by Ben Benson
We went down the washed-down street toward the newsstand. The street was almost empty. The vehicle traffic was light, and the pedestrian traffic was occasional and scattered.
The newsstand had a steel grille over it. Bundles of papers tied with rope were strewn over the sidewalk. I did not see any police stake-out. But I knew it was there. The New York Police had their favorite eyepieces at Times Square.
The owner—I knew him only as Joe—came at seven. What surprised me was that he was driven up in a big black Cadillac. When he hopped out, a gray-haired, matronly woman kissed him fondly and drove away. A minute later a skinny, pimply-faced young man came idling around the corner. He and Joe began untying the bundles of papers and stacking them in the racks.
At eight o’clock Sergeant Brady showed up on the opposite corner. With him was a big, heavy-set man. The man was Detective, second-class, Armand Klein. By that time the traffic had become much thicker.
We took our positions. Newpole went with Klein to a soft-drink stand across the street. Brady and I entered a small coffee shop a few doors uptown from the stand.
We drank coffee. I ate four pieces of Danish pastry. Although there was no word or gesture between Brady and the counterman, I could tell they knew each other.
By eight-thirty the streets had filled. At nine the streets were jam-packed. At nine-thirty the traffic seemed to slacken off slightly.
During all this time there had been a steady stream of customers to the newsstand. Once or twice I started up, only to sink back after a second look.
At 9:45 A.M. I began to get anxious and my eyes ached. Now the traffic—though still heavy—was less frantic. The pace of the pedestrians was more leisurely.
At ten o’clock Nesbit had not shown. I began to get fidgety. I looked at Sergeant Brady beside me. He was smoking a cigarette with perfect calm. 10:05 A.M. My eyes began to search faces in the crowd.
That was how I saw him. Billy Nesbit—as he passed the coffee shop. I almost missed him, he had grown so thin and unrecognizable. Shabbily dressed. His well-washed sport shirt and slacks were wrinkled and unpressed and seemed to hang on his frame. His blond hair needed cutting, but it was carefully combed. And, like his fingernails, I knew it would be clean. His face was gaunt and pale, and the ruddy sunburn was missing.
He walked along with the flow of the crowd, headed toward the newsstand. He seemed as jaunty as always. Purposeful, too, as if he were on his way to an important business engagement. When he came to a knot of people, he knifed through them, not slowing his pace.
I touched Sergeant Brady. He stood up. I pointed toward the newsstand without saying anything. Brady moved away from the counter. We went to the window.
Nesbit was at the newsstand now, chatting with the wizened little owner, an easy smile on his lean face. Once he threw his head back and laughed, his white teeth flashing. The owner waved a finger at him in a mock warning, then took the box, stood on it and reached up for the newspaper. Nesbit took it and handed the man the money. He said something and pointed up to where the paper had come from, shaking his head. And he started to walk away.
He came toward the coffee shop. In front of it he slowed abruptly. For one split second I thought he was coming inside and we were going to meet head on. But he had slowed only because he was glancing at the newspaper.
When he passed by, Brady stepped outside. I followed. Just in back of us were Detective Klein and Lieutenant Newpole. We moved along into the crowd.
At 46th Street, Nesbit turned left. Here there were fewer people. Brady fell behind, stopping to look in a shop window. I did, too. Klein came up with a quickened pace. He and Brady moved ahead, taking over in expert fashion. I fell behind with Lieutenant Newpole. We were masked by pedestrians.
They went down 46th Street, almost to the corner of Eighth Avenue. There was a small, narrow, red-brick building. The sign said Hotel. Day, Week, Month. Low Rates. Nesbit went inside.
Brady and Klein came to the entrance. They stopped, moving close to the wall so that they could not be seen from the inside. Newpole and I came up and joined them.
“You’re sure that’s your boy?” Brady asked.
“That’s him,” Newpole said.
“We’ll need to cut him off at the back,” Brady said. “There’s no way through here. We’ll have to go to the end of the block, around Eighth and into the alley.” He looked at Klein.
Newpole said, “Ralph, you go with him. Hurry.”
I followed Klein swiftly down to the end of the block. On Eighth he turned left. We passed a pawnshop and a luggage shop. There was an alley with several cars parked in it. We threaded through, winding around garbage cans and rubbish, until we came to a narrow, red-brick building.
I looked up. The bricks were soot-blackened. At the open windows, dusty gray curtains stirred in the morning breeze. A crisscross of fire escapes ran from the top fourth floor to the ground. There we stopped.
As Newpole told me later, he went in the front entrance with Sergeant Brady. There was a steep stairway. At the head of it was a lobby of sorts. At the desk was a hotel clerk. Brady showed his shield and asked where the young man had gone. Room 315, the clerk said. Two flights up. There was no elevator. The young man was registered as John Alden of Plymouth, Massachusetts.
They went up the two flights of stairs quickly enough, but something had gone wrong. Perhaps Nesbit had paused on the stairs and had heard the conversation with the clerk, because a knock at the door of Room 315 brought no answer. They were concerned then that Nesbit had found them out and had escaped through an emergency fire escape to the rear. Why Nesbit had not tried to do that, I never found out. Perhaps he felt it was too late. He was familiar enough with police procedure to know the police would have covered the back exits.
Brady tried the door and found it locked. Then he and Newpole hit it with their shoulders. They found it was not only locked but barricaded. Next, there was a shot fired by Nesbit which pierced the door panel and sent Newpole and Brady flat against the wall of the corridor. And there was a shout from Nesbit that he would not be taken alive.
It was then that Brady said, “Hell,” with great disgust. “It’s going to be one of those messy ones.” And he went downstairs to telephone Police Headquarters at Centre Street.
At the time, Detective Klein and I did not know any of this. We were in the alley when we heard the report of a single shot. Klein looked up anxiously at the row of murky windows.
A moment later, on the third floor, some curtains parted and a head appeared. Klein and I went back to the opposite building, spreading apart from each other and tugging at our revolvers.
It was Lieutenant Newpole. He cupped his hands and shouted down, “Nesbit’s in the room to my right and he’s armed. Sergeant Brady says to take cover and wait for Emergency.”
Newpole’s head disappeared and the window curtains swayed emptily. There was a silence. Klein said heavily, “So we wait, kid.”
“For what?” I asked.
“The Emergency Squad is based on the Eighteenth Precinct at 54th Street,” Klein said. “They’ll come in a big van. The RMP’s, too—radio cars. It won’t take long before we have plenty of help.” His eyes seemed tired and crime-weary, as though he had seen too many of the sordid things of life.
“They’ll clear the area,” he explained further. “And they’ll shoot tear gas and nausea gas up into the room. When your friend gets sick enough, he’ll come out with his hands up. He won’t look too good, but he’ll come out.”
“And what if he stays in there?” I asked.
“That don’t happen often,” Klein said. “Sometimes they’ve got strong resistance and a good air supply blowing. Then we have to go in and get them.” Klein leaned against the wall. “Take it easy. You’ll hear some sirens soon and this whole army will come. Cops in overalls. They’ve got all kinds of equipment and they’ll use it.”
“It’s no good,” I said to him. “That’s just what Nesbit wants.”
“He’ll get it, all right.”
“He’s looking forward to it,” I said. “The attention, the fanfare, the immolation.”
“Feed it to me again,” Klein said. “What was the last one?”
“The immolation. The sacrifice. He wants to go down on a funeral pyre, in a big blaze of glory. He wants his picture splashed over the front pages and to have the network TV commentators tell how he died. That’s the way he wants to end it, Klein.”
Klein shifted his feet. “One of those nutcakes, huh? A flash artist. What do you think makes them that way, kid?”
“I only know about this one,” I said. “Good family background. Lots of money. But that wasn’t enough for him. All his life he wanted more. He wanted to do something important, to attract attention, to amount to something big. He never made it. Finally, he went into the army. But he got a tough break there, too. No suicide missions, nothing. By the time he got in, it was only a peacetime army.”
“Now, that was real tough,” Klein said in mock sympathy. “I’d have settled for the peacetime army any time. And I’d have been satisfied just being rich. I’d have been plenty satisfied.”
“He got bored and restless,” I said. “You might think it funny, but he wanted to be a state trooper.”
“Yeah, to me that’s very funny. A cop. You know how long a showboat like him would have lasted? A week, maybe. With his kind, no work, no sweat, no aching back, no calluses on the hands. Nothing like that. They like the razzle-dazzle, that’s all. I’ve seen them.” Klein spat, then looked up toward the windows. “If this boy wants his immolation, he’ll get it. We can accommodate him.”
I had an image then of young Johnny Congdon and the others of the leather-jacket, garrison-belt set. Those who made a fetish of viciousness and violence. Whose movie heroes were those who defied authority, who flaunted the law, who applauded cruelty on the screen. I said, “No, you’ll make him a glamorous hero to the young punks. He’ll end up as a cult or something. Some moronic song writer might even compose a ballad about him.”
“Not when we finish with him, kid. I’d like the young punks to see this. Let them see Nesbit when we drag him out looking like a plucked chicken, with the stink of vomit all over him. Let them make a June moon out of that.”
“But they don’t see that part,” I said. “They read only about his defiance and the odds against him. You know how the newspapers jazz it up. I don’t want Nesbit to get two lines in the back of the Cow Corners Gazette. That’s why we have to do something before Emergency comes.” I said earnestly, “I know this boy.”
“How much do you know him?”
“I’ve palled around with him. That’s how much.”
“Hell,” Klein said. “I didn’t know it was one of those family things.” He rubbed his jaw. “What do you want to try, kid?”
“Give me a hand up the fire escape,” I said. “I’ll go bring him down.”
“Like hell, kid,” Klein said in a flat, hard voice. “This boy isn’t your baby now. He belongs to the New York P.D. And we don’t stick a cop’s life against a punk’s. A cop’s life is worth a thousand punks. No shooting duels. We saturate them. We fumigate them like exterminators fumigate vermin. So you’re not going up after him.”
“I could end this quick,” I said.
“You’re my responsibility. What are you trying to do? Get me in trouble?”
“All right,” I said. “I have another idea. I think I can talk to him. He’s at that young age when everything is vivid and has terrible meaning to him.”
“What young age?” Klein asked. “How old are you anyway, kid?”
“I’m twenty-three. I’ve got two years on him. It’s enough edge. And don’t keep calling me ‘kid.’”
“Yes, Trooper.” Klein grinned. “Go ahead. Try your idea. But stand near me when you talk to him.”
I moved up a few feet from the edge of the wall and called, “Billy!” I waited. “Billy! Ralph Lindsey down here. Put your head out the window.”
I watched the third floor. The seconds ticked by. Then the curtain moved and I saw the blond head emerge, peering down. “Hey.” He smiled. “I thought I saw you down there with someone. How are you, Ralph, old boy?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “Billy, you’re in a hell of a jam.”
“Yes, I guess I am.”
“Then why don’t you call it quits, Billy? You’ve got no chance.”
“Yes, I know that.” His voice was untroubled.
“Then come on down and let’s all go home.”
“There’s an alternative.”
“No, you can’t make any deal. You come down, Billy. Otherwise they’ll come in and kill you.”
“Well, I rather think I can give them a run for their money. We’ll have a real ball. I’ve got a revolver here with a full cylinder, and a whole box of shells besides. I’m prepared for battle.”
“There’ll be no battle,” I said. “They’ll lob in vomit and tear gas and you’ll come out a very sick boy.”
“Oh, no,” he said. “I’ve scouted my position. Tactically, I have the advantage. They have to get that gas in here. The only way they can do it is to stand where you are now. I could pick them off like fat quail.”
“And what would you gain, Billy?”
“I come from fighting stock, old chap. My mother was a Cartwright. A New England Cartwright. I have to hold up the tradition. Go down with the ship, as it were.”
“Are you drunk, Billy?”
“I’m cold sober.”
“All right,” I said. “Then I’ll have to come up there myself and get you.”
“No,” he said, almost frantically. “Don’t do that. Damn it, you’ll spoil it. You know I wouldn’t shoot you.”
“In that case we’ve got it settled peacefully. Here I come.”
“Wait!” he shouted. “Damn it, wait a minute.” His body loomed into view at the window and one leg came over the sill. He stepped onto the fire escape. “Goddam you,” he shouted down. “You’ve ruined everything.”
I shifted the revolver in my hand and looked up at him. I could see the butt of his own revolver tucked in his belt. He waved to me, and said, “I’m coming down.”
I kept the revolver at my side. Klein had moved warily closer to me, his own gun looking like a toy in his big hand. We watched as Nesbit climbed slowly down the maze of fire ladders.
Beside me, Klein said, “I’ll be damned, Trooper. You had him figured. He won’t let you be in the show at all. He has to hog the whole stage.”
Nesbit came down the final ladder and his weight swung it gently to the ground. He stepped off and the ladder rose again. We stood facing each other not more than twenty feet apart.
Above us there was a muffled crash. I looked up to the third floor. Sergeant Brady’s face appeared at the open window. He looked down through the fire escapes. Nesbit was directly below him, but, through the crisscross of steel, he had no target.
Nesbit moved. He reached toward his belt. I half-lifted my revolver and cocked the hammer. But he smiled as he took his gun out and tossed it aside on the ground.
“Now I’m unarmed,” he said. “And you’re the one who has the weapon.”
“I’m glad of that,” I said, starting to walk toward him.
He edged away from me, sidling toward the entrance of the alley. The smile on his face was a parody. Inside he must have been a very frightened little boy. I felt an uncontrollable twinge of pity go through me.
He said, “I’m leaving.” There was the sound of a siren. It came closer. He said, “I’m going to turn my back on you and run for it. You won’t shoot and you won’t allow your friend to shoot. Not at a man’s back. You’re a true sportsman, Ralph, like I am.”
“No, Billy,” I said. “Don’t do it. It won’t work.”
It was as though he had not heard me. He turned suddenly and darted off. Klein moved quickly for a clumsy-appearing, middle-aged man. He shouted at Nesbit to halt, then fired a warning shot in the
air.
Nesbit kept running. He was close to the alley entrance now. I took a careful stance and lined him in my gun sight. The twinge of pity came to me again and I had trouble squeezing the trigger. “Forgive me,” I whispered, to nobody at all. I fired.
My bullet hit him. He skidded. One leg buckled under him. He fell down and plowed along the cobblestones.
He tried to raise himself, but collapsed. Klein and I ran up to him. There was a ragged smear of blood along the stones.
Billy Nesbit twisted his head and looked up at me. His eyes were filled with shock and pain. “At least it wasn’t you,” he whispered. “It was your partner who fired.”
“No, I did it, Billy.”
“Not sporting,” he whispered. “My leg, please.”
I crouched down, tore apart his pants leg and looked at the wound above the knee. The skin was oozing wet with blood.
“I think you broke the bone,” Nesbit said hoarsely. “It’s starting to hurt bad.”
I didn’t answer him. Klein was down on one knee making a compress out of his handkerchief. The sirens were only a few feet away now. I heard shouts and running footsteps.
“You didn’t give me a chance,” Nesbit said, with glazed eyes. “I was unarmed. No chance at all.”
I held the leg while Klein worked on it. I kept thinking of the time Billy Nesbit came into the barracks for his application as a trooper. He, with blood on his hands, because he had murdered Somers only a few days before. And the time he sat with me and, with a straight face, blithely discussed how Somers could have been killed by a narcotics gang. “You didn’t deserve a chance, Billy,” I said.
“Everybody deserves a chance,” he said.
“No,” I said. “I keep remembering Somers. Tell me where his chance was.”
“I want to forget Somers.”
“So do I,” I said. “But I found his body. I keep remembering him.”
The detectives and uniformed officers swarmed in on us then. When I looked down at Nesbit again, I saw he had lost consciousness.
