Night Squad (21 page)

      Corey started toward her, with the intention of taking the flashlight from her hand. He wanted to use the flashlight to find a wall switch and light up the parlor. As he reached for the flashlight, the ceiling lights were already glowing, switched on from the second floor hallway. The sleeper, awakened by the noise, was coming down the stairs. Corey turned and looked and saw a perplexed frown creasing the face of Walter Grogan.
       

14

      Grogan was wearing yellow silk pajamas. There was a gun in his hand. At the foot of the stairway he came to a stop and just stood there looking at Corey, then at Lita, then at Corey again. There was no sound in the room. Grogan moved slowly across the room, with the gun he pointed to the man prone on the floor near the fireplace and said, “What's this?”
      “The package,” Corey said. “The one you wanted. The one who hired them two masked hoods.”
      Grogan kept moving forward to get a closer look at Delbert Kingsley. Lita was coming out of her daze, her face was milk-white with trapped-animal terror. She gestured pleadingly to Corey. He shook his head slowly, his eyes saying sadly,
all I can do is feel sorry for you. I'm really very sorry for you.
      She brought her hand to her mouth to stifle a whimper. Without sound she went on pleading, and Corey kept shaking his head.
     
Please , she said without sound. You know what he'll do to me. You know what happens to people who cross him. But at least they get it fast. Without the suffering. They get off easy compared to what I'll get. And I'm begging you, I'm begging you—
      Corey couldn't look at her. He said to himself, It's a filthy setup. Because you know what she's in for. You know it's gonna be slow, with screaming. And she don't rate all that hell. Sure, she's a wrong number but she's not that wrong. You come right down to it, she's just a small-time hustler. A year on a farm would maybe set her straight, if you wanna look at it that way. But you can't look at it that way. You want that fifteen grand. To pocket that fifteen grand you gotta prove some statements, and she's the proof, the only proof. But I'll tell you, jim, I wish it didn't hafta be this way. It's a scummy way to make money, and if it was a C-note or even five C-notes you'd possibly or probably cancel this transaction and walk away. But the point is, it ain't a C-note and it ain't five C-notes, it's fifteen thousand dollars, I said fifteen thousand dollars.
      Just then Corey looked up and saw Lita backing slowly and furtively toward the front door. He made a warning gesture with the gun, telling her to stay where she was. She stood there and went on pleading without sound, her palms extended and quivering. And then, as though seeing it was no use, she lowered her head, her hands covering her eyes.
      Grogan turned to Corey and indicating the man on the floor, said, “Gimme the score on this one.”
      “You don't know him?”
      “Never seen him before.”
      “He's an ex-con.”
      “That means nothing.”
      “He lives in the neighborhood.”
      “And that means nothing,” Grogan cut in again, his voice tightening. “He never had no dealings with me. So how would he know about my finances? Who tipped him?”
      Corey pointed to Lita.
      “No no no,” she shrieked, making a frantic try for survival. “He's a liar, Walt. He's covering for himself,” and with the flashlight pointing to the man on the floor, “I swear to you, Walt, I don't know that man. Got no idea who he is. And if you'll listen to me, if you'll only listen—”
      “All right,” Grogan said quietly, mildly. “I'm listening.”
      Lita's green eyes narrowed with cunning. And then, saying it matter-of-factly, “What happened was, I went out to look for Anna. She's been sneaking out late at night, and I'm thinking maybe she's out there turning tricks or climbing in windows and stealing. Who knows? Well anyway, I couldn't find her and I came back here and parked the car and just as I reached for the key to open the front door, I thought I saw something inside the house. Like a tiny light. I went back to the car and got the flashlight. Then when I walked into the house, there they were, the two of them, and they were using matches—”
      “Matches?” Grogan murmured, his eyebrows raised just a trifle.
      “So they could see what they were doing.” Lita nodded emphatically. “They were looking for something in the fireplace.”
      Grogan turned and looked down at the fireplace. He said softly, “There ain't no burnt matches on the floor.”
      “But that's what they were using.”
      “Convince me,” Grogan said. “Show me some burnt matches.”
      Lita opened her mouth to say something. A gagging noise came out. Then she shut her eyes tightly and made another gagging noise.
      Grogan pointed to the man on the floor and said to Corey, “Put a tag on him.”
      “Name's Kingsley.”
      “Connect him with her.”
      “They work together,” Corey said. “They been together a long time.”
      “No no no,” Lita wailed. She gagged on it. “Don't believe him, Walt. Please don't believe him.”
      Grogan motioned her to be quiet. He said to Corey, “Making a statement ain't enough. You'll hafta back it up. Can you back it up?”
      Corey nodded slowly. He said, “It's a house number. It's 431 Harold Street. You go there, you'll see for yourself. Because it ain't no ordinary crib. It's mob headquarters, and you'll see two members of the mob. That is you'll see their bodies. Another thing you'll see, some personal items belonging to her.”
      Lita let out an anguished cry and then pivoted fast and made a frenzied attempt to flee. She lunged toward the front door, but as she neared the vestibule she stumbled and fell to her knees. Grogan went to her and helped her to her feet. She sagged in his arms, her legs dragging as he pulled her to the sofa. She collapsed on the sofa, her head far back, her arms limp, her face milk-white and her mouth quivering.
      On the floor near the fireplace, Delbert Kingsley was coming to his senses. He groaned and sat up slowly, rubbing his swollen, discolored jaw. Seeing the gun in Corey's hand, he groaned again. Then he turned his head and saw Lita slumped in the sofa, kept turning his head and saw Walter Grogan. He groaned loudly, despairingly.
      Grogan was lowering his gun into the side pocket of his pajama blouse. Through a long silence he stood looking at Lita, then at Kingsley, back and forth from one to the other. His hand was raised to his head and he was smoothing his silver hair.
      Then his hand went into the side pocket of his pajama blouse and he took out the gun again. Kingsley stiffened, his mouth open and stretched tight at the corners. Grogan fired three times in quick succession and Kingsley sat there with two holes in his head and red-black rubble where his nose had been. His eyes remained open and he continued to sit there, propped against the brick wall of the fireplace. The valves of his heart had stopped pumping but his head was turning slowly, as though he was trying to get a final look at Lita.
      Grogan pocketed the .38, turned away from the seated corpse and started walking out of the parlor. Corey said, “Where you going?” and Grogan murmured, “Just hold the gun on her. Be back in a minute.”
      Corey heard him going through the dining room, then heard a click as the light was switched on in the kitchen. From the kitchen there was an assortment of metallic sounds, as though pots and pans were getting pushed aside in the kitchen cabinet. Then there was the rattling sound of other hardware and finally the slight popping sound of a vacuum-sealed can as its lid was forced open.
      Lita looked up. Her bulging eyes aimed past the gun in Corey's hand. She saw Grogan coming into the parlor, her mouth opened wide and she screamed without sound.
      Grogan slowly moved toward her. In his right hand there was a metal can with the lid removed. Corey looked at the label on the can. The contents were stipulated in three large letters and Corey shuddered.
      The can contained lye.
      Grogan moved closer to Lita. For a moment she sat rigidly, then made an animal effort to get off the sofa, to veer to the side. Before she could, Grogan's free hand reached out and grabbed the platinum-blonde hair, gripping hard and twisting and forcing her head back.
      “Look at me,” Grogan said quietly. “Look at me and take a good look. It's the last time you'll see me. It's the last time you'll see anything.”
      “No,” Corey said.
      Grogan didn't hear him.
      “No,” Corey said louder.
      Grogan heard and ignored it. He was tilting the can so that the opened lid aimed directly at Lita's eyes.
      “No,” Corey shouted, and then knew that words wouldn't stop him, knew there was only one way to stop Grogan.
      He aimed the gun and fired.
      The can of lye fell out of Grogan's hand. It hit the floor and some of the contents spilled out, eating away at the carpet. Corey glanced at it for a moment, then looked up and focused on Grogan's arm, expecting to see a bullet hole in the wrist or in the forearm near the wrist. He was sure he'd aimed the gun at Grogan's wrist and he knew his aim was always precise, his gun hand was always steady. He was a sharpshooter and he was absolutely sure he'd hit the mark where he'd aimed.
      There was no bullet hole in Grogan's wrist or anywhere near the wrist. Grogan turned slowly and faced Corey Bradford and Corey saw the bullet-scorched hole in the yellow pajama blouse. The hole was high up on the blouse, near the middle of Grogan's chest.
      But it can't be , Corey said to himself. You aimed at his wrist. You know you aimed at his wrist.
      Grogan stood there looking at Corey. Grogan's eyes looked puzzled giving way to something deeper, a kind of mystical wonder. Then Grogan faced away from Corey and moved steadily and very slowly toward the ebony armchair near the bronze Buddha.
      On the sofa, Lita had fainted. Corey didn't look at her. He was staring in disbelief at Grogan, at the hole in Grogan's chest.
It just can't be
, he was thinking.
Or maybe—
      As Grogan sat sprawled in the ebony armchair, Corey stared past him at the dim all-knowing smile on the face of the bronze Buddha.
     
Without sound the bronze image said, no maybes. Because you didn't aim at his wrist. You hit him where you wanted to hit him. You wanted to put him away and that's what you did.
      But why? Corey wondered. He focused on the bullet hole in Grogan's chest. He moved closer and saw that Grogan wasn't breathing.
So he's finished. You finished him, all right. And why? What does it gain you?
      If it does anything at all, it puts you in the loss column. Because what you've done, you've just thrown away fifteen grand.
     
And you, he said without sound to the Buddha. You sit there grinning, as if it's some kind of a joke. And if it is, the least you can do is let me in on it. Because I swear, I don't know why I bumped him, I don't know why I don't know why—
      He kept staring at the Buddha. The slanted eyes gazed back at him, the unfathomable smile drifting toward him, causing him to quiver.
What's happening to you?
he asked himself. And then, to the Buddha,
get off me, leave me alone. I mean it, I'm warning you, Chinaman.
      Chinaman—
      He said it aloud, “Chinaman—Chinaman—”
      Putting the gun under his belt, he stepped close to the Buddha and used both hands to inspect the bronze head, the neck, the shoulders. The metal surface was smooth and remained smooth as his fingers covered every inch of the statue's chest. Then he examined the belly, and peering very close, he detected an extremely narrow line, thin as a hair, and then another hair-thin line, and a third and a fourth, all the lines connecting so that they formed a wide rectangle that covered most of the belly. Then he knew what that was, and he knew what he had to look for next, saying to himself,
it's a panel arrangement. To slide the panel open, you gotta find the thingamajig that releases the lock.
      On both sides of the slightly curved rectangle there were several rows of small spherical adornments, resembling carbuncle gems. There were twenty on each side. He began testing them, one by one, pushing and pulling, attempting to turn them as though they were knobs. His head rested against the bronze belly, like a safecracker leaning against a safe and listening for the slightest sound of mechanical reaction. The bronze protrusions on the left side offered nothing. He wiped his sweating hands on his trousers and then resumed the testing on the other side. There was no mechanical reaction, no sound at all until he came to the nineteenth sphere. He was pushing it with his thumb when he heard a tiny noise, a click. He pushed it again and there was a louder click. Then he was able to turn the sphere and he turned it slowly counterclockwise and sensed that something was sliding into place. Then he heard the emphatic clanking noise that told him the lock was released.
      His fingertips applied pressure to the panel, and it slid upward so that there was a rectangular opening in the belly of the Buddha. He looked in and saw the stacks of money.
      For a long while he just stood there and looked. Then he reached in and took out one of the stacks. It was held together with rubber bands. It was very thick, mostly thousand-dollar bills. He counted it and it came to a little more than a hundred thousand dollars. He took out a few more stacks of bills and they were all a little over or a little under a hundred thousand dollars.
      Salty beads streamed from his forehead and dripped into his eyes. He wiped them away with his forearm. They kept streaming down as he went on reaching into the belly of the Buddha and taking out the stacks of bills. In all, there were fifteen stacks. The total amount was one million five hundred and sixty-five thousand dollars.
       

15

      It's real, he was thinking. It's genuine United States paper money, certified legal tender, endorsed officially with the signatures of the Treasurer and the Secretary of the Treasury. And that makes it gold. Pure gold.
      All right, that's one thing. And the other thing is, it's yours. Did you hear what I said? I said it's yours.
      That is, if you want it.
      You kidding? Of course you want it. That's why you aimed the gun at his chest instead of his wrist. In that split second you didn't know what you were thinking, and even now you're wondering what was running through your mind; but it musta been you got the message from that certain fundraising organization, The Friends of Corey Bradford.
      With the message saying that fifteen grand was a nice fat round figure, and yet you didn't hafta settle for no measly fifteen grand. Not when you could add two zeros to that fifteen grand.
      It musta been finance and nothing but finance that made you aim the gun just a little higher, the line of fire slanting up above the wrist and above the ribs, your finger on the trigger getting the relay from your brain. Because it musta been you were checking again with Nellie, with Nellie saying it was just a fairy tale, saying that Rafer was up there in the clouds and his talk was all cloud talk, the coke aspirin stuff causing him to jabber way out of his head. For instance all that jabbering about the Chinaman—
      So in that split second it musta been that your brain was revving like a jet engine, and you were telling yourself that Rafer's Chinaman was somewhere not very far away, and all you hadda do was find the Chinaman and hit him, for the gold. But it's always first things first. And what you hadda do first was get assurance there'd be no interference, no complications later on. And you got that assurance, you damn sure did. You got it when you pulled the trigger, knowing exactly where the bullet would go, knowing it would put Grogan in the grave.
      You know what you are? You know what you deserve?
      The hell with that. You wanna preach, go take it someplace else. What we got here is a million five plus sixty-five. What we got here is the impossible and you still can't hardly believe it, but here it is. And it's yours. It's all yours.
      He looked down at the stacks of money on the floor in front of the Buddha. And then something was happening to him and he wondered what it was. He had no idea what it was.
      It hit him hard, and then harder. It was the twinge very high on his thigh near his groin.
      Now it hit him very hard and he stood still not making a sound. Yet somehow he could hear the laughter; it was crazy laughter, aimed at himself.
      His hand moved slowly, going toward the rear pocket of his trousers, sliding in and coming out with the wallet. He opened the wallet and looked at the badge pinned to the upper flap. For the better part of a minute he went on looking at the badge.
      Then he focused on the lower flap of the wallet, seeing the card under the Celluloid. He was reading the two words that were rubberstamped across the card.
It reads Night Squad
, he told himself.
It says here you're a member of the Night Squad.
      It says you're a policeman, that's what it says.
      On a teakwood table nearby there was a phone. He moved toward it, picked it up and dialed a number. A switchboard operator answered and he gave her an extension number.
      While he waited for the connection to be made, he glanced toward the sofa where Lita was mumbling incoherently, gradually regaining her senses and slowly sitting up. She looked around dazedly, then sat up straighter as she saw the stacks of money on the floor in front of the Buddha.
      Lita made a move to get up from the sofa. Corey told her to stay there. He said it quietly and there was no need to repeat it. The wallet was still in his hand and he was showing her the badge. Then he spoke into the phone. He was talking to Detective-Sergeant McDermott.
      It was less than two hours later and the stacks of paper money amounting to one million five hundred and sixty-five thousand dollars were in a vault in City Hall. Held without bail on charges of attempted extortion and criminal conspiracy, Lita was in a cell in County Prison. The bodies taken from the house on Second Street were in the morgue, along with the bodies found in the house on Harold Street. The coroner had turned in his report, confirming the report submitted by the Night Squad to the office of the district attorney. The district attorney applied his signature to both reports, then quickly returned to his home in the suburbs to resume his interrupted sleep. The reports were placed in a filing cabinet, the index card reading “Investigations Completed—Cases Closed.”
      Across the street from City Hall there was a small diner. The short order cook was alone in the place, seated at the counter, hunched over the sports section of the Sunday paper. He looked up as two men walked in. He recognized one of them and said, “Good morning, Sergeant.”
      “Good morning,” McDermott said.
      “Some iced tea?” the cook suggested.
      “Black coffee,” McDermott said, sliding onto a seat at the counter. At the cigarette machine Corey Bradford inserted a nickel and a quarter. Then he lit a cigarette as he went to the counter and sat down beside McDermott. The short order cook asked him what he wanted. Corey ordered creamed chipped beef on toast and a cup of coffee. He was telling himself that what he really needed was a double shot of gin.
      The cook brought the platter and two coffees. Corey ate rapidly, mechanically, scarcely tasting the food. He didn't look at McDermott. He sensed that McDermott was watching him, like some diagnostician checking on the symptoms.
      He pushed the empty platter aside and ordered another cup of coffee and lit another cigarette. He heard McDermott saying quietly, “You ready now?”
      “Ready?” Through the tobacco smoke he squinted at the detective-sergeant. “Ready for what?”
      “To spill. To put it in words. What you didn't tell in the written report.”
      Corey looked off to one side. He muttered, “The report was complete. If it wasn't, it wouldn't have been accepted.”
      “It was accepted officially,” McDermott cut in softly. “But this here is something else. This is something just between you and me—” He leaned closer to Corey and his voice was almost a whisper. “Why'd you do away with Grogan?”
      Corey kept looking off to one side. He sat stiffly, his lips clamped tightly.
      “Why'd you do away with Grogan?” McDermott repeated.
     
You knew this was coming , Corey told himself. You knew it when you started outta the Hall. He's walking along with you and saying, “Let's go across the street and have some coffee—”
      McDermott spoke in the same semi-whisper, “According to the written report, Grogan had a gun and he'd already used it to bump Kingsley. You weren't able to prevent that, and the only thing you could do was wait for an opening. All right, that's logical. Fully acceptable. So then when he's got the can of lye and he's all set to commit mayhem, it becomes a tactical problem. To stop him you gotta drill him. You gotta hit him in a vital spot, because if the bullet merely creases him or gets him in the arm or the leg, it's a cinch he'll go for his gun, and you're not gonna risk getting shot. That's also logical—and fully acceptable. That is, your written report was acceptable to the coroner, and to the district attorney, and it'll be acceptable to the public when they read it in the papers. Only thing is, I can't go for it.”
      The detective-sergeant leaned back and gazed mildly at Corey Bradford.
      There was a long silence. Corey put another cigarette in his mouth. He didn't light it. He let it stay there for a moment, then pulled it from his tightened lips and broke it in half, tossing the pieces onto the counter.
      He heard McDermott saying, “Why'd you do away with Grogan?”
      He heard himself mumbling, “It musta been the money. The million five. I wanted the million five.”
      “No you didn't,” McDermott said. “If you really wanted it, you woulda made the grab. Instead, you functioned according to procedure. You picked up the phone and called city hall and got connected with room 529. And I'll tell you something—I had a feeling you'd make that call. I was waiting for that call.”
      Corey turned his head slowly. He looked wonderingly at the detective-sergeant.
      “I'll tell you why you did away with Grogan,” the detective-sergeant said. “You had the craving to destroy him.”
      “So what?”
      “To settle with him. What they call retribution. In a strictly technical sense that's homicide, that's first degree because you took deliberate aim at his chest, and your intent was to take his life. You shot him in cold blood. I said cold blood. No other feelings involved. Just the message coming across. You were getting the message—”
      “What message? From where?”
      “From the grave,” McDermott said. “From your father.”
      Corey shivered.
      “Your father,” McDermott said. “Your father who was my closest friend. Who was a real policeman. Who was absolutely pure in his heart and considered the badge something sacred.”
      Corey shivered again and he felt a twinge very high on his thigh near his groin.
      He heard McDermott saying, “The mob that put your father in the grave was the Third Street Dragons. The leader of the Third Street Dragons was taken to the morgue tonight and that's where he shoulda been taken long ago.”
      Then McDermott said, “That's why I signed you in with the Squad. I was hoping you'd get the message. It couldn't come from me. It hadda come from someone closer to you. Inside you. Deep inside.”
      Corey nodded very slowly. He gazed past the detective-sergeant. His voice quivered just a trifle as he mumbled, “Will you do me a favor? A personal favor?”
      “Depends.”
      “Lemme hold onto the badge. Lemme stay with the Squad.”
      “I'll think about it,” the detective-sergeant said. He smiled dimly, put his hand on Corey's shoulder and pressed down hard. Then he placed some money on the counter and they walked out of the diner. They went across the street to the city hall courtyard and got into a squad car. About ten minutes later the car came to a stop at Fourth and Addison. Corey got out. The car made a U-turn and started back toward the bridge. Corey walked down Fourth toward the rooming house where he lived.
      Approaching the rooming house, Corey saw someone sitting on the doorstep. It was Carp. His head was bent forward and he was dozing. Then he opened his eyes and saw Corey. He said solemnly, “A most welcome sight, indeed. I'm quite pleased to observe that you're still among the living.” And then, getting up from the doorstep, Carp applied tender fingers to a slight bump on the side of his head.
      “Who gave you that?” Corey asked.
      “Nellie,” the little man said. “I knocked on her door and asked for your address. She was somewhat annoyed at being awakened so early in the morning. After considerable discussion, she replied to my query and—” he broke it off as he saw the look on Corey's face. He murmured, “There is something you wish to tell me?”
      Corey nodded slowly. He said, “Grogan's done. There ain't no Grogan no more. I put a bullet in him.”
      The little man closed his eyes for a moment. He didn't say anything. Corey stood still, waiting for a comment. Finally the little man looked at him and said slowly, very distinctly and with quiet formality, “It will benefit the neighborhood. It will be of considerable benefit. As a resident of this neighborhood I wish to express my deepest gratitude.” Carp bowed ceremoniously. Then he turned and walked away.
      Corey Bradford stood there for some moments; then he headed south on Fourth, going toward Ingersoll. Specifically, he was heading toward the first-floor back of 617 Ingersoll.
      At the door of the first floor back he knocked several times, and presently the door opened.
      Lillian stood there in the doorway, wearing a tattered robe and blinking the sleep from her eyes. She muttered, “Whaddya want?”
      “Can I come in?”
      “What for?”
      “Some things I gotta tell you.”
      Lillian started to close the door. Then she looked at him. It went on like that for a while. Then she opened the door wider and said, “All right, come on in.”