The Mugger

by Ed McBain

  “So I’ve been told.”

  “A pretty girl can find herself in with the wrong crowd. A pretty girl—”

  “Is like a melody,” Jeannie concluded. “I’m not in with the wrong crowd. I’m fine. I’m a healthy, normal teenager. Leave me alone.”

  “Do you date much?”

  “Enough.”

  “Anyone steady?”

  “No.”

  “Anyone in mind for a steady?”

  “Do you date much?” Jeannie countered.

  “Not much.”

  “Anyone steady?”

  “No,” Kling answered, smiling.

  “Anyone in mind for a steady?”

  “No.”

  “Why not? I should think a hero cop would be in wild demand.”

  “I’m shy,” Kling said.

  “I’ll just bet you are. We haven’t known each other ten minutes, and we’re discussing my love life. What’ll you ask next? My brassiere size?”

  Kling’s eyes dropped inadvertently to the sweater.

  “I’ll save you the trouble,” Jeannie snapped. “It’s a thirty-eight, C-cup.”

  “I figured as much,” Kling answered.

  “That’s right, I keep forgetting you’re a cop. Cops are very observant, aren’t they? Are you the force’s prize detective?”

  “I’m a patrolman,” Kling said levelly.

  “Smart fellow like you, only a patrolman?”

  “What the hell’s eating you?” Kling asked suddenly, his voice rising.

  “Nothing. What’s eating you?”

  “I never met a kid like you. You’ve got a decent home, you’ve got looks any other girl would chop off her right arm for, and you sound—”

  “I’m the belle of Riverhead, didn’t you know? I’ve got boys crying for—”

  “And you sound as if you’re sixty years old living in a tenement flat! What the hell’s eating you, girl?”

  “Nothing. I simply don’t like the idea of a cop coming around to ask me questions.”

  “Your people felt you needed help,” Kling said wearily. “I don’t know why. Seems to me you could step into a cage of tigers and come out unscratched. You’re about as soft as an uncut diamond.”

  “Thanks.”

  Kling rose. “Take care of your beauty, kid,” he said. “You may not have it when you’re thirty-five.” He started for the door.

  “Bert,” she called.

  He turned.

  She was staring at the floor. “I’m sorry,” she said. I’m not usually a bitch.”

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Nothing, really. I have to work it out for myself, that’s all.” She smiled tremulously. “Everything’ll be all right.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Don’t let it kill you. Everybody’s got troubles. Especially at seventeen.”

  “I know,” she said, still smiling.

  “Listen, can I buy you an ice cream or something? Take your mind off your troubles.”

  “No, thanks,” she said. She looked at her watch. “I have an appointment.”

  “Oh. Well, okay. Have fun, Jeannie.” He looked at her closely. “You’re a beautiful girl. You should be enjoying yourself.”

  “I know,” she answered.

  “If you should need anything, if you should feel I can help, you can call me at the 87th Precinct.” He smiled. “That’s where I work.”

  “All right. Thanks.”

  “Want to walk down with me?”

  “No, I have to wait for the sitter.”

  Kling snapped his fingers. “Sure.” He paused. “If you’d like me to wait with you…”

  “I’d rather you didn’t. Thanks, anyway.”

  “Okay,” Kling said. He looked at her once more. Her face was troubled, very troubled. He knew there was more to say, but he didn’t know how to say it. “Take care of yourself,” he managed.

  “I will. Thanks.”

  “Sure,” Kling said. He opened the door and stepped into the foyer. Behind him, Jeannie Paige locked the door.

  Willis did not like working overtime. There are very few people who enjoy working overtime, unless they are paid for it. Willis was a detective 3rd/grade, and his salary was $5,230 a year. He was not paid by the hour, nor was he paid by the number of crimes he solved yearly. His salary was $5,230, and that was what he got no matter how many hours he put in.

  He was somewhat miffed, therefore, when Fats Donner failed to call him that Wednesday night. He had hung around the squadroom answering the phone every time it rang and generally making a nuisance of himself with the bulls who had come in on relief. He had listened for a while to Meyer, who was telling Temple about some case the 33rd had where some guy was going around stealing cats. The story had not interested him, and he had continually glanced at the big clock on the wall, waiting. He left the house at nine, convinced that Donner would not call that night.

  When he reported for work at 7:45 the next morning, the desk sergeant handed him a note, which told him Donner had called at 11:15 the night before. Donner had asked that Willis call him back as soon as possible. A number was listed on the sheet of paper. Willis walked past the desk and to the right, where a rectangular sign and a pointing hand showed the way to the DETECTIVE DIVISION. He climbed the metal steps, turned where the grilled window threw a pale-grayish morning light on a five-by-five-square interruption of the steps, and then proceeded up another sixteen steps to the second floor.

  He turned his back to the doors at the end of the corridor, the doors marked LOCKERS. He walked past the benches, the men’s lavatory, and the clerical office and then through the slatted rail divider and into the detective squadroom. He signed in, said good morning to Havilland and Simpson, who were having coffee at one of the desks, and then went to his own desk and slid the phone toward him. It was a gray, dull morning, and the hanging light globes cast a dust-covered luminescence over the room. He dialed the number and waited, looking over toward Byrnes’s office. The lieutenant’s door was wide open, which meant the lieutenant had not yet arrived. Byrnes generally closed his door as soon as he was in his office.

  “Got a hot lead, Hal?” Havilland called.

  “Yeah,” Willis said.

  A voice on the other end of his phone said, “Hello?” The voice was sleepy, but he recognized it as Donner’s.

  “Fats, this is Willis. You called me last night?”

  “What?” Donner said.

  “Detective Willis, 87th Squad,” Willis said.

  “Oh. Hi. Man, what time is it?”

  “About eight.”

  “Don’t you cats never sleep?”

  “What’ve you got for me?”

  “You make a guy going by Skippy Randolph?”

  “Not off the bat. Who is he?”

  “He’s recently from Chi, but I’m pretty sure he’s got a record here, too. He’s been mugging.”

  “You sure?”

  “Straight goods. You want to meet him?”

  “Maybe.”

  “There’s gonna be a little cube rolling tonight. Randolph’ll be there. You can rub elbows.”

  “Where?”

  “I’ll take you,” Donner said. He paused. “Steam baths cost, you know.”

  “Let me check him out first,” Willis said. “He may not be worth meeting. You sure he’ll be at this craps game?”

  “Posilutely, dad.”

  “I’ll call you back later. Can I reach you at this number?”

  “Until eleven. I’ll be at the baths after that.”

  Willis looked at the name he’d written on his pad. “Skippy Randolph. His own moniker?”

  “The Randolph is. I’m not so sure about the Skippy.”

  “But you’re sure he’s mugging?”

  “Absotively,” Donner said.

  “Okay, I’ll call you back.” Willis replaced the receiver, thought for a moment, and then dialed the Bureau of Criminal Identification.

  Miscolo, one of the patrolmen from Clerical came
into the office and said, “Hey, Hal, you want some coffee?”

  “Yes,” Willis said, and then he told the IB what he wanted.

  The Bureau of Criminal Identification was located at Headquarters, downtown on High Street. It was open twenty-four hours a day, and its sole reason for existence was the collection and compilation and cataloguing of any and all information descriptive of criminals. The IB maintained a Fingerprint File, a Criminal Index File, a Wanted File, a Degenerate File, a Parolee File, a Released Prisoner File, a Known Gamblers, Known Rapists, Known Muggers, Known Any-and-All Kinds of Criminal Files. Its Modus Operandi File contained more than 80,000 photographs of known criminals. And since all persons charged with and convicted of a crime are photographed and fingerprinted as specified by law, the file was continually growing and continually being brought up to date. Since the IB received and classified some 206,000 sets of prints yearly, and since it answered requests for some 250,000 criminal records from departments all over the country, Willis’s request was a fairly simple one to answer, and they delivered their package to him within the hour. The first photostatted item Willis dug out of the envelope was Randolph’s fingerprint card.

  Willis looked at this rapidly. The fingerprints were worthless to him at this stage of the game. He reached into the envelope and pulled out the next item, a photostatted copy of the back of Randolph’s fingerprint card.

  Willis looked through the other items in the envelope. There was a card stating that Randolph had been released from Baily’s after eight months of good behavior on May 2, 1950. He had notified his parole officer that he wished to return to Chicago, the city in which he was born, the city he should have returned to as soon as he’d been discharged from the Marine Corps. Permission had been granted, and he’d left the city for Chicago on June 5, 1950. There was a written report from the Chicago parole office to which Randolph’s records had been transferred. Apparently, he had in no way violated his parole.

  Willis thumbed through the material and came up with a transcript of Randolph’s Marine Corps record. He had enlisted on December 8, the day after Pearl Harbor. He was twenty-three years old at the time, almost twenty-four. He had risen to the rank of corporal, had taken part in the landings at Iwo Jima and Okinawa, and had personally been responsible for the untimely demise of fifty-four Japanese soldiers. On June 17, 1945, he was wounded in the leg during a Sixth Marine Division attack against the town of Mezado. He had been sent back for hospitalization on Pearl, and after convalescence, he was sent to San Francisco, where he was honorably discharged.

  And, four years later, he mugged a fifty-three-year-old man and tried to take his wallet.

  And now, according to Donner, he was back in the city—and mugging again.

  Willis looked at his watch and then dialed Donner’s number.

  “Hello?” Donner asked.

  “This craps game tonight,” Willis said. “Set it up.”

  The crap game in question was of the floating variety, and on this particular Thursday night, it was being held in a warehouse close to the River Highway. Willis, in keeping with the festive spirit of the occasion, wore a sport shirt patterned with horses’ heads and a sport jacket. When he met Donner, he almost didn’t recognize him. Somehow, the flabby quivering pile of white flesh that sucked in steam at the Turkish baths managed to acquire stature and even eminence when it was dumped into a dark-blue suit. Donner still looked immense, but immense now like a legendary giant, magnificent, almost regal in his bearing. He shook hands with Willis, during which ceremony a ten-dollar bill passed from one palm to another, and then they headed for the warehouse, the craps game, and Skippy Randolph.

  A skinny man at the side door recognized Donner, but took pause until Donner introduced Hal Willis as “Willy Harris, an old chum.” He passed them into the warehouse then, the first floor of which was dark except for a lightbulb hanging in one corner of the room. The crapshooters were huddled under that bulb. The rest of the room was crowded with what seemed to be mostly refrigerators and ranges.

  “There’s a fix in with the watchman and the cop on the beat,” Donner explained. “Won’t anybody bother us here.” They walked across the room, their heels sounding noisily on the concrete floor. “Randolph is the one in the green jacket,” Donner said. “You want me to introduce you, or will you make it alone?”

  “Alone is better,” Willis said. “If this gets fouled, I don’t want it going back to you. You’re valuable.”

  “The harm’s already done,” Donner said. “I passed you through the door, didn’t I?”

  “Sure, but I could be a smart cop who even had you fooled.”

  “Gone,” Donner said. And then—in a whisper so that his heartfelt compliment would not sound like apple-polishing—he added, “You are a smart cop.”

  If Willis heard him, he gave no sign of it. They walked over to where the blanket was spread beneath the lightbulb. Donner crowded into the circle of bettors, and Willis moved into the circle opposite him, standing alongside Randolph. A short man with a turtleneck sweater was rolling.

  “What’s his point?” Willis asked Randolph.

  Randolph looked down at Willis. He was a tall man with brown hair and blue eyes. The knife scar on his temple gave his otherwise pleasant face a menacing look. “Six,” he said.

  “He hot?”

  “Luke,” Randolph replied.

  The man in the turtleneck sweater picked up the cubes and rolled again.

  “Come on six,” someone across the circle said.

  “Stop praying,” another man warned.

  Willis counted heads. Including himself and Donner, there were seven men in the game. The dice rolled to a stop.

  “Six,” the man in the turtleneck sweater said. He picked up most of the bills on the blanket, leaving twenty-five dollars. He retrieved the dice then and said, “Bet twenty-five.”

  “You’re covered,” a big man with a gravelly voice said. He dropped two tens and a five on to the blanket. The man in the turtleneck rolled.

  “Come seven,” he said.

  Willis watched. The dice bounced, then stopped moving.

  “Little Joe,” the turtleneck said.

  “Two-to-one no four,” Willis said. He held out a ten-spot.

  A man across the circle said, “Got you,” and handed him a five. Turtleneck rolled again.

  “That’s a crazy bet,” Randolph whispered to Willis.

  “You said he was luke.”

  “He’s getting warmer every time he rolls. Watch him.”

  Turtleneck rolled a six and then a five.

  The man across the circle said to Willis, “Take another five on that?”

  “It’s a bet,” Willis said. He palmed a ten, and the man covered it with a five. Turtleneck rolled. He got his four on the next throw. Willis handed the $30 to the man across the circle. Turtleneck left the fifty on the blanket.

  “I’ll take half of it,” Gravel said.

  “I’ve got the other half,” Willis said.

  They dropped their money, covering Turtleneck’s.

  “You’re nuts,” Randolph said.

  “I came here to bet,” Willis answered. “When I want to knit argyles, I’ll stay home.”

  Turtleneck rolled a seven on his first throw.

  “Son of a bitch!” Gravel said.

  “Leave the hundred,” Turtleneck replied, smiling.

  “You’re covered,” Willis told him.

  From across the circle, Donner eyed Willis dubiously. Gravel’s eyebrows went up onto his forehead.

  “We’ve got a sport with us,” Turtleneck said.

  “Is this a sewing circle or a craps game?” Willis asked. “Shoot.”

  Turtleneck rolled an eight.

  “Six-to-five no eight,” Willis said. The men in the circle were silent. “All right, eight-to-five.” Six-to-five was the proper bet.

  “Bet,” Gravel said, handing Willis a fiver.

  “Roll,” Willis said.

  Turtlen
eck rolled.

  “Boxcars,” Randolph said. He looked at Willis for a moment. “I’ve got another eight bucks says no eight,” he said.

  “Same bet?” Gravel asked.

  “Same.”

  “You’re on.” He handed Randolph his five.

  “I thought this guy was getting hot,” Willis said, smiling at Randolph.

  “What gets hot, gets cool,” Randolph replied.

  Turtleneck rolled his eight. Gravel collected from Willis and Randolph. A hook-nosed man across the circle sighed.

  “Bet the two hundred,” Turtleneck said.

  “This is getting kind of steep, ain’t it?” Hook Nose asked.

  “If it’s too steep for you, go home to bed,” Randolph answered.

  “Who’s taking the two hundred?” Turtleneck asked.

  “I’ll take fifty of it,” Hook Nose said, sighing.

  “That leaves a C and a half,” Turtleneck said. “Am I covered?”

  “Here’s a century,” Willis said. He dropped a bill onto the blanket.

  “I’ll take the last fifty,” Randolph said, throwing his money down with Willis’s. “Roll, hotshot.”

  “These are big-timers,” a round-faced man standing on Willis’s right said. “Big gamblers.”

  Turtleneck rolled. The cubes bounced across the blanket. One die stopped, showing a deuce. The second die clicked against it and abruptly stopped with a five face up.

  “Seven,” Turtleneck said, smiling.

  “He’s hot,” Round Face said.

  “Too damn hot,” Hook Nose mumbled.

  “Bet,” Gravel put in.

  “Bet the four hundred.”

  “Come on,” Hook Nose said. “You trying to drive us home?”

  Willis looked across the circle. Hook Nose was carrying a gun, its outline plainly etched against his jacket. And, if he was not mistaken, both Turtleneck and Gravel were heeled, too.

  “I’ll take two bills of it,” Willis said.

  “Anybody covering the other two?” Turtleneck asked.

  “You got to cool off sometime,” Randolph said. “You got a bet.” He dropped two hundred onto the blanket.

  “Roll’em,” Willis said. “Shake ‘em first.”

  “Papa’s shoes got holes, dice,” Turtleneck said, and he rolled an eleven.