“A philosophical cop,” one of the men said. “Wonder of wonders.”
“No, it isn't a wonder or philosophical or a damn thing but a job with long hours and—”
“Little pay,” Mary cut in bitterly.
“And big risks,” I said. “If your boss suddenly told you to get out and clean the office windows you'd refuse because you'd be risking your life. Yet for less salary than you're making I'm expected to face guns, knives and fists every day. But even if the pay was good it wouldn't make it a good job because secretly most people hate cops.”
“Exactly,” the girl with the big eyes said. “Because you do society's dirty work. This man you arrested this afternoon, his resentment isn't against the economic insecurity that made him seek robbery but against you. We need economic equality not night sticks or—”
“Easy, Janice,” Grace Tills cut in, “or you'll fall off your soapbox.”
“No, no,” Janice said eagerly, “I'm only trying to show him the reality of the situation is that police aren't the answer but—”
“The reality of the situation is,” I cut in, “that there's a homicide every forty minutes in the U.S.A., a rape every half-hour, an assault every six minutes, and some form of larceny every twenty-six seconds, and when you're the victim you'll be yelling for the police!”
“Lord,” Don said, “are those facts?”
“Of course they are,” I told him.
“Sounds fantastic,” this Janice began, “but that only proves what I—”
Grace Tills put her fingers in her mouth and whistled. She could whistle real good. She held up her hands. “I think it's time we took Dave off the witness stand. Cards, anybody?”
“Almost eleven,” a girl who hadn't said anything before said. “Let's stick to drinking. We have to be home by midnight or our Cinderella baby-sitter will sack us. Put the TV on again, there's a soap jingle due on which I hear is sensational.”
They all trooped to the bar except me—I just don't like the taste of beer. Janice hurried back with a drink in her right hand and pointed her left at my holster as she said, “It's like being near a snake, same morbid attraction.”
“Not good to get too near guns or snakes,” I kidded her, watching Mary down a quickie at the bar.
“You and I should talk this out,” she said but the soap jingle came, on and everybody started chattering about the sales pitch jammed into the thirty-second jingle. The news followed and the commentator suffered from the occupational disease of his calling—self-importance, as though he was making the news instead of parroting it.
I was the only one trying to hear him: I wanted to know who'd won the fight. The TV screen was filled with film shots of the day's news—another conference in Europe, a factory fire, the President playing golf, then a picture of a small room and uniformed cops carrying out a body. I caught one word over the noises in the room. I shouted, “Shut up!... please.”
The smooth voice of the commentator was saying, ”... and in this dingy room his landlady found Wales' body when he failed to answer her repeated knocks. Police say the retired detective was killed around noon although the landlady didn't discover the body until late this afternoon. One puzzling aspect of the case was a large amount of cash in the dead man's money belt which was untouched. Now, after a word from my sponsor, I'll have the late sport results and the weather for...”
As I put on my coat I told Mary, “I have to get back to the precinct house. Want me to take you home first?”
“Don't worry about me! I'll go home when I'm ready!” she snapped.
“Babes, I have to—”
Don said, “Aren't you being rather melodramatic, Dave old man? Hear about a murder on TV and go dashing out into the night. You really have to go?”
“Melodramatic?” I repeated. “This isn't any play. Wales' partner was killed yesterday and I was on the case. Good night everybody.”
Mary ran after me to the door. I asked, “Got cab fare, Babes?”
“I was never so embarrassed in my life!” she whispered. “You had to show off that lousy gun to startle my friends!”
“I wasn't showing off. How was I to know you hadn't told your boon buddies I was a cop. Way you hid it, you'd think I was in the rackets.”
“I know you, you did it on purpose, grandstanding!”
“Stop it,” I said, opening the door. “Thought you'd like the idea of me being the big attraction tonight—unless you count the juicehound on the couch.”
“Attraction? You fool, they were making fun of you! Now you cap it all by rushing off like a child hearing a fire alarm. You're off duty, they can't get in touch with you here, why the—”
“Damn it, Mary, another ex-cop has been gunned. I'm not only on the case but if I'd followed my hunches, Wales might be alive now. Do you need cab fare?”
“We can't even have a decent evening out,” Mary said. She was on the verge of crying but held it in. “Just leave me alone!” She turned back toward the others and I walked out. I listened for a moment outside the door—there wasn't any laughter. Mary was all wrong.
I walked around the corner and found myself at a subway entrance. Riding up to the station house I didn't think much about Mary being sore—all lovey-dovey at 6 p.m. and a hot pistol by II p.m. Hell with that-Al Wales was dead! That made a monkey out of the robbery theory in Owens' murder, and murder was what it was. My hunch was the correct one-somebody was out to get both men and that could only mean a collar they'd made. Perhaps the killer did a long stretch and just got out. How else could ex-cops make enemies? Instead of horsing around with the Henderson case or writing up a report, if Reed had let me talk to Wales when I asked, the old guy would still be alive now, probably helping me solve the Owens killing.
I reached the precinct house at twenty to twelve. The midnight tour was in the muster room, studying the post condition board and shooting the breeze. The desk lieutenant was a fat slob who'd never heard about the invention of the comb. As I walked in he cracked, “Hey, sonny, where you going? Oh... it's you, Wintino.”
The sonofabitch went through this corny routine every time he saw me, which fortunately wasn't often and the patrolmen in the muster room gave it a big yak-yak.
“I came back to get a Popsicle I didn't finish this afternoon, Lieutenant,” I said to show the joker I could go along with a gag, even a cornball one.
There were only two men in the detective squad room, a guy built like a football tackle—named Wilson—and a sum, dapper (if you go for herringbone weaves) gray-haired man who was the senior detective on the squad and in charge when Reed wasn't around. He was Tom Landon, the quiet type who always looks bored and never gets excited. He asked, “Got your tours mixed, Dave? What you doing here?”
“Heard on TV about Al Wales being killed.”
“Yeah, quite a thing. Eleven thousand bucks in a money belt wrapped around his gut. Shame a man has to kick the bucket with that kind of dough unspent.”
“Where's everybody? Where's Lieutenant Reed?”
Landon leaned back in his chair and ran dental floss through his phony teeth—he was always playing with those false choppers. “Home, I guess. Why? Something go wrong in Night Court?”
“No. I thought with this Wales shooting, I mean it proves Owens wasn't in any stick-up, he was deliberately gunned... figured we'd all be working tonight.”
“Sure does throw a different light on the Owens thing,” Landon said, starting to work on his uppers. “But Wales wasn't killed in this precinct and anyway, Central Office is handling both killings now. I got my paper work to write up before midnight so... Wintino, you actually came here because...? If we wanted you we would have phoned. Beat it.”