Bella Riddle looked across the oilcloth-covered kitchen table at her son and raised the napkin to wipe her eyes.
“Sammy,” she said. “Sammy, I want you should eat your food.”
“You’re not eating, Mom,” Sammy said.
“It don’t make no matter. Eat. You’re a growing boy and you gotta eat. And when you finish, I want you to go over to Grandma’s for a while. Maybe for a few days.”
Sammy pushed the plate away and his delicate, sensuous lips formed a stubborn line.
“I’m not hungry and I’m not going to Grandma’s,” he said.
Bella felt the tears starting again, but she made an effort to control herself.
“Sammy,” she said. “Sammy, what’s got into you anyway? A course you’ll go to Grandma’s. Just for a few days. Just until Daddy is better and maybe gets outta the hospital.”
“Daddy isn’t going to get better,” Sammy said.
“Of course he’s going to get better. What are you saying anyway, Sammy? An auto accident can happen to anyone. What kind of son…”
“Listen, Mama,” Sammy said. “I was downstairs a while ago. I got a tabloid. It was no auto accident. I didn’t think so this morning when the cops came ’cause cops, that many cops, don’t come around because of an auto accident. So I went downstairs and I could tell the way people looked at me. And I got a tabloid and I read all about it. I know what happened. I know all about it so there ain’t no use you’re trying to kid me.”
He stopped talking suddenly, feeling the tears coming to his own eyes. He gulped a couple of times and then spoke again, his voice suddenly thin and high-pitched.
“Oh, God,” he said, “how’m I ever going back to school? How’ll I ever even go out on the streets again. My old man a thief and a cop killer!”
“Sammy! Don’t talk that way, Sammy. Don’t dare say those things about your Daddy. He was only doing it for us. Only trying to do things for you and for me. Your Daddy is a good man. A fine…”
“A good man?” Sammy said through bitter tears. “A good man? He’s nothing but a…”
“Sammy, stop it,” his mother cried. “Don’t say it, Son. Maybe Jake made a mistake; maybe he did a wrong…”
“Mama, I read the story in the papers,” Sammy said. “It was no mistake. You always said Daddy worked in a restaurant. But it was all a lie. He’d been in jail. He had a record. He was a gambler and bookie. The papers said so and so there’s no use kidding ourselves. My old man is a crook and a…”
“He did it for us, Sammy,” Bella said. “Don’t talk ill of him now. It was for me and for you…”
Sammy stood up and shoved the table away. He wasn’t crying now and his voice was suddenly deeper and harder.
“Nuts, Mama,” he said. “Uncle Merv has four kids and he takes good care of them without robbing and killing. He’s no smarter than Daddy. You’ve said so plenty of times. A lot of men take care of their wives and kids and aren’t crooks. But me… my old man’s a cop killer. I’m proud of him, Mama-real proud. He always said I should be good and live a decent life so he could be proud of me. Yeah? Good. And so now I should be proud of him because he’s a thief and a cop killer, is that it?”
He suddenly turned and ran from the room.
Bella started to get up from the table and then slowly sank back into her chair. She dropped her head into her arms and this time there were no tears. Nothing but dry sobs as her heavy shoulders slowly weaved from side to side.
Gerald had bought all of the New York newspapers. A quick look through the morning papers turned up nothing, but there were comparatively complete stories in the early editions of the afternoon sheets.
He had to admit that the police moved fast. They didn’t have all of the answers, at least according to what the press had learned, but they did have a lot of them.
The Tele gave the case the most complete coverage, handling the story without sensationalism, but playing up the pertinent facts. There was a long statement given out” by the Pinkerton man, who had been guarding the jewels and who had been found semiconscious from breathing the gas which had been pumped into the office where he sat.
The guard had had a lucky break; police admitted that the only thing which had saved his life was the fact he had been dragged from the office by the thieves. He was going to be all right after a day or so in the hospital, but the police sergeant was dead and one of the gangsters had been killed outright. The other cop. Hardy, was not expected to live and already had been given last rites.
A second mobster, identified as Jake Riddle, ex-convict and known bookie, forty-four years of age and married, and the father of a teen-age son, was also dying. During a moment of consciousness he had been questioned, but had refused to talk. He’d asked to see his wife and child and the request had been refused.
It was believed that a third and fourth member of the gang had made a clean getaway in a second car. One of the mob cars, a Ford sedan stolen twenty-four hours previously from a parking lot in Garden City, had been abandoned at the scene of the shooting after a stray bullet had disabled it. Hardy, the patrolman who was not expected to live, had been able to tell investigating officers that a second car was driven off at the time of the shooting. The newspaper said that he had made a partial identification of the automobile.
Hanna, reading this last, paled slightly. A partial identification? He wondered just what the phrase meant. He realized that when Hardy referred to a fourth member of the gang, he must be referring to himself. He could feel his pulse quicken as the thought struck him.
One of the newspapers devoted several paragraphs to the loot itself, itemizing much of it and mentioning that its total value was well over a quarter of a million dollars. It also added that the gems were fully insured.
The dead bandit was identified as one Dominick Petri, an ex-con in his early twenties, known to officials as strictly a small-timer. Police were believed to know the identity of one of the escaped pair and claimed he was a youth who had served time with young Petri in a state reformatory.
Newsday, a local Long Island paper which Hanna had also picked up as he drove through Roslyn, was the only one to mention that a Miss Sue Dunne, nineteen, of 104-16 Meadow Street, Corona, had been picked up for questioning. Aside from saying that she worked as a night-cashier at the G. and S. Cafeteria, no other details were given.
Gerald carefully rechecked every news column, but nowhere did he see anything about the discovery of a young man’s body, filled with bullets, somewhere on a lonely road on Long Island’s North Shore.
He carefully folded the papers and stacked them on an end table when he was through with them. And then he did something he had never done before in his life.
He opened a bottle of Bourbon which had been given to him by Maryjane’s father the previous Christmas and taking a water glass from the kitchenette, poured about two and a half ounces into it. He added an ice cube and a little water and returned to his small living room and sat down and lifted the glass to his lips.
Downing the drink with a wry expression, he sat back and as the warmth of the liquor hit his stomach and spread through his veins, he felt fine. Fine and relaxed.
A drink before dinner was a fine idea. He wondered just why in the world he’d never tried it before. There were a lot of things he’d never tried before that he was suddenly determined to try.
He felt a pleasant warm glow throughout his body and suddenly he laughed aloud. He was the new Gerald Hanna. Yes, there were a lot of things he had been missing that he would soon experience. A lot of things.