I SNAPPED MY SAFETY belt, turned on the radio and nodded for Canelli to get under way. Typically, he narrowly avoided our first potential hazard: a huge reinforced concrete pillar that helped support the Hall of Justice. Canelli had been driving for me about three months. My purpose in choosing him was to shape him up, if possible. Canelli’s work habits resembled his driving habits. He seemed to skirt disaster constantly, yet never actually collided with anything. Friedman had been right when he’d observed that Canelli was an Italian schlemiel. Canelli would never shape up. He’d never look like a cop or act like a cop or think like a cop. He would always be a slob, Friedman contended—always a bumbler. Still, a cop who doesn’t look like a cop can be a valuable tool, properly used. And Canelli was content to be used. He was both amiable and willing. He was also lucky—incredibly, invariably lucky. Maybe his luck derived from his improbable appearance. He weighed two hundred and forty pounds, shambled when he walked and blinked when he was puzzled. He perspired profusely and frequently sucked at his teeth while he searched for a word. His suit was always wrinkled and he never crushed his hat the same way twice. His face was round and swarthy, like Friedman’s. And his eyes, in fact, also resembled Friedman’s: soft, brown, and guileless. Yet there the similarity ended. Friedman’s innocence was carefully contrived: a deceptively wide-eyed mask that had served him well for many years. Canelli’s innocence was genuine. He was the only cop I’d ever known who could get his feelings hurt.
“Where to, Lieutenant?” Canelli asked, slowing for the first traffic light.
“Hoffman near Elizabeth. Go out Howard to Twenty-fourth, and turn right.”
“Yessir.” We were under way again.
“You’d better get in the right lane,” I said. “You have to go right at the next corner, or you’ll end up on the freeway.”
“Oh. Yeah.” He glanced over his shoulder, at the same time turning. An orange Datsun protested.
“Those damn foreign cars are so small you can’t see them,” Canelli muttered.
I didn’t reply.
“That’s a Datsun,” Canelli offered, studying his late antagonist in the mirror. “My brother has one, and he likes it real well. Of course, he’s only got five thousand miles on it.”
“What kind of car have you got, Canelli?”
“Oh, I’ve got an old Ford station wagon. It’s about ready to fall apart, but I’m going to drive it till it drops.”
“That’s the cheapest way.”
“I know it. See, Gracie and I, we’re saving up, you know. To get married. So that’s why I—”
“Inspectors Eleven.” I recognized Rayburn’s voice, in Communications. I picked up the mike and acknowledged the call.
“We have a 307, Lieutenant Hastings. Repeat: a 307. Can I have your position, please?”
307—Homicide in Progress.
I heard Canelli’s low whistle as I spoke into the mike: “We’re at Fourteenth Street, proceeding west on Howard.”
“Will you please hold your position, sir, and switch your radio to Tach Seven?”
As I changed channels, I frowned. Friedman, I remembered, had said that he …
“Frank?” It was Friedman’s voice, static-blurred.
As I acknowledged the call, I motioned for Canelli to pull to the curb.
“Just a second, Frank.” The radio crackled silently for a moment. Then Friedman’s voice came back, all business: “There’s a shooting in progress at the Civic Center. The governor’s been hit. Can you take charge?”
“Roger. On our way.” I urgently motioned to Canelli, who was grinding the starter. Lately, the car had been flooding. I’d been meaning to have it checked. Canelli was sweating, muttering at the dashboard.
“Handle code three,” Friedman was saying. “I’ll advise Inspector Culligan of your situation. Remain on Tach Seven.”
“Roger. Which side of Civic Center?” As I asked the question, our engine caught laboriously. We were lurching away from the curb. I leaned forward to clip the red light to the dashboard and flick the siren switch.
“The east side—the plaza that goes from the library to the city hall.”
“We’re on our way.” I braced myself for the first corner, coming up fast. Canelli’s hands, I saw, were white-knuckled on the wheel. He was frowning intently, concentrating on the road. “Are there units on the scene?” I asked. It was an automatic question. If you were going to be the first unit on the scene of a 307, you wanted to know before you got there.
“Affirmative.” And as if on cue, reports from the scene began to come over the air, advising Friedman of the situation. Since it was an open channel, reserved for Friedman, the terse voices were jumbled together, like air-to-air chatter during a dogfight.
As I turned up the radio against the siren’s wail, I heard: “The ambulances are arriving now, Lieutenant. Three of them. Is that enough?”
“No,” Friedman answered. “You’ll need at least four. Maybe five. They’ll be coming.”
“Roger. We’re—”
“Spread out,” a high-pitched voice cut in. “It didn’t come from the crowd, for God’s sake.”
“It did come from the crowd. From the side closest to the library.”
“No, it came from the library itself.”
“We need more crowd control here. The stewards can’t get through. We’ve got to have—”
“Get sharpshooters. He could start shooting again. He—”
“Let’s get tear gas ready. We’ll need it any minute, here, if he’s in the library.”
“What about the customers—the people inside?”
A slow, calm voice said, “I’ve got what looks like a cardiac case, an elderly woman. Right at the corner of Larkin and McAllister.”
I braced myself as we careened into Van Ness. An ambulance was just ahead of us. Farther along, two motorcycle patrolmen were weaving rhythmically through the heavy traffic. I pointed up ahead. “Fall in behind that ambulance, Canelli.”
“Right. We’ll be there in a half-minute.”
“Go up Polk Street—up and around, and down Larkin. Get as close to the library as possible.”
“Yessir.”
On the radio I could hear Friedman saying, “Lieutenant Hastings is arriving on the scene any minute now. He’ll take over. Repeat, Lieutenant Hastings, from Homicide, will take over.”
I clicked the mike to “transmit,” at the same time pinning my badge to my topcoat. I tossed my hat into the back seat as I said, “This is Lieutenant Hastings. We’ll be arriving on Larkin Street, proceeding south. I want a way cleared. I want to get as close to the scene as possible. My car is a green Plymouth sedan. Repeat, a green Plymouth.” I grabbed for my sectional scan map. “Any traffic units responding, let’s seal off the area bounded by Polk and Hyde, McAllister and Grove Street.” More slowly, I repeated the coordinates. As I did, we turned the last corner into Larkin. The traffic was massed solid. We were a block and a half from the scene.
“Park,” I said to Canelli. “We’ll have to walk.”
“Shall I take the shotgun?”
“No, just the walkie-talkie.” And into the radio I said, “We have the scene in view, and are proceeding down Larkin on foot. I want all traffic stopped cold in that two-block area. Nobody in, nobody out, except for official vehicles. Nobody moves. I’ll be on the scene in one minute. Clear.”
I flipped off the radio and got out of the car, carefully locking the door and checking the windows. As I walked, with Canelli puffing beside me, I unbuttoned my topcoat and jacket, then loosened my revolver in its spring holster. Canelli was doing the same.
“Jesus,” Canelli breathed. “This is a real mess. I wonder if the governor’s dead?”