The Quarry

by Fish, Robert L. ;

  He stood at the corridor window, his mind coldly accusing himself, staring down into the busy street, thinking of the meeting with Inspector Clayton that was bound to result, and the calm but’ unanswerable questions he would face. He watched John Wells emerge from the building supporting his wife, and lead her down the wide steps to a small M.G. parked a block away. He watched him help her in one side, close the door, and then walk around the car to bend down and squeeze himself into the driver’s seat. Thank you, Lieutenant, for making this normal trip from Daddy’s office to home a perfect nightmare.…

  He swung around to Kaproski, his voice harsh.

  “Let’s go see the boys who were supposed to be protecting him.” He took out a cigarette and lit it, started to slide the package into his pocket and then remembered, offering the pack to Kaproski.

  “Not right now,” Kaproski said, shaking his head. “But thank you, Lieutenant.”

  Thank you, Lieutenant.… Clancy stared at the big man beside him for a moment and then started down the long corridor to the empty courtroom where the others were waiting.

  Thursday—4:35 P.M.

  Second-grade Detective Gomez and two patrolmen, one of whom Clancy recognized as Houser, of the 52nd, were in the empty courtroom, seated—appropriately enough—at the table normally reserved for the defense. Clancy swung through the heavy doors and came down the tilted aisle with Kaproski behind him. Gomez, at sight of the lieutenant, got to his feet alertly, crushing out a cigarette on the floor; the other two remained seated a moment and then got to their feet slowly.

  For an instant Clancy stared at the three men; then his dark angry eyes settled on Gomez. When he spoke, although it was only one word, it had the effect of a stream of acid biting into bare skin.

  “Well?”

  Gomez cleared his throat nervously, opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it. Clancy’s eyes swept the downcast faces before him. His eyes came back to Gomez once again; he forced down his temper, making himself speak quietly.

  “All right,” he said almost wearily. “We can’t change anything now. What happened?”

  “We covered him,” Gomez began, and then hesitated as if in realization that the cover had been inadequate.

  “How?”

  “Well,” Gomez began a bit haplessly, “we come here together. Me and the judge, Houser in front, and Michaels behind a few feet. We came down the back hallway, the one that runs between the back of the courtroom and the chambers. The judge unlocked the lock to his rooms, but I opened the door and looked in; then Judge Kiele pushed past me and closed the door right in my face. The same as he did yesterday. Anyway, when he came out in his robes, we walked together to the door of the courtroom—the back door leading into the corridor, that is—and I walked in first. I sat down front by the bailiff, and Houser was in the back, standing inside the door where he could watch the people coming in and sitting down, and Michaels was outside the courtroom, in the front corridor, outside the entrance.…”

  “Go on,” Clancy said quietly.

  “Well,” Gomez said, “the judge recessed for lunch about twelve-thirty, and I walked out into this back corridor ahead of him, and opened the door to his chambers and looked in—all around, real good—and then he went in and shut the door in my face. And about ten minutes later a kid comes down the corridor with a tray covered with a napkin, and says to me it’s lunch the judge ordered on the phone, and I opened the door for him, and the judge was leaning back in his chair, still in his robes, with his eyes closed.…”

  “Did you lift the napkin and see what was on the tray?” Clancy asked, his voice getting dangerous again.

  “Yes, sir,” Gomez said. “As a matter of fact I did, and the judge was having a ham and cheese on rye, a salad—lettuce and cream cheese—and a pot of something, either coffee or tea. Oh, yes—and a little bottle, one of those miniatures.…” He paused, embarrassed, as if guilty of a breach of etiquette in reporting this lapse on the part of a judge, especially a dead one. Clancy stared at him and he hurried on. “Anyway, the kid couldn’t have had anything to do with it, I don’t think, because the kid comes out and about forty-five minutes later the judge comes out and even before we can go back into the courtroom this kid comes back to pick up the tray—”

  “Was he empty-handed when he came back? The kid?”

  “Yes, sir. Anyway, once we get the judge settled back in the courtroom and the trial started, I beat it out for a fast sandwich, and while I was gone Michaels sat down front by the bailiff and Houser stayed in the back, inside. And when I came back we switched, and I stayed in back and Houser went out to eat, and then—”

  “So you all ate,” Clancy said politely. “I’m glad. Now, how about telling me where you all were when the balloon went up?”

  “I’m telling you, Lieutenant,” Gomez said, stung a bit by the unfairness of it. “At about three o’clock, or maybe a few minutes afterwards, he stands up and recesses Court. He bangs his gavel a couple of times and starts right out the back door, but even then I beat him to it, and I opened the door to his chambers and looked around the room, and then he went past me as usual and slammed the door in my face and about one minute after that, or maybe even less—maybe thirty seconds—” His eyes went to the ceiling impressively. “Blooey!”

  “And what did you do then?”

  “Me? I took one quick look inside and then I closed the door and put Houser and Michaels on it and I went and called it in,” Gomez said honestly. “And then I came back and waited with the others outside the door until Lieutenant Lundberg came from the Bomb Squad, and he had his own people with him, and he sent me here to wait for you, Lieutenant, with Houser and Michaels.…”

  “I see,” Clancy said quietly. He forced down the bile in his throat and tried to think clearly. “When you looked in the room—not the last time, after the explosion, but before, when you checked right after Court was recessed—did you notice anything unusual lying on the desk. A book, or anything like that?”

  Gomez shook his head. “I was looking for people, Lieutenant, not things. And there wasn’t anybody inside. The doors to the closet and the john were open, and I could see. And anyway, nobody came out afterwards. I was looking for people, but anyway I didn’t notice anything unusual on the desk or anywhere else.” His own description of his actions seemed to come back to him in retrospect, excusing him. “Lieutenant—what else could we have done?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea,” Clancy said coldly. “But there must have been something.” He stared at the table before him, not seeing it, and then raised his eyes. “So all the time he—and you—were in court anybody could have come down that back hallway, opened the door to his chambers, and planted anything they wanted inside. Is that it?”

  Gomez considered the question carefully. “Judge Kiele unlocked the door this morning, with his own keys, but when he went out he didn’t lock it after him. It was open at noon, I remember, and I guess he left it open when he went back to the courtroom after lunch. I didn’t think about it being open like that.…”

  “And so that’s that.” Clancy looked at the three men; they stiffened slightly under his gaze. “Well, all right. Tomorrow you, Gomez, and Houser—back to the 52nd. If I don’t have anything special for you, you go back on roster. Michaels, you report to your own precinct.”

  “Lieutenant,” Gomez said almost plaintively, “what in hell else could we have done?”

  “How the hell do I know?” Clancy said savagely.

  “You didn’t say anything about the possibility of somebody laying for him with a booby trap.…”

  “I know I didn’t,” Clancy said, and looked at the three men squarely. “There were two men involved in this case who like to play with dynamite and bombs, and I didn’t even think of it.” His eyes suddenly blazed. “Why do you think I’m so goddamned mad?” He slowly relaxed, sighing. “All right—that’s it for now.” He looked around a minute and then started up the aisle of the empty courtroom with a sil
ent Kaproski at his heels.

  He jammed his way viciously through the heavy swinging doors, walked down the corridor, and turned into the same office he had used to resuscitate Mrs. Wells. The secretary looked up questioningly, recognizing him, but he reached past her, disregarding her, picking up the telephone.

  “My boss is back now,” the secretary offered in lieu of something else to say. She pointed to the closed door at the office Clancy had used on his previous visit.

  “Good,” Clancy said shortly, and dialed a number. The secretary looked at him speechlessly as he completed his call; there was a brief wait as the phone rang, and then he was connected with his party.

  “Hello, Inspector? This is Lieutenant Clancy. I’m at the Criminal Courts Building.…”

  The inspector’s voice was as usual; calm and seemingly slightly patronizing. “I’ve got all the details available at the moment, Clancy. Lundberg called, as well as the M.E. I’m sure you have the details as well. Why don’t you drop in tomorrow morning and we can discuss it. Say at nine, if nothing comes up before then?”

  Clancy was amazed. “Tomorrow morning? You don’t want to see me right now?”

  “Not particularly,” the inspector said. “Not unless you have something special to tell me.”

  Clancy stared at the telephone. “I don’t have anything to tell you, Inspector. I just assumed …”

  The inspector’s voice was expressionless. “Clancy, get some rest. I’ll see you tomorrow.” There was a click and Clancy was looking at a silent telephone. He set it back in its cradle and reached for the door knob, his mind coldly assessing the obvious snub from his superior.

  “My boss is here now,” the secretary said, pointing.

  “Some other time,” Clancy said quietly, and turned to the waiting Kaproski at his side. “Let’s go home, Kap. To hell with it. If nobody else is going to get excited, I’m damned if I will.”

  It was a poor statement and he knew it. Kaproski chose to completely misunderstand.

  “Sure you will, Lieutenant,” he said soothingly. “Sure you will.…”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Friday—5:30 A.M.

  The corner window of the living room of Clancy’s small apartment insisted upon rattling under the blustering winds that swept restlessly through the narrow block, pushing and pulling at the ill-fitting frame to sound a monotonous but irritatingly irregular tick-tick that denied sleep. The pillow, after years of obedient service on the bed, took its location on the couch as an excuse for refusal to bunch properly, and the narrow width of the couch gave the excess of blanket on one side ample opportunity to lend its weight to gravity, and slide relentlessly to the floor. A rasping snore from the bedroom formed an aggravating background to insomnia, aided by the intermittent purr of the refrigerator which, after all these years, refused to contain itself quietly in its enamel prison. Clancy found himself listening intently for drips from faucets; he thrashed himself into a more comfortable—or at least, different—position and pressed his eyes closed more tightly in search of sleep, fathoming his rock to carry him with it into the soft depths of narcosis.

  And then, suddenly, tired of its tricks, the wind slowly faded. The tick-tick of the window frame assumed a regularity, blending in rhythmically with the contrapuntal snores of Kaproski to become soporific. The pillow abandoned its revolt; the blanket refused the enticement of the natural law and remained fixed. Clancy’s eyes began to close, and then remained at barely opened slits; his mind churned a moment and then began its kaleidoscopic trip through the swirling fog of his thoughts. He relaxed completely, allowing it full rein, letting himself be carried along, a willing and watchful passenger …

  He was not at all surprised to find the telephone booth now standing in the center of the wide steps of the Criminal Courts Building in Foley Square instead of outside of the fenced-in playground. The lack of traffic in the area, however, led him to believe it must be very late at night, although the bright sunlight on the steps seemed to deny this. He did not let it bother him.

  A little child approached, dressed in bathing trunks and wearing what appeared to be a sheet-metal life jacket—at least it covered him from neck to waist and reflected the light brilliantly—and entered the telephone booth. He seemed to experience no difficulty in reaching the instrument despite his reduced size and the bulkiness of his jacket, and then Clancy saw that his size was not reduced at all. Nor was it a child; nor was he wearing the jacket any longer. It was Roy Kirkwood, and he was speaking into the telephone with all appearances of urgency. Clancy nodded and yawned; a light breeze had sprung up in the deserted square and was now blowing withered leaves from invisible trees across the white steps on which he was standing.

  Clancy turned his head in time to notice Lenny Cervera come walking up, revolver in hand. He wanted to greet him, but Lenny seemed intent upon other business. Lenny walked up to the telephone booth and held his revolver at arm’s length, aiming at the figure within. He began shooting steadily into the glass windows; the bullets seemed to bounce off harmlessly into space without interfering in any way with the conversation Roy Kirkwood was carrying on.

  Clancy shrugged fatalistically and brought the telephone in his hand to his ear, watching the booth and the figure within idly. The muffled voice of the intent man behind the glass windows was suddenly clear. Clancy listened.

  “Is this Marcia?”

  Clancy yawned deeply. “Yes. Who’s this?” A silly game, he thought, and apparently endless.

  The answer seemed to come from a distance, delayed somehow, like an echo. I wish he’d speak more clearly, Clancy thought with sudden irritation, and then realized that there was really no necessity. He knew what the man was going to say. “Listen, don’t talk any more. Just keep your mouth shut and your ears open. I’ll do all the talking for both of us. I’m calling to give you a message from an old friend of yours. He wants to see you. Right away.”

  Clancy tried to inject interest into his voice but it was difficult. His heart just wasn’t in it. “Where?”

  “Damn it, I told you not to talk! Just listen! He says he wants to meet you at a place he says you’ll remember. He says it’s the place where you two first met.…”

  The formula was not to be denied. “But …”

  Clancy frowned; the telephone booth he had been watching during his conversation was no longer there. He swung around, prepared to complain to any employees of the Telephone Company he might see, but instead he noticed Lenny Cervera advancing on him. The gunman was climbing the steps slowly, approaching him, his revolver extended before him. Flame spat from the end of the gun, angrily.

  Tick-tick-tick-tick …

  His automatic reaction of dropping under the bullets brought Clancy from the couch to the floor with a thump; he untangled himself from the sheet and blanket and stared about, confused, his half-open eyes frozen in shock. The’ window frame rattled anxiously. From the bedroom, Kaproski’s snores continued to echo regularly.

  Clancy got to his feet, hitched up his pajamas, and tried to remake the couch. The pillow was no trouble, and the bottom sheet went into place without an argumentative wrinkle; the top blanket, however, suddenly became recalcitrant, refusing to restrict itself to the confined space under any circumstance. Clancy stood in the darkened living room, lighted only by the rays of the distant moon slotting in wavering bars through the Venetian blinds, and cursed steadily, fighting the blanket. That damned half dream! That double-damned half dream! To allow himself to be frightened like that by his own imagination!

  Suddenly he froze, the blanket dangling forgotten from his hands while his mind finally began to wake up. But—? And then with a muttered curse at his own stupidity he dropped the blanket and padded hurriedly into the bedroom.

  Kaproski was curled up in a large but tight knot, his head buried beneath the covers, his snores coming from beneath the stacked covers with muffled regularity. Clancy snapped on the night lamp and reached for the telephone. And thank the good Lor
d, he thought sincerely, that his head was stuffed under the blankets, or I’d never have gotten a chance to relax at all. Or gotten to ride that roller coaster of my imagination with that beautiful view.

  He dialed from memory, hoping he had the number right, hoping he wasn’t waking some poor stranger at this miserable hour. The phone rang; Clancy waited, wishing he had taken the time to don his bathrobe and slippers. The ringing stopped in momentary silence as the receiver was lifted; a woman’s voice, alert with the worry of the unexpected, came on.

  “Yes? Who is it?”

  That’s what Marcia said, Clancy thought; those were her exact words. He pushed the thought away, concentrating on his call. “Hello? Is Stanton there?”

  “Just a moment.…”

  Clancy stood in the shadowed bedroom, trying to warm one foot by placing it under the other, but this maneuver was scarcely effective. He could hear a low sibilant voice at the other end attempting to do with intensity what it obviously didn’t want to accomplish with volume. “Stan! Stan! I think it’s your boss, Lieutenant Clancy.…”

  Stanton finally came on the wire, groggy. “Yes? Hello?”

  “Stan, are you awake?”

  There was a deep yawn, followed by an almost audible shudder. “Yeah. I guess so. What’s up, Lieutenant?”

  Clancy tried to speak slowly and clearly, to penetrate Stanton’s fog. “Stan, I want to see Julio Sagarra tomorrow morning. This morning. You know, the head of the El Cids. Make it at eight o’clock, at the precinct.”

  “Sure, Lieutenant.” There was a prodigious yawn. “Who?”

  “Stan, wake up! Write it down, for God’s sake—don’t try to remember! Or have your wife write it down. Julio Sagarra, the head of the El Cids.”

  Stanton was waking up, slowly. “You want me to put the arm on Julio, Lieutenant?”

  “I don’t want you to arrest him. I just want you to bring him down to the precinct at eight o’clock this morning. I want to have a talk with him. Is that clear?”