Ellery Queen - Cop Out

“What’s that?”

“Can you follow orders? Can you work with others? Can you discipline yourself? Your Marine record says you can’t.”

And he had said, “I don’t know, Chief. I’ve done some growing up. I think so.”

“All right, let’s give it a try. Take your training at the state police school, and let’s see how you make out on your six months’ probation.”

He had chalked up the best record of any recruit in the New Bradford department’s history. But he thought that John Secco still had questions in his eye. John and Ellen. They sure hold a tight rein on me. And it’s not so bad.

^ The porch light was on, which meant that Ellen was waiting up for him. Leave it to Irish. The Saab was in the driveway, too, not put away. She had probably left it handy in case he failed to show in what she considered a reasonable time and she decided to drive back down into town to haul him home by the ear.

As he turned into his gate Malone paused. There was a strange car across the street, a black dusty late-model Chrysler New Yorker sedan. No one on Old Bradford Road could afford a car like that. It was parked at the Tyrell house, but the house was dark, so the people couldn’t be visiting. The Tyrells rarely had visitors, and never so late at night, they were an old couple who went to bed with their chickens. The people from the Chrysler might have been visiting the young Cunninghams next door, but the Cunningham house showed no lights, either. Maybe I ought to check it out. But then he remembered Ellen’s look at the stationhouse and decided that discretion was the better part of whatever it was.

Malone trudged up the walk and onto his porch, reaching for his keys. He felt suddenly like dropping where he was, curling up on the mat and giving himself totally to sleep. He could not recall when he had felt so tired, even on maneuvers. I wonder what kind of hell I’d catch from that little old Irisher of mine if she opened the front door and fell over me.

He was still grinning when he unlocked the door and stepped into the dark hall and felt a cold something press into the skin behind his ear and heard a spinning sort of voice behind him say, “Freeze, cop.”

It’s got to be I’m dreaming. I did fall asleep out there. This can’t be for real. Not my house, Ellen, Bibby.

“Don’t do it,” the spinning voice said. “I just as soon shoot the top of your head off.” It turned in another direction. “See if he’s heeled.”

Malone heard someone say, “Where’s my wife and daughter?”

“Just stand still, fuzz.” The muzzle dug in.

Rough hands ran up his body. Another man, a strong one. The hand scraped his left nipple and found the butt of the revolver sticking out of his shoulder holster, the one he used off duty. The hand came out and he felt lighter, lost.

“I got it,” a second voice said. This one was as rough as the hands, but muted, a gargly purr like a cougar’s.

“Put the lights on,” the first voice said. It sounded happy. “Let me have it, Hinch.”

Hinch.

“Just a minute, Fure.”

Fure?

The lights went up. The first thing Malone saw through the archway was Ellen in the parlor perched like a Sunday school kid on the edge of her mother’s New England rocker. She still had her coat on. Her face was the color of milk with the butterfat skimmed off.

“Can I move my head?” Malone asked.

“Like a good little cop.” The spinny one.

Malone moved his head and came to life. The two men were wearing masks. If they had meant to kill they would not have cared if he and Ellen saw their faces. He let his breath out.

The masks were ridiculous. They were fullface and skintight, brown bear faces. The bear face on the little man was too big for him; it was wrinkled up like something unwrapped after a thousand years. The big man’s fitted. The little one was a fashion plate. The big one was strictly motorcycle mugg, a hard case.

They go to the trouble of wearing masks and then they say each other’s names out loud. Don’t ever take chances with the dumb ones, John said, they either panic like animals or they like it.

The man called Fure liked it. He was now holding two guns, his own and Malone’s. His was a seven-inch automatic, a foreign handgun. At first Malone thought it was a Mauser. But then he saw that it was a Walther PPK, a gun popular with continental law officers. Must be stolen. There had been nothing European in either voice.

That’s the gun they killed Tom Howland with. The gun the little guy killed Howland with. It would have to be the little guy. He digs guns.

Fure was digging Malone’s gun. The eyes behind the bear mask were crazy with joy. He had the Walther in his left armpit now and he was turning Malone’s revolver over and over in his gloved hands.

“A Colt Trooper, Hinch. Six-shot,.357 Magnum. You ought to feel the balance of this baby. You’re a pal, fuzz. Here.” He handed the Walther to the big man. “Where’s the ammo belt goes with this?”

“I don’t keep it in the house-” Malone stopped. Fure was laughing. He reached into the hall closet and straightened up dangling the ammunition belt. The holster was empty, the bullet holders were full. “Naughty, naughty. Okay, fuzz. Inside with wifie.”

Malone went into the parlor, his own gun digging into his head.

“Not near her. On that sofa over there.”

Ellen’s eyes followed him each inch of the way, saying do something, don’t do anything.

He’s a shrewd bugger for all his dumbness. He figures that together we’re strong, apart we’re helpless. Malone felt the rage rising. He sat down on the sofa.

“Ellen. Where’s Bibby?”

“Upstairs with the woman.”

“Is she all right?”

“I don’t know. I think. I found them here when I got home. They won’t even let me see her.”

The woman. Then there were three of them. Apparently Ed Taylor had not seen the woman. Making it tougher for John and the state boys. They’re looking for just two males.

“Your kid’s okay for now, Malone,” Fure said. He was running his hand over the Colt as if it were alive. “You want her to stay that way you jump up and roll over. Hinch. The bag.”

Hinch reached behind the sofa and came up with a black bag. He handed it to the fashion plate. It seemed to Malone that he did it very slowly.

“It’s yours.” The bag landed in Malone’s lap. Fure scraped Ellen’s treasured antique crewel chair over to him, the one with the shaky legs, and dropped into it. He kept fondling the Colt. They had to turn their heads to face him.

“What do I do with this, Fure?” Malone asked.

“Mr. Furia to cops.”

“Mr. Furia.”

“Take a look inside.”

Malone unzipped the bag. Bundles of greenbacks stared up at him.

The purr behind him said, “I still think-”

“Just don’t, Hinch,” Furia said. “Know where this loot comes from, cop?”

“I can guess.” Malone said in a soft voice, “You don’t know about this, Ellen. Tom Howland was killed tonight at the Aztec plant and the payroll stolen. That’s what all the excitement was about. This is the Aztec payroll. Right, Furia?”

“Mister Furia.”

“Mr. Furia.”

“Right.”

He thought Ellen was going to topple over.

“Can I go to my wife, please? She looks sick.”

“No.”

Ellen’s eyes were begging him. They made a quick upward roll toward where little Barbara was. “I’m all right, Loney.”

Malone said, “What did you mean, this is mine?”

“You’ll never have so much bread in your hands your whole life. Enjoy it.”

“What did you mean?”

“Like for the time being.”

“I don’t get it.”