The Heckler Page 5

  5.

  THE SQUADROOM WAS JAMMED to capacity on that Friday, April 10. Sometimes it just happened that way. There were days when the man who was catching barely had anyone to talk to. Everybody else on the team was out preventing crime or collecting graft or some damn thing. But on that Friday, April 10, that old squadroom was just the most bustling old place on Grover Avenue. Detectives, patrolmen, the lieutenant, the captain, messengers from downtown, citizens making complaints—everybody seemed to be in the room that morning. Telephones rang and typewriters clattered and the place had the air of a thriving, if small, business concern.

  At the desk closest to the grilled windows that faced the street, Meyer Meyer was on the telephone talking to Dave Murchison, the desk sergeant.

  “That’s right, Dave,” he said. “Sandhurst Paper Company in New Bedford, Massachusetts. What? How the hell do I know where New Bedford is? Right next to Old Bedford and Middle Bedford, I guess. That’s the way it usually works, isn’t it?” he paused.

  “Right. Buzz me when you’ve got them.” He hung up to find Andy Parker standing alongside the desk.

  “There’s also,” Parker said, “East Bedford and West Bedford.”

  “And Bedford Center,” Kling put in.

  “You guys got nothing to do but clown around?” Meyer asked. “Come on, look alert. Suppose the Chief of Detectives should walk in here?”

  “He can’t,” Parker said. “He’s downtown running the lineup. He wouldn’t come visit no grubby squadroom like this. Downtown, they give him a microphone and a bunch of bulls who have to laugh at his crumby jokes every morning.”

  “Except Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays,” Kling said. “Today is Friday.”

  “That’s right,” Meyer said. “So you see, he justmight walk in here and find you with your thumb up your behind.”

  “The fact is,” Parker said, “I only come in here to see if there was any messages for me. Because maybe you didn’t notice it, but I’m dressed for a plant, and in exactly”—he shoved back his cuff and looked at his wrist watch—“in exactly forty-five minutes, I’ll be leaving you gentlemen to take up my position in the candy store.”

  “What are you supposed—”

  “So don’t make no cracks about my working or not working. I go on at ten-thirty, and that’s that.”

  “Yeah, but what are you supposed to be dressedas ?” Meyer asked.

  In truth, the question was not put in jest. For whereas Andy Parker may have felt he’d donned a costume for his candy store plant, the fact was that he looked much the same as he always looked. Which was to say, he looked like a slob. There are people, you know, who always look like slobs. There’s simply nothing to be done about it. This tendency toward sloppiness first exhibits itself when the subject is still a child. Dress him for a birthday party and five minutes later he will look as if he’d been ran over by a steamroller. Nor will he look that way because he’s run through a mud puddle or anything. Oh, no. He will simply look that way because he has within him, inside his beating little heart, the makings of a true slob. It is not good to discourage slobs. They will become slobs anyway.

  Andy Parker was a true slob. Five minutes after he’d shaved, he looked as if he needed a shave again. Ten minutes after he’d tucked his shirttail into his trousers, the shirttail was hanging out again. Fifteen minutes after he’d shined his shoes, his shoes were scuffed again. Listen, that was the way he was. Did this necessarily make him a bad cop? Absolutely not. His being a bad cop had nothing whatever to do with his being a slob. Hewas a slob, and hewas a bad cop—but the two phenomena were not at all related.

  In any case, Lieutenant Byrnes had planted Andy Parker in a candy store on North Eleventh with the idea of getting him to smell out the alleged pushers who were peddling their lovely little packets of junk in that spot. Andy Parker was supposed to look like a junkie. It hardly seems necessary to explain, in this communications-enlightened day and age, that a junkie is not a man who buys and sells scrap iron. A junkie is a person who buys junk. Junk is dope. A junkie, in short, is a drug addict—as if you didn’t know. Now, Parker had seen a great many junkies throughout his career and it could be assumed that he knew what a junkie looked like. But if the casual observer took his “costume” as an indication, that observer would be forced to conclude that a junkie looked like Andy Parker. For although Meyer Meyer was studying him quite closely, Andy Parker seemed to be dressed the way he always dressed. Which was like a slob.

  “Don’t tell me what you’re supposed to be,” Meyer said. “Let me guess.” Meyer wrinkled his brow. “A floorwalker in a department store. Am I right?”

  “That’s what he’s supposed to be,” Kling said. “Only, Andy, you forgot a carnation in your lapel.”

  “Come on, don’t kid me,” Parker said seriously.

  “Then what could he be?” Meyer said. “Just a minute, I’ve got it! An usher at a fancy wedding!”

  “Come on, come on,” Parker said, just as Lieutenant Byrnes pushed his way through the slatted-rail divider and into the office.

  “Mark my words,” he said, “this precinct is going to have the biggest traffic problem in the city as soon as that damn shopping center is finished. I just drove through there and even theworkmen’s cars are causing a bottleneck. You can imagine what it’s going to be like when all those stores are finished.” Byrnes shook his head and said to Parker, “I thought you were supposed to be in that candy store.”

  “Ten-thirty,” Parker said.

  “Won’t kill you to get there a little early,” Byrnes said.

  “I already established that I’m a late sleeper.”

  “You established that the minute you began working for this squad,” Byrnes said.

  “Huh?”

  “I’m telling you, Frick’s gonna have to detail six squad cars to that shopping center,” Byrnes said, dismissing Parker’s puzzled look. “Did you see the big sign they’ve got up, listing all the stores? There’s gonna be a bakery, and a movie house, and a supermarket, and a bank, and a delicatessen, and a department store, and—”

  “That’s why he’s the lieutenant around here,” Meyer said. “Because he’s so observant.”

  “The hell with you,” Byrnes said, grinning, and he went into his office to the left of the divider. He paused at the door and said, “Steve in yet?”

  “Not yet,” Meyer said.

  “Who’s catching?”

  “I am,” Kling answered.

  “Let me know when Steve gets in, will you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The telephone on Meyer’s desk rang. He picked up the receiver quickly. “Eighty-seventh Squad, Meyer. Oh yes, Dave, put it right through.” He covered the mouthpiece and said to Kling, “My New Bedford call,” and then waited.

  “Detective Meyer?” a voice asked.

  “Yes?”

  “I have your party on the line. One moment, please.”

  Meyer waited.

  “Go ahead, please,” the operator said.

  “Hello?” Meyer said.

  A static-filled voice on the other end said, “Sandhurst Paper Company, good morning.”

  “Good morning,” Meyer said. “This is Detective Meyer of the Eighty-seventh Detective Squad down in—”

  “Good morning, Detective Meyer.”

  “Good morning, I’m trying to trace an order that was placed for—”

  “One moment please, I’ll give you our Order Department.”

  Meyer waited. In the promised moment, a man’s voice came onto the line.

  “Order Department, good morning.”

  “Good morning, this is Detective Meyer of the Eighty-seventh Squad, in—”

  “Good morning, Detective Meyer.”

  “Good morning. I wonder if you can help me. A man named David Raskin here in Isola received several cartons of envelopes and stationery from your company, but he did not place an order for this material. I wonder if you could tell me whodid .”

  “W
hat was his name again, sir?”

  “David Raskin.”

  “And the address?”

  “Darask Frocks, Inc., Twelve thirteen Culver Avenue here in the city.”

  “And when was the order delivered, sir?”

  “Just yesterday.”

  “One moment, please.”

  Meyer waited. While he waited, Steve Carella came into the squadroom. Meyer covered the mouthpiece and said, “Steve, the loot wants to see you.”

  “Right. Did the lab call?”

  “Nope.”

  “Any luck on the photo so far?”

  “Not a peep. Give it time. It only ran yester—Hello?”

  “Detective Breyer?” the voice on the phone said.

  “Yes?”

  “That orderwas placed by Mr. Raskin.”

  “When was this, please?”

  “Ten days ago. It usually takes us a week to ten days to fill an order.”

  “Then that would be on April first, is that right?”

  “March thirty-first, to be exact, sir.”

  “Was it a mail order?”

  “No, sir. Mr. Raskin called personally.”

  “He called and ordered the material, is that right?”

  “Yes, sir, he did.”

  “What did he sound like?”

  “Sir?”

  “What kind of a voice did he have?”

  “A very nice voice, I think. It’s difficult to remember.”

  “Is there anything youdo remember about him?”

  “Well, not really. We handle a great many orders each day, you understand, and—”

  “I understand. Well, thank you very much for—”

  “Therewas one thing.”

  “What was that, sir?”

  “He asked me to talk a little louder, Mr. Raskin did. During the conversation. He said, ‘Excuse me, but would you talk a little louder? I’m slightly deaf, you know.’”

  “I see,” Meyer said, shrugging. “Well, thanks again.”

  The telephone on the desk nearest Meyer’s rang. Andy Parker, who was doing nothing but killing time, picked up the receiver.

  “Eighty-seventh Squad, Detective Parker,” he said.

  “Carella there?” the voice on the other end asked.

  “Yeah, just a second. Who’s this?”

  “Peter Kronig at the lab.”

  “Just a second, Kronig.” Parker put down the phone and bellowed, “Steve, for you!” He looked around the squadroom.

  “Where the hell’s Carella? He was here a minute ago.”

  “He went in to see the loot,” Kling said.

  Parker picked up the phone again. “Kronig, he’s in with the lieutenant. You want him to call back, or you want to give it to me?”

  “This is just a report on those shoes and socks the mortuary sent over. You got a pencil?”

  “Yeah, just a second,” Parker said sourly. He hadn’t hoped to become involved in any work this morning before heading for his candy store, and he silently vowed never to pick up a ringing telephone again unless it was absolutely necessary. He sat on the edge of the desk and reached over for a pad and pencil. He wiped one finger across his nose, said, “Okay, Kronig, shoot,” into the telephone and leaned over the desk with the pencil poised over the pad and the receiver propped against his ear.

  “The socks can be had anywhere, Parker. Just a blend of sixty per cent dacron and forty per cent cotton. We could have narrowed it down to four or five trade names, but there didn’t seem much sense to doing that. You can pick the damn things up in the five and ten, if you like.”

  “Okay,” Parker said. “That it?” On the pad he wrote simply, “Socks—No make.”

  “No, there’re the shoes,” Kronig said. “We may have run into a bit of luck there, though we can’t figure out how it ties with the morgue’s description of the body.”

  “Let me have it,” Parker said.

  “The shoes are simple black shoes, no perforation on the top, quarter or heel. No decorations anywhere. We checked them through and found out they’re manufactured by the American T. H. Shoe Company in Pittsburgh. This is a pretty big outfit, Parker, and they put out a huge line of men’s shoes and women’s play shoes, casual stuff, you know?”

  “Yeah,” Parker said, and still he wrote nothing on the pad. “So what about this particular pair of shoes?”

  “Well, this outfit makes shoes for the U.S. Navy. Just a single model. A plain black shoe.”

  “Yeah,” Parker said.

  “You got it?”

  “I got it. This is the shoe, right?”

  “Right. So how does that check out against the morgue’s description?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They said the guy was sixty-five years old! You know any sixty-five-year-old sailors?”

  Parker thought for a minute. “I’ll bet there are some sixty-five-year-old admirals,” he said. “They’re sailors, ain’t they?”

  “I never thought of that,” Kronig said. “Well, anyway, that’s it. They make the shoe for the Navy, and it can only be purchased from Navy ship’s services. Eight ninety-five the pair. Think an admiral would wear such a cheap shoe?”

  “I don’t know any admirals,” Parker said. “Also, this is Carella’s headache, not mine. I’ll pass it on to him. Thanks for calling.”

  “Don’t mention it,” Kronig said, and he hung up.

  “Do admirals wear shoes that cost only eight ninety-five?” Parker asked no one.

  “Iwear shoes that cost more than that,” Meyer said, “and I’m only a cop.”

  “I read someplace that J. Edgar Hoover doesn’t like cops to be called cops,” Kling said.

  “Yeah? I wonder why that is?” Parker scratched his head. “We’re cops, ain’t we? If we ain’t cops, what are we then?”

  Captain Frick pushed his way through the gate in the railing and said, “Frankie Hernandez here?”

  “He’s in the john, Captain,” Meyer said. “You want him?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Frick said. There was a pained and harried expression on his face, as if something dreadful had happened and he didn’t quite know how to cope with it. If the truth were known, of course, there weren’t very many things that Captain Frick could cope with. He was technically, in charge of the entire precinct, although his actual command very rarely extended beyond the uniformed force. In any case, he hardly ever offered any advice to Lieutenant Byrnes who ran the detective squad quite capably and effectively. Frick was not a very bright man, and his approach to police work was perhaps comparable to the approach of an old woman toward a will to be settled. He allowed the actual settling to be handled by those better qualified to handle it, and then he reaped the rewards. And yet, all the while it was being handled for him, he fretted and fussed like a hen sitting on a laggard egg.

  He fretted and fussed now while he waited for Frankie Hernandez to come out of the men’s room. He would have followed him into the room but Frick firmly believed that police business should be conducted in dignified surroundings. So he paced back and forth just inside the railing, one eye on the closed men’s room door, waiting for the appearance of the detective. When Hernandez did come out of the room, he went to him immediately.

  “Frankie, I’ve got a problem,” he said.

  “What is it, Captain Frick?” Hernandez asked. He was drying his hands on his handkerchief. He had, in fact, been heading for the Clerical Office to tell Miscolo there were no more paper towels in the bathroom when Frick intercepted him.

  “There’s a boy who keeps getting into trouble, a nice kid, but he keeps swiping things from the fruit carts, little things, nothing to get upset about, except he’s done it maybe seven, eight times already, he’s a Puerto Rican kid, Frankie, and I think you know him, and I think we can save both him and the law a lot of headaches if somebody talks to him right now, which is why I’m coming to you, I’m sure you know the kid, his name is Juan Boridoz, would you talk to him please, Frankie, before he gets hi
mself in trouble? His mother was in here yesterday afternoon and she seems like a nice hardworking lady, and she doesn’t deserve a kid who’ll wind up in the courts. He’s only twelve, Frankie, so we can still catch him. Will you talk to him?”

  “Sure, I will,” Hernandez said.

  “You know the kid?”

  Hernandez smiled. “No,” he said, “but I’ll find him.” It was a common assumption among the men of the 87th that Frankie Hernandez knew every single person of Spanish or Puerto Rican descent in the precinct territory. He had, it was true, been born and raised in the precinct, and hedid know a great many of the residents therein. But there was more to the assumption of the other men than a simple recognition of his birthplace. Frankie Hernandez was a sort of liaison between the cops and the Puerto Ricans in the precinct. The other cops came to him when they wanted advice or information. Similarly, the people came to him whenever they needed protection, either from criminal elements or from the law. There were people on both sides of the fence who hated Frankie Hernandez. Some men in the department hated him because he was Puerto Rican and, despite department edicts about the prevalence of brotherhood among the men in blue, these men simply felt a Puerto Rican had no right being a cop and certainly no right being a detective. Some people in the streets hated him because he had flatly refused to square any raps for them, raps ranging from speeding tickets to disorderly conduct, or sometimes assault, and on several occasions burglary. Hernandez wanted no part of it. He let it be known quickly and plainly that, old neighborhood ties be damned, he was a cop and his job was enforcing the law.