The Fugitive Pigeon

by Donald E. Westlake

  I stuffed the little pistol in the raincoat pocket, left the larger automatic behind, and went back out to the living room. Chloe was standing at the window now, working away at another cigarette and glowering down at the street. I said, “Well, I’m going.”

  “Good-bye.”

  So? What did she want from me? I’d already apologized once, that was enough. Besides, that Eichmann line still rankled. “Good-bye,” I said.

  I was almost to the door when she said, “Dummy.”

  I stopped. “What?”

  “You don’t even know if they’re still watching the apartment. You didn’t even look out the window first.”

  She was right, I’d forgotten about Trask or Slade, parked by the fire hydrant across the street. But I said, “If they’re still there, I’ll go the back way.”

  She shook her head. “They’re not there,” she said, with affected weariness, as though to say she’d had all she could bear of me.

  Well, the feeling was mutual. “Thanks a million,” I said. “Good-bye.” I went out and closed the door.

  It was true Trask or Slade was gone. Standing at the front door, I could see the fire hydrant across the way, shining in the noon sun. I went down the steps and turned left, toward West Fourth Street. I didn’t look up to see if Chloe was still standing at the living-room window.

  I was on my own.

  Chapter 21

  You’d think the restaurant at Grand Central Terminal would have to be good; look at all the trains parked out front. Well, they’re wrong.

  Or maybe it was my fault and not the fault of the restaurant that everything I put in my mouth tasted like sand. I know I was emotionally awash, and there’s nothing like an upset mind to cause an upset stomach.

  The upset in my mind involved two very different people: Chloe Shapiro and Patrick Mahoney. I was still mad at Chloe, and yet at the same time last night’s hankering hadn’t left me, and besides that I was uneasy at continuing my odyssey without her, and over all, there was a layer of perplexity because I didn’t really understand what the girl was all about. As to Mahoney, I wanted to find him and I wanted to avoid him, in more or less equal parts. If you remember Volto, the old-time Grape Nuts Martian, whose left arm repelled and whose right arm attracted, you’ll have some idea what Deputy Chief Inspector Patrick Mahoney meant to me.

  Well, like a visit to the dentist, the best thing to do about Patrick Mahoney was get him over with. So I paid for my sand, left the restaurant, and went out to the main part of the terminal, where, under a Kodak electronic poster as complicated as a Sally Rand strip-tease, I found a beehive of telephone booths. At the rear of the beehive were the directories I’d come to Grand Central to consult. Eating sand had been secondary, the result of my having redeveloped hunger on the subway trip uptown.

  I’d come to Grand Central because it was the first place I thought of that would have telephone books for all the New York City boroughs, and I wanted those telephone books because I had a plan for tracking down my man Mahoney.

  Watch:

  First I went through the phone books for Mahoney, Patricks, and Mahoney, P’s, and found four in Queens, seven in Brooklyn, three in Manhattan, five in the Bronx. Then, armed with a handful of dimes from the restaurant cashier, I went into one of the booths and began dialing. Each time a man answered I said, “Chief Inspector Mahoney?” and each time a woman answered I said, “Is Inspector Mahoney at Headquarters now?” I got a variety of answers, all of them negative for my purposes and a couple of them pretty comical in their own way, until at last one woman said, “Yes, he is. He’ll be there all day.”

  Ah hah. But was this actually my Patrick Mahoney’s household, or merely the household of a relative who would be aware of my Mahoney’s whereabouts? So I said, “Will he be home before six?”

  “I doubt it,” she said. “Why not call him at Headquarters?”

  “All right,” I said. “I will.”

  “Who shall I say—” she said, and I hung up.

  See? Simple. Now I knew where to find him, the particular Patrick Mahoney out of the general class of Patrick Mahoneys. His home address, according to the telephone company, was 169-88 83rd Avenue, in Queens.

  The success of this stratagem filled me with confidence, partially restoring a faith that had been slipping badly. I hurried onward, while the momentum lasted.

  A bookstore tucked away in an echoing corner of the terminal sold me a street map of Queens, on which I found that the corner of 169th Street and 83rd Avenue was in the section called Jamaica, and only a few blocks from a station on the Independent subway line. So it was back into the subway for me, quite a letdown after riding around in that soft if felonious Packard all yesterday.

  The IRT Flushing line clattered me into Queens and a junction with the IND, which took me the rest of the way to Hillside Avenue and 169th Street in Jamaica. I came out to pleasant sunlight, walked up the hill along 169th Street, and turned right on 83rd Avenue.

  The neighborhood was pleasantly residential, middle-class, quiet. Most of the houses had been built before the Second World War, most were one-family, most were on fairly good-sized lots. Number 169-88 was similar to its neighbors, a two-story broad gray clapboard house with attached garage. Slightly unkempt shrubbery lined the front of the house, the lawn was somewhat dried out but had been recently mowed, and a sign with reflector letters on the lawn read: MAHONEY.

  Was this the right man? Accepting bribes from the syndicate and living in a place like this?

  Well, where would he live? I suppose up till then I hadn’t really thought about it much, where a crooked bribe-taking policeman would live. I guess I’d supposed he’d live in a night club somewhere, with Merry Anders on one knee and Barbara Nichols on the other. Balloons in the background. Everybody laughing coarsely as the champagne is poured.

  But he lived here, in a moderately neat one-family clapboard house on a quiet residential side street in the Jamaica section of Queens. That was a little scary.

  I slowed as I passed his house, but I didn’t stop. It was barely three o’clock now, and Inspector Mahoney wasn’t expected home until sometime after six. So I walked on to the next corner, and turned right, and went back down to Hillside Avenue and went for a stroll.

  Hillside Avenue went from bad to worse. The first couple of blocks was banks and delicatessens, but then there came several blocks of store-front real-estate offices, one right after the other, small and gaudy and chiseler-looking. Some of them, to give you the idea, had signs up reading, “We specialize in repossessed houses.” I mention this in case you ever wondered what those old-time Scottish body snatchers Burke and Hare have been doing since Dr. Knox laid them off.

  After the real-estate offices came the used-car lots. I stopped and turned around, because I didn’t want to know what came next.

  Back by the subway entrance I went into a luncheonette and sat at the counter and had coffee and cheese danish. Munching danish, I tried to work up a plan.

  I might as well admit right now I didn’t yet have one. I’d had the plan for finding out where Mahoney lived, but after that everything was still a blank. I knew I wanted to talk to Mahoney, I knew I wanted to find some way to force him to tell me what I wanted to know, and I knew I wanted to accomplish all this without falling into the hands of Trask and Slade, either or both of whom were probably keeping close to Mahoney night and day.

  So. I could wait some place where I could see Mahoney’s house, and after he got home go straight to the front door and start talking. I assumed he was married, and there was a good chance his wife didn’t know the full story of his perfidy, so maybe I could work the same threat that had helped with Uncle Al.

  On the other hand, maybe I ought to go to the Mahoney house right now, tie up anybody I found there, and be already inside when Mahoney got home. That way Trask and Slade wouldn’t know I was around. Unless they came in with Mahoney, that is.

  Or, maybe I should wait till he was home, then phone him a
nd give him some reason for leaving the house again, and then hide in his car and not brace him till we’d left the neighborhood.

  I didn’t really like any of those plans, but I still had three hours or more to think, and I kept telling myself I’d be sure to come up with something good pretty soon.

  The luncheonette had a phone booth. Just for something to do, I went over and looked in the directory for Queens Police Headquarters. The address was 168-02 91st Avenue.

  Hey! That was right nearby. Five blocks away, that’s all.

  So I decided to go take a look at it, just to kill some time. I left the luncheonette, walked down 169th Street to 91st Avenue and turned right. A big municipal parking lot was on one side of me and a department store on the other.

  Police Headquarters was small than I’d expected, a squarish five-story building down at the far corner. The first two floors were done in gray stone and the top three in brick. The ground-level windows were tall and wide, with arched tops; inside, green shades were pulled all the way down.

  The double-doored entrance—wooden doors with little windows clustered in the upper part—was flanked by the traditional green lights, and white lettering over the doorway read: 103rd Precinct.

  Police Headquarters in Queens wasn’t such a much, in other words.

  I strolled on by, looking at the building, up at the windows on the upper floors. Deputy Chief Inspector Patrick Mahoney was behind one of those windows, I supposed, at this very moment.

  I went on around the corner, and down to the next street, which was Jamaica Avenue. I turned left and walked all the way around the block and pretty soon I was coming to Police Headquarters again. Or the precinct house, which is what it really was.

  This time, though, I didn’t keep on by. With no plan at all in my head, with nothing there in fact but impatience and nervousness and a hearty desire to have it all over with, I made a sharp left turn and pushed open the double doors to Precinct One Hundred and Three and stepped inside.

  A uniformed patrolman was standing just inside the door, in a little airlock sort of arrangement between outer and inner sets of doors. He looked at me with a startled face and said, “What do you want?” He really acted astonished that anyone would come in here.

  Hand-lettered notices on the inner doors told police officers they must without fail show identification to the patrolman at the door, and civilians—that’s what the sign said: civilians—civilians had to tell this man their business before going any farther.

  I was taking too long to read the signs and think of something to say. The patrolman glared with increasing suspicion and said, “Well? What do you want here?”

  I had to say something. The space between outer and inner doors was small, keeping us close together. I opened my mouth and stammered a little and finally blurted, “Mahoney.”

  He lowered suspicious eyebrows. “What?”

  Well, this was wrong, all wrong. It was at his home that I intended to meet Mahoney, in silence and privacy, not here in the crowded danger of this police station.

  But it was done, and no going back now, so, “Mahoney,” I fatalistically repeated. “Deputy Chief Inspector Patrick J. Mahoney.” The middle initial I’d picked up from the telephone book.

  Comprehension was seeping into the gatekeeper. He said, “You want to see him?”

  No, I didn’t, not at all, but what I said was, “Yes. I want to see him.”

  “What name?”

  What name. Ah, yes, there’s something to think about. What name indeed.

  Well, if I was going to rush in where I feared to tread, I might just as well go the whole way. With practically no hesitation at all, I announced, “Charlie Poole.”

  “Charlie Poole.” He nodded, implying that the name had spoken volumes to him. “Wait here,” he said, and went abruptly away, pushing through the inner doors and leaving me alone in the airlock—that’s all my old science-fiction reading coming out again, excuse it please—with my thoughts and the notices.

  It promptly occurred to me to run away. I could do it, no trouble at all; just out this door and down to my right and into the department store. It’s in department stores that people running away always manage to elude their pursuers in the movies on the late show, and I’d seen enough late shows in the last few years to have the method just about letter-perfect.

  Still, I didn’t go anywhere. I reminded myself I’d felt this way just before going in to see Mr. Agricola, and also prior to invading Mr. Gross’s house, and in both cases I’d overcome my feelings and somehow survived, so why not this time.

  “Three times and out,” I muttered to myself, voicing an old superstition that should never have been invented. Three on a match. Three strikes and you’re out. Bad things happen in threes.

  The inner doors swung open again, happily breaking my trihedral reverie, and the policeman returned, saying, “Someone will be. right down.”

  “Thank you.”

  For the next few minutes he proceeded to ignore me, glowering fixedly out at the street instead. It’s a very odd feeling to be ignored by someone standing with you in a space four feet wide and three feet long, and I wasn’t at all sorry when another uniformed policeman stuck his head into our airlock and said, “Mr. Poole? Would you come with me, please?”

  Very pleasant man, this one, very reassuring. Thinning hair, shiny forehead, pale spectacles, mild manner. I went with him unhesitatingly, through rooms and upstairs to the third floor.

  What could happen to me in a police station?

  Chapter 22

  “Boo, chum,” said Trask or Slade.

  “Nephew, you sure give us a merry chase,” said Slade or Trask.

  The uniformed policeman had shut the door behind me. Trask and Slade were in front of me, standing on the gray carpet, smiling at me. Behind them was a desk, and behind the desk a man who had to be Mahoney. The office, medium-sized and somewhat dark, was what you’d expect to contain a deputy chief inspector of something or other.

  I said, “I want to talk to Mahoney.”

  “You never give up, nephew, do you,” said Trask or Slade.

  “That’s one of the qualities about him I like best,” said Slade or Trask.

  The man at the desk said, “You keep him quiet, you two. This is dangerous.” He sounded nervous; as though he had anything to be nervous about!

  Trask or Slade said, “Don’t worry, there. We know our business.”

  “Take him out the back way,” said the man at the desk. “I’ll let you know when it’s clear.”

  I said, “Inspector Mahoney, I want to talk to you.”

  Slade or Trask said, “Last time we heard from you, nephew, you were heeled. You heeled now?”

  “No,” I said, while the pistol began to gain weight in my raincoat pocket.

  “Let’s just see. Put your hands up on top of your head.”

  Neither of them had a gun in sight. All I had to do was reach into my pocket, pull the pistol out, and start blasting away. So what I did was put my hands up on top of my head.

  Slade or Trask came over and patted me here and there and took the pistol away. He looked at me and grinned and shook his head, hefting the little pistol on his palm. “You could hurt yourself with this, nephew,” he said.

  The man at the desk said, “Why don’t he call?”

  Trask or Slade told him, “Relax. Everything’ll be hunky-dory.”

  I took a deep breath. “No, it won’t,” I said.

  They all looked at me. Trask or Slade said, “You ain’t thinking of doing nothing stupid, are you, nephew?”

  “Inspector Mahoney,” I said, “you better listen to me. You’re in worse trouble than you know.”

  Well, he wasn’t. I was the one in trouble, and I was well aware how much. But Mahoney was acting nervous, and I leaped on it, ready to try anything that might help me get what I wanted.

  Trask or Slade said to me, “Shut your face, nephew.”

  But it was too late. Mahoney had re
acted big to what I’d said; he was sitting at the desk looking like a man thirty seconds this side of a heart attack. He was a man of about fifty, with sandy graying hair and soft pale Irish flesh well distributed with freckles. Freckles on his cheeks, freckles on the backs of his hands. It was a foregone conclusion he’d have freckles on his meaty shoulders. His face was somewhat jowly from overweight and bore the expression of anxious friendly mendacity of a wardheeler at a clambake, the expression Ed Begley does so well.

  He stood up now, behind his desk, and said, “What do you mean by that? What sort of trouble?”

  Trask or Slade told him, “It’s bushwah. He’s got a whole song and dance if you’ll let him.”

  Slade or Trask tossed my little pistol into the air and caught it again. “This is the whole story,” he said. “This toy cannon here. He come to kill you, like he killed the Farmer and tried to kill Mr. Gross.”

  Mahoney was weakening. He didn’t know what to think. I said, “What if they’re wrong, Inspector? I know where you live, One sixty-nine dash eighty-eight Eighty-third Avenue. If I wanted to kill you I wouldn’t come here to the police station to do it, I’d go wait near your house.”

  Trask or Slade came over close to me and poked a stiff finger into my chest. “I thought I told you shut your face.”

  Mahoney said, “Wait. Hold it, Trask. Let him talk.”

  Trask. The relief of finally knowing which one was Trask and which one Slade was almost too much for me. I practically forgot what I was here for and what I was trying to do.

  But Trask reminded me. He rapped me on the shoulder, a good one, and said, “Okay, nephew, you got your wish. The floor’s yours.”

  Slade—definitely Slade—added, “Give us your song and dance, nephew. You want we should hum along?”

  Mahoney said, “Be quiet. Let him talk.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  Mahoney pointed a freckled finger at me. “It better be good.”

  I said, “Somebody’s been passing information to the authorities, and these people think it’s me. Somebody killed Mr. Agricola, and they think that was me, too. But what if it wasn’t? If it wasn’t me, getting rid of me won’t do any good. Whoever’s squealing will go right on squealing, and sooner or later he’ll squeal on you, Inspector Mahoney.”