Killer's Wedge

by McBain, Ed

  "I was. I was standing a little bit away from them as they pried the door open. I could see the crack, and I saw ... this ... this figure hanging there, and I ... I realized it was Father and I ... I screamed!"

  "Who noticed it next?"

  "Alan did. And he took a knife out of his pocket and then reached into the room and cut the rope."

  "And then the door opened easily, did it?"

  "Yes."

  "Then what?"

  "They called Roger and asked him to phone the police."

  "Did anyone touch anything in the room?"

  "No. Not even Father."

  "None of them went to your father-inlaw?"

  "They went to him, but they didn't touch him. They could see immediately that he was dead. David didn't think they should touch him."

  "Why not?"

  "Why, because he was dead."

  "So?"

  "He... he knew there would be policemen here, I

  "But he also knew his father had committed suicide, didn't he?"

  "Well ... well, yes, I suppose so."

  "Then why did he warn the others not to touch the body?"

  "I'm sure I don't know," Christine said curtly. Carella cleared his throat.

  "Do you have any idea how much your father-in-law was worth, Mrs. Scott?"

  "Worth? What do you mean worth?"

  "In property," Carella said.

  "In money."

  "No. I have no idea."

  "You must have some idea, Mrs. Scott.

  Surely you know he was a very wealthy man."

  "Yes, of course I know that."

  "But not how wealthy, is that right?"

  "That's right."

  "Did you know that he left $750,000 to be divided equally among his three sons.

  Not to mention Scott Industries, Inc." and various other holdings. Did you know that?"

  "No. I didn't-" Christine stopped.

  "What are you implying Detective Carella?"

  "Implying? Nothing. I'm stating a fact of inheritance, that's all. Do you find the fact has implications?"

  "Are you sure?"

  "Yes, damnit, it has implications. It implies that perhaps someone deliberately ... that's your damn implication, isn't it?"

  "You're making the implications, Mrs. Scott. Not me."

  "Go to hell, Mr. Carella," Christine Scott said.

  "Mmm," Carella answered.

  "You're forgetting one little thing, aren't you?"

  "What's that?"

  "My father-in-law was found dead in a windowless room, and the door was bolted from the inside. Now perhaps you can tell me how your implication of murder..

  "Your implication, Mrs. Scott." of murder ties ties in with what are obvious facts.

  Or do all detectives automatically go around looking for dirt? Is that your job, Mr. Carella? Looking for dirt?"

  "My job is law enforcement. And crime detection.~~ "No crime has been committed here. And no law has been broken."

  "Suicide is a crime against the state," Carella said flatly.

  "Then you do admit it was suicide."

  "It looks as if it might have been. But a lot of suicides that look like suicides turn out to be homicides. You don't mind if I'm thorough about it, do you?"

  "I don't mind anything except your excess of bad manners. Provided you don't forget what I mentioned earlier."

  "What's that?"

  "That he was found in a windowless locked room. Don't forget that, Mr.

  Carella."

  "Mrs. Scott," Carella said fervently, "I wish I could."

  CHAPTER 8

  Alf Miscolo lay crumpled against the door to the Men's Room. Not thirty seconds had passed since the slug took him in the back. The people in the squad room had frozen completely as if the explosion of the .38 had rendered them impotent, incapable of either speech or movement. The stench of cordite hung on the air with the blue-gray after smoke of the explosion.

  Virginia Dodge, in clear silhouette against the gray of the smoke, seemed suddenly to be a very real and definite threat. She whirled from the railing just as Cotton Hawes broke from his desk in the corner.

  "Get back!" she said.

  "There's a hurt man out there," Hawes said, and he pushed through the gate.

  "Come back here or you're next!"

  Virginia shouted.

  "The hell with you!" Hawes said, and he ran to where Miscolo lay against the closed door.

  The bullet had ripped through Miscolo's back with the clean precision of a needle passing through a piece of linen. Then, erupting at its point of exit, it had torn a hole the size of a baseball just below his collarbone. The front of his shirt was drenched with blood. Miscolo was unconscious, gasping for breath.

  "Get him in here," Virginia said.

  "He shouldn't be moved," Hawes answered.

  "For God's sake, he ..

  "All right, hero," Virginia said tightly, "the nitro goes up!" She turned back toward the desk swinging the gun so that it was dangerously close to the bottle of clear liquid.

  "Bring him in, Cotton!" Byrnes said.

  "If we move him, Pete, he's liable to ..

  "Goddamnit, that's an order! Do as I say!"

  Hawes turned toward Byrnes, his eyes narrowed.

  "Yes, sir," he said and there was barely concealed vehemence in his voice.

  He reached down for a grip on the prostrate Miscolo. The man was heavy, heavier now with unconsciousness. He could feel Miscolo's bulk as he lifted him from the floor, his muscular arms straining against the man's weight. He braced himself and then shoved Miscob higher into his arms with a supporting knee. He could feel Miscolo's hot blood rushing against his naked forearm. Staggering with his load, he carried Miscolo through the gate and into the squad room

  "Put him back there," Virginia said.

  "On the floor. Out of sight." She turned to Byrnes.

  "If anybody comes up here, it was an accident, do you hear me? A gun went off accidentally. Nobody was hurt."

  "We're going to have to get a doctor for him," Hawes said.

  "We're going to have to get nothing for him," Virginia snapped.

  "The man's been ..

  "Put him down, redhead! Behind the filing cabinets. And fast."

  Hawes carried Miscolo to a point beyond the filing cabinets where the area of squad room was hidden from the corridor outside. Gently, he lowered Miscolo to the floor. He was rising when he heard footsteps in the hallway beyond. Virginia sat at the desk quietly, putting her purse up in front of the bottle of nitro as a shield, and then quickly moving the pistol directly behind the bottle so that it too was hidden by the bag.

  "Remember, Lieutenant," she whispered, and Dave Murchison, the desk sergeant came puffing down the1 hallway. Dave was in his fifties, a stout man who didn't like to climb steps and who visited the Detective Division upstairs only when it was absolutely necessary. 11e stopped just outside the railing, and then waited before speaking while he caught his breath.

  "hey, Lieutenant," he said, "sounded like a shot up here."

  "Yes," Byrnes said hesitantly.

  "It was. A shot."

  "Anything the ... "Just a gun went off. By accident," Byrnes said.

  "Nothing to worry about. Nobody.." nobody hurt."

  "Jesus, it scared the living be jabbers out of me," Murchison said.

  "You sure everything's okay?"

  "Yes. Yes, everything's okay."

  Murchison looked at his superior curiously, and then his eyes wandered into the squad room pausing on Virginia Dodge, and then passing to where Angelica Gomez sat with her shapely legs crossed.

  "Sure got a full house, huh, Loot?" he said.

  "Yes. Yes, we're sort of crowded, Dave."

  Murchison continued to look at Byrnes curiously.

  "Well," he said, shrugging, "long as everything's okay. I'll be seeing you, Pete."

  He was turning to go when Byrnes said, "Forthwith."

  "Huh?" Murchison said
.

  Byrnes was smiling thinly. He did not repeat the word.

  "Well, I'll be seeing you," Murchison said, puzzled, and he walked off down the corridor.

  The squad room was silent. They could hear Murchison's heavy tread on the metal steps leading to the floor below.

  "Have we got any Sulfapaks?" Hawes asked from where he was crouched over Miscolo.

  "The junk desk," Willis answered.

  "There should be one in there."

  He moved quickly to the desk in the corner of the room, a desk which served as a catch-all for the men of the squad, a desk piled high with Wanted circulars, and notices from Headquarters and pamphlets put out by the department and two empty holsters, and a spilled box of paper clips, and an empty Thermos bottle, a fingerprint roller, an unfinished game of Dots, the scattered tiles of a Scrabble setup and numerous other such unfilable materials. Willis opened one of the drawers, found a first-aid kit and hurried to fiawes, who had ripped open Miscolo's shin.

  "God," Willis said, "he's bleeding like a stuck pig."

  heard him. As gently as he knew how, he applied the Sulfapak to Miscolo's wound.

  "Can you get something for his head?" he asked.

  "Here, take my jacket," Willis answered.

  He removed it, rolled it into a makeshift pillow, and then-almost tenderly-put it beneath Miscolo's head.

  Byrnes walked over to the men.

  "What do you think?"

  "It isn't good," Hawes said.

  "He needs a doctor."

  "How can I get a doctor?"

  "Talk to her."

  "What good will that do?"

  "For Christ's sake, you're in command here!"

  "Am I?"

  "Aren't you?"

  "Virginia Dodge has pounded a wedge into my command, Cotton, and split it wide open. As long as she sits there with her wedge-that damn l~ottle of soup-I can't do a thing. Do you want me to kill everyone in this room? Is that what you want?"

  "I want you to get a doctor for a man who's been shot,"I Hawes answered.

  "No doctor!" Virginia called across the room.

  "Forget it. No doctor!"

  "Does that answer you?" Byrnes wanted to know.

  "It answers me," Hawes said.

  "Don't be a hero, Cotton. There're more lives in the than your own."

  "I'm not particularly dense, Pete," Hawes said.

  "But what guarantee do we have that she won't fling that bottle when Steve arrives anyway? And even if she doesn't, whal gives us the goddam right to sacrifice Steve Carella on out own petty selfish altars?"

  "Would it be better to sacrifice every man in this roon, on Steve's altar?"

  "Stop that talking over there," Virginia said.

  "Get on the other side of the room, Lieutenant! You, Shorty, over here! And you get in the corner, Redhead."

  The men split up. Angelica Gomez watched them with an amused smile on her face. She rose then, her skir sliding back over a ripe thigh as she did. Swiveling his;

  Dodge sat chastely with her gun and her bottle of tr( glycerin. Hawes watched them.

  He watched partially because he was mad as hell at the Skipper and he wanted to figure out a way of putting Virginia Dodge out of commission. But he watched, too, because the Puerto Rican girl was the most delicious-looking female he had seen in a dog's age.

  In his own mind, he didn't know whether Angelica's buttocks interested him more than did the bottle of nitro on the desk. As he toyed with various plans for the bottle of nitro, he also toyed with various fantasies concerning the blonde's explosiveness, and as he fantasized he found that Angelica Gomez was more and more delightful to watch. The girl moved with contradictory economy and fluidity, slender ankle flowing into shapely calf and knee, hip grinding, flat simplicity of belly, firm rounded thrust of breast, sweeping curve of throat and jaw, aristocratic tilt of nose. She seemed absolutely at home within the specified confines of her body. It was a distinct pleasure to watch her. She was perhaps the most unselfconscious female he had ever met. At the same time, he reminded himself, she had slit a man's throat. A nice girl.

  "Hey, ees that really a born'?" Angelica asked Virginia.

  "Sit down and don't bother me," Virginia answered.

  "Don't be so touchy. I only ask a question."

  "It's a bottle of nitroglycerin, yes," Virginia said.

  "You gon' essplode it?"

  "If I have any trouble, yes."

  "Why?"

  "Oh, shut up. Stop asking stupid questions."

  "You got a gun, too, hah?"

  "I've got two guns," Virginia said.

  "One in my hand, and another in my coat pocket.

  And a desk drawer full of them right here."

  She indicated the drawer to which she had earlier added Willis' gun.

  "You minn business, I guess, hah?"

  "I mean business."

  "Hey, listen. Why you don' let me go, hah?"

  "What are you talking about?"

  "Why you don't let me walk out of here?

  You run the put a wedge here, no? Okay. I walk out.

  (Jkayr "You stay put, sweetie," Virginia said.

  "Por que? What for?"

  "Because if you walk out of here, you talk. And if you talk to the wrong person, all my careful planning is shot to hell."

  "Who I'm gon' talk to, hah? I'm gon' talk to nobody. I'm gon' get the hell out the city.

  Go back Puerto Rico maybe. Take a plane.

  Hell, I slit a man's throat, you hear? All thees snotnose kids, they be after me now. I wake up dead one morning, no? So come on, Carmen, let me go."

  "You stay," Virginia said.

  "Carmen, don' be ..

  "You stay!"

  "Suppose I walk out, hah? Suppose I jus' do that?"

  "You get what the cop got."

  "Argh, you jus' mean," Angelica said, and she walked back to her chair and crossed her legs. She saw Hawes' eyes on her, smiled at him, and then immediately pulled her skirt lower.

  Hawes was not really studying her legs.

  Hawes had just had an idea. The idea was a two-parter, and the first part of the idea-if the plan was to be at all successful- had to be executed in the vicinity where the Puerto Rican girl was sitting. The idea had as its core the functioning of two mechanical appliances, one of which Hawes was reasonably certain would work immediately, the other of which he thought might take quite some time to work if it worked at all. The idea seemed stunning in concept to Hawes and, fascinated with it, he had stared captured into space and the focus of his stare had seemed to be Angelica's legs.

  Now, taking advantage of the girl's presence near the first of the appliances, realizing that Virginia Dodge had to be diverted before he could execute the first part of his plan, he ambled over to where Angelica sat and took a package of cigarettes from his shirt pocket.

  "Smoke?" he said.

  Angelica took the proffered cigarette.

  "Much as gracias," she said. She looked up into Hawes's face as he lighted the cigarette for her.

  "You like the legs, bali, cop?" she said.

  "Yeah, they're good legs," Hawes agreed.

  "They dam' good legs, you bet," Angelica said.

  "You don' see legs like thees too much. Muy bueno, my legs."

  "Muy," Hawes agreed.

  flatly, emotionlessly, Angelica Gomez said, "How you like to see the res' of me?"

  If the phone rings, Hawes thought, Virginia will pick it up. She's listening in on conversations now, and she sure as hell won't let one get by her, not with the possibility that it might be Steve calling. And if her attention is diverted by a phone call, that'd be all the time I'd need to do what I have to do, to get this thing rolling so that the big chance can be prepared for later on.

  Assuming she acts impulsively, the way people will when they're well, we're assuming a lot. Still, it's a chance. So come on, telephone, ring!