Robert Tanenbaum - Reversible Error

"Yeah, it is. You look like shit warmed over, Lieutenant."

"What the fuck took you so long?"

"I took some leave, went to the islands. Cheap fares this time of year."

From the battered face came something that could have been a chuckle. They were both silent for a minute, and Dugman said, "For a while there, I thought you were in the islands."

"Yeah," said Fulton. "Sorry about that. Somebody explained?"

"Yeah, Karp gave me the whole story-what I needed, anyway. He figured out you were here, by the way."

"He's a smart motherfucker," said Fulton. "I don't even know where I am." And then he reached out and grasped Dugman's wrist with remarkable strength. "Manning," he said. "Did you get him yet?"

"Not yet. He's in the building, though. He can't get out, unless he can get past Mack. It never been done."

Fulton did not relax his grasp. "No. Listen. You heard the story. Look. He has an ankle gun."

Dugman said, "Sure, Loo. We gonna pat him down real good."

Fulton shook his head from side to side. He fixed Dugman with his one good eye, staring across to him the meaning his mouth could not express. "No. That's not what I mean. He could draw on you. When you're not looking. You understand?"

Dugman nodded. He understood. Fulton's grasp slipped away and he fell into an exhausted unconsciousness. Dugman got up and yelled at the top of his voice, "Hey, Maus!"

An answering shout came from above. Dug-man walked over to a glassless window and stuck his head out. "Maus," he shouted. "Window, north side."

In the gathering dusk, Dugman could just make out Maus's white face sticking out of a window on the third floor. "You see anybody up there?" he called.

"No. Willis passed through a while back. He came up to take a piss. They been using the top floor as a latrine. It's pretty disgusting, but what the fuck, they're criminals, right?"

"What happened to him?"

"I braced him and he took some shots. I shot him back a couple."

"He dead?"

"Well, I can't say, since I'm not a licensed physician. But he took a full pattern high and low. There's hair on the ceiling. Do you want me to try mouth-to-mouth?"

"I want you to clear the building. We got to get a bus for the Loo real fast. Mack carried him down. Manning must've skipped."

"OK, I'm coming down," called Maus. Dugman heard the sound of steps and a slamming door, and then the pounding of feet on iron treads.

He turned and walked heavily toward the stairway. He opened the door and let it slam shut. The sound reverberated through the empty building. Dugman walked silently back into the room, carefully avoiding the crunchy fragments of plaster that littered the floor. He crouched down behind the bar and waited.

After about five minutes he heard furtive steps, and Manning appeared in the dusty glass of the mirror, moving cautiously in short rushes, bent nearly double, with a pistol held out two-handed in front of him. Dugman waited until Manning's back showed in the mirror and then he rose smoothly to his feet and said, "Drop the gun, Manning."

Manning dropped the gun immediately and turned slowly around to face Dugman, who held the Spanish automatic on him steadily.

Manning smiled and said, "Tricky, ain't you? I must be losing my touch."

"I'd say so," said Dugman. "OK, turn around and hands on the wall. You know the drill."

Manning faced the wall with his hands against it and his legs spread wide apart. Dugman gave him a perfunctory pat-down, relieving him of his handcuffs. He backed away and Manning turned around.

Manning said, "You was always pretty smart, Dugman. I heard you was quite the man in the old days. Lots of sugar around in Harlem for a cop in the old days."

"Do tell," said Dugman.

"But let me tell you, my man, it ain't nothing to what they got now. I'm talking millions. Millions of dollars. Would you like to have a million dollars?" Manning was speaking rapidly, and Dugman could see a film of sweat speckled with gray plaster dust across his forehead.

"I sure would," said Dugman.

"It could be arranged," said Manning.

"I'd have to take care of my people."

"That's no problem," said Manning. "I got people who owe me. Millions ain't zip to them. You got no idea how much is involved. I'm not talking buying a hat, chickenshit police pads. This is serious money. Money for life. And it's clean. It's in accounts in the islands, man. You go down there and live like a fuckin king, and nobody can touch you."

"Keep on talking," said Dugman. "You starting to get my attention." His eye fell on Manning's pistol where it had been dropped. Casually he turned away from Manning and walked slowly over to pick it up.

As he expected, he heard the sudden movement, the snapping sound of metal leaving leather.

He stood and turned, his pistol, already cocked, pointing straight out from his body. Manning's ankle gun had cleared its holster and was rising, a blur of motion. Dugman shot him through the chest with the Spanish automatic. Manning fell backward into a sitting position and the little ankle gun went flying. His face had the stupid expression worn by the recently shot. Dugman took more careful aim and shot Manning twice more in the center of his chest. Karp arrived at the pier building just as the ambulances were taking away the last of the corpses. He picked out Dugman standing with a group of police officers and caught his eye. It was quite dark by now, and the night was lighted by the glow from the city, and from the Jersey shore, and by the white glare from a local TV crew, all of it laced with the colored scintillations from the various police and emergency vehicles.

"How's Clay?" was Karp's first question.

Dugman said, "He been chewed up some, but I guess he'll live. He's a tough son-of-a-bitch for a college boy. He's in Bellevue."

"Who do we have?"

"Nobody much," answered Dugman. He pulled the stump of a cigar from his coat pocket and lit it. "Choo wasn't using his regular people for this particular job. The two survivors were just a couple of mutts from Brooklyn. We questioned them but they don't know shit. They didn't even know Clay was a cop."

"I heard something about that questioning," said Karp sourly. "I heard you cut off some kid's prick, as a matter of fact."

Dugman laughed and coughed on the cigar smoke. "Yeah, we did. We threw it in the jar with the others. Want to see?"

"I don't want to know about it, Dugman. Willis got shot, I understand."

"Dead."

"Uh-huh. And Manning?"

Dugman looked off toward the river and blew a long plume of Macanudo eastward. "Well… about that. I was on the line with the chief. Have you talked to him yet? No? Be a good idea. The thing of it is, Manning is on his way to the morgue with a John Doe tag-"

"Christ! You killed Manning too?"

"Well, let's say he took a round in the lung and two more right through the pump from a big old nine belonged to one of the mutts. The circumstances are still under investigation and so on and so forth."

"Meaning you're still working on your cock-and-bull story," Karp snapped back. He gestured to the TV crew. "The press?"

"Yeah," said Dugman. "The police stumbled on a nest of felons while looking for fugitives. They opened fire, we returned. Four dead. Page twelve."

"You don't think you can bury this completely?"

"I try not to think at all," said Dugman, "when the Chief of D. has got his nose up my crack. You got a problem with any of this, you need to talk to him."

"Yeah, I got a problem," said Karp bitterly. "The problem is, the guy who engineered this whole fucking scene is gonna walk away from it smelling like a rose."

"You mean Mr. Lemon Coffee?"

"That's him," said Karp. "And Fane. And Sergo. Although I have a feeling that Fane and Sergo are going to be harder to connect with the actual murders. Reedy's the key player. He was there at the club. He must have tipped Manning about Clay being undercover as soon as he got it from… whoever he got it from. By the way, you did secure the plates and cups from the club?"