Invitation to Violence (15 page)

    It was the short, fat one, the one called Finn, who spoke. He didn't move and didn't take the dead cigar from between his lips and he didn't raise his voice but spoke in a cool, detached manner.

    "Don't leave now, Mr. Hanna," he said. "You just got here. This is your house, you know. Your castle. You may stay."

    Detective Lieutenant Hopper merely sat still and relaxed on the couch, his glasses half down on his thin, bony nose and his hat pushed back on his head. He didn't look up. His eyes were on the floor and he seemed to be inspecting the carpet under Gerald's feet.

    "Yes, do stay. It wouldn't be polite to leave while you have guests," Finn said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He dusted a spot of cigar ash from the unpressed lapel of his dark-gray suit and looked up into Gerald's face, smiling politely.

    "You're real cute, Mr. Hanna," he said.

    Lieutenant Hopper raised his eyes and sighed. He looked over at the fat man, ignoring Gerald, who still stood half in and half out of the doorway.

    "I'll take it, Finn," he said in a tired voice. He transferred his gaze to Gerald.

    "Come in and sit down, Mr. Hanna," he said. "We've been waiting for you."

    Gerald entered the room, attempting to compose his expression. He took off his hat and carefully placed it on the side table and then moved across the room and pulled a straight-backed chair out from the wall. He straddled it and then just sat there, waiting.

    "Where have you been?"

    The lieutenant's expression was disinterested as he asked the question in a soft, gentle voice.

    "Why… why, out," Gerald said. The moment the words left his lips he realized the inane vacuity of them. Realized how silly they sounded. But he still hadn't gotten over his shock at finding the men in his apartment, hadn't adjusted to the reality of their presence.

    "He's been out," Finn said, his voice heavy with sarcasm. "I told you he's cute, Lieutenant. Not tricky-nothing cagey or deceitful or reticent about him. Just cute. You ask him where he's been and like a little man he ups and he tells you. He's been out. Simple? Straightforward? Certainly. A man would have to be a damned ingrate not to be satisfied with that sort of answer."

    He moved then, moved with amazing swiftness for a man of his bulk. He was halfway across the room when he again spoke.

    "Why, you dirty little…"

    "Sit down, Finn. I said I'd take it!"

    The lieutenant stood up then himself and stared down at Gerald. He began to speak in the same soft, unimpassioned tone of voice, almost apologetically, but his gray eyes were like ice.

    "I'd like to explain something to you, Mr. Hanna," he said. He took a step forward, standing in front of Gerald on straddled legs. As he spoke he reached up and pushed his glasses into position.

    "I don't believe it's any news to you that we have been working on a robbery. The Gorden-Frost job, to be precise. A quarter of a million dollars in stones and assorted gems. But do you know, in spite of the money involved, in spite of the fact that the thieves got away with the stuff, we aren't really primarily concerned. Interested of course, that more or less being our business, but not hysterical about it or anything.

    "On the other hand, it just so happens that two policemen were shot during that particular robbery. One of them was a man a year or so younger than you, but unlike you, he was married. Had a two-year-old baby. His name was Hardy, Don Hardy. I never knew him personally as he was just a rookie when he was shot. He'll never be anything else. He's dead.

    "The other one was a man named Dillon. Dillon was a sergeant, an old-timer. Dillon I did know. Knew him. knew his wife, and knew his two sons and his daughter. You'd have liked Dillon-a good solid family man and honest as the day is long. Dillon was the sort of cop who hated to write out a traffic ticket. He wasn't a cop's cop-he was a layman's cop. Everyone liked Dillon. Well, he's dead too. I take his death pretty hard; you see he stood up at my wedding and we were friends.

    "But I don't want you to let that influence your reaction to what I am saying to you. A lot of men have friends and a lot of those friends die, sooner or later. Not exactly the way Hardy and Dillon died, of course, but they do die."

    Lieutenant Hopper shifted his weight and scratched vaguely at the side of his nose before going on. His voice was softer than ever.

    "Around New York," he said, "we take it seriously when someone shoots a cop. We don't like it. Not at all, we don't like it."

    Gerald, staring up at the other man, half nodded. He didn't speak.

    "Now let's take you," the lieutenant said. "By some amazing coincidence, you just happen to be driving by the scene of a crime at the time or around the time it is taking place. And, through an even more fascinating coincidence, you were driving the same make of car which was driven by one of the men who engineered the getaway.

    "Sort of coincidental, eh? But that isn't all of it. Oh, no, we have even more and greater surprises in store. Your license plate ends in the same number as the license plate of the getaway car. The truth is really stranger than fiction, isn't it, Mr. Hanna?"

    The lieutenant tipped his hat back a bit farther on his head and then took off his glasses. He pulled a linen handkerchief from his breast pocket, carefully polished both lenses and then put the glasses into a leather case and placed the case back in his jacket pocket.

    "Now you tell us, Mr, Hanna, that you didn't know anything about that robbery. Didn't know anything about those two policemen who were killed in the line of duty. You tell us further that you didn't know the three men who were known to have been involved in the crime. That you never as much as heard of Vince Dunne, or Dominick Petri or Jake Riddle.

    "And yet, tonight, by another one of those utterly fascinating coincidences, you spent a few casual, carefree hours with the sister of one of those men. You met her at a pleasant, restful saloon and the two of you enjoyed the cool of the summer evening over a few drinks. I certainly can't criticize you for that, Mr. Hanna. Having met the young lady, I can only congratulate you on your good taste. I can only envy you your youth and your freedom and your luck. But do you know something, Mr. Hanna? Do you know that I experience another sensation even stronger than envy?"

    Suddenly the soft voice was no longer soft, no longer gentle and conciliatory.

    "You s-o-b," the lieutenant said, "start talking! Start talking and make it good. Make it damned good!"

    As Lieutenant Hopper finished speaking, Finn moved swiftly across the room. His meaty right hand swung from his hip and the hard side of the palm caught Gerald across the eyes. Twice more, before Gerald could raise his arms in defense, Finn back slapped him, rocking his head from side to side.

    "He'll talk," Finn said. "He'll talk. You're damn right he'll talk."

    Gerald talked.

    He tried not to lose his head, tried not to panic. Tried to tell them the truth, straight and simple.

    Yes, he'd met Sue Dunne and he'd spent an hour or so with her.

    They didn't interrupt him as he explained it. He told them that he had read about the robbery in the newspapers and that after that first visit the two had paid him, he'd made the connection and reread the stories in the newspapers. He had realized what it was they had wanted to see him about.

    Naturally he had been curious. Who wouldn't be? He'd gone on and followed the case for the last couple of days, reading the papers and tuning in on the news broadcasts. He himself had been fascinated by the coincidences in the thing. The fact that he had a Chevvie, that its license ended in the number "3." That he had been near the scene of the crime at the time it had taken place. Who wouldn't be curious?

    He'd seen the girl's name in the newspapers and her address as well. There had been a picture of her and he had thought she was enchanting.

    At this point Lieutenant Hopper interrupted his story. Finn was back, seated on the couch and the lieutenant still stood, a few feet away.

    "Enchanting?" he said. "I'm rather surprised, Mr. Hanna… and you an engaged man. In fact, I believe that you and Miss Swiftwater have been engaged for several years. A nice girl, Miss Swiftwater. Not enchanting, perhaps, but nice. I don't believe, however, that nice as she is, she would quite approve of her fiance finding Miss Dunne enchanting."

    Gerald blushed, but continued.

    "I couldn't understand," Gerald said, "how a girl who looked like Miss Dunne could be mixed up with a lot of thugs."

    "And is she mixed up with thugs?" the lieutenant asked.

    "What I mean to say," Gerald explained, "is how she could be the sister of a thief and a gunman. In any case, curiosity got the better of me, and because I was interested in the case, and because you had questioned me about it, I looked up Miss Dunne and arranged to see her. It was as simple as that."

    But it wasn't as simple as that. It wasn't simple at all.

    The questioning continued, continued endlessly. A half a dozen times Finn would get up and cross the room and raise his thick hand and slap him. The lieutenant never struck him and he alternated between suaveness and detachment and cold fury. But neither of them shook his story. Neither of them made him admit a thing beyond the bare outlines of his original statement. He had seen the girl's picture and her address, she had interested him, and he had made a date with her.

    What had they talked about? Nothing much really. He had offered to help her in any way he could. He had expressed his sympathy over her brother's death.

    "It is too bad you didn't sympathize with Hardy's widow or with Dillon's widow," Hopper said. "But then I don't suppose that they tweeked your curiosity. I don't suppose that you found the same 'enchantment' in them."

    That was when Finn hit him the hardest.

    At one time during the evening the telephone rang and Hopper quickly reached for it. The call was for him and he spoke into the instrument for several moments, mostly in monosyllables. Once or twice he looked across the room curiously at Gerald as he listened to the voice on the other end of the wire. When he hung up, he swung back to Hanna.

    "When you left Miss Dunne," he asked, "where did she say she was going?"

    "She said she was going back to her apartment."

    Hopper nodded.

    "You had your car," he said. "Why didn't you drive her back?"

    "Perhaps she didn't find Mr. Hanna as enchanting as he found her," Finn said.

    The lieutenant turned and stared at his partner for a moment and then returned his attention to Gerald.

    "Well?"

    "Miss Dunne resented my curiosity," Gerald said. "Also, she was very upset, about her brother, you know. She just wanted to be left alone. I offered to drive her home, but she preferred to leave by herself."

    "I can't say I blame her," Finn cut in.

    "It couldn't have been because she knew you were mixed up in the robbery, now could it?" Hopper said. "It couldn't be that she just didn't want any part of…"

    "I am not mixed up in anything," Gerald interrupted. "The only thing I know about the robbery is what I have read in the papers. I've said it once and I'll say it again. I have absolutely no knowledge…"

    They left around five o'clock in the morning. It was the lieutenant who had the last words as they stood in the doorway.

    "Brother," he said, "this time we are really going to check you. We're going to find out everything there is to find out. When I get through, I'll know if you ever as much as spit on the sidewalk. I'll know about the time you skipped school when you were in the second grade at P.S. 40. I'll know about the first girl you kissed and the last one you made a play for. There won't be one damned thing I won't know about you."

    He pulled his hat forward on his head and his eyes were deadly.

    "And if you are mixed up in this thing," he said, "we'll get you. We'll get you and we'll fry you!"

    He didn't bother to close the door as he followed Finn out of the apartment.

    Closing the door behind the two detectives, Gerald had an almost irresistible desire to wait for a few moments and then go to the mailbox. He wanted to be absolutely sure that the envelope was there, where it should be. Silently he congratulated himself for having come up from the garage by the inside stairway. Had he locked the garage from the outside and walked around to the front of the house, he would have very likely stopped at the box and removed the letter on his way in. He would have had it in his hand when he was accosted by Hopper and Finn.

    Well, thank God, he hadn't made that mistake. And he wouldn't make the mistake now of going to the box. The envelope containing the two baggage checks would be there all right. It had to be there. If Hopper and Finn had taken it out, certainly they would never have walked off and left Gerald free.

    Reluctantly, he slowly turned and went in through the bedroom and turned on the light in the bathroom. He'd take a shower before turning in for a couple of hours sleep. He needed a shower, needed to wash off the feel of Finn's heavy hands.

    

    

    Steinberg walked over to the window and pulled the cord, opening the Venetian blinds halfway and letting the early morning sunshine filter into the room. Then he crossed to the light switch and flicked it. He turned back to face Slaughter, who sat on the couch with the cup of steaming coffee in his hands. Slaughter was in his shirt sleeves and his forehead was wet with perspiration. His hair was messed and there were streaks of dirt down one side of his face.