Reardon hadn’t put a note down; he was merely twiddling the pencil idly. Stan Lundahl lit a cigarette and waited, watching. Reardon reached out his hand; Lundahl gave him a cigarette and also lit it. As an afterthought he offered the pack to Crocker, but the tall man merely shook his head. Reardon exhaled and returned to his questioning.
“What brought you to Army Street?”
Crocker looked surprised. “You’ve got to eat someplace, don’t you? And I happen to know the counterman there. He’s somebody to talk to, and I don’t have too many of those.” He thought of something else. “How long are you going to hold my car? I don’t have the dough for taxis.”
“The technical squad will have to examine it, but it shouldn’t be long,” Reardon said and sighed. He crushed out his cigarette; Lundahl’s eyebrows went up at the waste of tobacco. What questions to ask? I’m tired, he thought; and I could stand some food myself. And why in hell wouldn’t Jan take two minutes and let me explain that I was trying to get there sooner, not later! He realized Crocker was waiting and brought his mind back to the affair, asking his next question almost without thinking.
“You were over on Army near Missouri, and you were going to Second between Harrison and Folsom. Right?”
“That’s right.”
“How come you didn’t take the Freeway? A block up on Army and you’re on it; it lets you off at Bryant and Fourth and you’re practically home.” Even as he asked it, Reardon’s brow wrinkled. It was a better question than he had meant to ask.
Crocker shook his head. “Because I never go on the skyways, Lieutenant. Because I don’t drive as fast as the people who use them, and frankly I don’t want an accident.” He seemed to realize his words sounded strange in the circumstances, but let them stand. “Anyway, I stick to the city streets. Up until tonight I’ve never even had a scratched fender.”
Lundahl leaned forward. “But you could have gone down Army to Iowa and caught the new extension. It would have gotten you at least to Mariposa, and there’s no traffic at all on her. That’s halfway home.”
Crocker faced this new inquisitor. “I told you. I don’t use the skyways. If it pleases you, I’m not the bravest driver in the world, and my car isn’t the newest.”
“True,” Lundahl murmured and leaned back again.
Reardon started to yawn and forced it back. He tried to think of more questions and couldn’t.
“I think that’s all for now, Mr. Crocker.”
Crocker looked properly relieved and rose dutifully. Lundahl unstraddled himself from his chair and moved around the desk.
“I’d suggest one of the trustee’s cells, Lieutenant.” He turned to Crocker. “They’re not locked.”
“All right,” Crocker said. He seemed to be too tired and dejected by the tragic events of the past few hours to argue about anything. “All right.”
“And that’s all I’ll need you for, Stan,” Reardon said. “You can go back to what you were doing.”
Lundahl grinned. “I was getting ready to go home when they caught me. I’ll be happy to go back to doing it. It’ll be a nice surprise for my family.” He left the room with Crocker; his place in the doorway was taken by Sergeant Wilkins, who stared after the two a moment and then came into the room. Reardon swiveled his chair in his direction, the pencil bobbing in his fingers, looking at the other expectantly.
“Well?”
Wilkins grinned. “You really want to get into Traffic, don’t you? Because Homicide this ain’t!” His grin faded. “Everything points to the way the man says. Skid marks are normal for an accident of that kind. The street lighting is terrible on that street — in that whole part of Potrero, as a matter of fact — and the headlights on that old Buick pull a bit to the left anyway. Which means that a man stepping off the curb without looking — especially someone wearing dark clothes—” He shook his head with genuine disgust. “One of the mysteries of life — or death — that I’ll never solve, is why people think they can be automatically seen by the driver of a car just because they can see him.” He shrugged. “A guy stepping off a curb at night is asking for it.”
“Could he have been drunk?”
Wilkins shook his head. “I was there when they finally loaded him into Danny’s taxi and I didn’t smell anything. They could check it with a blood test if you think it would make any difference, but it seems to me it would only make the driver that much more innocent.”
“True,” Reardon admitted.
“There was one thing though—” Wilkins hesitated.
Reardon looked up. “Which is?”
“Well, this character who got killed. He had a money clip on him with twenty-eight dollars in it — nothing spectacular, just normal, I’d say — but he didn’t have a wallet. What I mean, no identification.”
“What?” Reardon stared at him.
“That’s right. No wallet, no cards, no receipts, no nothing with his name on it. He’s downstairs as an Unknown.”
“What else was he carrying outside of money?”
“A handkerchief, some keys — not car keys, or at least not like any car key for an American car I’ve seen; they looked like regular door keys — and maybe a dollar or so in loose change. It’s all exact on the report. And he had some junk in his pocket. That’s about it.”
“Junk?”
“Nothing of importance. I’ll have the complete list in the report.”
Reardon frowned. “No identification...” He looked up. “Did you print him?”
“I didn’t, but the morgue knows we don’t have a make on him, so they’ll probably print him automatically.” He glanced at his watch. “If not tonight, tomorrow morning.”
“And where’s the car?”
“Down in the garage in the basement, but there’s nobody around to give it a check. They’ll do it in the morning, but I honestly don’t know what you expect them to find. Those old-time Buicks were built. Hell, the bumper on this one wasn’t hardly even marked, and the hood wasn’t touched. And the headlights—?” He shrugged. “You saw them. Not a scratch let alone broken.” He sighed. “Hell, they don’t build cars that way any more. My heap, I nudge a goddamn bush, it stoves in a door.” He looked around. “By the way, where is our boy? I’d like to talk to him a couple of minutes, just to finish my report.”
“He said you asked him everything at the scene.”
Wilkins grinned. With his broken nose it made him look even more sneering than usual. “Hell, he don’t know the guy who designed the San Francisco Police Department Vehicle Accident Report. I’ve been filling them out for over fifteen years, and I never got all of the questions first crack out of the box yet. They got stuff inside of stuff. Inside of stuff.”
Reardon smiled with him.
“Well, he’s upstairs on the fifth floor in the city jail, in the trustee’s section with an open door.”
“I know it well. I won’t take up much of his time. Personally, I feel sorry for the poor bastard.” He glanced at his watch. “Then I’ll type up all of our lovely forms. The pictures I took at the scene should be ready by the time I’m through. I’ll leave copies of everything on your desk. Who knows? You may be in Traffic tomorrow.”
“You could be right.” Reardon winked at the other. “And thanks.”
“For what?” Wilkins asked and left the room.
Reardon’s grin faded; he frowned at the wall somberly for a few moments and then came to his feet. He slipped the driver’s license into the top drawer of his desk and walked over, getting his jacket, shrugging himself into it. There wasn’t anything further to be done that night regarding the case, if anything had to be done on his part at all, and he didn’t feel much like doing it even if there was. His hunger had left him but he knew a sandwich would bring it back; the big question was did he stop somewhere for one, or did he go home and make one à la Dondero. Decisions, decisions, he thought with a faint smile, looked around the office a moment as if searching for something that wasn’t there, and then shrugged. With a sigh he flicked off the lights and went out, closing the door behind him.