Роберт Беллем - Pulp Frictions

There was a blanket thrown over the patrolman by the time we got there. The ambulance was waiting, and a white-clad intern was standing near the step of the ambulance, puffing on a cigarette.

He looked up as I walked over to him, and then flicked his cigarette away.

‘Detective-Sergeant Jonas,’ I said.

‘How do you do?’ the intern answered. ‘Dr Mallaby.’

‘What’s the story?’

‘Broken neck. It must have been a big car. His chest is caved in where he was first hit. I figure he was knocked down, and then run over. The bumper probably broke his neck. That’s the cause of death, anyway.’

Andy Larson walked over to where we were standing. He shook his head and said, ‘A real bloody one, Mike.’

‘Yeah.’ I turned to the intern. ‘When was he hit?’

‘Hard to say. No more than a half-hour ago, I’d guess offhand. An autopsy will tell.’

‘That checks, Mike,’ Andy said. ‘Patrolman on the beat called it in about twenty-five minutes ago.’

‘A big car, huh?’

‘I’d say so,’ the intern answered.

‘I wonder how many big cars there are in this city?’

Andy nodded. ‘You can cart him away, Doc,’ he said. ‘The boys are through with their pictures.’

The intern fired another cigarette, and we watched while he and an attendant put the dead patrolman on a stretcher and then into the ambulance. The intern and the attendant climbed aboard, and the ambulance pulled off down the street. They didn’t use the siren. There was no rush now.

A cop gets it, and you say, ‘Well, gee, that’s tough. But that was his trade.’ Sure. Except that being a cop doesn’t mean you don’t have a wife, and maybe a few kids. It doesn’t hurt any less, being a cop. You’re just as dead.

I went over the accident report with Andy.

ACCIDENT NUMBER 46A-3

FIRST NAME AND INITIALS James C.

PRECINCT NO. 032

AIDED NUMBER 67-4

SEX M

SURNAME Benson

ADDRESS 1812 Crescent Ave.

AGE 28

My eyes skipped down the length of the card, noting the date, time, place of occurrence.

NATURE OF ILLNESS OR INJURY Hit and run

FATAL √

SERIOUS

SLIGHT

UNKNOWN

I kept reading, down to the circled items on the card that told me the body had been taken to the morgue and claimed already. The rest would have been routine in any other case, but it was slightly ironic here.

TRAFFIC CONTROLLED BY OFFICER?

NAME Ptm. James C. Benson

SHIELD NO. 3685

TRAFFIC CONTROLLED BY LIGHTS? Yes

COMMAND Traffic Division

LIGHTS IN OPERATION? Yes

I read the rest of the technical information about the direction of the traffic moving on the lights, the police action taken, the city involved, and then flipped the card over. Under the NAMES AND ADDRESSES OF WITNESSES (IF NONE, SO STATE) the single word ‘None’ was scribbled. The officer who’d reported the hit and run was Patrolman P. Margolis. He’d been making the rounds, stopped for his usual afternoon chat with Benson, and had found the traffic cop dead in the gutter. There were skid marks on the asphalt street, but there hadn’t been a soul in sight.

‘How do you figure it, Andy?’ I asked.

‘A few ideas.’

‘Let’s hear them.’

‘The guy may have done something wrong. Benson may have hailed him for something entirely different. The guy panicked and cut him down.’

‘Something wrong like what?’

‘Who knows? Hot furs in the trunk. Dead man in the back seat. You know.’

‘And you figure Benson hailed him because he was speeding, or his windscreen wiper was crooked? Something like that?’

‘Yeah, you know.’

‘I don’t buy it, Andy.’

‘Well, I got another idea.’

‘What’s that? Drunk?’

Andy nodded.

‘That’s what I was thinking. Where do we start?’

‘I’ve already had a check put in on stolen cars, and the lab boys are going over the skid marks. Why don’t we go back and see if we can scare up any witnesses?’

I picked my jacket off the back of the chair, buttoned it on, and then adjusted my shoulder clip. ‘Come on.’

The scene of the accident was at the intersection of two narrow streets. There was a two-family stucco house on one corner, and empty lots on the other three corners. It was a quiet intersection, and the only reason it warranted a light was the high school two blocks away. A traffic cop was used to supplement the light in the morning and afternoon when the kids were going to and coming from school. Benson had been hit about ten minutes before classes broke. It was a shame, because a bunch of home-bound kids might have saved his life — or at least provided some witnesses.

‘There’s not much choice,’ Andy said.

I looked at the stucco house. ‘No, I guess not. Let’s go.’

We climbed the flat, brick steps at the front of the house, and Andy pushed the bell button. We waited for a few moments, and then the door opened a crack, and a voice asked, ‘Yes?’

I flashed my buzzer. ‘Police officers,’ I said. ‘We’d like to ask a few questions.’

The door stayed closed, with the voice coming from behind the small crack. ‘What about?’

‘Accident here this afternoon. Won’t you open the door?’

The door swung wide, and a thin young kid in his undershirt peered out at us. His brows pulled together in a hostile frown. ‘You got a search warrant?’ he asked.

‘What have you got to hide, sonny?’ Andy asked.

‘Nothing. I just don’t like cops barging in like storm troopers.’

‘Nobody’s barging in on you,’ Andy said. ‘We want to ask a few questions, that’s all. You want to get snotty about it, we’ll go get a goddamned search warrant, and then you’d better hold onto your head.’

‘All right, what do you want?’

‘You changed your song, huh, sonny?’

‘Leave it be, Andy,’ I said. ‘Were you home this afternoon, son?’

‘Yeah.’

‘All afternoon?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You hear any noise out here in the street?’

‘What kind of noise?’

‘You tell me.’

‘I didn’t hear any noise.’

‘A car skidding, maybe? Something like that?’

‘No.’

‘Did you see anything unusual?’

‘I didn’t see anything. You’re here about the cop who was run over, ain’t you?’

‘That’s right, son.’

‘Well, I didn’t see anything.’

‘You live here alone?’

‘No. With my mother.’

‘Where is she?’

‘She ain’t feeling too good. That’s why I’ve been staying home from school. She’s been sick in bed. She didn’t hear anything, either. She’s in a fog.’

‘Have you had the doctor?’

‘Yeah, she’ll be all right.’

‘Where’s your mother’s room?’

‘In the back of the house. She couldn’t have seen anything out here even if she was able to. You’re barking up the wrong tree.’

‘How long you been out of school, son?’

‘Why?’

‘How long?’

‘A month.’

‘Your mother been sick that long?’

‘Yeah.’

‘How old are you?’

‘Fifteen.’

‘You better get back to school,’ Andy said. ‘Damn fast. Tell the city about your mother, and they’ll do something for her. You hear that?’

‘I hear it.’

‘We’ll send someone round to check tomorrow. Remember that, sonny.’

‘I’ll remember it,’ the kid said, a surly look on his face.

‘Anybody else live here with you?’

‘Yeah. My dog. You want to ask him some questions, maybe?’

I saw Andy clench his fists, so I said, ‘That’ll be all, son. Thanks.’

‘For what?’ the kid asked, and then he slammed the door.