Mitchell Smith (3 page)

Far down the hall behind them, in the black rolling chimney of the stairwell, Ellie, strangling-Hector Nunos clutched, fenced firmly in her arms-fell rolling down the stairs to that landing, made the turn, tripped, and fell down the stairs again, curled to guard the child.

Edward McGinnis, small, plump, fresh-faced as a boy, was a stringer-photographer for the News. He’d run across the street to get a picture of the ambulance loading the dead fireman-He made that, covered it with a second ‘ducked out of the way of a fireman who rushed him, redfaced, yelling-turned, and saw the Pulitzer Prize come stumbling out of smoke, bleeding, onto the stoop of the building. He got the shot.

It was, as often, a time of some crisis for the Department. A gambling operation in the Bronx had been shown to have continued in very profitable operation with the forbearance of numbers of patrolmen, sergeants, and the officers of two precincts.

This was a disaster involving indictments and trials to follow-to the fury of the Mayor, facing reelection in less than a year. -A mayor who then might find it politic to request the resignation of one and the appointment of another Commissioner of NYPD. This public relations Titanic had occurred only two weeks before Ellie Klein appeared at the entrance to a burning building, cheek blackly bruised, blond hair (smoke smudged) floating loose about her shoulders, and bleeding hands clutching to her blue-flowered breast (where her bright badge hung) a weeping little child.

And so appeared on the front page of the Daily News, the third page of The New York Times, and, very briefly, in newspapers and on television across the country.

“An absolute godsend, sugar,” as Lieutenant Eastmangay as a jay, but tolerated for his quick wit as assistant to the assistant head of Departmental Public Affairs represented it to his chief, a civilian, a lady, and an ex-reporter. She agreed.

Ellie-made Queen of Metropolitan Hospital-was visited there, briefly, by both the Mayor and Commissioner, on separate visits. People took her picture with each man, Ellie being something of a picture herself, thanks to Lieutenant Eastman-her swollen cheek carefully powdered, her pate eyes lined and shadowed by the Lieutenant himself, her pretty hair down and fanned white-gold against the pillow. And a patrolman’s cap hung artfully off a chair-back beside her bed.

So, she tasted the odd wine of celebrity, a very small glass and quickly swallowed, but vintage nonetheless.

The attention, noise, and visitors-the hope, a humiliation still, that Nate Klein would at last be sorry, and might possibly come to the hospital one night, get some way past the nurses to lay his sleek and handsome head down on the bed sheet to weep and beg her pardon these events and imaginings excited and exhausted her, so that she found herself half dreaming in daytime, acting for every visitor the part they’d come to see.

She considered this foolishness one evening, flushed with shame-the Departmental surgeon had held her hospitalized for several extra days as photo opportunity (on orders and against his will, it should be said).

This had been reported to Ellie by the night nurse, an angelically naive young girl from Nebraska, perpetually agog at the doings in New York.

Ellie, while mulling over this embarrassment, found she had to get up and pee. There, in the bathroom’s cramped and dizzying white, she sat and found some comfort in the coolness of the toilet seat.

The side of her face still hurt her; the cuts on her hands and knees hardly hurt at all. “Expect some sinus trouble later on, with this,” a specialist had told her, pressing with his cold and furry hands across her cheek as she winced away.

Now, in the bathroom, relaxing, sorting out, discarding the later fuss, she considered the saving of the child. She thought she had done that pretty well, and might do as well again, if she had to. She thought that for once she had not made a fool of herself.

On release from the hospital, Ellie received a promotion to detective third-grade, a medal from the Mayor-awarded at Gracie Mansion-a letter from the Governor that he had signed himself, and, after some delay, an appointment to the Commissioner’s Squad. -This last she assumed, as did a few other innocents on the Force, to be a signal honor.

This was not to say the Commissioner’s Squad was not composed of competent police officers, eleven detectives in all. It was. And the Squad was effective in its chores: minor bodyguarding of minor VIP’s, errand-running for the Chief of the Department’s office, following up a few long-term investigations the regular divisional squads had filed as unproductive-and, their most demanding duty, keeping a rather feeble surveilling eye on Internal Affairs, monitoring the activities of these unpopular shooflies in various divisions, to keep the cop-watchers aware that they, also, were watched.

To compensate for these less than demanding (or rewarding) duties, the Squad found recompense in the close company of the great-the Department’s administrative Offices only one flight up-and in an unusually gentle work schedule (mimicking the brass they served) consisting of regular day shifts, one-or two-man night watches, and extraordinary demands infrequent.

It was all legitimate police work, and not to be despised, but it wasn’t what Ellie had expected. The Squad handled no big cases, no difficult cases-not, at least, in a fashion likely to cross the lines of regular investigative or enforcement units. It was gradually borne upon her, as it had in their times been borne upon all the more veteran members of the Squad, that they were held in amused contempt by many of those in the Department that were

“wised up”-a term adopted from organized crime. The Commissioner’s Squad was often a high-class dump, position on it a kick upstairs to nowhere. Most members had, after some usually public feat, been offered to the precinct commands as prize packages-and been turned down for this reason and that, occasionally from sheer superstition, as was the case with Graham, who’d had two partners killed through no fault at all of his own. Usually, though, the reason was a better one than that.

Ellie’s package had circulated the districts, and been shipwrecked on two rocks: her failure to come effectively to the aid of Detective Drew and his partner four years before-and the bitter complaint addressed to the Department (and included in her file by a sullen lady clerk at Headquarters) from the office of the Manhattan Commander of the New York City Fire Department. It was the first rock, however, that really wrecked her ship; the fireman’s complaint was regarded as simple sour grapes.

Doing the Fire Department’s job better than it did was well and good, but of no great account to these grim officers, captains and commanders.

However, failing for whatever reason to succor an officer in distress-to fail, as a civilian might put it, to aid a cop in danger-was of the greatest possible account. It was unforgivable, however minor, however long ago. They refused to take her.

“Ouch,” the Chief of the Department said, with unusual levity, as his assistant, a cool captain with a law degree and a masters in criminology as well, pointed to the comments column referring to that incident in her file. This assistant, named Anderson, was a lean, handsome man and recently divorced. In a year or so, Anderson would astonish Ellie, having called her up to his office to discuss a report she’d written on another report already on file concerning corruption at a construction site on Thirty-second Street. Internal Affairs had discovered a police sergeant involved in insurance fraud at that site, helping to steal, peddle, and set up recovery payoffs on heavy equipment. -During this meeting, Anderson will suddenly get up from behind his desk, come around to sit on its edge, lean forward to touch her face with his hand, her injured cheek, and ask if it still hurt her. Then, stroking her there gently with his fingertips, say, “You’re a sad and complicated girl, aren’t you?”

Ellie was to sit there for a moment, under the Captain’s hand-then turn her head aside, get up, her clipboard held against her breast, and leave the office. In the ladies’ room-, afterward, she would smoke a cigarette on of her last, in fact; she would by then almost have stopped smoking-and look into the mirror, thinking it odd he had called her a girl. In the mirror, water-spotted, cracked at a corner, she would see a tall, thin, tired woman. Tired. Pale, bony blond. Going dry.

Anderson now indicated the distressing entry, the comments column.

“—Want me to pull that out of there … ?” offering to contravene Departmental regulations against such interference. Delgado sighed and shook his massive head. He, with a sensitive and more experienced nose, scented that where one such fault in the’ heroine stood revealed and commented on, more were likely to exist, or in future to occur.

The Captain was quick. “Clevenger is out, sir,” referring to a woman detective promoted suddenly years before out of a daring drug-buy setup.

A bank record’s check shortly thereafter had revealed to the Treasury people, working in cooperation, that Detective second grade Clevenger, a short, stocky black woman with a high 10 (a darling of the black brass), had recently deposited forty-seven thousand dollars in an account at Marine Midland under the name Henrietta Christopher.

Followed a bad day at the U.S. Attorney’s office, where the formidable Detective Clevenger was frightened to tears-and followed that, a serious fuss at Headquarters, with the result that the cash was donated to the Treasury’s Ongoing Operations Fund, and Detective Clevenger, chastened and hastened away, was appointed to the Commissioner’s Squad.

This clever woman was now dying of leukemia in Memorial Hospital.

“What about putting Klein in?” The Captain.

“Perhaps,” the Chief said, who, a deeply conservative officer, would have preferred to have somewhat less flawed subordinates than custom allowed him. He was tired of cracked eggs-even for shit work. “We’ll see,” he said, and his captain let it lie.

But the Commissioner, when Chief Delgado mentioned this most minor matter to him very much in passing they were going to different restaurants for lunch-said, “-Why not?”

Six or seven hundred a month maintenance, Ellie thought, since it was owned…. The apartment-decorated very nicely in greens and dark golds, a handy one-bedroom, one-bath, large living room–smelled like the Times Square Nathan’s, the damp air rich with the odor of cooking frankfurters … and some spoilage.

The patrolman was balding young, and sweating along his brow. -Perhaps because of the smell. Or, he might have the whore’s book jammed into a back trouser pocket, along with his notebook, pens, and sap.

“The super let you in … ?”

“Nah … it was open. The colored lady was screaming in the hall.” He took out a crumpled ball of blue bandanna, shook it open, and wiped his brow. He was going bald fast; his hair was thinning even at the sides.

“When you went in there, the water was still on …?”

“Oh, yeah-still going’.”

“Hot?”

“What do ya mean?”

“Was it running very hot, or just warm, when you turned it off?”

“Oh-it was hot. Plenty hot. -Got a lot of hot water in this buildin’.”

He tried a smile.

Murmurs from the bathroom, a muffled cheer. -There, Greenstein had discovered another banana, this in the corpse’s anus, and removed it. In the echo of this cheer, two of the M.E.“s men came into the apartment pushing a rattling gurney, a green plastic bag folded neatly on its narrow sheet. A photographer left the bathroom, reloading, and stood aside for the cart.

“You turned it off . ?”

“Yeah, right then.” The patrolman took a deep breath.

“Yeah, right then.” The patrolman took a deep breath and regretted it.

Ellie saw he’d be more comfortable in the hall. The detectives were leaving the bathroom, too, making room for the coroner’s men. Nardone started to come over to her, but Ellie glanced him away”Where was her book?” she said.

“What book?”

“Don’t give me that shit,” Ellie said. “This whore’s book-that’s what book. Where’d you find it?”

“I didn’t. I didn’t see any book.”

Had sure as hell looked, though, seeking that annuity in a drawer, a class whore’s date book. “If you don’t tell me the truth right now “, Ellie said, “-I’ll bust your balls for you, Officer. Now, hand over that fucking book and take a commendation for good response safeguarding evidence.”

“I didn’t.” Sullen face.

Years before, Ellie would have let it go at that. -She turned to beckon Nardone, and when he came over, said, “He picked up her book; we’re going to have to take him in.

ItHey-hey, c’mon!” Staring wideeyed at Nardone, who looked sleepy.

,-That’s fuckin’ bullshit!” Nardone took the patrolman by the arm and tugged him toward I” the door. “Hey-c’Union! You can fuckin’ search me. a Nardone felt growing resistance in the arm he held, telltale sign.

“So you say,” Nardone said, and let him go. n

“I didn’t find any damn book,” the balding patrolman said, rubbing his arm where Nardone had gripped it.

“Where’d you look?” Ellie said.

“All over the fuckin’ place,” the patrolman said, a the three of them laughed.

There was a soft, farting sound from the bathroom.

“Can I go?” Pearls of sweat stood on the patrolman’s brow.

“Go ask Keneally,” Nardone said, and the patrolman went to do it The coroner’s men, with Greenstein following carrying two small plastic bags, rolled the loaded gurney out of the bathroom into the living room, and out the door. Sally Gaither, strapped into her bag, moved a little with the motion of the cart.

Keneally, potbellied, ginger-haired, his face a flushed drinker’s mottle, strolled from the bathroom to them, gave Ellie a casual nod, and said to Nardone, “Where’s the book?-Maxfield wants it.”

“Well, he can’t have it, Kenny,” Nardone said.

“We haven’t turned the apartment yet,” Ellie said.

“But any book goes downtown-not to Maxfield.”

“You tell him then, sugar-lips,” Keneally said, and walked away.

Sally Gaither had been a very neat whore. The doorman, Driscoll, had confided as much to the District Homicide team when Maxfield, dapper in a gray sharkskin summer suit, had led his people in. Driscoll had grinned and winked to let them in on this and that-an odd sight, since he was old enough to be any of their grandfathers.