Bread (87th Precinct)

by McBain, Ed

  “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Hemmings,” Ollie said, and extended his hand.

  Hemmings was a handsome man of perhaps fifty, impeccably dressed in a brown lightweight business suit, beige shirt with a button-down collar, simple tie of a deeper shade of brown. His face was craggy, a strong sledgehammer nose, well-pronounced cheekbones, a firm mouth, a square jaw. His hair was turning gray, styled to hide the fact that it was thinning a bit. His handshake was firm. He smiled thinly and said in a very low voice, “Nice to meet you, Detective Weeks.”

  Ollie did not miss the fact that Hemmings knew who he was. This meant that Worthy and Chase had discussed him with their partner. He filed away the information, and said, “I really didn’t just happen to be in the neighborhood. I came up here deliberately.” Worthy and Hemmings said nothing. “First of all, I wanted to apologize,” Ollie said. “I really behaved like an asshole yesterday, Mr. Worthy. I don’t know what got into me.” The Diamondback partners still said nothing. “Also, I wanted to tell you we got the people we think killed Charlie Harrod. Least of all, we know they beat up Harrod’s girlfriend. I just came from the hospital, where I got positive identification on four of them, so I thought you’d be happy to hear that.”

  “Yes, we’re very happy to hear that,” Worthy said.

  “You fellows put in a long week, don’t you?” Ollie said. “Work Saturdays and all, huh?”

  “So do you, it seems,” Hemmings said, and again smiled his razor-blade smile.

  “No, no, I’m off today,” Ollie said. “Think I’ll take in a ball game or something.” He paused, and then said, “By the way, Mr. Hemmings, we stopped by at an apartment we thought was yours because we were trying to locate you this morning…”

  “Oh?” Hemmings said.

  “Yeah, when we picked up these guys, you know, who we think killed Harrod.”

  “Yes?” Hemmings said.

  “Yes,” Ollie said. “Yes. We wanted somebody in the company to know about it, and I was a little embarrassed about contacting Mr. Worthy here because of the way I hassled him yesterday.” He smiled in apology. “So we went over to the apartment on Saint Sebastian.”

  “Why didn’t you simply telephone?” Hemmings asked.

  “Well, it was close by, no sweat.” Ollie paused. “We met the girl living there.”

  “Yes?” Hemmings said.

  “Yes. Girl named Rosalie Waggener. Nice girl.”

  Hemmings said nothing.

  “She ought to get the door fixed,” Ollie said. “The lock’s busted.” He smiled again. “Well, just thought I’d let you know everything’s all wrapped up, and I’m sorry I gave you such a hard time. I’ll see you, huh? Keep up the good work here in Diamondback.” He chopped his beefy hand into the air in farewell, and went out. In the hallway outside, he put his ear to the frosted-glass door and listened. Someone was dialing a telephone. He expected that would be Oscar Hemmings trying to reach his little white bimbo. Ollie smiled and went downstairs and out of the building.

  The streets were already beginning to blister under the onslaught of the early-morning sun. Ollie walked two blocks up Landis, turned left, and continued walking north toward the River Harb. A green panel truck was parked in front of an abandoned warehouse facing the river. The man at the wheel of the truck was dozing, a cap pulled down over his eyes, a matchstick between his teeth. Ollie rapped on the partially closed window, and the man jerked suddenly awake.

  “I’m Weeks,” Ollie said. “You the guy from the Motor Pool?”

  “Yeah,” the man said. “Halloran.”

  Ollie stepped back and looked over the truck. “They sent a good one for a change,” he said. “It must be a miracle. Most of these goddamn trucks, everybody in the neighborhood knows it’s taking pictures. This is a nice one, company name painted on the side and everything. Even a phony telephone number. Real classy.”

  “The number’s hooked into a phone at Headquarters downtown,” Halloran said. “Anybody calls it to check whether this is a phony truck, a guy answers and gives the name of the company painted on the side there.”

  “Ah yes,” Ollie said in his W. C. Fields voice, “very classy, very classy indeed.” In his natural voice he said, “I got to make a phone call, Halloran. Soon as I’m done, we’re heading for 2914 Landis. Okay?”

  “Sure, why not?” Halloran said, and shrugged.

  When the telephone rang on Carella’s desk, he thought it might be Yarborough calling back from Castleview. Instead, it was Ollie Weeks.

  “Carella,” he said, “this is Ollie. Has Hawes called in yet?”

  “No. Why?”

  “I found Oscar Hemmings, there’s no need for him to stick with the girl.”

  “I’ll tell him if he calls.”

  “There’s one other thing,” Ollie said. “He was up there alone with Worthy, which means I can’t get nothing on Chase. You want to handle that from your end?”

  “You thinking of the IS?”

  “Yeah, Chase has a record, so they’re sure to have mug shots of him.”

  “Will do,” Carella said.

  “I got to get moving,” Ollie said. “Before my jigaboo friends decide to leave without me.”

  Rosalie Waggener came down the front steps of 1137 St. Sebastian at a little past 10:30. She was wearing bell-bottomed, hip-hugger tan pants, a scoop-necked, horizontally striped top, and brown low-heeled shoes. In her right hand, she was clutching a small brown pocketbook, which she waved frantically at a passing taxicab the moment she stepped onto the curb.

  Cotton Hawes, watching from the doorway across the street, did not know that a call to the squadroom would have advised him to drop the tail. He knew only that he had better get to his car damn fast, because the cab had already squealed to a stop just ahead and was now backing up to the curb to pick up Rosalie. Hawes’s car was parked halfway up the block. He began walking swiftly, turning once to see Rosalie getting into the taxi. He had just climbed behind the wheel, and was starting the car, when the taxi flashed by.

  With a little luck, Hawes figured he would catch up at the next traffic light.

  In the rear of the panel truck, sitting behind a camera equipped with a telescopic lens and mounted on a tripod, Ollie Weeks sat behind the equivalent of a one-way-two-way mirror, waiting to take photographs of Worthy and Hemmings the moment they came out of the building across the street. Ollie was looking through a clear pane of glass. The other side of the glass was painted green, like the side of the truck, and then lettered over in yellow paint with the name of the fake company, its address, and the telephone number of the phone downtown at Headquarters.

  There was a steady stream of traffic, mostly women, into 2914 Landis. Ollie figured they were heading up to BLACK FASHIONS on the third floor. Ollie watched the women through the telescopic lens. One thing you had to say for black broads, they had good legs.

  Hemmings and Worthy did not come out of the building until twenty minutes past 11:00. The moment they appeared at the top of the steps, coming through the door, Ollie began taking pictures. He cocked the camera and pressed the shutter release a total of thirteen times before they reached the sidewalk, and then he got three more shots of them moving away in profile. Ollie nodded in satisfaction and rapped on the panel leading to the front of the truck.

  Halloran slid it open. “Yeah?”

  “I need to go downtown to the IS,” Ollie said.

  “You finished here?” Halloran asked.

  “Yeah. But I got to get this stuff developed and printed.”

  “I’m supposed to take the truck back when you’re finished.”

  “You can take me downtown first.”

  “This ain’t a goddamn taxi,” Halloran said, but he started the truck and pointed it downtown.

  “Carella?”

  “Yes?”

  “This is Yarborough. I got that information you want.”

  “Go ahead,” Carella said.

  “This Roger Grimm character was paroled four years a
go. Chase was still here at the time, had already served a year and a little more of his sentence.”

  “Right, I’ve got that already.”

  “Okay. The minute Grimm got out, he began writing to Chase. Correspondence was hot and heavy for about six months. Chase wrote to Grimm, and vice versa, at least once a week, sometimes twice. Then all at once, the correspondence stopped. You know what I think? These guys maybe had a thing here in prison, you know what I mean? Lovers, you know? You’d be surprised what goes on up here.”

  “Yes, I’d be surprised,” Carella said.

  “I’m only speculating,” Yarborough said. “Maybe they were just friends, who knows? You know the one about the lady with the monkeys?”

  “No, which one is that?” Carella said.

  “This lady comes into a taxidermist with two dead monkeys, you know, and she says she wants them stuffed. So the taxidermist says, ‘Yes, lady, I’ll stuff the monkeys. You want them mounted, too?’ And the lady thinks for a minute and says, ‘No, they were only friends. Just have them shaking hands.’ ” Yarborough burst out laughing. Carella, who had remembered the joke after the first line, chuckled politely. “So maybe Grimm and Chase were only friends, who knows?” Yarborough said, still laughing. “Anyway, they wrote to each other a lot after Grimm got out.”

  “You wouldn’t know whether or not they were cellmates, would you?”

  “That’s another department,” Yarborough said.

  “When did the correspondence between them stop?”

  “Six months after Grimm got paroled.”

  “Okay,” Carella said. “Thanks a lot.”

  “Wait a minute,” Yarborough said. “Two other things.”

  “I’m sorry, I thought you were…”

  “They began writing to each other again just before Chase got paroled. Chase wrote the first letter, and then Grimm answered, and then they exchanged maybe a dozen more letters before Chase finally left this joint. That’s the first thing.”

  “What’s the second thing?”

  “The second thing is I need a letter from you formally requesting this information.”

  “You already gave me the information,” Carella said. “Why do you need a letter from me requesting it?”

  “To cover me. Just in case.”

  “In case of what?”

  “I don’t know what. Just in case. Send me the letter, Carella.”

  “Okay,” Carella said, and sighed. “Thanks again.”

  “How’s it down there in the city?” Yarborough asked.

  “Hot,” Carella said.

  “Yeah, here too,” Yarborough said, and hung up.

  Carella pressed one of the buttons in the receiver rest, held it down for a second, and then released it, getting a dial tone. He called the Identification Section and told the man he spoke to that he urgently needed some eight-by-ten glossies of Alfred Allen Chase’s mug shots.

  The man listened to the request, and then said, “This is Saturday, pal.”

  “Yeah, it’s Saturday here, too,” Carella said.

  “I don’t even know if there’s anybody next door in the Photo Unit.”

  “Find somebody,” Carella said.

  Downtown on High Street, the man in the Photographic Unit took the roll of film from Ollie’s hand and said, “You’re gonna have to wait. I just got a rush order from next door.”

  “Yeah, well make it snappy, willya?” Ollie said. “This is a rush order, too.” He went down the hall to the phone booths, dialed the 87th, and when he got Carella, said, “I took more’n a dozen pictures, we’re bound to get one or two good ones. You heard from Hawes yet?”

  “No, not yet.”

  “What the hell’s the matter with him? Don’t he know he’s supposed to check in?”

  “I guess he’s busy,” Carella said.

  “What’d you find out at Castleview?”

  “Chase and Grimm knew each other. They corresponded regularly.”

  “Just what we figured,” Ollie said. “Did you get those pictures from the IS?”

  “Should be here in a little while, I hope.”

  “Okay, I’ll see you soon,” Ollie said.

  He had not told Carella where he was, and Carella did not think to ask. Nor did the man in the Photographic Unit tell Ollie that the rush order from next door was earmarked for a detective named Steve Carella of the 87th Squad. He did not tell Ollie because it was none of Ollie’s business. Ollie didn’t ask him anything about the rush order because all Ollie wanted was his own damn pictures and fast. Besides, Carella had already assured him the mug shots of Chase should be up at the squadroom in just a little while. Ollie left High Street with his own eight-by-ten glossies at a quarter to one. The package to Carella from the PU (as it was affectionately called by any detective who’d ever had to wait for photographs) did not arrive at the squadroom until almost 1:30. They had still not heard from Hawes, so they decided to hit Reardon’s landlady all by their lonesomes.

  Rosalie Waggener’s taxi had traveled directly up Ainsley Avenue until it reached the Hamilton Bridge. Actually there were two Hamilton Bridges in the city, one of them on the northern side of Isola, crossing the River Harb into the next state, and formally called the Alexander Hamilton Bridge. This was not to be confused with the plain old Hamilton Bridge, which crossed the Diamondback River up around Piney Hill Terrace (upon which there was not a single pine tree) and connected Isola and Riverhead, which were both parts of the same state and, in fact, the same city. If you asked anyone in the city for directions to the Hamilton Bridge, they would invariably give you directions to the Alexander Hamilton Bridge. In fact, odds were nine-to-five that nobody in the city even knew there was a bridge simply called the Hamilton, less than a block long and spanning the Diamondback River, which incidentally became the River Dix a little further west—it was all very complicated, though not as complicated as the city of Bologna, Italy.

  The cab continued south into Riverhead, crossing the old College Road and then turning and proceeding west on Marlowe Avenue for several blocks. It finally pulled up before a red-brick apartment building on Marlowe, a few blocks from the elevated train tracks on Geraldson Avenue. Hawes pulled his own car into the curb, cut the ignition, and watched as Rosalie, some seven car lengths ahead, got out of the taxi and went directly into the building. He waited a respectable five minutes, figuring a building so tall had to be an elevator building, and not wanting her to be waiting in the lobby when he went inside. At the end of that time, he went in, found the mailboxes, and began checking out the nameplates.

  There were ten stories in the building, with six apartments on each floor. According to the nameplates, Oscar Hemmings did not live in the building.

  But on the mailbox for Apartment 45, there was a plate engraved with a name Hawes recognized.

  He squinted at the name, and then scratched his head.

  “My husband is downtown buying hardware,” Barbara Loomis said. “Anything I can do for you?”

  She was wearing very tight, very short navy-blue shorts and a pink shirt with the tails knotted just under her breasts. “Come in,” she said, “come in. Nobody going to bite you.”

  They went into the apartment and sat at the kitchen table. Fat Ollie kept trying to look into her blouse. He was sure she wasn’t wearing a bra, and the top three buttons of the blouse were unbuttoned. Carella spread the photographs on the tabletop—the mug shots of Alfred Allen Chase; the police photographer’s shots of Charlie Harrod in death, eyes wide and staring up at the camera; the snapshot of Elizabeth Benjamin standing against the tenement wall, smiling; and the front and side shots Ollie had taken of Robinson Worthy and Oscar Hemmings that morning.

  “Recognize any of these people?” he asked Barbara.

  “Yeah, sure I do,” Barbara said. “What happened to the big redheaded cop? How come he didn’t come back with these?”

  “Won’t we do?” Ollie said, and grinned.

  “Which of them do you recognize?”
Carella asked.

  “You fellows want a beer?” Barbara said.

  “No, thanks,” Carella said.

  “I wouldn’t mind one,” Ollie said, and watched Barbara’s behind when she rose and walked to the refrigerator. He winked at Carella and grinned again.

  Barbara came back to the table, set the beer before Ollie, and then looked down at the pictures. “This is the girl Frank shacked up with those two nights,” she said, and pointed to the picture of Elizabeth Benjamin.

  “And the others?” Carella said.

  “Two of those men came to see Frank at the end of July.”

  “Which ones?” Carella asked.

  “This one and this one,” Barbara said, her forefinger tapping first Charlie Harrod’s head and then Robinson Worthy’s.

  “Recognize the other man in that picture?” Carella asked.

  “This one?” she asked. She lifted the picture Ollie had taken, and peered at Oscar Hemmings. “No,” she said. “Never saw him here. That doesn’t mean he’s never been here, it just means I never saw him.”

  “Okay. How about this man?” Carella asked, and shoved the picture of Alfred Allen Chase across the table.

  “Nope, never saw him either,” Barbara said, and turned to Ollie and smiled. “How’s the beer?” she asked.

  “Delicious,” Ollie said. “Just delicious, m’little chickadee,” and Barbara giggled girlishly.

  In the car riding uptown to the squadroom, Carella said, “Worthy and Harrod. They’re definitely the ones who made contact with Reardon, which means Diamondback Development burned out Grimm.”

  “Right,” Ollie said. “I think that lady can be banged, you know that?”

  “I don’t get it,” Carella said.

  “You know what she said to me?”

  “What?” Carella asked absently.

  “She said her bedroom is air-conditioned. I tell you that lady can be banged, Carella.”

  “It was Rosalie Waggener who went to Bremen, right?” Carella said. “And she’s Hemmings’s girlfriend, right?”