Ed McBain_87th Precinct 22 (7 page)

“Who?”
Cindy said.

“The deaf man,” Kling said again.

“Yes, but what’s his name?”

“We don’t know his name. We never caught him. He jumped in the river and we thought he drowned, but maybe he’s back now. Like Frankenstein.”

“Like Frankenstein’s monster, you mean,” Cindy said.

“Yeah, like him. Remember he was supposed to have died in that fire, but he didn’t.”

“I remember.”

“That was a scary picture,” Kling said.

“I wet my pants when I saw it,” Cindy said. “And that was on television.”

“You wet your pants on
television?”
Kling said. “In front of forty million
people?”

“No, I saw
Frankenstein
on television,” Cindy said, and grinned and poked him.

“The deaf man,” Kling said. “I hope it’s not him.”

It was the first time any man on the squad had voiced the possibility that the commissioner’s murderer was the man who had given them so much trouble so many years ago. The thought was somewhat numbing. Bert Kling was
a
young man, and not a particularly philosophical one, but he intuitively understood that the deaf man (who had once signed
a
note L. Sordo, very comical, El Sordo meaning “The Deaf One” in Spanish) was capable of manipulating odds with computer accuracy, of spreading confusion and fear, of juggling permutations and combinations in a manner calculated to upset the strict and somewhat bureaucratic efficiency of a police precinct, making law enforcers behave like bumbling Keystone cops in a yellowing ancient film, knew instinctively and with certainty that if the commissioner’s murderer was indeed the deaf man, they had not yet heard the end of all this. And because the very thought of what the deaf man might and
could
do was too staggering to contemplate, Kling involuntarily shuddered, and he knew it was not from the cold.

“I hope it isn’t him,” he said, and his words were carried away on the wind.

“Kiss me,” Cindy said suddenly, “and then buy me a hot chocolate, you cheapskate.”

The boy who came into the muster room that Wednesday afternoon was about twelve years old.

He was wearing his older brother’s hand-me-down ski parka which was blue and three sizes too large for him. He had pulled the hood of the parka up over his head, and had tightened the drawstrings around his neck, but the hood was still too big, and it kept falling off. He kept trying to pull it back over his head as he came into the station house carrying an envelope in the same hand with which he wiped his runny nose. He was wearing high-topped sneakers with the authority of all slum kids who wear sneakers winter and summer, all year round, despite the warnings of podiatrists. He walked to the muster desk with a sneaker-inspired bounce, tried to adjust the parka hood again, wiped his dripping nose again, and then looked up at Sergeant Murchison and said, “You the desk sergeant?”

“I’m the desk sergeant,” Murchison answered without looking up from the absentee slips he was filling out from
that morning’s muster sheet. It was 2:10
P.M
., and in an hour and thirty-five minutes the afternoon shift of uniformed cops would be coming in, and there’d be a new roll call to take, and new absentee slips to fill out, a regular rat race, he should have become a fireman or a postman.

“I’m supposed to give you this,” the kid said, and reached up to hand Murchison the sealed envelope.

“Thanks,” Murchison said, and accepted the envelope without looking at the kid, and then suddenly raised his head and said, “Hold it just a second.”

“Why, what’s the matter?”

“Just hold it right there a second,” Murchison said, and opened the envelope. He unfolded the single sheet of white paper that had been neatly folded in three equal parts, and he read what was on the sheet, and then he looked down at the kid again and said, “Where’d you get this?”

“Outside.”

“Where?”

“A guy gave it to me.”

“What guy?”

“A tall guy outside.”

“Outside where?”

“Near the park there. Across the street.”

“Gave you this?”

“Yeah.”

“What’d he say?”

“Said I should bring it in here and give it to the desk sergeant.”

“You know the guy?”

“No, he gave me five bucks to bring it over here.”

“What’d he look like?”

“A tall guy with blond hair. He had a thing in his ear.”

“What kind of a thing?”

“Like he was deaf,” the kid said, and wiped his hand across his nose again.

That was what the note read.

So they studied the note, being careful not to get any more fingerprints on it than Sergeant Murchison had already put there, and then they stood around a runny-nosed twelve-year-old-kid wearing a blue ski parka three sizes too large for him, and fired questions at him as though they had captured Jack the Ripper over from London for the weekend.

They got nothing from the kid except perhaps his cold.

He repeated essentially what he had told Sergeant Murchison, that a tall blond guy wearing a thing in his ear (A hearing aid, you mean, kid?) yeah, a thing in his ear, had stopped him across the street from the police station and offered him five bucks to carry an envelope in to the desk sergeant. The kid couldn’t see nothing wrong with bringing an envelope into the police station, so he done it, and that was all, he didn’t even know who the guy with the thing in his ear was. (You mean a hearing aid kid?) Yeah, a thing in his ear, he didn’t know who he was, never even seen him around the neighborhood or nothing, so could he go home now because he had to make a stop at Linda’s Boutique to pick up some dresses for his sister who did sewing at home for Mrs. Montana? (He was wearing a hearing aid, huh, kid?) Yeah, a thing in his ear, the kid said.

So they let the kid go at two-thirty without even offering him an ice cream cone or some gumdrops, and then they sat around the squadroom handling the suspect note with a pair of tweezers and decided to send it over to
Lieutenant Sam Grossman at the police lab in the hope that he could lift some latent prints that did not belong to Sergeant Murchison.

None of them mentioned the deaf man.

Nobody likes to talk about ghosts.

Or even
think
about them.

“Hello, Bernice,” Meyer said into the telephone, “is your boss around? Yeah, sure, I’ll wait.”

Patiently, he tapped a pencil on his desk and waited. In a moment, a bright perky voice materialized on the line.

“Assistant District Attorney Raoul Chabrier,” the voice insisted.

“Hello, Rollie, this is Meyer Meyer up here at the 87th,” Meyer said. “How’s every little thing down there on Chelsea Street?”

“Oh, pretty good, pretty good,” Chabrier said, “what have you got for us, a little homicide up there perhaps?”

“No, nothing like that, Rollie,” Meyer said.

“A little ax murder perhaps?” Chabrier said.

“No, as a matter of fact, this is something personal,” Meyer said.

“Oh-ho!” Chabrier said.

“Yeah. Listen, Rollie, what can you do if somebody uses your name?”

“What do you mean?” Chabrier asked.

“In a book.”

“Oh-ho!”
Chabrier said. “Did somebody use your name in a book?”

“Yes.”

“In a book about the workings of the police department?”

“No.”

“Were you mentioned specifically?”

“No. Well, yes
and
no. What do you mean?”

“Did the book specifically mention Detective 3rd/Grade Meyer …”

“Detective
2nd/
Grade,” Meyer corrected.

“It specifically mentioned Detective 2nd/Grade Meyer Meyer of the …”

“No.”

“It
didn’t
mention you?”

“No. Not that way.”

“I thought you said somebody used your name.”

“Well, they did. She did.”

“Meyer, I’m a busy man,” Chabrier said. “I’ve got a case
load here that would fell a brewer’s horse, now would you please tell me what’s on your mind?”

“A novel,” Meyer said. “It’s a novel named
Meyer Meyer.”

“That is the title of the novel?” Chabrier asked.

“Yes. Can I sue?”

“I’m a criminal lawyer,” Chabrier said.

“Yes, but …”

“I am not familiar with the law of literary property.”

“Yes, but …”

“Is it a good book?”

“I don’t know,” Meyer said. “You see,” he said, “I’m a
person
, and this book is about some college professor or something, and he’s a short plump fellow …”

“I’ll have to read it,” Chabrier said.

“Will you call me after you’ve read it?”

“What for?”

“To advise me.”

“On what?”

“On whether I can sue or not.”

“I’ll have to read the law,” Chabrier said. “Do I owe you a favor, Meyer?”

“You owe me
six
of them,” Meyer said somewhat heatedly, “as for example the several times I could have got you out of bed at three o’clock in the morning when we had real meat here in the squadroom and at great risk to myself I held the suspect until the following morning so you could get your beauty sleep on nights when you had the duty. Now, Rollie, I’m asking a very tiny favor, I don’t want to go to the expense of getting some fancy copyright lawyer or whatever the hell, I just want to know whether I can sue somebody who used my name that’s on a record in the Department of Health on a birth certificate, can I sue this person who uses my name as the title of a novel, and for a
character
in a novel, when here I am a real
person
, for Christ’s sake!”

“Okay, don’t get excited,” Chabrier said.

“Who’s excited?” Meyer said.

“I’ll read the law and call you back.”

“When?”

“Sometime.”

“Maybe if we got somebody in the squadroom sometime when you’ve got the duty, I’ll fly in the face of Miranda-Escobedo again and hold off till morning so you can peacefully snore the night …”

“Okay, okay, I’ll get back to you tomorrow.” Chabrier paused. “Don’t you want to know what
time
tomorrow?” “What time tomorrow?” Meyer asked.

The landlady had arthritis, and she hated winter, and she didn’t like cops too well, either. She immediately told Cotton Hawes that there had been other policemen prowling around ever since that big mucky-muck got shot last night, why couldn’t they leave a lady alone? Hawes, who had been treated to similar diatribes from every landlady and superintendent along the street, patiently explained that he was only doing his job, and said he knew she would want to co-operate in bringing a murderer to justice. The landlady said the city was rotten and corrupt, and as far as she was concerned they could shoot
all
those damn big mucky-mucks, and she wouldn’t lose no sleep over any of them.

Hawes had thus far visited four buildings in a row of identical slum tenements facing the glittering glass and concrete structure that was the city’s new Philharmonic Hall. The building, a triumph of design (the acoustics weren’t so hot, but what the hell) could be clearly seen from any one of the tenements, the wide marble steps across the avenue offering an unrestricted view of anyone who happened to be standing on them, or coming down them, or going up them. The man who had plunked two rifle slugs into Cowper’s head could have done so from
any
of these buildings. The only reason the police department was interested in the exact source of the shots was that the killer may have left some evidence behind him. Evidence is always nice to have in a murder case.

The first thing Hawes asked the landlady was whether she had rented an apartment or a room recently to a tall blond man wearing a hearing aid.

“Yes,” the landlady said.

That was a good start. Hawes was an experienced detective, and he recognized immediately that the landlady’s affirmative reply was a terribly good start.

“Who?” he asked immediately. “Would you know his name?”

“Yes.”

“What’s his name?”

“Orecchio. Mort Orecchio.”

Hawes took out his pad and began writing. “Orecchio,” he said, “Mort. Would you happen to know whether it was Morton or Mortimer or exactly what?”

“Just Mort,” the landlady said. “Mort Orecchio. He was Eye-talian.”

“How do you know?”

“Anything ending in O is Eye-talian.”

“You think so? How about Shapiro?” Hawes suggested.

“What are you, a wise guy?” the landlady said.

“This fellow Orecchio, which apartment did you rent him?”

“A
room
, not an apartment,” the landlady said. “Third floor front.”

“Facing Philharmonic?” “Yeah.”

“Could I see the room?”

“Sure why not? I got nothing else to do but show cops rooms.”

They began climbing. The hallway was cold and the air shaft windows were rimed with frost. There was the commingled smell of garbage and urine on the stairs, a nice clean old lady this landlady. She kept complaining about her arthritis all the way up to the third floor telling Hawes the cortisone didn’t help her none, all them big mucky-muck doctors making promises that didn’t help her pain at all. She stopped outside a door with the brass numerals 31 on it, and fished into the pocket of her apron for a key. Down the hall, a door opened a crack and then closed again.