On the third-floor landing, both men drew their service revolvers. They found apartment thirty-three and bracketed the door.
“Mr. Finch?” Meyer called.
“Who is it?” a voice answered.
“Police. Open up.”
The apartment and the hallway went still.
“Finch?” Meyer said.
There was no answer. Carella backed off against the opposite wall. Meyer nodded. Bracing himself against the wall, Carella raised his right foot, the leg bent at the knee, then released it like a triggered spring. The flat of his sole collided with the door just below the lock. The door burst inward, and Meyer followed it into the apartment, his gun in his fist.
Finch was a man in his late twenties, with a square crewcut head and bright green eyes. He was closing the closet door as Meyer burst into the room. He was wearing only trousers and an undershirt, his feet bare. He needed a shave, and the bristles on his chin and face emphasized a white scar that ran from just under his right cheek to the curve of his jaw. He turned from the closet with the air of a man who has satisfactorily completed a mysterious mission.
“Hold it right there,’ Meyer said.
There’s a joke they tell about an old woman on a train who repeatedly asks the man sitting beside her if he’s Jewish. The man, trying to read his newspaper, keeps answering, “No, I’m not Jewish.” The old lady keeps pestering him, tugging at his sleeve, asking the same question over and over again. Finally the man puts down his newspaper and says, “All right, all right, damn it! I’m Jewish.”
And the old lady smiles at him sweetly and says, “You know something? You don’t look it.”
The joke, of course, relies on a prejudice which assumes that you can tell a man’s religion by looking at his face. There was nothing about Meyer Meyer’s looks or speech which would indicate that he was Jewish. His face was round and cleanshaven, he was thirty-seven years old and completely bald, and he possessed the bluest eyes this side of Denmark. He was almost six feet tall and perhaps a trifle overweight, and the only conversation he’d had with Finch were the few words he’d spoken through the closed door, and the four words he’d spoken since he entered the apartment, all of which were delivered in big-city English without any noticeable trace of accent.
But when Meyer Meyer said, “Hold it right there,” a smile came onto Finch’s face, and he answered, “I wasn’t going anyplace, Jewboy.”
Well, maybe the sight of the rabbi lying in his own blood had been too much for Meyer. Maybe the words “sonei Yisroel” had recalled the days of his childhood when, one of the few Orthodox Jews in a Gentile neighborhood, and bearing the double-barreled name his father had foisted upon him, he was forced to defend himself against every hoodlum who crossed his path, invariably against overwhelming odds. He was normally a very patient man. He had borne his father’s practical joke with amazing good will, even though he sometimes grinned mirthlessly through bleeding lips. But tonight, this second night of Passover, after having looked down at the bleeding rabbi, after having heard the tortured sobs of the sexton, after having seen the patiently suffering face of the woman in black, the words hurled at him from the other end of the apartment had a startling effect.
Meyer said nothing. He simply walked to where Finch was standing near the closet, and lifted the .38 high above his head. He flipped the gun up as his arm descended, so that the heavy butt was in striking position as it whipped toward Finch’s jaw.
Finch brought up his hands, but not to shield his face in defense. His hands were huge, with big knuckles, the imprimatur of the habitual street fighter. He opened the fingers and caught Meyer’s descending arm at the wrist, stopping the gun three inches from his face.
He wasn’t dealing with a kid; he was dealing with a cop. He obviously intended to shake that gun out of Meyer’s fist and then beat him senseless on the floor of the apartment. But Meyer brought up his right knee and smashed it into Finch’s groin, and then, his wrist still pinioned, he bunched his left fist and drove it hard and straight into Finch’s gut. That did it. The fingers loosened and Finch backed away a step just as Meyer brought the pistol back across his own body and then unleashed it in a backhand swipe. The butt cracked against Finch’s jaw and sent him sprawling against the closet wall.
Miraculously, the jaw did not break. Finch collided with the closet, grabbed the door behind him with both hands opened wide and flat against the wood, and then shook his head. He blinked his eyes and shook his head again. By what seemed to be sheer will power, he managed to stand erect without falling on his face.
Meyer stood watching him, saying nothing, breathing hard. Carella, who had come into the room, stood at the far end, ready to shoot Finch if he so much as raised a pinky.
“Your name Finch?” Meyer asked.
“I don’t talk to Jews,” Finch answered.
“Then try me,” Carella said. “What’s your name?”
“Go to hell, you and your Jewboy friend both.”
Meyer did not raise his voice. He simply took a step closer to Finch, and very softly said, “Mister, in two minutes, you’re gonna be a cripple because you resisted arrest.”
He didn’t have to say anything else, because his eyes told the full story, and Finch was a fast reader.
“Okay,” Finch said, nodding. “That’s my name.”
“What’s in the closet, Finch?” Carella asked.
“My clothes.”
“Get away from the door.”
“What for?”
Neither of the cops answered. Finch studied them for ten seconds, and quickly moved away from the door. Meyer opened it. The closet was stacked high with piles of tied and bundled pamphlets. The cord on one bundle was untied, the pamphlets spilling onto the closet floor. Apparently, this bundle was the one Finch had thrown into the closet when he’d heard the knock on the door. Meyer stooped and picked up one of the pamphlets. It was badly and cheaply printed, but the intent was unmistakable. The title of the pamphlet was “The Bloodsucker Jew.”
“Where’d you get this?” Meyer asked.
“I belong to a book club,” Finch answered.
“There are a few laws against this sort of thing,” Carella said.
“Yeah?” Finch answered. “Name me one.”
“Happy to. Section 1340 of the Penal Law — libel defined.”
“Maybe you ought to read Section 1342,” Finch said. “‘The publication is justified when the matter charged as libelous is true, and was published with good motives and for justifiable ends.’“
“Then let’s try Section 514,” Carella said. “‘A person who denies or aids or incites another to deny any person because of race, creed, color or national origin…’“
“I’m not trying to incite anyone,” Finch said, grinning.
“Nor am I a lawyer,” Carella said. “But we can also try Section 700, which defines discrimination, and Section 1430, which makes it a felony to perform an act of malicious injury to a place of religious worship.”
“Huh?” Finch said.
“Yeah,” Carella answered.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the little paint job you did on the synagogue wall.”
“What paint job? What synagogue?”
“Where were you at eight o’clock tonight, Finch?”
“Out.”
“Where?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You better start remembering.”
“Why? Is there a section of the Penal Law against loss of memory?”
“No,” Carella said. “But there’s one against homicide.”
5
The team stood around him in the squadroom.