy of all men. He was also succinct in speech, possibly because it gave him less opportunity to display his vocal handicap.
“Report said Jerry Capp.”
“Report was right.”
Reardon dug out the billfold and handed it over. Wilkins tucked it into one of his cavernous pockets without looking at it. Later, as Reardon knew, the contents would be carefully cataloged with all other personal effects and included in the final Technical Squad report on the murder. Frank Wilkins was an extremely capable officer. He studied the body for several more seconds in an impersonal manner and turned to Reardon once again.
“Who do we thank?”
“A good question,” Reardon conceded, and turned to the bartender as the doctor sighed unhappily and rolled the body over on its back. The tablecloth, dragged along by the clutching fingers of the dead man, tumbled down, covering the corpse. (“Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?” Wilkins demanded nasally. “We haven’t taken pictures yet. All you’re supposed to do is to make sure he’s dead, right now. You can play with him later.” “Oh?” said the young doctor. “You need a medical man to tell you this stiff is dead? Well, don’t get your lower tract in an uproar, daddy. I’ll put him back for you. Grab the other end of this tablecloth, will you?”)
Wilkins, still grumbling under his breath, shoved the cloth back in
place while his assistant began setting up the photographic equipment for pictures. Three men, apparently customers of the tavern at the time of the stabbing, watched silently and a bit owlishly from the end of the bar, well out of the way. Reardon studied the bartender.
“What’s your name?”
“Alfred Sullivan.” He was a small, dapper, elderly man with a hairline mustache, a pink shirt whose sleeves were held up with old-fashioned armbands, gray hair combed stiffly back in military style, and wearing suspenders. Reardon thought that with a jacket on he would look much more like a river-boat gambler than a bartender in a cheap saloon.
“All right, Sullivan. I’m Lieutenant Reardon of Homicide.” Sullivan did not look surprised. “What happened?”
“I told the sergeant from the patrol car—”
“Tell me all over again,” Reardon said quietly. “Everything. Stuff you forgot to tell the sergeant.” Dondero had his notebook ready and was waiting.
The small, dapper bartender wasn’t at all put out by the request; he would have been amazed had it been otherwise. “Well,” he said, “like I told the sergeant, this character comes in—”
“How big was he?”
“Bigger than me, but—” Alfred Sullivan shrugged, to indicate that the fact that most people were bigger than him, but that it didn’t really bother him greatly. He had other attributes. He pointed to Dondero. “About his size; maybe a little smaller.” He waited for more questions; the lieutenant remained silent. Dondero made a note in his book; his height was five-nine. Sullivan went on.
“Anyway, he comes in but he doesn’t head for the bar; he turns like he was going to the back room, like. We got a toilet there, and a phone on the wall, guys come in sometimes to use. So I don’t think nothing of it, see? Anyway, he goes by them tables and he bumps into Mr. Capp, like it was kind of an accident, see? And Mr. Capp says something to him, and then he says something back, and then before Mr. Capp can say anything else, this guy pulls this knife, see—and wham. That’s all there is to it. He shoves it into Mr. Capp, just like that. For no reason.”
“You were watching?”
“I was,” Alfred said equably. “I was looking at Mr. Capp, because I was wondering if maybe he wanted something to drink, see—”
Reardon frowned. Dondero looked up, getting into the act.
“If this Capp character didn’t want anything to drink, what was he doing in here? Don’t tell me he wanted to go to the john, or use the phone, not sitting at a table …”
“Oh, Mr. Capp? Well, he owns the joint, see—”
Dondero stared. “A guy with Capp’s scratch owns a crummy saloon like this one? You got to be joking.”
Alfred Sullivan brought himself up to his full height of five-three.
“Maybe there are things you don’t know about bars, huh, copper? You think those fancy-dan joints in the big hotels or over in the ritzy neighborhoods make dough? Half of them got their tongues hanging out. They got too big a nut, see? And they aren’t open the right hours, neither. A joint like this, no overhead, steady bunch of guys from the docks that don’t drink no drinks it takes a half hour to make—here’s where the dough is. And where the dough is, that’s where Mr. Capp puts his investments, see? He ain’t no dope. I mean …” He slowed down and stopped. His eyes strayed unconsciously to the corpse.
“So go on,” Reardon said quietly.
“Yeah, like I was saying: Mr. Capp, he comes in here every Wednesday around this time, more or less, just to check up, I guess. Sometimes he takes a drink, sometimes he don’t; I got some decent stuff under the bar. Sometimes he just sits and watches the action a bit, or checks the register—though that don’t mean nothing. He’s got a regular accountant keeps an eye on the dough part. Anyways,” Sullivan said flatly, “nobody never gypped Mr. Capp.” He stared down at the body as he said it, as if to prove both his honesty and his loyalty to the dead man.
“Maybe not, but I think he’d have preferred being gypped.” Reardon continued to watch the bartender. “What did he say?”
“Who, the character with the bush? I didn’t hear what he said.”
“How about Capp?”
“After he got stuck? He didn’t say nothing. He just took a dive. Oh—you mean what did he say to make this nut pull out a shiv and stick him? I ain’t got no idea. They was too much noise. I couldn’t hear what neither one of them said. They was a racket in here—from the television, from the guys at the bar—”
Reardon looked up at the television set, now turned off in deference to the dead man, but still keeping a milky, sightless eye on the proceedings from its Big Brother position on a pedestal in one corner; he turned and glanced at the three men waiting at the end of the bar. The three had been watching the doctor and Wilkins trying to rearrange the tableau of the death scene with almost morbid pleasure; if they were also listening to Reardon questioning the bartender, they were doing it without giving it much attention. In the silence that suddenly fell, however, they looked down the bar at the bartender and the police, their three heads turning together, as if mounted on a mutual swivel. One of the men was holding an empty glass and apparently had been holding it for some time; he seemed to become aware of it for the first time and placed it on the bar self-consciously, wiping his hands nervously on his trousers. All three looked as if they would have liked nothing better than to order another drink, but felt it would probably be denied in the circumstances. Reardon turned back to the waiting Alfred Sullivan.
“There were just these three men in here?”
“No, sir. They was at least half a dozen more, watching the TV and having a brew, but they beat it.” He shrugged apologetically. “You know how it is.”
“I know how it is.” Reardon knew only too well how it was. He gave the three men at the end of the bar his attention. “All right. How come you three stuck around?”
One of them looked at Reardon with more than a touch of defiance; he looked as if he had been waiting for just that question. He was a short man with wide shoulders and a cauliflower ear. His nose was almost as flat as Wilkins’, with a scar tissue lumped over his eyes, making him appear almost simian.
“I didn’ even know nothin’ happen’n’ until th’ cop is here an’ he says stick aroun’.” He sounded put upon, as if the whole affair was just one more unfair decision in a world made up of crooked managers, lying newspapermen and blind referees.
“Did you see the killing?”
“Me? I didn’ see nothin’.”
“I saw it, Lieutenant.” It was a thin man with spectacles held together with a piece of dirty adhesive tape, the one who had been holding his glass so long. He shoved his glasses up on his nose; a replacement for the adhesive tape would be required before long. “I was looking at the door, you see, no reason, and I saw this man come in. I was watching him, you see, no reason, and I saw him bump into the man at the table—him”—he pointed—“and I saw them saying something to each other, and then I saw him stab him. That’s all there was. A couple of words between them, and he sticks him with the knife.”
“What kind of knife was it? Switchblade?”
“I really don’t know. I know it wasn’t a banana knife, because I’ve used those on the docks, but they aren’t good for stabbing, anyway. What difference does it make?”
“I was only wondering,” Reardon said. “It had to be quite a blade to go through a jacket and a shirt and still penetrate enough to kill a man with one stroke.”
“I imagine you’re right,” the man said, thinking about it. He shrugged apologetically. “But I’m afraid I didn’t notice.”
Reardon looked around; nobody had anything further to offer on the knife. He returned to the man with the spectacles.
“And what did he look like?”
“Like what Al told the first policeman that was here, that sergeant from the patrol car. He was a middle-sized man with a beard and sunglasses, wearing one of those lumber jackets, you know. You see a lot of them down on the docks thi
s kind of weather. I have one myself. Didn’t wear it today …” He trailed off and them came back to life. “Oh, yes; and he had on a cap.”
“With flaps,” the bartender added. He sounded as if he didn’t like being left out of interrogations in his own bar. “He had the flaps down, but not buttoned down, know what I mean? Loose, like.”
Dondero was taking it all down. Reardon went on.
“Was he fat or thin?”
There was a couple of moments silence before Alfred Sullivan answered. “Them lumberjacks, it’s hard to tell …”
“True,” said the man with spectacles philosophically.
“How about the sunglasses? What were they like?”
“Like?” Everyone fell silent again; then the little ex-pug spoke up for himself.
“Me? I didn’ even see the guy …”
There was a flash of light as Wilkins’ assistant finally started to take pictures. Alfred Sullivan finally answered Reardon’s question.
“They was regular sunglasses, is all. Dark, see. They wasn’t them real orange kind like soup plates you see nowadays, and they wasn’t like flying glasses neither, you know? They was like the kind you get in the five-and-dime, you know. Regular sunglasses. Cheap shades.”
Reardon gave up on the shades. “Tell me about the beard and mustache. What color was it?”
“Black.” The man in spectacles answered; Sullivan bobbed his tiny head in agreement. “Black, like black ink. Like it was dyed, you know? Or as if he might have used shoe polish on it. Some people do,” he added, almost defensively, as if his word might be doubted.
“Or like it was fake?”
They all pondered this. The ex-prizefighter opened his mouth as if to deny ever having seen the guy, and then shut it. He looked as if he might have forgotten what he had been about to say. The man with the spectacles shoved them up on his nose and screwed his eyes shut, trying to remember. He opened them at last, shrugging.
The Gremlin's Grampa Page 3
