The Heckler

by Ed McBain

  The person in the room with him was Teddy Carella, his wife.

  But Teddy was a deaf mute, and she watched her husband’s lips carefully, and she saw the word “Uhrbinger” form on those lips, but it was not a word in her vocabulary, and so she reasoned that her husband was delirious.

  She took his hand and held it in her own, and then she kissed it and put it to her cheek.

  The hospital lights went out suddenly.

  The bombs Pop had set at Eastern Electric were beginning to go off.

  RAFE, LIKE ANYgood surgeon, had checked his earlier results before making his final incision. He had run a Tong Tester over the wires in the box once more, checking the wires which carried the current, nodding as they tallied with the calculations he had made the first time he looked into the box.

  “Okay,” he said, apparently to the deaf man who was standing below him, but really to no one in particular, really a thinking out loud. “Those are the ones carrying the juice, all right. I cross-contact those and cut the others, and it’s clear sailing.”

  “All right, then do it,” the deaf man said impatiently.

  Rafe set about doing it.

  He accomplished the cross-contact with speed and efficiency. Then he thrust his hand at the deaf man. “The clippers,” he said.

  The deaf man handed them up to him. “What are you going to do?”

  “Cut the other wires.”

  “Are you sure you’ve done this right?”

  “I think so.”

  “Don’t think!” the deaf man said sharply. “Yes or no? Is that damn alarm going to go off when you cut those wires?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Yes or no?”

  “No,” Rafe said. “It won’t go off.”

  “All right,” the deaf man said. “Cut them.”

  Rafe took a deep breath and moved the clippers toward the wires. With a quick, deliberate contraction of his hand, he squeezed the handles of the clippers together and cut the wires.

  The alarm did not go off.

  AT THE HOUSEin Majesta, Chuck paced the floor nervously while Pop studied the alarm clock sitting on the dresser.

  “What time is it?” Chuck asked.

  “Five-thirty.”

  “They should be out of the bank and on their way by now.”

  “Unless something went wrong,” Pop said.

  “Yeah,” Chuck answered distractedly, and he began pacing the floor again. “Put on that radio, will you?” he said.

  Pop turned it on.

  “…raging out of control along a half-mile square of waterfront,” the announcer said. “Every available piece of fire equipment in the city has been rushed to the disaster area in an effort to control the flames before they spread further. The rain is not helping conditions. Slippery streets seem to be working against the men and apparatus. The firemen and police are operating only from the lights of their trucks, an explosion at the Eastern Electric Company having effectively blinded seventy per cent of the area’s streets, homes and businesses. Fortunately, there is still electric power in Union Station where an explosion on track twelve derailed the incoming Chicago train as a bomb went off simultaneously in the waiting room. The fire in the baggage room there was brought under control, but is still smoldering.”

  The announcer paused for breath.

  “In the meantime, the Mayor and the Police Commissioner are still in secret session debating whether or not to call out the National Guard in this emergency situation, and there are several big questions that remain unanswered:What is happening? Who is responsible for this? And why? Those are the questions in the mind of every thinking citizen as the city struggles for its very survival.”

  The announcer paused again.

  “Thank you, and good night,” he said.

  Pop turned off the radio.

  He had to admit he felt a slight measure of pride.

  THEY CAME OUTof the vault and through the tunnel at 5:40P.M . They made three trips back and forth between the bank vault and the basement of the store, and then they carried the cartons stuffed with money to the truck. They opened the door to the refrigerator compartment and shoved the cartons inside. Then they closed the refrigerator door, and Rafe started the truck.

  “Just a minute,” the deaf man said. “Look.”

  Rafe followed his pointing hand. The sky was ablaze with color. The buildings to the south were blacked out, but the sky behind them was an angry swirl of red, orange and yellow. The flames consumed the entire sky, the very night itself. Police and fire sirens wailed in the distance to the south; now and then an explosion touched off by the roaring fire punctuated the keen of the sirens and the whisper of rain against the pavements.

  The deaf man smiled, and Rafe put the truck in motion.

  “What time is it?” Rafe asked.

  “Five-fifty.”

  “So we missed the five-forty-five boat.”

  “That’s right. And we’ve got fifteen minutes to make the six-oh-five. I don’t think we’ll have any trouble.”

  “I hope not,” Rafe said.

  “Do you know how much money we have in the ice box?” the deaf man asked, grinning.

  “How much?”

  “More than two million dollars.” The deaf man paused. “That’s a lot of money, Rafe, wouldn’t you say so?”

  “I would say so,” Rafe answered, preoccupied. He was watching the road and the traffic signals. They had come eight blocks and there had been no sign of a policeman. The streets looked eerie somehow. Cops were a familiar part of the landscape, but every damn cop in the precinct was probably over on the south side. Rafe had to hand it to the deaf man. Still, he didn’t want to pass any lights, and he didn’t want to exceed the speed limit. And, too, the streets were slippery. He’d hate like hell to crash into a lamppost with all that money in the ice box.

  “What time is it?” he asked the deaf man.

  “Five-fifty-six.”

  Rafe kept his foot steady on the accelerator. He signaled every time they made a turn. He panicked once when he heard a siren behind them, but the squad car raced past on his left, intent on the more important matters at hand.

  “They all seem to be going someplace,” the deaf man said, grinning securely.

  “Yeah,” Rafe said. His heart was beating wildly in his chest. He would not have admitted it to anyone, but he was terrified. All that money. Suppose something went wrong? All that money.

  “What time is it?” he asked, as he made the turn into the parking lot at the ferry slip.

  “Six-oh-one,” the deaf man said.

  “Where’s the boat?” Rafe asked, looking out over the river.

  “It’ll be here,” the deaf man said. He was feeling rather good. His plan had taken into account the probability that some cops would be encountered on the drive from the bank to the ferry slip. Well, they had come within kissing distance of a squad car, and the car had gone merrily along its way, headed for the fire-stricken area. The incendiaries had worked beautifully. Perhaps he could talk the men into voting Pop a bonus. Perhaps…

  “Where’s the damn boat?” Rafe said impatiently.

  “Give it time. It’ll be here.”

  “You sure thereis a six-oh-five?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Let me see that schedule,” Rafe said. The deaf man reached into his pocket and handed him the folder. Rafe glanced at it quickly.

  “Holy Jesus!” he said.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “It’s not running,” Rafe said. “There’s a little notation beside it, a letterE, and that letter means it only runs on May thirtieth, July fourth and—”

  “You’re reading it wrong,” the deaf man said calmly. “That letterE is alongside the seven-fifteen boat. There are no symbols beside the six-oh-five. I know that schedule by heart, Rafe.”

  Rafe studied the schedule again. Abashed, he muttered a small, “Oh,” and then looked out over the river again. “Then where the hell is
it?”

  “It’ll be here,” the deaf man assured him.

  “What time is it?”

  “Six-oh-four.”

  IN THE RENTED HOUSEin Majesta, Chuck lighted a cigarette and leaned closer to the radio.

  “There’s nothing on so far,” he said. “They don’t know what the hell’s happening.” He paused. “I guess they got away.”

  “Suppose they didn’t?” Pop said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What do we do? If they got picked up?”

  “We’ll hear about it on the radio. Everybody’s just dying for an explanation. They’ll flash it the minute they know. And we’ll beat it.”

  “Suppose they tell the cops where we are?”

  “They won’t get caught,” Chuck said.

  “Suppose. And suppose they tell?”

  “They wouldn’t do that.”

  “Wouldn’t they?”

  “Shut up,” Chuck said. He was silent for a moment. Then he said, “No, they wouldn’t.”

  THE PATROLMAN CAME OUTof the waiting room, looked past the ice-cream truck and over the river, sucked the good drizzly air of April into his lungs, put his hands on his hips, and studied the cherry-red glow in the sky to the south. He did not realize he was an instrument of probability. He was one of those cops who, either through accident or design, had been left on his post rather than pulled southward to help in the emergency. He knew there was a big fire on the River Dix, but his beat was the thirty waterfront blocks on the River Harb, starting with the ferry waiting room and working east to the water tower on North Forty-first. He had no concept of the vastness of what was happening to the south, and he had no idea whatever that the ice-cream truck standing not ten feet away from him carried two and a half million dollars, more or less, in its ice box.

  He was just a lousy patrolman who had come on duty at 3:45P.M. and who would go off duty at 11:45P.M., and he wasn’t anticipating trouble here at the ferry slip connecting Isola to the sleepy section called Majesta. He stood with his hands on his hips for a moment longer, studying the sky. Then he casually strolled toward the ice-cream truck.

  “Relax,” the deaf man said.

  “He’s coming over!”

  “Relax!”

  “Hi,” the patrolman said.

  “Hello,” the deaf man answered pleasantly.

  “I’d like an ice-cream pop,” the patrolman said.

  THEY HAD MANAGEDto control the fire at the stadium, and Lieutenant Byrnes, with the help of three traffic commands, had got the traffic unsnarled and then supervised the loading of the ambulances with the badly burned and trampled victims of the deaf man’s plot. Byrnes had tried, meanwhile, to keep pace with what was happening in his precinct. The reports had filtered in slowly at first, and then had come with increasing suddenness. An incendiary bomb in a paint shop, the fire and explosion touching off a row of apartment houses. A bomb left in a bus on Culver Avenue, the bomb exploding while the bus was at an intersection, bottling traffic in both directions for miles. Scare calls, panic calls,real calls, and in the midst of all the confusion a goddam gang rumble in the housing project on South Tenth, just what he needed; let the little bastards kill themselves.

  Now, covered with sweat and grime, threading his way through the fire hoses snaked across the street, hearing the clang of ambulance gongs and the moan of sirens, seeing the red glow in the sky over the River Dix, he crossed the street and headed for a telephone because there was one call hehad to make, one thing hehad to know.

  Hernandez followed him silently and stood outside the phone booth while Byrnes dialed.

  “Rhodes Clinic,” the starched voice said.

  “This is Lieutenant Byrnes. How’s Carella?”

  “Carella, sir?”

  “Detective Carella. The policeman who was admitted with the shotgun wou—”

  “Oh, yes sir. I’m sorry, sir. There’s been so much confusion here. People being admitted—the fires, you know. Just a moment, sir.”

  Byrnes waited.

  “Sir?” the woman said.

  “Yes?”

  “He seems to have come through the crisis. His temperature’s gone down radically, and he’s resting quietly. Sir, I’m sorry, the switchboard is—”

  “Go ahead, take your calls,” Byrnes said, and he hung up.

  “How is he?” Hernandez asked.

  “He’ll be all right,” Byrnes said. He nodded. “He’ll be all right.”

  “I could feel the shadow,” Hernandez said suddenly, but he did not explain his words.

  * * *

  “ONE OF THEM SPECIALSyou got advertised on the side of the truck,” the patrolman said. “With the chopped walnuts.”

  “We’re all out of the walnut crunch,” the deaf man said quickly. He was not frightened, only annoyed. He could see the ferry boat approaching the slip, could see the captain on the bridge leaning out over the windshield, peering into the rain as he maneuvered the boat.

  “No walnut?” the patrolman said. “That’s too bad. I had my face fixed for one.”

  “Yes, that’s too bad,” the deaf man said. The ferry nudged the dock pilings and moved in tight, wedging toward the dock. A deck hand leaped ashore and turned on the mechanism to lower the dock to meet the boat’s deck.

  “Okay, let me have a plain chocolate pop,” the patrolman said.

  “We’re all out of those, too,” the deaf man said.

  “Well, what have you got?”

  “We’re empty. We were heading back for the plant.”

  “In Majesta?”

  “Yes,” the deaf man said.

  “Oh.” The patrolman shook his head again. “Well, okay,” he said, and he started away from the truck. They were raising the gates on the ferry now, and the cars were beginning to unload. As the patrolman passed the rear of the truck, he glanced at the license plate and noticed that the plate read IS 6341, and he knew that “IS” plates were issued to drivers in Isola and that all Majesta plates began with the letters MA. And he wondered what the probability—the word “probability” never once entered his head because he was not a mathematician or a statistician or a logician, he was only a lousy patrolman—he wondered what the probability was of a company with its plant on Majesta having a truck bearing plates which were issued in Isola, and he continued walking because he figuredWhat the hell, it’s possible.

  And then he thought of a second probability, and he wondered when he had ever seen an ice-cream truck carryingtwo men in uniform. And he thought,Well, that’s possible, they’re both going back to the plant, maybe one is giving the other a lift. In which case, where had the second guy lefthis truck?

  And, knowing nothing at all about the theory of probability, he knew only that it looked wrong, it felt wrong, and so he began thinking about ice-cream trucks in general, and he seemed to recall a teletype he’d read back at the precinct before coming on duty this afternoon, something about an ice-cream truck having been—

  He turned and walked back to the cab of the truck. Rafe had just started the engine again and was ready to drive the truck onto the ferry.

  “Hey,” the patrolman said.

  A hurried glance passed between Rafe and the deaf man.

  “Mind showing me the registration for this vehicle, Mac?” the patrolman said.

  “It’s in the glove compartment,” the deaf man said calmly. There was two and a half million dollars in the ice box of the truck, and he was not going to panic now. He could see fear all over Rafe’s face. One of them had to be calm. He thumbed open the glove compartment and began riffling through the junk there. The patrolman waited, his hand hovering near the holstered .38 at his side.

  “Now where the devil is it?” the deaf man asked. “What’s the trouble anyway, officer? We’re trying to catch that ferry.”

  “Yeah, well the ferry can wait, Mac,” the patrolman said. He turned to Rafe. “Let me see your license.”

  Rafe hesitated, and the deaf man knew exactly what Rafe was
thinking—he was thinking his normal operator’s license was not valid for the driving of a commercial vehicle, he was thinking that and knowing that if he showed the patrolman his operator’s license, the patrolman would ask further questions. And yet, there was no sense innot producing the license. If Rafe balked at this point, that holstered .38 would be in the policeman’s hand in an instant. There was nothing to do but play the percentages and hope they could talk their way out of this before the ferry pulled out because the next ferry was not until 8:45, and they sure as hell couldn’t sit around here until then, there was nothing to do but bluff the hand; the stakes were certainly high enough.

  “Show him your license, Rafe,” the deaf man said.

  Rafe hesitated.

  “Show it to him.”

  Nervously, Rafe reached into his back pocket for his wallet. The deaf man glanced toward the ferry. Two sedans had boarded the boat and a few passengers had ambled aboard after them. On the bridge, the captain looked at his watch, and then reached up for the pull cord. The bellow of the foghorn split the evening air. First warning.

  “Hurry up!” the deaf man said.

  Rafe handed the patrolman his license. The patrolman ran his flashlight over it.

  “This is an operator’s license,” he said. “You’re driving atruck, Mac.”

  “Officer, we’re trying to catch that ferry,” the deaf man said.

  “Yeah, well ain’t that too bad?” the patrolman said, reverting to type, becoming an authoritative son of a bitch because he had them dead to rights and now he was going to play Mr. District Attorney. “Maybe I ought to take a look in your ice box, huh? How come you ain’t got no ice cre—”

  And the deaf man said, “Move her, Rafe!”

  Rafe stepped on the gas pedal, and the foghorn erupted from the bridge of the boat at the same moment, and the deaf man saw the gates go down on the ferry, and suddenly the boat was moving away from the dock, and the patrolman shouted “Hey!” behind them, and then a shot echoed on the rain-streaked air, and the deaf man knew that the percentages had run out, and suddenly the patrolman fired again and Rafe screamed sharply and fell forward over the wheel and the truck swerved wildly out of control as the deaf man leaped from the cab.