In the car with me was McKee, a Third-Grade, only away from a beat a few months. Young, clear-eyed, rosy-cheeked. All-American boy type and very, very serious about his work. Which was fine; which was the way you should be. We were parked about four houses down from the rented house where Mrs. Bogen and her three children were living.
At the same distance the other side of the house was a sedan in which sat Lieutenant Mortell and Detective First-Grade Thrasher. Mortell was a bitter-mouthed, needle-thin man, middle-aged and with very little human expression left in his eyes. He was in charge. Thrasher was a plumpish, ordinary guy, an ordinary cop.
On the street in back of the Bogen house, was another precinct car, with two other Firsts in it, a couple of guys named Dodey and Fischman. They were back there in case Earl Bogen got away from us and took off through some yards to that other block. I didn't much think he'd get to do that.
After a while McKee said: "I wonder if it's snowing up north. I'll bet the hell it is." He shifted his position. "It don't really seem like Christmas, no snow. Christmas with palm trees, what a deal!"
"That's the way it was with the first one," I reminded him.
He thought about that. Then he said: "Yeah. Yeah. That's right. But I still don't like it."
I started to ask him why he stayed down here, then I remembered about his mother. She needed the climate; it was all that kept her alive.
"Y'know," McKee said then. "Sarge, I been thinking; this guy Bogen must be nuts."
"You mean because he's human? Because he wants to see his wife and kids on Christmas?"
"Well, he must know there's a chance he'll be caught. If he is, it'll be worse for his wife and kids, won't it? Why the hell couldn't he just have sent them presents or something and then called them on the phone? Huh?"
"You're not married, are you, McKee?"
"No."
"And you don't have kids of your own. So I can't answer that question for you."
"I still think he's nuts."
I didn't answer. I was thinking how I could hound the stinking stoolie who had tipped us about Earl Bogen's visit home for Christmas, all next year, without getting into trouble. There was a real rat in my book, a guy who would stool on something like that. I was going to give him a bad time if it broke me.
Then I thought about what Lieutenant Mortell had told me an hour ago. "Tim," he said. "I'm afraid you're not a very good cop. You're too sentimental. You ought to know by now a cop can't be sentimental. Was Bogen sentimental when he crippled for life that manager of the finance company he stuck up on his last hit? Did he worry about that guy's wife and kids? Stop being a damned fool, will you, Tim?"
That was the answer I got to my suggestion that we let Earl Bogen get in and see his family and have his Christmas and catch him on the way out. What was there to lose, I'd said. Give the guy a break, I'd said. I'd known, of course, that Mortell wouldn't have any part of that, but I'd had to try anyhow. Even though I knew the lieutenant would think of the same thing I had — that when it came time to go, Bogen might be twice as hard to take.
McKee's bored young voice cut into my thoughts: "You think he'll really be armed? Bogen, I mean."
"I think so."
"I'm glad Mortell told us not to take any chances with him, that if he even makes a move that looks like he's going for a piece, we give it to him. He's a smart old cop, Mortell."
"That's what they say. But did you ever look at his eyes?"
"What's the matter with his eyes?" McKee said.
"Skip it," I said. "A bus has stopped."
We knew Earl Bogen had no car; we doubted he'd rent one or take a cab. He was supposed to be short of dough. A city bus from town stopped up at the corner. When he came he'd be on that, most likely. But he wasn't on this one. A lone woman got off and turned up the Avenue. I let out a slight sigh and looked at the radium dial of my watch. Ten-fifty. Another hour and ten minutes and we'd be relieved; it wouldn't happen on our tour. I hoped that was the way it would be. It was possible. The stoolie could have been wrong about the whole thing. Or something could have happened to change Bogen's plans, or at least to postpone his visit to the next day. I settled back to wait for the next bus.
McKee said: "Have you ever killed a guy, Sarge?"
"No," I said. "I never had to. But I've been there when someone else did."
"Yeah? What's it like?" McKee's voice took on an edge of excitement. "I mean for the guy who did the shooting? How'd he feel about it?"
"I don't know. I didn't ask him. But I'll tell you how he looked. He looked as though he was going to be sick to his stomach, as though he should've been but couldn't be."
"Oh," McKee said. He sounded disappointed.
"How about the guy that was shot? What'd he do? I've never seen a guy shot."
"Him?" I said. "Oh, he screamed."
"Screamed?"
"Yeah. Did you ever hear a child scream when it's had a door slammed on its fingers? That's how he screamed. He got shot in the groin."
"Oh, I see," McKee said, but he didn't sound as though he really did. I thought that McKee was going to be what they called a good cop — a nice, sane, completely insensitive type guy. For the millionth time I told myself that I ought to get out. Not after tonight's tour, not next month, next week, tomorrow, but right now. It would be the best Christmas present in the world I could give myself and my family. And at the same time I knew I never would do that. I didn't know exactly why. Fear of not being able to make a living outside; fear of winding up a burden to everybody in my old age the way my father was — those were some reasons but not the whole thing. If I talk about how after being a cop so long it gets in your blood no matter how you hate it, that sounds phony. And it would sound even worse if I said one reason I stuck was in hopes that I could make up for some of the others, that I could do some good sometimes.
"If I get to shoot Bogen," McKee said, "he won't scream."
"Why not?"
"You know how I shoot. At close range like that, I'll put one right through his eye."
"Sure, you will," I told him. "Except that you won't have the chance. We'll get him, quietly. We don't want any shooting in a neighborhood like this on Christmas Eve."
Then we saw the lights of the next bus stop up at the corner. A man and a woman got off. The woman turned up the Avenue. The man, medium height but very thin, and his arms loaded with packages, started up the street.
"Here he comes," I said. "Get out of the car, McKee."
We both got out, one on each side. The man walking toward us from the corner couldn't see us. The street was heavily shaded by strings of Australian pine planted along the walk.
"McKee," I said. "You know what the orders are. When we get up to him, Thrasher will reach him first and shove his gun into Bogen's back. Then you grab his hands and get the cuffs on him fast. I'll be back a few steps covering you. Mortell'll be behind Thrasher, covering him. You got it?"
"Right," McKee said.
We kept walking, first hurrying a little, then slowing down some, so that we'd come up to Bogen, who was walking toward us, just right, before he reached the house where his family was but not before he'd passed Mortell and Thrasher's car.
When we were only a few yards from Bogen, he passed through an open space, where the thin slice of moon filtered down through tree branches. Bogen wore no hat, just a sport jacket and shirt and slacks. He was carrying about six packages, none of them very large but all of them wrapped with gaudily colored paper, foil and ribbon. Bogen's hair was crew cut, instead of long the way it was in police pictures and he'd grown a mustache; but none of that was much of a disguise.
Just then he saw us and hesitated in his stride. Then he stopped. Thrasher, right behind him, almost bumped into him. I heard Thrasher's bull-froggy voice say: "Drop those packages and put your hands up, Bogen. Right now!"