Bread (87th Precinct)

by McBain, Ed

  “This is what I found out about those two creeps,” Ollie said. “First thing I did was call Cartwright and Fields, the credit reporting agency downtown, and talked to a lady named Mrs. Clara Tresore of the Service Department. She gave me a lot of static about coming down to the fourth floor there and showing my credentials, and I told her it was already three in the afternoon and I didn’t have time to come running downtown. So she hemmed and hawed, and finally called me back a half hour later to give me the information I needed. Okay, it turns out that Diamondback Development was incorporated in September of last year, the three officers of the corporation being Robinson Worthy as president, Alfred Allen Chase as vice-president, and a guy named Oscar Hemmings as treasurer. Principal assets at the time of incorporation were five thousand nine hundred seventy-five dollars, stock divided evenly among the three officers. Principal business activity of the firm was stated to be ‘the purchase and redevelopment of properties in that section of the city known as Diamondback.’ Sounds legit so far, don’t it?” “It does,” Carella said. He was beginning to think about Roger Grimm and his import business, and the firms in Hamburg and Bremerhaven. He immediately put them out of his mind. He even had trouble explaining the new math to his twins, and he suspected he was not cut out for an executive position in an international cartel. He did not yet know that in a little while Hawes would bring him information about yet another business, the little porn shop Charlie Harrod had been running. His mind would have snapped.

  “You with me so far?” Ollie asked.

  “I’m with you,” Carella said, not entirely sure he was.

  “Okay, I next checked with the Better Business Bureau and the Credit Bureau of Greater Isola and also the Diamondback Credit Bureau, and I learned that these guys have good credit ratings, no complaints from anybody they ever dealt with, bills paid on time, all the rest of it. It still looks good, it still looks legit.”

  “When does it start looking bad?” Carella asked.

  “Give me a minute, will you?” Ollie said. He consulted his notes, which he had fastidiously hand-lettered onto the backs of several printed Detective Division forms, and then looked up again. “Okay, so these guys are in the business of buying property and redeveloping it, right? So I called Land Transfer Records, and I found out these guys bought a total of nine abandoned buildings in Diamondback since they went into business. They bought all those buildings from their original owners, and the prices paid were less than what they would’ve got them for at auction. You want to hear some of the prices?”

  “Sure, why not?” Carella said.

  “The prices are important,” Ollie said. “For example, they paid sixty-three hundred for a three-story brick building on the south side of Thorp Avenue; twenty-seven hundred for a two-story frame on Kosinsky Boulevard; thirty-eight hundred for a three-story limestone facade on Hull and Twenty-fifth, and like that. Total cost for the nine buildings was forty-eight thousand seven hundred fifty. You got that?”

  “I’ve got it,” Carella said, not so sure he had.

  “So next I called License and Building Records, and I learned that Diamondback Development, even though they now have nine buildings that they own outright and a firm of architects making drawings for them, has only renovated one building in all this time—a dump over on St. Sebastian Avenue. The architects are a firm called Design Associates on Ainsley. I called them and they told me their fee for the drawings had been fifty thousand dollars.”

  “How’d you know who the architects were?”

  “I called Worthy and Chase and they told me, how do you think? Those two creeps are anxious to establish they’re legit; they told me the name of their architects, and also the name of their bank—which was their first mistake.”

  “What’s the bank?”

  “Bankers First on Culver Avenue, three blocks from their office. I called about four o’clock, it must’ve been. They close the doors at three, you know, but they keep working inside there till five, sometimes six o’clock. I spoke to the manager, a guy named Fred Epstein, and he told me Diamondback Development had a checking account and also a safety deposit box. I asked him if I could take a peek in the box, and he said not without a court order—you need a goddamn court order for a coffee break nowadays. So I ran out of the office, and downtown, and I got a municipal judge to write me the order, and I got uptown again around five and went through the box, and guess what?”

  “What?” Carella said.

  “There’s close to eight hundred thousand in cash in that box. Now that’s a pretty hefty sum for three bare-assed develop ers who started their business with five thousand nine hundred seventy-five dollars, don’t you think?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “And who, don’t forget, have already laid out close to a hundred thousand buying buildings and getting architects to make drawings for them. Not to mention what it must’ve cost to do that one renovation job. Where’d all that money come from, Carella?”

  “I don’t know,” Carella said.

  “Neither do I.”

  “Did you tell all this to Hawes?”

  “I knew it when I called him, but there was one other thing I wanted to check before I filled him in.”

  “What was that?”

  “The third guy in Diamondback Development. Oscar Hemmings. The treasurer.”

  “Did you get a line on him?”

  “Yeah, he lives in that building on Saint Sebastian, the one Diamondback Development renovated. I plan to look him up tomorrow. I already checked with the IS, he hasn’t got a record. Neither has Worthy, by the way. Chase is another story. He took a fall five years ago, for Burglary/Two, was sentenced to ten at Castleview, got out on parole in three-and-a-half.”

  “When was that?”

  “When he was released? Be two years come November.”

  “Has the FBI got anything on any of them?”

  “Got a request in now,” Ollie said. “I should be hearing pretty soon.”

  “You’ve been busy, Ollie,” Carella said. He did not like Ollie, but he made no attempt to hide his admiration for what Ollie had accomplished in the space of several hours. This was what he had tried to explain to Hawes earlier. Fat Ollie Weeks was a terrible person, but in many respects a good cop. Throwing away his investigative instincts and his dogged ferreting-out of facts would be tantamount to throwing away the baby with the bathwater. And yet, working with him rankled. So what was one to do? In all good conscience, what was one to do? Treat him like a computer spewing out information, thereby dehumanizing him and committing the same offense that so offended? Ollie Weeks was a problem. Moreover, Carella suspected he was a problem without a solution. He was what he was. There was no taking him aside and calmly explaining the facts of life to him. “Uh, Ollie baby, it’s not nice, these things you say. Some people may find them offensive, you dig, Ollie?” How do you explain to a crocodile that it’s not nice to eat other animals? “It’s in my nature,” he’ll reply. “That’s why God gave me such sharp teeth.” God alone knew why He had given Ollie Weeks such sharp teeth, but short of knocking them out of his mouth, Carella didn’t know quite what to do about them.

  “You’re damn right I’ve been busy,” Ollie said, and grinned, thereby adding modesty to all his other virtues.

  Both men heard voices in the corridor outside, and turned toward the slatted railing. Hawes was coming into the squadroom, followed by Kissman, who was carrying a tape recorder. Kissman looked older than Carella remembered him. He suddenly wondered if he looked the same way to Kissman.

  “Hi, Alan,” he said.

  “Martin,” Kissman said.

  “Martin, Martin, right,” Carella said, and nodded. He was tired, his head was full of too many figures. Money, money, money, it always got down to love or money in the crime business. “This is Ollie Weeks of the Eight-Three. Martin Kissman, Narcotics.”

  The men shook hands briefly, and looked each other over, like advertising executives wondering if they’
d be working together on the same account.

  “Where’s the girl?” Ollie asked, suddenly realizing Hawes had gone out to bust Elizabeth Benjamin and had come back with a Narcotics cop instead.

  “In Diamondback Hospital,” Hawes said.

  “With two broken legs, some broken ribs, and a broken jaw,” Kissman said.

  “Why didn’t you call me?” Ollie said to Hawes, offended.

  “It all happened too fast,” Hawes answered. “But Kissman’s got a tape of what went on in the apartment…”

  “A tape?” Ollie said. He was enormously confused. He blinked his eyes and reached for a handkerchief. Mopping his brow, he said, “I don’t know what’s going on here,” which was true enough.

  Hawes explained it to him while Kissman set up the recorder. Then the four men sat in straight-backed chairs around the desk as Kissman pressed the PLAY button. The tape started with a sequence that had been recorded earlier in the day:

  —His things’ve been looked through. Four times already. The pigs’ve been in and out of this place like it was a subway station.

  “Who’s that?” Ollie whispered.

  “The girl,” Hawes whispered back.

  —The police have been here before?

  —Not while we were home.

  —Then how do you know they were here?

  “Who’s the guy?” Ollie asked.

  “Me,” Hawes said.

  “You?” Ollie said, even more confused.

  —Charlie set traps for them. Pigs ain’t exactly bright, you know. Charlie found those bugs—

  “Can you run it ahead?” Hawes asked.

  —ten minutes after they planted them.

  Kissman stopped the tape, and then pressed the FAST FORWARD button, watching the footage meter, stabbing the STOP button, and then pushing the PLAY button again. This time he was closer on target:

  —better get here fast. The apartment. I did what you said, I stayed here. And now they’ve come to get me. The ones who killed Charlie. They’re outside on the fire escape. They’re gonna smash in here as soon as they work up the courage.

  There was the sound of shattering glass, and then at last three, possibly four different voices erupted onto the tape:

  —Get away from that phone!

  —Hold her, watch it!

  —She’s…

  —I’ve got her!

  Elizabeth screamed. There was a click on the tape, probably the phone being replaced on its cradle, and then the sounds of a scuffle, a chair being overturned perhaps, feet moving in rapid confusion over the linoleum floor. From the squadroom railing, Meyer Meyer, coming back with a container of coffee and a cheese Danish, said, “What’s going on?”

  “Quiet,” Hawes said.

  Elizabeth was sobbing now. There were the sodden sounds of something hard hitting human flesh.

  —Oh, please, no.

  —Shut up, bitch!

  —Hold her, get her legs!

  —Please, please.

  She screamed again, a long blood-curdling scream that raised the hackles on the necks of five experienced detectives who had seen and heard almost everything in the horror department. There was the sound of more blows, even in cadence now, a methodical beating being administered to a girl already unconscious.

  —Come on, that’s enough.

  —Hold her, lay off, you’re gonna kill her!

  —Let’s go, let’s go.

  —What’s that?

  —Let’s get the hell out of here, man.

  There was the sound of footsteps running, the tinkle of glass, window shards probably breaking loose as they went out through the window. The sensitive mike picked up a moan from the kitchen floor, and then there was utter silence.

  Kissman turned off the recorder.

  “How many do you think?” Hawes asked.

  “Four or five,” Ollie said. “Hard to tell.”

  “There’s something I don’t understand,” Carella said, frowning. “You want to run that back for me, Martin?”

  “To where?”

  “To where one of them says something about killing her.”

  Kissman rewound the tape, and then pushed the PLAY button:

  —Oh, please, no.

  —Shut up, bitch!

  —Hold her, get her legs!

  —Please, please.

  The girl’s terrified scream sounded into the squadroom again, and again the men sat speechless, like children who did not know about monsters in the night. They listened again to the speechlessly administered beating, and waited for the next voice on the tape:

  —Come on, that’s enough.

  —Hold her, lay off, you’re gonna kill her!

  —Let’s go, let’s go.

  “Cut it there,” Carella said, and Kissman turned off the machine. “I don’t get those instructions.”

  “What instructions?”

  “The guy tells somebody to hold her and to lay off at the same time,” Carella said. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “He keeps yelling that all through the tape,” Kissman said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “To hold her. He keeps telling one of the other guys to hold her.”

  “There’s a lot of noise on that tape,” Ollie said. “Maybe we’re hearing it wrong.”

  “No, that comes through loud and clear,” Hawes said. “He yells ‘Hold her,’ there’s no question about it.”

  “Do they sound young to you?” Kissman said.

  “Some of them.”

  “They sound black, that’s for sure,” Ollie said, and Hawes frowned at him, but Ollie didn’t seem to notice.

  “Play that part again, will you?” Carella said. “About killing her.”

  Kissman located the spot on the tape, and they played the single sentence over and over again, listening to it intently, searching for meaning in the seeming contradiction: Hold her, lay off, you’re gonna kill her! Hold her, lay off, you’re gonna kill her! Hold her, lay off, you’re gonna kill her! Hold her, hold her, hold ‘er, hold ‘er, holder, holder…

  “It’s his name!” Hawes said, rising suddenly out of his chair.

  “What?” Ollie said.

  “Holder! Jamie Holder!”

  Three of them went into the clubroom together—Ollie Weeks because officially the Harrod homicide was his; Carella and Hawes because officially the Reardon homicide was theirs. Besides, it does not hurt to have a lot of firepower when you’re going in against an indeterminate number of hoodlums.

  The clubroom was in the basement of a tenement on North Twenty-seventh Street. They had no difficulty locating the clubroom because the cops of the 83rd kept an active file on all neighborhood street gangs, and a call from Ollie to his own squadroom immediately pinpointed the headquarters of The Ancient Skulls. Standing in the basement corridor outside the clubroom, they listened at the door and heard music within, and several voices, male and female. They did not knock, they did not bother with any formalities; they were dealing here with people who had maybe committed murder and assault. Fat Ollie kicked in the door, and Carella and Hawes fanned into the room directly behind him, guns drawn. Two young men standing at the record player turned toward the door as it burst open into the room. A boy and a girl, necking on a sofa on the wall opposite the door, jumped to their feet the moment the detectives entered. Two other couples were dancing close in separate dim corners. They turned immediately toward the intruders and stopped dancing, but did not break apart. There was another door at the far end of the room. Ollie moved to it swiftly and kicked it open. A naked boy and girl were on the bed.

  “Up!” Ollie said. “Put your clothes on!”

  “What is this?” one of the boys near the record player asked.

  Hawes recognized him as the bearded pool player named Avery Evans.

  “It’s a bust,” Carella said. “Shut up.”

  “Where’s Jamie Holder?” Hawes asked.

  “In the other room.”

  “Hurry it up, Lo
ver Boy,” Ollie said. “Man outside wants to talk to you.”

  “What’d I do?” Holder asked from the other room.

  “I’m the president here,” Avery said, moving away from the record player. “I’d like to know what’s going on, if you don’t mind.”

  “What’s your name?” Carella said.

  “Avery Evans.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Ollie said. “You! Get over against the wall there! This ain’t a Friday night social. Cut off that record player!”

  “I expect you have a warrant,” Avery said.

  “Yeah, here’s our warrant,” Ollie said, and gestured with the .38 Special in his fist. “You want to read it?”

  “I don’t understand this,” Avery said. “The Ancient Skulls have always cooperated with the police. Would you mind telling me…?”

  “We’ll tell you at the squadroom,” Ollie said. “Come on, girls, you too!” He shoved his pistol into the other room, and shouted, “You ain’t dressing for the governor’s ball, Holder! Shake it up in there or I’ll come help you.”

  The girl who had been in bed with Holder had dressed rapidly, and now came out of the other room, buttoning her blouse. She could not have been older than sixteen, a doe-eyed girl with a beautiful face and a flawless complexion Avery stepped up close to Carella and said, as if he were confiding to him, “I suppose you realize that The Ancient Skulls are the only neighborhood club that…”

  “Tell us later,” Carella said.

  “Will you tell us why you’re taking us to the squadroom?” Avery asked. “Has there been some trouble with one of the other clubs?”

  “No,” Carella said flatly.

  Jamie Holder came into the room. He was as big as Hawes remembered him, with powerful wrists and huge hands. “What’s the static, man?” he asked.

  “They’ve made a mistake, Holder,” Avery said.

  “Oh, sure,” Holder said.