The telephone was ringing. Kling walked to the nearest desk and lifted the receiver. “Eighty seventh, Detective Kling,” he said.
“This is Donner.”
“Yeah, Fats.”
“I think I got a lead on one of those heaps.”
“Shoot.”
“This would be the one heisted on Fourteenth Street. According to the dope I’ve got it happened yesterday morning. Does that check out?”
“I’ll have to look at the bulletin again. Go ahead, Fats.”
“It’s already been ditched,” Donner said. “If you’re looking for it try outside the electric company on the River Road.”
“Thanks, I’ll make a note of that. Who stole it, Fats?”
“This is strictly entre nous,” Donner said. “I don’t want no tie-in with it never. The guy who done it is a mean little guy — rip out his mother’s heart for a dime. He hates blacks, killed one in a street rumble a few years ago, and managed to beat the rap. I think maybe some officer was on the take, huh, Kling?”
“You can’t square homicide in this city, and you know it, Fats.”
“Yeah? I’m surprised. You can square damn near anything else for a couple of bills.”
“What’s his name?”
“Danny Ryder. Three-five-four-one Grover Avenue. You won’t find him there now, though.”
“Where will I find him now?”
“Ten minutes ago he was in an all-night bar on Mason, place called Felicia’s. You going in after him?”
“I am.”
“Take your gun,” Donner said.
There were seven people in Felicia’s when Kling got there at 4:45. He cased the bar through the plate-glass window fronting the place, unbuttoned the third button of his overcoat, reached in to clutch the butt of his revolver, worked it out of the holster once and then back again, and went in through the front door.
There was the immediate smell of stale cigarette smoke and beer and sweat and cheap perfume. A Puerto Rican girl was in whispered consultation with a sailor in one of the leatherette-lined booths. Another sailor was hunched over the juke box thoughtfully considering his next selection, his face tinted orange and red and green from the colored tubing. A tired, fat, 50-year old blonde sat at the far end of the bar, watching the sailor as though the next button he pushed might destroy the entire world. The bartender was polishing glasses. He looked up when Kling walked in and immediately smelled the law.
Two men were seated at the opposite end of the bar.
One of them was wearing a blue turtleneck sweater, gray slacks, and desert boots. His brown hair was clipped close to his scalp in a military cut. The other man was wearing a bright orange team jacket, almost luminous, with the words Orioles, S.A.C. lettered across its back. The one with the crewcut said something softly, and the other one chuckled. Behind the bar a glass clinked as the bartender replaced it on the shelf. The juke box erupted in sound, Jimi Hendrix rendering All Along the Watchtower.
Kling walked over to the two men.
“Which one of you is Danny Ryder?” he asked.
The one with the short hair said, “Who wants to know?”
“Police officer,” Kling said, and the one in the orange jacket whirled with a pistol in his hand. Kling’s eyes opened wide in surprise, and the pistol went off.
There was no time to think, there was hardly time to breathe. The explosion of the pistol was shockingly close, the acrid stink of cordite was in Kling’s nostrils. The knowledge that he was still alive, the sweet rushing clean awareness that the bullet had somehow missed him was only a fleeting click of intelligence accompanying what was essentially a reflexive act.
Kling’s .38 came free of its holster, his finger was inside the trigger guard and around the trigger, he squeezed off his shot almost before the gun had cleared the flap of his overcoat, fired into the orange jacket and threw his shoulder simultaneously against the chest of the man with the short hair, knocking him backward off his stool. The man in the orange jacket, his face twisted in pain, was leveling the pistol for another shot.
Kling fired again, squeezing the trigger without thought of rancor, and then whirled on the man with the short hair, who was crouched on the floor against the bar.
“Get up!” he yelled.
“Don’t shoot!”
“Get up!”
He yanked the man to his feet, hurled him against the bar, thrust the muzzle of his pistol at the blue turtleneck sweater, ran his hands under the armpits and between the legs, while the man kept saying over and over again “Don’t shoot, please don’t shoot.”
He backed away from him and leaned over the one in the orange jacket.
“Is this Ryder?” he asked. “Yes.”
“Who’re you?”
“Frank Pasquale. Look, I—”
“Shut up, Frank,” Kling said. “Put your hands behind your back. Move!”
He had already taken his handcuffs from his belt. He snapped them onto Pasquale’s wrists, and only then became aware that Jimi Hendrix was still singing, the sailors were watching with pale white faces, the Puerto Rican girl was screaming, the fat faded blonde had her mouth open, the bartender was frozen in mid-motion, the tip of his bar towel inside a glass.
“All right,” Kling said. He was breathing harshly. “All right,” he said again, and wiped his forehead.
Timothy Allen Ames was a potbellied man of 40, with a thick black mustache, a mane of long black hair, and brown eyes sharply alert at 5:05 in the morning. He answered the door as though he’d been already awake, asked for identification, then asked the detectives to wait a moment, closed the door, and came back shortly afterward, wearing a robe over his striped pajamas.
“Is your name Timothy Ames?” Carella asked.
“That’s me,” Ames said. “Little late to be paying a visit, ain’t it?”
“Or early, depending how you look at it,” Hawes said.
“One thing I can do without at five A.M. is humorous cops,” Ames said. “How’d you get up here, anyway? Is that little jerk asleep at the desk again?”
“Who do you mean?” Carella asked.
“Lonnie Sanford, or whatever his name is.”
“Ronald — Ronnie Sanford.”
“Yeah, him. Always giving me trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“About broads,” Ames said. “Acts like he’s running a nunnery here, can’t stand to see a guy come in with a girl. I notice he ain’t got no compunctions about letting cops upstairs, though, no matter what time it is.”
“Never mind Sanford, let’s talk about you,” Carella said.
“Sure, what would you like to know?”
“Where were you between eleven twenty and twelve tonight?”
“Right here.”
“Can you prove it?”
“Sure. I got back here about eleven o’clock, and I been here ever since. Ask Sanford downstairs — no, he wasn’t on yet. He don’t come on till midnight.”
“Who else can we ask, Ames?”
“Listen, you going to make trouble for me?”
“Only if you’re in trouble.”
“I got a broad here. She’s over eighteen, don’t worry. But, like, she’s a junkie, you know? But I know you guys, and if you want to make trouble—”
“Where is she?”
“In the john.”
“Get her out here.”
“Look, do me a favor, will you? Don’t bust the kid. She’s trying to kick the habit, she really is. I been helping her along.”
“How?”
“By keeping her busy,” Ames said, and winked.
“Call her.”
“Bea, come out here!” Ames shouted.