Эд Макбейн - Bread

“How come you didn’t finish her off? Figure a scare was good enough?”

Avery did not answer.

“Did you think Harrod was a pusher?”

“Did his expensive clothes and Caddy fool you?”

“Did you think the girl was dealing, too?”

Avery still said nothing.

“Who hung up the phone, Ave?”

“We’ll get fingerprints from the receiver, you know.”

“And we’ll compare the voices on that tape with voiceprint of you and Holder.”

“And the rest of your pals, too.”

“And we’ll compare the white paint scrapings under Harrod’s fingernails with the paint on those jackets you wear.”

“How many of you jumped Harrod?”

“You stupid little punk!” Ollie shouted. “You think you can run around killing and hurting anybody you want? We’re gonna lock you up and throw away the key, you hear me, Mr. President?”

“I want a lawyer,” Avery said.

It was still Friday. It had been Friday forever.

Legal Aid sent over an attorney to make certain that none of The Ancient Skulls’ rights were being violated. At the same time the detectives — figuring they had hooked into real meat — called the District Attorney’s office and asked that a man be sent over before they messed up the legal ramifications by asking any further questions. By 11:00 P.M. everyone was assembled. By ten minutes to 12:00 they all realized they were going to get nowhere, since the Skulls’ appointed attorney advised them to keep silent. The man from the DA’s office felt they had a good case, nonetheless, and so the Skulls were booked for acting in concert on one count of homicide and one count of assault, and were taken downstairs to the detention cells to await transportation to the Criminal Courts Building for arraignment. The lawyers shook hands with each other and the detectives, and everybody left the squadroom at a few minutes past midnight. It was Saturday at last. Ollie Weeks had cracked his case in less than twelve hours, and one might have expected him to go home and sleep the sleep of angels secure in the knowledge that he had performed admirably and well.

Carella’s bedside phone rang in the middle of the night. He fumbled for the receiver, lifted it, and said, “Hullo,” not sure he was talking into the right end.

“Carella? This is Ollie Weeks.”

“Ollie?” Carella said. “Oh, hullo, Ollie. How are you? What time is it, Ollie?”

“I don’t know what time it is,” Ollie said. “Carella, I can’t sleep.”

“That’s too bad,” Carella said, and squinted at the luminous dial on the alarm clock near his bed. It was ten minutes past 4:00. “Have you tried counting sheep, Ollie?”

“I’ve been thinking about this guy,” Ollie said.

“What guy, Ollie?”

“This guy Oscar Hemmings. The third guy in Diamondback Development.”

“Oh, yes,” Carella said. “Yes, what about him?”

“I’ve been thinking if I wait till morning, he’s liable to be not there.”

“Well,” Carella said, and hesitated. It seemed to him that Ollie had just uttered a choice non sequitur, but he couldn’t be quite certain because he was still half asleep.

“At his apartment, I mean,” Ollie said. “At the address I have for him.”

“Yes, there’s always the chance he’ll be out,” Carella said, and looked at the clock again.

“Unless I go there now ,” Ollie said.

“It’s four o’clock in the morning,” Carella said. “It’s twelve past four.”

“That’s the idea,” Ollie said. “Nobody’s not home at four in the morning. It’s too late to be out on the town and too early to be getting out of bed. If I go there now, I’m sure to nab him.”

“Okay,” Carella said. “Fine.”

“What do you mean?”

“Go there. Go nab him.”

“You want to come with me?” Ollie said.

“No,” Carella said.

“Aw, come on.”

“No,” Carella said. “Listen, are you crazy or something, waking me up at four o’clock, four-fifteen, whatever the hell it is? What’s the matter with you? You cracked your case, you’ve got your...”

“Those guys up there bother me.”

“Why?”

“Because they’ve got eight hundred thousand dollars in their safety deposit box. Where’d those jigs get money like that if it ain’t dirty money?”

“I don’t know where, Ollie.”

“Ain’t you even interested? Harrod worked for them, and Harrod knew Reardon, and Reardon is dead, and Hawes tells me Harrod’s gun killed him. Now ain’t that interesting to you?”

“It’s interesting. But Harrod’s also dead, and I can’t arrest a dead man for killing another dead man.”

“Why are all these guys getting knocked off?” Ollie said.

“The homicides aren’t connected,” Carella said patiently. “You’ve got the punks who killed Harrod, and if Harrod killed Reardon, it was because Reardon knew about an arson in which Harrod may or may not have been... Damn it, Ollie, you’re waking me up! I don’t want to wake up! I want to go back to sleep. Goodnight, Ollie.”

Carella hung up. Beside him, his wife Teddy lay asleep with one leg twisted in the sheet. She could not, and therefore had not, heard the ringing telephone or the ensuing conversation, and for that he was grateful. He untangled the sheet, and was snuggling up close to her when the phone rang again. He snapped the receiver from its cradle and shouted, “Yes, damn it!”

“Steve?”

“Who’s this ?”

“It’s me. Cotton.”

“What do you want, Cotton?”

“Did Ollie Weeks just call you?”

“Yes, Ollie Weeks just called me! And now you’re just calling me! Why don’t you two guys get married and stop bothering me in the middle of the goddamn night? I’m trying to sleep here. I’m trying to get some sleep here. I’m trying...”

“Steve?”

“What?”

“You want to go with him?”

“No, I don’t want to go with him.”

“I think we ought to go with him,” Hawes said.

“You like him so much, you go with him,” Carella said.

“I don’t like him at all, but I think maybe he’s right,” Hawes said. “I think maybe Diamondback Development has something to do with Roger Grimm’s fires, and I think we’re not going to get anything out of Worthy and Chase right now, but maybe we’ve got a chance to get something out of the third guy if we go up there in the middle of the night and surprise him. I think Ollie’s right.”

There was silence on the line.

“Steve?” Hawes said.

There was more silence.

“Steve?”

“Where do you want to meet?” Carella said wearily.

They met in an all-night diner on Ainsley Avenue at a quarter to five. They sat in a corner booth and quietly discussed their next move. What they were about to do was risky in that they did not have a court order to enter the premises occupied by one Oscar Hemmings at 1137 St. Sebastian, and if Hemmings so chose, he could tell them to run along and go play cops and robbers elsewhere. America was not yet a police state, and the Gestapo could not break down your door in the middle of the night and haul you out of bed. They could question Hemmings, true, because they were seeking information about a crime of which they had knowledge, but they couldn’t question him unless he agreed to being questioned. If he refused, they could tell him they’d be back with a subpoena and he could answer questions before a grand jury, the choice was his, and that might scare him into cooperating. But they didn’t want to go that route with Hemmings, and so they concocted a ruse in the diner, and they hoped the ruse would work. If he bought their story, he might talk to them and reveal something important. If he did not buy it, he was within his rights to slam the door in their faces.