Hit on the House (3 page)

Roman frowned as if focusing his thoughts. “Well, most of ‘em, anyways.”

“Most of them? Which doors were open?”

Yakovich's frown faded. He had decided what he'd seen. “All the doors was open except for the passenger door in the front. That's right. The boss always sits in the back.”

Mulheisen digested this. “So who opened both the back doors? Sid didn't get out both doors.”

Yakovich shrugged. “Maybe it was just the driver's door and the back door on the right . . . or the left.” He frowned and looked down at his hands. “The back door on the left, if you was looking at the car from the front.”

“Not both back doors, then?” Mulheisen said.

Yakovich looked uneasy. “I think so, but I dunno. I guess not.”

Mulheisen nodded. “Little Helen,” he said, “is she always so, ah, feisty?”

Roman grinned. “She gotta temper, eh? But she don't mean nothing by it. Liddle Helen is an angel. She must of said something, eh? She's mad, I guess. So would you.”

“What's your theory, Roman? Who did this? One of the Serbs, maybe? Carmine?”

Roman's face had set like concrete on a dry August day. He shrugged. “Who knows. Kids, maybe?”

Mulheisen didn't know whether to laugh or spit. “OK, Roman, let's go.”

“Go? Whadda you mean? To the precink? Who's gonna look after Mrs. Sid?”

“The angel,” Mulheisen said.

Downstairs Mulheisen stuck his head into the living room. Jimmy was still holding onto Helen Sedlacek, though not by the hair. He stood to one side behind her, grasping her firmly by the arm to avoid any kicks to the groin.

“Roman is coming over to the precinct with us,” Mulheisen said. “Miss Sedlacek will have to stay and look after her mother. You can let her. go . . . as soon as I'm out the door.”

Three

T
hey called the precinct doorman Jellybelly, and Hal could see why. He had an enormous belly, and his name tag read Lovabella. He was an amiable man and quite capable, treating the prisoners and witnesses with an admirable combination of efficiency and simple, if rough, courtesy. He didn't yell at the prisoners, he didn't buddy up to the detectives and the patrolmen, he didn't ignore you if you had a legitimate question, and he paid no attention if you were just being a pain in the butt. But he was tremendously busy. Hal wondered if all Sunday nights were like this; he wouldn't have thought so. The little booking room of the Ninth Precinct was bustling, however, and from the adjacent holding pen Hal was able to observe the whole process.

This business engrossed him and served at least two purposes. It stirred him from a dangerous passivity, which had set in the minute he had been picked up, and it engaged him in the necessary process of escape. It had the further virtue of preventing the onset of anxiety. That's the way Hal saw it. Perhaps some of these reactions were the normal result of killing another human being; Hal wasn't sure what
normal
meant. In the past he had experienced many different reactions, most frequently a manic exhilaration, which could possess him for hours, sometimes longer. After his second—or was it his third?—killing he had roamed the streets of Chicago for three nonstop days, getting drunk, sobering up, getting drunk again, eating four or five meals a day,
around the clock, until he finally fell down in exhaustion. Since then it never gripped him for more than a few hours, and when it wore off, he would be mildly depressed and quite tired. Once he had simply forgotten the whole business about a half hour after the killing—once he was safely away. He'd eaten dinner, gone back to the motel, and slept peacefully and then taken a plane home. Sometime during the day it had struck him that he hadn't actually thought about the killing since it had been accomplished. He had never encountered actual danger to himself in the aftermath of a killing, and it irritated him to have to endure it now. He was glad to distract himself by observing the minute details of the booking and holding process.

It was already ten o'clock and the pen was full. The few benches that ringed the room were occupied, and several men were standing; one man was slumped on the floor, drunk to the point of insensibility. Most of the men were at least a little drunk, and some of them were angry and aggressive—perhaps they had been arrested for brawling—but there were four men besides Hal who had been brought in as witnesses, sober and rather disdainful of their chance companions. Hal assumed that, like himself, some of them had been picked up simply for being in the neighborhood of the Sedlacek shooting. One in particular, a short, noisy fellow with a bristly mustache, was constantly and loudly haranguing Jellybelly and any other officer within hearing range: it was all a mistake, the loudmouth claimed; he was an important man; he knew even more important men who would make life a misery for the cop who didn't let him out, right away; he had a lot of money; he had places to go, things to do, people to see; he had to make another phone call; he demanded to see the precinct commander.

Officer Lovabella had tolerated a lot in his time. He had accepted the nicknames; he didn't wince at Fatso, or even at Lard Bucket, but he was damned if he was going to put up with “Hey, I'm talking to you, you fat fucking tub of guts. Is your head so full of lard you can't hear?” He called for a detective, and when he came, Jellybelly said, “Get this noisy son of a bitch out of here before I slip and fall on him.” And that was the last they saw of the crank.

Hal considered the tactic. It had a definite effect, but since he didn't know where the loudmouth had been taken or what was happening
to him, he didn't think he could chance it. It seemed unlikely that the police would simply let him go. But time was pressing. Hal had to get out. He had already been cursorily interviewed by a booking officer, who had done little more than read him his rights and determine that he had no good reason to be discharged without talking to a detective. Hal did not want to talk to a detective. He wasn't too concerned about his identification; it would hold up to a preliminary inspection and perhaps even to a second look. They hadn't fingerprinted him, and the cards and driver's license in his wallet, which was presently in a manila envelope in the property locker, would identify him as Harold Good, a resident of Iowa City, Iowa. Law-abiding, no criminal record. He praised his own good sense for not having traveled with his real ID. He was also glad that, as usual, he'd had the foresight to place a hundred-dollar bill in each shoe. But he knew that any lengthy interview with a sharp detective would raise some questions, and in a murder investigation, especially one as splashy as this one promised to be, he would be held until the police were satisfied they knew who he was and what he had been doing on Big Sid Sedlacek's street at the time Sid had been shot to death.

Hal had made no phone calls. He hadn't even considered calling the Fat Man and asking for a lawyer; it just wasn't done. You don't call. The Fat Man wouldn't know him. And there wasn't as yet any plausible reason for an innocent stroller to call a lawyer. Anyway, even if he knew the name of a lawyer in Detroit, he didn't think one would be useful to him. No, the options were, one, try to chat his way out of custody when he got to see a detective, or two, get out right now.

Watching Jellybelly as he bustled about, mildly joking with patrolmen or responding patiently to the detainees’ entreaties, Hal concluded that bribery was no go. Too many people around, too risky, poor odds. He caught himself staring longingly at the booking card that bore his name, nestling in the iron rack with twenty others. If he could just get that card and his personal effects, . . . but that was a silly dream.

He began to hear, however, snatches of conversation from the booking room concerning the crowded condition of the holding pen. Evidently they anticipated another influx of prisoners from some scheduled operation—a raid was going down later that night. Jellybelly was
talking to a higher ranking officer, who suggested moving some of the prisoners to the inner cells, but the doorman vetoed that. There wasn't enough room there either. The captain came over and peered into the bull pen, his nose wrinkled against the odor of vomit and urine and unwashed men—there was only a single open urinal in one corner, and it was partially clogged with paper towels and cigarettes.

“Black Hole of Calcutta,” the captain said. “Get ‘em out of here, and maybe we can hose it down before the next bunch arrives.”

“I'll call for a wagon,” Jellybelly said. “We can send the drunks downtown to night court, and the rest of them, with the ones from the sweep, can go to early sessions.”

The captain agreed. Hal was unsure what this meant, but he sensed an opportunity. He turned to a man who looked to be sixty years old but was probably younger, leaning against the bars. “Looks like they're going to move us,” Hal said.

The fellow, unshaven and reeking of some alcohol-enhanced wine drink, opened a bleary eye. “Yanh? Tha's good. More room downtown.” He closed his eye and groaned softly, sagging against the bars.

“What happens downtown?” Hal asked.

“Nothin’. Judge fines you. Public intox.”

“Really? What's the fine?”

The alky shrugged. “Don’ know. Never paid it. Ten days in DeHoCo . . . maybe more, maybe less. Sometimes they get busy and just dismiss it . . . throw you out.” The old guy grinned faintly and lapsed back into a kind of upright slumber.

Hal sighed. He wondered how accurate this bum's information could be. No way was Hal going to the Detroit House of Correction, but if it was just a matter of a fine . . . There was an element of chance, here, but he decided it was worth it. He surveyed the remainder of his cell mates. Most of them were black, and he wasn't; the rest were a pretty raggedy and sorry-looking lot. Except for one man. A man in a suit and a white shirt, his tie presumably taken from him, as Hal's had been. Not a bad suit, either . . . off the rack, but an expensive rack and with some essential tailoring to fit the bulky torso of the wearer. The suit was a mess now, flecked with food and dirt, even a little blood. He appeared to be in his early forties, tousled and tumbled and stunned
drunk. He'd been brought in a half hour earlier, mumbling and dazed. He'd had a hell of a lot to drink somewhere, and probably not with the people he'd started out with, certainly not with people who knew him or cared about him.

Jellybelly had cleared a spot on the benches for the man and had more or less propped him in the corner. He could not have stood up, or even sat on the floor, without simply toppling over. His fat face was tomato red, and he breathed like a foot pump. His puffy hands lay open in his lap.

Hal took his time working his way over. He looked down at the raggedy man who was crunched in next to the fat man and said, “What's the matter with your buddy? He sick?”

The raggedy man looked up, his eyes yellowish in a face as dark and grainy as an old football. He had a scab forming on his cheek, and he was wearing three shirts, all of them foul. He looked at the fat man, then back at Hal, and shrugged. “Ain’ mah buddy.”

Hal leaned down to the drunk and said in his ear, “You OK, bud? You all right?”

“Hanh?” The drunk struggled to lift his head, one eye cracked to a slit. “Wha'sa matter?” he said. “I'm all ri’. Gimme a . . .” He cleared his throat and straightened up slightly, opening the other eye. “. . . I'll have a little Scotch.” He spoke this last with surprising clarity, adding, “Uh, make it a double while you're at it.” Then he collapsed, his eyes clanging shut. The raggedy man grinned through missing teeth and looked up at Hal.

Hal stared back at the black man until he looked away, nervously. Hal leaned down to the drunk again and said, “What's your name, pal?”

No response. Hal took the man by the ear and twisted it until the man yelped and looked at him. “Lea’ me ‘lone,” he said.

Hal twisted the ear harder. “What's your name?” he asked.

“My name?” Even with the pain the eyes merely flickered open and shut, but he finally said, “Fogarty. Nice to meetcha.”

Hal released the ear, and the man slumped back into oblivion. Hal straightened up and stared down at the black man again. The black man did not look away this time. There was even a hint of a smile on his
lips. He had a high, receding forehead and tight ridges of hair. “What are you grinning at, steeple head?” Hal said.

“I'm jes’ natcherly happy, bro,” the man said.

Hal gazed at him for a moment, then turned away and squeezed through the standees until he was able to lean against the wall. After a while he ruffled his light brown hair with his hands, leaving it disheveled. A few moments later he eased his shirt tails out and unzipped his fly until it was half-open. After that he concentrated on the activity in the booking room.

Eventually Jellybelly pushed up to the rack that held the booking cards and began to pluck several out of their slots. He examined them briefly and stuffed two or three back, including Hal's, and selected replacements. He scanned them all and then went to the personal-effects locker and ruffled through the envelopes while consulting the cards. When he had accumulated the matching envelopes, he signaled to a couple of patrolmen who came to assist him. One of them opened the door to the parking lot. Cold air wafted into the room, relieving the funk, and the men looked up expectantly.

Jellybelly approached the door of the holding pen. “Awright, listen up, fellas,” he said. “Some a youse are going downtown. When I call your name, sing out and come forward.” He unlocked the door and parked his massive hulk in the opening. He looked at his cards. “Carter!” A skinny fellow squeezed through to the door. Jellybelly took him firmly by the wrist and stepped aside to hand the man to one of the patrolmen who escorted him through the doors to the parking lot.

“Dexter! Fogarty!” Hal pushed forward and passively permitted himself to be led to the paddy wagon. He sat down on a bench in the wagon next to Carter. For the next few minutes he sat tensely, waiting for Jellybelly or one of the patrolmen to come out and get him. All it would take would be for the drunk to wake up or for Steeple Head to say something to Jellybelly. Then the fat would indeed be in the fire, for the detectives would be very interested to know why Hal had attempted to walk using another man's identity.

Steeple Head suddenly appeared in the door to the wagon. He peered in, searching the faces; then he was pushed forward by an impatient hand, and he sat next to the door. The door was slammed
shut and locked. It was dark in the van, but a little light filtered in through the barred windows of the door. The raggedy man stared at Hal, grinning slightly. Hal relaxed. The officers’ voices sounded outside, the front doors opened and closed, and the engine started. They began to move.

Within forty-five minutes they were downtown, processed, and let into a larger bull pen off a busy courtroom. Hal sat down on a bench and eased off a shoe to massage his foot. The raggedy man flopped down next to him.