The Quarry

by Fish, Robert L. ;

  Stanton nodded. “Where do I find this gang?”

  “Kap can give you all the dope. He was practically a member. But do it in the other room. I’ve got work to do.”

  “Right.”

  “And Stan—call in every few hours. I don’t want to have to send a squad car after you if I need you.”

  Stanton nodded; the two men filed from the room and Clancy lit a cigarette and bent to the pile of reports. The clock marched slowly around, the pile of reports diminished, their total intelligence reducing itself to one word: Nothing. Clancy sighed and reached for a pencil and a pad of paper. Newton, he thought, should never have stopped with that law about what goes up has to come down. He should have propounded one more, stating that everything that came in had to go out—but multiplied. He could have called it the Law of Expanding Reports, Clancy thought sourly, and started to write. The telephone saved him before he had time to do more than start writing the heading over a blank sheet.

  “Hold on, Lieutenant.” It was the desk sergeant. “Inspector Clayton wants to talk to you.”

  Clancy nodded and leaned back, twiddling the pencil between his fingers. The familiar voice came on the line.

  “Clancy, you were up at Sing Sing yesterday, weren’t you?”

  “Yes, sir. I was checking out some of the other men involved in the escape, and also trying to find anything that could help locate Cervera. Without luck, I might add.”

  “Did the warden there mention any suspicions of his? About the possibility of a prison guard up there being involved?”

  “He inferred it,” Clancy said. “He didn’t say it was a guard; as a matter of fact he didn’t say anything except he had his suspicions. I think he was afraid I was going to ask some embarrassing questions about the breakout and security in general there. Hell, Inspector—security at a state penitentiary isn’t our business and I told him so. We have enough problems of our own. How those four managed to break out, and if the people up there can prevent future escapes—that’s strictly their affair, not ours.”

  “I know,” the inspector said slowly. “In any event I just finished speaking with the warden. He called me; I didn’t call him. It seems that one of his guards didn’t show up for work yesterday afternoon, when he was supposed to. He was the guard the warden suspected—the one he was giving rope to.…”

  Clancy sighed. He started to twiddle the pencil in his fingers again and then tossed it aside in disgust. “Giving rope to! My God! So now instead of looking for two people, we’re looking for three?”

  “No, Clancy.” The inspector’s voice was expressionless. “We’re not. He’s been found. As a matter of fact he was found early this morning, even before we knew he was missing.”

  Clancy could guess the rest. “Where?”

  “Floating in the Hudson. Some kids saw him just offshore somewhere in the Eighties, but he could have been put in anywhere upriver. With two bullet holes in him. Manhattan West has it, but so far they haven’t come up with anything.” Clancy remained silent, thinking. The inspector’s voice continued almost gently. “You haven’t sent in any reports, Clancy, so I can’t tell. Does this fit into anything you have?”

  Clancy frowned, shaking his head. “I don’t know.… How long was he in the river?”

  “A couple of days is the M.E.’s guess. Doc Freeman has him now—maybe he’ll be able to bring it a little closer, but you know these water cases.”

  “Yeah.…” A sudden thought struck Clancy. “Inspector, did he have any money on him?”

  “I don’t know, but I can find out soon enough. Hold on.” Clancy leaned back as he waited, trying to fit the dead guard into the picture, trying to organize his thoughts. It wasn’t that the guard didn’t fit—he fit too well. But didn’t bring any solution any closer. Inspector Clayton finally came back on the line. “Property says he had $4.16 in his pockets. That’s all the money, and very little else. Nothing helpful.” His voice became curious. “What’s on your mind, Clancy?”

  “Well,” Clancy said slowly, “it’s a little hard to explain, but early this morning, when I was waking up, I lay there and just let my mind wander; and somehow or other I pictured myself in a taxi with Blount and he was throwing all of his money out of the window. When I finally woke all the way up, I finally figured out what I was trying to say to myself.” He paused, formulating his thoughts. Inspector Clayton, knowing Clancy, waited patiently.

  “It’s like this, Inspector,” Clancy said at last. “Prison breaks have to be financed, like everything else in this world of ours today. Now, none of the four men involved in the break were tied up with the syndicate or with any of the big-money boys. They were all lone wolves, with no connection with each other. So I began to wonder who paid the tab. The guard must have been bribed; they had to have some sort of transportation waiting; they needed arms, and at least travel or eating money; there was the business of clothes in that trunk—all in all it comes to money, and somebody had to furnish it.”

  He took a deep breath and continued. “Now Lenny Cervera didn’t have a dime, and neither did his family. Or his girl friend. All the dough in that bank job in Glens Falls when Blount dynamited that safe was recovered. And from the reports we had on last night’s deal in Albany, he certainly didn’t sound flush.…”

  The inspector saw his point. “How about Williams and Marcus? Do you want us to check on them?”

  “I’m having them checked out right now. I ought to know something by this afternoon at the latest.”

  Inspector Clayton’s voice was thoughtful. “You know, Clancy, the guard may not have been paid off. He may have been promised the money, and then got two bullets instead.”

  “That’s true,” Clancy admitted, “but it still doesn’t answer the question of who put up the other money that was needed. And I can’t picture a guard taking those chances for an IOU. Certainly not from four cons you couldn’t trust any farther than you could kick a steam roller.”

  Inspector Clayton sighed. “All right, Clancy. Maybe your check on Marcus and Williams will tell us something. But remember, basically the escape isn’t our problem. Our job is to pick up Cervera before he can take a crack at somebody else.”

  Clancy could have given a strong answer to that, also, but he knew the inspector was as cognizant of the difficulties as he was. “We’ll do our best, sir.”

  “I know you will, Clancy. Keep in touch.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Clancy pushed the telephone away, picking up the pencil once again, attacking the report. This time he managed to complete the heading and get two lines started vertically to begin tabulating some of the facts, when the telephone rang once again. He looked at the ceiling imploringly, but the sagging cracked plaster obviously had enough troubles of its own. Damn! he thought; if it were merely a question of talking instead of writing, it wouldn’t be so bad, but eventually this blasted report would have to be filled out anyway. He picked up the telephone and found himself listening to an extremely puzzled desk sergeant.

  “Lieutenant, are you interested in the horses?”

  At first it didn’t strike a responsive chord. Clancy scowled at the phone. “What? Me? Horses?”

  “That’s what I kept trying to tell this character,” the sergeant said plaintively, “but he said you’d have my neck for a Christmas ornament if I didn’t give you the message.”

  “And what was the message?”

  “I wrote it down, it was so screwy,” the sergeant said. “This character says to tell you that Tomato Juice and Coffee are running in the Twelve O’Clock Handicap, and Angelo is giving even money, and if he was you he’d be at the window the minute it opened.”

  Clancy grinned. The code signals between Porky Frank and himself had no particular basis in the necessity for secrecy; all Porky demanded from Clancy—and got—was the assurance that no calls to him went out through the precinct switchboard. The code signals were now merely a game which both men played with increasing attempts at originality. Th
e desk sergeant hesitated and then spoke again.

  “Does it mean anything to you, Lieutenant?”

  “Not a thing,” Clancy said firmly. “The guy was an obvious nut.”

  He hung up, looked at his wrist watch, and got to his feet. The unfinished report seemed to stare at him accusingly; he reached over and turned the top sheet over. And then walked from behind his desk, got his hat and coat, and started down the corridor. Kaproski immediately appeared from another room.

  “Hey, Lieutenant! Wait for me!”

  “I’m just going to lunch,” Clancy began, and then smiled. “Oh, well—come on. You can chauffeur.”

  They came down the steps of the precinct and crawled into Clancy’s car. Kaproski got behind the wheel and started down the street. “Where we going, Lieutenant?”

  “Angelo’s Bar and Grill; that place where we stopped this morning. And when I get through there, we’ll go out to eat.” He looked over at Kaproski. “And when we get into Angelo’s you stay in the car again. And don’t argue.”

  “I didn’t say nothing,” Kaproski said, hurt, and stepped on the gas.

  Thursday—12:00 Noon

  They pulled up before Angelo’s in the same spot they had occupied that morning; Clancy got out and walked quickly across the sidewalk to the bar. The same smell of stale beer struck him as before, but this time it had a different effect. Without diminishing his stride in the least he looked at the bartender, speaking over the heads of the several customers seated at the bar.

  “Beer,” he said, and continued to the back.

  Porky Frank was sitting quietly in the last booth, a tall drink before him. He smiled happily as Clancy slipped into the booth to face him. “Hi, Mr. C. The hour, thank God, has finally arrived. I hate to drink before noon. That doesn’t always stop me, of course, but I hate it. Some tomato juice for you?”

  The bartender came up behind them, placed a bottle of beer on the table, gave the small glass he carried an extra wipe with his apron in deference to the customer being with Porky, and padded back to the front. Porky’s eyebrows raised. “Beer? Alcoholic beverage? I’m surprised at you, Mr. C. Drinking on duty!”

  “I’ll take a Sen-Sen before I go back,” Clancy promised, and poured himself a glass of beer. He drank it slowly, aware of how good it tasted, and set the empty glass back on the table. “What do you have for me? And how did you get it so fast?”

  “I had it fifteen minutes after I saw you here this morning,” Porky said loftily. “I thought I’d put out some feelers before I went back to sleep, and the information was lying there, right on top, in plain sight. Waiting to be picked up.”

  “And why didn’t you call me then?”

  “Several reasons,” Porky said. “First, because I wanted to get some sleep. Second, because the dope I got isn’t going to help you at all, so it could wait awhile. And third, because if you get your information too quickly you don’t appreciate it. You think it’s easy. Although,” he added truthfully, “this was so easy it’s a shame to take your money.”

  “You haven’t taken it yet,” Clancy reminded him. He tilted the small glasss, refilling it carefully, holding the collar to a minimum. “What did you find out?”

  “That they were both brokers. Bust-o, the two of them. This Marcus may have made money—I guess he did from what I heard—but he also liked to spend it. Mostly on the ponies, I gather. In any event, the word I got this morning is that at the time he went up the river, he was into Big Benny for two thousand of the best. And I don’t imagine he worked much of it off at the twenty cents a day, or whatever they make up there in the jute mill.” He paused, considering. “I’m just happy that it was Big Benny who took his bets, and not me. As it might well have been.”

  Clancy nodded. “And how about Cholly Williams?”

  “He was even broker, if possible. No, I guess that isn’t true—at least he didn’t owe anybody. But cash he didn’t have, and never had. He was driving a truck for some company when he got into that fight in the bar, and he hadn’t held the job long because he was always getting fired for fighting. And his brother works as a plumber’s helper someplace. The Teamsters’ Welfare defended him—Cholly, that is—and now they’re going to bury him, so I wouldn’t put the Williams family in the upper brackets.”

  Clancy’s face was a study in disappointment. He finished his beer and wiped his mouth. “So much for that, then …”

  Porky sipped his drink. His sharp eyes watched the other. “It appears to me, Mr. C., that you’re still stuck with the main problem: who laid the dough on the line for the break?”

  Clancy looked at him. “You’re pretty sharp, Porky.”

  Porky shrugged. “I never bragged about being stupid.”

  “You’re right,” Clancy said. “I’d love to know who the money man was. And why. Do you have any ideas?”

  Porky shook his head. “Not at the moment. But in my business one sometimes hears things.”

  “Then listen,” Clancy said. “Because in your business one also collects.” He got to his feet, reached into his pocket and laid some money on the table, sliding it across to his companion. “And I’ll let you pay for the beer out of this, too.”

  Porky grinned. “My pleasure. And I won’t tell a soul I saw you drink it, either.”

  Clancy turned and walked the length of the bar, pushed through the door, and climbed in beside Kaproski. So much for that lead; if the answer to the problem lay in who financed the breakout, then it was as deep a mystery as ever. But somebody did, and with money Cervera could be holed up almost anywhere. And in addition to the changes in his appearance that three years in Sing Sing must have effected, his time there undoubtedly gave him a lot of new contacts they knew nothing about.… He was suddenly aware that Kaproski was speaking to him and apparently had been for some time.

  “What?”

  “I said, where do you want to eat?” Kaproski swung around a car parked in front of them and headed down the avenue. “Hey, Lieutenant—how about the new Greek restaurant down near the precinct?”

  Clancy looked at him. “You’re supposed to be guarding my life,” he said coldly. “Not threatening it.…”

  Thursday—3:20 P.M.

  Stanton was on the phone.

  “I’m calling in like you told me, Lieutenant,” he said. “I’m hanging around the gang, like you said. I’ve talked to most of them, but so far, no dice.”

  “What are you doing now?”

  Stanton sounded slightly embarrassed. “As a matter of fact, I’m fixing their motorcycle for them. Of course I could have told them to go blow, but at least this way I got them all together, watching, and maybe somebody’ll say something. Anyway,” he added defensively, “it ain’t broke too bad.”

  “All right—” Clancy began, but just then the desk sergeant cut into the line, his voice tight and urgent.

  “Lieutenant! Lieutenant! They want you downtown right away! Criminal Courts Building, fourth floor! Rush! Cervera’s just went and dynamited old Judge Kiele …!”

  “Stanton!” Clancy snapped. “Did you hear?”

  “I heard, Lieutenant, Jeez!”

  “You stick where you are.” Clancy’s brain was racing. “See if any of those punks had access to dynamite anywhere—construction job, or whatever. And get in touch with me as soon as you finish!”

  “Right, Lieu—”

  But Clancy had already slammed the phone down, jumped from his desk and grabbed his hat and coat in almost the same motion, moving quickly into the corridor. “Kap! Let’s go!”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Thursday—3:45 P.M.

  A narrow passage on the fourth floor of the Criminal Courts Building paralleled the main corridor, running between the rear of one of the upper-floor courtrooms and the rooms assigned to the various judges and bailiffs. At the moment, it was a mass of excited, milling people, held back from the heavy oak door that led to Judge Kiele’s chambers by two broad-shouldered and phlegmatic policemen. Personnel from the
nearby offices, startled by the explosion, mixed with the curious who had been visiting the building at the time of the event; reporters from the newspapers together with their photographers were trying to establish priority near the guarded door. The two blue-coated policemen held them back with firm disinterest. A faint odor of something burning seemed to tinge the air.

  Clancy forced his way through the noisy crowd with Kaproski at his heels. One of the reporters, suddenly recognizing the lieutenant, clutched him by the arm, hanging on.

  “Lieutenant! Will you please for Christ’s sake tell these monosyllabic idiots to call Lundberg out here, or somebody, for God’s sake? We go to press in half an hour, and they’re …”

  Clancy dragged his arm loose; it was immediately snatched and held by another. “Lieutenant Clancy …”

  Clancy’s jaw tightened ominously. He turned his head, calling abruptly over his shoulder. “Kap!”

  Kaproski shoved his way to the front. He unhanded the reporter with ease, pushed him none too gently to one side, and then forged ahead, clearing passage to the door. Several flashbulbs went off, more in frustration than for any more productive reason.

  The two patrolmen opened the door with the minimum aperture possible; Clancy edged through and immediately closed it behind him, leaving Kaproski outside. One photographer, holding his camera high over his head, tried to take advantage of the opening door to snatch a quick shot of the scene within; Kaproski’s huge body blocked the view. The photographer brought his camera down and swore.

  Within the room, four men were at work. One, a photographer, was taking pictures of the room from all angles; a second was dusting the desk with powder, searching for fingerprints. The other two were bent down, delicately picking up little pieces of something from the thick rug. One of them, Lieutenant Willard Lundberg of the Bomb Squad, looked up at the sound of the door opening and closing.