Abnormal Occurrences (8 page)

“And maybe not,” I said. I didn’t want to encourage Fogarty in his sense of drama, which is always likely to turn maudlin.

“Say, Blackie,” he said into the mouthpiece, while winking significantly at me, “do you know this for a fact? ...Hey, no offense, man. It was simply a question... Yes... sure... no... well...” He began violently writing in the notebook before him.

“Gimme,” I said, with outstretched hand.

Fogarty slammed the phone down, tore the page from his book, and shoved it at me.

I ripped the paper from his hand and read silently, “Blonde at First and Seventy-second.”

“It might not be much,” Fogarty said, “but it’s a start.”

I sighed. “I know you’re just trying to help, Fogarty, but there must be thousands of blondes on the sidewalk at any given time in this town. Why would this one know anything about a dog that operated an answering service?”

He began to pout. Fogarty can sometimes be oversensitive.

“Okay, what do I have to lose?” I said, with more cockiness than I felt, and I got up, put my belt on a tighter notch, and headed uptown.

I work in an unmarked car that has seen better days, but it’s an effective cover. I expected the trip to be completely futile, but wonder of wonders, when I reached the designated corner the blonde was still there. I must say she looked too garish to be a streetwalker; it occurred to me she might well be a decoy cop, a male officer padded in the right places and dressed in women’s clothes, with a purpose to attract a robbery or rape attempt.

I left the car and sidled near her/him, displayed my shield in a cupped hand, and said, “DiFalco, Animal Crimes.”

“Get lost,” said the blonde, “and if you don’t, I’ll call a cop.”

“What do you think
I
am?”

“Some creep with a fake badge to shake people down with.”

“Take a look at my photo ID.” I put it under her button nose, and she squinted at it.

“Okay,” she said stoically. “So you expect a freebie.”

“You wouldn’t know of a dog who operates an answering service?”

“What if I do?” She reared back and put her hand on her hip.

“Don’t get cute with me, baby. There’s a loitering law in this town.”

“I might know of such a party,” said she. “You want to sign up for this service, is that it?”

“I’ll say this, Blondie, you’ve got as much chutzpah as anyone I ever met.”

“Listen, you got to survive.”

I gave her a bill that was tightly rolled into a cylinder the size of a cigarette. “Pick your teeth on that,” I said, hoping to give the impression it was a larger denomination than the fiver it was.

“Okay, buster,” said she. “You bought yourself some information. I don’t know the dog personally, but I’ve left a message or two with him—on his machine, that is.
He
never says a word.”

“It may be misrepresentation,” I said sternly. “What about you, miss: think he handles the business properly, or do you think subscribers might be getting scammed?”

She leered at me. “For God’s sake, can’t you find something better to do? There are vicious criminals all around town and you spend your time harassing businessdogs?”

Her attack drew blood. “All we’re trying to do is protect the public, young lady. It might be nice if we got some cooperation and not this incessant criticism.”

She turned contrite. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, officer. You can find that pooch in apartment fifteen twenty-six, in that building right over there, with the striped canopy.” She pointed down the block.

I lost no time in going there. I took the elevator to the 15th floor, found the door marked 1526, backed up and prepared to run at it with the battering ram of my shoulder but prudently changed my mind and instead tried the knob, which turned easily. An unlocked door in Manhattan? I didn’t like the bravado it implied, but I went on in anyhow.

I found myself in the typical entrance hall of a contemporary apartment. A mirror hung on one wall and underneath it stood a little table on which a week’s junk mail had accumulated. I drew my service weapon and stealthily approached the closed door at the end of a characterless hallway, passing on my right a living room full of what looked like Ikea furniture arranged around a bright-blue rug in an Oriental figure. It smacked of a dog’s taste.

I put my ear against the door. Not a sound came from within. I turned the knob and hurled myself into the room.

There he was: a white fox terrier with one black patch across his face and another as back saddle. His beady eyes flickered negligently over me for a second, and then he turned back to his work.

The animal wore a headset. The left earphone was slightly askew, but the other was well seated, a pointed ear rising above it. A recording device sat on the desk before him. Even as I watched, the phone rang, the machine kicked in, and the dog barked sharply into the little mike that a U-shaped wire brought alongside but not quite to the end of his pointed snout.

I had to admit that this quick inspection found nothing that was not kosher. What could I do if I couldn’t name any obvious violations?

“Okay, bud,” I told the animal, “you might look clean as a whistle right now, but just remember we got our eye on you. We get any more complaints and—” Had I not gotten a bright idea at that point, this character might have escaped being brought to justice for years.

On an impulse, more curiosity than suspicion, I decided to listen to the kind of messages people left with the dog. I moved him aside to get access to the machine and hit the playback button. It wasn’t long before I went for the two pair of pawcuffs looped over my belt in the small of my back. These manacles permit a prisoner to walk slowly, at a mincing gait, but of course not to run.

I took the fox terrier downtown and booked him on a charge of procuring. So why did Blondie finger him? Here’s my theory: either she had switched to a rival pimp or, as I first suspected, she was working undercover for another law-enforcement agency and wanted to get rid of me before she was compromised. I suppose it doesn’t matter.

As for the dog, he was subsequently sentenced to six months in the animal correctional facility in the borough of Richmond, the other name only bureaucrats use for Staten Island. On appeal, that was reduced to three months of community service, with him wearing an electronic monitoring bracelet on his left rear foot. A slap on the paw! Don’t kid yourself, by now that pooch is back at work. But I have no regrets about doing my job. And I owe one to Fogarty.

S
OME CITIZENS CONFUSE US
with the ASPCA or a veterinary service, or even with the Department of Sanitation. Fogarty shows a short fuse to people who call complaining about horse droppings in their block. “Put ’em in your window boxes!” he shouts, and hurls the phone down.

We also get complaints about dog bites, bee stings, and anything connected with pigeons. And of course if somebody’s pet alligator is missing, it is routine for us to get the squeal.

But as it happens none of these things are our affair.

“Then just what
is
it that you do?” peevishly inquired the old lady to whom I had just tried to explain that we could not look for her missing parakeet—unless, of course, there was good reason to believe it had broken the law.

“You see, ma’am,” I said, “a lot of folks are reluctant to admit that crimes committed by animals are on the rise, while human crime rates are falling, and our squad is first to take any budget cuts. But the problem isn’t likely to go away by itself.”

The old lady blurted an obscene remark and hung up violently. Across the desk, Fogarty smirked in sympathy.

He moaned, “Oh, if they only understood!”

“That’s asking for the moon, Fogarty,” I barked. “Meanwhile we can’t lollygag around here; there’s work to be done.” I stood up, propelling my swivel chair backward with a thrust of my calves, went downstairs, and hit the street.

Prevention is, or should be, part of our job, and I try to get out there where it’s happening before it happens. By golly, I had hardly gone three blocks when I spotted him, between the cleaner’s and the deli, in the doorway of electronics shop that had just opened under a going-out-of-business banner: a big French poodle, recently clipped by the look of him, and wearing a trench coat with the belt tied, not buckled. I admit I have a bias against any animal who affects that style, even if he doesn’t accompany it with the usual wide-brimmed fedora.

I felt certain it was only a matter of moments before he made his move, and sure enough, a nice-looking, well-dressed woman, say in her early forties, came out of the cleaner’s, glanced at the dog for an instant, and then quickly averted her face. Frenchy had whipped open his coat, and you guessed it: he wasn’t wearing anything underneath.

I closed in on him, but the wily devil saw me coming, and his legs proved a lot more nimble than mine. Suffice it to say he was gone before I reached his doorway. But I’ll know him when I see him next time.

Well, a day that had started off so briskly then settled down to three-four hours of inconsequence. I left a lot of shoe leather on city sidewalks. I ate a frank, hold the sauerkraut, coffee with everything. The acid in the last-named got to me, or maybe the milk was sour, and I went into a discount drugstore to look for relief. Having to make a choice among the various antacids made my indigestion worse. While I was studying the shelves, along came a big husky pelican, who apparently suffered from the same complaint as mine, for he too began to examine the medications for heartburn.

But from that point on, our styles showed a wide divergence. While I continued to deliberate, the bird opened his deep-pouched beak and began to fill it with an example of each pill or potion offered for sale. These products are far from inexpensive; he was obviously a well-to-do fowl. I’ll admit to feeling some bitterness. I have to watch my pennies, while some damned bird can waddle in and buy anything he wants!

I had enough of this and started to leave. But he stepped back, as if to get a wider perspective on the shelves, and in an effort to avoid running into him, I swerved and, losing my balance, took a tumble. I’ll say this for him: he was decent enough about offering to help me up. He extended a wing tip, but I declined with thanks and, thoroughly embarrassed by then, got out of that store as quickly as I could.

Scarcely had I reached the next corner when behind me I heard that cry which, veteran though I am, never fails to thrill me to the core. I think that, underneath it all, my principal motive for originally joining the force might well have been to hear a voice, seething with fear and outrage, cry, “Help, police!”

I ran back to the store. A pudgy man, wearing a smiley-face button that probably marked him as manager, was pointing into the sky.

I looked up. A pelican was flying heavily up the side of a nearby office building. There was some question as to whether or not he could clear its roof, though the structure was a modest one of only a dozen floors.

“They’re not the most graceful of birds,” I said. “Furthermore, if he’s the one I think he is, he’s weighed down by a beakful of Tums, Maalox, and Pepto-Bismol bottles.”

“None of them paid for,” said the stout man. “He’s a shoplifter. And where are the cops when you need them?”

“Say no more,” I said. “Sergeant Vinnie DiFalco, Animal Crime Squad, at your service.”

“I’d like some ID.”

I considered this an insulting demand, but when I went for my shield I couldn’t find it! That pelican was also a pickpocket! But apparently he was not a violent criminal, for my weapon was still holstered at the left side of my belt.

I drew it now and pointed it up at the bird, who was really laboring with his wings in an all-out effort to gain the roof and get out of sight. I couldn’t help feeling a certain sympathy for him, but there’s no room for sentimentality in my job. I squinted, took careful aim, and squeezed the trigger. I missed him altogether and everything else as well. I’ve always wondered where such bullets end up—maybe as the work of a mysterious sniper in Queens.

Before the week was out the pelican had hit ten more stores in various parts of town, and the city was on the verge of mass hysteria. The mayor was burned in effigy, the police commissioner resigned in disgrace, and had I not been the only officer who could recognize the wanted bird, I wouldn’t have kept my own job.

The creature had refined his technique. He would march into any retail establishment that took his fancy, that shield of mine dangling from his beak, and be taken everywhere as a legitimate cop. But, like any human, the bird had a weakness. It wasn’t booze, broads, the ponies, or dope. By all counts, this pelican was an absolute abstainer when it came to any of the usual vices. He didn’t even smoke. But the son of a gun had a sweet tooth he simply could not control. If he robbed any store that had a candy counter, you could be sure in making his exit he would always spare a moment to stop and help himself to a couple of pounds of chocolates with that great big scoop of a beak.

“He’s got a childish streak, Vin,” said Fogarty.

“Okay,” I said, “but what gets me is how he can get away with posing as a police officer. When’s a thing with feathers and a beak like that a sergeant of detectives? Do these people believe everything they read on a badge?”

“Heck, Vinnie,” said Fogarty, “I can’t fault you in your low opinion of the average civilian’s intelligence, but we can’t use that as an excuse to let this bird keep making a fool of us. He ain’t supernatural, is he? Listen, why can’t we dose all the candies in the parts of town that he usually hits with knockout drops? Then when he—”

“Fogarty, Fogarty,” I chided. “What about all the innocent folks who’ll also be eating the stuff, the poor kids?”

“A harmless drug, Vin!” he insisted. “Sleeping-pill formula, you know? So they nap a little. What’s the damage?”

“I won’t dignify that with a detailed answer,” said I. “You can figure it out. But the basic idea’s not all bad...” I was thinking, but at the moment all I could come up with was, “A bird has no teeth, you know.”