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“Jesus Christ,” Ray said.
I said, “Well, it’s here if you want it, Loren.” He nodded. I buckled on his gun belt and made sure the holster was snapped shut so that the gun wouldn’t fall out and embarrass us all. I reached back, patted the cold steel on my hip, and thought what a horrible thing it was. “Damned thing weighs a ton,” I said.
“What, the gun? You get used to it.”
“You’d think it’d be hard to walk straight, all that weight.”
“No time at all you get used to it. You get so you feel naked without it, you know.”
I took the shiny black nightstick from Loren and gave it an experimental whack against my palm. The wood was smooth and well-polished. Ray showed me how to hook it to my belt and fix the stick so it wouldn’t swing loose and wallop me in the shin. Then I pi
The cap helped, certainly, and I think the badge and gun and stick and cuffs made a subtle difference too, changing my own attitude, making me feel more comfortable in my role. I took the nightstick from its grip, giving it a tentative twirl, then tucking it back where it belonged. I even considered practicing getting the gun out of the holster but rejected the idea, confident that I would only succeed in shooting off a toe. Miraculous enough that I’d pi
But by the time I returned to the living room I felt enough like a cop to tell someone to move on, or hold up traffic, or get a free meal at a lunch counter. And I guess Ray noticed the difference. He looked me over from cap to shoes and back again and gave a slow nod. “You’ll pass,” he said.
Even Loren had to agree. “They’re natural actors,” he said.
“Burglars?”
“Geminis.”
“Jesus,” Ray said. “Let’s get the hell outta here.”
In the black-and-white he said, “We’re cleared to enter the apartment. It’s sealed as evidence but what we do is break those seals and affix new ones when we leave. It’ll all be recorded that way so nothing’ll be screwed up.”
“Is that standard?”
“Oh, sure. The seals are to prevent unauthorized entry. They can’t really keep anybody out who wants in but you can’t go through the door without you break the seal. This particular apartment, it’s been opened up and resealed a couple times already. I saw the sheet on it.”
“Oh? Who’s been inside?”
“The usual. The photographer and the lab crew went through it before it was sealed up in the first place, but then the photographer went back for seconds later on. Maybe some of his pictures didn’t turn out or maybe somebody from the D.A.’s office wanted him to get establishing shots of the other rooms. You never know what those monkeys’ll want to show to a jury and label it Exhibit A. Then there was another visit from an Assistant D.A., probably to get the feel of the place firsthand, and there were a couple of bulls from Homicide, even though this is the precinct’s case all the way and we’re not letting those pricks from Homicide take it away from us, but of course they have to get a look all the same, maybe figuring the M.O.’ll fit a case they’re already carryin’ on the books. Then, and it musta been the same kind of thing, there was a visit from another D.A.’s office, not even Manhattan but some clowns from across the river-”
“When was that?”
“I du
“Which office was it? Brooklyn? Queens?”
“ Brooklyn.”
“Who’s the Brooklyn DA?”
“ Kings County D.A. is-shit, I forget the name.”
“Is it Michael Debus?”
“That’s it. Yeah, Debus. Why?”
“When were his men there?”
“Sometime between the murder and tonight. What’s it matter?” He looked at me thoughtfully, almost sideswiping a parked car in the process. “They park right in the middle of the fuckin’ street,” he complained. “How do you co
“I don’t. I think Flaxford did.”
“How?”
I thought for a moment. If I knew precisely when my own apartment had been visited, and precisely when Debus had had the Flaxford apartment searched, then…Then what? Then nothing. It might help my theory in my own mind if I could establish that Debus had sent men to East Sixty-seventh Street before he sent them to West End Avenue, but it wouldn’t really prove anything, nor would it demolish my theory if the timing was the other way around.
When all was said and done, the only really important variable was the box. Either I could find it or I couldn’t.
“It might eventually be important,” I said, “to know just who Debus sent to the apartment and when they were there.”
“Well, it’s a matter of record.”
“You could find out?”
“Not right this minute, but later on. Sure.”
“It’ll be there anyway,” I said.
“Huh?”
“Nothing.”
I recognized the doorman. But he didn’t recognize me, and I decided that I would definitely have to remember him at Christmas. He held the door for us as he’d held it for me twice before, and while Ray chatted with him he paused twice to challenge people on their way into the building. Evidently he’d been reprimanded for letting me in, but at least they hadn’t taken his job away and I was happy for him.
I didn’t even get a second glance from him. I was wearing a uniform and I was standing there next to Ray, so why should he pay any attention to me?
We rode up on the elevator with a man dressed as a priest. I suppose he probably was a priest, but he looked less like a priest than I looked like a cop, so why should I take anything for granted? It occurred to me that clerical garb would make a good cover for a burglary. It would certainly get you past most doormen in a hurry. Of course it wouldn’t do you too much good in the suburbs where the object was to avoid getting noticed in the first place, but apartment houses were something else.
Now in the suburbs a mailman’s uniform would be ideal. Of course, a lot of people know their route man, but if you could pass yourself off as the guy who delivers parcels or special delivery letters or something like that-
“Something on your mind, Bernie?”
“Just thinking about business,” I said. We got off at the third floor and left the alleged priest to ascend alone. I stood aside while Ray broke the seals on Flaxford’s door. Then, while he was fishing in his pocket for the keys, I extended a finger and poked the doorbell. He gave me a look as the bell sounded within the apartment.
“Just routine,” I explained
“Police seals on the door and you think there’s somebody inside the place?”
“You never know.”
“That’s crazy.”
“Everybody has a routine,” I said. “That’s mine.”
“Jesus,” he said. He found the keys, poked one at the lock. I could see it wasn’t going to fit and it didn’t. He tried the other and it slid in.
“Must seem fu
Just a little earlier I’d used Darla’s key and now we were using Flaxford’s. The only place I had to break into these days was the place where I was living.
“Last time I opened this door,” he said, “there was a burglar on the other side of it.”
“Last time I opened it there was a corpse in the bedroom.”
“Let’s hope tonight’s a new experience for both of us.”
He gave the key a half-turn clockwise and pushed the door open. He said something I didn’t catch and went on inside, reaching to flick on the light switch. Then he turned and motioned me inside but I stayed where I was.
“Come on,” he said. “Whattaya waitin’ for?”
“The door wasn’t locked.”
“Of course it was. I unlocked it.”
“Just the snaplock. All you had to do was turn it halfway around and it opened. A lock like that has a deadbolt, too, and if the deadbolt’s engaged you have to turn it one and a half times around to open it.”