She hesitated a moment and for the first time as she looked at him, there was no longer the disgust and the dislike in her expression.
“You are older than Vince was,” she said. “You should be a lot smarter. Maybe you are and maybe you’re not. Maybe, you too just have to be told what is right and what is wrong.”
She moved a step away from the table as he started to stand up.
“I’m going now,” she said. “We’ve had our talk. I’m going home now and I don’t think I ever want to see you again.”
She swung on her heel and stalked out into the night and Gerald stood there.
Somehow he felt a sudden sadness, a sudden odd sense of loss. It didn’t matter how she felt about it. He knew that he himself would want to see her again. Would like to see her soon and often and…
He didn’t notice the man several tables away who also sat watching the girl leave. The man himself, for a moment, made as though to get up and follow her. Then, after a moment, he once more sat back and his eyes returned to Gerald.
It was a decision he had to make on the spur of the moment. There was no time to call in and find out which one of the two they wanted him to keep his eye on in case they split up. Well, he couldn’t, very obviously, tail both of them. And he guessed that the man would probably be the most important one. The man usually was.
It is more or less of a shame that he reached this particular decision, because, if he hadn’t and had decided to follow Sue Dunne instead of stay with Gerald Hanna, he might have been able to do something about what was to happen a few moments later.
At least he would have seen the car which was waiting at the curb, in front of Sue’s apartment house when she arrived. He would have seen the man who leaped to the dark street and crossed over and accosted her and a second later threw a strangle hold around her neck and pulled her to the edge of the gutter. He would have seen the other hands reach out and drag her into the machine as it left the curb to speed off into the night.
But instead, this man who had to make the decision stayed on as Gerald sat and finished his warm drink and called the waiter over and asked for his check. He followed him when Gerald went out and got into his car. He was behind him, in his own unmarked police car, all of the way out to Long Island. He was parked across the street, watching, as Gerald closed the garage doors and went on up to his apartment.
He wasn’t prepared for it. It was funny how that was the first thought that passed through his mind as his hand reached out and he flicked on the wall switch in the living room.
Even before the sense of surprise, of fear, reached his brain, that was the thought. He should have known or at least have guessed. But he hadn’t. That was the trouble with having no experience. Experience was always valuable. Gerald could only assume the rule applied to almost any given situation.
A criminal, a man who operated outside the law, would have had that experience and would have known. Would have sensed it the moment he entered the room. But he, Gerald Hanna, was without experience and that is why, as the yellow brilliance filtered through the dark room and he saw the two of them, one on the couch and the other standing by the door, he reacted as he did.
The hand which had found the fight switch went to his mouth and his eyes, in the sudden glare of the light, were wide and almost hysterical. He gasped and instinctively he turned and took a step back toward the hallway.
It was the short, fat one, the one called Finn, who spoke. He didn’t move and didn’t take the dead cigar from between his lips and he didn’t raise his voice but spoke in a cool, detached manner.
“Don’t leave now, Mr. Hanna,” he said. “You just got here. This is your house, you know. Your castle. You may stay.”
Detective Lieutenant Hopper merely sat still and relaxed on the couch, his glasses half down on his thin, bony nose and his hat pushed back on his head. He didn’t look up. His eyes were on the floor and he seemed to be inspecting the carpet under Gerald’s feet.
“Yes, do stay. It wouldn’t be polite to leave while you have guests,” Finn said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He dusted a spot of cigar ash from the unpressed lapel of his dark-gray suit and looked up into Gerald’s face, smiling politely.
“You’re real cute, Mr. Hanna,” he said.
Lieutenant Hopper raised his eyes and sighed. He looked over at the fat man, ignoring Gerald, who still stood half in and half out of the doorway.
“I’ll take it, Finn,” he said in a tired voice. He transferred his gaze to Gerald.
“Come in and sit down, Mr. Hanna,” he said. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
Gerald entered the room, attempting to compose his expression. He took off his hat and carefully placed it on the side table and then moved across the room and pulled a straight-backed chair out from the wall. He straddled it and then just sat there, waiting.
“Where have you been?”
The lieutenant’s expression was disinterested as he asked the question in a soft, gentle voice.
“Why… why, out,” Gerald said. The moment the words left his lips he realized the inane vacuity of them. Realized how silly they sounded. But he still hadn’t gotten over his shock at finding the men in his apartment, hadn’t adjusted to the reality of their presence.
“He’s been out,” Finn said, his voice heavy with sarcasm. “I told you he’s cute, Lieutenant. Not tricky-nothing cagey or deceitful or reticent about him. Just cute. You ask him where he’s been and like a little man he ups and he tells you. He’s been out. Simple? Straightforward? Certainly. A man would have to be a damned ingrate not to be satisfied with that sort of answer.”
He moved then, moved with amazing swiftness for a man of his bulk. He was halfway across the room when he again spoke.
“Why, you dirty little…”
“Sit down, Finn. I said I’d take it!”
The lieutenant stood up then himself and stared down at Gerald. He began to speak in the same soft, unimpassioned tone of voice, almost apologetically, but his gray eyes were like ice.
“I’d like to explain something to you, Mr. Hanna,” he said. He took a step forward, standing in front of Gerald on straddled legs. As he spoke he reached up and pushed his glasses into position.
“I don’t believe it’s any news to you that we have been working on a robbery. The Gorden-Frost job, to be precise. A quarter of a million dollars in stones and assorted gems. But do you know, in spite of the money involved, in spite of the fact that the thieves got away with the stuff, we aren’t really primarily concerned. Interested of course, that more or less being our business, but not hysterical about it or anything.
“On the other hand, it just so happens that two policemen were shot during that particular robbery. One of them was a man a year or so younger than you, but unlike you, he was married. Had a two-year-old baby. His name was Hardy, Don Hardy. I never knew him personally as he was just a rookie when he was shot. He’ll never be anything else. He’s dead.
“The other one was a man named Dillon. Dillon was a sergeant, an old-timer. Dillon I did know. Knew him. knew his wife, and knew his two sons and his daughter. You’d have liked Dillon-a good solid family man and honest as the day is long. Dillon was the sort of cop who hated to write out a traffic ticket. He wasn’t a cop’s cop-he was a layman’s cop. Everyone liked Dillon. Well, he’s dead too. I take his death pretty hard; you see he stood up at my wedding and we were friends.
“But I don’t want you to let that influence your reaction to what I am saying to you. A lot of men have friends and a lot of those friends die, sooner or later. Not exactly the way Hardy and Dillon died, of course, but they do die.”