The Con Man (10 page)

“Get the police,” Carella said, his voice curiously toneless.

“But—” the waiter started.

“I’m a detective,” Carella said. “Get the patrolman on the beat. Hurry up!”

“Yes,” the waiter said. “Yes, sir.”

Carella did not move from where he stood over Dave. He did not once look at Teddy. When the patrolman arrived, he showed his shield and told him to book Dave for disorderly conduct, generously neglecting to mention assault. He gave the patrolman all the information he needed, walked out with him to the squad car, and was gone for some five minutes. When he came back to the table, the elderly couple had gone. Teddy sat staring at her napkin.

“Hi,” he said, and he grinned.

She looked across the table at him.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t want trouble.”

She shook her head.

“He’ll be better off locked up for the night. He’d only have picked on someone else, hon. He was spoiling for a fight.” He paused. “The next guy he might have succeeded in cutting.”

Teddy Carella nodded and sighed heavily. She had just had a visit to her husband’s office and seen him at work. And she could still remember the terrible swiftness of his hands, hands which she had only known tenderly before.

And so she sighed heavily because she had just discovered the world was not populated with gentle little boys playing games.

And then she reached across the table, and she took his right hand and brought it to her mouth, and she kissed the knuckles, and she kissed the palm, and Carella was surprised to feel the wetness of her tears against his flesh.

It was unfortunate, perhaps, that Arthur Brown was so zealous in his pursuit of the con man. Had he not been such an eager beaver, he would not have asked to replace Carella when Carella drew Lineup that week. Lineup means a trip downtown to Headquarters on High Street, and Lineup means sitting in a room with a pile of other detectives from all over the city, watching the parade of felony offenders. Lineup is sometimes exciting; usually, it’s a bore.

Brown, as it happened, had just held his personal lineup in the squadroom of the 87th Precinct, whereat he paraded Frederick “Fritzie” Deutsch before a little Negro girl named Betty Prescott and a big businessman named Elliot Jamison. Both victims had cleared Deutsch at once. He was not the man (or in Jamison’s case,
either
of the men) who had conned them. Brown was secretly pleased. He had thanked both Miss Prescott and Mr.
Jamison and then clapped Deutsch on the back and gruffly said, “Keep your nose clean.”

And then he had asked Carella if he could take his place at the lineup the next day. Carella, who considered the lineup a necessary evil—something like a mother-in-law who comes to live with you—readily relinquished the duty. Had Carella been the sort of cop who loved Lineup, had Carella been more conscientious, more devoted to detail, had Carella felt any real purpose would be served by his appearance at Headquarters that Wednesday, things might have worked out differently.

Actually, Carella
was
conscientious, and he
was
devoted to detail—but he was up to his ears in floaters and the lineup very rarely turned up any good murder suspects. His time, he assumed, could be better spent in a thorough rundown of the city’s tattoo parlors in an effort to track down the
NAC
that had appeared on the second floater’s hand.

So he allowed Brown to take his place, and that was most unfortunate.

It was unfortunate in that there were two handsome blond men who were shown at the lineup that Wednesday.

One of them had killed Mary Louise Proschek and the second unidentified floater.

Brown was interested, at the moment, in con men—not murderers.

Carella was interested in tattoo parlors.

Kling was a new cop.

He accompanied Brown to Headquarters on that Wednesday. The city was, again, blanketed with a dreary drizzle, and the men spoke very little on the long ride downtown. Kling, for the most part, was thinking of breaking his vacation date to Claire and wondering how she would react to it. Brown was thinking about his con man, who had acted singly once and in concert
a second time, and wondering if the lineup would turn up anything. Brown drove slowly because of the slick pavement. They did not reach Headquarters until 9:05. By the time the elevator had taken them to the ninth floor, the lineup had been underway for some ten minutes. They pinned their shields to their jackets and passed through the patrolman outside at the desk in the corridor. The patrolman said nothing. He simply looked at his watch condemningly.

The large gymnasium-like room was dark when they entered it. The only area of light was at the far end of the room, where the stage was brilliantly illuminated.

“…third stickup in 1949,” the chief of detectives said from his dais behind the rows and rows of folding chairs upon which detectives from every precinct in the city sat. “Thought we’d cured you that time, Alphonse, but apparently, you never learn. Now how about that gas station last night?”

The man on the stage was silent. The microphone hung before his face on a solid steel pipe, and the graduated height markers on the wall behind him told the assembled bulls that he was five foot eight.

Kling and Brown made their way unobtrusively past the dais and speaking stand and then shuffled into one of the rows, sitting as quickly and quietly as they could.

“I’m talking to you, Alphonse,” the chief of detectives said. “Never mind the latecomers,” he added sarcastically, and Kling felt a hot flush spread over his face.

“I hear you fine,” Alphonse said.

“Then how about it?”

“I don’t have to say nothing at a lineup, and you know it.”

“You’ve been to a lot of lineups, huh?”

“A couple.”

“On these other stickups?”

“Yeah.”

“Never thought you’d be here again on a stickup, did you?”

“I got nothing to say,” Alphonse said. “You got to prove there was a stickup and that I done it.”

“That shouldn’t be too hard,” the chief of detectives said. “It might go a little easier on you if you told us what we wanted to know, though.”

“Snow jobs I can do without so early in the morning,” Alphonse said. “I know the setup. Don’t ask questions, ’cause I know I don’t have to answer them.”

“All right,” the chief of detectives conceded. “Next case.”

Alphonse walked off the stage, his movements followed by every eye in the room. For the purpose of these Monday-to-Thursday, early-morning parades was simply to acquaint every detective in the city with the men who were committing crime in their city. Sometimes, a victim was invited to the lineup in an attempt to identify a suspect, but such occasions were rare and usually fruitless. They were rare because a victim generally had a thousand good reasons for not wanting to be at the lineup. They were usually fruitless because a victim generally had a thousand good reasons for not wanting to identify a suspect. The least valid of these reasons, if the most popularly accepted, was fear of reprisal. In any case, not many suspects were identified by victims. Were this the sole purpose of the lineup, the whole affair would have been a dreadful flop. On the other hand, the bulls who congregated at headquarters every Monday-to-Thursday morning—as much as they disliked the task—studied the felony offenders of the day before with close scrutiny. You never knew when you’d get a lead to the case you were working on. And you never knew when it might be important to recognize a cheap thief on the street. Such recognition might, in rare cases, even save your life.

And so the chief of detectives went through the prescribed ritual, and the bulls listened and watched.

“Riverhead, one,” the chief of detectives said, calling off the area of the city in which the arrest had been made and the number of the case from that area that day. “Riverhead, one. Hunter, Curt, thirty-five. Drinking heavily in a bar on Shelter Place. Got into an argument with the bartender and hurled a chair at the bar mirror. No statement. What happened, Curt?”

Hunter had been led to the steps at the side of the stage by his arresting officer, a burly patrolman. The patrolman would have had to be burly to arrest Hunter, who cleared the six-foottwo marker and who must have weighed about 200 pounds. He had broad shoulders and a narrow waist, and he took aggressive strides to where the microphone hung. He had blond hair, combed slickly back from a wide forehead. He had a straight nose and steel-gray eyes. His cheekbones were high, and his mouth was a strong mouth, and his chin was cleft. He looked as if he were walking on stage to take instructions from a director rather than to face the fire of the chief of detectives.

“How about what?” he asked.

“What’d you argue about?” the chief of detectives said.

Hunter crowded the microphone. “That jail I was in last night was a pigsty. Somebody puked all over the floor.”

“We’re not here to discuss—”

“I’m no goddamn criminal!” Hunter shouted. “I got into a little fray, all right. That’s no reason to put me in a cell smelling of somebody’s goddamn vomit!”

“You should have thought of that before you committed a felony,” the chief of detectives said.

“Felony?” Hunter shouted. “Is getting drunk a felony?”

“No, but assault is. You hit that bartender, didn’t you?”

“All right, I hit him,” Hunter said.

“That’s assault.”

“I didn’t hit him with anything but my fist!”

“That’s second-degree assault.”

“There are guys hitting guys every day of the week,” Hunter said. “I don’t see them getting pulled in on first-degree or second-degree or even third-degree assault.”

“This is your first offense, isn’t it?” the chief of detectives asked.

“Yeah, yeah,” Hunter said.

“Relax, you may get off with just a fine. Now, let’s hear the story.”

“The bartender called me ‘pretty boy,’” Hunter said.

“So you hit him?”

“No, not then. I hit him later.”

“Why?”

“He said something about us big handsome hunks of men never being any good with a woman. He said you could never judge a book by its cover. That’s when I hit him.”

“Why’d you throw the chair at the bar mirror?”

“Well, I hit him, and he called me a name.”

“What name?”

“A name.”

“We’ve heard them all,” the chief of detectives said. “Let’s have it.”

“It’s a name I associate with abnormal men,” Hunter said. “That’s when I threw the chair. I wasn’t aiming at the mirror; I was aiming at him. That son of a bitch! I can get any woman I want!”

“You always lose your temper so easily?” the chief of detectives asked.

“Not usually,” Hunter said.

“What made you so touchy last night?”

“I was just touchy,” Hunter said.

“The arresting officer found a thousand dollars in small bills in your pocket. How about that?”

“Yeah, how about that?” Hunter shouted. “When do I get it back? I hit a guy, and next thing you know, I’m being robbed and thrown into a cell that smells of vomit.”

“Where’d you get that thousand?”

“From the bank,” Hunter said.

“Which bank?”

“My bank. The bank where I save.”

“When did you withdraw it?”

“Yesterday afternoon.”

“Why?”

Hunter hesitated.

“Well?”

“I thought I might take a little trip,” Hunter said. His voice had become suddenly subdued. He squinted into the lights, as if trying to read the face of his questioner.

“What kind of a trip?”

“Pleasure.”

“Where?”

“Upstate.”

“Alone?”

Hunter hesitated again.

“How about it, Curt? Alone or with somebody?”

“With somebody,” Hunter said.

“Who?”

“A girl.”

“Who?”

“That’s my business.”

“That’s your pleasure,” the chief of detectives corrected, and all the bulls—including Brown and Kling—laughed. “What happened to change your plans?”

“Nothing,” Hunter said, annoyed by the laughter, on guard now, waiting for the next question.

“You drew a thousand dollars from your bank yesterday afternoon, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Because you thought you just
might
take a little trip with a girl. Last night, you’re drinking alone in a bar, the thousand dollars in your pocket, and a bartender says something about your inability to please a woman, so you haul off and sock him. Is that right?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Okay. What happened? The girl call it off?”

“That’s my business,” Hunter said again.

“Do you like girls?” the chief of detectives asked.

Hunter’s eyes were narrow now, peering into the lights suspiciously. “Don’t
you
?” he asked.

“I love ’em,” the chief of detectives said. “But I’m asking you.”

“I like ’em fine,” Hunter said.

“This girl you planned the trip with—a special friend?”

“A doll,” Hunter said, his face blank.

“But a friend?”

“A doll,” he repeated, and the chief of detectives knew that was all he’d get from Hunter. The tall, handsome blond man waited.

Kling watched him, never once connecting him with the blond man who had allegedly led Mary Louise Proschek into Charlie Chen’s tattoo parlor. Kling had read Carella’s report, but his mind simply did not make any connection.

“Next case,” the chief of detectives said, and Hunter walked across the stage.

When he reached the steps on the other side, he turned and shouted, “The city hasn’t heard the end of that goddamn pukey prison!” and then he went down the steps.

“Riverhead, two,” the chief of detectives said. “Donaldson, Chris, thirty-five. Tried to pick a man’s pocket in the subway. Transit cop made the pinch. Donaldson stated it was a mistake. How about it, Chris?”

Chris Donaldson could have been a double for Curt Hunter. As he walked across the stage, in fact, the chief of detectives murmured, “What is this? A twin act?” Donaldson was tall and blond and handsome. If there were any detectives in the audience with inferiority complexes, the combination of Hunter and Donaldson should have been enough to shove them over the thin line to psychosis. It was doubtful that the lineup had ever had such a combined display of masculine splendor since its inception. Donaldson seemed as unruffled as Hunter had been. He walked to the microphone. His head crossed the six-foot-three marker on the white wall behind him.

“There’s been a mistake,” Donaldson said.

“Really?”

“Yes,” he said calmly. “I didn’t pick anybody’s pocket, nor did I attempt to. I’m a gainfully employed citizen. The man whose pocket was picked simply accused the wrong person.”

“Then how come we found his wallet in your jacket pocket?”