Ed McBain_87th Precinct 22

by Fuzz

  “Look who I got!” Parker said, and burst into a choking, gasping fit.

  “What’s so special?” Meyer said. “Hello, Lewis, how’s business?”

  Lewis scowled at Meyer. Meyer shrugged.

  “Best pickpocket in the precinct!” Parker howled. “Guess what happened?”

  “What happened?” Carella asked.

  “I’m standing at the counter in Jerry’s, you know? The luncheonette?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah, with my back to the door, you know? So guess what?”

  “What?”

  “I feel somebody’s hand in my pocket, fishing around for my wallet. So I grab the hand by the wrist, and I whip around with my gun in my other hand, and guess who it is?”

  “Who is it?”

  “It’s Lewis!” Parker said, and began laughing again. “The best pickpocket in the precinct, he chooses a detective for a mark!”

  “I made a mistake,” Lewis said, and scowled.

  “Oh, man, you made a big mistake!” Parker bellowed.

  “You had your back to me,” Lewis said.

  “Lewis, my friend, you are going to prison,” Parker said gleefully, and then said, “Come on down, we’re going to book you before you try to pick Meyer’s pocket there.”

  “I don’t think it’s funny,” Lewis said, and followed Parker out of the squadroom, still scowling.

  “I think it’s pretty funny,” Meyer said.

  A man appeared at the slatted rail divider just then, and asked in hesitant English whether any of the policemen spoke Italian. Carella said that he did, and invited the man to sit at his desk. The man thanked him in Italian and took off his hat, and perched it on his knees when he sat, and then began telling Carella his story. It seemed that somebody was putting garbage in his car.

  “Rifiuti?” Carella asked.

  “Sì, rifiuti,” the man said.

  For the past week now, the man went on, someone had been opening his car at night and dumping garbage all over the front seat. All sorts of garbage. Empty tin cans and dinner leftovers and apple cores and coffee grounds, everything. All over the front seat of the car.

  “Perchè non lo chiude a chiave?” Carella asked.

  Well, the man explained, he did lock his car every night, but it didn’t do any good. Because the way the garbage was left in it the first time was that quello porco broke the side vent and opened the door that way in order to do his dirty work. So it didn’t matter if he continued to lock the car, the befouler continued to open the door by sticking his hand in through the broken flap window, and then he dumped all his garbage on the front seat, the car was beginning to stink very badly.

  Well, Carella said, do you know of anyone who might want to put garbage on your front seat?

  No, I do not know of anyone who would do such a filthy thing, the man said.

  Is there anyone who has a grudge against you? Carella asked.

  No, I am loved and respected everywhere in the world, the man said.

  Well, Carella said, we’ll send a man over to check it out.

  “Per piacere,” the man said, and put on his hat, and shook hands with Carella, and left the squadroom.

  The time was 10:33 A.M.

  At 10:35 A.M., Meyer called Raoul Chabrier down at the district attorney’s office, spent a delightful three minutes chatting with Bernice, and was finally put through to Chabrier himself.

  “Hello, Rollie,” Meyer said, “what’d you find out?”

  “About what?” Chabrier said.

  “About the book I called to …”

  “Oh.”

  “You forgot,” Meyer said flatly.

  “Listen,” Chabrier said, “have you ever tried handling two cases at the same time?”

  “Never in my life,” Meyer said.

  “Well, it isn’t easy, believe me. I’m reading law on one of them, and trying to get a brief ready on the other. You expect me to worry about some goddamn novel at the same time?”

  “Well …” Meyer said.

  “I know, I know, I know,” Chabrier said, “I promised.”

  “Well …”

  “I’ll get to it. I promise you again, Meyer. I’m a man who never breaks his word. Never. I promised you, and now I’m promising you again. What was the title of the book?”

  “Meyer Meyer,” Meyer said.

  “Of course, Meyer Meyer, I’ll look into it immediately. I’ll get back to you, I promise. Bernice,” he shouted, “make a note to get back to Meyer!”

  “When?” Meyer said.

  That was at 10:39.

  At five minutes to eleven, a tall blond man wearing a hearing aid and carrying a cardboard carton walked into the Hale Street Post Office downtown. He went directly to the counter, hefted the carton onto it, and shoved it across to the mail clerk. There were a hundred sealed and stamped envelopes in the carton.

  “These all going to the city?” the clerk asked.

  “Yes,” the deaf man replied.

  “First class?”

  “Yes.”

  “All got stamps?”

  “Every one of them.”

  “Right,” the clerk said, and turned the carton over, dumping the envelopes onto the long table behind him. The deaf man waited. At eleven A.M., the mail clerk began running the envelopes through the cancellation machine.

  The deaf man went back to the apartment, where Rochelle met him at the door.

  “Did you mail off your crap?” she asked.

  “I mailed it,” the deaf man said, and grinned.

  John the Tailor wasn’t having any of it.

  “I no wanna cops in my shop,” he said flatly and unequivocally and in somewhat fractured English.

  Carella patiently explained, in English, that the police had definite knowledge of a planned holdup to take place on Friday night at eight o’clock but that it was the lieutenant’s idea to plant two men in the rear of the shop starting tonight in case the thieves changed their minds and decided to strike earlier. He assured John the Tailor that they would unobtrusively take up positions behind the hanging curtain that divided the front of the shop from the rear, out of his way, quiet as mice, and would move into action only if and when the thieves struck.

  “Lei è pazzo!” John the Tailor said in Italian, meaning he thought Carella was crazy. Whereupon Carella switched to speaking Italian, which he had learned as a boy and which he didn’t get much chance to practice these days except when he was dealing with people like the man who had come in to complain about the garbage in his car, or people like John the Tailor, who was suddenly very impressed with the fact that Carella, like himself, was Italian.

  John the Tailor had once written a letter to a very popular television show, complaining that too many of the Italians on that show were crooks. He had seventy-four people in his immediate family, all of them living here in the United States, in this city, for most of their lives, and none of them were criminals, all of them were honest, hard-working people. So why should the television make it seem that all Italians were thieves? He had received a letter written by some programming assistant, explaining that not all the criminals on the show were Italians, some of them were Jews and Irish, too. This had not mollified John the Tailor, since he was quite intelligent and capable of understanding the basic difference between the two statements Not all Italians are criminals and Not all criminals are Italians. So it was very pleasant to have an Italian cop in his shop, even if it meant having to put up with strangers in the back behind the curtain. John the Tailor did not like strangers, even if they were Italian cops. Besides, the other stranger, the short one, definitely was not Italian, God knew what he was!

  The tailor shop did a very thriving business, though Carella doubted it brought in anything near four hundred dollars a week, which was apparently La Bresca’s and Calucci’s estimate of the take. He wondered why either of the two men would be willing to risk a minimum of ten and a maximum of thirty years in prison, the penalty for first-degree robb
ery, when all they could hope to gain for their efforts was four hundred dollars. Even granting them the minimum sentence, and assuming they’d be out on parole in three-and-a-half, that came to about a hundred and fifteen dollars a year, meager wages for any occupation.

  He would never understand the criminal mind.

  He could not, for example, understand the deaf man at all.

  There seemed to be something absolutely lunatic about the enormous risk he had taken, a gamble pitting fifty thousand dollars against possible life imprisonment. Now surely a man of his intelligence and capabilities must have known that the city wasn’t going to reach into its treasury and plunk down fifty thousand dollars solely because someone threatened murder. The odds against such a payoff were staggering, and any shrewd manipulator of odds would have realized this. The deaf man, then, had not expected to be paid, he had wanted to kill the deputy mayor, as he had earlier killed the parks commissioner. But why? Whatever else the deaf man happened to be, Carella did not figure him for a thrill killer. No, he was a hardheaded businessman taking a calculated risk. And businessmen don’t take risks unless there’s at least some hope of a payoff. The deaf man had asked for five grand at first, and been refused, and committed murder. He had next asked for fifty grand, knowing full well he’d be refused again, and had again committed murder. He had then advised the newspapers of his unsuccessful extortion attempts, and had since remained silent.

  So where was the payoff?

  It was coming, baby, of that Carella was sure.

  In the meantime, he sat in the back of John the Tailor’s shop and wondered how much a good pressing machine operator earned.

  12

  Mr. Carl Wahler

  1121 Marshall Avenue

  Isola

  Dear Mr. Wahler:

  If you treat this letter as a joke, you will die.

  These are the facts. Read them carefully. They can save your life.

  1) Parks Commissioner Cowper ignored a warning and was killed.

  2) Deputy Mayor Scanlon ignored a warning and was killed.

  3) JMV is next. He vill be killed this Friday night.

  What does all this have to do with you?

  1) This is your warning. It is your only warning. There will be no further warnings. Remember that.

  2) You are to withdraw five thousand dollars in small, unmarked bills from your account.

  3) You will be contacted by telephone sometime within the next week. The man you speak to will tell you how and when and where the money is to be delivered.

  4) If you fail to meet this demand, you too will be killed. Without warning.

  Do not entertain false hopes!

  The police could not save Cowper or Scanlon, although sufficiently forewarned. They will not be able to save JMV, either. What chance will you have unless you pay? What chance will you have vhen we strike without warning?

  Get the money. You will hear from us again. Soon.

  The letters were delivered to a hundred homes on Thursday. The deaf man was very cheerful that morning. He went whistling about his apartment, contemplating his scheme again and again, savoring its more refined aspects, relishing the thought that one hundred very wealthy individuals would suddenly be struck with panic come Saturday morning.

  By five o’clock tonight, he could reasonably assume that most of the men receiving his letter would have read it and formed at least some tentative opinion about it. He fully expected some of them to glance cursorily at it, crumple it into a ball, and immediately throw it into the garbage. He also expected a handful, the paranoid fringe, to call the police at once, or perhaps even visit their local precinct, letter in hand, indignantly demanding protection. That part of his plan was particularly beautiful, he felt. The mayor was being warned, yes, but oh so indirectly. He would learn about the threat on his life only because some frightened citizens would notify the police.

  And tomorrow night, forewarned, the mayor would nonetheless die.

  Six months ago when the deaf man had begun the preliminary work on his scheme, several rather interesting pieces of information had come to light. To begin with, he had learned that anyone desiring to know the exact location of the city’s underground water pipes need only apply to the Department of Water Supply in Room 1720 of the Municipal Building, where the maps were available for public scrutiny. Similarly, maps of the city’s underground sewer system were obtainable at the Department of Public Works in the main office of that same building. The deaf man, unfortunately, was not interested in either water pipes or sewers. He was interested in electricity. And he quickly learned that detailed maps of the underground power lines were not, for obvious reasons, open to the public for inspection. Those maps were kept in the Maps and Records Bureau of the Metropolitan Light & Power Company, worked on by an office staffed largely by draftsmen. Ahmad had been one of those draftsmen.

  The first map he delivered to the deaf man was titled “60 Cycle Network Area Designations and Boundaries Lower Isola,” and it showed the locations of all the area substations in that section of the city. The area that specifically interested the deaf man was the one labeled “Cameron Flats.” The mayor’s house was on the corner of South Meridian and Vanderhof, in Cameron Flats. The substation serving South Meridian and Vanderhof was marked with a cross in a circle, and was designated “No. 3 South Meridian.” Into this substation ran high-voltage supply cables. (They’re called feeders,” Ahmad said) from a switching station elsewhere on the transmission system. It would be necessary to destroy those supply cables if the mayor’s house was to be thrown into darkness on the night of his murder.

  The second map Ahmad delivered was titled “System Ties” and was a detailed enlargement of the feeder systems supplying any given substation. The substation on the first map had been labeled “No. 3 South Meridian.” By locating this on the more detailed map, the deaf man was able to identify the number designation of the feeder: 65CA3. Which brought him to the third pilfered map, simply and modestly titled “65CA3,” and subtitled “Location South Meridian Substation.” This was a rather long, narrow diagram of the route the feeder traveled below the city’s streets, with numbers indicating the manholes that provided access to the cables. 65CA3 passed through eleven manholes on its meandering underground travels from the switching station to the substation. The deaf man chose a manhole approximately a half-mile from the mayor’s house and wrote down its number: M3860-120’SSC-CENT.

  The last map, the crucial one, was titled “Composite Feeder Plate” and it pinpointed the manhole exactly. M3860 was located on Faxon Drive, a hundred and twenty feet south of the southern curb of Harris, in the center of the street—hence the 120’SSC-CENT. The high-voltage cables passing through that concrete manhole were five feet below the surface of the street protected by a three-hundred pound manhole cover.

  Tomorrow night, Ahmad, Buck, and the deaf man would lift that cover, and one of Buck’s bombs would effectively take care of the cables.

  And then …

  Ahhh, then …

  The really beautiful part was still ahead, and the deaf man smiled as he contemplated it.

  He could visualize the mayor’s house at 10 P.M. tomorrow night, surrounded by policemen and detectives on special assignment, all there to protect the honorable JMV from harm. He could see himself driving a black sedan directly to the curb in front of the darkened brick structure, a police flashlight picking out the gold lettering on the front door, Metropolitan Light & Power Company (pressure-sensitive letters expertly applied by Ahmad to both front doors of the car, cost eight cents per letter at Studio Art Supply, total expenditure $4.80). He could see the car doors opening. Three men step out of it. Two of them are wearing workmen’s coveralls (Sears, Roebuck, $6.95 a pair). The third is wearing the uniform of a police sergeant, complete with a citation ribbon pinned over the shield on the left breast (Theatrical Arts Rentals, $10.00 per day, plus a $75.00 deposit) and the yellow sleeve patch of the Police Department’s Emergency Service ($
1.25 at the Civic Equipment Company, across the street from Headquarters).

  “Who’s there?” the policeman on duty asks. His flashlight scans the trio. Buck, in the sergeant’s uniform, steps forward.

  “It’s all right,” Buck says. “I’m Sergeant Pierce, Emergency Service. These men are from the electric company. They’re trying to locate that power break.”

  “Okay, Sergeant,” the cop answers.

  “Everything quiet in there?” Buck asks.

  “So far. Sarge.”

  “Better check out their equipment,” Buck says. “I don’t want any static on this later.”

  “Good idea,” the cop says. He swings his flashlight around. Ahmad opens the tool box. There is nothing in it but electricians tools: a test light, a six-foot rule, a brace, four screwdrivers, a Stillson wrench, a compass saw, a hacksaw, a hammer, a fuse puller, wire skinners, wire cutters, gas pliers, Allen wrenches, friction tape, rubber tape … “Okay,” the cop says, and turns to the deaf man. “What’s that you’re carrying?”

  “A volt-ohm meter,” the deaf man answers.

  “Want to open it for me?”

  “Sure,” the deaf man says.

  The testing equipment is nothing more than a black leather case perhaps twelve inches long by eight inches wide by five inches deep. When the deaf man unclasps and raises the lid, the flashlight illuminates an instrument panel set into the lower half of the case, level with the rim. Two large dials dominate the panel, one marked “Volt-Ohm Meter,” the other marked “Ammeter.” There are three knobs spaced below the dials. Factory-stamped lettering indicates their use: the two end knobs are marked “Adjuster,” and the one in the middle is marked “Function.” Running vertically down the left-hand side of the panel are a series of jacks respectively marked 600V, 300V, 150V, 75V, 30V, and Common. Flanking the dials on the right-hand side of the plate there are similiar jacks marked 60 Amps, 30 Amps, 15 Amps, 7.5 Amps, 3 Amps, and Common. Another jack and a small bulb are below the second adjuster knob, and they are collectively marked “Leakage Indicator.” In bold factory-stamped lettering across the length of the tester are the words “Industrial Analyzer.”