“Who?”
“You remember — that columnist you read so assiduously. The one who does that ‘View from the Top of the Mark’ or something.”
“‘View from Nob Hill,’” Reardon said. “What about it?”
Porky sighed disappointedly.
“Do you, or do you not, recall that at our last meeting I suggested to you to contact this scrivener, place hot needles under his fingernails, if necessary, and extract from him a statement as to whether or not he mentioned in his column that you were in charge of the dinner arrangements for Mike Holland’s testimonial dinner? And also, if not, how anyone could have learned of this vital fact? I believe I even labeled this a clue, hoping that with that nomenclature it would remain indelibly printed upon your policeman’s brain.”
“I remember.”
“Good. I should hope so. I even wrote it on a piece of paper and placed it in your pocket.”
“I remember.”
“And you followed it up, of course?”
“No, I didn’t,” Reardon said, and fished in the breast pocket of his jacket. He withdrew the paper, studied it a moment, and crumpled it, tossing it into an ashtray. “If we start to waste time checking out dumb things like that, we’ll really be in trouble. For a starter, we’d have half the people in town to check out, and we’ve got a lot more important things to work on.”
“Such as?” Porky asked softly.
“Such as lots of things,” Reardon said shortly, and reached into his pocket for money.
“My treat,” Porky said, and put out a restraining hand. He smiled. “It’ll be on your eventual bill, don’t worry — properly inflated, but that’s the modern way.”
“Bill for what?” Reardon said dourly. “For the information you’ve delivered so far?”
Porky sighed. “Patience, Mr. R, patience...”
“Yeah,” Reardon said brusquely, and came to his feet. “Patience, while Pop Holland gets chopped into little pieces!”
Sunday — 2:30 P.M.
Detective Stan Lundahl came out of the elevator at the lobby floor of the Hall of Justice, paused to light a cigarette, turned in the direction of the large front doors, and almost bumped into his superior.
“Hi, Lieutenant,” Lundahl said, pleased to see a familiar face on a dull Sunday afternoon. “Any decent information from your pigeon?” He saw the startled look on Reardon’s face and laughed. “Well, hell, Lieutenant — any guy named Mo, ten to one he’s a pigeon, right?”
“Stan,” Reardon said, relieved, “you’ll be a detective, yet. By the way, where are you off to?”
“Home,” Lundahl said. “You got something for me to do? Connected with the Holland case,” he added hastily. “Otherwise I’m supposed to be off duty right now. I’m on the graveyard shift for the next week, starting tonight.”
Reardon tried to think of anything he wanted Lundahl to do on the Pop Holland case, but couldn’t. His brain felt fogged. Too much sleep, he thought, or too much good living in the form of an occasional meal. Or maybe it was just that the effects of gym-sock miasma took a long time to wear off. He looked into Lundahl’s waiting face.
“No, I guess not. Where’s Don?”
“Home, too, I guess,” Lundahl said. He looked around for a place to get rid of his cigarette stub and decided the lobby floor was the closest. He dropped it, and stood on it, ostrich-style. “After the board meeting, Don stormed out of the joint breathing fire and swearing like only Don can swear. Half Italian, half Fisherman’s Wharf. He—” He saw the startled look that crossed Reardon’s face. “Hey, that’s right. You didn’t know, did you?”
“No. But it was bad news, huh?”
“Yeah,” Lundahl said. His voice turned bitter. “Can’t make exceptions just because a man is a retired police officer, you know. Got to treat everyone alike — although I’d bet they’d trade Boynton himself if it was the mayor’s wife being held! Same old argument! No cop’s going to be safe on the street, we let Lazaretti go. Start trading convicts for cops, pretty soon the old jail’s empty, and then where we all going to work?” He made a face and said a nasty word.
“Yeah,” Reardon said in sympathy. “Anything else new?”
“That’s the scoop.”
“Well, go home and get some rest.”
“Sure,” Lundahl said. “If my in-laws aren’t over for the day.” He turned and jammed his way through the glass doors to the street.
Reardon stared after the tall detective a moment and then turned back toward the elevators. He took one to the fourth floor, walked along the unusually silent corridor to his office, and dropped into the chair behind his desk, looking around. The place was deserted, the men either on assignment or on Sunday time-off. Reardon sighed and reached for the in-basket.
The report on top was from Laboratory Services; a quick glance proved it to be the report covering the tape, and contained little beyond what Gentry had told them in the early morning meeting. He put it aside and picked up the next one. This report was a compilation of station house replies to a request from Chief Boynton’s office, and indicated that copies had been sent to all departments, including Homicide. Captain Tower had scrawled his initials in one corner and had directed it to Lieutenant Reardon. Reardon settled back to read, but the words kept going past him without pausing long enough to deposit much meaning. He forced himself to go back to the beginning.
It amounted to nothing, but then, he thought, if any of the reports had amounted to anything, the Hall would have been jumping with activity instead of everyone having taken time off, as if the Holland case — not to mention a hundred other cases — had all been solved and filed. The report confirmed that the footmen from the various stations had checked out every possible visible telephone booth in the city without locating a single witness to a man in a booth with a tape recorder. Which was what Reardon had expected, and he marveled at the amount of wasted time that could be devoted to a pointless search for nothing. Which would be the same case if he wasted his time chasing down that newspaperman, the way Porky Frank would like. He tossed the report aside and picked up the next one.
Like the others, this one had been addressed to the chief with copies to Homicide among others, and had again filtered down via Captain Tower. It was from Robbery, and Davidson’s men had gone over the Holland house from top to bottom, had checked the garage and the driveway, had spoken to neighbors in all directions, storekeepers, and even the manager of a nearby movie theater. And, like the previous report, it said nothing.
He tossed it aside, looked at the rest of the papers in his in-basket, drummed his fingers restlessly on the desk for a few moments while making up his mind, and then reached for the telephone. He got an outside line and dialed; there was a brief wait and then Jan was on the line. She sounded hurried.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Jan?”
“Hello, darling.” Reardon felt better at once, just hearing the warmth that entered her voice. “Where are you?”
“At the Hall. Look, sweet, there’s absolutely nothing doing at the moment and I’m about ready to climb a wall. How would you like to do something? There’s a twi-night doubleheader at Candlestick, or we could take in a movie, or rob a bank, or anything. How about it?”
“I can’t, darling.” Jan sounded truly sorry. “I’ve got tons of work. Jake dropped off the plans for the new shopping mall, and I have to have all my comments ready for submittal through Jake tomorrow...”
Reardon felt worse than he had before. He hadn’t realized how much he had been subconsciously looking forward to seeing Jan. He needed her to lift away some of his depression, some of his feeling of growing helplessness in the case of Michael Patrick Holland; some of the feeling of guilt, in fact, that here he was trying to make the momentous decision as to whether to take in a doubleheader or a movie, when Pop was tied up someplace, and undoubtedly in a bad way. Still, when you have one of the town’s upcoming architects for your girl friend, you have to be prepared for moments when she has to work to maintain her upcomingness.