BLACK BELT

Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, November 1972.

Deputy Inspector Maurice Ireland was thumb-tacking a new duty roster to the bulletin board when the well-dressed man walked into the station house. The man’s dapper appearance, combined with his cultured tone when he spoke to the desk sergeant, caused the precinct commander to turn and examine him. Neither dapperness nor culture were often encountered in the 41st Precinct.

“I wish to report a crime,” the man said.

“All right,” Sergeant Block said agreeably.

The complainant was somewhere in his mid-thirties, rather slight of build and with delicate, almost effeminate features. It crossed Ireland’s mind that he must have driven to the station house, because he couldn’t have walked through Hunts Point from a subway stop without being mugged.

When the man spoke again, Ireland realized he had been.

“It happened on 163rd Street, in front of St. Athanasius Church. This mugger chap exhibited a switchblade knife and demanded my money. In broad daylight, mind you, within sight of several pedestrians.”

Sergeant Block showed no astonishment. The 41st Precinct received between ninety and a hundred assault and robbery complaints a month, and a good number of them occurred in broad daylight before witnesses. The only thing that could have astonished the sergeant would have been for one of the witnesses to accompany the complainant to the station house. Hunts Point residents never admitted witnessing crimes.

Poising a ball-point pen over a squeal form, the desk sergeant asked, “Can you describe this man?”

“Oh, that won’t be necessary. You may just send someone over to look at him. He’s lying on the sidewalk.”

Sergeant Block stared up at the dapper little man without understanding.

“I’m afraid I killed him,” the man said apologetically. “In disarming him, I flipped him over my shoulder and his head hit the sidewalk. It rather thoroughly dashed his brains out.”

Sergeant Block continued to stare up at him, his pen still poised over the complaint form. Ireland walked over to the desk.

“I’m Inspector Ireland, the precinct commander,” he announced.

The smaller man thrust out his hand and the inspector found himself accepting a cordial handshake. “How do you do, Inspector? My name is Rollin Singer.”

The desk sergeant recovered enough to lay down his pen, pick up the dispatch mike and order a radio car to the intersection of 163rd and Tiffany. Then he picked up the pen again and entered the name Rollin Singer on the complaint form.

“Address?” he asked.

“One-thousand-nine-and-a-half Simpson.”

The sergeant stared up at him again. “You live there?”

“That’s correct.”

Sergeant Block’s expression approached disbelief, but he wrote the address.

Ireland asked, “How long have you lived there, Mr. Singer?”

“I just moved in last evening. I was on my way to work when this mugger chap accosted me.”

“You work around here?”

“Oh, no. I operate Rollin’s Beauty Salon on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. When I say I was on my way to work, I mean I was en route to the subway station at 163rd Street and Westchester Avenue.”

This time both Sergeant Block and Ireland stared. Finally, the inspector asked, “How did you happen to settle in this particular section of the Bronx, Mr. Singer?”

The dapper little man raised his eyebrows. “I’m afraid I don’t understand the question. Or your disapproving tone.”

“I didn’t mean to sound disapproving, Mr. Singer. I am merely curious. You look and act like a man of some affluence, and the 1000 block of Simpson is hardly one of Hunts Point’s better neighborhoods.”

Rollin Singer shrugged. “I find the area quaint. And the rent is certainly reasonable.”

Sergeant Block said sourly, “You won’t find it so reasonable after you’ve been mugged a few times. We estimate that nine out of ten kids in that block are on smack, which makes it a pretty dangerous place to live. During the past three weeks the block you live in has had eighteen assaults and robberies, one rape, one murder, three overdose deaths and a baby suffocation.”

“My, my,” Singer clucked. “So short a distance from the station house too, and on the same street.”

Ireland felt himself flushing. “The high crime-rate in Hunts Point stems from drug abuse and substandard living conditions, Mr. Singer, not from inadequate policing. We make plenty of arrests.”

“Oh, I’m sure you people do all you can,” Singer said with an indulgent smile. “But you really don’t have to worry about me. I’m quite adept at self-defense. I hold a black belt in jujitsu; from Japan, not one of the meaningless black belts handed out like popcorn by American schools. And in real jujitsu, not the adulterated version taught here. Do you know the difference?”

“No,” Ireland admitted.

“What is taught as jujitsu in America is merely another simple variety of self-defense similar to judo, karate and aikido. But in its original form, as devised by the samurai and secretly handed down from generation to generation, it is a whole way of life. It involves rigid mental and emotional training as well as physical skills. And it encompasses all the techniques of unarmed combat. Judo, karate and aikido are all merely simple segments of jujitsu as taught by the samurai. I could easily tie in knots any American-trained wearer of a so-called black belt in any of those three techniques.”

Inspector Ireland looked him up and down with what started out as skepticism but turned to belief when he remembered the dead mugger lying in front of St. Athanasius Church. He said, “That still doesn’t explain why you choose to live in the heart of a high-crime area.”

The smaller man looked Ireland up and down too. It took him longer because the inspector stood six-feet-four.

Eventually he said, “Are you implying that police permission is required to live in this neighborhood?”

Ireland felt himself flush again. “Of course not,” he answered shortly. Then, because the little man kept putting him on the defensive, he took it out on Sergeant Block. Glaring down at the desk sergeant, he snapped, “Make sure this matter is thoroughly investigated before you release Mr. Singer, Sergeant.”

Sergeant Block gazed up at him quizzically, his expression suggesting wonder at why the precinct commander felt it necessary to instruct him that a man who just confessed to homicide had to be held for investigation, even though presumably it was justifiable homicide. Doing an about-face, Ireland stalked into his office.

This occurred Wednesday morning. On Wednesday afternoon Sergeant Block informed Ireland that the medical examiner and the homicide team that had investigated the death of the would-be mugger in front of St. Athanasius Church had agreed it was justifiable homicide and that the circumstances didn’t merit a formal inquest. The dead man had been a twenty-five-year-old drug addict named Edwin Garth, with a long record of arrests for assaults and robberies.

Both muggings and homicides were too common in Hunts Point for the incident to interest the news media. It wasn’t even reported in the newspapers.

Inspector Ireland took Saturdays and Sundays as his days off. When he logged in Monday morning, the desk sergeant informed him that Rollin Singer had killed another mugger Saturday night, this time in the first-floor corridor of his apartment building. Again the M.E. and the investigating homicide officers had agreed it was so clearly justifiable homicide that no inquest was required. This time the assailant had been a thirty-year-old man named Harry Purvis, who had three convictions for robbery with violent assault.

“Purvis was waiting under the stairs when Singer arrived home from having dinner out,” the sergeant reported. “He jumped out and tried to brain Singer with a lead pipe. Singer gave him a karate chop between the eyes and it killed him.”

Ireland sat at his desk and thought about this for nearly an hour. Finally he got up and went out to the squeal desk.

“Did this make the papers?” he asked Sergeant Block.

Since their conversation, the sergeant had recorded complaints of five muggings, two rapes, seven burglaries and a homicide. “Did what make the papers, Inspector?” he asked.

“This Singer fellow killing another mugger,” Ireland said edgily.

“Oh. I don’t think so. Why should it?”

“No particular reason, I guess,” the inspector said in a glum voice. “Get in touch with Singer and ask him to drop by to see me.”

“He’ll be at his beauty salon in Manhattan now, Inspector.”

“Well, phone him there and find out when he can get here. If he can’t make it until evening, schedule an appointment anyway, and I’ll either stay over or come back after dinner.”

“Yes, sir,” the sergeant said.

A little later he stuck his head in Ireland’s office to report that Rollin Singer said he customarily got off the subway at 163rd and Westchester about a quarter to six, and he would come straight from there to the precinct house. The inspector decided to stay over to wait for him instead of leaving at five and coming back.

The man showed up at five minutes to six. Ireland asked him to be seated and got right to the point. “Although you’ve resided in this neighborhood less than a week, Mr. Singer, already you have been forced to kill two assailants in self-defense. Aren’t you by now convinced that Hunts Point is a pretty precarious place to live?”

“Thousands live in Hunts Point, Inspector. Do you give them all that advice?”

Ireland made an impatient gesture. “Your appearance is an invitation to attack, Mr. Singer. You look prosperous and you look easy. It’s inevitable that you’ll be subject to more attacks if you stay here.”

“I can defend myself, I assure you.”

“What if the next mugger has a gun?”

Rollin Singer smiled. “I’m not foolhardy, Inspector. Unless he made the mistake of getting too close, I would never offer resistance to a robber with a gun. Since I seldom carry more than a few dollars, it really wouldn’t be worth it.”

After gazing at him in silence for a time, Ireland said, “Even if you survive all future attacks, the police are going to look with a jaundiced eye at any more dead muggers. Are you aware that self-defense is a legally acceptable plea only when no more force than necessary is used to repel attack?”

“Oh, yes. You don’t for a moment believe I deliberately killed either mugger, do you? Both deaths were quite accidental, because my intention was merely to protect myself.”

The inspector said bluntly, “If you protect yourself so thoroughly a third time, you may find yourself on trial for murder.”

The smaller man hiked his eyebrows. “Do you really think any jury would convict me, Inspector?”

“I think one might, if we established that you were deliberately inciting these attacks.”

Rollin Singer looked astonished. “You know perfectly well I have done no such thing, Inspector. If I had been walking around deliberately flashing a roll of money, you might have some justification for such a charge. But both attacks on me occurred with absolutely no provocation on my part and in places where it seems to me I should have the right to feel safe from such attack. The first was in front of a church, in broad daylight, before witnesses; the second, in a corridor of my own apartment building. I suspect that if a jury were called upon to consider the matter, it would conclude that the real culprit is the 41st Precinct, for failure to keep residents safe from such attacks.”

Inspector Ireland examined the dapper little man sourly for a long time before heaving a resigned sigh. “All right, Mr. Singer. Just remember what I said about using only enough force to repel attack.” When the week passed with no further word of Rollin Singer, Inspector Ireland almost forgot him, but on Monday morning the inspector learned that a third would-be mugger had died and a fourth had been seriously injured during another attempt to rob Rollin Singer. The attempt had been made in mid-afternoon on Sunday at the intersection of Simpson and Westchester Avenue, a scant half block south of the police station, by two eighteen-year-old addicts, one armed with a hatchet and the other armed with a machete. Singer had spun the hatchet-carrier in front of his partner’s descending machete with the result that the youth had been nearly decapitated and had died instantly. The jujitsu expert had then flipped the machete-wielder into the path of a passing truck, putting the second teen-ager in the hospital with a number of broken bones and internal injuries.

The dead youth had been named Felipe Lopez. The one whose machete had killed him was Jesus Flores. He had been charged with homicide. Rollin Singer had not been held.

“At least he didn’t kill anyone this time,” Sergeant Block said. “It was the guy’s own buddy who did the killing.”

But it was Singer’s expertise that had placed the dead boy in precisely the right spot to get his head chopped nearly off, Ireland realized. It also was a matter of pure chance that the second youth wasn’t dead. The possibility that the truck might kill him must have occurred to the little man as he threw the boy in front of it.

“This one make the papers?” the inspector asked.

“No. The papers are so bored with Hunts Point violence that police reporters seldom drop in to check the blotter anymore. They just phone to ask if anything newsworthy has happened. I thought you might not care to have this one mentioned, so I didn’t.”

“Good,” Ireland said approvingly. “I don’t want any crime news deliberately suppressed, but I’d just as soon Mr. Singer’s exploits not be mentioned unless some reporter specifically asks about him.”

The homicide team investigating Rollin Singer’s first kill had run a check on him through the Bureau of Criminal Identification. There was no local package on him. Ireland decided it was time to be a little more thorough. He got off a wire to FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., and the answer came back early in the afternoon. The little man had no criminal record.

The inspector decided the situation had reached the point where higher authority should be informed of it. He phoned Assistant Chief Inspector Horace Fitzer, police commander for all of the Bronx, and told him about it. Fitzer said he would consult with the D.A. and call back.

Instead, it was Bronx District Attorney Lyle Corrigan who phoned Ireland about a half hour later. He asked the precinct commander for a detailed report on all three cases involving Rollin Singer. Ireland not only gave him that, but described his meeting with the man in his office following the second mugger kill.

When he finished, Corrigan said, “This man is deliberately killing these muggers, Inspector. I know something of jujitsu in its ancient form, because I had some YMCA training in both judo and karate while I was in college. If he’s as expert as he claims, he could have subdued his attackers without killing them.”

“Maybe,” Ireland agreed. “But it would take more than a personal opinion to convince a jury he used more force than necessary to repel attack. Even if they suspected he had, can you visualize them convicting a respectable businessman for murder when all of his victims were dope-addict muggers who died in the act of attacking him with weapons when he was unarmed?”

After a period of silence the D.A. emitted a reluctant, “No.” Then he added, “You know this character is going to continue to kill muggers, don’t you?”

“I suspect it.”

“You also know some reporter is bound eventually to learn what’s going on and make a sensational story out of it.”

“Uh-huh. Which is the main reason I called Inspector Fitzer.”

“It’s going to put the 41st Precinct in a pretty poor light to have it publicized that police protection is so poor down there, a resident’s only chance of survival is to become a jujitsu expert.”

“It’s going to put the whole Bronx in a poor light,” Ireland told him. “You know how these things go. The minute interest is stirred up about the crime rate here, reporters will start gathering statistics to compare Hunts Point with other areas. And we’re not the only section of the Bronx with a crime problem.”

There was another period of silence before the DA. said slowly, “It’s also going to present me with a choice of the frying pan or the fire. If I don’t try Singer for murder, my opponent in the next election can charge me with coddling a psychopathic killer. If I do, he can hit me for persecuting an innocent man whose only crime was defending himself against criminals who never should have been on the street in the first place if I had properly done my job of prosecuting them for previous crimes.”

“What do you suggest?” Ireland asked.

“I want to talk to this Singer man. When can you get him to my office? On second thought, too many reporters drop in here at unexpected times, and one just might get curious about who he is. When can you get him to your office?”

“He made it at five of six last time. I can phone him at his beauty salon and ask him to drop by again this evening.”

“All right. Inspector Fitzer and I will be there a few minutes before six, unless you call me back that you can’t arrange it.”

Ireland didn’t have to call back, because Rollin Singer readily agreed to make the meeting.

Inspector Horace Fitzer, a burly man of sixty, arrived at the precinct house at a quarter to six. District Attorney Lyle Corrigan came in five minutes later. He was a tall, slightly stooped man who wore horn-rimmed glasses and somewhat resembled Henry Kissinger. Rollin Singer showed up five minutes after the Bronx D.A.

After introductions, and after everyone was seated, Lyle Corrigan said, “I’m not going to beat about the bush, Mr. Singer. I’m familiar enough with the original art of jujitsu as you practice it to know you wouldn’t have had to kill any of your attackers in order to subdue them. Or at least not three of them. I’m convinced you are deliberately killing.”

Singer examined him quizzically and quite calmly. “I think you would have considerable difficulty establishing that in court, Mr. Corrigan. I will go on record right now, under oath if you desire, that my sole intent was to protect myself against attack in all three instances. I assure you all three deaths were quite accidental.”

Burly Horace Fitzer said in a surly voice, “You’re wasting your time, Lyle. This guy is obviously a psychopathic killer who thinks he has cleverly figured out a legal way to get his kicks. You ought to disabuse him of that notion fast by dragging him before a grand jury.”

The little man gazed at the Bronx police commander without resentment. In a pleasant tone he said, “Mr. Corrigan knows he could never get an indictment, let alone a conviction, Inspector.”

The district attorney said, “Let’s try a little reason in place of name-calling. If you do not enjoy killing, Mr. Singer, may I assume you prefer to avoid any more of it?”

“Of course.”

“Well, as long as you continue to reside in Hunts Point, it is probably inevitable that you will be subject to further attacks. It would solve the whole problem if you simply moved elsewhere.”

Rollin Singer gave him a disapproving look. “I understand that in Moscow you have to live where you are told. I wasn’t aware that as yet we had such police-state restrictions in the United States.”

“I’m not telling you where to live,” the district attorney said with patience. “I am merely asking your cooperation.”

“Don’t you think a fairer solution would be for the police to make the streets of Hunts Point safe to walk upon, at least during daylight hours? A couple of years back, one of your medical examiners issued a report with which you may be familiar, based on an evaluation of the nearly forty deaths that had occurred in my immediate neighborhood over a ten-month period. Only two of the deaths were from natural causes, which means the residents of that section have only a one-in-twenty chance of dying a natural death. I consider that a disgrace to the police department.”

“They weren’t all violent deaths,” Inspector Ireland growled. “I read that report. Over half were from alcoholism and drug overdoses.”

“True,” the little man agreed. “But fifteen were violent deaths, which amounts to one-out-of-four. That compares to a figure of ninety-three percent of all deaths throughout New York City being from natural causes. There is no way you can make Hunts Point sound as though it were adequately policed, Inspector.”

With a touch of exasperation the D.A. said, “Then why do you persist in living here, Mr. Singer? You know you are going to continue to be attacked.”

“Quite possibly.”

“You also must know that eventually some reporter is going to stumble on the story and blow it wide open.”

“The thought has occurred to me,” Singer admitted.

“What do you think will happen then?” the D.A. asked sharply.

“Two things,” the little man said promptly. “First, I imagine the publicity will bring an abrupt end to attacks on me, because word will circulate among the local addicts that I am not very safe prey.”

Corrigan grunted. “What’s the second thing?”

The little man smiled at him. “Why, I think my beauty salon will become the most popular in Manhattan. Women will fall all over themselves to have their hair dressed by a genuine, certified killer.”

Silence in the room grew to a crescendo. The dapper little man rose to his feet.

“Is that all you wanted with me, gentlemen?” he asked politely.

Neither police officer made any answer, merely continuing to gaze at the man in silence. District Attorney Corrigan didn’t say anything either, but he finally gave a bare nod.

Singer walked out of the room. Silence continued for a considerable time. Presently, Corrigan emitted a deep sigh and got out of his chair and strode to the door.

“I’ve been considering retiring to private practice for some time anyway,” he commented, and walked out also.

The assistant chief inspector and the deputy inspector looked at each other. Horace Fitzer stood up.

“I could have retired six months ago if I had wanted to,” he remarked en route to the door.

Ireland sat at his desk for a while before rising heavily and plodding over to look out at the complaint desk. Sergeant Block was no longer on duty, of course, having been relieved by the night-duty man some time ago.

The man on duty, a Sergeant Smithers, was a recent transferee about whom the inspector knew very little. Ireland knew he wouldn’t really be able to put his heart into blasting out an inferior he knew so casually. To bring about a real emotional catharsis it had to be an underling of long and close association.

He decided he would just have to wait until morning to vent his feelings.