A Streak of Light

by RICHARD LOCKRIDGE

  Tony Cook said, “Thanks,” with no thankfulness in his voice, and started out of the men’s room. Lieutenant Nathan Shapiro was just about to come into it.

  “Sampson,” Tony said. “Clean miss, apparently. Found the slug. Bashed up. Ballistics won’t be happy. Sampson’s gone back to his desk.”

  They walked the corridor toward the city room.

  “Perryman’s what they call ‘stable,’” Shapiro said. “Which seems to mean he’s still alive. Still in intensive care. Still unconscious. The captain’s got Sanders standing by, but they won’t let anybody into intensive care.”

  “Wouldn’t be much point to it if they would,” Tony said. “Not while the old boy’s still dead to the world.”

  Shapiro said, “Mmm,” agreeing to the obvious.

  The city room was not as populated as it had been the morning before. Only a scattering of reporters were at their desks. Only two of them were using their typewriters. Two of the three desks which made up the city desk were occupied.

  In the distant corner of the room, under a tall window, Leroy Sampson was sitting at his desk. He was looking at something on it. A rather burly blond man was standing by the desk, obviously waiting. As Cook and Nathan Shapiro walked across the big room toward Sampson’s desk, the blond man took a sheet of paper held out to him by Sampson.

  “O.K., Mr. Riley,” Sampson said, as the two tall men from Homicide South stopped a few feet from the desk. “Two line six. Who’ve you got doing it?”

  “Notson,” the man called Riley said. “Fremont’s day off.”

  Sampson nodded, and Riley left the desk and went back toward his own, which was the third of the three city desks.

  Sampson looked up at Shapiro and Cook as they moved forward. The expression on his face was not friendly. His face was heavy-jawed. His eyes were a cold blue. He said, “Yes?” and made the word a demand.

  “You’re the one named Cook, aren’t you?” Sampson said. “Bumbling around here yesterday morning, weren’t you? After the red bastards shot Mr. Claye. And who’re you?”

  The last was to Shapiro, who told the belligerent man who he was.

  “Shapiro, huh?” Sampson said. “And a lieutenant already?”

  The “already” sounded like a challenge, and a slur. If it was a challenge, Nathan did not take it up. He said, “Yes, Mr. Sampson. I’m a detective lieutenant. We’d like you to tell us what happened.”

  “I damn near got killed is what happened. By one of those Communist bastards you let run around loose. And those nine old geezers make their decisions for.” He added, “Lieutenant,” again with contempt in his tone.

  “We try not to let killers run loose,” Shapiro said. He avoided adding, “Whatever their politics.” Sampson’s antagonism was, he thought, built in. There was no point in adding to it. “It’ll help if you’ll just tell us what happened.”

  “I’ve got a newspaper to get out,” Sampson said. “Already told the other police officer about it. Why don’t you ask him about it? Or don’t you speak to each other?”

  “We’re from Homicide, Mr. Sampson. Supposed to get things firsthand when we can. Detective Cook and I are working on Mr. Claye’s murder. And the wounding of Mr. Perryman, who’s still unconscious, by the way. And so can’t help us.”

  “You and a detective,” Sampson said. “What’s the matter with the chief of detectives?”

  “Nothing, Mr. Sampson. We’re working under his direction, of course. Following his instructions. Reporting to him when we have anything to report. Tell us about this morning, won’t you? What happened in the washroom?”

  “Like I said, I damn near got killed. Oh, all right. I’ll go over all of it again. Not here, though. In my office. Come on and let’s get it over.”

  He got up from the desk and walked toward them. It was evident they were supposed to get out of his way. They did. They followed him across the city room and through the corridor, past the ticker room, and into the other section of the second floor. He stopped at a door on the Broadway side of the building and used a key to unlock it. He went into the office, and Nathan and Tony Cook followed him.

  His office was noticeably larger than the office of Jason Wainwright, editor of the New York Sentinel. His desk was bigger than Wainwright’s. The window behind the desk was wider than Wainwright’s window, and more light came through it. Sampson sat behind his desk. There was one other chair in the room. Sampson said nothing about either of them sitting on it, but Shapiro did anyway. Cook leaned against the wall and got his notebook ready.

  “Got down here about five minutes of eight, as I do most mornings,” Sampson said. “I’ve got a trained taxi driver picks me up every morning. So I went into the men’s room, way I usually do. And got shot at. Don’t knock that TV set over, Cook.”

  Tony Cook was against the wall beside a wide-screen TV set on a small table. He had put his notebook on it. He had had no intention of knocking the set over. He took his notebook off the top of the set and held it in his hand. Sampson stared across the room at him, as if expecting an oral response to his instruction. Probably, “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” He didn’t get it.

  “You make a habit of going to the. men’s room as soon as you get down here, Mr. Sampson?” Shapiro asked.

  “Pretty much, I guess. What the hell, Shapiro?”

  “A habit that could be counted on, I mean. By, among others, somebody with a gun.”

  Sampson looked hard at Nathan Shapiro through very cold blue eyes. Nathan could see why Leroy Sampson was not notably popular with the people who worked under him. Shapiro waited.

  “I suppose so,” Sampson said, after a pause. “Anybody on the staff. Only there aren’t any commies on my staff. You can be damned sure of that.”

  “I’m sure there aren’t,” Shapiro said. “You got to the office a few minutes before eight and went to the men’s room, as you usually do. Then, Mr. Sampson?”

  “I peed. I’d finished and zipped up and was about to wash my hands. Had turned toward the washbasin when I saw this glint. Something reflecting the light. And saw a hand reaching out of one of the cubicles, and the glint was coming off the gun this guy was holding—holding pointed at me.”

  “Just a hand? Not a face?”

  “No face. Just a hand with a gun in it sticking out from behind a door opened just wide enough. A hand with a finger on a trigger. That what you want, Shapiro?”

  “Just the picture,” Shapiro said. “The cubicle—stall— nearest the urinals?”

  “Second one down. Maybe eight-ten feet from where I was standing.”

  “You were lucky he missed at that distance,” Shapiro said. “Of course, small handguns are tricky. Hard to aim.”

  “Lucky, hell,” Sampson said. “Think I just stood there waiting to be shot? By the time he pulled the trigger, I was down on the floor. Caught myself on my hands, of course. I play tennis some, Shapiro. You play tennis, you learn how to fall. Something you wouldn’t know about, probably. Not your people’s line, is it?”

  Shapiro supposed he was intended to pick that up, possibly with a list of names. Starting with Victor Seixas, probably, and ending with Solomon. He didn’t.

  “You dropped to the floor,” he said. “Landing on your hands. He didn’t take another shot at you?”

  “No. Maybe thought he’d got me the first time. He just —scuttled away. I tried to get a look at him, but he was too quick for me. Just in time to see the door closing after him. Ran like the rat he was, Shapiro.”

  Of course, when a man has tried to kill you, you are justified in thinking of him as a rat.

  “Like all of them,” Sampson said. “All rats.”

  “That’s all you saw of him?” Shapiro said. “Just a hand pushed out from behind a half-opened door?”

  “With a gun in it, Shapiro.”

  “With a gun in it, Mr. Sampson. Nothing special about the hand you saw?”

  “What the hell’s supposed to be special about a hand? Except this one was ho
lding a gun?”

  “Nothing, probably. Oh, long fingers. Stubby fingers. A broad hand, or a narrow one. Nothing likely to be positive, I admit. Nothing we can go on, obviously. When he ran past you, Mr. Sampson. Did you get the feeling he was a big man? With a heavy tread, I mean. Or a smaller one? You used the word ‘scutded.’ Doesn’t sound like a heavy man, does it?”

  “I told you. Sounded like a rat. Used to hear them down south when I was a kid. In the barn on my father’s farm. He used to have the farm niggers shoot them. Down in Alabama, that was.”

  There wasn’t much of Alabama left in Sampson’s accent, Nathan thought. Oh, it came out a little like “nigguhs.” There was a good deal of Alabama left in Sampson’s mind, although it had been eroded from his speech. All right, I’ve got my prejudices, too. And you don’t have to go to an Alabama farm to find rats. There are more rats than people in New York City, at a guess.

  “You went out into the corridor after you’d been shot at, Mr. Sampson. See anybody running down it? Toward the city room, maybe?”

  “After I’d washed my hands, sure I went out of the washroom. Banged my hands up some when I landed on them. And the floor isn’t all that clean.”

  He spread his hands out on the desk top as he said this. They were large hands, suitable to a rather large man. They did not look particularly banged up.

  “Well,” Shapiro said, “if that’s all you can tell us, Mr. Sampson.” He started to stand up. But halfway up, he said, “Yes, Cook?”

  As usual, Tony had not realized he had looked like a man about to say something. As usual, Nate seemed to be psychic.

  “I just wondered,” Tony said. “With Mr. Perryman laid up, out of action, who runs the paper? Makes the important decisions. On, say, policy matters. If something big comes up? I suppose it would be Mr. Wainwright?”

  “The paper pretty much runs itself, Cook. Day to day, that is. No policy matters, as you put it, likely to come up, that I know of. If any do, Burns and I can handle them.”

  “Burns?” Tony said.

  “Ralph Burns, the business manager, Cook.”

  It was, from his tone, something anybody ought to have known, even a low-grade cop like Anthony Cook.

  Cook said he saw.

  “Not Mr. Wainwright, then?” Shapiro said. “I’d have thought that, as editor—”

  “What he’s called,” Sampson said. “Handles the editorial page, sure. Old Wainwright’s getting on. Has been for years, actually. And getting pretty wishy-washy, at that. Thing is, he’s got this damn contract, apparently. And plans to hold the old man to it. Only, could be he’s in for a surprise when Mr. Perryman is back on his feet. Yes, quite a surprise, it could be.”

  Shapiro repeated, “Surprise?” But Sampson only shook his head. He did smile a narrow smile.

  9

  Without consultation, Shapiro and Cook moved a few steps down the corridor, toward the south end of the floor. Sampson came out of his office, made sure the door had locked after him and went back toward the city room and, presumably, his corner desk.

  “Well, I’ll say it,” Tony Cook said. “It takes all kinds.”

  “Why?” Nathan said, and Tony merely shook his head.

  “All right,” Nathan said. “He’s got his prejudices. Anti-Semitic. Antiblack. Probably thinks Wallace is a great man. But the point is, somebody tried to kill him. Our point.”

  “He says somebody did, Nate.”

  Shapiro shook his head. He said, “The slug, Tony. And also, you could smell the powder. Somebody shot at him. And—somebody who knew his habits. So, somebody on the staff?”

  “Or somebody on the staff who’s passed the word,” Cook said. “Or the taxi driver who brings him down here every morning. Passed the word, I mean. Or the elevator starter. Suppose there’ll be another try at him, Nate?”

  Shapiro agreed that that was possible. But not, probably, while he was at his desk in the city room. When he left, they might arrange to have somebody go with him, guard him.

  “This commie angle they’re all so hipped on,” Tony said, as they walked down the corridor toward the adjoining offices of Peter Simms and Jason Wainwright, associate editor and editor of the New York Sentinel. “Claye, Perryman, now Sampson. All pretty extreme right-wingers. Not likely to be popular with left-wingers. And there are some pretty fanatical kids on the left, Nate. Try to kill people to save redwood trees. Of course, they’re pretty much on the West Coast.”

  “Except local fighters for Puerto Rican independence,” Shapiro said. “And a few nutsy Zionists. We’ve got our share, Tony. However—” He let it hang there.

  The doors of most of the small offices on either side stood open; the offices were not occupied. The door of the office in which Roger Claye had been killed was closed. There was a police seal on it. For no really apparent reason, Shapiro thought. Whatever useful had been in there was no longer there. And, apparently, Saturday was a quiet day at the Sentinel. No editorials being written.

  “By the way,” Tony said, when they were close enough to the Wainwright and Simms offices to see that the doors of both were closed, “you did tell me once that you used to play tennis, didn’t you?”

  “When I was a lot younger,” Nathan said, his sad voice appropriate to vanished youth. “Public courts. Prospect Park. Why, Tony?”

  Tony Cook merely smiled in answer.

  “Oh, all right,” Nathan said. “I get your point.”

  “Come as a surprise to Mr. Sampson,” Tony said. “Like it would have to Adolf Hitler.”

  It was Tony who knocked on the door of Jason Wainwright’s office. There was no response from inside it. But when he knocked again, the door of Simms’s office opened and Simms stood in it. He said, “Oh, it’s you two. About the near miss this time, I suppose. Not guilty, gentlemen.”

  He held the door open, as an invitation. They went into the office.

  “So you know about Sampson,” Shapiro said.

  “News spreads,” Simms told him. “After all, news is our business around here. Supposed to be, anyway. And before you ask, I knew about the old boy’s habit of going to the head before he went to his desk. For the precautionary pee, as it was generally called. So, at a guess, did everybody on this floor. And I’ve got nothing against Roy. I don’t work under him. And I don’t own a gun, Lieutenant. Wouldn’t have one of the damn things around. So?”

  “All right,” Shapiro said. “So nothing much, Mr. Simms. Mr. Wainwright isn’t around, apparently?”

  “Never on Saturdays,” Simms said. “On Saturdays, I man the fort. To write a sob editorial if a president gets shot. If he’s the right party, that is. If he’s a Democrat, of course, it’s about the breakdown of law and order, growing out of the permissiveness encouraged by past Democratic administrations. Too bad, but they had it coming sort of thing. Hogwash either way, of course.”

  Shapiro said, “Mmm.”

  “All right,” Simms said. “I’m flippant about sacred matters. Comes of being a pro, Lieutenant. Same as you are, come to that.”

  Shapiro said, “Mmm,” again.

  “But not about our local crime wave,” Simms said. “Don’t get me wrong. Wainwright isn’t here. Probably at his hotel, having breakfast at a human hour for once. Or even, maybe, gone up to his place in the country. Where his wife and he used to spend weekends, and most summers. Doesn’t go up there much anymore.”

  “You and Mr. Wainwright are friends, I gather,” Shapiro said.

  “Because I know something about his habits? Yes, we are. Matter of fact, he makes working here bearable for me. Fine man. Damned good newspaperman, Jase is. For all they’ve pretty much frozen him out since Perryman took over.”

  “What we wondered about a little,” Shapiro said. “We’ve been talking to Mr. Sampson, you see. About his narrow escape this morning. But, other things sort of came up.”

  “I can imagine,” Simms said. “Also, that you brought them up, Lieutenant. I’ve been asking around about you a little, Shapir
o. Our district man at headquarters has filled me in. He’s quite a fan of yours, Lieutenant.”

  Shapiro reverted to “Mmm.” This time it had a trace of astonishment in it, even of incredulity. Tony Cook looked at him, but kept his smile to himself.

  “These other things that happened to come up,” Simms said. “About Jase Wainwright, I gather. Want me to guess about them, Lieutenant?”

  He could if he liked, Shapiro told him.

  “Not really guessing,” Simms said. “Not part of the team, Wainwright isn’t, according to our managing editor. Should have retired years ago. A doddering old man. Not up to much, nowadays. Lives in the past. That about it?”

  “Something like that, Mr. Simms.”

  “Well, Jason is getting along. Late seventies somewhere. Quite a way beyond retirement age, granted. And nothing wrong with his mind. Still can think circles around a man like Sampson. Around old Perryman, too. Around me, come to that. The trouble is—well, he still believes in newspapers. In the Sentinel, especially. Remembers it the way it used to be. When old Mason owned it. Oh, it was for the Wall Street boys then, way it is now. But you got news in the news columns in those days. What Jason tells me, anyway. Before my time.”

  He stopped and shook a cigarette out of his pack. He held the pack out to Nathan Shapiro, who said, “Thanks, not just now.” Simms raised his eyebrows toward Tony Cook, who shook his head.

  “Wainwright can be quite eloquent about the good old days,” Simms said. “Fact is, he should be working on the Chronicle. Had several offers to go up there, I think. Not that he ever talked about it but—well, things get around in the trade. Take our man Fremont. Does rewrite. Never gets a byline. Sampson doesn’t believe in bylines. But everybody in town knows about Fremont. Knows he’s tops. Knows if there’s a big story, he’s the man who wrote it. And why he sticks to the Sentinel nobody knows. Maybe for old times’ sake. Like Wainwright. I wouldn’t know.”