Lead With Your Left Page 2

  Danny was driving and it was kind of cool for May so he was wearing the dirty trench coat that showed off his thick shoulders—made him look like something off a TV screen, except they never have colored detectives on TV. He made it pretty fast but Danny can't wheel a car like I can.

  There were two radio cars plus the usual afternoon crowd of curious housewives when we got there. It was one of these old but still ritzy big houses, seven- and eight-room apartments. The body was at the entrance to the delivery alley that led to the back of the house, a plump man in a worn suit, the frayed collar on his white shirt and the dirty tie all bloody. One foot was bent far under the body in a position that would have hurt like hell if he'd been alive. He was wearing heavy socks with the ends of gray winter underwear stuck in them, high black shoes that needed resoling. There was the newspaper with the picture of a ball game over his face and above it thick grayish hair and an old sweat-stained brown _hat a few feet from his head. When Reed pulled back the paper this puffy face with some red veins in the long nose stared up at us with mild surprise.

  All his pockets were turned out, the inside pocket torn. There was a torn wallet, a crumpled pack of butts, keys, a bulky old lighter, and a pack of mints scattered on the cement floor near his body.

  The beat cop, an old beerhound, slipped Lampkin a halfhearted salute as he told him, “I found him at six minutes before two, Walter—Captain. Only witness we got so far is this” —he jerked a big thumb at a frightened young colored fellow in work pants and a torn army jacket—“who says he was coming out after delivering an order, groceries, when he seen the stiff. He yelled and I come a-running from the corner.”

  “God is me witness I never saw him before! I know nothing except the man is stretched on the bloody stone!” the delivery man said nervously. He spoke with a kind of British accent.

  Lieutenant Reed gave Danny the eye. Danny went over and said softly, “Relax, homie, and tell me exactly what you saw. And don't worry, you're in no trouble. What island you from?”

  “Trinidad, and I'm here all legal and—”

  “Sure,” Dan said gently. “My old man was from Barbados. Let's you and me step over here and talk a little.”

  Captain Lampkin pushed his cap back as he scratched his head. “Homicide will be here soon, along with the rest of the boys. Touch anything, Buddy?”

  “Now, Walter, long as I been a cop. Nobody has touched anything. I just spread the paper over his face. But see under his coat there, on the left side, that's a hip holster. Probably one of them little foreign automatics. Want me to pull the coat back, take his gun?”

  “No, we'll wait,” Lampkin said, taking off his cap to scratch his fat head. “Yeah, does look like a holster. But I wouldn't pick him for a punk or a hood.”

  Lieutenant Reed waited politely for Lampkin to stop talking, then quietly told me to get the janitor and start questioning the people in the house. The superintendent was no janitor, he had a regular little office with a typewriter and a desk. He was an old Swede wearing a starched collar and a worn blue suit. He said he was in his office when he heard somebody yelling police and came out to find the beat cop with the delivery man. He'd never seen the stiff before. I got his name down, along with the owners of the building and I was pretty excited—this wasn't the first dead man I'd seen, but it was the first gun killing. I found a couple of maids who'd been using the laundry room and didn't know a thing, but I put them in my notebook.

  The alley began to fill up fast as the routine went into full swing. Some big cluck from Homicide was there, looking very important, a heavy-set square whose suit was too small— probably didn't know yet that big men can't buy bargain clothes. He had a fat baby mouth and a necklace of chins. The sonofabitch put me in the mood to pop him, and the rest of the men laughing, when he first saw me and asked, “What you doing here, sonny? The super's son?”

  When Reed said, “He's one of my squad, Detective Wintino,” this big hunk of blubber did a hammy double-take as he said, “Jeez, he don't look old enough to be a Boy Scout.”

  In less than fifteen minutes the photographers and lab men had finished. The stiff Was Edward Owens, a retired cop—he had his Police Benevolent Association card in his wallet, along with a buck and a Chinese laundry ticket. He was working as a messenger for a brokerage house down on Wall Street. His gun, a .38 Police Special, hadn't been used and he'd been killed with one slug through the heart, fired at fairly close range. Reed had a couple of more detectives working and they hadn't found anybody who had heard the shot or noticed anyone in the service entrance. I thought I was going to be stuck going through the apartment houses across the street looking for witnesses, but Lampkin had called downtown for a detail to go to the brokerage house and have everybody there stand still. The Homicide clown decided he'd better go down too and Reed said, “Dave will drive you, he's a speed boy.”

  “Regular hot-rod lad, I bet,” Homicide said.

  I sirened the car down West End Avenue, then cut over to the West Side Highway. The lump was named Anderson and he chewed on a wad of gum and told me, “All right, Sonny, the guy's long dead, won't make no diff to him if we get downtown in ten minutes or fifty minutes. But it does to me —I want to get there alive.”

  “Relax, you're still breathing—or are you?”

  “Don't know what the force is coming to, punks like you not old enough to have the milk on your mouth dry or—”

  “Fatstuff, you already made too many cracks about my being young. You want to guess ages, get a job in Coney Island.”

  He looked me over like he was alone in the car. “Snotty kid, too. Getting so a man—”

  “Want to stop the car and see who's the best man?”

  “Jeez, I'm not only more than twice your age, Wintino, but... What land of a name is that?”

  “It's my name and I like it,” I said, weaving in and out of the highway traffic. We were doing fifty-five and he was so scared he was holding onto the door with one hand and his chins were dancing. I wasn't doing it just to frighten him. Fast driving gives me a bang.

  “... But I could also write you up and—”

  “Do that. And you know where you can shove it.”

  He sighed. “Maybe you're right. Young as you look you must be the mayor's bastard son to be on the force.” He sighed again, tried to calm his nerves by working on his gum. “How do you like this Owens working as a messenger? Goddamn papers always so quick-to say cops are on the take; they ought to do a piece on Owens. But they won't.”

  “Probably had a pension of three grand. Hell, I'm only making a couple bucks more than that now.”

  Anderson shrugged, nearly put his big feet through the floorboard as I cut around a car. “I could take my pension today but with prices so high, what's the use. Pension is okay if you already got your house paid up, the kids set, no sickness. Only how can you ever get that far ahead on our salary? Wintino... You're the rookie who made the big arrest couple months ago. Sure, I remember now, this drunk parked next to a hydrant and he turned out to be the psycho who knocked off all them women. A lucky collar.”

  “Yeah.” Everybody called it pure luck, forgot that if I hadn't been thinking of those four dames with the battered heads all the time, I wouldn't have connected the rusty length of iron pipe in the glove compartment with the women.

  I cut across the highway, shot down the ramp to the street as Anderson yelled, “Damnit, you think this has wings?”

  There was a radio car parked in front of the office building and as we braked to a stop, the siren still working, a lot of people stopped and I gave my hair a pat as I jumped out. I don't believe in looking sloppy. A well-built, solid-looking cop said to Anderson, “I've been holding an elevator for you. Room 619.” It wasn't hard to spot Anderson for a dick.

  The brokerage firm was a suite of three large offices with about a half a dozen stenos pounding typewriters. They all stopped talking when we came in. A couple of them were good-looking. A cop was talking to a tall thin guy
wearing a dull gray suit and one of these old-fashioned pop-'em bow ties that had to be at least ten years old. At one time the guy must have been lean and in shape, now he looked shrunken and skinny. His eyes were tired and bloodshot, his features thin, and face wide. His hair was a lousy dye job, jet black. He looked about sixty and judging from the patches of stubble around his long jaw he still didn't know how to shave.

  Anderson flashed his badge and so did I, but mine was on my belt. May look corny but I like to have both hands free. The cop nodded at the bag of bones, said, “This is Al Wales.”

  “I'm a retired detective. Fact is Ed and I were partners. If you'll step in here,” Wales motioned with his head toward a small office, “I pan give you all the dope you need. We'd also appreciate it if you'd remove the officer from the door and let business go on as usual. You know how it is, looks bad for a house dealing in bonds. Whatever happened to Ed, the dirty bastards who did him in had nothing to do with his job here.”

  “The cop stays,” Anderson said. “You in charge here?”

  “No, I'm merely a part-time messenger, like Ed is—was. Step into the office and I'll have Mr. Stewart, our manager, join us.”

  “We can talk here,” Anderson told him.

  “What's the point in making a show?”

  “Get this Stewart,” Anderson said, looking around at the stenos. “I'm in a hurry.”

  “Don't be a horse's ass!” Wales' voice had been tired but now it turned into a kind of whip. And he seemed to pull himself together. I bet he'd been a rough Oscar in his time. Then he added in a lower voice, “Don't be a fool, they'll yell to City Hall—this isn't any two-bit outfit. Told you it looks bad for business.”

  Anderson stared at Wales, trying to decide what he was going to do about it. He decided to do nothing. “Okay, we'll go in the office. Now get this Stewart guy.” He turned to the cop. “But nobody goes out till I tell you.”

  The office was four plain chairs around a polished oak table with a clean glass ash tray in the center. There were a couple of framed pictures of apartment houses on the walls. Wales called out something to one of the girls as we went in and Anderson planted his large backside on the table. Wales stood by the door and I glanced out the window: we weren't up high enough for a view of the harbor or anything interesting. A plump joker with crew-cut gray hair, expensive brown pin-stripe suit and a sweet tie, strode into the office. I mean strode, he must have practiced it. The walk matched his salesman face. He said, “Gentlemen! I'm Harris Stewart, office manager. Mr. Wyckoff, president of the firm, is in Washington. This is indeed a terrible piece of news about Mr. Owens. Simply incredible—there's absolutely no point to a robbery.”

  “Where was Owens going?” Anderson asked.

  “According to the time sheet he checked out at five after one to deliver bonds to a client, a Mr. Jensen McCarthy who lives at 316 West End Avenue. Mr. Owens never delivered the bonds so we—”

  “How do you know he didn't?” I asked as Anderson gave me an annoyed look.

  “Mr. McCarthy was waiting for them and he phoned a few minutes before you, that is the police, called to tell us the horrible news. Mr. McCarthy was in a hurry to leave for his house in Westhampton and asked where our messenger was. We must assume it was robbery although I can't understand it. Naturally we have a list of the bonds in my office.”

  “A guy carrying bonds is robbed and killed,” Anderson said. “What's there hard to understand about that?”

  “But the bonds are not negotiable, they're worthless except to the owner,” Stewart said, waving his manicured hands.

  “That's right,” this Al Wales put in, “all we carry is mortgages and nonnegotiable general bonds. Of course, assuming this was a robbery and that's what it looks like, whoever killed Ed might have thought he was carrying something worth taking. Must have been an amateur punk.”

  “We didn't find any bonds on him,” Anderson said. “If they were worthless why did you need an armed messenger?” Stewart's eyebrows shot up. “Armed?” Anderson nodded. “He was packing a gun, never had a chance to use it. You didn't know he carried a gun?”

  “I most certainly did not. The firm never asked or authorized any employee to carry a gun.” Stewart turned to Wales. “Did you know about the gun?”

  Wales said, “The gun had nothing to do with the job. Most retired cops get a permit to carry a gun. You know that, Anderson. You say he never used his gun. Did it look like Ed was in a fight?”

  “No. No bruises. One shot through the heart did it.” Anderson turned to Stewart. “Bond messengers have to use the service entrance?”

  “No.”

  “Owens was killed in an alley leading to the service door.”

  “That don't make sense,” Wales said. “He never used any back doors. And Ed was a quick guy with his hands and his gun—when he was younger. Hard to believe he'd be taken without some kind of battle.”

  “Well, there wasn't any, far as we can tell. Either Owens handed over the bonds like he was told, and was shot; or he was shot before he knew what it was all about. And all over bonds that weren't worth a thin dime—a real dumb killing,” Anderson said.

  “Does sound like one of those jerky ones,” Wales added.

  “But his pockets were torn,” I chimed in. “Means he was shot first and then searched fast. He never had a chance.”

  Anderson told Stewart, “Give me a list of the bonds, I'd get them on the wire. And I need a phone, boys at the local precinct will want to talk to this McCarthy right now.”

  “You can use the phone in my office,” Stewart said. “I'll have one of the girls type up several copies of the bonds' serial numbers, and all the other information at once.”

  Anderson nodded and stood, pulling his pants out of his rear like a slob. At the door he told me, “Stay here and write up Wales.”

  When they left Wales said, “We might as well sit down. You ever a fighter, young fellow?”

  “Amateur. What makes you ask—see me in the ring?”

  He shook his head and you wondered how his long scrawny neck bore the strain. “I haven't seen a fight since Louis was knocking them over. You got the right hands for a pug, wide, deep-set knuckles.”

  “I did okay. Wanted to turn pro but my folks raised too much fuss. So I joined the force.”

  Wales smiled, he had neat even teeth—and all of them store choppers. “Nothing in the world like being a young cop, the boss of your beat. Or maybe it's just there's nothing like being young. Get old and all you can do is read about things. I read and read. Why my eyes look shot. I don't need glasses, though and... damn, who's going to tell Jane about this?”

  “Jane?”

  “Ed's wife. They got a daughter working someplace in South America for an oil company. Had a boy who died when he was a kid. This will be rough on Jane.”

  I got out my notebook, wrote down Wales' full name, home address, last precinct squad he worked on, the Owens' home address. “How long you been working here, Mr. Wales?”

  “About three years. Ed needed the dough but I'm all alone. I work to keep busy. My wife passed away back in '49, right after I retired from the force. When Ed started working here he got me on. Five hours a day, a way of passing time.”

  “You two the only messengers?”

  “Yeah. I come on at nine and Ed came in at noon.”

  “If the bonds you carried were worthless why—”

  “They're not worthless but nonnegotiable: there's a big difference.”

  “Sure. But if they weren't worth anything except to the owners, why did the firm only hire former policemen?”

  “Because they know we're bondable, in good physical condition for our age, and only a fellow with a pension can fool around with a part-time job.”

  “You in the office when Mr. Owens was killed?”

  “No. I left at eleven-thirty to take some bonds to a customer up on the Grand Concourse. He wasn't in so I came back here—about twenty minutes before the police arrived. You sa
y Ed's pockets were torn. Was his receipt book missing too?”

  “All we found was a torn wallet, identification cards, some change, pack of butts, mints and a lighter. Receipt book mean anything?”

  Wales shook his head again. “No. It's of no value. Shows some jerky kid must have done the job.”

  I wiggled on the chair. “I don't think so. A jerk doesn't follow a messenger all the way uptown. And if it was a jerky lad in an on-the-spot stick-up, he would have taken the change, Owens' gun.”

  “Maybe. And maybe when the punk saw the gun he figured Owens for a cop and got scared. Could be a nut. And if Ed wasn't tailed why would anybody rob him? Ed never dressed like money from home.”

  “Did he carry much cash?”