Ed Lacy - Lead With Your Left

“That's right,” this Al Wales put in, “all we carry is mortgages and nonnegotiable general bonds. Of course, assuming this was a robbery and that's what it looks like, whoever killed Ed might have thought he was carrying something worth taking. Must have been an amateur punk.”

“We didn't find any bonds on him,” Anderson said. “If they were worthless why did you need an armed messenger?” Stewart's eyebrows shot up. “Armed?” Anderson nodded. “He was packing a gun, never had a chance to use it. You didn't know he carried a gun?”

“I most certainly did not. The firm never asked or authorized any employee to carry a gun.” Stewart turned to Wales. “Did you know about the gun?”

Wales said, “The gun had nothing to do with the job. Most retired cops get a permit to carry a gun. You know that, Anderson. You say he never used his gun. Did it look like Ed was in a fight?”

“No. No bruises. One shot through the heart did it.” Anderson turned to Stewart. “Bond messengers have to use the service entrance?”

“No.”

“Owens was killed in an alley leading to the service door.”

“That don't make sense,” Wales said. “He never used any back doors. And Ed was a quick guy with his hands and his gun—when he was younger. Hard to believe he'd be taken without some kind of battle.”

“Well, there wasn't any, far as we can tell. Either Owens handed over the bonds like he was told, and was shot; or he was shot before he knew what it was all about. And all over bonds that weren't worth a thin dime—a real dumb killing,” Anderson said.

“Does sound like one of those jerky ones,” Wales added.

“But his pockets were torn,” I chimed in. “Means he was shot first and then searched fast. He never had a chance.”

Anderson told Stewart, “Give me a list of the bonds, I'd get them on the wire. And I need a phone, boys at the local precinct will want to talk to this McCarthy right now.”

“You can use the phone in my office,” Stewart said. “I'll have one of the girls type up several copies of the bonds' serial numbers, and all the other information at once.”

Anderson nodded and stood, pulling his pants out of his rear like a slob. At the door he told me, “Stay here and write up Wales.”

When they left Wales said, “We might as well sit down. You ever a fighter, young fellow?”

“Amateur. What makes you ask—see me in the ring?”

He shook his head and you wondered how his long scrawny neck bore the strain. “I haven't seen a fight since Louis was knocking them over. You got the right hands for a pug, wide, deep-set knuckles.”

“I did okay. Wanted to turn pro but my folks raised too much fuss. So I joined the force.”

Wales smiled, he had neat even teeth—and all of them store choppers. “Nothing in the world like being a young cop, the boss of your beat. Or maybe it's just there's nothing like being young. Get old and all you can do is read about things. I read and read. Why my eyes look shot. I don't need glasses, though and... damn, who's going to tell Jane about this?”

“Jane?”

“Ed's wife. They got a daughter working someplace in South America for an oil company. Had a boy who died when he was a kid. This will be rough on Jane.”

I got out my notebook, wrote down Wales' full name, home address, last precinct squad he worked on, the Owens' home address. “How long you been working here, Mr. Wales?”

“About three years. Ed needed the dough but I'm all alone. I work to keep busy. My wife passed away back in '49, right after I retired from the force. When Ed started working here he got me on. Five hours a day, a way of passing time.”

“You two the only messengers?”

“Yeah. I come on at nine and Ed came in at noon.”

“If the bonds you carried were worthless why—”

“They're not worthless but nonnegotiable: there's a big difference.”

“Sure. But if they weren't worth anything except to the owners, why did the firm only hire former policemen?”

“Because they know we're bondable, in good physical condition for our age, and only a fellow with a pension can fool around with a part-time job.”

“You in the office when Mr. Owens was killed?”

“No. I left at eleven-thirty to take some bonds to a customer up on the Grand Concourse. He wasn't in so I came back here—about twenty minutes before the police arrived. You say Ed's pockets were torn. Was his receipt book missing too?”

“All we found was a torn wallet, identification cards, some change, pack of butts, mints and a lighter. Receipt book mean anything?”

Wales shook his head again. “No. It's of no value. Shows some jerky kid must have done the job.”

I wiggled on the chair. “I don't think so. A jerk doesn't follow a messenger all the way uptown. And if it was a jerky lad in an on-the-spot stick-up, he would have taken the change, Owens' gun.”

“Maybe. And maybe when the punk saw the gun he figured Owens for a cop and got scared. Could be a nut. And if Ed wasn't tailed why would anybody rob him? Ed never dressed like money from home.”

“Did he carry much cash?”

“Ed? Lucky to have a buck floating around his pockets. Every extra dime went on the ponies. Not that Ed was a real gambler, but a few bucks here and there every week. On that little pension they give us you don't raise any hell.”

“Did Mr. Owens have any enemies? Perhaps some character he once collared?”

Wales shrugged, a tired motion. “No. At least none I ever heard of. We were just run-of-the-mill detectives, the usual arrests. We had one big collar, got a killer in a gang war. But that was a long time ago and he went up in smoke in the chair. Of course Ed stayed on the force a couple of years after I left. He was a little younger. But he liked to talk, and he would have told me if he thought somebody was after him.”

“We'll have to dig into his arrest record.”

Wales smiled sadly. “Dig, dig, clear every little detail, that's a detective's life. A crime is like an iceberg, one-tenth showing and nine-tenths hidden.”

“Iceberg—neat way of putting it. That's what they drilled into me at the academy: whenever you're stuck start digging into the case all over again.”

Wales nodded as he licked his thin lips. “They're right, only most times you never get the time. New cases always coming...”

Anderson came in. “Got everything, kid?”

I closed my notebook. “Think so.”

“Come on, Lampkin wants us back at the precinct house. Nothing more for us here.”

As I stood up Wales climbed to his feet. “Mind if I ride up with you? I'd like to look around. Me and Ed—I mean, well, wouldn't hurt none.”

“Come along. The captain probably wants to talk to you anyway.”

Wales left the office and met us at the elevator, wearing an old battered plastic rain hat. I brushed against him as we stepped into the elevator; he wasn't carrying a gun. Wales said, “That's okay, I'm clean.” There was a fresh odor of whisky on his words.

Wales sat in the back seat and I got the siren going and shot up Broadway to Chambers Street, then wheeled over to the highway. Anderson said, “You ain't got your leather jacket on and this ain't no motorcycle, so quit making like a speed king, kid.”

“Close your eyes if you can't take it,” I said, doing more cutting through the uptown traffic than necessary.

Anderson turned and asked Wales, “Ever see anything like this before? Makes a good collar while a rookie and he's an acting detective third grade before he can get corns on his feet. Me, I was a harness bull for over seven years.”

“Probably make a good dick, it's the last thing he looks like.”

Anderson laughed, a real jackass chuckle. “Got something there. He looks like he got his badge with a cereal box top. And not looking like a cop is one way of stopping a slug or a handful of knuckles. Me, I'm glad I look like what I am.”

Wales said, “Force is changing, lots of college boys on it now. I like the way this young fellow speaks, calls people mister. He'll be real good once he stops talking so much.”

“What's that mean?” I asked, glancing at him in the windshield mirror.

Wales gave me his tired smile before he said, “You got to learn to ask questions, not hand out information. Doesn't make any difference in this case, but why tell Mr. Stewart and myself Ed's pockets were torn? Sometimes a little thing like that can trap a man.”

“Damn right,” Anderson said, “you have to—”

“You shoot your gums off too,” Wales said dryly. “Right off the bat you told me the bonds were missing and that Ed was packing a gun.”

“That was part of my questioning you. This is just an ordinary stick-up, let's not make a big case out of it.”

“It isn't ordinary, an ex-cop was killed,” I said. The car on my left got panicky at the sound of the siren and stupidly tried to cut to the right. I made the brakes scream, shaking us all up, then raced around the car as Anderson cursed, swallowed his gum, and finally yelled, “Slow down! And that's a goddamn order!”

At the station house Lieutenant Reed sent Hayes and me out to finish interviewing the people in the surrounding apartment houses. They were all large houses, seventy to a hundred apartments. They'd borrowed some dicks from another squad and had over a dozen men working the houses. It was dull routine and we ended up with nothing; not a soul had seen or heard a thing. There were the usual crackpots who “thought I heard several shots around four o'clock.... Oh, he was shot at two...?”

By nine I was punchy and glad when Reed called us in. By the time I finished my paper work and had a bite with Hayes it was after ten. As I left the station house I saw Al Wales sitting in the muster room, his back against the crummy dirty green-colored wall. He sure had a bulge in his pocket now— a pint. His bleary eyes were open, staring at nothing. As I waved at him he mumbled, “Find the bottom of the iceberg yet?” He spoke like a man full of dull pain.

I turned over in bed, kicked the sheet up from my feet. My toes touched Mary's ankle. I stroked it with my big toe and she broke her heavy breathing with something that sounded like a whimper.

Everybody so certain it was a dumb hold-up, and those are the hardest to solve, dead ends where nothing makes sense. Two retired cops. Never know what Owens was like but Wales was okay, never once called me a runt or a kid. I was in bed, so was Danny Hayes and probably Anderson and the rest of the squad. Reed might still be up, waiting to hear what his stoolies knew, maybe had a man going over the nightly round-up of “undesirables.” We were all safe in bed, doing nothing, while one of us was on a slab in the morgue.

I touched Mary's ankle again. Maybe she was right. A cop, an ex-cop, was dead and nobody really gave a damn. Just another stick-up victim, as if he hadn't spent most of his life trying to protect people. Hell, who was an ex-cop to get any more consideration than an ordinary murdered citizen?

I thought he should get a damn sight more consideration.

I suddenly smiled at the darkness. Dave Wintino, the boy Dick Tracy! I didn't have a thing to go on but a hunch—like the feeling I had about the lead pipe in my big pinch. Maybe it was dumb to play a hunch... but somehow I was sure Ed Owens hadn't been killed in a stick-up.

Wednesday Morning

At exactly 6 a.m. I awoke as though an alarm had gone off. I can always do that. It was light outside already and looked like a good warm day. I slipped out of bed easily and Mary didn't move. She was sleeping half outside the blanket, curled like a cat, and for a moment I admired the full curve of her hips in the ski pajamas. Then I shut the bathroom door and ran the electric razor over my face and took a shower, thinking how odd it is with women. I mean Mary actually had a straight up-and-down figure, even a bit on the skinny side, yet in certain positions— like that one on the bed or sometimes when she sits with one leg under and I get a flash of her thigh— what curves. I sometimes wonder where they come from.

And maybe Ed Owens' wife had curves he liked to watch too.

I was getting fresh shorts out of the desk drawer when Mary sat up, coming wide-awake fast as she always does, and said, “Are you getting up or going to bed? What time is it?”

“Sixteen after six. Have coffee with me?”

Mary yawned and stretched her arms over her head, her breasts pushing out. “Guess so. Sixteen after six, what a time to get up.”

“My last day on this tour. Starting Saturday I—”

“I know, I know, you start working at midnight. Lovely!”

“Let's not begin the day arguing. Go back to sleep and leave me alone.”

“Sleep— some chance!”

“If we had a bigger apartment instead of a correct address, I could get up without waking you.”

She sat up in bed, got a cigarette working. “Dave, why must you always make excuses for the job? If you were going to work at 9 a.m. like most husbands, we... oh, nuts, I feel too beat to argue.”

She puffed on her cigarette slowly, watching me as I got out my tropical gray suit, a white shirt, cuff links, a heavy T-shirt, and a striped pink and hard gray tie. I went into the can and rubbed some hair conditioner on my noggin, then gave it a stiff workout with a brush and comb, getting it just right—the pomp in front raised and with a good curl. Understand, I don't see any sense in looking sloppy. I put on my shorts and socks and shoes, was giving the shoes a fast shine with yesterday's shirt when Mary got out of bed. She tossed her butt in the John and jabbed a sharp little finger in my gut. She said, “Davie, I'm queer for those ridges of muscle.”

“I go for your tummy too,” I said, pulling her to me, kissing her. Her lips had a stale tobacco taste.

She rubbed up against me for a moment, said, “Keep this up and you'll be late.”

“Man's expected to be late once in a while,” I said, playing with her soft blonde hair, wishing she didn't use such a bright rinse.

“And let law and order go to hell?” she said, the light sarcasm in her voice teasing me.

“Put the coffee on.” I was like the others, forgetting a cop had been killed.

“'Put the coffee on,' my lover says in a sexy tone.”