The Exterminator

by Peter McCurtin

The German gave Eastland keys to the street door and the apartment and went up the stairs ahead of him, fat assed and wheezing “Vee got to talk about Veet Nom sometime,” the German said. “I vas in the Big One. De Wehrmacht. Dot’s de regular army, not the SS. Not nutting like dat.

  “You got a chob lined up?” the German asked.

  “Already got a job,” Eastland said. He locked the door and put the box in a closet after the landlord went out.

  The small three-room apartment was sparsely furnished. It was clean, it was okay for what he had in mind. But he’d have to be careful coming and going from it. In the end, it all depended on the detectives they assigned to the case. Echoing Captain Shea’s words without knowing it, Eastland thought, Who’s going to raise a stink about three Puerto Ricans?

  Not much later he went back to his own place by cab and subway and got dressed for another night’s work in the market. He worked the 2 a.m. to 10 a.m. shift. Working at night suited him all right; the market boiled with noise, but the city was quiet after midnight. He didn’t feel like going to work tonight, but it was essential to maintain his routine: plod along like he’d been doing for the past eight years. Anyway, he had to help support a family of three; Mary’s meager pay at the fast food place wouldn’t be nearly enough. He knew Michael had nothing saved and his own fifteen hundred, in a savings account, wouldn’t go far.

  Sometime tomorrow he would have to talk to Mary about money.

  Eastland got to work on time as he always did. Inside the meat plant, endless rows of beef, hung on steel hooks attached to an overhead conveyor belt. The beef rolled forward on the conveyor belt and workers with white coats and safety helmets cut off large pieces of meat with huge knives. The cut-off pieces of meat rode down a conveyor belt between two rows of workers who cut the meat into smaller pieces. The smaller cuts were put back on the belt. At the end of the belt the meat dropped into a large rotating stainless steel sorting disk. After the fine cuts were sorted, they were wrapped for shipping. At that point a worker tossed the leftover meat in a bin and wheeled it over to a huge grinding machine. Then the scrap meat was tipped into the machine and a button was pushed that reduced everything to chopped meat in a few minutes. The chopped meat came out the other side and coiled into another bin.

  Eastland worked on the grinder part of the night. The roaring, grinding noise of the machine didn’t bother him; it was like living near an elevated train line for a long time; after a while you didn’t even hear the trains. Eastland liked machinery; he liked the grinder. Working on the grinder was one of the easiest jobs in the meat market; the big machine did all the work. Some of the men were afraid of the grinder, thinking that somehow they might fall into it, although that was next to impossible because it had high sides that sloped out in a funnel shape. Of course if some clown did manage to get into the grinder, he would come out the other side as hamburger. A man would take a little longer than a load of boneless meat scraps. But he’d still come out a hamburger.

  The night passed like so many other nights; nothing else happened after Juicehead Mike Ramirez cut his hand with his own knife and had to be sent to the hospital for stitches.

  Clocking out a few minutes early, Eastland took a cab and went to see Mary Jefferson. They had things to talk about.

  By morning Detective James Dalton had learned a number of things that didn’t help much. The records section of the NYPD had absolutely nothing on Michael Jefferson. He had no arrests, not even minor ones. The man was not in any suspect file, so, officially, his life was without blame. He called the Army records center in St. Louis and got a bored sounding lieutenant who told him to “proceed through the proper channels.” Dalton then called Captain Shea at his home and told him the problem.

  “Hang on, Dalton,” the captain said importantly. “I still got a few friends in the service.”

  Less than an hour later, the lieutenant he had talked to earlier called back. This time he was ready to be cooperative.

  “Glad to be of service to the police,” he said after Dalton thanked him. Papers rustled at the other end of the phone. “Jefferson, Michael T. The T is for Thomas. Born New York, New York, June 15th, 1950. Inducted …”

  “You don’t have to read me all of it. Right now I want to know if he served in Vietnam and what his record is like. The rest you can put on the Telex. Basically, what I want to know is, what kind of soldier he was. Did he deal dope, hang out with a tough crowd?”

  “Our boys were all pretty tough,” the lieutenant said.

  Dalton sighed and was patient. “By tough I don’t mean brave. I mean dope dealers, gold smugglers—hoodlums, criminals.”

  “There’s nothing to indicate any of that, Mr. Dalton. Quite the opposite, in fact. He was wounded several times and cited for bravery under fire. There is nothing in his confidential file that hints he was anything else but a good soldier. His psychiatric file gives him a clean bill except for periodic and severe depression.”

  Gee, Dalton thought bitterly. Imagine a guy in Nam getting depressed because he was in a war that was not supported by anybody except those too old or too rich or too smart to fight in it.

  “I’ve never seen a confidential report,” Dalton said, wondering what there might be in his. “Would there be anything in there about close friends he might have? The confidential or the psychiatric?”

  “Not a thing,” the lieutenant answered, clearing his throat. “Mr. Dalton, are you asking me if the army thinks Michael Jefferson is queer?”

  Dalton wondered how queer the officious lieutenant was. “He’s married and has two children,” Dalton said. “I’m just interested in finding out if he had any close friends.”

  “Can’t help you, I’m afraid. Will there be anything else? If not I’ll get the rest of his file on the teletype.”

  Dalton thanked the lieutenant again and hung up. Well, now he knew that Michael hadn’t been a uniformed gangster; hadn’t worked any of the usual GI rackets in Nam. According to the army shrink he had just been a guy with every reason to be depressed. If he had any close friends, it didn’t show in army files. Michael Jefferson had been something of a hero. And he had been out of the army for almost exactly eight years.

  Dalton picked up the phone and dialed the police laboratory, where temperamental geniuses who pretended to be cops solved mysteries round the clock. They were a touchy bunch down there, and it paid to keep on their good side.

  Dalton got a guy he had worked with before, Joe Lopez. Among other things, Lopez was very active in the NYPD Hispanic Society, while at the same time he was still taking lessons from a speech teacher to get rid of his Cuban accent.

  “Hey there, Joe,” Dalton said. “You got anything yet on that bloody shoe print found at Simpson Street?”

  Lopez always spoke slowly to ordinary mortals, as if they might not understand him. “Not a shoe, Dalton. That print was made by a boot with a rubber sole. The cleats are too big on it to be made by a shoe. There’s a lot of stuff ahead of it. I would remind you that it’s been here only a few hours.”

  “Pretty please, Joe,” Dalton said.

  “You’ve never been to one of our Hispanic Society dances, have you, Dalton? It’s only ten bucks a ticket.”

  “Put me down for a ticket,” Dalton said.

  “You mean you want to go by yourself? Most of the women there will be married ladies.”

  “Two tickets then,” Dalton said, thinking he could fumble the twenty bucks through on a voucher.

  “You’ll have a great time, Dalton.”

  “I can’t wait, Joe. You mind if we get back to the boot print?”

  “I took a quick look at it when they brought it in. I’d say it was some kind of hunting boot. It’ll take a little time to match it with the impressions we have on file.”

  “Make the time, will you, Joe. This is urgent.”

  “What isn’t? All right! All right! I’ll put a man on it right away. And don’t call me, I’ll call you.”

  Dalton had put in
a long day by the time the report about the Ghouls came in. He knew he should go home and get some sleep, if only a few hours, but the case nagged at him. His cop’s instinct told him that this one was going to be bad. After seven years on the job he had learned to trust his hunches; very seldom had they played him false.

  The first thing he had to do was get some idea of what the killer looked like. Because even if the description were vague, he would have something to go on. Earlier he had called the hospital and the doctor he spoke to said one of the Ghouls was in a coma and would soon be dead; the other one, the one who looked like a weightlifter had gone completely insane; his babbling made no sense at all. Perhaps he would come out of it in time, the doctor said; that was what it would take—time.

  Dalton knew all their names by now: Antonio “Smiley” Vargas, Steven “Shimmy” Melendez, and Jose “Paco the Ox” Camacho. The straight names had come from their wallets, the nicknames from the criminal records file of the police department. It came as no surprise to Dalton that they had been arrested many times. All had done short bits on Riker’s Island—assault, burglary reduced to illegal entry, purse snatching, possession of a controlled drug, unlawful possession of a hypodermic needle, carrying a concealed weapon (a knife). Etcetera. Etcetera. All were known to the police by other names; only their nicknames remained the same. They hadn’t been convicted of the serious crimes of which they were suspected. Such as homicide, hijacking, armed robbery, rape, extortion.

  Dalton decided to start with the girls before he went around asking questions at the market where Michael Jefferson worked. If he got some kind of description, he was in some kind of business. The girls wouldn’t want to talk, so he’d have to get rough. That kind of stuff went against the grain; just the same, it had to be done. What he had to do was find a girl, a whore who didn’t know her rights, or if she did, wouldn’t stand on them for too long.

  The place where the whores were thickest was in the neighborhood of the Valencia Bar, a sleazy ginmill owned by a furtive slob named George Biller who doubled as the night bartender; and though suspected—more than suspected—of fencing stolen goods, was allowed to operate because the Valencia was a good source of information. That was how it worked in the department: you let the little fish go so you could land the sharks.

  Now, driving a fairly new Buick with New Jersey license plates, Dalton went over to talk to George. Dalton hated George’s guts for no particular reason other than he was a fat, sly slob. Tonight, however, George was his friend—his buddy. Like so many small time scumbags, George liked to suck up to the police, do them a favor every chance he got. Dalton found himself wondering why so many hooker-hunting johns had cars with NJ plates, and knew he was tired.

  The Valencia was on Kelcey Street near the elevated tracks. A neon sign flashed on and off. The Valencia had carried the same name through three owners. After thirty years the neon sign still worked; no one had ever bothered to change it. Once there was a steam table in the Valencia, when it was a workingman’s bar, but it hadn’t been hot for at least fifteen years. For a dump like it, it charged a lot for its drinks; and Dalton knew for a fact that good old George filled empty Schmirnoff bottles from gallon jugs with cheap-shit vodka that he shipped from Ohio in violation of federal law. The Mob owned the jukebox and the cigarette machine; they didn’t lean on him for protection money because of his connection with the police. The whores hung around in front of the Valencia, and on the streets near it, hoping to score with some boozed-up sucker. Sometimes they drank there, and they drank good stuff—the best. But George didn’t let them hustle there, because, as he said, he didn’t want the Valencia getting the name of a whores’ bar.

  The Valencia was known as a whores’ bar. It was a pimps’ bar too. It was every kind of bar except a straight bar. George even cashed food stamps at a twenty-five percent discount. Because he was a nice guy; knew that there were times when a guy needed a drink more than he needed food.

  Against all hope it was Dalton’s fondest wish that some day he could put George behind bars. Now, pushing his way through the noise and the smoke, he greeted George with a smile.

  “What do you do with all your money?” Dalton said, still smiling. “This place is jumping.”

  “Good to see you, Dalton,” George said. George liked uniformed cops, but he loved detectives, especially the young, sharp guys. He was heartbroken when they took Starsky and Hutch off the tube.

  George knew what Dalton drank: straight Johnny Walker in a shot glass. In the Valencia the cops drank from one set of bottles, the civilians from another. Dalton downed the drink and leaned forward.

  “You heard what happened to the three Ghouls?” Dalton said.

  George nodded. “Everybody has. What happened to the two they took to the hospital?”

  “One’s dying.”

  “Good. I hope they both die.” George hated the Ghouls because they stole what they drank, which was not to say that he didn’t buy a few things from them from time to time.

  Dalton said, “I’m looking for the girls that were with the Ghouls when they got it. Captain Shea told me to say hello.”

  “Likewise,” George said. “I only know one of the girls—Candy. She works the trucks going into the market. That way she can work a quick trick while the driver is getting unloaded. Tonight she’s wearing red hot pants and a white blouse. I know—she was in for a drink.”

  “I thank you and the City of New York thanks you.” Dalton got up to go.

  “I have a few parking tickets,” George said. He reached under the bar and showed them to Dalton.

  Dalton wanted to stuff the tickets down George’s throat. “I’ll take care of them,” he said, putting the tickets in his inside pocket.

  Ten minutes later, parked in the shadows, he watched Candy from a distance. No other hookers were around the entrance to the market, so this had to be Candy. The hot pants and blouse checked out. Maybe she was eighteen or nineteen, and she wasn’t bad looking. Now and then she dabbed at her nose with a handkerchief, which meant she had a head cold or had the sniffles from needing a fix. Dalton guessed junk.

  A truck had to slow down because there were other trucks ahead of it. Candy went over and talked to the driver, but he waved her away. The truck moved on and Candy went back and warmed her hands at an oil drum with a fire burning in it. Dalton started the engine, drove over to where she was, and stopped. Candy walked around the car so she could get a good look at it. Then, without a word, she opened the door and got in beside Dalton.

  Candy was brisk and business-like as she listed her prices: “Regular—ten dollars. French—fifteen. Something special costs you twenty-five.” She sniffled as she talked, but she wasn’t too strung out, not yet.

  Her expression didn’t change when Dalton took a pair of handcuffs and held them up. The handcuffs glinted in the half-light.

  “Handcuffs—too much!” Candy said. “That’ll cost you thirty-five.”

  “These are for you,” Dalton said. “I’m a cop and you’re under arrest.”

  Thinking of the fix she wasn’t going to get, Candy panicked and tried to get out of the car. Dalton grabbed her and snapped the cuffs on one wrist, then the other. She yelled, “You cocksucker! You dirty fucking cop! This is entrapment. When I go in front of the judge I’m gonna …”

  “Forget the judge, sweetheart,” Dalton said. “I’m the judge from here on in.”

  Something in his voice made her eyes stare with fright.

  The Ferguson Street stationhouse was the oldest in the Bronx, and that made it very old. It had been built after the turn of the century when much of the Bronx was farmland; it should have been torn down years before. It belonged to the horse and buggy era, and it looked like a not-so-miniature castle. Decades of air pollution had blackened granite walls now spray painted with obscene words by the more daring teenaged hoodlums in the district. Its windows were narrow and barred and the nail studded massive oak door hadn’t been closed for fifty years. The cops w
ho worked out of it hated the place and were proud of it, too. They called it The Last Outpost and their pride derived from the fact that the Ferguson Street precinct processed more homicides than any other in all the five boroughs of New York.

  Candy had been there before but, Dalton thought, this was going to be a new experience for her. Far below street level were cells that hadn’t been used for years, not since the Civil Liberties Union, in an early lawsuit, charged the NYPD with treating hoodlums in a “cruel and inhuman” manner. The ACLU accused the police department of torturing prisoners, of holding them incommunicado without a charge being lodged. Dalton knew that some of the charges were true. Once the court case got into the newspapers, the boys at Ferguson Street had to walk soft for a while. The underground cells were officially closed by order of the court. But once in a while they were used for the tough guys; Candy was going there.

  Candy looked surprised when Dalton walked past the desk sergeant, a man who had seen everything, a man whose only love was for himself.

  “What the fuck is going on here?” Candy shrilled. “You said I was under arrest so why don’t you book me?”

  “Maybe you deserve another chance,” Dalton said.

  Candy eyed him with deep suspicion. This whore was no dummy, Dalton thought, and if she hadn’t been so close to strung-out, it would be hard to lean on her. But lean on her he would—in the end she’d crack.

  “I don’t want another chance, whatever the fuck that means. I don’t want what you’re selling. You can stick it up your ass. Book me, you shithead, so I can make bail and get back to work.”

  “I’m going to my office,” Dalton told the desk sergeant. “The little one.”

  “Sure,” the sergeant said, knowing that he was protected if the whore went to the Review Board or the ACLU. The “little office” was code for the underground cells, but he wasn’t supposed to know. Besides, who the fuck would believe anything a street hooker had to say?

  Candy’s night-creature face got pastier when Dalton took her past the cracked marble stairs that led up to the big dirty squad room shared by the detectives attached to the precinct. It took some doing to make her go along, but Dalton was bigger than she was. At the end of the hall, lit by a weak bulb, was an old iron door that went down to the dungeons. Dalton turned a key about nine inches long and got the door open. It screeched on rusty hinges.