Westlake, Donald E - Novel 32 (2 page)

 
          
 
They were on day shift then, which meant they
had to face all that morning traffic on the Long Island Expressway. That was
the only bad thing about living out on the
Island
, bucking that rush-hour traffic whenever
they had day shift.

 
          
 
One of them was Joe Loomis; thirty-two years
of age, he was a uniformed patrolman assigned to a squad-car beat with a
partner named Paul Goldberg. The other was Tom Garrity; thirty-four years old,
he was a detective third-grade usually partnered with a guy named Ed Dan-tino.
They were both stationed at the 15th Precinct on the West Side of Manhattan,
and lived next door to one another on
Mary Ellen Drive
in Monequois,
Long Island
,
twenty
-seven
miles from the Midtown Tunnel.

 
          
 
They drove into town together like this
whenever their schedules worked that way, taking turns at whose car they'd use.
This morning they were in Joe's
Plymouth
, with Joe at the wheel, dressed in uniform.
Except for the hat, which he'd tossed on the back
seat.
Tom was in the passenger seat in his usual work clothes; a brown suit, white
shirt, thin yellow tie.

 
          
 
Physically, they were more or less the same
type, though there wouldn't be any trouble telling them apart They were both
just about six feet tall, and both a little overweight; Tom maybe twenty
pounds, Joe maybe fifteen. In Tom, the weight concentrated mostly in his
stomach and behind, while in Joe it spread out all over him, like baby fat.
Neither of them liked to admit to themselves that they'd gained weight. Without
saying anything to anybody, both of them had tried to go on diets a couple of
times, but the diets never seemed to work.

 
          
 
Joe's hair was black, and very thick, and worn
a little longer than it used to be; not so much because he wanted to be stylish
with the new trends, as because it was always a boring pain in the ass to get a
haircut, and these days it was possible to get pretty shaggy before anybody
noticed or commented. So Joe ran longer between haircuts than he used to.

 
          
 
Tom's hair was
brown,
and thinning badly. He’d read a few years ago that taking a lot of showers
sometimes caused baldness, so he'd been secretly using his wife's shower cap
ever since, but the hair was still coming out The top of his head was very thin
now, with long roads of scalp snowing where there used to be only a forest of
hair.

 
          
 
Joe had the quicker personality of the two,
rough and pragmatic, while Tom was more thoughtful and more imaginative. Joe
was the one likely to get into brawls, and Tom was the one likely to calm
everybody down again. And while Tom could sit almost anywhere and keep company
with his thoughts, Joe needed action and movement or he'd get bored, he'd start
to fidget.

 
          
 
As he was fidgeting now.
They'd been sitting in this one spot in stalled traffic for almost five
minutes, and now Joe was craning his head this way and that, trying to stare
past the cars in front of him to see what was causing the tie-up.
But there wasn't anything special to see; just three lanes of
nobody moving.
Finally, out of anger and frustration, he leaned on the
horn.

 
          
 
The sound went through Tom's head like a blunt
nail. "Don't," he said, waving one hand. "Forget it, Joe."
He was too weary to be bugged by stalled traffic.

 
          
 
"Bastards," Joe said, and looked to
his right. Over there, past Tom, he saw the car in the next lane; a pale blue
brand new Cadillac Eldorado. The windows were all rolled up, and the driver was
sitting in there in his air-conditioned comfort as neat and unruffled as a
banker turning down a second mortgage. "Look at that son of a bitch,"
Joe said, and pointed with his jaw at the Caddy and the man in it.

 
          
 
Tom glanced over. "Yeah, I know," he
said.

 
          
 
They both looked at him for a few seconds,
envying him. He looked to be in his forties, very neatly dressed, and he faced
front looking calm and untroubled; he didn't care if there was a traffic jam or
not. And the way his one finger was tapping lightly on the steering wheel, he
had a radio in there that worked. Probably even his dashboard clock worked.

 
          
 
Joe rested his left forearm on the steering
wheel and glared at his watch. He said, "If we stay here without moving
another sixty seconds by my watch, I'm going over there and study that Caddy
and find a violation and give that son of a bitch a ticket."

 
          
 
Tom grinned. "Sure, sure," he said.

 
          
 
Joe kept frowning at his watch, but gradually
his expression changed and he started to grin instead, remembering something he
still couldn't get over. Still looking at the watch, but not really counting
any more, he said, *Tom?"

 
          
 
"Yeah?"

 
          
 
"You remember that liquor store a couple
of weeks ago, the guy that held it up disguised as a cop?"

 
          
 
"Sure."

 
          
 
Joe turned his head and looked at Tom. He was
grinning very broadly now. "That was me," he said.

 
          
 
Tom laughed. "Sure it was," he said.

 
          
 
Joe moved his arm down from the steering
wheel. He'd forgotten all about his watch. "No, I mean it," he said.
"I had to tell somebody, you know? And who else but you?"

 
          
 
Tom didn't know whether he was supposed to
believe it or not. Squinting at Joe as though that would help him see better,
he said, "You putting me on?"

 
          
 
"I swear to God." Joe shrugged.
"You know Grace lost her job."

 
          
 
"Sure."

 
          
 
"And Jackie's supposed to have swimming
lessons this summer. Dinero, you know?" He rubbed his thumb and finger
together, in the gesture that means money.

 
          
 
Tom was beginning to think it might be the
truth. "Yeah?" he said. "So?"

 
          
 
"So I was thinking about it. The whole
thing, the payments and the problems and the whole mess, and I just walked in
and did it."

 
          
 
Meaning it as a question, but phrasing it
like
a statement, Tom said, "On the level."

 
          
 
"On a stack of Bibles.
I got two hundred thirty-three bucks."

 
          
 
Tom started to grin. "You really did
it," he said.

 
          
 
"Damn right."

 
          
 
A horn honked behind them. Joe looked front,
and the traffic had moved maybe three car lengths. He shifted into drive,
caught up, and shifted back into park.

 
          
 
Tom said, in a bemused kind of way, 'Two
hundred thirty-three dollars."

 
          
 
'That's right." Joe was feeling great,
having the chance to talk about it He said, "And you know what really
amazed me?"

 
          
 
"No."

 
          
 
"Well, two things. That rd even
do
it at all. The whole time, I couldn't believe it. I'm
pointing a gun at this guy, I just can't believe it"

 
          
 
Tom nodded, encouraging him. "Yeah, yeah
..."

 
          
 
"But the thing that really got me is how
easy it was. You know? No resistance, no trouble, no sweat Walk in, take it,
walk out"

 
          
 
Tom said, "What about the guy in the
store?"

 
          
 
Joe shrugged. "He works there. I'm
pointing a gun at him. He's gonna get a medal saving the boss's dough?"

 
          
 
Tom shook his head. He was grinning from ear to
ear, as though he'd just been told his daughter was head of her class. "I
can't get over it," he said. "You really did
it,
you just walked in and did it."

 
          
 
"It was so easy," Joe said.
"You know? To this day I can't believe how easy it was."

 
          
 
The traffic moved a little again. They were
both quiet for a minute, but they were still both thinking about Joe's robbery.
Finally Tom looked over at him, his expression serious, and said, "Joe?
What do you do now?"

 
          
 
Joe frowned at him, not understanding the question.
"What?"

 
          
 
Tom shrugged, not knowing any other way to say
it "What do you do? I mean, is that it?"

 
          
 
Joe made a barking kind of laugh. "I'm
not giving it back, if that's what you mean. I spent it"

 
          
 
"No, I don't mean ..." Tom shook his
head, trying to find what he meant. Then he said, "Will you do it
again?"

 
          
 
Joe started to shake his head, but men stopped
and frowned, thinking it over. Christ alone knows," he said.

 
          
 
My first squeal of the day was a robbery with
assault, in an apartment over on Central Park West. Actually it was my partner,
Ed
Dantino, that
took the call. Ed is a couple inches
shorter than me and maybe ten pounds heavier, but he still had all his hair.
Maybe he started using his wife's shower cap earlier than I did.

 
          
 
Finishing the call, Ed hung up the phone and
said, "Okay, Tom. We're going for a ride."

 
          
 
"In this heat?"
I was feeling a little queasy today, from the beer last night. Usually a
feeling like that goes away toward midmorning, but the heat and the humidity
were keeping me from shaking it today. I'd been looking forward to a couple of
hours of relaxation in the squadroom until I felt better.

 
          
 
The squadroom isn't all that great. It*s a big
square room with plaster walls painted a really sickening green, and big globe
lights hanging down from the ceiling. The room is full of desks, all of them
old, no two of them alike, and a general smell of old cigars and used socks.
But it's up on the second floor of the precinct house, and there's a big fan in
the corner near the windows, and on hot humid days there's a little breath of
air that passes through from time to time, giving a promise that life may be
possible after all, if we just hang in there.

 
          
 
But Ed said, "It's on Central Park West,
Tom."

 
          
 
"Oh," I said. With rich people, we
make house calls. So I got to my feet and followed Ed downstairs. When we got
to our car, an unmarked green Ford, he volunteered to drive and I didn't argue
with him.

 
          
 
Going across town, I started thinking again
about what Joe had told me this morning in the car. I still thought sometimes
he was pulling my leg, but then I'd remember the way he'd talked about it, and
I'd know for sure he'd been telling the truth.

 
          
 
What a crazy thing to do! Thinking of it was
the only thing to make me forget my stomach. I'd be sitting there, trying to
burp and not being able to, and the first thing you know I'd be grinning
instead, thinking about Joe and the liquor store.

 
          
 
I almost told Ed, in the car, while we drove
over, but finally decided not to. Actually it hadn't been very smart of Joe
even to tell me, and God knows I wasn't going to turn him in. But the more
people that know a thing, the more chance that the wrong people can find it
out. Like, if I told Ed, I could be sure he wouldn't report it, but he just
might tell somebody else. Who would tell somebody else, who would tell somebody
else, and who knew where it would end?

 
          
 
But I could understand why Joe hadn't been
able to stop himself from telling at least one other person about it, and I was
kind of flattered I'd been the one he'd picked. I mean, we'd been friends for
years, we lived next door to each other, we worked out of the same precinct,
but when a guy trusts you with a secret that could put him away for maybe
twenty years you know you've got a friend.

 
          
 
And a pretty wild-ass friend
at that.
Imagine going into a liquor store, in uniform, and pulling out
a gun and just taking everything in the cash register! And he had to get away
with it because who would believe a robber in a policeman's uniform was really
a policeman?

 
          
 
While I meditated about Joe's Great Liquor
Store Robbery, Ed drove directly over to Central Park West and turned south
toward the address he wanted. He didn't have the siren on; where we were going,
the crime had already been committed and the criminals had already gotten away,
so there wasn't any sense of urgency. They were reporting the robbery because
their insurance required it, and we were making a house call because they were
rich.

 
          
 
I love Central Park West. On the one side
there's the park, green and rolling, and on the other side the apartment
buildings full of rich people, rolling in green. The
East Side
has become more fashionable in the last few
years, as the slums of
Harlem
have
crowded down from the north and the Puerto Rican slum of
Amsterdam
and Columbus Avenues has crowded over from
the west, but there's still plenty of wealth to be found on Central Park West,
particularly toward the southern end.

 
          
 
We parked in front of the address. It had a
canopy and a doorman, both of which I liked. We went inside, and going up in
the elevator I said, "You do the talking, okayr*

 
          
 
I'd already told Ed I was under the weather,
so he just said, "Sure-It was a very expensive apartment we were headed
for, on a high floor. The woman herself let us in
, opening
the door as though she weren't used to that kind of manual labor. She was about
forty-five, and holding time away with every pill and diet and exercise she
could find. She looked expensive but old, like her apartment

 
          
 
She took us into the living room, but didn't
suggest we sit down. It was a beautiful room, all golden and brown, with high
windows overlooking the park. An air-conditioner hummed, and the sun shone
through the windows, and you could almost hear the buzz of lazy insects. You
get the idea; everything sun-dappled and rich and comfortable and beautiful and
easy. It was just a great room to be in.

 
          
 
Ed did the talking for both of us, while I
wandered around the room, digging how good it felt to be there. She had
knickknacks and whatnots all over the place, in marble and onyx and different
kinds of wood and some in chrome or glass or green stone, and every one of them
was just a pleasure to be with.

 
          
 
Over by the window, Ed and the woman were
talking, their voices seeming to be muffled by the sunlight, muted and
indistinct, like voices in another room when you're sick in bed in the daytime.
From time to time I'd tune in on what they were saying, but I just couldn't
build up any interest. It was the room I cared about, I didn't give a shit
about the two spades that had busted in here.

 
          
 
At one point, I heard Ed say, "And they
came in through the service entrance?"

 
          
 
"Yes," she said. She had a voice
like a prune, very offensive. "They struck my maid," she said.
"They cut the inside of her
mouth,
I sent her
downstairs to my doctor. I could have her sent back up if you need a
statement."

 
          
 
"Maybe later," Ed said.

 
          
 
"I can't think why they struck her,"
she said. "She is black, after all."

 
          
 
Ed said, "Then they came in here, is that
it?"

 
          
 
"No," she said, "they never
came in here at all, thank goodness. I have some rather valuable things in
here. They went from the kitchen into the bedroom."

 
          
 
"Where were you?"

 
          
 
On a glass coffee table was an ornate lacquered
Oriental wooden box. I picked it up and opened it, and it had half a dozen
cigarettes inside.
Virginia
Slims. The wood inside the box was a warm golden color, like imported
beer.

 
          
 
The woman was saying, "I was in my
office. It connects with the bedroom. I heard them rummaging around, and went
to the door. As soon as I saw them, of course, I realized what they were
doing."

 
          
 
"Can you give me a description?"

 
          
 
"I honestly didn't—"

 
          
 
I said, "How much would a thing like this
cost?"

 
          
 
The woman looked at me, baffled. "I beg
your pardon?"

 
          
 
I showed her the Oriental box. This
thing," I said. "How much would it go for?"

 
          
 
She talked down her nose at me. "I
believe that was thirty-seven hundred dollars.
Under four
thousand."

 
          
 
What a great thing!
Four thousand
dollars for this little box.
'To hold cigarettes in," I said,
mainly to myself, and turned away again to put it back on the coffee table.

 
          
 
Behind me, the woman was being a little
miffed, saying to Ed, "Where were we?"

 
          
 
I looked at the things on the coffee table. It
made me happy to be with them. I couldn't help smiling.