The 1st Deadly Sin

by Lawrence Sanders

  There was a gasp from the assembled reporters; they scribbled furiously. Delaney didn’t change expression, but he was grinning inwardly. Did Broughton really think he could talk to Delaney the way he had and not pay for it, eventually? The Department functioned on favors. It also functioned on vengeance. Run for mayor, would he? Lots of luck, Broughton!

  “So,” Captain Delaney continued, “because there is such a complete lack of evidence in the files of Operation Lombard while it was under the command of former Deputy Commissioner Broughton, I am starting from the beginning, with the death of Frank Lombard, and intend to conduct a totally new investigation into the homicides of all four men. I promise you nothing, I prefer to be judged by my acts rather than by my words. This is the first and last press conference I intend to hold until I either have the killer or am relieved of command. I will not answer any questions.”

  An hour after this brief interview, shown in its entirety, appeared on local TV news programs, Captain Delaney received a package at his home. It was brought into his study by one of the uniformed patrolmen on guard duty at the outside door—a 24-hour watch. No one went in or out without showing a special pass Delaney had printed up, issued only to bona fide members of Operation Lombard. The patrolman placed the package on Delaney’s desk.

  “Couldn’t be a bomb, could it, Captain?” he asked anxiously. “You was on TV tonight, you know.”

  “I know,” the Captain nodded. He inspected the package, then picked it up gingerly. He tilted it gently, back and forth. Something sloshed.

  “No,” he said to the nervous officer, “I don’t think it’s a bomb. But you did well to suggest it. You can return to your post.”

  “Yes, sir,” the young patrolman said, saluted and left.

  Handsome, Delaney thought, but those sideburns were too goddamned long.

  He opened the package. It was a bottle of 25-year-old brandy with a little envelope taped to the side. Delaney opened the bottle and sniffed; first things first. He wanted to taste it immediately. Then he opened the sealed envelope. A stiff card. Two words: “Beautiful” and “Alinski.”

  The mood of the “war councils” changed imperceptibly in the three days before Christmas. It was obvious they now had a working, efficient organization. Danny Boy was blanketed by spooks every time he stepped outside home or office. Blankenship’s bookkeeping and communications were beyond reproach. Detective sergeant MacDonald’s snoops had built up a file on Blank that took up three drawers of a locked cabinet in Delaney’s study. It included the story of his refusal to attend his parents’ funeral and a revealing interview with a married woman in Boston who agreed to give her impressions of Daniel Blank while he was in college, under the cover story that Blank was being considered for a high-level security government job. Her comments were damning, but nothing that could be presented to a grand jury. Blank’s ex-wife had remarried and was presently on an around-the-world honeymoon cruise.

  During those last three days before Christmas, the impression was growing amongst Delaney’s assistants—he could feel the mood—that they were amassing a great deal of information about Daniel G. Blank—a lot of it fascinating and libidinous reading—but it amounted to a very small hill of beans. The man had a girl friend. So? Maybe he was or was not sleeping with her brother, Tony. So? He came out occasionally at odd hours, wandered about the streets, looked in shop windows, stopped in at The Parrot for a drink. So?

  “Maybe he’s on to us,” Blankenship. “Maybe he knows the decoys are out every night, and he’s being tailed.”

  “Can’t be,” Fernandez growled angrily. “No way. He don’ even see my boys. As far as he’s concerned, we don’ exist.”

  “I don’t know what else we can do,” MacDonald confessed. “We’ve got him sliced up so thin I can see right through him. Birth certificate, diplomas, passport, bank statements—everything. You’ve seen the file. The man’s laid out there, bareassed naked. Read the file and you’ve got him. Sure, maybe he’s a psychopath, capable of killing I guess. He’s a cold, smart, slick sonofabitch. But take him into court on what we’ve got? Uh-uh. Never. That’s my guess.”

  “Keep at it,” Captain Edward X. Delaney said.

  Things slowed down on Christmas Eve. That was natural, men wanted to be home with their families. Squads were cut to a minimum (mostly bachelors or volunteers), and men sent home early. Delaney spent that quiet afternoon in his study, reading once again through his original Daniel G. Blank file and the great mass of material assembled by Pops and his squad who seemed to get their kicks sifting through dusty documents, military records, tax returns.

  He read it all once more, sipping slowly from a balloon glass of that marvelous brandy Alinski had sent. He would have to call the Deputy Mayor to thank him, or perhaps mail a thank-you note, but meanwhile Alinski’s envelope was added to the stack of unopened Christmas cards and presents that had accumulated in a corner of the study. He’d get to them, eventually, or take them over to Barbara when she was well enough to open them and enjoy them.

  So he sipped brandy through a long Christmas Eve afternoon (the usual conference had been cancelled). As he read, the belief grew in him that the chilling of Danny Boy would come about through the man’s personality, not by any clever police work, the discovery of a “clue,” or by a sudden revelation of friend or lover.

  Who was Daniel G. Blank? Who was he? MacDonald had said he was sliced thin, that he was laid out in that file bareassed naked. No, Delaney thought, just the facts of the man’s life were there. But no one is a simple compilation of official documents, of interviews with friends and acquaintances, of Time-Habit schedules. The essential question remained: Who was Daniel G. Blank?

  Delaney was fascinated by him because he seemed to be two men. He had been a cold, lonely boy who grew up in what apparently had been a loveless home. No record of juvenile delinquency. He was quiet, collected rocks and, until college, didn’t show any particular interest in girls. Then he refused to attend his parents’ funeral. That seemed significant to Delaney. How could anyone, no matter how young, do a thing like that? There was a callous brutality about it that was frightening.

  Then there was his marriage—what was it Lipsky had called her? A big zoftig blonde—the divorce, the girl friend with a boy’s body, then possibly the boy himself, Tony. And meanwhile the sterile apartment with mirrors, the antiseptic apartment with silk bikini underwear and scented toilet paper. And according to one of MacDonald’s beautifully composed and sardonic reports, a fast climb up the corporate ladder.

  Delaney went back to an interview one of MacDonald’s snoops had with a man named Robert White who had been Blank’s immediate superior at Javis-Bircham. He had, from all the evidence and statements available, been knifed and ousted by Daniel Blank. The interview with White had been made under the cover story that Blank was being considered for a high executive position with a corporation competing with J-B.

  “He’s a nice lad,” Bob White had stated (“Possibly under the influence of alcohol,” the interrogating detective had noted carefully in his report). “He’s talented. Lots of imagination. Too much maybe. But he gets the job done: I’ll say that for him. But no blood. You understand? No fucking blood.”

  Captain Delaney stared up at the ceiling. “No fucking blood.” What did that mean? Who was Daniel G. Blank? Of such complexity…Disgusting and fascinating. Courage—no doubt about that; he climbed mountains and he killed. Kind? Of course. He objected when he saw a man hit a dog, and he kept sentimental souvenirs of the men he murdered. Talented and imaginative? Well, his previous boss had said so. Talented and imaginative enough to fuck a 30-year-old woman and her 12-year-old brother, but Delaney didn’t suppose Bob White knew anything about that!

  Who was Dan?

  Captain Delaney rose to his feet, brandy glass in hand, about to propose a toast: “Here’s to you, Danny Boy,” when there was a knock on his study door. He sat down sedately behind his desk.

  “Come in,” he called.


  Lt. Jeri Fernandez stuck his head through the opened door.

  “Busy, Captain?” he asked. “Got a few minutes?”

  “Of course, of course,” Delaney gestured. “Come on in. Got some fine brandy here. How about it?”

  “Ever know me to refuse?” Fernandez asked in mock seriousness, and they both laughed.

  Then Delaney was in his swivel chair, swinging back and forth gently, holding his glass, and Fernandez was in the leather club chair. The lieutenant sipped the brandy, said nothing, but his eyes rolled to Heaven in appreciation.

  “Thought you’d be home by now,” the Captain said.

  “On my way. Just making sure everything’s copasetic.”

  “I know I’ve told you this before, lieutenant, but I’ll say it again: tell your boys not to relax, not for a second. This monkey is fast.”

  Fernandez hunched over in the club chair, leaning forward, head lowered, moving the brandy snifter between his palms.

  “Faster than a thirty-eight, Captain?” he asked in a voice so low that Delaney wasn’t sure he heard him.

  “What?” he demanded.

  “Is this freak faster than a thirty-eight?” Fernandez repeated. This time he raised his head, looked directly into Delaney’s eyes.

  The Captain rose immediately, went to the study doors, closed them and locked them, then came back to sit behind his desk again.

  “What’s on your mind?” he asked quietly, looking directly at Fernandez.

  “Captain, we been at this for—how long? Over a week now. Almost ten days. We got this Danny Boy covered six ways from Sunday. You keep calling him a ‘suspect.’ But I notice we’re not out looking for other suspects, digging into anyone else. Everything we do is about this guy Blank.”

  “So?” Delaney said coldly.

  “So,” Fernandez sighed, looking down at his glass, “I figure maybe you know something we don’ know, something you’re not telling us.” He held up a hand hastily, palm out. “This isn’t a beef, Captain. If there’s something we don’ have to know, that’s your right and privilege. Just thought—maybe—you might be sure of this guy but can’t collar him. For some reason. No witnesses. No evidence that’ll hold up. Whatever. But I figure you know it’s him. Know it!”

  The Captain resumed his slow swinging back and forth in his swivel chair. “Supposing,” he said, “just supposing, mind you, that you’re right, that I know as sure as God made little green apples that Blank is our pigeon, but we can’t touch him. What do you suggest then?”

  Fernandez shrugged. “Supposing,” he said, “just supposing that’s the situation, then I can’t see us collaring Danny Boy unless we grab him in the act. And if he’s as fast as you say he is, we’ll have another stiff before we can do that. Right?”

  Delaney nodded. “Yes,” he said, “I’ve thought of that. So what’s your answer?”

  Fernandez took a sip of brandy, then looked up.

  “Let me take him, Captain,” he said softly.

  Delaney set his brandy glass on the desk blotter, poured himself another small portion of that ambrosia, then carried the bottle over to Fernandez and added to his snifter. He returned to his swivel chair, set the bottle down, began to drum gently on his desk top with one hand, watching the moving fingers,

  “You?” he asked Fernandez. “You alone?”

  “No. I got a friend. The two—”

  “A friend?” Delaney said sharply, looking up. “In the Department?”

  The lieutenant was astonished. “Of course in the Department. Who’s got any friends outside the Department?”

  “All right,” Delaney nodded. “How would you handle it?”

  “The usual,” Fernandez shrugged. “We go up to his apartment and roust him. He resists arrest and tries to escape, so we ice him. Clean and simple and neat.”

  The Captain sighed, shook his head. “It doesn’t listen,” he said.

  “Captain, it’s been done before.”

  “Goddamn it, don’t try to tell me my business,” Delaney shouted furiously. “I know it’s been done before. But we do it your way, and we all get pooped.”

  He jerked to his feet, unbuttoned his uniform jacket, jammed his hands in his hip pockets. He began to pace about the study, not glancing at Fernandez as he talked.

  “Look, lieutenant,” he said patiently, “this guy is no alley cat with a snoot full of shit, that no one cares if he lives or dies. Bum a guy like that, and he’s just a number in a potter’s field. But Danny Boy is somebody. He’s rich, he lives in a luxury apartment house, drives an expensive car, works for a big corporation. He’s got friends, influential friends. Chill him, and people are going to ask questions. And we better have the answers. If it’s done at all, it’s got to be done right.”

  Fernandez opened his mouth to speak, but Delaney held up a hand. “Wait a minute. Let me finish. Now let’s take your plan. You and your friend go up to brace him. How you going to get inside his apartment? I happen to know that guy’s got more locks on his door than you’ll find in a Tombs’ cellblock. You think you’ll knock, say, ‘Police officers,’ and he’ll open up and let you in? The hell he will; he’s too smart for that. He’ll look at you through the peephole and talk to you through the locked door.”

  “Search warrant?” Fernandez suggested.

  “Not a chance,” Delaney shook his head. “Forget it.”

  “Then how about this: One of us goes up and waits outside his door, before he gets home from work. The other guy waits in the lobby until he comes in and rides up in the elevator with him. Then we got him in his hallway between us.”

  “And then what?” the Captain demanded. “You weight him right there in the corridor, while he’s between you, and then claim he was trying to escape or resisting arrest? Who’d buy that?”

  “Well…” Fernandez said doubtfully, “I guess you’re right. But there’s got to—”

  “Shut up a minute and let me think,” Delaney said. “Maybe we can work this out.”

  The lieutenant was silent then, sipping a little brandy, his bright eyes following the Captain as he lumbered about the room.

  “Look,” Delaney said, “there’s a doorman over there. Guy named Charles Lipsky. He’s got access to duplicate keys to every apartment in the building. They hang on a board outside the assistant manager’s office. This Lipsky’s got a sheet. As a matter of fact, he’s on probation, so you can lean on him. Now…you hear on the radio that Danny Boy has left work and is heading home. You and your friend get the keys from Lipsky, go upstairs and get inside Blank’s apartment. Then you relock the door from the inside. So when he comes home, unlocks his door and marches in, you’re already in there.”

  “I like it,” Fernandez grinned.

  “When the time comes I’ll draw you a floor plan so you’ll know where to be when he comes in. Then you—”

  “A floor plan?” the lieutenant interrupted. “But how—”

  “Just don’t worry about it. Don’t even think about it. When the time comes, you’ll have a floor plan. But you give him time to get inside before you show yourselves. Maybe even give him time to relock his door so he can’t make a fast run for it. He’s sure to relock once he’s inside his apartment; that’s the kind of a guy he is. Then you show yourselves. Now here’s where it begins to get cute. Can you get hold of a piece that can’t be traced?”

  “Oh sure. No trouble.”

  “What is it?”

  “A Saturday-night special.”

  The Captain took a deep breath, blew it out in an audible sigh.

  “Lieutenant,” he said gently, “Danny Boy makes fifty-five big ones a year, drives a Stingray, and wears silk underwear. Do you really think he’s the kind of guy who’d own a piece of crap like that? What else can you get?”

  The “Invisible Man” thought a moment, his teeth clenched. “A nine-millimeter Luger,” he said finally. “Brand-new. Right off the docks. Never been used. Still in the oiled envelope.”

  “Wh
at kind of grips.”

  “Wood.”

  “Yesss…” Delaney said thoughtfully. “He might own a gun like that. But the brand-new part is no good. It’ll have to have at least three magazines fired through with a complete breakdown and cleaning between firings. Can you manage that?”

  “No sweat, Captain.”

  “And it’s got to be banged up a little. Not a lot. A few nicks on the grips. A little scratch here and there. You understand?”

  “Like he’s owned it for a long time?”

  “Right. And took it on those mountain climbing trips of his to plink at tin cans or some such shit. Now here’s something else: keep the box or envelope it came in, get the right cleaning tools and some oil-soaked rags. You know, the usual crap. This stuff you turn over to me.”

  “To you, Captain?”

  “Yes, to me. All right, now you and your buddy are inside the apartment, and the door is locked. You’ve both got your service revolvers, and one of you has also got the used Luger. It’s loaded. Full magazine. As soon as Danny Boy is inside his apartment, and has locked the door, you show. And for God’s sake, have your sticks out. Don’t relax for a second. Keep this guy covered.”

  “Don’ worry, he’ll be covered.”

  “Don’t say a word to him, not a word. Just back him toward the bedroom door. You’ll see where it is on that floor plan I’ll draw for you. Now this is where you’ve got to work fast. As soon as he’s in the bedroom doorway, or near it, facing you, weight him. Make it fast, and—this is important—make certain you both ice him. I don’t know how good a friend this pal of yours is, but you’ve both got to do it. You understand?”