10

The snow increased in intensity that Wednesday night, although slowly rising temperatures indicated that the storm was wasting its time, that the muffling blanket of soft white would soon be slush, drifting in gutters, or puddles huddling in low places on damp sidewalks. At two o’clock Thursday morning, as if realizing this, the storm left the city, passing on to try its luck against the heaving ocean to the east.

One incident did occur before it passed, however. In New York Harbor a ferry pilot, blinded by the walls of obscuring white and confused by the echoing sounds of foghorns that seemed to come from every corner of the bay, turned sharply to avoid collision with a huge shape that suddenly seemed to loom out of the night before him. There was nothing before him, but his altered course led him directly into the path of an ocean liner carefully edging its way towards the Narrows. The razor-thin bow of the liner cut deep into the ferry, seeking and finding the bowels of the smaller ship. The explosion killed the engineer and seriously injured his one assistant. One of the passengers on deck was missing and presumed to have been flung into the bay and drowned. The other passengers were removed by police cutter and taken to shore.

The body of the missing passenger was recovered the following morning by a tug on its way to an assignment in Jersey under blue skies. He was clutching his hat, as if to be sure it went with him wherever he went.

Thursday–9:10 A.M.

The turnkey unlocked the cell door and swung it wide.

“Outside, big guy,” he said evenly. “I don’t know how you managed to work it, unless one of your pals was watching when they put the arm on you, but anyways somebody put up the bail money and you been sprung. Come on, let’s go.”

The dark man swaggered by the turnkey triumphantly. He paused a moment to straighten his jacket sleeves, brushed at his coat, and ran a hand through his hair, attempting to restore some order to the black, rumpled locks. He started to walk from the cell when additional losses occurred to him and he looked up.

“Hey. How about my belt? And my necktie and shoelaces?”

“Upstairs at the desk,” the turnkey said, and shook his head in disgust. “As if you don’t know. As if you ain’t been through this routine a dozen times!”

The dark man sneered at him. “I’m still walking out, ain’t I? You guys thought I was nickel-and-dime. I told you monkeys you couldn’t hold me.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” the turnkey said philosophically. “We’ll see you again. All you hard guys seem to come back.”

The man paused to flip a hand in nonchalant farewell toward the other inmates of the cell block, swaggered to the stairs and trotted up them, one hand held to his trousers to prevent them from falling. The turnkey swung the door shut after him and walked slowly back to his chair at the end of the corridor.

Upstairs the dark man turned into the first door on his left. Clancy was sitting back of his desk; Kaproski was tilted back in a chair against the wall, a broad wicked grin upon his face. The dark man stood staring at him a moment in contemplative thought; the knuckles of one huge hand were rubbing against the calloused palm of the other.

“Kaproski,” he said quietly, “I can lick you. Come the next Policemen’s Matches, I want you for my very own.”

Kaproski’s grin widened. “Hi, there, convict. You heard of the Stanislavski method? Well, last night you got a touch of the Kaproski method.”

Clancy interrupted the discussion. “Well?” He sounded a trifle impatient. “How did it go?”

Garcia shrugged. “Pretty good,” he said. “After that second guy got tossed in the can with him. Up to then, nothing.” He rubbed a large hand against the stubble of his beard and then drew a chair up to the desk as if realizing that his night in the cell entitled him to a rest. He fought down a yawn. “Old Silent Sam didn’t let go of a murmur. I tried to get palsy, but he couldn’t have cared less. That act we put on was just so much vaudeville as far as he was concerned.”

“Act?” Kaproski winked.

Clancy tapped the desk with his pencil. “Did you speak to him in English or in Spanish?”

Garcia looked surprised. “In English, like you said, Lieutenant. You told me to talk English and listen in Spanish, and I did. Only until the second guy showed up, I could have been listening in Swahili for all the good it did. He …”

“And after the second guy was put in the cell?”

“Then it got to be interesting.” Garcia grinned and scratched at his beard. “They tried to whisper, but the guy who built them cells didn’t do much for privacy. Old Silent Sam was eating the other guy out in no uncertain manner. One thing, he wasn’t supposed to have been picked up, I guess. And also, from what I heard, he and another guy was supposed to knock off a third guy, and didn’t.”

“No,” Clancy said. “They didn’t. What language did they use?”

“Platense. In Argentina they call it Porteno. It’s the Spanish they use around the Rio Plate.” He shrugged in a self-deprecating manner. “It wasn’t hard to understand.”

“And did they say anything about why they were trying to knock this other man off?”

“Old Silent Sam—I guess I ought to call him plain Sam, because he sure wasn’t silent after the other guy got tossed in the clink with him—anyways, he said something about they never had such a good cover; that it would have looked political—and they blew it. That’s what really seemed to upset him. And got one of them killed in the bargain.” He looked up. “Did you know about a guy getting killed, Lieutenant?”

“The lieutenant’s the guy who killed him,” Kaproski said. He sounded rather proud.

“Oh.” Garcia’s eyebrows went up. “Then I guess I ain’t telling you anything new.”

“Yes, you are,” Clancy said. “Was there anything else said?”

“That was about it, Lieutenant. Just about the guy getting killed and how they blew a natural. The last part seemed to burn him even more than the guy getting knocked off.” He looked across the desk curiously. “What’s it all about, Lieutenant?”

Clancy swiveled in his chair, staring out of the window. His fingers twisted his pencil back and forth. “I think it was a pretty good scheme—a private killing for some personal enemy at a time when the UN was in special session. It would really confuse the issue; everyone would think it had to be political. That’s what he meant about never having that good a cover before. They’re undoubtedly professional killers, and if they were still around, this must be the first one they blew.”

“They’re professional, all right,” Garcia said. “And they look and sound like they’ve had experience in jails a lot worse than ours, too.” He reached back to scratch a shoulder. “I can’t imagine where, but they can have them. For my dough, ours are bad enough.”

Clancy swung his chair back to face the desk. “Well, we’ll pass all the information on to the State Department. They can take it from here.” He nodded at the tired-looking man across from him. “Thanks, Garcia. You did a good job. Now you’d better go home and get some rest.”

“Oh, I slept,” Garcia said. “Not much and not well on that slab of concrete they call a bed, but I got some rest. All I need is to wash my face and shave and I’ll be all right. Anyway, I made me an appointment while I was downstairs in the cell.”

“An appointment?”

“Yeah,” Garcia said, and grinned over his shoulder at Kaproski. “I said that until the other guy got tossed in the cell, old Sam kept his lip buttoned, but not that young Warnicki kid on the other side. He jabbered like talking was going to be illegal next week.”

Kaproski’s chair came down with a bang. “Did he say anything about the other two who were with him on those park muggings?”

Garcia nodded; there was a happy glint in his eye. “He sure did. His cousin Cosmo, and a pal of his cousin’s called Banjo something or other. I had to remember; you guys took away my pencil.”

“We didn’t want you to stab yourself,” Kaproski explained gently. He got to his feet, moving forward. “You want me to go out and pick up those two kids, Lieutenant?”

“Hold it!” Garcia raised a hand. “I told you I got the appointment. I also got a message to deliver to them, and also if I decide to jump my bail, they’re supposed to hide me out. I got their addresses and everything.” He turned to Clancy. “It’s the least I rate, Lieutenant, after a night on that concrete mattress.”

Clancy nodded in agreement. “All right, Garcia. You pick them up. Maybe we can start clearing some of these things off the blotter.” He turned to Kaproski. “And you hang around, Kap. Stanton’ll be here in a minute and I want to see where we stand on this Willie McFadden deal. If anywhere.”

Kaproski moved back to his chair and settled into it unhappily. “Well, okay, Lieutenant, but I started on this mugging affair.”

Garcia grinned at him. “Police work is a team effort, Kaproski,” he said; his tone attempted to sound instructive. “Page one in the manual. Any time you want to get on the team, I’ll be happy to wrestle you down to the pokey and slap you around.”

“Just you remember them Policemen’s Matches,” Kaproski said direly. “You promised.”

“I engraved them on my memory last night,” Garcia said happily. “I had to because you took my pencil away for fear I’d stab myself.” He winked at Kaproski, smiled at Clancy, and walked swaggeringly from the room, pulling up on his trousers. His place was taken immediately by Stanton who came in looking backwards over his shoulder. He shrugged and came further into the room.

“Who slugged Garcia?”

“I did,” Kaproski said sourly. “Only not hard enough.”

Clancy had had enough of light talk for the moment. He motioned Stanton to a chair. “Let’s get some work done. Let’s see where we stand on this McFadden deal.”

Stanton seated himself and pulled out his notebook. He stared at it a moment and then slipped it back into his pocket. “Well, for my dough it was still a tramp. I went through the neighbors forwards and backwards, but it was just a big waste of time. They didn’t see a thing. Not Henry, or his old lady, or even the milkman.” He shrugged helplessly. “So having no place else to go, I’m back with my tramp.”

“Using what to kill him?” Clancy asked. “Our old friend the crowbar?”

“I know I started that crowbar stuff,” Stanton said, “but when you think about it, it doesn’t make sense. He didn’t leave it there, and I can’t picture a guy walking off after killing a man holding a crowbar in his hand.” He shrugged. “Maybe his fingers, all bunched up like in judo.” He paused and then warmed to his suddenly acquired theory. “Hey, you know, Lieutenant, that’s possible. And he could have smashed the old man’s nose with the side of his hand.…”

“So now we look for a tramp with a background in karate,” Clancy said sourly. “With a blood-stained hand, if he hasn’t washed it. Or rather, with a blood-stained glove, since they didn’t find any fingerprints. Who took the old man’s coin collection but didn’t like the stamps.” He shook his head stubbornly. “I don’t like it. I still have the feeling that if we knew what the weapon was, we’d be a lot closer to the right track. You just said something that makes sense—the guy walked out with the weapon. So why didn’t somebody see him?”

Kaproski spoke from his chair. “For my money Henry and his cane still look good,” he said. “Although to tell you the truth I haven’t been able to pin a thing on him. If he had a yen for dames or horses, he sure covered his tracks good. He and his old lady don’t have any dough and they don’t spend any. Still, maybe they just got tired of always being broke when they knew Willie was loaded.…”

“A little proof would help,” Clancy said.

“Here’s an idea,” Stanton suggested. “Maybe if Doc Freeman took another look at him, at that bruise on his chest, maybe he could come up with something else.”

“After the autopsy, all there must have been on Willie’s chest was some fancy hemstitching,” Kaproski said. “Anyway, he’s being buried this morning. His sister cleared him out of the morgue last night and got him to the undertakers. By now he’s probably as pretty as a picture, not to mention halfway to the cemetery.”

Clancy drummed on the desk with tense fingers. “Damn!” He shook his head, trying to find something good to say. He found it, but it didn’t satisfy him. “Sure we’ve solved the problem of Silent Sam, and Garcia will pick up those two muggers. And we found that orderly who walked out of Uptown Hospital with a pocketful of dreams. But we still have so damn much to do …!”

There was silence in the small room. Kaproski and Stanton looked at each other but neither had a suggestion to make. In the quiet that fell the sudden strident ringing of the telephone almost made them jump. Clancy reached over and picked it up.

“Yes?”

“Clancy? This is Doc Freeman.”

“Hello, Doc. What’s on your mind?”

“Clancy,” Doc Freeman said with heartfelt congratulations in his voice, “I don’t know if you’re smart or just plain lucky. Or if God kissed you because you knew what a minion was. Anyway, you were right.”

“On what?”

“You mean you don’t even remember? On that jumper—Caper Connelly.”

Clancy came to life, his fingers instantly reaching for his pad and pencil. He leaned over the desk intently, his fingers gripping the receiver tightly. “What did you find, Doc?”

“Twenty-two short. It went in the back and lodged against bone.” Doc Freeman’s voice was respectful. “I’ll do a complete autopsy if you want, Clancy, but I don’t think there’s any doubt as to what happened. Somebody shot him and the force of the bullet threw him from the platform into the path of the train.”

“We won’t need an autopsy,” Clancy said with satisfaction. “Thanks, Doc. That’s just what I needed. None of it made sense if he had jumped. Thanks again.” He hung up, swinging around to face the two men. “Forget Willie McFadden, anyway for the moment. Maybe we can get somewhere on this Caper Connelly thing.” His eyes swung between the two men. “Where did Connelly live?”

“We ought to have it at the desk up front,” Kaproski said. “We sure drug him in here and booked him often enough. I’ll go see.” He let the chair ease to the floor, stood up, and went out toward the desk. Clancy waited impatiently, frowning unseeingly at the folders on his desk, reviewing the facts in the case one by one. Stanton sat quietly, watching his superior. A moment later Kaproski returned, nodding his head in satisfaction at the slip of paper in his hand.

“Here it is,” he said, consulting the slip. “1015 Central Park West. Apartment 2206.”

Stanton’s eyebrows raised. “That address sure isn’t out of the high-rent district. That’s a pretty snazzy pad for a hackie.”

“I don’t know about that,” Kaproski said thoughtfully. “Hackies do all right for themselves nowadays. I catch one up to my sister’s in the Bronx a couple of weeks ago, and the meter runs up over four and a half bucks by the time I get there.”

Clancy came out of his reverie.

“Yeah,” he said, getting to his feet. He reached for his hat and coat. “Let’s go over and see how the other half lives.” He paused in the action of putting on his coat to review his words, and then amended them. “Or rather, how the other half used to live …”

Thursday–11:40 A.M.

Kaproski and Stanton stepped to one side in the dim shadows of the apartment hallway while Clancy fumbled at the lock. The third key on his master ring finally fit; he swung the door wide, allowing passage to the other two, followed them in and closed the door behind him. The drapes were drawn, leaving the room in musty gloom; Clancy reached back of him to the wall, found the switch and turned on the lights. The three men stared about them.

The room was expensively furnished with low couches that managed to look both modern and comfortable at the same time. Bookshelves of highly polished wood were bracketed to the walls with brass stanchions, and were well filled and neatly arranged. A long low hi-fi set filled the space along one wall beneath an impressionist painting depicting a Parisian scene. Rich burgundy-colored carpeting stretched from wall to wall, thick and luxurious to their feet.

Stanton surpressed a whistle. “Not bad for a hackie.”

“Or even a call-girl,” Kaproski said.

“Yeah,” Clancy said. “Well, let’s get to work. Let’s take the place apart.”

“What are we looking for, Lieutenant?”

“Pictures,” Clancy said. “Photographs. Of people. Kap, you and Stanton take the rest of the house. I’ll take this room.”

“Right.” The two men disappeared down the hallway; Clancy turned first to the cantilevered bookshelves. The lower shelf of one was a bit wider than the others, furnishing an area that could serve as a writing surface; thin slots in the back held sheafs of correspondence. Clancy pulled the first batch free and began to leaf through them, looking for photographic prints. Stanton’s voice came from the rear of the apartment, urgent.

“Lieutenant!”

Clancy dropped the correspondence and hurried down the hallway; Stanton was leaning out of the kitchen door, beckoning. Kaproski came out of the bedroom as Clancy followed Stanton back into the kitchen; Stanton was pointing to the door. A huge splinter scarred the wood in the area of the lock; the molding had been pried loose from the outside, twisted savagely in an attempt to force entrance. But above the lock the chain-guard was still intact.

“Somebody tried to break in here,” Stanton said. “He didn’t make it.”

Clancy nodded, frowning at the damaged door, thinking. His head came up. “Stan, see if there’s any powder of any sort around, something we can use to check for fingerprints. There’s no sense in dragging the technical boys up here from downtown for nothing …”

“There’s some talcum powder on his dresser, Lieutenant,” Kaproski offered. “I’ll go get it.”

Clancy unhooked the chain-guard and let it dangle; his hand turned the doorknob, swinging the door inward. A porch screen door beyond testified to the anxiety of the potential intruder; it had been jerked loose from its cheap latch and swung away as Clancy opened the kitchen door.

“They must be a bunch of deaf people around here,” Stanton commented, looking at the damage. “Whoever did this must have made a racket you should of been able to hear over in Hoboken.”

“Yeah.” Clancy studied the scarred surface of the kitchen door; deep gouges in the wooden panel above and below the lock indicated the amateurishness of the attempt at housebreaking. Kaproski extended a can of talcum over his shoulder; Clancy accepted it without comment and squatted down. He deftly sprinkled the powder over the outside surface of the knob and puffed gently. The powder drifted, sliding away except in one spot; Clancy bent closer, examining it carefully, and then straightened up. He shook his head.

“No dice. It’s a smudge, probably from some grease on his gloves.” He walked out to the rear areaway and repeated his experiment on the handle of the broken screen door; the results were no better. He came back into the kitchen, the talcum still held in one hand, studied the marred wood some more, and then closed the door and slipped the chain-guard back into place. “Let’s take a look at the front. It was too dark to notice anything when we first came in.”

“Plus we didn’t look,” Kaproski added.

The front door exhibited a series of deep scratches in the neighborhood of the lock, but there was no indication that entry had been accomplished. Clancy looked at the knob, remembered his having turned it, and shook his head at his own stupidity.

“Well,” he said, closing the door behind him, “whoever it was didn’t get in, so let’s get back to work.”

The men separated again; Clancy returned to the letters in the bookshelves, opening them and reading them. Most of them were personal and had no bearing on photography or on anything else in which Clancy was interested. The balance were ads of no particular bearing on the case. Kaproski came in while Clancy was reaching for another bunch; he was carrying a small camera.

“Hey, Lieutenant,” he said. “I found this in his top dresser drawer. I never seen one like it. Looks like it’s all lens.”

“Foreign,” Clancy said, taking it and examining it with interest. “Japanese.” He turned it over; the back swung free, disclosing an empty film spool. He clicked the panel back into place and turned the camera over. His eyes narrowed as he studied the dimensions. “It’s just about the right size, though …”

“For what, Lieutenant?”

“To fit a taxicab,” Clancy said cryptically. He was slipping the camera into his pocket when Stanton called.

“Hey, Lieutenant. The bathroom’s locked.”

Clancy came swiftly. “Anyone inside?”

“I don’t think so. Looks like the light’s out.”

Clancy rapped on the door authoritatively. “This is the police,” he said clearly. “If there’s anyone in there, open the door and come out. And don’t get cute!”

There was silence. Clancy slipped a key from his pocket into the lock and swung the door back. The room was empty. He turned on the light and looked around.

A wooden shelf covered the bathtub along one wall; on it stood a photo-enlarger, several development tanks, and a series of empty molded rubber development trays. Over the tub, slung from the shower-curtain rod, was a cord with a dozen or so of empty clips.

“Hey, I know what that stuff is,” Kaproski said, indicating the equipment. “That’s for making pictures. They call it a darkroom.”

“Yeah,” Clancy said absently. He looked up. “Kap, you go back to searching the bedroom. Stan, you take the living room and those letters I was going through. I’ll take this.”

The two men left. Clancy began with the medicine chest; the shelves were lined with bottles, some of them toiletries, but others marked as containing developers and fixers. There was only one small box that might hold negatives or prints and Clancy opened it; he poured the powder it held into the sink and peered inside. It was empty. He shut the medicine chest and gave his attention to the toilet. He lifted the seat and then put it down, removed the cover of the flush-box and stared within, turned the cover over for inspection, and then replaced it. He lifted the enlarger and pans away from the tub, setting them on the floor, and removed the boards that served as their support; the tub beneath was empty.

The clothes hamper came next. He turned it upside down, dumping the contents on the floor, and set the empty hamper back on its feet. The dirty shirts, socks, and underwear were examined piece by piece and then laid aside. Nothing.

Clancy squatted on his heels beside the hamper, frowning blankly at the bamboo lattice-work. It suddenly seemed to him to be taller from the outside than from the inside; he got to his feet, lifted the hinged top back, and reached inside. The wicker floor resisted his straining fingers for a moment and then sprang loose. Beneath it, lying on the plain plywood floor of the hamper, was a package of photographs with a negative fastened to it with a paper clip. Clancy nodded to himself with profound satisfaction and withdrew the package from its cavity.

There were six positives, all the same; he held the negative to the light and nodded his head. It was undoubtedly the source of the six prints. He walked to the doorway, sticking his head out.

“Kap! Stan!”

The two men hurried in, noticing the pile of dirty clothing on the floor with raised eyebrows. Clancy leaned back against the sink, holding up the package of pictures.

“I think these are probably what we were looking for,” he said. He sounded a bit pleased with himself. “On the other hand, I could be wrong. Kap, I want you to stick around and keep shaking the place down. I want to see every photograph and every negative in the place.” He turned to Stanton. “You come back with me, Stan. One man’s enough for this job now.”

“Hey, Lieutenant,” Kaproski said, holding out his hand. “Let’s see the pictures.”

Clancy passed them over. Stanton moved back of Kaproski, examining them over his shoulder. Kaproski fanned them out, discovered they were all the same, and shoved them together again, concentrating on the top one. He whistled. “Why, the dirty old goat! What kind of a thing is that to be doing to an innocent young girl?”

Clancy reached over, retrieving the package. “I doubt if she was all that innocent,” he said dryly. “Anyway, that’s the least of his crimes. If I’m not mistaken, he’s the one who shot Caper Connelly. And with good reason, for my money.” He slipped the package into his pocket. “O.K., Kap; do a good job.”

“Sure, Lieutenant. How about lunch?”

Clancy glanced at his wristwatch. “All right, but make it fast.” He reached into his pocket and brought out his ring of master keys, handing them over.

Kaproski followed them to the door. “And Lieutenant, you want any kind of pictures, or just the kind like you found?”

“Bring them all,” Clancy said. “So far all we’ve got is a theory, but I think it’s a pretty good one. I’ll bet a week’s pay this is our man, but bring them all anyway.”

“Yeah,” Stanton said, and grinned. “Any like that one we don’t use, we can always sell.”

Thursday–2:15 P.M.

Clancy picked up the ringing phone to hear a muffled voice on the line. He bent forward, straining to hear, pressing the receiver tighter against his ear. “What?”

“I said, this is Kaproski, Lieutenant.” The voice was low and almost unintelligible.

“Well, speak up!” Clancy barked.

“I can’t, Lieutenant. I’m calling from the phone in the bedroom—with my head practically under the covers.” Kaproski hastened to explain before Clancy got the idea he had been investigating Caper Connelly’s liquor supply. “They’s somebody at the front door, Lieutenant. Scratching around at the lock …”

“Hold it!” Clancy cupped the receiver with the palm of his hand and raised his voice. “Stan!” Stanton stuck his head in the doorway; Clancy spoke rapidly. “Stan, tell the desk to get hold of the patrol car nearest to Caper Connelly’s apartment and get them over there right away. One man is to stay in the lobby downstairs and the other is to get up to the apartment in a hurry. Somebody’s back trying to break in again.” He hesitated for a fraction of a second. “And give them the description of that old guy in that picture. In case any tenant is leaving the building; we want to be sure and get the right man.”

Stanton nodded and disappeared on the run. Clancy uncupped the receiver. “Kap, I’m sending a squad car over there right away. They’ll cover the lobby and get a man up to the floor; they should be there in a few minutes. You just stay back and keep quiet. Don’t make any noise; I don’t want to scare him away. Do you understand?”

“I got you, Lieutenant.”

“And just on the offhand chance that he manages to make it inside, don’t take any chances with him. He could be armed with a twenty-two, probably with a silencer.”

Despite the need for quiet, Kaproski could not help but snort. “My God, Lieutenant! You couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn with a silenced twenty-two …”

“Tell that to Caper Connelly,” Clancy said coldly. “You just follow orders and don’t take any chances, hear?”

“O.K., Lieutenant.”

“It’s probably the old guy in those pictures we found,” Clancy said. “I feel sorry for the poor schnook; see to it he isn’t hurt if you can.” His voice tightened. “But see to it you don’t take any chances, either!”

“Right, Lieutenant. I better get back to the front room …”

There was a click of a telephone being disconnected. Clancy replaced the receiver and leaned back, staring at the silent instrument with a frown. Time never went as slowly as at a moment such as this, when he knew decisive action was being taken somewhere else, and he was playing no personal part in it. And when men under his command were accepting the danger of their assignments without complaint while he had to sit and wait to hear the results. He took a deep breath and tried to bring his thoughts back to the pile of work on his desk, but it was useless.

He reached two fingers into his pocket, bringing out a cigarette, lighting it with nervous fingers. And then swiveled his chair about, drawing in the welcome smoke shudderingly, staring out of the streaked window at the snow-filled areaway beyond.…