Ed McBain - Ten Plus One

The enemy, like all good enemies everywhere, vanished from sight.

There were no subsequent killings that week, and it seemed indeed as though detectives from all over the city had been mobilized to combat a ghost. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday passed uneventfully. The cruelest month was gone, taking part of May with it, and the murderer seemed to have disappeared.

On Sunday, May 6, two detectives from the 12th Precinct, near the Calm’s Point Bridge downtown, decided it would be a good idea to look up Frankie Pierce. Carella had mentioned the name casually to them, as that of an ex-con who had once been a client of Randolph Norden. He had also mentioned that, in view of later developments, it seemed to him Pierce was clean, and not worth picking up. But the two detectives from the 12th were detectives/1st grade, and Carella was only a detective/2nd grade, and they didn’t much like being told how to investigate a homicide by someone whom they outranked, even if the squeal happened to be Carella’s. Besides, the two detectives from the 12th were bulls.

One was named Masterson, and the other was named Brock. The two had been working together as a pair for a long time, and they had a long series of arrests and convictions to their credit, but they were nonetheless bulls. On that first Sunday in May, with the carnelian cherry blossoms bursting in the park, and a mild breeze blowing in off the River Dix from the south, Masterson and Brock got a little restless in the stuffy-squadroom of the 12th, and decided they could use a little fresh air. And then, since they were simply cruising around the streets in the vicinity of the Calm’s Point Bridge, they decided to look up Frankie Pierce, who lived at 371 Horton in the bridge’s shadow.

Frankie Pierce had no idea he was about to be visited by detectives, or by detectives who were bulls. He was in constant touch with his parole officer, and he knew he had done nothing to break parole. He was, in fact, working at a garage as a mechanic and he had every intention of going straight, like they say in the movies. His employer was a fair-minded man who knew Frankie was on parole, but who felt that a man deserves a chance at rehabilitation. Frankie was a good worker and a hard worker. His employer was satisfied with him and had given him a raise only the month before.

But Frankie made a couple of mistakes on that first Sunday in May when the bulls named Masterson and Brock visited him. The first mistake he made was in assuming the two detectives were only detectives and not bulls. The second mistake he made was in believing that people are understanding.

He had a date that afternoon with a girl who was the cashier in a restaurant near the garage. He had told the girl he was an ex-con because he wanted to get things straight with her from the start. The girl had looked him over very carefully and then said, “What do I care what you used to be?” and that was that. He was going to take her over to the park, where they would go rowing for a while, and then have dinner at the outdoor restaurant, and then maybe walk up the Stem and take in a movie later. He was standing before the mirror putting on his tie when the knock sounded on his door.

“Who is it?” he asked.

“Police. Open up, Frankie.”

A puzzled look crossed his face. He looked at himself in the mirror, as though expecting an answer from his own image, then shrugged and walked to the door.

Masterson and Brock stood in the hallway. They were both well over six feet tall, each weighing about 200 pounds, both wearing slacks and short-sleeved sports shirts that showed the bulge of their chest and arm muscles. Frankie, standing in front of them in the open door, looked very small, even though he was five feet ten inches tall and weighed 165 pounds.

“Frankie Pierce?” Masterson asked.

“That’s right,” he answered.

“Get your hat, Frankie,” Masterson said.

“What’s the matter?”

“We want to talk to you.”

“What about?”

“Get your hat.”

“I don’t wear a hat. What’s the matter?”

“We want to ask you a few questions, Frankie.”

“Well…well, why don’t you ask them then?”

“You gonna be a wise guy?” Brock asked suddenly. It was the first time he had spoken, and the effect of his words was chilling. He had slate-gray eyes and a thick nose, and a mouth drawn across his face with a draftsman’s pen, tight and hard, and barely moving when he spoke.

“No, look,” Frankie said. “I don’t mind answering some questions. It’s just I have a date, that’s all.”

“You want to finish tying your tie, Frankie?” Masterson asked. “Or do you want to come along the way you are?”

“Well…well, I’d like to tie my tie and…you know, I want to polish my shoes and…” He hesitated. “I told you, I have a date.”

“Yeah, you told us. Go tie your tie.”

“Is this gonna take long?”

“That depends on you, don’t it, Frankie?”

“What do you mean?”

“Tie your tie.”

He went to the mirror and finished the Windsor knot he had started. He was annoyed when he noticed his hands were trembling. He looked in the mirror at the two detectives who waited for him just inside the door, wondering if they had noticed, too, that his hands were trembling.

“You want to shake a leg, Frankie?” Masterson said.

“Sure, be right with you,” Frankie said pleasantly. “I wish you guys would tell me what this is all about.”

“You’ll find out, Frankie.”

“I mean, if you think I broke parole or something, you can give my parole officer a call, his name’s McLaughlin, he can tell you…”

“We don’t have to give nobody a call,” Brock said in that same chilling voice.

“Well…well, okay, let me just put on my jacket.”

He put on his jacket, and then walked to the door, and followed the detectives out, and locked the door behind him. There were a lot of people on the front stoop of the building and hanging around the candy store, and he was embarrassed because he knew everybody in the neighborhood could smell a cop from away the hell across the street, and he didn’t want anybody to think he was in trouble again. He kept telling himself all the way crosstown to the station house that he wasn’t in trouble, this was probably some kind of routine pickup, somebody done something, so they were naturally rounding up all the ex-cons in the neighborhood, something like that. It would just be a matter of explaining to them, of making them understand he was going straight, had a good job with a good salary, wasn’t even seeing any of the guys he used to run with before he got busted.

The two detectives said hello to the desk sergeant on their way into the building, and then Brock said in his chilling voice, “No calls, Mike,” and they walked him to the back of the building where the detective squadroom was, and then into the squadroom itself, and then into a small room with the word INTERROGATION lettered on the frosted glass door. Brock closed the door, took a key out of his pocket, locked the door, and put the key in his pocket.

“Sit down, Frankie,” Masterson said.

Frankie sat. He had heard what Brock said to the desk sergeant, and he had seen Brock lock the door and put the key in his pocket, and he was beginning to think that maybe something very serious had been done, and he wanted no part of it, whatever the hell it was. At the same time, he knew he was an ex-con, and he knew that it was only natural for them to go looking up a guy with a record if something was done, but once he explained, once they understood he was straight now…

“How long you been out, Frankie?” Masterson asked.

“Since November fifteenth.”