Эд Макбейн - Jigsaw

“Okay, let’s say we shake down Ehrbach’s place.”

“Yes, and you find the third piece of that picture.”

“Assuming we do, then what?”

“Then you go after Weinberg.”

“How? What’s our legal excuse there, Krutch?”

“You don’t have one. You couldn’t approach him as fuzz, anyway. He’s been in trouble before. He’s not likely to cooperate with The Law.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Assault. He beat a woman half to death with his fists. He’s enormous, must weigh at least two hundred and fifty pounds. He could break either one of you in half with just a dirty look, believe me.” Krutch paused. “What do you say?”

“It might be worth our time,” Carella said.

“We’ll have to talk it over with the lieutenant.”

“Yeah, you talk it over with him. I think he might understand how nice it would be to recover that bank loot.” Krutch smiled again. “Meanwhile, I’ll leave the list and the picture with you.”

“Won’t you need them?”

“I’ve got copies,” Krutch said.

“How come somebody so smart needs our help?” Carella asked.

“That smart I ain’t,” Krutch said. He took a card from his wallet and placed it on the desk. “That’s my home number,” he said. “Don’t try to reach me at Trans-American. Let me know what you decide.”

“We will indeed,” Carella said.

“Thank you,” Krutch said. He offered his hand to Brown. “Detective Brown?” He retrieved his hand, shook hands next with Carella. “Detective Carella?” Then he smiled his dazzling smile and went out of the squadroom.

“What do you think?” Brown said.

“I don’t know. What do you think?” Carella said.

“I don’t know. Let’s see what the lieutenant thinks.”

Lieutenant Byrnes looked at the list of names, and then turned his attention to the two pieces of the photograph:

“Don’t even look like they belong together,” he muttered.

They had filled him in on Krutch’s story, and he had listened intently, head cocked slightly to one side, blue eyes shifting from Carella’s face to Brown’s as they alternately picked up threads of the narrative. He was a thickset man, Byrnes, with heavy hands, the backs of which were sprinkled with liver spots. His hair was going white, and he had a bald patch barely beginning to show at the back of his head. But there was a sense of contained power about him, the certain knowledge that he had broken many a hood’s nose before being promoted to his present desk job. Impatiently, he looked at the photograph segments again, turning each one on his desktop, trying to fit them together, and then giving up the job.

“Guy comes in here with a story,” Byrnes said, “what does he expect us to do? Drop everything and go on a goddamn treasure hunt?”

“Well,” Carella said, “there’s the possibility he’s right.”

“A pretty slim possibility, if you ask me. Where’d you say he got this story? From an old lady who hardly speaks English, right?”

“That’s right.”

“But she told him in Italian,” Brown said. “She told him the picture shows where il tresoro is buried.”

“Il tesoro,” Carella corrected.

“Did she say that? Buried?”

“No. I don’t know. Hidden, I think she said. What’d she say, Steve?”

“Just that the picture shows where the treasure is, I think. That’s all.”

“She didn’t say buried, huh?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I just hate to put a man on this, and then...” Byrnes shook his head. “It’s not as if we’ve got nothing else to do around here, you know.”

The detectives were silent.

“Let’s say we search Ehrbach’s place,” Byrnes said. “And let’s say we do find a third piece of this picture, then what?”

“Then Krutch’s story begins to sound a little better,” Carella said.

“Yes, but where do we go from there?” Byrnes asked. “I’m willing to put you on it... okay, we don’t find anything, we’ve only wasted a day. But suppose we do find something, then what? This fellow... what’s his name?” Byrnes consulted the list again. “Weinberg. Albert Weinberg. He’s the next logical step. But Krutch says the man’s got an assault record, which means he can smell The Law six blocks away. Whoever we send after him would have to use a cover, and I’d need a second man for a contact and drop. That’s two men out of action, maybe on a wild-goose chase.” He shook his head again. “I don’t know.” He looked down at the photograph segments and then up at Carella. “What’s your caseload like, Steve?”

“I’ve got that dry-cleaning store holdup, and the muggings over on Ainsley... six in the past two weeks, same m.o. I’ve also got a lead I want to run down on the pusher who’s been working the junior high school on Seventeenth. And there’re two cases coming to trial this month. I have to be in court on Tuesday, matter of fact.”

“What about you, Artie?”

“I forgot to mention...” Carella said.

“Yeah?”

“Couple of burglaries over in Smoke Rise. We’ve been getting a lot of static on those because the sister of a municipal judge lives in the neighborhood.”

“Yeah, so let Hizzoner go find the burglar,” Byrnes said dryly. “Artie?”

“A hit-and-run, a jewelry store holdup, and a knifing. I’m supposed to be in court tomorrow on the knifing. It’ll be a quick trial — the guy stabbed his wife when he found her in bed with another man.”

“You want to take a crack at this Weinberg character? Assuming we find anything in Ehrbach’s apartment?”

“Sure,” Brown said.

“Does Weinberg live in the precinct? Would he be likely to spot you as a cop?”

“I don’t know.”

“Check him out with the IB, see if they’ve got an address for him.”

“Right.”

“You’d better find out where he’s operated, too, which cities, and pick your cover accordingly. Don’t make it anything too big, Artie, don’t say you’re a mob gun from Chicago or anything like that. Be too simple for him to check if he’s got any connections at all. Make it a numbers runner, a small-time pusher, something unimportant. You stumbled on your piece of the picture, you think Weinberg’s got another piece, and you want to team up with him. Keep it as simple as that.”

“Right.”

“Steve, you’ll have to be the outside man at the skunk works.”

“Fine.”

“Arrange a drop, and keep your contacts as few as possible. This guy Weinberg doesn’t sound like a customer to fool around with. And let’s not go overboard on this thing, okay? Let’s handle it in easy stages. If we don’t turn up anything at Ehrbach’s place, that’s it, back to the salt mines. If we hit pay dirt, we move on to Weinberg, stay with him a day or two. If it looks like he’s got a piece of the picture, we stick with him. Otherwise, we thank Krutch for his information and we drop the whole damn thing.” He looked up at the two men. “Anything else?”

“Just one thing,” Carella said. “The IB called a few minutes ago and verified everything Krutch said about the two dead men.”

“So?”

“So maybe he’s right about what we’ll find in Ehrbach’s apartment, too.”

“Maybe,” Byrnes said.

Judging from Eugene Edward Ehrbach’s apartment, the man had been a highly successful burglar. One could, of course, argue that anyone who had already taken two falls for burglary could not, by any stretch of the imagination, be considered a successful burglar. But the fact remained that Ehrbach lived in a luxury apartment close to Silvermine Oval; neither of the detectives who shook down the place could have afforded anything even remotely similar to it on their salaries.