Cornell Woolrich: The Dog with the Wooden Leg

“And you,” Burkhardt’s lieutenant said to him when he had detailed all the others in the squad, “take the park.”

Burkhardt looked disgruntled. Respect for his superior was all that tempered his expostulation. “What’s this, a new way of disciplining me? I thought I was water front and bulkheads, lieutenant.”

“Well, you’re park from now on. You’re a fresh-air fiend, a nature lover, or else just a lazy bum out of work, I don’t care which. Only you do that park twenty-four hours a day until further orders; keep circulating and keep using your eyes.” His fist came down on his desk with a sound like a backfire. “I’m gonna bust this thing or bust a blood vessel, one of the two! We’ve fine-combed the whole city, we’ve cleaned it up, and they’re still operating. Which proves what? We’ve driven it under cover by the rampage we’ve been on all winter, and that’s about all: it’s still active. Now I’m tired of you men bringing me in the small fry, I want the higher-ups; that’s the only way to scotch it. When you’re dealing with a poisonous snake, it don’t do any good to snip off pieces of its tail, you gotta stamp on its head. This is a poisonous snake if there ever was one, and we’re the venom milkers; that’s our job.

“I’ve turned loose three of those little guys we’ve been holding as bait. They couldn’t tell us anything because they didn’t know any more than we did ourselves, but they can lead us where we want to get. My information is that they’ve developed a sudden craving for fresh air and sunshine; each one of the three has been seen coming out of the park at least once since they were released. That’s not natural for birds like that. You get in there, Burkhardt, and just laze around. When you see a familiar face, you know what to do. It’s some place in there, unless I miss my guess.”

A man with a turned-down hat brim which shadowed his unnaturally bright eyes, hurried along the park path with a furtive air about him which wasn’t at all in keeping with such a sunny, peaceful place. He kept giving quick little looks from side to side, and more than once he glanced back over his shoulder. But there was nothing to see that could have caused anyone alarm, so this wariness must have been just a nervous habit with him.

He looked ill, his face was pasty and his cheeks hollow, and yet his gait was just a little too fast to be that of a man who was strolling in the park for his health, to benefit from the open air and sunshine. He almost gave the impression of being in a hurry to get out of the park and return to wherever it was he had come from.

As the distant building line began to climb up over the treetops ahead of him, his face took on a relieved look, as though it spelled safety for him. He’d had apprehensive eyes for every tree, every shrub that he passed on the way, and now suddenly this unusual fear of harmless green things, if that was what it was, proved to be justified. There was a large oak a yard or two off the path on his left, and as he came abreast of it, it suddenly spoke.

“Just a minute, Sniffles. What’s your hurry?”

He came to an almost galvanic stop. He stared straight ahead, not toward where the sound had come from, as though rigid with terror, unable to turn his head. He couldn’t get any whiter than he was because his face had been the color of chalk all along. He just stood there and began to shiver helplessly, like a bird that feels a snake’s gaze on it. But the paralysis that gripped him didn’t extend to his right hand, the one of the side away from the vocal tree. He made a swift little pass with it. and some little white thing flew into a shrub growing there, almost quicker than the eye could follow. Or most eyes, anyway.

A man detached himself from the cover of the bulky tree trunk and came slowly over.

“Like the park, eh? Why, all of a sudden?”

The rigid figure standing there on the pathway didn’t answer.

“What’re you shaking all over for?”

“You frightened me,” said the white-faced man hoarsely.

“What’ve you got to be frightened about?” was the deadly retort.

“N-nothing.”

Burkhardt began slapping him backhand here and there about the clothing.

“Where’ve you got it?” he demanded remorselessly.

“I’m not on, I’m off.” faltered the quivering one. He managed to get his elbows up to shoulder level. “You can search me.”

“That tells me where to look.” The detective grinned, but not humorously. “Stand there,” he ordered; “don’t try to break and run for it, because you’re not in shape to outrun me, and if you make me chase you, I’ll beat you to a pulp when I overhaul you.” He moved a step or two away, in the direction the other man had been coming from. “You were about here when my hail hit you.” He turned sharply right, went off the path. “It ought to be in around here some place, unless it had a propeller.”

He began spading his hand in and out of the shrub. The last time it went in farther, came out holding a little white oblong about the size of a toothpick jacket. He came back toward the sweating culprit. The detective’s free hand landed flat on the fellow’s bony shoulder, with such weight that his knees sagged under it. Or else maybe fright did that alone. With his other hand Burkhardt deftly unrolled the little cylinder between thumb and forefinger, like an expert rolling his own cigarette, only in reverse. Then he passed it just once across at the level of his upper lip, with an involuntary grimace of repulsion.

His face hardened menacingly. He said just one word: “Cocaine.” Then the man he was holding began dancing back and forth, as his powerful left arm pistoned in and out. “Where’d you get it? Who’s doing the passing in here?”

“I can feel the sun going down,” Marty remarked to Dick. “It’s below treetop level now and sinking lower every minute. I can tell by the coolness setting in; I don’t have to ask anyone, like she says.” He reached down and knuckled the stone of the path. “Sure, there’s been shade on it for the past half hour. Time to go, I guess.”

He carefully knocked the ashes out of his pipe, thrust it into his pocket stem-first. He reached for the tin cup, shook it regretfully.

“Didn’t have much of a day today, did we? Won’t have any changing to do at the cigar store this time. Maybe we better pick another bench tomorrow—”

He broke off short, listening. “Here’s someone coming now, ’way off. I’ll ask him what time he’s got, just to make doubly sure.”

The tread he had detected was still so far away that probably a person with normal vision and whose hearing therefore wasn’t so acutely developed as Marty’s, wouldn’t have been able to hear it at all. But the bush of evening had fallen on the air, the breeze was coming from that direction, and the soft scrape of shoe leather carried clearly to Marty’s sensitized faculties.

He sat back on the bench waiting for the stranger to reach the spot. The tread came on a little closer, but strangely enough without growing proportionately louder, almost as though it were being purposely muffled. Then suddenly it ceased altogether. A moment or two went by, and it never resumed again where it had broken off.

“That’s funny,” Marty soliloquized “He didn’t turn around and go back, because I would have heard bis steps receding. And he didn’t branch off in another direction, because I would have heard that, too, and anyway there are no other paths leading away from this one hereabouts. Must be standing there stock-still in the middle of the path. Either that or he stepped off it a minute onto the grass. Oh, well, he’ll step on again in a minute from where he left off. He was coming this way, so he’ll have to finish coming this way.”