"What kind of a place you running here?" he said aggrievedly and stalked toward the door.
"Asshole!" Bellsey yelled after him.
Hogan walked toward his car, thinking the subject was a real psycho and an odds-on favorite for having bashed Ellerbee's skull. He was so intent on planning what he was going to put in his report to Jason T. Jason that he didn't hear the soft footfalls behind him.
The first punch was to his kidneys and felt like someone had swung a sledgehammer. He went stumbling forward, mouth open, gasping for air. He tried to grab at a trash can for support, but a left hook crunched into his ribs just below the heart, and he went down into the gutter, fumbling at his holster.
Heavy shoes were thudding into his gut, his head, and he tried to cover his eyes with folded arms. It went on and on, and he vomited up the beer and burgers. Just before he lost consciousness he was certain he was gone, and Wondered why he was dying in a street like this, his vital report unwritten.
A different report from Roosevelt Hospital went up and down the chain of police command, and eventually a blue working the case called Jason. He, in turn, alerted Boone. By midnight, the two of them were at Roosevelt, talking to doctors and guys from Midtown North, trying to collect as much information as they could before taking it to Edward X. Delaney.
They woke him up a little after 5:00 A.M. Sunday morning and related what had happened. He told them to come over as soon as possible. He said he'd have coffee for them.
"What is it, Edward?" Monica said drowsily from her bed.
I'll tell you later," he said.
"Boone and Jason are coming over for a few minutes. You go back to sleep."
When they arrived, he took them into the kitchen. He was wearing his old flannel bathrobe with the frayed cord. His short hair spiked up like a cactus.
He had used the six-cup percolator and put a tray of frozen blueberry muffins in the oven. They sat around the kitchen table, sipping the steamy black coffee and munching on muffins while Sergeant Boone reported what had happened.
A squad car on patrol had spotted Detective Timothy Hogan lying semiconscious in the gutter and had called for an ambulance. It wasn't until they got him to Roosevelt Emergency that they found his ID and knew that one of New York's Finest had been assaulted.
"He had his ID?" Delaney said sharply.
"Yes, sir," Boone said.
"And his gun."
"And his wallet," Jason added.
"Nothing missing. It wasn't one of your ordinary, everyday muggings."
"But he's going to be all right?"
"Oh, hell, yes," Boone said.
"Cracked ribs, bruised kidneys, a gorgeous shiner, and assorted cuts and abrasions. He looks like he's been through a meat grinder-stomped up something fierce."
"I think his pride was hurt more than anything else," Jason offered.
"It should be," Delaney said grurripily.
"Letting himself be jumped like that. You talked to him?" -For a while,"
Boone said.
"They got him shot full of painkillers so he wasn't too coherent."
He told Delaney what they had been able to drag out of a groggy Timothy Hogan: How he had made Mrs. Lama Bellsey admit she was asleep and could not swear that her husband was home from, eight-thirty to eleven o'clock on the murder night.
How he had followed Bellsey up to the Tail of the Whale on Eleventh Avenue and gotten into a hassle with him at the bar.
How he was unexpectedly attacked while he was returning to his car.
"He swears it was Ronald Bellsey," Boone said.
"He saw him?" Delaney demanded.
"He can positively identify him?"
"Well… no," Boone said regretfully.
"He didn't get a look at the perp, and apparently no words were spoken."
"Jesus Christ!" Delaney said disgustedly.
"Can you think of any mistakes Hogan didn't make? Did the investigating officers go back to the bar what's its name?"
"Tail of the Whale. Yes, sir, they covered that bar and four others in the area. No one saw anything, no one heard anything, no one knows Ronald J. Bellsey or anyone resembling him. And no one admits seeing Tim Hogan either.
It's a blank."
"You want us to pull Bellsey in, sir?" Jason Two asked.
"For questioning?"
"What the hell for?" Delaney said irritably.
"He'll just deny, deny, deny. And even if we get the bartender and customers to admit there was a squabble in the Tail of the Whale, that's no evidence that Bellsey put the boots to Hogan. I'm going to call Suarez in a couple of hours and ask him to put a lid on this thing.
We'll go at Bellsey from a different angle."
Sergeant Boone took folded papers from his inside jacket pocket and handed them to Delaney.
"Benny Calazo stopped by my place last night and dropped off this report. He says that in his opinion, Isaac Kane is clean."
"You trust his opinion?" Delaney said sharply.
"Absolutely, sir. If Calazo says the kid is clean, then he is.
Ben has been around a long time and doesn't goof. I was thinking…
Hogan's going to be on sick leave for at least a month. How about putting Calazo onto Bellsey? If anyone can put the skids under that bastard, Ben will do it."
"Fine with me," Delaney said.
"Brief him on Bellsey and tell him for God's sake not to turn his back on the guy. Jason, you're still working with Keisman on Harold Gerber's confession?"
"Yes, sir. Nothing new to report."
"Keep at it. There's one blueberry muffin left; who wants it?" I'll take it," Jason Two said promptly.
"I could OD on those little beauties."
After they were gone, Delaney sat at the kitchen table and finished his lukewarm coffee, too keyed-up to go back to bed.
He reflected on the latest developments and decided he had very little sympathy for Detective Timothy Hogan. You paid for your stupidity in this world one way or another.
He rinsed out the cups and saucers, set them in the rack to dry, cleaned up the kitchen. He took Calazo's report on Isaac into the study and put on his glasses. He read slowly and with enjoyment. Calazo had a pungent style of writing that avoided the usual Department gibberish.
When he finished, Delaney put the report aside and lighted a cigar. He pondered not so much the facts Calazo had recounted but what he had implied.
The detective (covering his ass) had said there was a possibility he was wrong, but he believed Isaac Kane innocent of the murder of Dr. Simon Ellerbee. He was saying, in effect, that there were no perfect solutions, only judgments.
Edward X. Delaney knew that mind set well; it was his own. In the detection of crime, nothing cohered. It was an open-ended pursuit with definite answers left to faith. There was a religious element to detection: Rational investigation went only so far. Then came the giant step to belief for which there was no proof.
Which meant, of course, that the detective had to live with doubt and anxiety. If you couldn't do that, Delaney thought not for the first time you really should be in another line of business.
Detective Helen Venable was having a particularly severe attack of doubt and anxiety. She was uncertain of her own ability to establish the truth or falsity of Joan Yesell's alleged alibi without seeking the advice of her more experienced male colleagues.
She was nervous about her failure to report Mrs. Blanche Yesell's possible absence from her apartment on the murder night. She was worried that there were inquiries she should be making that she was not. And she fretted that an entire week had to pass before she could confirm or deny the existence of the stupid bridge club.
But her strongest doubt was a growing disbelief in Joan's guilt. That soft, feeling, quiet woman, so overwhelmed by the hard, brutal, raucous world of Manhattan, was incapable of crushing the skull of a man she professed to admire. Or so Detective Venable thought.
She met with Joan every day, spoke to her frequently on the phone, went out with her Monday night for a spaghetti dinner and to a movie on Thursday afternoon. The closer their relationship became, the more Helen was convinced of the woman's innocence.