Ed McBain_87th Precinct 22 (4 page)

“What do you normally do?”

“I’m a construction worker.”

“When’s the last time you worked?”

“I was laid off last month.”

“Why?”

“We completed the job.”

“Haven’t worked since?”

“I’ve been looking for work.”

“But didn’t have any luck, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Tell us about the lunch pail.”

“What about it?”

“Well, what’s
in
it, first of all?”

“Lunch, I guess,” La Bresca said. “Lunch, huh?”

“Isn’t that what’s usually in lunch pails?”

“We’re asking
you
, Anthony.”

“Yeah, lunch,” La Bresca said.

“Did you call this squadroom yesterday?” Brown asked.

“No.”

“How’d you know where that lunch pail would be?”

“I was told it would be there.”

“Who told you?”

“This guy I met.”

“What guy?”

“At the employment agency.”

“Go on,” Willis said, “let’s hear it.”

“I was waiting on line outside this employment agency on Ainsley, they handle a lot of construction jobs, you know, and that’s where I got my last job from, so that’s where I went back today. And this guy is standing on line with me, and all of a sudden he snaps his fingers and says, ‘Jesus, I left my lunch in the park.’ So I didn’t say nothing, so he looks at me and says, ‘How do you like that, I left my lunch on a park bench.’ So I said that’s a shame, and all, I sympathized with him, you know. What the hell, poor guy left his lunch on a park bench.”

“So then what?”

“So he tells me he would run back into the park to get
it, except he has a bum leg. So he asks me if I’d go get it for him.”

“So naturally you said yes,” Brown said. “A strange guy asks you to walk all the way from Ainsley Avenue over to Grover and into the park to pick up his lunch pail, so naturally you said yes.”

“No, naturally I said no,” La Bresca said.

“Then what were you doing in the park?”

“Well, we got to talking a little, and he explained how he got his leg hurt in World War II fighting against the Germans, picked up shrapnel from a mortar explosion, he had a pretty rough deal, you know?”

“So naturally you decided to go for the lunch pail after all.”

“No, naturally I still didn’t decide to do nothing.”

“So how
did
you finally end up in the park?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

“You took pity on this man, right? Because he had a bum leg, and because it was so cold outside, right?” Willis said.

“Well, yes and no.”

“You didn’t want him to have to walk all the way to the park, right?” Brown said.

“Well, yes and no. I mean, the guy was a stranger, why the hell should I care if he walked to the park or not?”

“Look, Anthony,” Willis said, beginning to lose his temper, and trying to control himself reminding himself that it was exceptionally difficult to interrogate suspects these days of Miranda-Escobedo when a man could simply refuse to answer at any given moment, Sorry, boys, no more questions, just shut your dear little flatfoot mouths or run the risk of blowing your case. “Look, Anthony,” he said more gently, “we’re only trying to find out how
you
happened to walk to the park and go directly to the third bench to pick up that lunch pail.

“I know,” La Bresca said.

“You met a disabled war veteran, right?”

“Right.”

“And he told you he left his lunch pail in the park.”

“Well, he didn’t say lunch
pail
at first. He just said
lunch.”

“When did he say lunch
pail?”

“After he gave me the five bucks.”

“Oh, he offered you five dollars to go get his lunch pail, is that it?”

“He didn’t offer it to me, he
handed
it to me.”

“He handed you five bucks and said, ‘Would you go get my lunch pail for me?’”

“That’s right. And he told me it would be on the third bench in the park, on the Clinton Street footpath. Which is right where it was.”

“What were you supposed to do with this lunch pail after you got it?”

“Bring it back to him. He was holding my place in line.”

“Mm-huh,” Brown said.

“What’s so important about that lunch pail, anyway?” La Bresca asked.

“Nothing, Willis said. “Tell us about this man. What did he look like?”

“Ordinary-looking guy.”

“How old would you say he was?”

“Middle thirties, thirty-five, something like that.”

“Tall, short, or average?”

“Tall. About six feet, I would say, give or take.”

“What about his build? Heavy, medium, or slight?”

“He was built nice. Good shoulders.”

“Heavy?”

“Husky, I would say. A good build.”

“What color was his hair?”

“Blond.”

“Was he wearing a mustache or a beard?”

“No.”

“What color were his eyes, did you notice?”

“Blue.”

“Did you notice any scars or identifying marks?”

“No.”

“Tattoos?”

“No.”

“What sort of voice did he have?”

“Average voice. Not too deep. Just average. A good voice.”

“Any accent or regional dialect?”

“No.”

“What was he wearing?”

“Brown overcoat, brown gloves.”

“Suit?”

“I couldn’t see what he had on under the coat. I mean, he was wearing pants, naturally, but I didn’t notice what color they were, and I couldn’t tell you whether they were part of a suit or whether …”

“Fine, was he wearing a hat?”

“No hat.”

“Glasses?”

“No glasses.”

“Anything else you might have noticed about him?”

“Yeah,” La Bresca said.

“What?”

“He was wearing a hearing aid.”

The employment agency was on the corner of Ainsley Avenue and Clinton Street, five blocks north of the entrance to the park’s Clinton Street footpath On the off-chance that the man wearing the hearing aid would still be waiting for La Bresca’s return, they checked out a sedan and drove over from the station house. La Bresca sat in the back of the car, willing and eager to identify the man if he was still there.

There was a line of men stretching halfway around the corner of Clinton, burly men in work clothes and caps, hands thrust into coat pockets, faces white with cold, feet moving incessantly as they shuffled and jigged and tried to keep warm.

“You’d think they were giving away dollar bills up there,” La Bresca said. “Actually, they charge you a whole week’s pay. They got good jobs, though. The last one they got me paid real good, and it lasted eight months.”

“Do you see your man anywhere on that line?” Brown asked.

“I can’t tell from here. Can we get out?”

“Yeah, sure,” Brown said.

They parked the car at the curb. Willis, who had been driving, got out first. He was small and light, with the easy grace of a dancer and the steady cold gaze of a blackjack dealer. He kept slapping his gloved hands together as he waited for Brown. Brown came out of the car like a rhinoceros, pushing his huge body through the door frame, slamming the door behind him, and then pulling his gloves on over big-knuckled hands.

“Did you throw the visor?” Willis asked.

“No, We’ll only be a minute here.”

“You’d better throw it. Goddamn eager beavers’ll give us a ticket sure as hell.”

Brown grunted and went back into the car.

“Boy, it’s cold out here,” La Bresca said.

“Yeah,” Willis said.

In the car, Brown lowered the sun visor. A hand-lettered
cardboard sign was fastened to the visor with rubber bands. It read:

The car door slammed again. Brown came over and nodded, and together, they began walking toward the line of men standing on the sidewalk. Both detectives unbuttoned their overcoats.

“Do you see him?” Brown asked La Bresca.

“Not yet,” La Bresca said.

They walked the length of the line slowly.

“Well?” Brown asked.

“No,” La Bresca said. “He ain’t here.”

“Let’s take a look upstairs,” Willis suggested.

The line of job seekers continued up a flight of rickety wooden steps to a dingy second-floor office. The lettering on a frosted glass door read:

“See him?” Willis asked.

“No,” La Bresca said.

“Wait here,” Willis said, and the two detectives moved away from him, toward the other end of the corridor.

“What do you think?” Brown asked.

“What can we hold him on?”

“Nothing.”

“So
that’s
what I think.”

“Is he worth a tail?”

“It depends on how serious the loot thinks this is.”

“Why don’t you ask him?”

“I think I will. Hold the fort.”

Brown went back to La Bresca. Willis found a pay phone around the bend in the corridor, and dialed the squadroom. The lieutenant listened carefully to everything he had to report, and then said, “How do you read him?”

“I think he’s telling the truth.”

“You think there really
was
some guy with a hearing aid?”

“Yes.”

“Then why’d he leave before La Bresca got back with the pail?”

“I don’t know, Pete. I just don’t make La Bresca for a thief.”

“Where’d you say he lived?”

“1812 Johnson. In Riverhead.”

“What precinct would that be?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’ll check it out and give them a ring. Maybe they can spare a man for a tail. Christ knows we can’t.”

“So shall we turn La Bresca loose?”

“Yeah, come on back here. Give him a little scare first, though, just in case.”

“Right,” Willis said, and hung up, and went back to where La Bresca and Brown were waiting.

“Okay, Anthony,” Willis said, “you can go.”

“Go? Who’s
going
anyplace? I got to get back on that line again. I’m trying to get a job here.”

“And remember, Anthony, if anything happens, we know where to find you.”

“What do you mean? What’s gonna happen?”

“Just remember.”

“Sure,” La Bresca said. He paused and then said, “Listen, you want to do me a favor?”

“What’s that?”

“Get me up to the front of the line there.”

“How can we do that?”

“Well, you’re cops, ain’t you?” La Bresea asked, and Willis and Brown looked at each other.

When they got back to the squadroom, they learned that Lieutenant Byrnes had called the 115th in Riverhead and had been informed they could not spare a man for the surveillance of Anthony La Bresca. Nobody seemed terribly surprised.

That night, as Parks Commissioner Cowper came down the broad white marble steps outside Philharmonic Hall, his wife clinging to his left arm, swathed in mink and wearing a diaphanous white scarf on her head, the commissioner himself resplendent in black tie and dinner jacket, the mayor and his wife four steps ahead, the sky virtually starless, a bitter brittle dryness to the air, that night as the parks commissioner came down the steps of Philharmonic Hall with the huge two-story-high windows behind him casting warm yellow light onto the windswept steps and pavement, that night as the commissioner lifted his left foot preparatory to placing it on the step below, laughing at something his wife said in his ear, his laughter
billowing out of his mouth in puffs of visible vapor that whipped away on the wind like comic strip balloons, that night as he tugged on his right-hand glove with his already gloved left hand that night two shots cracked into the plaza, shattering the wintry stillness, and the commissioner’s laugh stopped, the commissioner’s hand stopped, the commissioner’s foot stopped and he tumbled headlong down the steps, blood pouring from his forehead and his cheek, and his wife screamed, and the mayor turned to see what was the matter, and an enterprising photographer on the sidewalk caught the toppling commissioner on film for posterity.

He was dead long before his body rolled to a stop on the wide white bottom step.

Concetta Esposita La Bresca had been taught only to dislike and distrust all Negroes. Her brothers, on the other hand, had been taught to dismember them if possible. They had learned their respective lessons in a sprawling slum ghetto affectionately and sarcastically dubbed Paradiso by its largely Italian population. Concetta, as a growing child in this dubious garden spot, had watched her brothers and other neighborhood boys bash in a good many Negro skulls when she was still just a
piccola ragazza
. The mayhem did not disturb her. Concetta figured if you were stupid enough to be born a Negro, and were further stupid enough to come wandering into Paradiso, why then you deserved to have your fool black head split wide open every now and then.

Concetta had left Paradiso at the age of nineteen, when the local iceman, a fellow
Napolitano
named Carmine La Bresca moved his business to Riverhead and asked the youngest of the Esposito girls to marry him. She readily accepted because he was a handsome fellow with deep brown eyes and curly black hair, and because he had a thriving business of which he was the sole owner. She also accepted because she was pregnant at the time.

Her son was born seven months later, and he was now twenty-seven years old, and living alone with Concetta in the second-floor apartment of a two-family house on Johnson Street. Carmine La Bresca had gone back to Pozzuoli, fifteen miles outside of Naples, a month after Anthony was born. The last Concetta heard of him was a rumor that he had been killed during World War II, but, knowing her husband, she suspected he was king of the icemen somewhere in Italy, still fooling around with young girls and getting them pregnant in the icehouse, as was her own cruel misfortune.

Concetta Esposita La Bresca still disliked and distrusted
all Negroes, and she was rather startled—to say the least—to find one on her doorstep at 12:01
A.M
. on a starless, moonless night.

“What is it?” she shouted. “Go away.”