by McBain, Ed
“I know burglars who’ve used chloroform,” Frick said. “I’ve even known burglars who brought steaks with them, to feed to the watchdog.”
“Yes—but, Captain,” Carella said, “nothing was stolen from the room.”
“He may have been scared off,” Frick said.
“By what?” Carella asked, and belatedly added, “Sir?”
“By the girl herself,” Frick said. “Kling says he went in the bathroom to shower, which means that anybody standing outside the door there, listening, wouldn’t have heard anyone talking in the room, might have thought the room was empty. He picked the lock—”
“No pick marks on the lock, Marshall,” Byrnes said.
“All right, then, he loided it. Or maybe he used a key, who the hell knows? Some hotels, you can walk right up to the desk, ask for a key to a certain room, they’ll hand it to you without even asking you your name. That could have happened here. In any case, however he got in, he was surprised to find the room occupied. So he hit the girl with chloroform and dragged her out of the room with him.”
“Why, sir?” Carella asked.
“Because she got a good look at him, that’s why,” Frick said.
“You think he had the chloroform all ready when he came in, is that it?”
“That could be it, yes.”
“Even though he expected the room to be empty?”
“Yes, it’s possible,” Frick said. “It’s possible it could have happened that way.”
“Marshall, this looks like a kidnapping to me,” Byrnes said. “I honestly don’t think we’re dealing with a burglary here.”
“Then where’s the ransom call?” Frick asked. “It’s four o’clock in the morning, the girl was taken out of here at eleven-thirty, where’s the call?”
“It’ll come,” Byrnes said.
“I’d be checking out my hotel burglars if this was my case. I’d be finding out which of the hotel burglars have been active in the midtown area in recent months. And which of them have used chloroform as part of their m.o.”
“Marshall, with all due respect,” Byrnes said, “I have never in all my years on the force heard of a burglar who used chloroform as part of his regular working m.o. Steaks to dogs, yes. Hamburger, even. That I’ve heard of. But I’ve never heard of a burglar going in with chloroform.”
“I’ve heard of it,” Frick insisted.
“Where?” Byrnes asked.
“When I was working in Philadelphia.”
“Well, anything can happen in Philadelphia.”
“Yes, and frequently does,” Frick said.
“But this looks like a bona-fide kidnapping to me,” Byrnes said, “and I’ve instructed the squad to investigate it as such.”
“It’s your squad, you handle it as you see fit,” Frick said. “I was merely offering an opinion.”
“Thank you, Marshall. I assure you it was appreciated.”
“Don’t mention it,” Frick said.
Listening, Kling thought Frick ought to be retired. Or embalmed. The man sounded like a hairbag riding shotgun in an RMP car instead of a man in command of a precinct. The captain was off on another tack now; apparently convinced at last that burglary had not been the motive here, he was relating an absurd kidnapping story.
“I once had a case in Philadelphia,” he said, “where a man kidnapped his own wife in an attempt to extort money from his father-in-law. Damnedest thing I ever did see. We were working on it for three days and three nights before we tipped to the fact that—”
“Sir,” Carella interrupted, “I wonder if we might ask Kling some questions.”
“Eh?” Frick said.
“Because it occurred to me, sir, that being as close to this as we all are, we might be in danger of ignoring procedure we’d normally—”
“Well, of course, do what you want to do,” Frick said, but his tone was injured, and he immediately began to sulk.
“Bert, we know you, but we don’t know you,” Carella said. “We’ve been operating on the assumption that nobody in his right mind would expect any kind of decent ransom from a salaried cop; we’ve been thinking Augusta’s father was the target. Okay, here’s what I want to ask you. Do you have any money socked away we wouldn’t know about? Anything that would make a kidnapper—”
“We’ve got three thousand dollars in the bank,” Kling said. “It’s a joint account, and it’s what we had left after we furnished the new apartment.”
“There’s the possibility, though,” Meyer said, “that somebody might have got it in his head Augusta was rich, you follow me? Because she’s a high-priced model and all.”
“Yeah, we ought to consider that,” Byrnes admitted.
“Bert, I want to ask you the questions I’d normally ask anybody, okay?” Carella said. “Forgetting you’re an experienced detective for the moment, okay? You’ve probably asked yourself these same questions, but let me ask them out loud, okay?”
“Go ahead,” Kling said. He glanced at Captain Frick, who was sitting in the armchair, plainly miffed, a scowl on his face, his hands clasped over his expansive middle. The hell with you, Kling thought. She’s my wife.
“First, Bert, have you or Augusta received any threatening telephone calls or letters within recent weeks?”
“No.”
“Was there anyone at the agency…That’s the Cutler Agency, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Kling said.
“That’s the biggest modeling agency in the city,” Byrnes said to Frick in an attempt to mollify him. Frick merely nodded curtly.
“Was there anyone at the agency,” Carella went on, “any of the other girls, or even the Cutlers themselves, who for one reason or another might have had something against Augusta? Anything like professional rivalry or jealousy or whatever the hell? Was she getting more bookings than the other girls, for example? Or, I don’t know, did she land a big account somebody else was after? You’d know about these things better than we would, Bert, you probably talked about her job, didn’t you? Was there anything like that you can think of?”
“No,” Kling said. “You know her, Steve, she’s really a terrific girl, everybody likes her. That sounds like I’m blowing my own horn, I know, but—”
“No, no.”
“—really, it’s the truth.”
“You’ve got me thinking,” Meyer said.
“Yeah?”
“Suppose this is somebody who’s got a grudge against Bert. Never mind Augusta. Suppose this is somebody getting back at Bert.”
“Boy, that opens a can of peas,” Byrnes said.
“For an arrest, do you mean?” Frick asked suddenly.
“What?” Meyer said.
“Getting back at him for an arrest he made?”
“Yes, sir. That’s what I had in mind.”
“That’s a distinct possibility,” Frick said, nodding, his hands still folded over his middle. “I know of many cases where a policeman or his family were threatened or actually harmed after an arrest had been made. That’s a good thought. Pete, if I may intrude…”
“Go ahead, Marshall.”
“I’d like to suggest that you put a man to work checking on Kling’s arrest record. Find out who’s still in jail, who’s been released, and so on. Come up with some names and addresses. I think it’s worth a shot. That’s a very good thought, Meyer.”
“Thank you, sir,” Meyer said again.
“Very good indeed,” Frick said, and smiled as though he himself had had the idea.
“Bert,” Carella said, “did you tell anyone at all where you’d be spending the night tonight?”
“No one. Only Augusta and I knew.”
“Then someone must have followed you from the reception. Down to the lobby, I mean.”
“He’d have had to, yes,” Kling said.
“Which means he was at the reception.”
“I suppose so.”
“Can we get a list of all the people you invited to the wedding?” Byrnes asked
.
“Yes—but, Lieutenant, there’re two hundred people on that list.”
“I realize that.”
“And besides, all of them are friends. I really don’t think—”
“You never know,” Frick interrupted. “With some friends, you don’t need enemies.” He nodded his head in solemn satisfaction as though he had just uttered an original thought.
“Where is that list?” Byrnes asked.
“In my apartment. The old apartment. We still haven’t moved all of the furniture to the new place. The list is in the top drawer of the desk, over the kneehole. The desk is near the windows, on the left as you come in.”
“Have you got a key we can use?”
“Yes, but—”
“I’m not suggesting any of your friends…”
“We’re looking for a place to hang our hats, Bert,” Carella said. “We don’t have to kid you, that’s what we’re doing.”
“I know, Steve.”
“Because there’s not a damn thing to go on yet, Bert. Until that phone rings…”
“I just thought of something,” Meyer said.
“What’s that?” Frick asked, leaning forward suddenly. He had been inordinately impressed with Meyer’s earlier thought, which he’d already forgotten, and was now anxious to hear whatever else Meyer might come up with.
“Well, weren’t you showing a newspaper clipping around the office a little while ago? An item about the wedding?”
“That’s right, I was,” Kling said.
“Augusta’s picture at the top of the column…”
“I see where you’re going,” Kling said. “That’s right. It announced the wedding, gave the date and the time…”
“Did it give the name of the church?” Carella asked.
“Yes.”
“So it could have been anybody.”
“Anybody who knows how to read,” Byrnes said.
“Would have known where the wedding was going to take place, could have followed them from the church to the reception, and from there to the lobby.”
“Would have had to ask at the desk, though,” Meyer said.
“For what room they were in, right.”
They were snowballing it now, almost as if Kling were not in the room with them. He had been a part of many similar sessions in the past, but now he watched and listened like a stranger as they concocted a possible scenario for what had happened, and tried to work out an effective plan of action.
“Parked the truck in the service court…”
“White truck, think we ought to put out an alarm?”
“Could be any damn kind of truck. Bailey didn’t see the license-plate number.”
“Amazing he saw the truck at all, way you described those windows.”
“Anyway, that’s what he must’ve done. Parked the truck in the service court, then walked around front to the hotel entrance. Couldn’t have come in through that fire door on the court, because it’s blind locked on the outside.”
“Went to the desk, asked for Mr. and Mrs. Kling.”
“Or maybe picked up the house phone, got the room number that way.”
“We’d better ask the clerk if he handed out a key after Bert and Augusta checked in.”
“I still want a look at that invitation list, Bert.”
“Be a good idea to get started on those arrest files, too.”
“Want you guys to contact all our stoolies. If this is some kind of dumb revenge thing…”
“Right, there may be a rumble on it.”
“When’s the last time you saw Danny Gimp, Steve?”
“Long time ago.”
“Get onto him. And somebody ought to contact Fats Donner, too. Meyer, you want to sit the wire here?”
“Right, Loot.”
“I’ll have someone relieve you at eight. What the hell time is it, anyway?”
They all turned toward the windows. A gray dawn was breaking cheerlessly over the rooftops of the city.
She had lost all track of time and did not know how long she’d been unconscious; she suspected, though, that hours and hours had passed since the moment he’d clamped the chloroform-soaked piece of cotton over her nose and mouth. She lay on the floor with her wrists bound behind her back, her ankles bound together. Her eyes were closed, she could feel what she supposed were balls of absorbent cotton pressing against the lids, held firmly in place by either adhesive tape or a bandage of some kind. A rag had been stuffed into her mouth (she could taste it, she hoped she would not choke on it), and then a gag, again either adhesive tape or bandage, had been wound over it. She could neither see nor speak, and though she listened intently for the slightest sound, she could hear nothing at all.
She remembered…He had a scalpel in his right hand. She turned when she heard the hotel door clicking open, and saw him striding toward her across the room, the scalpel glittering in the light of the lamp on the dresser. He was wearing a green surgical mask, and his eyes above the mask scanned the room swiftly as he crossed to where she was already moving from the suitcase toward the bathroom door, intercepting her, grabbing her from behind and pulling her in against him. She opened her mouth to scream, but his left arm was tight around her waist now, and suddenly his right hand, the hand holding the scalpel, moved to her throat, circling up from behind. She felt the blade against her flesh and heard him whisper just the single word “Silence,” and the formative scream became only a terrified whimper drowned by the roar of the shower.
He was pulling her backward toward the door, and then suddenly he swung her around and shoved her against the wall, the scalpel coming up against her throat again, his left hand reaching into his coat pocket. She saw the wad of absorbent cotton an instant before he clamped it over her nose and mouth. She had detested the stench of chloroform ever since she was six and had her tonsils removed. She twisted her head to escape the smothering aroma, and then felt the scalpel nudging her flesh, insistently reminding her that it was there and that it could cut. She became fearful that if she lost consciousness, she might fall forward onto the sharp blade, and she tried to keep from becoming dizzy, but the sound of the shower seemed magnified, an ocean surf pounding against some desolate shore, waves crashing and receding in endless repetition, foam bubbles dissolving, and far overhead, so distant it could scarcely be heard, the cry of a gull that might have been only her own strangled scream.
She listened now.
She could hear nothing, she suspected she was alone. But she could not be certain. Behind the blindfold, she began to weep soundlessly.
Nobody in the crime-prevention and law-enforcement game likes to admit that informers are a vital part of the setup. There are reasons for this. To begin with, an informer is paid. He is paid cold hard cash. In cases where he is working for the FBI or the Treasury Department or the postal authorities, he is paid very large sums of money indeed, and is often protected from arrest and/or prosecution as well. A good informer is sometimes more valuable than a good cop, and there have been cases where a good cop was sold down the river in order to protect a good informer. The money an informer is paid comes from a slush fund, the original source of which is the taxpayer. Whether it is labeled “Petty Cash” or “Research” or “Shrinkage” or “Mother Leary’s Bloomers Fund,” the money in that kitty sure as hell does not come out of the pockets of hardworking law-enforcement officers. It is the taxpayer who puts up the scratch, and this is one of the reasons cops, agents, inspectors, and what-have-you are reluctant to discuss their dependency on informers. Taxpayers don’t know from informers, you see. Taxpayers only know from rats.
An informer is a rat, and nowhere in the world is a rat appreciated. Taxpayers, therefore, do not feel that rats should be rewarded for their rattiness. Even tiny tots are taught not to respect other tiny tots who are snitches. (It is interesting to note that in the underworld an informer is not known as a “stool pigeon” or a “dirty rat,” James Cagney notwithstanding. He is known simply and childishly as
a “snitch.”) There is a very stringent underworld code against snitching, and snitches are very often found dead with symbolic markings—such as slashed double crosses—on their cheeks. Fear of reprisal, of course, is one reason why honest citizens will not report a witnessed crime to the police. But another reason is the distaste the average, everyday, straight citizen feels toward anyone who would divulge a secret. The secret may very well be the identity of a murderer. Even so, it’s not nice to tell. Informers have no such scruples. The only thing they worry about is whether or not someone will see them in conversation with a police officer. The cops of the 87th knew the snitching game was a dangerous one, and they were therefore willing to meet their informers better than halfway.
At 10:00 that Monday morning, Detective Steve Carella sat on a bench in the middle of Grover Park, waiting for Danny Gimp to show up. It was drizzling. The drizzle was cold and wet. Mist rose poetically from rocks and rills. The trees, their limbs and branches bare, stood in gaunt silhouette like slender graveside mourners, the sky behind them a dismal gray. On the road running through the park, there was the sound of automobile tires hissing on the black asphalt surface. Carella took out his handkerchief, blew his nose, and returned the handkerchief to his coat pocket. His nose was cold. He glanced at his watch. Two minutes had passed since he’d last looked at it. Danny Gimp was usually on time. This morning, though, he had insisted on a fallback. He had told Carella that if he did not meet him at the designated bench by 10:15, he could be found near the statue of General Pershing, on the other side of the park zoo, at precisely 11:00. Carella wondered about this, but Danny would not elucidate on the telephone. It was rare for an informer to insist upon a fallback. The profession had its real risks, true, but it was nonetheless far removed from the more sophisticated world of international espionage.
Danny arrived at fourteen minutes past 10:00, just as Carella was ready to abandon the bench. He was wearing a shabby brown overcoat, brown trousers, brown shoes, and white socks. He was carrying a cane, and he was hatless, and Carella noticed for the first time that his hair was getting rather thin. He came limping up to the bench, the limp somehow more marked than it had been the last time they’d talked. There was no nonsense between the two men: they had known each other for a long time, and they both respected the symbiosis that made their relationship work. They addressed each other on a first-name basis, and they greeted each other like friends who had not seen each other for quite some time. Perhaps they were friends. They never much thought about it. In their own minds, they thought of themselves as business associates.
