by Ed McBain
There were seven branches of Commerce of America, but the police reasoned that Damascus would never try to pass himself off as Leyden at the branch where the dead man was known. They reasoned, too, that he would not try to cash a second check at the branch on Harris and Aley, and so that left only five banks to cover. There were sixteen detectives on the squad, two of whom were on special assignment, three of whom were off duty, and three of whom were serving patrol days. That left eight available men; Lieutenant Byrnes took five of the eight, paired them off with patrolmen in plainclothes, and stationed them in the banks they guessed Damascus would hit.
Steve Carella was paired with Patrolman Benny Breach in the branch on Dock Street, all the way downtown in the financial section. The plan they had worked out with the bank officers was a simple one. If Damascus came up to any of the tellers with a check, the routine was not to vary an iota from what it had been yesterday when Edward Graham cashed the $200 check for him. The teller would first ask for identification, and then say he wanted to call the main branch to verify that there were sufficient funds in the account. He would then go to a telephone and dial the manager’s office, where Carella and Breach would be waiting. Without arousing Damascus’s suspicion in any way, he would smilingly come back to the window, ask him how he wanted the cash, and begin paying the check. By that time, Carella and Breach would have come out of the manager’s office to make the arrest.
In practice, the plan worked almost that way.
Almost, but not quite.
Damascus came into the bank at 11:15 and walked directly to one of the windows. He was a tall, good-looking man, well-dressed, exactly as Edward Graham had described him. He reached into his back pocket for his wallet, withdrew a check from it, and shoved it across the counter. His hands were huge. The printed names ROSE AND ANDREW LEYDEN fairly leaped up at the teller from the top of the check. He wet his lips, and then glanced at the check with only routine interest. It was made payable to Cash, in the amount of $200; it was dated October 17, and signed by Andrew Leyden. The teller turned it over, glanced at the endorsement on the back, and then casually said, “May I see some identification, please, Mr. Leyden?”
“Yes, certainly.” Damascus reached into his wallet. Locating the driver’s license, he smiled at the teller, and slid it across the counter.
“Thank you, sir,” the teller said, routinely comparing the signatures on the check with the one on the driver’s license. “I’ll just have to check our main branch, this won’t take a moment.”
“Certainly.”
The teller walked away from his cage. He picked up a phone on the desk some ten feet from the window. When Carella answered, he said, “He’s here. Window number six.”
“Right,” Carella said, and hung up.
The teller nodded pleasantly, replaced the receiver on its cradle, smiled, and walked back to the window.
“How would you like that, Mr. Leyden?” he asked.
“In tens, please.”
“Yes, sir.”
The teller opened the cash drawer. He took out a sheaf of tens, and began counting them off. He had reached seventy when Carella appeared at the window, gun in hand.
“Mr. Damascus,” Carella said, “you’re under arrest.”
His answer was a short sharp paralyzing uppercut to the point of the jaw. His gun went off wildly, he heard footsteps clattering away across the marble floor and then Patrolman Breach’s voice shouting, “Stop or I’ll shoot!” and then another gun going off. He stood dizzily swaying for a moment, heard Patrolman Breach firing again, shook his head to clear it, and then took aim on Damascus as he rushed toward the revolving entrance doors. He squeezed off the shot, saw the slug connect, saw blood on the neat gray shoulder of the suit, ran toward the revolving doors, and was again surprised when Damascus reversed direction and kicked out at the gun in his hand. A woman screamed, the gun arced up into the air, spiraled down toward the marble floor, clattered away out of reach. Patrolman Breach was firing again, what did they teach you to hit at the Academy? Carella wondered, and then hurled himself onto Damascus’s back as he moved again toward the revolving doors. The left sleeve of Damascus’s jacket began to tear where Carella clung to it, finally ripped loose at the shoulder seam, and pulled free of the coat itself to expose a short-sleeved white shirt and a powerful forearm. Something on that forearm almost caused Carella to relax his grip. He opened his eyes wide in surprise and then, without stopping to think about the meaning of what he had just seen, he seized the ragged shoulder of the jacket with his right hand, pulled back on it, and hurled his left fist at the same instant. He felt nose bones splintering, heard a scream of outraged pain. He swung out again with his right, and then closed in for the kill, breathing harshly, swearing as he battered the big man to the marble floor of the bank, senseless.
On his left arm was a tattooed blue dagger with the name “Andy” lettered across its blade in red.
In the squadroom, in the presence of an attorney, Andrew Lloyd Leyden told them what had happened. He told them in his own words while Carella, Kling, Lieutenant Byrnes, and a police stenographer listened. His voice was very low as he spoke. He sat with his jacket draped over his bandaged shoulder, his head bent except when he glanced up at the detectives to ask rhetorical questions. They knew he was finished only when he stopped speaking; he gave no other sign. The police stenographer typed the statement in triplicate, and they gave the original to Leyden to read before signing, while Byrnes studied one copy and Carella and Kling shared the other. The squadroom was silent as the men read the confession:
I learned about them in May.
It was the beginning of May. I had been on the road, and when I came back I found out. I found out by accident. I didn’t…you see…I didn’t even know she was pregnant. You see, I had gone to the Coast in February, I take this one very long trip each spring, I leave here on February 1st, and I get back around May 1st, it’s the longest trip I take each year. It…you see I had been gone since February and when…she miscarried, you see, and…and the doctor said the…he said she was…only two months pregnant so…so you see…I knew. I realized.
I didn’t know what to do at first.
Whatever you do is wrong.
There’s no right way for a man to behave when his wife and a stranger have made a fool of him, there’s no way, all the ways are wrong. I kept wondering, you know, how she could have done it, didn’t she know how much I loved her, I kept wondering that all the time. And I kept wondering, too, what would have happened if she hadn’t miscarried. Was she planning to have the baby, did she think I was that great a fool, didn’t she know I could count, for Christ’s sake-or had they worked out something else? I didn’t know, you see. I just didn’t know. But there was nothing to do, nothing to do but shut up and carry the knowledge inside me. And die. Slowly die.
I…I had to find out who the man was. I told her I had to go out of town for two weeks, and instead I stayed here in the city and watched the apartment, and saw him coming and going just as if he lived there with her. How could she do it, I wondered, how could she risk so much, especially for such a…such a person? I did a lot of checking, you see, I followed him home, I found out his name, I learned what kind of work he did-he was a bouncer, you know-and the kind of…of person he was. I couldn’t understand how Rosie could have had anything to do with him, he was a…he was not a nice man. He had other women, too, you know, at least two that I saw him with in those weeks, God knows what filth he was pouring into Rosie, what filth he had picked up from those whores.
I guess…
I guess I was going to kill only him.
I followed him everywhere. I even took a chance one night and went into The Cozy Corners, took a table near the back, where it was dark-that was the night, yes, that was when I found out he’s been 4-F. I was watching him, you know, I watched every move he made, and somebody, some guy drinking at th
e bar, just casually said, “Wally’s a big one, ain’t he?” and I just nodded, and he said, “Never been in the service, either, can you figure that? Big husky guy like him?” I didn’t pay much attention to it then, I mean I didn’t think it was strange or anything because I’ve never been in the service, either, you see, I had a punctured eardrum. We’re about the same size and build, Damascus and me, and about the same age, that’s another thing I couldn’t understand. I mean, if she needed another man, if she absolutely had to do this, why’d she pick somebody who was like me?
I can’t understand it at all.
I think by the time I bought the shotgun, I’d decided to kill them both. I wanted to shoot them in bed together, I wanted to kill them while they were doing it. The reason I bought a shotgun was that I wanted something that would do the most damage, inflict the greatest punishment. I think I’d seen a picture of a hunting accident in one of the men’s magazines, I forget which one, and I guess that’s when I realized what a gun could do to somebody’s face. Especially a shotgun. Especially if you fired it close up. I just wanted to hurt them as much as they had hurt me, you see. I had no idea of getting away with it. I mean, I had no idea of destroying their faces so they couldn’t be identified. I only thought of that later.
I thought of that when I was buying the shotgun. I didn’t know you needed a permit to buy a shotgun in this city, but I found out soon enough. Then I learned I could go into the next state, right across the river, and buy a gun there without any trouble, so that’s what I did. When the owner of the store asked me my name, I automatically said, “Damascus,” and gave his address, and when I was walking out-I bought the gun in Newfield, this was in August, before I left for the Coast again-while I was walking out of the shop, it occurred to me that Rosie had never been fingerprinted, and chances were Damascus hadn’t either if he’d never been in the service. If I shot them both in the face, they wouldn’t be recognized and their teeth would be gone and nobody could look up dental charts and maybe I could get away with it, kill them and actually get away with it. And then, I guess it was because I’d given Damascus’s name when I bought the gun, the whole idea came to me, just like that. I would shoot them both, and I would let the police think Damascus was me. I was dead, anyway, wasn’t I? Hadn’t they both killed me by what they’d done? Okay, so I’d really kill off Andy Leyden, kill him once and for all, leave the city, maybe leave the country, start another life under another name while the police looked for my murderer.
The idea for the tattoo came to me on the plane to the Coast. A kid across the aisle was making a drawing with Magic Markers, and he got some of the ink on his fingers, and I thought how much the stain looked like tattooed skin, and I scouted around in LA for marking pens with thin points, and of course they make them in all sizes now, so that part was easy. I must have drawn this tattoo a hundred times until I got it just right. It’s on my arm, you know, so all I had to do was look at it while I practiced drawing it over and over again. It’s a simple tattoo, no fancy stuff, and it was easy to draw. I figured it would get by all right because it would be expected, do you see what I mean? The police would know that Andrew Leyden had a tattoo on his left arm, and when they looked at the body, they would find a tattoo right where it was supposed to be, so why would they even once stop to think it was fake? Did you think it was fake? Still, I was afraid that on the night I actually did it, I wouldn’t have time to draw the tattoo on his arm, not after the noise of four shotgun blasts. But that was the horns of the dilemma, you see. I had to use a shotgun in order to destroy their faces, but I also had to put that fake tattoo on his arm so everyone would think he was me. Did you think he was me? Did everyone think he was me?
I wired the office from the Coast at 9:00 that Friday morning, and then called Rosie to tell her to send me a fresh checkbook. I really had run out of checkbooks, but that wasn’t why I’d called. I called to make certain she was home and also to let her know I’d be out there on the Coast while she was fooling around with her boy friend here in the city. I caught the 10:00 A.M. flight out of San Francisco and arrived at International Airport here at 5:55 P.M. By 6:30, I was in the city.
I didn’t think I’d go through with it.
It was a long night, the longest night in my life. I knew he worked until 2:00, you know, so I had to hang around until then, it was a long wait. I had dinner about 7:00, and then I walked around, and then I went to a movie, and then I went into this bar and got half-potted, and almost decided not to go ahead with it. But I left there about 1:30 and went to my building and waited downstairs for him. He didn’t show up until almost 3:30, I thought I’d missed him. I thought maybe he’d got out of work early and I’d missed him. But he showed up at last-a girl in a yellow Buick dropped him off-and he went upstairs. I gave him enough time to take off his clothes and get in bed with Rosie, and then I took the shotgun out of the trunk of the car where I’d left it from the day I bought it, and I went up the stairs and let myself in the kitchen door.
Rosie came into the living room and I shot her first.
When she fell I put another shot in her face.
I did the same to him.
In the bedroom.
Then I took off his jewelry, he was wearing a signet ring and an ID bracelet, and I put my wedding band on his left hand and my college ring on his other hand. Then I drew the tattoo on his arm.
I was very calm while I was drawing it. I thought sure the shots had been heard, they sounded so loud, you know?
But I was very calm.
When I finished the tattoo, it didn’t look right. It looked too new and clean, it didn’t look like the one I have on my arm. So I went around the apartment wiping my hand over any dusty surface I could find, deliberately getting my hand dirty, you see, and then I went back to where Damascus was lying on the floor and I rubbed the dirt onto the tattoo I’d drawn, to give it an older look, as if it had been there a long time, to take the new look off it. Then I propped the gun in his hand. I guess I thought I’d make it look like suicide.
That was an idea that just came to me while I was there.
I planned all the rest except that.
Lieutenant Byrnes put his copy of the confession on the desk and very softly said, “All right, Mr. Leyden, would you please sign all three copies?”
Leyden nodded. He took the pen Carella offered, turned the original copy so that he could sign it where a space had been left on the last page, and then suddenly shook his head.
“What’s the matter?” Byrnes asked.
“There’s more,” Leyden said. “I killed someone else.”
“What?” Byrnes said.
“I met a woman…I…when I was roaming around…before…before I went to the apartment. I met a woman in a bar and…and later…I…I realized I’d…I’d told her my name and…and told her my wife was cheating on me. We were…we were talking, you know, and I was upset, and I said too much. So…I…I…after I did the others, I…I went looking for her. I couldn’t remember her name, you see, in all the excitement her name had gone out of my head, but I knew I had to find her to…to make sure she…So I went back to the bar, and the bartender wouldn’t tell me what her name was, this must’ve been close to four o’clock in the morning, and I left there and was walking along wondering what to do when it came to me, all at once I remembered her name. I looked up her address in a phone book—”
“What was her name, Mr. Leyden?”
“Ryder. Marguerite Ryder.”
“Go on.”
“You getting this, Danny?” Carella asked the stenographer.
“Yo.”
“I went up there, and she said, ‘Who is it?’ and I said, ‘This is the fellow you met in the bar,’ thinking if she didn’t remember who I was I would leave her alone, there’d be no danger to me, do you understand? But she said, ‘Mr. Leyden?’ and I said, ‘Yes, Mr. Leyden,’ and she opened the door and said, ‘W
hat is it?’ I said I had to talk to her. She said it was very late, but I guess I looked desperate, she was a nice person, you see, she never once thought I would harm her. She was…putting some dishes away or something, I don’t even remember. We went straight into the kitchen, and the first thing I saw was a knife on the drainboard, and I picked it up and stabbed her without saying a word to her. I didn’t want to but…she knew my name, you see. She knew I was Andrew Leyden who was having trouble with his wife.”
The squadroom was silent again.
“Danny, you want to get this new stuff typed?” Byrnes said.
“Yo,” the stenographer said.
Carella and Kling came down the squadroom steps with their topcoats open, the afternoon breeze coming in off the park across the street, carrying with it the late-autumn aroma of woodsmoke. The November sky behind the city’s spires looked too uniform, a placid blue that had to be false, a backdrop created by scenic designers. Even the sounds of traffic were muted now that the frantic activity of the world’s longest lunch hour had subsided; twilight seemed in gestation; the city already awaited the full onslaught of night.
They were both ravenously hungry. They had wanted to send out for sandwiches, so that they could finish the paperwork in the squadroom, but Byrnes had insisted that they take a break. Now, in the waning sunlight of the afternoon, they felt the sudden chill of night, and quickened their pace, walking rapidly to the corner, turning it, and heading for the luncheonette in the middle of the block.
“Who’s going to tell Meyer the Ryder case is closed?” Kling asked.
“We’d better break it gently,” Carella said.
“He’ll have a coronary.”
“You know something?” Carella said. “The fingerprints didn’t even belong to him.”
