Ed McBain - Ax

“Mm, maybe,” Danny said.

“In which case, an ax murder isn’t so very far out, is it?”

“An ax murder is always very far out,” Danny said. “You know any pro who’ll use an ax? Impossible. You’re dealing with amateur night, Steve. That’s why I’m telling you not to lean so heavy on the crap game. I mean, even if the game was full of the worst hoods ever walked this city, who do you know’s gonna use an ax on a guy?”

Carella looked suddenly troubled.

“What’d I do?” Danny asked. “Screw it up for you?”

“No, no. But I’ll tell you what I don’t like about this crap game, Danny. It’s against the law. That makes everybody in it a lawbreaker. And if they’ve all broken the law already...”

“Aw, come on, Steve,” Danny said. “Gambling’s a misdemeanor.”

“Even so.”

“So a dice player’s gonna suddenly pick up an ax? And brain somebody with it? Aw, come on, Steve.”

“You don’t buy it?” Carella asked.

Danny was quiet for a long time. Then he shrugged and said, “Old Chinese saying: ‘Play with dice like play with blonde. Man never get out what he put in.’ ”

Carella smiled.

“So who knows?” Danny continued. “Maybe there was a heavy loser in the game, and maybe he got himself an ax someplace…”

“In the shed behind the building,” Carella said.

“Sure, and he decided Lasser was the one to blame for his bad luck. Pow, goodbye janitor.” Danny shrugged again. “It could be. Guys go crazy over dice, the same like with a broad. But I don’t figure it for a pro. A pro puts a bullet in the old guy’s head, plain and simple. Or a shaft in his back. But an ax? I mean, Jesus, that’s pretty disgusting, ain’t it? An ax?”

“Will you listen around?” Carella asked.

“I’ll get back,” Danny said. He paused. “I’m short, you know.”

“So am I,” Carella said.

“Yeah, but I live dangerously.”

“I had to put in a new muffler,” Carella said.

“Huh?”

“On one of the squad sedans.”

“So? You had to pay for that?”

“Petty Cash had to pay for that.”

“Where does this ‘Petty Cash’ come from, anyway?” Danny asked. “Does the city honor your chits, or what?”

“We push dope on the side,” Carella answered.

“Listen, I’ll believe you,” Danny said.

“When will you call me?”

“As soon as I’ve got something. Listen, Steve, no kidding, I’m real short. I could use some…”

“Danny, if you come up with something, I’ll come up with something. I’m not stalling you. The cupboard is bare right now.”

“Boy oh boy,” Danny said. “Two bare cupboards in the middle of January. It’s enough to make you quit police work, ain’t it?” He grinned, glanced over his shoulder, shook hands with Carella briefly but firmly, and said, “I’ll give you a ring.”

Carella watched as he limped away. Then he put his gloved hands in his pockets and began walking the fifteen blocks back to where he had parked his car.

If you’re a cop, you know all about graft.

You know that if somebody is “taking,” it is usually the senior man on the beat who later splits with the other men who share the beat on a rotating basis. You know this because you also know there is nothing that can screw things up like a plenitude of cops with outstretched hands. When too many hands are reaching, the sucker may suddenly decide that he is really being taken but good, and one fine day the desk sergeant will receive a call from someone who will say, simply, “I want to talk to a detective.”

Sergeant Ralph Corey did not wish to talk to a detective.

This was Monday morning, and he was about to begin five consecutive tours on the 8:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M. shift, after which he would swing for fifty-six hours and then come back to work on Sunday at midnight to begin his next five hours on the graveyard shift, from midnight to 8:00 A.M. The shift after that would be from 4:00 P.M. to midnight, and then the rotation would come full circle and he would be back on the day shift for the next five tours.

A police department is a small army. Even in a big army, you don’t mess around with the sergeant. Corey was not only a sergeant and the senior man on his beat; he also happened to be the senior sergeant of all twelve sergeants in the precinct, with the exception of Dave Murchison. Murchison didn’t count, though, since he handled the switchboard and the muster desk and never walked a beat.

Sergeant Ralph Corey, then, was a VIP, a BMOC, a gonsuh mochuh, a wheel, and a guy around whom you watched your onions.

There was only one trouble.

Steve Carella outranked him.

Steve Carella was, in this small army that was the police force, in this section of the army that was the 87th Precinct, a detective/2nd grade—which is higher than a sergeant. It is two steps higher than a sergeant. Even if Carella had liked Corey, he would have outranked him. Since he didn’t like him, he outranked him in spades. Corey looked like a big, red-faced stereotype of a mean, lousy cop; but in Corey’s case, the stereotype was true. He was a mean cop and a lousy cop, and the only reason he was a sergeant was that he’d shot an escaping bank robber purely by sheer dumb luck back in 1947. His gun had gone off accidentally as he’d pulled it out of his holster—that’s how lucky Corey had been— and the bullet had taken the running thief in the left leg. So Corey had received a commendation and a promotion to sergeant and had damn near made detective/3rd to boot, but hadn’t.

Carella hadn’t liked him back in 1947, and he didn’t like him now, but he smiled as Corey entered the squadroom and then said, “Have a seat, Ralph. Cigarette?” and pushed his pack across the desk while Corey watched him and wondered what this big wop bastard wanted.

Carella wasn’t about to tell him; not just yet he wasn’t. Carella wanted to know how come Corey hadn’t mentioned anything about a crap game on his beat, especially since a man had been killed on Friday, and since the game had allegedly been running in the dead man’s basement, under the dead man’s aegis, for quite some time before he became a dead man. If Corey didn’t know about the game, Carella wanted to know how come he didn’t know about it? And if he did know about it, Carella wanted to know why it hadn’t been mentioned? But in the meantime, he was willing to sit and smile at Corey and smoke a pleasant cigarette with the man, just the way the cops did it on television.

“What’s up, Steve?” Corey asked.

“Well, I wanted your help on something,” Carella said.

Corey managed to suppress a sigh of relief and then smiled and took a deeper drag on his king-sized Chesterfield and said, “Happy to help in any way I can. What’s the problem?”

“A friend of mine is a little short of cash,” Carella said.

Corey, who had the cigarette in his mouth again and who was about to take another drag at it, stopped the action dead and quickly raised his eyes to meet Carella’s across the desk. Being a crooked cop himself, he recognized Carella’s gambit immediately. Carella’s “friend” who was a little short of cash was no one but Carella himself. And when a bull told you he was a little short of cash, he usually meant he wanted a cut of the pie or else he was going to start screaming to the captain about one violation or another.

“How short is your friend?” Corey asked, which meant, How much do you want in order to forget this whole matter?

“Very, very short,” Carella said gravely.

This was worse than Corey had expected. Carella seemed to be indicating that he wanted a bigger bite than any detective should normally expect. Detectives had their own little operations going and, like any good army, the officers didn’t muscle in on the enlisted men’s territory, and vice versa.