Killer's Wedge

by McBain, Ed

  "Don't open that door, Lieutenant," Virginia shouted, "or I'll fire into this purse and we can all go to Hell!"

  He thought in that moment before twisting the doorknob, She's lying. She hasn't got any soup in that purse, where would she get any?

  And then he remembered that among her husband's many criminal offenses had been a conviction for safe-blowing.

  But she hasn't any soup, he thought, Jesus, that's crazy. But suppose she does?

  But she won't explode it. She's waiting for Carella. She wouldn't..

  And then he thought simply, Meyer Meyer has a wile and three children.

  Slowly, he let his hand drop. Wearily, he turned to Virginia Dodge.

  "That's better," she said.

  "Now let's wait for Carella."

  Steve Carella was nervous.

  Sitting alongside Teddy, his wife, he could feel nervousness ticking along the backs of his hands, twitching in his fingers. Clean-shaved, his high cheekbones and downward-slanting eyes giving him an almost Oriental appearance, he sat with his mouth tensed, and the doctor smiled gently.

  "Well, Mr. Carella," Dr. Randolph said, "your wife is going to have a baby."

  The nervousness fled almost instantly. The cork had been pulled, and the violent waters of his tension overran the tenuous walls of the dike, leaving only the muddy silt of uncertainty. If anything, the uncertainty was worse. He hoped it did not show. He did not want it to show to Teddy.

  "Mr. Carella," the doctor said, "I can see the prenatal jitters erupting all over you. Relax.

  There's nothing to worry about."

  Carella nodded, but even the nod lacked conviction. He could feel the presence of Teddy beside him, his Teddy, his Theodora, the girl he loved, the woman he'd married. He turned for an instant to look at her face, framed with hair as black as midnight, the brown eyes gleaming with pride now, the silent red lips slightly parted.

  I mustn't spoil it for her, he thought.

  And yet he could not shake the doubt.

  "May I reassure you on several points, Mr.

  Carella?" Randolph said.

  "Well, I really ..

  "Perhaps you're worried about the infant.

  Perhaps, because your wife is a deaf mute, born that way.." perhaps you feel the infant may also be born handicapped. This is a reasonable fear, Mr. Carella."

  "I ..

  "But a completely unfounded one," Randolph smiled.

  "Medicine is in many respects a cistern of ignorance- but we do know that deafness, though sometimes congenital, is not hereditary.

  For example, perfectly normal offspring have been produced by two deaf parents. Lon Chancy is the most famous of these offspring, I suppose.

  With the proper care and treatment, your wife will go through a normal pregnancy and deliver a normal baby.

  She's a healthy animal, Mr. Carella. And it I may be so bold, a very beautiful one."

  Teddy Carella, reading the doctor's lips, came close to blushing. Her beauty, like a rare rose garden which a horticulturist has come to take for granted, was a thing she'd accepted for a long time now. It always came as a surprise, therefore, when someone referred to it in glowing terms.

  These were the face and the body with which she had been living for a good many years. She could not have been less concerned over whether or not they pleased the strangers of the world. She wanted them to please one person alone: Steve Carella.

  Now, with Steve's acceptance of the idea coupling with her own thrilled anticipation, she felt a soaring sense of joy.

  "Thank you, Doctor," Carella said.

  "Not at all," Randolph answered.

  "Good luck to you both. I'll want to see you in a few weeks, Mrs. Carella. Now take care of her."

  "I will," Carella answered, and they left the obstetrician's office. In the corridor outside, Teddy threw herself into his arms and kissed him violently.

  "Hey!" he said.

  "Is that any way for a pregnant woman to behave?"

  Teddy nodded, her eyes glowing mischievously. With one sharp twist of her dark head, she gestured toward the elevators.

  "You want to go home, huh?"

  She nodded.

  "And then what?"

  Teddy Carella was eloquently silent.

  "It'll have to wait," he said.

  "There's a little suicide I'm supposed to be covering."

  He pressed the button for the elevator.

  "I behaved like a jerk, didn't I?"

  Teddy shook her head.

  "I did. I was worried. About you, and about the baby" He paused.

  "But I've got an idea. First of all, to show my appreciation for the most wonderfully fertile and productive wife in the city ..

  Teddy grinned.

  I would like us both to have a drink.

  We'll drink to you and the baby, darling." He took her into his arms.

  "You because I love you so much. And the baby because he's going to share our love." He kissed the tip of her nose.

  "And then off to my suicide. But is that all? Not by a longshot. This is a day to remember. This is the day the most beautiful woman in the United States, nope, the world, hell, the universe, discovered she was going to have a baby! So ..." He looked at his watch.

  "I should be back at the squad room by about seven latest. Will you meet me there? I'll have to do a report, and then we'll go out to dinner, some quiet place where I can hold your hand and lean over to kiss you whenever I want to. Okay?

  At seven?"

  Teddy nodded happily.

  "And then home. And then ... is it decent to make love to a pregnant woman?"

  Teddy nodded emphatically, indicating that it was not only decent but perfectly acceptable and moral and absolutely necessary.

  "I love you," Carella said gruffly.

  "Do you know that?"

  She knew it. She did not say a word. She would not have said a word even if she could have. She looked at him, and her eyes were moist, and he said, "I love you more than life."

  CHAPTER 3

  There were ninety-thousand people living in the 87th Precinct.

  The streets of the precinct ran south from the River Harb to Grover Park, which was across the way from the station house. The River Highway paralleled the river's course, and beyond that was the first precinct street, fancy Silvermine Road, which still sported elevator operators and doormen in its tall apartment buildings.

  Continuing south, the precinct ran through the gaudy commercialism of The Stem, and then Ainsley Avenue, and then Culver with its dowdy tenements, its unfrequented churches, and its overflowing bars. Mason Avenue, familiarly known as "La Via de Putas" to the Puerto Ricans, "Whore Street," to the cops, was south of Culver and then came Grover Avenue and the park. The precinct stretch was a short one from north to south. Actually, it extended into Grover Park but only on a basis of professional courtesy; the park territory was officially under the joint command of the neighboring 88th and 89th. The stretch from east to west, however, was a longer one consisting of thirty-five tightly packed side streets. Even so, the entire territory of the precinct did not cover very much ground. It seemed even smaller when considering the vast number of people who lived there.

  The immigration pattern of America and, as a consequence, the integration pattern were clearly evident in the streets of the 87th. The population was composed almost entirely of third-generation Irish, Italians, and Jews, and first-generation Puerto Ricans. The immigrant groups did not make the slum. Conversely, it was the slum with its ghetto atmosphere of acceptance which attracted the immigrant groups. The rents, contrary to popular belief, were not low. They were as high as many to be found anywhere else in the city and, considering the services rendered for the money, they were exorbitant. Nonetheless, even a slum can become home. Once settled into it, the inhabitants of the 87th put up pictures on chipped plaster walls, threw down scatter rugs on splintered wooden floors. They learned good American tenement occupations like banging on the radia
tors for heat, stamping on the cockroaches which skittered across the kitchen floor whenever a light was turned on, setting traps for the mice and rats which paraded through the apartment like the Wehrmacht through Poland, adjusting the unbending steel bar of a police lock against the entrance door to the flat.

  It was the job of the policemen of the 87th to keep the inhabitants from engaging in another popular form of slum activity:

  the pursuit of a life of criminal adventure.

  Virginia Dodge wanted to know how many men were doing this job.

  "We've got sixteen detectives on the squad," Byrnes told her.

  "Where are they now?"

  "Three are right here."

  "And the rest?"

  "Some are off duty, some are answering squeals, and some are on plants."

  "Which?"

  "You want a complete rundown, for Christ's sake?"

  "Yes."

  "Look, Virginia..." The pistol moved a fraction of an inch deeper into the purse.

  "Okay. Cotton, get the duty chart."

  Hawes looked at the woman.

  "Is it okay to move?" he asked.

  "Go ahead. Don't open any desk drawers.

  Where's your gun, Lieutenant?"

  "I don't carry one."

  "You're lying to me. Where is it? In your office?"

  Byrnes hesitated.

  "Goddamnit," Virginia shouted, "let's get something straight here! I'm dead serious, and the next person who lies to me, or who doesn't do what I tell him to do when

  I-"

  "All right, all right, take it easy," Byrnes said.

  "It's in my desk drawer." He turned and started for his office.

  "Just a minute," Virginia said.

  "We'll all go with you." She picked up her bag gingerly and then swung her gun at the other men in the room.

  "Move," she said.

  "Follow the lieutenant."

  Like a small herd of cattle, the men followed Byrnes into the office. Virginia crowded into the small room after them.

  Byrnes walked to his desk.

  "Take it out of the drawer and put it on the desk," Virginia said.

  "Grab it by the muzzle. If your finger comes anywhere near the trigger, the nitro ..

  "All right, all right," Byrnes said impatiently.

  He hefted the revolver by its barrel and placed it on th desk top. Virginia quickly picked up the gun and put it into the left hand pocket of her coat.

  "Outside now," she said.

  Again, they filed into the squad room

  Virginia sat at the desk she had taken as her command post. She placed the purse on the desk before her, and then leveled the .38 at it.

  "Get me the duty chart," she said.

  "Get it, Cotton," Byrnes said.

  Hawes went for the chart. It hung on the wall near one of the rear windows, a simple black rectangle into which white celluloid letters were inserted. It was a detective's responsibility to replace the name of the cop he'd relieved with his own whenever his tour of duty started. Unlike patrolmen, who worked five eight-hour shifts and then swung for the next fifty-six hours, the detectives chose their own duty teams.

  Since there were sixteen of them attached to the squad, their teams automatically broke down into groups of five, five and five-with a loose man kicking around from shift to shift. On this bright everyday afternoon in October, six detectives were listed on the duty chart. Three of themHawes, Kung and Meyer -were in the squad room

  "Where are the other three?" Virginia asked.

  ~LareIIa took his wife to the doctor," Byrnes said.

  "How sweet," Virginia said bitterly.

  "And then he's got a suicide he's working on."

  "When will he be back?"

  "I don't know."

  "You must have some idea."

  "I have no idea. He'll be back when he's ready to come back."

  "What about the other two men?"

  "Brown's on a plant. The back of a tailor shop."

  "A what?"

  "A plant. A stakeout, call it what you want to. He's sitting there waiting for the place to be held up."

  "Don't kid me, Lieutenant."

  "I'm not kidding, damnit. Four tailor shops in the neighborhood have been held up during the daylight hours. We expect this one to get hit soon. Brown's waiting for the thief to show."

  "When will he come back to the squad room

  "A little after dark, I imagine. Unless the thief hits. What time is it now?" Byrnes looked up at the clock on the wall. "4:38. I imagine he'll be back by six or so."

  "And the last one? Willis?"

  Byrnes shrugged.

  "He was here a half hour ago. Who's catching?"

  "I am," Meyer said.

  "Well, where'd Willis go?"

  "He's out on a squeal, Pete. A knifing on Mason."

  "That's where he is then," Byrnes said to Virginia.

  "And when will he be back?"

  "I don't know."

  "Soon?"

  "I imagine so."

  "Who else is in the building?"

  "The desk sergeant and the desk lieutenant. You passed them on your way in."

  "Yes?"

  "Captain Frick, who commands the entire precinct in a sense."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I control the squad, but officially ..

  "Where's he?"

  "His office is downstairs."

  "Who else?"

  "There are a hundred and eighty-six patrolmen attached to this precinct," Byrnes said.

  "A third of them are on duty now.

  Some of them are roaming around the building. The rest are out on their beats."

  "What are they doing in the building?"

  "Twenty-fours mostly." Byrnes paused and then translated.

  "Duty as records clerks."

  "When does the shift change again?"

  "At a quarter to midnight."

  "Then they won't be back until then? The ones on beats?"

  "Most of them'll be relieved on post. But they usually come back to change into their street clothes before going home."

  "Will any detectives be coming up here?

  Besides the ones listed on the duty chart?"

  "Possibly."

  "We're not supposed to be relieved until eight in the morning, Pete," Meyer said.

  "But Carella will be back long before then, won't he?" Virginia asked.

  "Probably."

  "Yes or no?"

  "I can't say for sure. I'm playing this straight with you, Virginia. Carella may get a lead which'll keep him out of the office. I don't know."

  "Will he call in?"

  "Maybe."

  "If he does, tell him to come right back here. Do you understand?"

  "Yes. I understand."

  The telephone rang. It cut the conversation and then shrilled persistently into the silence of the squad room

  "Answer it," Virginia said.

  "No funny stuff."

  Meyer picked up the receiver.

  "Eightyseventh Squad." he said, "Detective Meyer speaking." He paused.

  "Yes, Dave. Go ahead, I'm listening." He was aware all at once of the fact that Virginia Dodge was hearing only one-half of the telephone conversation with the desk sergeant. Casually, patiently, he listened.

  "Meyer, we got a call a little while back from some guy who beard shots and a scream from the apartment next to his. I sent a car over, and they just reported back. A dame got shot in the arm, and her boyfriend claims the gun went off accidentally while he was cleaning it. You want to send one of the boys over?"

  "Sure, what's the address?" Meyer said, patiently watching Virginia.

  "23-79 Culver. That's next door to the Easy Bar. You know it?"

  "I know it. Thanks, Dave."

  "Okay." Meyer put up the phone.

  "That was a lady calling," Meyer said.