I took off my coat and went to work on the file. Most of it was the reports of the various precinct men who'd worked on the case, all the people they'd interviewed, the few leads they'd run down—everything negative. There was a copy of Owens' arrest record, almost all of the collars made with Wales. They had been hard workers, over sixteen hundred cases. I went through the list fast, checking off those arrests where they'd used force, that would be the sort of stuff to make a joker want revenge. Like Austin must feel now.
Back in '37 they had “subdued” a man named Dundus who was terrorizing a bar with a butcher knife. They must have worked the guy over good: Wales had received minor cuts and Owens had busted Dundus' nose with a sap. Dundus had been sent to Bellevue for observation and then to an institution. That was back in '37. He could have spent ten or fifteen years in a padded cell, then been released. I wondered where he was now.
There was a detailed report on the arrest of Sal Kahn for the shooting of Boots Brenner. They had roped Sal into confessing, Owens posing as a “witness who positively identified” Sal as the man who had dumped Brenner's body in the lot. The lot was right next to an empty garage they were using for a still so I wondered why all the praise for Wales and Owens— they couldn't help but stumble on the still and the obvious solution.
Sal must have been one of these cool cats. He never gave them the name of his partner, although through stoolies he was known to be working with somebody known by the snappy title of The Bird. There was over a grand in electrical equipment in the “shop” but Sal didn't know a thing about electricity. It was a damn good thing Kahn signed a confession. They never recovered the actual murder gun—Kahn claimed he had tossed it into a garbage can. Kahn died seventeen months later in the chair, still clam-mouthed. He had forty dollars and change on his person when arrested and not a penny was found in his room. He used a court-appointed lawyer claiming he was broke, although as Wales pointed out in one of his reports, “Kahn and his partner must have been selling a lot of alcohol to interest a gangster like Brenner. It must be assumed the missing partner fled with all the money made from the still.”
I jotted down the address of the still, along with that of Kahn's sole relative, his mother, and the data on Dundus.
The rest were all routine arrests: rape, assault, burglary, disorderly conduct, etc. For the few years Owens worked after Wales retired he must have had an inside job—he only had, three collars, including picking up some joker named Frederick X. Rowland III, for smoking in the subway.
As I was finishing the summary, Danny Hayes came in puffing on a new cigarette. I asked, “The guy at the line-up our paperhanger?”
“Nope. This one just blew into town yesterday. Hear you snapped your stack. When you going to grow up, Dave?”
“The bastard called me a Jewboy and a Wop. Am I supposed to be grown up when I take that?”
“I don't know. But sometimes people say things without meaning real harm. Just been raised ignorantly.” He scratched his brown nose. “Hell, I run into that all the time but you can't take on the world.”
“Naw, Austin meant it the way he said it. And when I start taking crap you can pull a headstone over me.”
“I don't make you all the time, Dave. Would you have slugged him if he had used the names and you didn't happen to be Italian and Jewish?”
“Who knows? Look, I have enough trouble taking care of myself. When a guy low-rates me I try to slug him. All set for some Chinese chow?”
“Reed wants you.”
“Going to be a stink about my clipping Austin?”
Hayes shrugged. “Didn't sound like it, but I don't really know. He's sending me out to look at a stolen car, and I think he wants you for another call.”
I got the file together and the few notes I'd made, went through the squad room to Reed's office, told him, “There isn't much here, Lieutenant, and—”
“Forget it, for now. Go over and see what this is all about.” He shoved a slip of paper across his desk that had an address and the name Rose Henderson scrawled on it. Reed always wrote as if his pen was a barbell. “She's called in twice about being followed, men pushing her around. Sounds like some old maid crackpot.”
“I'll go right over. Lieutenant, in checking Owens' arrest record you'll notice that in 1937 he and Wales brought in a nut who was flashing a big knife in a bar. They sent him away, no trial. They must have worked the guy over, Owens busted his nose while taking the knife and Wales was cut up. Name is Dundus. If he's a psycho he could be our man, discounting the robbery angle, which I've never bought.”
“This squad is off the Owens case.”
“What? Why?”
“Mainly because it's a dead end, we're just going around in circles, getting no place.”
“Well, I'd still like to check, see if this guy is out of the hatch, and if so, where he is and—”
Reed held up a large thin hand. “I'll have a check made. And forget about the Owens case and listen to me: Wintino, this is the third man you've belted in this station house. I calmed down this Homicide man, told him you were a hotheaded kid with—”
“Instead of calming him down, Lieutenant, why didn't you tell him to watch his fat tongue?”
“How do you know I didn't tell him that too? That's the trouble with you, Dave, at times you are a hot-headed kid. But I'm not running any free-for-all here. Start another fight and you'll be back in uniform. By God, if you had pounded a beat for a brace of years you'd know how to handle people.”
“Lieutenant Reed, when a clown insults my family background, what am I supposed to do, make a complaint through channels?”
“Technically, yes.” He leaned back in his chair, his long body looking cramped, his big nose like a dagger in his face. “You're a kid, Wintino, and a cocky one. But I like you because you never goof off. I'll admit you work hard and get results. I'm going to tell you this once and remember it because I don't go in for any fatherly advice crap. There's always somebody around you have to say sir to. I don't care how important or tough you are, be at least one man who's more important or tougher. Get used to the idea. Actually, Dave, you've been lucky, you're too small to be so hard.”
I said slowly, “I understand what you mean but I'll never eat crow for any bigoted knucklehead who makes cracks about my race or religion. I don't think you'd want any man to take that—sir.”
Reed brought his chair down hard, waved his long arms. “Another thing, you talk too damn much. Gowan, get going before this old maid calls up about a mouse getting into her.”
I wasn't sure if Reed was smiling or not.
Wednesday Afternoon
It sure was getting muggy. I stopped for a soda and a hunk of pie, finished up with a couple of hamburgers. I was surprised I could eat I was so angry. I mean-this crap about closing the Owens case—that's what it amounted to—and having me off seeing this nutty old maid, Danny working on a stolen car. How important were they compared to that murder?
The address Reed gave me was near the southern end of the precinct, one of these old sections where some of the houses had been remodeled, a mixture of high and low rents.
As I walked down the block I passed this fancy Jaguar sedan. I don't especially care for foreign heaps but what attracted me was this real sharp sport jacket hanging from a side window. It was something: shaggy imported tweed with side pleats and patch pockets. It was a honey, strictly from a swank shop and made to order. I tried to see the label but couldn't make it. Anyway, I was spending too much on clothes as it was.