Lead With Your Left Read online

  “Ed? Lucky to have a buck floating around his pockets. Every extra dime went on the ponies. Not that Ed was a real gambler, but a few bucks here and there every week. On that little pension they give us you don't raise any hell.”

  “Did Mr. Owens have any enemies? Perhaps some character he once collared?”

  Wales shrugged, a tired motion. “No. At least none I ever heard of. We were just run-of-the-mill detectives, the usual arrests. We had one big collar, got a killer in a gang war. But that was a long time ago and he went up in smoke in the chair. Of course Ed stayed on the force a couple of years after I left. He was a little younger. But he liked to talk, and he would have told me if he thought somebody was after him.”

  “We'll have to dig into his arrest record.”

  Wales smiled sadly. “Dig, dig, clear every little detail, that's a detective's life. A crime is like an iceberg, one-tenth showing and nine-tenths hidden.”

  “Iceberg—neat way of putting it. That's what they drilled into me at the academy: whenever you're stuck start digging into the case all over again.”

  Wales nodded as he licked his thin lips. “They're right, only most times you never get the time. New cases always coming...”

  Anderson came in. “Got everything, kid?”

  I closed my notebook. “Think so.”

  “Come on, Lampkin wants us back at the precinct house. Nothing more for us here.”

  As I stood up Wales climbed to his feet. “Mind if I ride up with you? I'd like to look around. Me and Ed—I mean, well, wouldn't hurt none.”

  “Come along. The captain probably wants to talk to you anyway.”

  Wales left the office and met us at the elevator, wearing an old battered plastic rain hat. I brushed against him as we stepped into the elevator; he wasn't carrying a gun. Wales said, “That's okay, I'm clean.” There was a fresh odor of whisky on his words.

  Wales sat in the back seat and I got the siren going and shot up Broadway to Chambers Street, then wheeled over to the highway. Anderson said, “You ain't got your leather jacket on and this ain't no motorcycle, so quit making like a speed king, kid.”

  “Close your eyes if you can't take it,” I said, doing more cutting through the uptown traffic than necessary.

  Anderson turned and asked Wales, “Ever see anything like this before? Makes a good collar while a rookie and he's an acting detective third grade before he can get corns on his feet. Me, I was a harness bull for over seven years.”

  “Probably make a good dick, it's the last thing he looks like.”

  Anderson laughed, a real jackass chuckle. “Got something there. He looks like he got his badge with a cereal box top. And not looking like a cop is one way of stopping a slug or a handful of knuckles. Me, I'm glad I look like what I am.”

  Wales said, “Force is changing, lots of college boys on it now. I like the way this young fellow speaks, calls people mister. He'll be real good once he stops talking so much.”

  “What's that mean?” I asked, glancing at him in the windshield mirror.

  Wales gave me his tired smile before he said, “You got to learn to ask questions, not hand out information. Doesn't make any difference in this case, but why tell Mr. Stewart and myself Ed's pockets were torn? Sometimes a little thing like that can trap a man.”

  “Damn right,” Anderson said, “you have to—”

  “You shoot your gums off too,” Wales said dryly. “Right off the bat you told me the bonds were missing and that Ed was packing a gun.”

  “That was part of my questioning you. This is just an ordinary stick-up, let's not make a big case out of it.”

  “It isn't ordinary, an ex-cop was killed,” I said. The car on my left got panicky at the sound of the siren and stupidly tried to cut to the right. I made the brakes scream, shaking us all up, then raced around the car as Anderson cursed, swallowed his gum, and finally yelled, “Slow down! And that's a goddamn order!”

  At the station house Lieutenant Reed sent Hayes and me out to finish interviewing the people in the surrounding apartment houses. They were all large houses, seventy to a hundred apartments. They'd borrowed some dicks from another squad and had over a dozen men working the houses. It was dull routine and we ended up with nothing; not a soul had seen or heard a thing. There were the usual crackpots who “thought I heard several shots around four o'clock.... Oh, he was shot at two...?”

  By nine I was punchy and glad when Reed called us in. By the time I finished my paper work and had a bite with Hayes it was after ten. As I left the station house I saw Al Wales sitting in the muster room, his back against the crummy dirty green-colored wall. He sure had a bulge in his pocket now— a pint. His bleary eyes were open, staring at nothing. As I waved at him he mumbled, “Find the bottom of the iceberg yet?” He spoke like a man full of dull pain.

  I turned over in bed, kicked the sheet up from my feet. My toes touched Mary's ankle. I stroked it with my big toe and she broke her heavy breathing with something that sounded like a whimper.

  Everybody so certain it was a dumb hold-up, and those are the hardest to solve, dead ends where nothing makes sense. Two retired cops. Never know what Owens was like but Wales was okay, never once called me a runt or a kid. I was in bed, so was Danny Hayes and probably Anderson and the rest of the squad. Reed might still be up, waiting to hear what his stoolies knew, maybe had a man going over the nightly round-up of “undesirables.” We were all safe in bed, doing nothing, while one of us was on a slab in the morgue.

  I touched Mary's ankle again. Maybe she was right. A cop, an ex-cop, was dead and nobody really gave a damn. Just another stick-up victim, as if he hadn't spent most of his life trying to protect people. Hell, who was an ex-cop to get any more consideration than an ordinary murdered citizen?

  I thought he should get a damn sight more consideration.

  I suddenly smiled at the darkness. Dave Wintino, the boy Dick Tracy! I didn't have a thing to go on but a hunch—like the feeling I had about the lead pipe in my big pinch. Maybe it was dumb to play a hunch... but somehow I was sure Ed Owens hadn't been killed in a stick-up.

  Wednesday Morning

  At exactly 6 a.m. I awoke as though an alarm had gone off. I can always do that. It was light outside already and looked like a good warm day. I slipped out of bed easily and Mary didn't move. She was sleeping half outside the blanket, curled like a cat, and for a moment I admired the full curve of her hips in the ski pajamas. Then I shut the bathroom door and ran the electric razor over my face and took a shower, thinking how odd it is with women. I mean Mary actually had a straight up-and-down figure, even a bit on the skinny side, yet in certain positions— like that one on the bed or sometimes when she sits with one leg under and I get a flash of her thigh— what curves. I sometimes wonder where they come from.

  And maybe Ed Owens' wife had curves he liked to watch too.

  I was getting fresh shorts out of the desk drawer when Mary sat up, coming wide-awake fast as she always does, and said, “Are you getting up or going to bed? What time is it?”

  “Sixteen after six. Have coffee with me?”

  Mary yawned and stretched her arms over her head, her breasts pushing out. “Guess so. Sixteen after six, what a time to get up.”

  “My last day on this tour. Starting Saturday I—”

  “I know, I know, you start working at midnight. Lovely!”

  “Let's not begin the day arguing. Go back to sleep and leave me alone.”

  “Sleep— some chance!”

  “If we had a bigger apartment instead of a correct address, I could get up without waking you.”

  She sat up in bed, got a cigarette working. “Dave, why must you always make excuses for the job? If you were going to work at 9 a.m. like most husbands, we... oh, nuts, I feel too beat to argue.”

  She puffed on her cigarette slowly, watching me as I got out my tropical gray suit, a white shirt, cuff links, a heavy T-shirt, and a striped pink and hard gray tie. I went into the can and rubbed some ha
ir conditioner on my noggin, then gave it a stiff workout with a brush and comb, getting it just right—the pomp in front raised and with a good curl. Understand, I don't see any sense in looking sloppy. I put on my shorts and socks and shoes, was giving the shoes a fast shine with yesterday's shirt when Mary got out of bed. She tossed her butt in the John and jabbed a sharp little finger in my gut. She said, “Davie, I'm queer for those ridges of muscle.”

  “I go for your tummy too,” I said, pulling her to me, kissing her. Her lips had a stale tobacco taste.

  She rubbed up against me for a moment, said, “Keep this up and you'll be late.”

  “Man's expected to be late once in a while,” I said, playing with her soft blonde hair, wishing she didn't use such a bright rinse.

  “And let law and order go to hell?” she said, the light sarcasm in her voice teasing me.

  “Put the coffee on.” I was like the others, forgetting a cop had been killed.

  “'Put the coffee on,' my lover says in a sexy tone.”

  “Babes, I have a lot of work to do. Look, you go back to bed and I'll stop someplace for coffee and juice.”

  She poked my gut again as she drew away. “I'll make you coffee soon as I wash up.” You know how I am, Once I'm awake.”

  I dressed while she was in the kitchenette. She had the radio on to an early morning record jockey and the music was hot. When I sat down for my Java Mary said, “Honest, Dave, you belong on Madison Avenue. You have a flair for wearing clothes. You look the part.”

  “I've been on Madison Avenue, had a fixed post there during a strike. Madison Avenue and 114th Street.”

  “Oh, stop talking about your awful job. I bet even the Commissioner forgets his work when he's home.”

  “I was kidding. Getting warm fast, we'll be able to go to the beach soon.”

  “I can picture us. When are you getting your vacation, in November?”

  “Stop riding me, you know I'm junior man,” I said, sipping my coffee, thinking that if she didn't have her job we'd have plenty of time for the beach on my fifty-six-hour swing every week.

  Mary kept stirring her cup. “Don't know how you can take coffee so hot. Dave, will you get in touch with Uncle Frank? At least be polite enough to see what he wants.”

  “Okay. Tomorrow, when I'm off.”

  Her face came alive. “Really?”

  “As you said, at least I can be polite.” Frank wasn't a bad guy, good for laughs—long as he remained Uncle Frank and not bossman Frank.

  “That's a promise now,” Mary said, coming around the tiny table and hugging me as she sat on my lap. I wanted to tell her she was pretty but not that pretty. Instead I held her against me with my left hand, finished the coffee with my right.

  She suddenly said, “Ouch!” and sat up, rubbing her shoulder. “That damn holster is going to leave me black and blue yet.”

  I damn near spilled the coffee on my pants. I tickled her bottom, making her jump to her feet With a gasp. I stood up and kissed her, said, “See you for supper—I hope,” and picked up my wrinkled suit from the floor on the way out.

  Waiting for the elevator I checked my pockets again: badge, wallet, keys, pens, notebook, extra shells, touched the gun in its shoulder holster, and ran a hand over my hair. I left the suit at the corner tailor shop, bought the morning papers, and dropped into the first coffee pot I hit to have a slow cup of the junk and see what they had to say about Ed Owens. Not that it mattered what the papers said.

  There was a picture of Owens in the alleyway and just a caption in the News. The Times surprised me by giving him a whole column. After a sentence—saying he'd been shot in a hold-up while carrying nonnegotiable bonds, they went on to say Owens and Wales had solved the murder of a Boots Brenner back in 1930. I never heard of the joker but the paper claimed he was well on his way to becoming the Al Capone of New York City when he was found in a vacant Brooklyn lot full of lead. “Within 24 hours, through brilliant detective work” Owens and Wales arrested a small-time bootlegger named Sal Kahn who was running a still near the lot where Brenner's body was found. Kahn had a record of several arrests for making and selling booze. He admitted killing Boots when the gangster tried to muscle in on an electric still Kahn was running. The still was an “amazing work of scientific ingenuity” and although Kahn pleaded self-defense, he died in the chair without revealing the name of his partner, who had built the still. Both Wales and Owens had been cited by the mayor for their fast work.

  I gathered the politicians had been busting a “crime wave” and had used the death of a strong-arm goon to crow about how safe the city was.

  I finished breakfast with a piece of candy, took the subway over to the precinct house, paying my fare. Seems dumb to me to advertise every day that you're a detective. I walked into the detective room a few minutes before eight. Danny Hayes was already there, breezing with a sleepy-looking fat slob named Ace who has a terrific memory for faces. I picked up the daily report sheet, read the arrests. There wasn't anything of interest except they had collared a clown named Hanson up on Washington Heights trying to pass a stiff check in a drugstore. Seems Hanson had bounced a check in the same store a few months ago. Most crooks are dumb as hell.

  I said hello to Danny as I put the report sheet down. “How about this paperhanger Hanson, think he could be the phony doctor dropping rubber around here? He was working a drugstore.”

  “We're going to check,” Danny said.

  Ace waved a heavy hand at me and yawned. “Now I can go home and sleep in peace, the younger generation has things in hand. Will you look at that outfit. Where'd you spend the night, Dave, between the covers of Esquire?”

  “Momma, who's the funny mans in the baggy suit and soiled sport shirt?” I said, thumbing my nose at him. “Gowan home, brawn, and let the brains take over. What's on the Owen's deal?”

  “You still got seven minutes before your tour starts,” Ace said. “What you bucking for, Reed's job? Hate to have you in charge of the squad—you'd be a ballbreaker.”

  “Cut the wisecracks, Ace. An ex-cop's been killed.”

  Ace stood up, like a tent coming erect, and favored me with a belch. “Got special news for you, kid. The cemeteries are full of ex-cops. When our number comes up we go with the wagon too. There's nothing new on Owens, not a lead-one of those great big blank walls.”

  “Lab come up with anything?”

  “Nothing except he was killed with a .38.” Ace stretched and for some reason I suddenly thought of Mary.

  “Ace, you married?”

  He turned to stare at me, heavy arms still in mid-air, a dopey look on his fat face. “Sure I'm married. Now what the devil brought that brainstorm on? I was married before your pop told your ma, 'Let's try and make a David.' Why do you ask?”

  “Nothing. Just... uh... thinking about cops' wives. Like this Owens' wife. What did she have to say?” I wanted to ask how Ace's wife felt about his being a cop—maybe they all complained like Mary—but he'd think I was flipping if I ever asked. I couldn't ask Danny: he was separated from his schoolteacher wife, but not because of the force—she caught him with another woman.

  “I think Homicide talked to Mrs. Owens,” Ace said. “Gather they didn't have a chance to talk to her much, the shock had her on the ropes.”

  “Anybody else questioned?”

  Ace gave me a fat grin. “Being as I'm just a detective on the night tour Captain Lampkin hasn't time to go over all the details with me. Of course if I was young and with waves in my hair and on the day shift, why I could sit down and tell him how to work.”

  “Everybody treats this as a big yak. We ought to spend a lot of time with Mrs. Owens, and with Wales, and dig into their past arrests. Plenty of work to do,” I said.

  “There certainly is, Wintino, and you can start by getting me a buttered roll and a container of coffee—light. Too tired to eat this morning,” a voice said behind me.

  I turned and Lieutenant Reed was standing in the doorway kind of stooped
as though afraid of bumping his bald dome. He had tired circles under his eyes and needed a shave. I said, “Certainly, Lieutenant,” and took the two bits he held out.

  Downstairs they were turning out the platoon and I waited a moment till that was over, then ran across the street to the delicatessen. I didn't like the idea of Reed using me as coffee boy but then he had the other members of the squad hustling Java for him too, sometimes. And it was about time he learned coffee and a buttered roll was thirty-two cents.

  I had to wait till a fresh pot was brewed and I returned to find a tall, well-set-up guy, about thirty-seven, sitting with Reed. The guy had a brown gabardine suit that had to be custom-made the way it fitted like a grape skin. He looked real sharp in a tab collar and a narrow dark brown tie. His hair was combed slick, he had one of these large rugged faces, and his gut was so flat he was probably wearing a girdle.