The Quarry

by Fish, Robert L. ;

  “Did you hit it?”

  Kaproski shook his head in disgust. “Naw.”

  The sergeant marked down the details and nodded to the young patrolman who returned to the patrol car and began speaking quietly into the microphone. Clancy looked about; in that mysterious manner which only New York City can demonstrate, a group of sidewalk superintendents had already formed, drifting up silently from nowhere, shaped in a semicircle a safe distance from the patrol car.

  “Can you handle it, Sergeant? I want to get going.” He looked around at the quiet faces lost in the shadows. “Maybe somebody here saw something that might help.”

  “We’ll take care of it, Lieutenant.”

  “Thanks.” Clancy dragged out his car keys and bent to open the door of his old sedan. “Let’s go, Kap.”

  Kaproski ducked his head getting into the car and slammed the door shut behind him. Clancy pulled away from the curb, cutting around the idling patrol car, heading for the nearest avenue.

  “I’ll drop you off at a subway, Kap, if you don’t mind. It’s late and I’m going to get some sleep.”

  Kaproski looked at him, shocked. “You’ll do what? After what just happened? No, sir. I’m sticking with you, Lieutenant. This crazy punk may take another crack at you.”

  Clancy shifted gears and turned the corner. “O.K., Kap. To tell you the truth, I don’t mind. One scare for the evening is enough. You can sleep on the couch. There’s just one thing, though …”

  “What’s that, Lieutenant?”

  “Don’t call Lenny Cervera a punk any more,” Clancy said tightly. “Call him anything you want, but don’t call him a punk …!”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Wednesday—8:25 A.M.

  Stanton placed two spools of recording film on Clancy’s desk and then moved away, seating himself, straddling a chair in his favorite position. Kaproski, tilted back in his chair against one of the filing cabinets as usual, yawned and closed his eyes. He felt that his hours the previous night entitled him to no less. Clancy stared at the spools of film.

  “Is there anything worth listening to?”

  Stanton shook his head. “Not unless you want to listen to some of the screwiest conversations this side of vaudeville. And also not unless you got plenty of time to waste. There’s twelve hours of recording tape there, and damn near half of it is phone conversation. That damn phone almost didn’t stop ringing last night. I’m telling you, A.T. & T. made a fortune. People calling at all hours.…”

  Clancy looked at him in surprise. “How late did you stick around?”

  “Me? All night.” Stanton shrugged. “My wife is babysitting for her sister up in White Plains while her sister’s in the hospital; and I figured I might as well stay there as go home and look at a sink full of dirty dishes. I napped a couple of times with the earphones on, but I went back afterwards and picked those parts up I missed. But it was all the same screwy crap.…”

  “What do you mean, ‘screwy’?”

  Stanton looked at him. “Well, in the first place I guess this Cervera family must be roughly the size of the Jukes and Kallikaks put together, and they sound just about as smart. Every aunt and uncle and second cousin must have called as soon as they heard the news—all worked up and worried. And I guess in that family when somebody has any trouble, the deal is to offer them food. If everybody comes through, I figure the old lady ought to have enough to stock a couple of supermarkets. Anyway, everybody who called was all upset—but the old lady.” Stanton shook his head in wonder. “That’s what was so screwy. She was the calmest of the bunch. She tells them that her Lenny is a good boy so don’t fret, and anyway he has a good job waiting for him when he’s finished with the law.… I’m telling you, she’s a real pistol, that old lady.”

  Clancy dug out a cigarette and lit it. He stared at the matchstick. “Are you sure that none of the uncles or the second cousins wasn’t really Lenny himself? Being cute?”

  “All I’m sure of is if they all keep their word, the old lady shouldn’t go hungry in the near future,” Stanton said. “If one of them was Lenny calling, he didn’t say anything helpful. And personally I doubt that a guy fresh out of Sing Sing and on the lam, would be promising spumoni to anybody, even his old lady.”

  Kaproski opened one eye languidly. “The Cerveras are from Catalonia. They don’t eat spumoni. I don’t think.” The thought led him to another, sufficiently important to lead him to open both eyes. “Did they all speak English?”

  “Yeah. A couple of times somebody started off in a wad of foreign talk, but the old lady brought them back on the track in a hurry. She’s a good American, to hear her tell it, and so’s her boy Lenny.…”

  “Lenny didn’t speak Catalon,” Clancy said absently. “His old man was killed in an accident when he was a kid and his mother changed over to English in the house.…”

  Stanton nodded. “Yeah. Well, Lieutenant, you want to listen to these tapes?”

  Clancy pushed them away. “No.” He frowned in sudden thought. “You say you listened all night. Did anyone call to tell the old lady about Marcia Hernandez?”

  Stanton raised his eyebrows. “No. What about Marcia Hernandez?”

  “Cervera knocked her off last night,” Kaproski said quietly. “That’s all.”

  Stanton sat up. “I didn’t know that.”

  “Stick around the precinct sometimes and get up to date,” Kaproski said. “We got regular bulletins on all news events.”

  A large figure bulked in the doorway. Captain Wise stood there, eying Clancy with a worried look on his heavy face.

  “I hear you had quite a night last night, Clancy.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you getting anywhere?”

  “I’m getting tired.” Clancy stared at the spools of tape broodingly, not seeing them at all. He brought his eyes up to meet the captain’s. “I’m going up to see the warden at Sing Sing today. Maybe I’ll get some ideas up there.”

  “Is there anything we can help you with?”

  “As a matter of fact there is,” Clancy said slowly. “I want Roy Kirkwood and Judge Kiele really covered, not just at home, but every minute. And I don’t mean like Marcia Hernandez was covered, either.… And I want them covered whether they like it or not. I can’t spare Kap or Stanton; I’ve got other jobs for them.” He looked at the man tilted against the filing cabinet; Kaproski’s eyes were open and watching Clancy calmly. “Kap, I want you to dig up Lenny’s old gang—they call themselves the El Cids. Talk to the headman, and talk to him like a Dutch uncle if you have to. Cervera had to get that car someplace, and there’s no black four-door sedan on the stolen-car list this morning, because I already checked.”

  He turned to Stanton. “And Stan, you get over to Jersey, to this place that promised Lenny a job. It’s a used-car lot, you say. He might have picked up a heap there, although I’ll admit it sounds doubtful. But I’m damned if I know what other leads to try.”

  Captain Wise leaned over the desk. “And who keeps an eye on you, Clancy, while everybody is watching somebody else?”

  “I keep an eye on me,” Clancy said evenly.

  “That’s great.” Captain Wise made no attempt to hide the disgust in his voice. “That’s being the big Irish hero. Except that last night he tries to knock you off and almost gets away with it. I just saw the report, and the sergeant in that patrol car uncovers one of those biddies there that says she saw the whole thing from her window; she couldn’t sleep, and she says that if Kaproski hadn’t taken you down, we’d of had you downtown on a slab alongside the girl.”

  “He would have missed by a mile—” Clancy began, and then suddenly sat up straight. “She saw it through her window? Did she see the car?”

  “Yeah, she saw the car, all right. The only thing is, she wouldn’t know a Stutz Bearcat from a droshky.”

  “Great.” Clancy leaned back again. “Well, anyway, I’m going up to Sing Sing and I’m pretty sure Lenny Cervera isn’t going to follow me up there, ven
detta or no.” His eyes came over to the two detectives listening. His voice hardened. “I thought I gave you two assignments.…”

  Kaproski’s chair came down with a thump. Stanton pulled himself erect in a hurry. The two looked at the lieutenant, at the captain, and then at each other. And then disappeared through the doorway.

  Clancy sighed. “All right, Sam. You’re right, of course; being a hero in this business is stupid. When I get back from Ossining you can hang a bell on me, but in all honesty I don’t see anything to be gained by having somebody in my hair at the moment.”

  Captain Wise thought about it. “Well—”

  The telephone rang. Clancy leaned over and picked it up. “Hello?”

  “Clancy? How are you? This is Doc Freeman. Downtown.”

  “Hello, Doc. How goes it?”

  “Pretty good. Say, Clancy, I just finished working on a girl, a hit-run. They tell me Kaproski brought her in last night. Is she one of your current little problems?”

  “More or less.” Clancy stared at the phone. “Why? Did you run across anything in the autopsy that could help pin this thing on somebody? Or help locate the driver?”

  “No. As a matter of fact, it was more the other way around.” Doc Freeman hesitated. “I checked her over and she was a holy mess. Smashed up worse than most hit-runs we usually see. But while I was working on her, the boys in the lab were going over her clothes, and …” Doc Freeman’s voice sank. “Clancy, I’ve got some news for you. Bad news. Unless we’re crazy, this wasn’t an accident. This was murder.”

  Clancy shook his head and sighed.

  “Doc, we figured that out about two seconds after it happened. In fact, we even—” He stopped suddenly. His eyebrows drew themselves together in a puzzled frown. He pulled himself more erect in his chair, gripping the telephone tighter. “We knew it was murder, yes. But how would you boys know? What have you found that would indicate it was murder?”

  “For one thing, there wasn’t any paint on her clothes,” Doc Freeman said simply. “And no glass. I know the report didn’t say anything about broken headlights, but Clancy, I’ve seen a lot of these cases, and I never saw anyone smashed up like this without breaking the headlights. So I had the boys do an extra-special check on those clothes, and we found wood fibers imbedded in the cloth. Southern pine, if you’re interested, treated with creosote. The only logical answer is that whoever hit her had mounted some two-by-fours vertically around the bumper, sticking up to avoid smashing the radiator grill and the headlights. And to protect the fenders from scratching them, or from leaving paint marks on her clothes. In other words, the thing was premeditated.…”

  Clancy thought a moment. “Kaproski was right there; he saw the whole thing. He isn’t here right now, but he didn’t say anything about seeing any rig in front …”

  “I saw the report,” Doc said. “Apparently from where he was, he couldn’t see much of anything. And anyway, this wood thing wouldn’t have to be a big deal, you know. Just a nailed-together thing that he could wedge over the bumper. And in that neighborhood, at that time of night, he could have slipped it on a few minutes before he did the big run, and then taken it off a block or two away and stashed it in the trunk, or even in the back seat of the car.…”

  Clancy sighed. “You’re not being very helpful, Doc.”

  Doc Freeman’s feelings were hurt. “You don’t want me to be helpful, Clancy—you want me to be hopeful. I’m just giving you the facts, ma’am, that’s all. The way it figures, it’s going to be very tough to nail the driver of that car. He won’t have to pull in anywheres for repairs.”

  “We didn’t think he’d go to a garage for repairs anyway,” Clancy said, slowly refusing to admit even to himself his disappointment at Doc Freeman’s words. His eyes sought the captain’s face. Captain Wise nodded slowly up and down, and then vigorously shook his head. Clancy continued, properly interpreting these gestures.

  “Of course all garages are being checked as a matter of routine, but so far without luck.” Captain Wise nodded again, smiling broadly.

  “I don’t think he’d have to go to a garage at all,” Doc said slowly. “The way it looks, that wood would spread the shock enough so that the most he might have is a little dent on the top of the radiator. And you find me a car in New York without a little dent, and I’ll kiss Mary Kelly for you. In Macy’s window.”

  “Watch your language,” Clancy said with a grin. His grin faded. “He could have some wood splinters in the radiator grille, though,” he said thoughtfully.

  “If he didn’t put some padding between the two-by-fours and the radiator,” Doc said. “Or if he doesn’t have enough brains to look for them and clean them out. Or if he doesn’t get caught in the rain and get them washed off. Or if some busybody gas-station attendant doesn’t wipe them off when he’s checking the oil. Or—”

  “All right, already,” Clancy said testily. “I heard you.”

  “Well,” Doc said reasonably, “I just wanted you to know.”

  “And thank you, too!” Clancy hung up almost angrily.

  Captain Wise stared at him. “I caught most of it,” he said slowly. “So there’s no chance of our spotting the car from the damage.” He shook his head in disgust. “Don’t tell me the punk is going to get away with this, too.”

  Clancy shrugged. “I’m going to get some work done, if you don’t mind, Sam. And then I’m going up to see the warden.” His eyes were cold on the other. “And Sam, don’t call that louse a punk.”

  “Don’t call that momser a louse,” Captain Wise said, equally serious, and walked out.

  Clancy drew the pile of reports from his in basket, and started going through them one by one. The net result of most of them was nil; he sighed and continued. And then paused, his eye racing down a scrawled sheet. His hand shot out for the telephone.

  “Sergeant, is Mathews here?”

  There was silence while the desk checked. “No, sir. He’s on late today. He was assigned to Mr. Kirkwood until early this morning.”

  “I know,” Clancy said. “Can you reach him at home? I’ll hold on.”

  The desk sergeant grunted agreement and dialed. It took a few minutes to convince Mrs. Mathews that the matter was sufficiently important to awaken the lord and master, but eventually the sleepy patrolman came on the line.

  “Hello?”

  “Mathews? This is Lieutenant Clancy. Listen, Mathews; when you went over to Mr. Kirkwood’s last night, did you stop and see about the second man? The one who was supposed to cover the rear?”

  “Sure, Lieutenant. Like you told me. But he wasn’t there, so I left word with that runty superintendent. But he never showed. I was there all alone damn near all night. I tried to cover the front and the back, but you know how that goes …” He yawned and then remembered. “I put it all in my report. Didn’t you see it?”

  “I saw it,” Clancy said. “That’s why I’m calling. What kind of cover is this, anyway?”

  “Well, jeez, Lieutenant, it wasn’t my fault. Anyway,” Mathews added, almost smugly, “he was all right. I seen him when he come in last night and again when he went out to work this morning. And there was two guys on him when he left the apartment this morning. He’s O.K.”

  “Yeah,” Clancy said. “Lucky for us. Well, O.K., Mathews. Get yourself some sleep.”

  “Thanks, Lieutenant. Good night. I mean, good morning.” He yawned again and hung up. Clancy turned back to his work with a glance at the clock. He could spare another hour before catching the train to Ossining; he bent over his papers, determined to do as much as he could before he left. The minutes swept by.

  Wednesday—12:50 P.M.

  The cab driver who picked Clancy up at the Ossining station of the New York Central might have been less talkative if he had known he was addressing a lieutenant of police, but it is extremely doubtful. He took note of the destination with raised eyebrows, made an illegal U-turn in the middle of the block to head the other way, and then waited until the m
eter had marked up $1.35 before turning his head to speak around a drooping cigarette pasted to his lower lip.

  “No visitors on Wednesdays,” he offered helpfully.

  Clancy said nothing. The driver nodded, satisfied.

  “Newspaperman, huh? That’s the racket! Man, you missed all the excitement—you should have been here yesterday! Today is nothing; yesterday was the day. They was a cop shot—sireens going like hell all over town! I could tell you all about it …” He glanced over his shoulder, warming up for a commercial, but one look at Clancy’s set features and he subsided.

  “Oh, a cop, huh!” he said disgustedly, and relapsed into sulky silence.

  Clancy dropped off at the main gate of the penitentiary, paid the driver with a minimum tip, and rang the bell mounted there. As he waited, his eyes scanned the high walls and threatening towers; not for the first time in his career he thanked the fates that had led him to the side of the law. In the neighborhood from whence he had sprung, many had not been so fortunate.

  The bell was answered. He produced his identity, waited in a small security booth until a telephone call had been made, and then followed a uniformed guard through long passages to the warden’s office. He thanked his guide, watched the door closed firmly behind him, and turned to face a tired-looking man watching him from across a paper-strewn desk. The warden had not slept for several days, and looked it.

  “The captain told me you called yesterday, Lieutenant,” the warden said wearily. “What can I do for you?”

  Clancy chose a seat and sat in it, resting his hat on his knee.

  “I’m not sure, Warden,” he said slowly. “I’ve been assigned to the case until Cervera, at least, is picked up. He made threats against several people before he went up, and now it looks as if he’s trying to make them good. I’m looking for a lead. I hoped to find something here that could give me a hint as to where he might head for in New York, or who he might look up.”

  The warden nodded. “I’ve heard about last night’s events, Lieutenant.” He shrugged, his dark-rimmed eyes steady on his visitor. “Possibly it would be better if you just asked questions. I’ll do my best to answer them.”