by Fuzz
The dog at his feet had been trained for police work, and Genero had been taught a few hand signals and voice signals in the squadroom before heading out for his vigil on the fourth bench, but he was also afraid of dogs, especially big dogs, and the idea of giving this animal a kill command that might possibly be misunderstood filled Genero with fear and trembling. Suppose he gave the command and the dog leaped for his own jugular rather than for the throat of the young man who was perhaps three feet away now and walking quite rapidly, glancing over his shoulder every now and again? Suppose he did that and this beast tore him to shreds, what would his mother say to that? che bella cosa, you hadda to become a police, hah?
Willis, in the meantime, had slid his walkie-talkie up between Eileen Burke’s breasts and flashed the news to Hawes, parked in his own car on Grover Avenue, good place to be when your man is going the other way. Willis was now desperately trying to lower the zipper on the bag, which zipper seemed to have become somehow stuck. Willis didn’t mind being stuck in a sleeping bag with someone like Eileen Burke, who wiggled and wriggled along with him as they attempted to extricate themselves, but he suddenly fantasied the lieutenant chewing him out the way he had chewed out Kling and Meyer this morning and so he really was trying to lower that damn zipper while entertaining the further fantasy that Eileen Burke was beginning to enjoy all this adolescent tumbling. Genero, of course, didn’t know that Hawes had been alerted, he only knew that the suspect was abreast of him now, and passing the bench now, and moving swiftly beyond the bench now, so he got up and first took off the sun-glasses, and then unbuttoned the third button of his coat the way he had seen detectives do on television, and then reached in for his revolver and then shot himself in the leg.
The suspect began running.
Genero fell to the ground and the dog licked his face.
Willis got out of the sleeping bag and Eileen Burke buttoned her blouse and her coat and then adjusted her garters, and Hawes came running into the park and slipped on a patch of ice near the third bench and almost broke his neck.
“Stop, police!” Willis shouted.
And, miracle of miracles, the suspect stopped dead in his tracks and waited for Willis to approach him with his gun in his hand and lipstick all over his face.
The suspect’s name was Alan Parry.
They advised him of his rights and he agreed to talk to them without a lawyer, even though a lawyer was present and waiting for him in case he demanded one.
“Where do you live, Alan?” Willis asked.
“Right around the corner. I know you guys. I see you guys around all the time. Don’t you know me? I live right around the corner.”
“You make him?” Willis asked the other detectives.
They all shook their heads. They were standing around him in a loose circle, the pretzel man, two nuns, the pair of lovers, and the big redhead with a white streak in his hair and a throbbing ankle in his thermal underwear.
“Why’d you run, Alan?” Willis asked.
“I heard a shot. In this neighborhood, when you hear shooting, you run.”
“Who’s your partner?”
“What partner?”
“The guy who’s in this with you.”
“In what with me?”
“The murder plot.”
“The what?”
“Come on, Alan, you play ball with us, we’ll play ball with you.”
“Hey, man, you got the wrong customer,” Parry said.
“How were you going to split the loot, Alan?”
“What loot?”
“The loot in that lunch pail.”
“Listen, I never seen that lunch pail before in my life.”
“There’s thirty thousand dollars in that lunch pail,” Willis said, “now come on, Alan, you know that, stop playing it cozy.”
Parry either avoided the trap, or else did not know there was supposed to be fifty thousand dollars in the black pail he had lifted from the bench. He shook his head and said, “I don’t know nothing about no loot, I was asked to pick up the pail, and I done it”
“Who asked you?”
“A big blond guy wearing a hearing aid.”
“Do you expect me to believe that?” Willis said.
The cue was one the detectives of the 87th had used many times before in interrogating suspects, and it was immediately seized upon by Meyer, who said, “Take it easy, Hal,” the proper response, the response that told Willis they were once again ready to assume antagonistic roles. In the charade that would follow, Willis would play the tough bastard out to hang a phony rap on poor little Alan Parry, while Meyer would play the sympathetic father figure. The other detectives (including Faulk of the 88th, who was familiar with the ploy and had used it often enough himself in his own squadroom) would serve as a sort of nodding Greek chorus, impartial and objective.
Without even so much as a glance at Meyer, Willis said, “What do you mean, take it easy? This little punk has been lying from the minute we got him up here.”
“Maybe there really was a tall blond guy with a hearing aid,” Meyer said. “Give him a chance to tell us, will you?”
“Sure, and maybe there was a striped elephant with pink polka dots,” Willis said. “Who’s your partner, you little punk?”
“I don’t have no partner!” Parry said. Plaintively, he said to Meyer, “Will you please tell this guy I ain’t got a partner?”
“Calm down, Hal, will you?” Meyer said. “Let’s hear it, Alan.”
“I was on my way home when …”
“From where?” Willis snapped.
“Huh?”
“Where were you coming from?”
“From my girl’s house.”
“Where?”
“Around the corner. Right acrosss the street from my house.”
“What were you doing there?”
“Well, you know,” Parry said.
“No, we don’t know,” Willis said.
“For God’s sake, Hal,” Meyer said, “leave the man a little something personal and private, will you please?”
“Thanks,” Parry said.
“You went to see your girl friend,” Meyer said. “What time was that, Alan?”
“I went up there around nine-thirty. Her mother goes to work at nine. So I went up around nine-thirty.”
“You unemployed?” Willis snapped.
“Yes, sir,” Parry said.
“When’s the last time you worked?”
“Well, you see …”
“Answer the question!”
“Give him a chance, Hal!”
“He’s stalling!”
“He’s trying to answer you!” Gently, Meyer said, “What happened, Alan?”
“I had this job, and I dropped the eggs.”
“What?”
“At the grocery store on Eightieth. I was working in the back and one day we got all these crates of eggs, and I was taking them to the refrigerator, and I dropped two crates. So I got fired.”
“How long did you work there?”
“From when I got out of high school.”
“When was that?” Willis asked.
“Last June.”
“Did you graduate?”
“Yes, sir, I have a diploma,” Parry said.
“So what have you been doing since you lost the job at the grocery?”
Parry shrugged. “Nothing,” he said.
“How old are you?” Willis asked.
“I’ll be nineteen … what’s today?”
“Today’s the ninth.”
“I’ll be nineteen next week. The fifteenth of March.”
“You’re liable to be spending your birthday in jail,” Willis said.
“Now cut it out,” Meyer said, “I won’t have you threatening this man. What happened when you left your girl friend’s house, Alan?”
“I met this guy.”
“Where?”
“Outside the Corona.”
“The what?”
“The Corona. You know the movie house that’s all boarded up about three blocks from here, you know the one?”
“We know it,” Willis said. “Well, there.”
“What was he doing there?”
“Just standing. Like as if he was waiting for somebody.”
“So what happened?”
“He stopped me and said was I busy? So I said it depended. So he said would I like to make five bucks? So I asked him doing what? He said there was a lunch pail in the park, and if I picked it up for him, he’d give me five bucks. So I asked him why he couldn’t go for it himself, and he said he was waiting there for somebody, and he was afraid if he left the guy might show up and think he’d gone. So he said I should get the lunch pail for him and bring it back to him there outside the theater so he wouldn’t miss his friend. He was supposed to meet him outside the Corona, you see. You know the place? A cop got shot outside there once.”
“I told you we know it,” Willis said.
“So I asked him what was in the lunch pail, and he said just his lunch, so I said he could buy some lunch for five bucks, but he said he also had a few other things in there with his sandwiches, so I asked him like what and he said do you want this five bucks or not? So I took the five and went to get the pail for him.”
“He gave you the five dollars?”
“Yeah.”
“Before you went for the pail?”
“Yeah.”
“Go on.”
“He’s lying,” Willis said.
“This is the truth, I swear to God.”
“What’d you think was in that pail?”
Parry shrugged. “Lunch. And some other little things. Like he said.”
“Come on,” Willis said, “do you expect us to buy that?” “Kid, what’d you really think was in that pail?” Meyer asked gently.
“Well … look … you can’t do nothing to me for what I thought was in there, right?”
“That’s right,” Meyer said. “If you could lock up a man for what he’s thinking, we’d all be in jail, right?”
“Right,” Parry said, and laughed.
Meyer laughed with him. The Greek chorus laughed too. Everybody laughed except Willis, who kept staring stone-faced at Parry. “So what’d you think was in the pail?” Meyer said.
“Junk,” Parry said.
“You a junkie?” Willis asked.
“No, sir, never touch the stuff.”
“Roll up your sleeve.”
“I’m not a junkie, sir.”
“Let’s see your arm.”
Parry rolled up his sleeve.
“Okay,” Willis said.
“I told you,” Parry said.
“Okay, you told us. What’d you plan to do with that lunch pail?”
“What do you mean?”
“The Corona is three blocks east of here. You picked up that pail and started heading west. What were you planning?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why were you heading away from where the deaf man was waiting?”
“I wasn’t heading anyplace.”
“You were heading west.”
“No, I musta got mixed up.”
“You got so mixed up you forgot how you came into the park, right? You forgot that the entrance was behind you, right?”
“No, I didn’t forget where the entrance was.”
“Then why’d you head deeper into the park?”
“I told you. I musta got mixed up.”
“He’s a lying little bastard,” Willis said. “I’m going to book him, Meyer, no matter what you say.”
“Now hold it, just hold it a minute,” Meyer said. “You know you’re in pretty serious trouble if there’s junk in that pail, don’t you, Alan?” Meyer said.
“Why? Even if there is junk in there, it ain’t mine.”
“Well, I know that, Alan, I believe you, but the law is pretty specific about possession of narcotics. I’m sure you must realize that every pusher we pick up claims somebody must have planted the stuff on him, he doesn’t know how it got there, it isn’t his, and so on. They all give the same excuses, even when we’ve got them dead to rights.”
“Yeah. I guess they must,” Parry said.
“So you see, I won’t be able to help you much if there really is junk in that pail.”
“Yeah, I see,” Parry said.
“He knows there’s no junk in that pail. His partner sent him to pick up the money,” Willis said.
“No, no,” Parry said, shaking his head.
“You didn’t know anything about the thirty thousand dollars, is that right?” Meyer asked gently.
“Nothing,” Parry said, shaking his head. “I’m telling you, I met this guy outside the Corona and he gave me five bucks to go get his pail.”
“Which you decided to steal,” Willis said.
“Huh?”
“Were you going to bring that pail back to him?”
“Well …” Parry hesitated. He glanced at Meyer. Meyer nodded encouragingly. “Well, no,” Parry said. “I figured if there was junk in it, maybe I could turn a quick buck, you know. There’s lots of guys in this neighborhood’ll pay for stuff like that.”
“Stuff like what?” Willis asked.
“Like what’s in the pail,” Parry said.
“Open the pail, kid,” Willis said.
“No.” Parry shook his head. “No, I don’t want to.”
“Why not?”
“If it’s junk, I don’t know nothing about it. And if it’s thirty G’s, I got nothing to do with it. I don’t know nothing. I don’t want to answer no more questions, that’s it.”
“That’s it, Hal,” Meyer said.
“Go on home, kid,” Willis said.
“I can go?”
“Yeah, yeah, you can go,” Willis said wearily.
Parry stood up quickly, and without looking back headed straight for the gate in the slatted railing that divided the squadroom from the corridor outside. He was down the hallway in a wink. His footfalls clattered noisily on the iron-ranged steps leading to the street floor below.
“What do you think?” Willis said.
“I think we did it ass-backwards,” Hawes said. “I think we should have followed him out of the park instead of nailing him. He would have led us straight to the deaf man.”
“The lieutenant didn’t think so. The lieutenant figured nobody would be crazy enough to send a stranger after fifty thousand dollars. The lieutenant figured the guy who made the pickup had to be a member of the gang.”
“Yeah, well the lieutenant was wrong,” Hawes said.
“You know what I think?” Kling said.
“What?”
“I think the deaf man knew there’d be nothing in that lunch pail. That’s why he could risk sending a stranger for it. He knew the money wouldn’t be there, and he knew we’d pick up whoever he sent.”
“If that’s the case …” Willis started.
“He wants to kill Scanlon,” Kling said.
The detectives all looked at each other. Faulk scratched his head and said, “Well, I better be getting back across the park, unless you need me some more.”
“No, thanks a lot, Stan,” Meyer said.
“Don’t mention it,” Faulk said, and went out.
“I enjoyed the plant,” Eileen Burke said, and glanced archly at Willis, and then swiveled toward the gate and out of the squadroom.
“Can it be the breeze …” Meyer sang.
“That fills the trees …” Kling joined in.
“Go to hell,” Willis said, and then genuflected and piously added, “Sisters.”
If nobody in the entire world likes working on Saturday, even less people like working on Saturday night.
Saturday night, baby, is the night to howl. Saturday night is the night to get out there and hang ten. Saturday night is when you slip into your satin slippers and your Pucci dress, put on your shirt with the monogram on the cuff, spray your navel with cologne, and laugh too loud.
The bitch city is something different on Saturday night, sophisticated in black, scented and powdered, but somehow not as unassailable, shiveringly beautiful in a dazzle of blinking lights. Reds and oranges, electric blues and vibrant greens assault the eye incessantly, and the resultant turn-on is as sweet as a quick sharp fix in a penthouse pad, a liquid cool that conjures dreams of towering glass spires and enameled minarets. There is excitement in this city on Saturday night, but it is tempered by romantic expectancy. She is not a bitch, this city. Not on Saturday night.
Not if you will love her.
Nobody likes to work on Saturday night, and so the detectives of the 87th Squad should have been pleased when the police commissioner called Byrnes to say that he was asking the D.A.’s Squad to assume the responsibility of protecting Deputy Mayor Scanlon from harm. If they’d had any sense at all, the detectives of the 87th would have considered themselves fortunate.
But the commissioner’s cut was deeply felt, first by Byrnes, and then by every man on the squad when he related the news to them. They went their separate ways that Saturday night, some into the streets to work, others home to rest, but each of them felt a corporate sense of failure. Not one of them realized how fortunate he was.
The two detectives from the D.A.’s Squad were experienced men who had handled special assignments before. When the deputy mayor’s personal chauffeur arrived to pick them up that night, they were waiting on the sidewalk outside the Criminal Courts Building, just around the corner from the District Attorney’s office. It was exactly 8:00 P.M. The deputy mayor’s chauffeur had picked up the Cadillac sedan at the municipal garage a half-hour earlier. He had gone over the upholstery with a whisk broom, passed a dust rag over the hood, wiped the windows with a chamois cloth, and emptied all the ashtrays. He was now ready for action, and he was pleased to note that the detectives were right on time; he could not abide tardy individuals.
They drove up to Smoke Rise, which was where the deputy mayor lived, and one of the detectives got out of the car and walked to the front door, and rang the bell, and was ushered into the huge brick house by a maid in a black uniform. The deputy mayor came down the long white staircase leading to the center hall, shook hands with the detective from the D.A.’s Squad, apologized for taking up his time this way on a Saturday night, made some comment about the “damn foolishness of it all,” and then called up to his wife to tell her the car was waiting. His wife came down the steps, and the deputy mayor introduced her to the detective from the D.A.’s Squad, and then they all went to the front door.
