Cop Hater (5 page)

"Put it on the table," Carella said.

Clarke put the gun on the table.

"Is it loaded?" Carella asked.

"I think so."

"Don't you know?"

"I ain't even looked at the thing since I quit that job."

Carella draped a handkerchief over his spread fingers and picked up the gun. He slid the magazine out. "It"s loaded, all right," he said. Quickly, he sniffed the barrel.

"You don't have to smell," Clarke said. "It ain't been fired since I got out of the Army."

"It came close once, though, didn't it?"

"Huh?"

"That night in
The Shamrock."

"Oh, that," Clarke said. "Is that why you're here? Hell, I was looped that night. I didn't mean no harm."

Carella slammed the magazine back into place. "Where's the permit, Clarke?"

"Oh, yeah. I looked around in there. I couldn't find it."

"You're sure you've got one?"

"Yeah, I'm sure. I just can't find it."

"You'd better take another look. A good one, this time."

"I did take a good look. I can't find it. Look, I got a permit. You can check on it. I wouldn't kid you. Who was the cop got killed?"

"Want to take another look for that permit?"

"I already told you, I can't find it. Look, I got one."

"You
had
one, pal," Carella said. "You just lost it"

"Huh? What? What'd you say?"

"When a cop asks you for your permit, you produce it or you lose it."

"Well, Jesus, I just misplaced it temporarily. Look, you can check all this. I mean . . . look, what's the matter with you guys, anyway? I didn't do nothing. I been here all night. You can ask Gladys. Ain't that right, Gladys?"

"He's been here all night," Gladys said.

"We're taking the gun," Carella said. "Give him a receipt for it, Hank."

"That ain't been fired in years," Clarke said. "You'll see. And you check on that permit. I got one. You check on it."

"We'll let you know," Carella said. "You weren't planning On leaving the city, were you?"

"What?"

"You weren't plann ..."

"Hell, no. Where would I go?"

"Back to sleep is as good a place as any," the blonde said.

Chapter FIVE

the pistol permit
was on Steve Carella's desk when he reported for work at 4:00 P.M. on the afternoon of July 24th. He had worked until eight in the morning, gone home for six hours sleep, and was back at his desk now, looking a little bleary-eyed but otherwise none the worse for wear.

The heat had persisted all day long, a heavy yellow blanket that smothered the city in its wooly grip. Carella did not like the heat. He had never liked Summer, even as a kid, and now that he was an adult and a cop, the only memorable characteristic Summer seemed to have was that it made dead bodies stink quicker.

He loosened his collar the instant he entered the squad room, and when he got to his desk, he rolled up his sleeves, and then picked up the pistol permit.

Quickly, he scanned the printed form:

PISTOL LICENSE APPLICATION

I Hereby Apply for License to

Carry a Revolver or Pistol upon my person or

Possession on premises:
  
37-12 Culver Avenue

For the following reasons:
  
Make deliveries for jewelry firm.

Clarke
   
Francis
   
D.
   
37-12 Culver Ave.

There was more, a lot more, but it didn't interest Carella. Clarke had indeed owned a pistol permit—but that didn't mean he hadn't used the pistol on a cop named Mike Reardon.

Carella shoved the permit to one side of his desk, glanced at his watch, and then reached for the phone automatically. Quickly, he dialed Bush's home number and then waited, his hand sweating on the receiver. The phone rang six times, and then a woman's voice said, "Hello?"

"Alice?"

"Who's this?"

"Steve Carella."

"Oh. Hello, Steve."

"Did I wake you?"

"Yes."

"Hank's not here yet. He's all right, isn't he?"

"He left a little while ago," Alice said. The sleep was beginning to leave her voice already. Alice Bush was a cop's wife who generally slept when her husband did, adjusting her schedule to fit his. Carella had spoken to her on a good many mornings and afternoons, and he always marveled at the way she could come almost instantly awake within the space of three or four sentences. Her voice invariably sounded like the first faint rattle of impending death when she picked up the receiver. As the conversation progressed, it modulated into the dulcet whine of a middle-aged Airedale, and then into the disconcertingly sexy voice which was the normal speaking voice of Hank's wife. Carella had met her on one occasion, when he and Hank had shared a late snack with her, and he knew that she was a dynamic blonde with a magnificent figure and the brownest eyes he'd ever seen. From what Bush had expansively delivered about personal aspects of his home life, Carella knew that Alice slept in clinging black, sheer nightgowns. The knowledge was unnerving, for whenever Carella roused her out of bed, he automatically formed a mental picture of the well-rounded blonde he'd met, and the picture was always dressed as Hank had described it

He generally, therefore, cut his conversations with Alice short, feeling somewhat guilty about the artistic inclinations of his mind. This morning, though, Alice seemed to be in a talkative mood.

"I understand one of your colleagues got knocked off," she said.

Carella smiled, in spite of the topic's grimness. Alice sometimes had a peculiar way of mixing the King's English with choice bits of underworld and police vernacular.

"Yes," he said.

"I'm awfully sorry," she answered, her mood and her voice changing. "Please be careful, you and Hank. If a cheap hood is shooting up the streets ..."

"We'll be careful," he said. "I've got to go now, Alice,"

"I leave Hank in capable hands," Alice said, and she hung up without saying goodbye.

Carella grinned and shrugged, and then put the receiver back into the cradle. David Foster, his brown face looking scrubbed and shining, ambled over to the desk. "Afternoon, Steve," he said.

"Hi, Dave. What've you got?"

"Ballistics report on that .45 you brought in last night."

"Any luck?"

"Hasn't been fired since Old King Cole ordered the bowl."

"Well, that narrows it down," Carella said. "Now we've only got the nine million, nine hundred ninety-nine thousand other people in this fair city to contend with."

"I don't like it when cops get killed," Foster said. His brow lowered menacingly, giving him the appearance of a bull ducking his head to charge at the
muleta.
"Mike was my partner. He was a good guy."

"I know."

"I been trying to think who," Foster said. "I got my personal I.B. right up here, and I been leafing through them mug shots one by one." He tapped his temple. "I been turning them over and studying them, and so far I haven't got anything, but give me time. Somebody musta had it in for Mike, and when that face falls into place, that guy's gonna wish he was in Alaska."

"Tell you the truth," Carella said, "I wish I was there right now."

"Hot, ain't it?" Foster said, classically understating the temperature and humidity.

"Yeah." From the corner of his eye, Carella saw Bush walk down the corridor, push through the railing, and sign in. He walked to Carella's desk, pulled over a swivel chair and plopped into it disconsolately.

"Rough night?" Foster asked, grinning. "The roughest," Bush said in his quiet voice.

"Clarke was a blank," Carella told him.

'I figured as much. Where do we go from here?"

"That's a good question."

"Coroner's report in yet?"

"No."

"The boys picked up some hoods for questioning," Foster said. "We might give them the once over."

"Where are they? Downstairs?" Carella asked.

"In the Waldorf Suite," Foster said, referring to the detention cells on the first floor of the building.

"Why don't you call down for them?"

"Sure," Foster said.

"Where's the Skipper?"

"He's over at Homicide North. He's trying to goose them into some real action on this one."

"You see the paper this morning?" Bush asked.

"No," Carella said.

"Mike made the front page. Have a look." He put the paper on Carella's desk. Carella held it up so that Foster could see it while he spoke on the phone.

"Shot him in the back," Foster mumbled. "That lousy bastard." He spoke into the phone and then hung up. The men lighted cigarettes, and Bush phoned out for coffee, and then they sat around gassing. The prisoners arrived before the coffee did.

There were two men, both unshaven, both tall, both wearing short-sleeved sports shirts. The physical resemblance ended there. One of the men owned a handsome face, with regular features and white, even teeth. The other man looked as if his face had challenged a concrete mixer and lost. Carella recognized both of them at once. Mentally, he flipped over their cards in the Lousy File.

"Were they picked up together?" he asked the Uniformed cop who brought them into the squad room.

"Yeah," the cop said.

"Where?"

"13th and Shippe. They were sitting in a parked car."

"Any law against that?" the handsome one asked.

"At three in the morning," the uniformed cop added.

"Okay," Carella said. "Thanks."

"What's your name?" Bush asked the handsome one.

"You know my name, cop."

"Say it again. I like the sound."

"I'm tired."

"You're gonna be a lot more tired before this is finished. Now cut the comedy, and answer the questions. Your name?"

"Terry."

'Terry what?"

"Terry McCarthy. What the hell is this, a joke? You know my name."

"How about your buddy?"

"You know him, too. He's Clarence Kelly."

"What were you doing in that car?" Carella asked.

"Lookin" at dirty pictures," McCarthy said.

"Possession of pornography," Carella said dully. "Take that down, Hank."

"Hey, wait a minute," McCarthy said. "I was only wise-crackin'."

"DON'T WISECRACK ON MY TIME!!" Carella shouted.

"Okay, okay, don't get sore."

"What were you doing in that car?"

"Sitting."

"You always sit in parked cars at three in the a.m.?" Foster asked.

"Sometimes," McCarthy said.

"What else were you doing?"

"Talking."

"What about?"

"Everything."

"Philosophy?" Bush asked.

"Yeah," McCarthy said.

"What'd you decide?"

"We decided it ain't wise to sit in parked cars at three in the morning. There's always some cop who's got to fill his pinch book."

Carella tapped a pencil on the desk. "Don't get me mad, McCarthy," he said. "I just come from six hours sleep, and I don't feel like listening to a vaudeville routine. Did you know Mike Reardon?"

"Who?"

"Mike Reardon. A detective attached to this precinct."

McCarthy shrugged. He turned to Kelly. "We know him, Clarence?"

"Yeah," Clarence said. "Reardon. That rings a bell."

"How big a bell?" Foster asked.

"Just a tiny tinkle so far," Kelly said, and he began laugh-ing. The laugh died when he saw the bulls weren't quite appreciating his humor.

"Did you see him last night?"

"No."

"How do you know?"

"We didn't run across any bulls last night," Kelly said. "Do you usually?" "Well, sometimes."

"Were you heeled when they pulled you in?" "What?"

"Come on," Foster said. "No."

"We'll check that."

"Yeah, go ahead," McCarthy said. "We didn't even have a water pistol between us."

"What were you doing in the car?"

"I just told you," McCarthy said.

"The story stinks. Try again," Carella answered.

Kelly sighed, McCarthy looked at him.

"Well?" Carella said.

"I was checkin' up on my dame," Kelly said.

"Yeah?" Bush said.