Ed Mcbain - Fuzz

That analyzer, with its factory-sleek assortment of dials, knobs, jacks, and electrical terminology is real — but nonetheless fake. There is no testing equipment behind those meters, the interior of the box has been stripped bare. Hidden below the instrument panel, set to go off at 2 A.M., there is only another of Buck’s bombs.

Tomorrow night, the mayor would die.

And on Saturday morning, the uncommitted would commit. They would open their newspapers and read the headlines, and they would know the letter was for real, no opportunist could have accurately predicted the murder without having engineered it and executed it himself. They would take the letter from where they had casually put it, and they would read it once again, and they would fully comprehend its menace now, fully realize the absolute terror inherent in its words. When one was faced with the promise of unexpected death, was five thousand dollars really so much to invest? Not a man on that list of one hundred earned less than $200,000 a year. They had all been carefully researched, the original list of four hundred and twenty names being cut and revised and narrowed down to only those who seemed the most likely victims, those to whom losing five thousand dollars at a Las Vegas crap table meant nothing, those who were known to have invested in speculative stocks or incoming Broadway plays — those, in short, who would be willing to gamble five thousand dollars in hope of salvation.

They will pay us, the deaf man thought.

Oh, not all of them, certainly not all of them. But enough of them. Perhaps a few more murders are in order, perhaps some of those sleek fat cats on the list will have to be eliminated before the rest are convinced, but they will be convinced, and they will pay. After the murder tomorrow night, after that, when they know we’re not fooling, they will pay.

The deaf man suddenly smiled.

There should be a very large crowd around City Hall starting perhaps right this minute, he thought.

It will be an interesting weekened.

“You hit the nail right on the head,” Lieutenant Byrnes said to Steve Carella. “He’s going for the mayor next.”

“He’ll never get away with it,” Hawes said.

“He’d better not get away with it,” Byrnes said. “If he succeeds in knocking off the major, he’ll be picking up cash like it’s growing in the park. How many of these letters do you suppose he’s mailed?”

“Well, let’s try to figure it,” Carella said. “First he warned the parks commissioner and demanded five thousand dollars. Next the deputy major, and a demand for fifty thousand. Now he tells us he’ll kill the mayor this Friday night. So if the escalation carries through, he should be bucking for ten times fifty thousand, which is five hundred thousand. If we divide that by —”

“Forget it,” Byrnes said.

“I’m only trying to figure out the mathematics.”

“What’s mathematics got to do with JMV getting killed?”

“I don’t know,” Carella said, and shrugged. “But it seems to me if we can figure out the progression, we can also figure out what’s wrong with the progression.”

Byrnes stared at him.

“I’m trying to say it just isn’t enough for this guy to knock off the mayor,” Carella said.

“It isn’t, huh? Knocking off the mayor seems like more than enough to me.”

“Yeah, but not for somebody like the deaf man. He’s too proud of his own cleverness.” Carella looked at the letter again. “Who’s this man Carl Wahler?” he asked.

“A dress manufacturer, lives downtown in Stewart City, 17th Precinct. He brought the letter in there this morning. Captain Bundy thought we’d want to see it. Because of our involvement with the previous murders.”

“It seems to fit right in with the pattern, doesn’t it?” Hawes said. “He announced the other murders, too.”

“Yes, but there’s something missing,” Carella said.

“What?”

“The personal angle. He started this in the 87th, a little vendetta for fouling him up years ago, when he was planting bombs all over the goddamn city to divert attention from his bank job. So why’s he taking it out of the 87th all at once? If he knocks off the mayor, nobody looks foolish but the special police assigned to his protection. We’re off the hook, home free. And that’s what I can’t understand. That’s what’s wrong with the pattern.”

“The pattern seems pretty clear to me,” Byrnes said. “If he can get to JMV after advertising it, what chance will anybody have without warning? Look at how many times he says that in his letter. Without warning, without warning.”

“It still bothers me,” Carella said.

“It shouldn’t,” Byrnes said. “He’s spelled it out in black and white. The man’s a goddamn fiend .”

The instant reaction of both Hawes and Carella was to laugh. You don’t as a general rule hear cops referring to criminals as “fiends,” even when they’re child molesters and mass murderers. That’s the sort of language reserved for judges or politicians. Nor did Byrnes usually express himself in such colorful expletives. But whereas both men felt a definite impulse to laugh out loud, one look at Byrnes’ face stifled any such urge. The lieutenant was at his wit’s end. He suddenly looked very old and very tired. He sighed heavily, and said, “How do we stop him, guys?” and he sounded for all the world like a freshman quarter-back up against a varsity team with a three-hundred-pound line.

“We pray,” Carella said.

Although James Martin Vale, the mayor himself, was a devout Episcopalian, he decided that afternoon that he’d best do a lot more than pray if his family was to stay together.

So he called a top-level meeting in his office at City Hall (a meeting to which Lieutenant Byrnes was not invited), and it was decided that every precaution would be taken starting right then to keep “the deaf man” (as the men of the 87th insisted on calling him) from carrying out his threat. JMV was a man with a charming manner and a ready wit, and he managed to convince everyone in the office that he was more concerned about the people of his city than he was about his own safety. “We’ve got to save my life only so that this man won’t milk hard-earned dollars from the people of this great city,” he said. “If he gets away with this, they’ll allow themselves to be extorted. That’s why I want protection.”

“Your Honor,” the district attorney said, “if I may suggest, I think we should extend protection beyond the Friday night deadline. I think if this man succeeds in killing you anytime in the near future, the people of this city’ll think he’s made good his threat.”

“Yes, I think you’re right,” JMV said.

“Your Honor,” the city comptroller said, “I’d like to suggest that you cancel all personal appearances at least through April.”

“Well, I don’t think I should go into complete seclusion, do you?” JMV asked, mindful of the fact that this was an election year.

“Or at least curtail your personal appearances,” the comptroller said, remembering that indeed this was an election year, and remembering, too, that he was on the same ticket as His Honor the Mayor JMV.

“What do you think, Slim?” JMV asked the police commissioner.

The police commissioner, a man who was six feet four inches tall and weighed two hundred and twenty-five pounds, shifted his buttocks in the padded leather chair opposite His Honor’s desk, and said, “I’ll cover you with cops like fleas,” a not particularly delicate simile, but one which made its point nonetheless.

“You can count on however many men you need from my squad,” the district attorney said, mindful that two of his most trusted detectives had been blown to that big Police Academy in the sky only days before.