Fourth Deadly Sin

by Lawrence Sanders

  Detective Benjamin Calazo was not a cop who had just fallen off the turnip truck. He had been around a long time. He had been wounded twice, and had once booted a drug dealer into the East River and let the guy swallow some shit before hauling him out.

  Benny knew that some of the younger men in the NYPD regarded him with amused contempt because of his white hair and shambling gait. But that was all right; when he was their age he treated his elders the same way. Until he learned how much the gaffers could teach him.

  Calazo was a good cop, serious about his job. He had witnessed a lot of crap, on the streets and in the Department, but he had never lost his Academy enthusiasm. He still believed what he was doing was important. The Sanitation guys, for instance—a lousy job but absolutely essential if the public didn’t want to drown in garbage. The same way with cops; it had to be done.

  Most of the time Calazo went by the book. But like all experienced cops, he knew that sometimes you had to throw the book out the window. The bad guys didn’t follow any rules, and if you went up against them with strict adherence to regulations, you were liable to get your ass chopped off.

  This Ronald Bellsey was a case in point. The detective knew that Bellsey was guilty of the attacks near his hangouts, plus the stomping of Detective Tim Hogan. Calazo also knew there was no way Bellsey could be racked up legally for his crimes. Not enough evidence to make a case.

  So the choice was between letting Bellsey waltz away free or becoming prosecutor, judge, and jury himself. The fact that Bellsey had been going to a shrink to cure his violent behavior didn’t cut any ice with Calazo and he went about planning the destruction of Ronald Bellsey without a qualm. The fact that Calazo was completely fearless helped. If a guy like Bellsey could cow him, then his whole life had been a scam.

  When headquarters had been in that old building on Centre Street, there had been a number of nearby shops catering to the special needs of cops: gunsmiths, tailors, guys who made shoulder holsters that didn’t chafe, and such esoterica as ankle holsters, knife sheaths, brass knuckles, and the like.

  There was one place that made the best saps in the world, any length and weight you wanted, rigid or pliable. Sixteen years ago Calazo had bought a beauty: eight inches long with a wrist thong. Made of supple calfskin and filled with birdshot, it was double-stitched, and in all the years he had used it, it had never popped a stitch. And it had done rough duty.

  When he prepared to confront Ronald Bellsey, that beautiful sap was the first thing that went into Calazo’s little gym bag. He also packed handcuffs, a steel come-along, and two thick rolls of wide electrician’s tape. He had his .38 Special in a hip holster. He didn’t think he’d need anything else.

  It was a Thursday afternoon, and Bellsey always got it off at three. Calazo arrived at Betty Lee’s fleabag hotel at 2:45 and called upstairs from the lobby to make sure the coast was clear. She gave him the okay.

  “You got it straight?” he asked her, taking off his fedora and overcoat. “He knocks, you let him in, and I take over from there. Then you get lost. Don’t come back for an hour at least. Two would be better. He’ll be gone by then.”

  “You’re sure this will go okay?” she said nervously.

  “Like silk,” Calazo said. “Not to worry. You’re out of it.”

  Bellsey was a few minutes late, but the detective didn’t sweat it. When the knock came, Calazo nodded at Betty Lee, then stepped to the side of the door.

  “Who is it?” she called.

  “Ronald.”

  She opened the door. He came in. Hatless, thank God. The detective took one step forward and laid the sap behind Bellsey’s left ear. It was a practiced blow, not hard enough to break the skin, but strong enough to put Bellsey facedown on the carpet.

  “Thank you, Betty,” Calazo said. “Out you go.”

  She grabbed up her coat and scampered away. Ben locked and chained the door behind her. He patted Bellsey down but found no weapons. The only thing he took was Ronald’s handkerchief, somewhat soiled—which was okay with Calazo.

  It took a lot of lifting, pulling, hauling, but finally the detective pulled Bellsey up into a ratty armchair. He wound tape around his torso to keep him upright. He taped his ankles to the legs of the chair. Then he taped his forearms tightly to the arms. Bellsey would only be able to move his hands.

  Finally, Calazo stuffed Bellsey’s handkerchief into the man’s mouth. He watched closely to make certain his color wasn’t changing. Then, when he was satisfied Bellsey was breathing through his nose, he went into the bathroom, got a glass of water, brought it back, and threw it into Bellsey’s face.

  It took about three minutes and another glass of water before Ronald roused. He looked around him dazedly with glazed eyes.

  “Good morning, glory,” Detective Calazo said cheerily. “Got a little headache, have you?”

  He felt around on Bellsey’s scalp and found the welt behind the left ear. Bellsey winced when he touched it.

  “No blood,” Calazo said, displaying his fingertips. “See?”

  Bellsey was choking on the handkerchief, trying to spit it out.

  “We got some ground rules here,” the detective said. “The gag comes out if you promise not to scream. One scream and the gag goes back in. No one’s going to notice one scream in a joint like this. Got it? You want the gag out?”

  Bellsey nodded. Calazo pulled out the handkerchief. Bellsey licked his gums and lips, then looked down at his taped arms. He flapped his hands a few times. He tested the tape around his chest, then his legs. He looked up at Calazo standing over him, softly smacking his sap into the palm of one hand.

  “Who the fuck’re you?” Bellsey demanded hoarsely.

  “The Scarlet Pimpernel,” Calazo said. “Didn’t you recognize me?”

  “How much you want?”

  “Not much,” the detective said. “Just a little information.”

  Bellsey strained against his bonds. Then, when he realized that was futile, he began to rock back and forth on the chair.

  “Stop that,” Calazo said.

  “Fuck you,” Bellsey said, gasping.

  The detective brought the sap thudding down on the back of the man’s right hand. Bellsey opened his mouth to shriek, and Calazo jammed the wadded handkerchief back in his mouth.

  “No screams,” he said coldly. “Remember our agreement? Gonna keep quiet?”

  Bellsey sat a moment, breathing deeply. Finally he nodded. Calazo pulled out the gag.

  “You better kill me,” Bellsey said. “Because if you don’t, when I get loose I’m going to kill you.”

  “Nah,” Ben Calazo said, “I don’t think so. Because I’m going to hurt you—I mean really hurt you, just like you’ve hurt so many other people. And you’re never going to be the same again. After you get hurt bad, your whole life changes, believe me.”

  Something in Bellsey’s eyes altered. Doubt, fear—whatever—shallowed their depths.

  “Why do you want to hurt me?”

  “That’s easy. I don’t like you.”

  “What’d I ever do to you?”

  “What’d those four guys you stomped ever do to you?”

  “What four guys?”

  Calazo brought the sap down again on the back of Bellsey’s left hand. The man’s head jerked back, his eyes closed, his mouth opened wide. But he didn’t scream.

  “The hand …” Calazo said. “A lot of little chicken bones in there. Mess up your hands and you’re in deep trouble. Even after lots of operations they never do work right again. Now tell me about the four guys.”

  “What four—” Bellsey started, but when he saw his captor raise the sap again, he said hastily, “All right, all right! I got into some hassles. Street fights—you know? They were fair fights.”

  “Sure they were,” Calazo said. “Like that detective you took outside the Tail of the Whale. A kidney punch from behind. Then you gave him a boot. That was fair.”

  Bellsey stared at him. “Jesus Christ,” h
e gasped, “you’re a cop!”

  Calazo brought the bludgeon down on the back of Bellsey’s right hand: a swift, hard blow. They both heard something snap. Bellsey’s eyes glazed over.

  “You did it—right?” the detective said. “The four guys near your hangouts and the cop outside the Tail of the Whale. All your work—correct?”

  Ronald Bellsey nodded slowly, looking down at his reddened hands.

  “Sure you did,” Calazo said genially. “A tough guy like you, it had to be. It’s fun slugging people, isn’t it? I’m having fun.”

  “Let me go,” Bellsey begged. “I admitted it, didn’t I? Let me loose.”

  “Oh, we got a way to go yet, Ronald,” Calazo said cheerfully. “You’re not hurting enough.”

  “God a’mighty, what more do you want? I swear, I get out of here, I’m going to cut off your schlong and shove it down your throat.”

  Calazo brought the sap down again on the back of Bellsey’s right hand. The man passed out, and the detective brought more water to throw in his face.

  “Keep it up, sonny boy,” he said when Bellsey was conscious again. “I’d just as soon pound your hands to mush. You’re not going to do much fighting with broken hands, are you? Maybe they’ll fit you with a couple of hooks.”

  “You’re a cop,” Bellsey said aggrievedly. “You can’t do this.”

  “But I am doing it—right? Get a good look at me so you can pick me out of a lineup. The trouble with you tough guys is that you never figure to meet anyone tougher. Well, Ronald, you’ve just met one. Before I’m through with you, you’re going to be crying and pissing your pants. Meanwhile, let’s get to the sixty-four-dollar question: Where were you the night your shrink was killed?”

  “Oh, my God, is that what this is all about? I was home all night. I already told the cops that. My wife was there. She says the same thing.”

  “What’d you do at home all night? Read the Bible, do crossword puzzles, count the walls?”

  “I watched television.”

  “Yeah? What did you watch?”

  “That’s easy. We got cable, and I remember from nine to eleven there was a special on Home Box: Fifty Years of Great Fights, 1930–1980. It was films from all the big fights, mostly heavyweights. I watched that.”

  Calazo looked at him thoughtfully. “I saw that show that night. Good stuff. But you could have chilled your shrink and checked TV Guide just to give yourself an alibi.”

  “You fucker,” Bellsey said in a croaky voice, “I really did—”

  But Calazo snapped the sap down on the back of Bellsey’s left hand, and the bound man writhed with pain. Tears came to his eyes.

  “See,” the detective said, “you’re crying already. Don’t call me names, Ronald; it’s a nasty habit.”

  Calazo stood there, staring steadily down at his captive. Bellsey’s hands had ballooned into puffs of raw meat. They lay limply on the arms of the chair, already beginning to show ruptured blood vessels and discolored skin.

  “I wish I didn’t believe you,” Calazo said. “I really wish I thought you were lying so I could keep it up for a while. I hate to say it, but I think you’re telling the truth.”

  “I am, I am! What reason would I have to kill Ellerbee? The guy was my doctor, for Christ’s sake!”

  “Uh-huh. But you hurt five other guys for no reason, didn’t you? Well, before I walk off into the sunset, let me tell you a couple of things. Betty Lee had nothing to do with this. I told her if she didn’t, she’d be in the clink. You understand that?”

  Bellsey nodded frantically.

  “If I find out you’ve been leaning on her,” Calazo continued, “I’m going to come looking for you. And then it won’t be only your hands; it’ll be your thick skull. You got that?”

  Bellsey nodded again, wearily this time.

  “And if you want to come looking for me, I’ll make it easy for you: The name is Detective Benjamin Calazo, and Midtown North will tell you where to find me. Just you and me, one on one. I’ll blow your fucking head off and wait right there for them to come and take me away. Do you believe that?”

  Ronald Bellsey looked up at him fearfully. “You’re crazy,” he said in a faltering voice.

  “That’s me,” Calazo said. “Nutty as a fruitcake.”

  With two swift, crushing blows, he slammed the sap against Bellsey’s hands with all his strength. There was a sound like a wooden strawberry box crumpling. Bellsey’s eyes rolled up into his skull and he passed out again. The stench of urine filled the air. The front of Bellsey’s pants stained dark.

  Detective Calazo packed his little gym bag. He put in the sap, the rolls of remaining tape. Then he stripped the tape from Bellsey’s unconscious body, wadded it up, and put that in the bag, too. He donned fedora and overcoat. He looked around, inspecting. He remembered the glass he had used to throw water in Bellsey’s face, and took that.

  He opened the hallway door, wiped off the knob with Bellsey’s handkerchief, and threw it back onto the slack body. He rode down in the elevator, walked casually through the lobby. The guy behind the desk didn’t even look up.

  Calazo called the hotel from two blocks away.

  “There’s a sick man in room eight-D,” he reported to the clerk. “I think he’s passed out. Maybe you better call for an ambulance.”

  Then he drove home, thinking of how he would word his report to Sergeant Boone, stating that, in his opinion, Ronald J. Bellsey was innocent of the murder of Dr. Simon Ellerbee.

  The girls arrived at the Delaney brownstone on the afternoon of Christmas Eve: Mary and Sylvia, two bouncy young women showing promise of becoming as buxom as their mother. The first thing they did was to squeal with delight at the sight of the Christmas tree.

  Sylvia: “Fan-tastic!”

  Mary: “Incredibobble!”

  The second thing they did was to announce they would not be home for Christmas Eve dinner. They had dates that evening with two great boys.

  “What boys?” Monica demanded sternly. “Where did you meet them?”

  Mother and daughters all began talking at once, gesturing wildly. Delaney looked on genially.

  It became apparent that on the train down from Boston, Mary and Sylvia had met two nice boys, seniors at Brown. They both lived in Manhattan, and had invited the girls to the Plaza for dinner and then on to St. Patrick’s Cathedral for Handel’s Messiah and midnight mass.

  “But you don’t even know them,” Monica wailed. “You pick up two strangers on the train, and now you’re going out with them? Edward, tell them they can’t go. Those men may be monsters.”

  “Oh, I don’t know …” he said easily. “Any guys who want to go to St. Pat’s for midnight mass can’t be all bad. Are they supposed to pick you up here?”

  “At eight o’clock,” Sylvia said excitedly. “Peter—he’s my date—said he thought he could borrow his father’s car.”

  “And Jeffrey is mine,” Mary said. “Really, Mother, they’re absolutely respectable, very well behaved. Aren’t they, Syl?”

  “Perfect gentlemen,” her sister vowed. “They hold doors open for you and everything.”

  “Tell you what,” Delaney said, “when they arrive, ask them in for a drink. They’re old enough to drink, aren’t they?”

  “Oh, Dad,” Mary said. “They’re seniors.”

  “All right, then ask them in when they come for you. Your mother and I will take a look. If we approve, off you go. If they turn out to be a couple of slavering beasts, the whole thing is off.”

  “They’re not slavering beasts!” Sylvia objected. “As a matter of fact, they’re rather shy. Mary and I had to do most of the talking—didn’t we, Mare?”

  “And they’re going to wear dinner jackets,” her sister said, giggling. “So we’re going to get all dressed up. Come on, Syl, we’ve got to get unpacked and dressed.”

  “Oh, sure,” Delaney said solemnly. “Go your selfish, carefree way. Your mother and I have been waiting months to see you, but that
’s all right. Go to the Plaza and have your partridge under glass and your Dom Perignon. Your mother and I will have our hot dogs and beans and beer; we don’t mind. Don’t even think about us.”

  The two girls looked at him, stricken. But when they realized he was teasing, flew at him, smothering him with kisses.

  He helped them upstairs with their luggage, then came down to find Monica in the kitchen, sliding a veal casserole into the oven.

  “What do you think?” she asked anxiously.

  He shrugged. “We’ll take a look at these ‘perfect gentlemen’ and see. At least they’re picking up the girls at their home; that’s a good sign.”

  Just then they heard chimes from the front door.

  “Now who the hell can that be?” Delaney said. “Don’t tell me Peter and Jeffrey have turned up three hours early.”

  But when he looked through the judas, he saw a uniformed deliveryman holding an enormous basket of flowers, the blooms lightly swathed in tissue paper. Delaney opened the door.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Delaney?”

  “Yes.”

  “Happy Holiday to you, sir.”

  “Thank you, and the same to you.”

  He signed for the flowers, handed over a dollar tip, and brought the basket back to the kitchen.

  “Look at this,” he said to Monica.

  “My God, it’s enormous! Is it for the girls?”

  “No, the deliveryman said Mr. and Mrs. Delaney.”

  Monica pulled the tissue away carefully, revealing a splendid arrangement of carnations, white tea roses, lilacs, and mums, artfully interspersed with maidenhair fern.

  “It’s gorgeous!” Monica burst out.

  “Very nice. Where the hell did they get lilac this time of year? Open the card.”

  Monica tore it open and read aloud: “ ‘Happy Holidays to Monica and Edward Delaney from Diane Ellerbee.’ Oh, Edward, wasn’t that sweet of her?”

  “Thoughtful,” he said. “She must have spent a fortune on that.”

  “Would you like a carnation for your buttonhole?” Monica asked mischievously.

  He laughed. “Have you ever seen me wear a flower?”

  “Never. Not even at our wedding.”

  “What would you think if I suddenly showed up with a rose in my lapel?”