The Body Looks Familiar

by Richard Wormser

  Having read the late edition of the morning papers, the rest of the front page of this afternoon-paper-printed-in-the-morning did not interest Captain Martin. He turned to the first page of the second section, to a column called “City Hall” and signed by “The Recorder.”

  The third item brought him upright in his swivel chair: “Rumors are hot that there will be a change at Police Headquarters that will really crack pavements around town. A high-ranking, high-rated cop, previously apparently happy to serve out his time with railroad bars on his shoulders, is about to make a move to go to the very head of the class. And is also rumored to have the ammunition to do it with.”

  Captain Martin didn’t swear. Swearing without an audience would have been a silly gesture. But he didn’t smile, either. Nobody but he and Corday and Latson—well, and Jimmy Rein—knew that he had placed Latson in the Guild case.

  Corday could be eliminated as a silly ass, too scared to move for days. Rein could be eliminated because any other conclusion would cause the Tilt light to go on in Captain Martin’s head. Captain Martin could eliminate himself because he slept with no witnesses but his wife, and anyway, he didn’t talk in his sleep.

  Which left Jim Latson. And if Latson had tipped the News-Journal to the fact that Captain Martin was about to accuse him of something, Latson had a plan. Latson always had a plan.

  Now it was just a matter of figuring out what the plan was. It could be done. Captain Martin told himself how smart he was, how experienced he was, how trained in following criminal reasoning.

  Figure out what Latson’s plan was, and come up with a counter-plan and—

  Captain Martin shook his head. He had never fooled himself. He was not as smart as Jim Latson. More thorough, yes. Perhaps more analytical. But smarter, definitely not.

  And before his methodical, analytical mind started asking itself what it meant by smarter, Captain Martin got to his feet. This was no time for armchair pondering. He was about to have his bacon fried for him, with a year more to go for his pension. If he did not kill this story at once, Latson would be well on his way to charge anything Captain Martin said to jealousy.

  As he moved past Jake, muttering, “Press Room,” at the patrolman-secretary, the Captain saw that his Tilt light had failed him. It had been a major error in strategy and tactics to let time go by between seeing Latson and filing charges against him.

  He still believed Latson’s story about Corday; but he should have kept Latson with him when he went to see the deputy D.A. Latson could think, and think fast, and act faster and—

  There were three reporters in the press room: Cohen of the Tribune, Cahoon of the World, and Agatt of the City News Bureau. He said, “Hello, gents. Where’s everybody?”

  Wade Cohen had been typing; the other two playing gin. They all looked a little astounded at seeing him; as astounded as professional police-beat guys allow themselves to look, no matter how they feel. Cohen said, “Mostly everybody is out trying to see you or Chief Latson. How’d you escape them?”

  Captain Martin almost grinned to himself. Supposing he told them that he had almost copped Latson and Corday for a murder, and that Latson was trying to write it all off to departmental jealousy.

  It would make a sensation, all right. The newsmen might almost believe him for a minute or two. And then he’d be asked for proof—and he didn’t have any, except theoretical guff. That, and Jimmy Rein’s testimony that Jim Latson had been near the DeLisle apartment when the girl was killed, been there and worried enough about it to steal departmental records to cover it.

  And now that Latson had made his move, it was a dead certainty that the chief had figured out a reason why he’d been where he’d been, why he’d doctored the records as he’d done.

  All that was left was to deny he was jealous of Jim Latson, and that was as feeble a move as he could think of. But self-respect demanded that he stay on his feet as long as possible… It was time to answer Wade Cohen’s question about the other reporters. “I must have beat it out just a minute before they got to my place. Naturally, they’d see Chief Latson first.”

  Cohen was the only one of the three with much more standing than an office boy. He slid out from behind the typewriter, and leaned against the battered press desk, his hands in his pockets, his eyes half closed. “What’s it all about, Marty?”

  “You tell me.”

  “I know, I know. All you know is what you read in the papers.”

  Captain Martin laughed. “Don’t you guys ever get tired of that act? You can’t possibly be as weary as you make out.”

  Cohen laughed. “Who’s interviewing who? It’s not my story, really, Marty; we’re a morning paper, and by the time we go to press again the News-Journal will have covered us firmly and thoroughly. But just for my own information.”

  “For your own information, I honestly didn’t know a thing till I read that squib in the News-Journal.”

  The other two reporters had gone back to their gin game. But Cohen continued to lean against the table. There was a faintly wistful look in his rather heavy features; for once he looked quite young. He said, “If you were to start lying, Cap, it’d hurt me. I dunno why.”

  “I’m not lying.” He had to say it, and thought less of himself because he had to.

  Cohen nodded slowly. “That item couldn’t have meant anybody else but you. So for once the great News-Journal goes flat on its nose. A nice sight.”

  Captain Martin fished out cigarettes, offered them. “What were you writing up, Cohen?”

  Cohen shrugged. “Feature stuff. Eyewitness account of the raid Jim Latson led this morning. Maybe run it Sunday; for tomorrow, we’ll use a rewrite of city news or the afternoon papers.”

  Captain Martin went on fishing: “You’ve got a nice off-beat style when you want to use it. Some of the best feature stories in the city come under your by-line.” He moved over to the typewriter.

  Flattered, Cohen moved aside.

  Captain Martin read, and having read, felt the pin-ball hit the jackpot. Deputy Chief Jim Latson had, that morning, culminated weeks of careful waiting by raiding a gambling house. Said gambling house—and Captain Martin did not need to consult a map—was near the Belmont Arms, where Hogan DeLisle had been shot.

  It was, in fact, between that spot and the corner where Chief Latson’s car had stalled and been pushed by the cruiser. So now Jim Latson had a perfect alibi for being where he had been, and for not wanting anybody, even in the department, to know it.

  Hope went. But had hope ever existed? Was his strength, was any man’s strength, the strength of ten because his heart was pure? You did not have to serve twenty-nine years in the police department to answer that.

  The answer was simply that if a pure heart was ten times stronger than a criminal heart, it was a coincidence.

  To learn this, all you had to do was grow old. Maybe old enough to graduate from high school. Or grade school.

  We are quite the philosopher today, Captain Martin. Not much of a cop, but a hell of a deep philosopher. What you should have done is frame Latson for something he never did—barratry, maybe, or stealing from blind beggars’ hats—and kept him guessing. As soon as he knew what you were up to, he swung, and unfortunately, he fought like a three-armed man.

  Back to business.

  A big favor had been done the syndicate; and Jim Latson had a clear, logical reason for being where he was, and for concealing that fact at any cost. Later, there would be a department trial, and at least one policeman, maybe more, would be found guilty of taking money from the little gambling joint.

  And since department men were concerned, the chief was perfectly right in going to any lengths to keep the department from knowing he was watching the house. Even to altering the logs.

  The time had come to quit. A man owes something to his dignity, and that is to beat the world to the kick in the pants. Kick yourself—a neat trick physically—and save what appearance you have left.

  Captain Martin said
, “I’ll tell you, Cohen. I just got to thinking. I’ll bet you I know where that rumor came from that I was going upstairs.”

  Cohen said, “Oh?” Very noncommittal. Very cynical wise guy.

  “I’ve put in for a transfer,” Captain Martin said. “I’m getting too old for this job. Too many night calls, too much overtime. I’ve asked for a precinct house, preferably a suburban one.”

  “You’ll still work night watches.”

  Captain Martin said, “But on schedule. Night one week, swing the next, day the third. Means I’ll eat at least two meals at home every day. Middle-aged stomachs like that.”

  Cohen swallowed it. He turned to the City News man. “How’s about we pass the hat for a testimonial dinner for Cap here? It won’t be the same headquarters without him.”

  The City News man thought it was a wonderful idea. Captain Martin, touched a little, but not very much, drifted out of there. Precinct captains wore uniforms; he was wondering if he had bought a new one since the cut of the collar was changed about ten years ago. He didn’t think so.

  Latson’s office next. One of the secretaries sent his name in, and he went right through. The chief’s room was full of reporters. Jim Latson came from behind his desk, and put an arm around Captain Martin’s shoulders. “One of you guys take a picture of this,” he said. “Label it, ‘How Wrong Can the News-Journal Get?’”

  Captain Martin said, “I just gave the story to Cohen of the Trib and that new boy from City News. I’ve put in for a transfer to a quieter job. I want to sit out my time without ulcers… I guess it was interpreted as a move for power.”

  They shot questions at him; they took pictures. Latson intervened to tell them that the department’s information and education office would furnish them with a complete biography of Captain Benjamin Martin. So they left.

  Jim Latson went behind his desk and sat down. “Cigar, Marty?”“

  Captain Martin said, “Just a pipe, sometimes cigarettes.”

  “Fill up, boy, fill up and light up. Sit down, don’t wear your feet out.”

  Captain Martin sat down, but he didn’t lean back and he didn’t take his pipe out. “Where am I going, Chief?”

  Chief Latson’s face creased sardonically. “Shafer, out at the Gardens, retires next month. Mandatory, he’s sixty-four.”

  Captain Martin took it quietly. He neither groaned nor winced. The Gardens, Precinct Eleven, was at the opposite end of town from his home. It was also a dilly; two-thirds of it was taken up with the Zoo and the Municipal Arboretum, both of which were closed at dark, and patrolled from within by gray-coated watchmen.

  “Cheer up,” Jim Latson said, “maybe somebody’ll steal an aardvark, and you can work on the case.”

  “One year,” Captain Martin said. “I can do it on my ear.” He cleared his throat. “I’d like to ask you a favor, Jim. After all, it’s been twenty-five years.”

  Jim Latson grinned again. “I didn’t think honest cops like you took favors from crooks like me.”

  “Jimmy Rein,” Captain Martin said. “He didn’t come to me; I sent for him.” It slipped out of him before he knew what he was saying. Suddenly, he became eloquent. “He’s a comer. Smart, hard-working, honest. The department needs kids like that. And—hell—he’s pretty small game to be shooting at with an elephant gun.”

  Jim Latson said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Those hoods I rounded up this morning said they’d been paying off to the night patrol car. Ray Page and Jim Rein. You want me to keep a grafter in the department, Marty?”

  Marty shook his head, and stood up. “See you in the Zoo,” he said and left. He had just decided that his uniform was old-style after all. He would have to buy a new one; he hoped the price hadn’t gone up. They used to cost seventy-five dollars.

  Chapter 20

  DAVE CORDAY barked at his squawk-box: “What’s the airmail rate to Italy?”

  The girl’s voice came back and said, “I’ll have to find out, Mr. Corday.”

  “You should know these things.”

  The girl said, “Yes, Mr. Corday,” and shut off the box. Her name was Alice—Alice Willing, a last name that was unfortunate for a girl who had to come in daily contact with the ribald humor of the Civic Center—and she had worked for Dave Corday quite a while without getting very fond of him.

  But it was a job, and she called the mail room downstairs, got the information and told the box: “Airmail is fifteen cents for the half ounce, regular mail eight cents an ounce.”

  “I only asked you for the airmail rate,” Corday’s voice said.

  She hit the switch and told the cut-off box: “Now you know something you didn’t know before,” and, sighing, went back to the magazine she had been reading. Usually there was plenty to do; Corday knew his rights as second biggest man in the office, and raised a fuss over any errors in his briefs, his letters, even the memos he wrote to himself to guide him in the courtroom.

  Most of this mass of material she had typed by the stenographic pool, as was her right. But some was confidential; and all she proofread in person, carefully and a little fearfully. She was not bright enough to know that the day would go better if Dave Corday had something to yell about early in the morning, when the typing was laid on his desk. A typographical error on the first page would have started the day off just fine for him…

  The door from the hall opened, and a messenger girl came in. She laid three letters down, looked in the out-box, and raised one plucked eyebrow. “Nothin’ to go?”

  “No,” Alice said.

  “Ball of fire’s slippin’,” the mail girl said, and slouched out again.

  Alice sighed. Her magazine was not holding her, and the morning had been long. Lunch had been dull, because it was just before payday, and it had consisted of a sandwich at the soda fountain. The afternoon looked even duller than the morning had been; she should have tried to hold the mail girl around to talk to. Bored, almost unbearably, she decided to write a letter to an aunt on the West Coast. Not that she cared very much about her aunt, one way or another; but Alice usually got a Christmas present from her, and a letter could do no harm.

  She took a sheet of engraved stationery and turned to the typewriter.

  At once, she noticed that it was not the way she had left it. The paper release was forward, the margin stops had been changed, and an inexpert touch had tangled the “a” and “g” keys. She straightened them out daintily, and used Kleenex to remove a tiny flick of ink from her fingertips.

  Ha! Big shot had typed a letter while she was out to lunch.

  Alice couldn’t remember him ever doing a thing like that before. If he wanted to write something confidential, he told her it was that before he dictated it, and she was careful not to have it in her machine when anyone was waiting in her office. Super-confidential things, she knew, big shot wrote with his own fountain pen, in longhand.

  She shrugged. The letter to Italy, no doubt, that he had asked her about. If he left it in her out-tray, maybe she could get it open and read it. But probably it wouldn’t be worth the trouble.

  She was telling her aunt the news about their common relatives when Harry Weber walked in.

  Harry said, “Hi, Alice. Happy in your work?”

  She said, “Hello, Harry. How’s your wife?”

  That was the way it went. He didn’t make jokes about her being Willing, and she always reminded him she knew he was married, and then they could gossip a little together. A good secretary, she was pretty sure she’d never given him anything for his newspaper that Mr. Corday might have minded his having; but as a tribute to his being neither a wolf nor a foul-talker, she was more than happy to pass on anything she had picked up from the other girls in the office.

  But today nothing had happened. She said, “Keeping busy?” but it was a hopeless gambit, going no place; at any moment he’d go on in and see Corday, and leave her bored again.

  “Pretty busy,” he said. “You?”

  She shrugged, “
it’s like a rest cure around here. The only letter he’s written all day, he wrote himself.” She watched. The newspaperman was moving toward the inner door. Desperately she said, “To Italy. I’ve never been to Italy, have you?”

  “I had a brother went there during the war,” Harry said. He laughed. “When he came home, he wouldn’t even eat spaghetti. Now, he won’t pass up a picture that was shot in Italy. He’s the world’s greatest Italy-lover… Boss in?”

  Alice snapped the squawk-switch, and said, “Harry Weber to see Mr. Corday.”

  The voice that came out was more of a croak than even the box accounted for. “Send him in.”

  Harry waited till they were cut off, and asked, “What’s eating him?”

  “Oh, brother, I don’t know. He didn’t even eat lunch. I certainly hope it isn’t another cold. He had one last year, and I suffered more than he did.”

  “When you get so you can’t stand it, come over to the News-Journal. I’m getting so I make friends and so forth over there.”

  As soon as he opened the door he knew he had been right; something was awfully wrong with Dave Corday. The D.A. was huddled behind his desk, shoved back from it, looking at a spot on the county’s carpet. Harry looked at the spot, too, and found little interest in it. He said, “Howzit, Mr. District Attorney?”

  Corday shrugged. “What can I do for you, Weber?”

  Harry said, “Oh, routine. I got Guild bailed out this morning. I’m just checking to see if you have any idea when his case’ll be on the docket. Fink said—”

  He stopped because he’d gotten too much reaction; or the wrong reaction; or a perfectly bizarre reaction. Corday’s head snapped up, he almost twitched his ears. “Fink. Captain Fink?”

  Harry said, “Why, yes. Haven’t you heard, it’s all over the city end of the Center. Cap Martin’s taking over the Eleventh Precinct. Fink’s going to be Homicide.”

  Color came back into Dave Corday’s face. He straightened his coat, twitched at his tie, and pulled his chair closer to his desk. “I hadn’t heard.”

  “Sudden,” Harry Weber said. “About Guild, now…”