"Yeah?"
He looked up, startled. A waitress was slouched by his booth. She was an old dame with lumpy legs encased in thick elastic stockings. There was a heavy welt on her chin with two wiry black hairs sticking out.
"What kind of bottled beer you got?" he asked her.
"Bud, Miller, Heineken."
"I'll have a Bud and a burger."
"Okay.
"Make the burger rare."
"Lotsa luck," she said dourly and shuffled away.
He had two hamburgers-so bad that he would have walked out after the first bite if he hadn't been so hungry.
Even the dill pickle was lousy. How in hell could a cook spoil a pickle'?
He saw that Bellsey was alone now, talking to the bartender. Hogan carried his second bottle of beer and glass over to the bar and took a nearby stool. The two men were arguing about who had the better right hook, Dempsey or Louis.
Hogan took a swallow of beer.
"What about Marciano?" he said loudly.
Bellsey turned slowly to look at him.
"Who the fuck asked you?" he demanded.
"I was just-, the detective started.
"Just butt out," the other man advised.
"This is a private conversation."
If Timothy Hogan had had any sense, he'd have stopped right there, finished his beer, paid his bill, and left. He could see his first guess had been right: Bellsey had been boozing that afternoon, maybe all day, and was carrying a load.
He wasn't swaying or slurring his speech or anything like that, but his eyes were shrunken and bloodshot, and he was leaning forward with a truculent chin thrust out. He looked ready and eager to climb into a ring and go ten.
"What the hell you staring at?" Bellsey said to him.
"You piece of shit."
Hogan reached casually inside his jacket to touch his holster. He knew it was there, but he wanted to make sure.
"Take it easy," he said to Bellsey.
"I don't like talk like that."
"Well, fuck you, fatso," Bellsey said.
"You don't like it, wheel your ass somewhere else."
"Hey, Ron," the bartender said in a raspy voice, "cool it.
More trouble I don't need."
By this time the bar had quieted. Everyone seemed to have his head down, staring into his drink. But they were all listening.
"No trouble, Eddie," Bellsey said.
"Not from this little shithead."
"Mister," the bartender said to Hogan, "do me a favor: Finish your beer, pay up, and try another joint. Please."
It gave the detective an out, and finally he had enough sense to take it. He finished his beer, put a bill on the bar.
"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?"