Cop Out

by Ellery Queen

  “You make me throw up. And she did? It’s a free country, ain’t it? Two people having a bite?”

  “Why take chances?”

  “Who’s taking chances?”

  “You are. With that bag between your legs. And packing the gun.”

  “We’ll take off when I’ve ate my steak.” His lips were thinning down. “Now knock it off, she’s coming back. Steak medium-well, side order fries, two black. And don’t take all night.”

  The waitress wrote it down. “You’re not having anything but coffee, Miss?”

  “I just told you, didn’t I?” Furia said with a stare.

  She left fast. His stare warmed as he watched her behind. “No wonder Hinch got his tongue hanging out. I could go for a piece of that myself.”

  Flying all right.

  “Fure-”

  “She don’t know you from her old lady’s mustache.” His tone said that the subject was closed. Goldie shut her eyes again.

  When his steak came it was too rare. Another time he would have turned nasty and fired it back. As it was he ate it, grousing. Steaks were a problem with him. Cooks always thought the waitress had heard wrong. He hated bloody meat. I ain’t no goddam dog, he would say.

  He hacked off massive chunks, including the fat, and bolted them. The fork never left his fist. Goldie sipped carefully. Her skin was one big itch. Psycho-something, a doctor had told her. He had sounded like some shrink and she had never gone back. It had been worse recently.

  Hinch was working away on the girl behind the counter, she was beginning to look sore.

  One of these days I’m going to ditch these creeps.

  At eleven o’clock, as Furia was stabbing his last slice of potato, the shortorder man turned on the radio. Goldie, on her feet, sat down again.

  “Now what?”

  “That’s the station at Tonekeneke Falls, WRUD, with the late news.”

  “So?”

  “Fure, I have this feeling.”

  “You and your feels,” Furia said. “You’re goosier than an old broad tonight. Let’s hit it.”

  “Will it hurt to listen a minute?”

  He sat back comfortably and began to pick his teeth with the edge of a matchpacket cover. “First you can’t wait to blow the dump-”

  He stopped. The announcer was saying: “-this bulletin. Thomas F. Howland, bookkeeper of the Aztec Paper Products company branch in New Bradford, was found in his office a few minutes ago shot to death. Mr. Howland was alone at the plant, preparing the payroll for tomorrow, when he was apparently surprised by robbers, who killed him and escaped with over twenty-four thousand dollars in cash, according to Curtis Pickney, the general manager, who found the slain bookkeeper’s body. Mr. Pickney was driving by on his way home from a late Zoning Board meeting, saw lights in the plant, and investigated. He notified the New Bradford police and Chief John Secco has taken charge of the case. The Resident State Trooper in New Bradford is also on the scene. A search is being organized for Edward Taylor, the night security guard, who has disappeared. Police fear that Taylor may also have been the victim of foul play. We will bring you further bulletins as they come in. In Washington today the President announced… “

  “No,” Furia said. “Stay put.” He nodded at Hinch, who had turned their way. Hinch was blinking his pink eyes. At Furia’s signal he tossed a bill on the counter and ran out with two truckdrivers who had jumped up and left their hamburgers uneaten.

  “I told you, Fure!”

  “Say, Miss America, how’s about two more coffees?”

  The waitress took their empty cups. “I can’t believe it,” she said. “That nice old guy.”

  “Who?”

  “That Tom Howland.”

  “The one they say got shot? You knew him?”

  “He ate in here all the time. Used to bend my ear by the hour. I can’t believe it.”

  “You never know,” Furia said, shaking his head. “Step on those coffees, huh, doll?”

  She went away.

  “Some day you’ll learn to listen to me,” Goldie muttered. “I told you to just tie him up. No, you’ve got to go and shoot him.”

  “Goddam it, Goldie, you bug the living hell out of me sometimes, you know that?”

  They drank their second cups in silence. There was no music in the diner now. The cook had turned the radio off, too. People were arguing about the robbery and murder. Furia said, “Now,” and rose. Goldie slid from the booth and made her way safely to the door. Furia, carrying the black bag, strolled up to the counter and said to the waitress, “How much for the lousy steak and javas?”

  Goldie slipped out.

  Hinch had the motor running when Furia got in beside him. “Turn on the police band.”

  Hinch turned it on. The air was full of directives and acknowledgments. The state police were setting up roadblocks throughout the area.

  “Now what?” Goldie had her arms folded over her breasts. “Big shot?”

  “You want I should shove your teeth down your throat, is that what you want?” Furia said. “I ought to let Hinch work you over.”

  “Any time, pal,” Hinch said.

  “Who asked you? I got to think.”

  “What’s to think?” Hinch said. “We hole up in the hideout till the heat goes away, like we said. No sweat. Let’s drag, Fure.”

  “If you had a brain you’d be a dope.” Furia had a roadmap of the area spread on his lap under the maplight. “To get there from here we got to cross this intersection. There’s no other road in. That’ll be one of their main checkpoints. We can’t make it tonight. We got to think of something else.”

  “You’d better get rid of the gun,” Goldie said remotely. She was burrowed as far as she could get into the corner of the rear seat.

  “Not till I get me another one.”

  “You going to kill somebody else for one?”

  “I told you!”

  “Why didn’t you take the watchman’s gun?”

  “Because it landed in some bushes when we jumped him. We couldn’t hang around looking for it in the dark. I’ll get one, don’t worry.”

  “It’s a wonder you didn’t shoot him, too.”

  “You’re asking for a rap in that big moosh of yours, Goldie. I’m telling you! When Howland sent this Taylor into town for coffee and we hit him on the road, he put up a fight and we had to cool him with a knock across the ear. We tied him up and threw him in some bushes. How many times I got to tell you?”

  Hinch said, “We parking here all night?”

  “Let me think!”

  Goldie let him think. When she thought the time was ripe she said, “Maybe if we think out loud.”

  Furia immediately said, “So?”

  “The watchman can’t finger you, you hit him in the dark. Nobody saw us at the plant except Howland, and he’s dead.”

  “That’s why I hit him. That and the extra cut. But you got to make out like I’m a dumdum.”

  “If we’d worked it the way I said,” Goldie said, “he’d have cut his throat before he fingered us. But I’m not going to argue with you, Fure. The big thing went sour was the manager driving past the plant. So now we’re hung up here. For a while they’re going to stop every car trying to leave New Bradford.”

  “I know,” Hinch said brightly. “We bury it.”

  “And have the paper rot or be chewed up? Or somebody find it?” Goldie said.

  “We sure as a bitch ain’t throwing it away,” Hinch growled.

  “Who said anything about throwing it away? It’s got to be put somewhere safe till they stop searching cars. The shack would be good, but we’re cut off from there till they get fed up and figure we made it out before they set up the blocks. Meantime-the way I see it, Fure-we need help.”

  “The way she sees it,” Hinch said. “Who’s fixing this match, Fure, you or her?”

  But Furia said, “What help, Goldie?”

  “Somebody to keep it for us.”

  “That’s a great i
dea that is,” Furia said. “Who you going to ask, the fuzz?”

  Goldie said, “Yes.”

  Hinch jiggled his bowling-ball head. “I tell you, Fure, this broad is bad news. Some joke.”

  “No joke,” Goldie said. “I mean it.”

  “She means it,” Hinch said with disgust.

  Furia picked a sliver of steak out of his teeth. “With a far-out idea like that there’s got to be something in it. What’s on your mind, Goldie?”

  “Look,” Goldie said. “I’ve been keeping in touch with my family off and on through my kid sister Nanette-”

  “That is absolutely out,” Furia said. “I ain’t stashing no twenty-four grand with a bunch of rubes.”

  “Are you kidding? They’d break a leg running to Chief Secco with it. Ma’s the big wheel in her church, and my old man thinks having a bottle of beer in your car is a federal offense.” Goldie laughed. “But Nanette’s no square. She’s looking to cut out one of these days, too. I know from her letters. She does a lot of babysitting nights and one of her steady jobs is for a couple named Malone, they have a kid Barbara. The Malones live in a one-family house on Old Bradford Road. It’s one of the original streets of the town, never any traffic, and the neighbors pull their sidewalks in at nine o’clock. Well, Wesley Malone is a cop.”

  “There she goes again,” Hinch said.

  “On the New Bradford police force.”

  “What gives with this dame?” Hinch demanded of Taugus County. “Some idea! We should park our loot with the town cop!”

  But Furia was heavily in thought. “How old did you say their kid is, Goldie?”

  “Must be eight or nine by now.”

  “You got yourself a deal.”

  “But Fure,” Hinch protested.

  “That’s the beauty part,” Furia said. “A cop’s got to know the facts of life, don’t he? He ain’t going to panic and try something stupid. Okay, Hinch, get going.”

  “Where to?” Hinch asked sullenly.

  “This Old Bradford Road. Direct him, Goldie.”

  Goldie directed him. They went back into the cloverleaf and across the bridge, past three blocks of midtown, and sharply right into a steep road called Lovers Hill, Goldie said, because there was a parking strip on top where the town kids necked. Halfway up she said, “Next right turn,” and Hinch turned in grudgingly. There were no street lights, and towering trees. It was a narrow street, almost a lane, lined with very old two-story frame houses in need of paint.

  The road swooped and wound in an S. At the uppermost curve of the S Goldie said, “I think that’s it. Yes. The one with the porch lit up.”

  It was the only house on the street that showed a light.

  “Almost,” Furia said, sucking his teeth, “like they got the welcome mat out.”

  * * *

  Ellen began praising the film the moment the house lights went up.

  “Not that I approve of all that violence,” Ellen said as her husband held her cloth coat for her. “But you have to admit, Loney, it’s a marvelous picture. Didn’t you think so?”

  “You asking me?” Malone said.

  “Certainly I’m asking you.”

  “It’s a fraud,” Malone said.

  “I suppose now you’re a movie critic.”

  “You asked me, didn’t you?”

  “Hello, Wes,” a man said. They were being nudged up the aisle by the crowd. “Good picture, I thought.”

  “Yeah, Lew,” Malone said. “Very good.”

  “Why is it a fraud?” Ellen asked in a whisper.

  “Because it is. It makes them out a couple of heroes. Like they were Dillinger or somebody. In fact, they used some stuff that actually happened to Dillinger. You felt sorry for them, didn’t you?”

  “I suppose. What’s wrong with that?”

  “Everything. Nobody felt sorry for those punks at the time it happened. Even the hoods were down on them. The truth is they were a couple of smalltime murderers who never gave their victims a chance. Clyde got his kicks out of killing. His favorite target was somebody’s back. Hi, Arthur.”

  “Great picture, Wes!” Arthur said.

  “Just great,” Malone said.

  “It got the nomination for Best Picture,” Ellen sniffed. “You’re such an expert.”

  “No expert. I just happened to read an article about them, that’s all. Why kid the public?”

  “Well, I don’t care, I liked it,” Ellen said. But she squeezed his arm.

  The Malones came out of the New Bradford Theater and made for their car. Ellen walked slowly; she knew how tired he was. And how stubborn. Loney had insisted on following their Wednesday night ritual, which involved dinner at the Old Bradford Inn in midtown and the movies afterward, even though he had not slept eight hours in the past ninety-six. It was the only recreation she got, Loney had said, flattening out his chin, and she wasn’t going to lose out just because the flu hit the department and he had to work double shift four days running. He could get a night’s sleep tonight, Mert Peck was out of bed and Harry Rawlson was back on duty, too.

  “How about a bite at Elwood’s?” he said at the car. It was a beatup Saab he had picked up for $650 the year before, their old Plymouth had collapsed at 137,000 miles. The big Pontiac special he drove on duty belonged to the town.

  “I don’t think so,” Ellen said. “I’m kind of worried about Bibby. Nanette had to leave at ten thirty, her mother’s down sick, and I said it would be all right. But with Bibby home alone-”

  “Sure.” He was relieved, she knew every pore in his body. Then she saw him stiffen and turned to see why.

  One of the New Bradford police cars had torn past the intersection of Grange Street and Main along the Green, siren howling. It was being chased by several civilian cars.

  “I wonder what’s up,” Malone said. “Something’s up.”

  “Let it. You’re coming home with me, Loney. Get in, I’ll drive.”

  Malone got in, and Ellen went round and took the wheel. He was looking back at Main Street and she saw him feel for the gun under his jacket. Ellen hated Chief Secco’s rule about his men carrying their revolvers off duty.

  “Lay off the artillery, bud,” Ellen said grimly, starting the Saab. “You’re going nowhere but beddy-bye.”

  “It’s something big,” Malone said. “Look, Ellen, drop me off at the stationhouse.”

  “Not a chance.”

  “I’ll only be a couple minutes. I want to find out what gives.”

  “I’ll drop you off and I won’t see you till God knows when.”

  “Ellen, I promise. Drop me off and go on home to Bibby. I’ll walk it up the Hill.”

  “You’ll never make it, you’re dead on your feet.”

  “That’s what I like about you,” he said, smiling. “You’ve got such confidence in me.”

  Grange Street was one-way below Main and the Green, and Ellen sighed and turned into Freight Street and past the dark brown unappetizing railroad station. She had to stop for the light at the corner near the R.R. crossing. Malone was squinting to their right, across the bridge and the Tonekeneke and the cloverleaf to The Pike. Two state police cruisers were balling south on The Pike, sirens all out. Ellen deliberately jumped the light and turned left.

  She made another left turn east of the Green, drove the one block up to Grange again, and swung right. The Colonial redbrick town hall stood at the southeast corner of the Green and Grange Street, extending into Grange; the New Bradford Police Department was near the rear of the building, with a separate entrance. The entrance was a little windbreak vestibule. There were two green globes outside.

  Ellen stopped the car. He was on the sidewalk before she could put on her emergency.

  “Remember, Loney, you promised. I’ll be hopping mad if you doublecross me.”

  “I’ll be right home.”

  He hurried inside and Ellen peeled off, taking her worry out on the Saab.

  To Malone’s surprise no one was in the station
but Sam Buchard, the night desk man, and Chief Secco and a middle-aged woman. The chief was over in the corner at the steel desk normally used by the Resident State Trooper, and he was talking to the woman seated beside the desk. Her makeup was smeared and her eyes looked worse than Malone’s. She was smoking a cigaret rapidly. Buchard was making an entry in the case log. The LETS-the Law Enforcement Teletype System out of the state capital-was clacking away as usual in its cubicle behind the desk.

  Malone walked around the glassed partition to the working area. Chief Secco looked up with a disapproving glance and went back to his interrogation. The woman did not turn around. The desk man said, “What are you doing here, Wes?”

  “Sam, what’s up?”

  “Didn’t you hear?”

  “I was at the movies with Ellen.”

  “Murder and robbery over at Aztec.”

  “Murder?” The last homicide in New Bradford had been four years ago when two men and a woman from downstate had decided to try some illegal night fishing off the railroad trestle over the Tonekeneke. They had been tanked up and the men had got into a fight over the woman. One of the men had fallen off the trestle into thirty feet of water and drowned. Malone and Mert Peck and Trooper Miller had fished his body out the next morning fifty yards downstream. Malone could not recall a bona-fide Murder One in all his years on the New Bradford force. “Who was murdered, Sam?”

  “Howland, the bookkeeper. Shot three times in the chest. The payroll was stolen.”

  Malone recognized her now. Sherrie-Ann Howland, the one the women called “the bloodsucker.” She had never even given Tom Howland the excuse of being unfaithful to him. Townspeople rarely saw her, she was said to be a secret drinker. She was sober enough now. Malone knew nearly everyone in town, its population was only 16,000.

  “Any leads, Sam?”

  “Not a one. The state boys have set up roadblocks throughout the area. Curtis Pickney found him by a fluke, and they say Howland wasn’t dead long. So maybe the killers didn’t have a chance to get away. Anyway, that’s the theory we’re working on.”

  Malone knuckled his eyes. “Where was Ed Taylor?”

  “We just found him.”

  “For God’s sake, did Ed get it, too?”

  “No, they slugged him, tied him up, and threw him in some bushes. Ed says there were two of them. No I.D., it was too dark. They took Ed to the hospital. He’ll be all right. He’s a lucky guy, Wes. They could have shot him, too.”