Dirty Harry 03 - The Long Death (7 page)

“Cunningham! Hold it!”

The man pinpointed the voice immediately He stuck his Browning out in front of him. Harry tightened his right forefinger. Both guns fired the moment the meteor smacked into the planet.

Cunningham’s bullet gouged a foot long tear in the carpet in front of the projector pit. No one noticed the cough of his silencer. Harry’s weapon boomed over the crash of the meteor, sending stabs of flame out at the edge of the projector pit. Its lead caught Cunningham in the right shoulder, a shot Harry prided himself on. There were two things Dirty Harry really knew how to hit—the right shoulder and right between the eyes.

The bastard spun into the wall, a full two feet off the ground. His Browning flew out of his hands, slid along the curved wall for a few yards, then fell neatly into a garbage can at the end of an aisle.

The lights came on and the narrating voice hoped everyone had enjoyed the show. The excited audience left the theater happy; only a few stopped momentarily to wonder why there were so many cops outside the doors and why the big guy in the wet tweed jacket jumped on the back of the man lying on the back-row carpet.

C H A P T E R
T h r e e

“R
eally great job, Callahan,” Captain Avery said sarcastically. “Water damage bn the third floor, the second floor roof looks like the surface of the moon and the Aquarium experts are afraid their sharks might get sick from eating one of the alleged perpetrators.” The blond, muscular police officer put his fists on top of his big dark oak desk and hung his head. “Eaten. Holy Mother of God.”

“I really think you’re being a bit harsh on the Inspector, sir,” Lieutenant Al Bressler suggested from his standing position next to Harry in front of Avery’s desk. “He captured all four of the suspects in a potentially explosive situation . . .”

“Potentially
explosive?” Avery burst out. “Callahan
never
wastes the potential of any situation! If there’s anything to destroy, the Inspector will do it!”

Bressler looked at Harry, who raised his eyebrows and sighed. “I’m sorry for the poor choice of words,” the lieutenant began back to the captain.

The captain interrupted. “Do you have anything to say about this, Callahan?” he barked.

Harry shrugged casually. “If you don’t like results, sir . . .”

“Results?” Avery cried, pouncing on the word. “You wound all four of the suspects, close down two of the city’s most prosperous attractions in the middle of the summer vacation period, and cause untold damage, and we’re no farther along than when you started on this case!”

Harry looked honestly confused. “How can that be?” he asked. “We’ve captured four of the pornography ring’s major members. One of them is bound to talk.”

“How can they talk?” Avery countered. “One’s dead, one is in serious condition, and the other two are in the hospital’s intensive care unit one with a destroyed shoulder and the other with a mushed mouth. The only talking they’ll do is to their lawyers about suing the city for using excessive force! We’re no closer to The Professor now than we were at the beginning of the investigation. If anything, this hunting trip of yours will probably send him underground, and we’ll never find him.”

“The Professor is a sadist,” Harry said with conviction. “He won’t stay under long. He likes what he does. The loss of four gang members won’t stop him.”

“You’re guessing, Callahan,” Avery said. “You’ve got no guarantees. I want
tangible
results, Inspector.”

“You’ve got three men in custody, sir,” Bressler mentioned.

“Who do us almost no good!” Avery retorted brusquely. “You want to know what we have that’s tangible? I have a bill here from the Academy of Sciences. You want to know how much the damages were . . . ?”

“No, Captain,” Harry interrupted suddenly. “You call up the parents of that eleven-year-old girl we found in the garbage can with a vagina that looked like hamburger. You tell them the cost and ask them if they think their daughter was worth that much.”

Harry didn’t wait for a reply. He turned around, walked out of the captain’s office, and left the door open.

Avery’s heavily lined face settled slowly down. The lines that had been arched upward drifted into a sloping position. He looked down at the bill sadly and fought the urge to crumple it. Instead he let it drop to his desk and sat down heavily.

“Close the door, Lieutenant,” he instructed Bressler, “and let’s talk.”

Harry went back to his office in Room 750 on the seventh floor of the Justice Building. The Homicide department was in its regular uproar. It was the summer murder season, and people were getting croaked with their normal regularity. One nice thing about San Francisco was that it really didn’t have any seasons. The average mean temperature for January was fifty degrees. The average mean temperature for August was sixty degrees. So it wasn’t like New York where murder became epidemic in the summer and settled into dull slaughter in the winter. San Fran was constant, averaging a regular rate of homicide all year round. The only drawback was that things never really let up. Room 750 always had something to keep its occupants entertained.

Like the little girl in the trash can. Normally, pornography rings were handled by the vice squad. The eleven-year-old girl who had become a week-old corpse made it the Homicide department’s business. Callahan moved back to his office to continue working on the case. Avery or no Avery, Harry was going to put as much time as he could on this one. It irritated his sensibility.

He wearily passed by all the other inspectors’ cubicles to enter the Inspector #71 cubicle. Seated behind his grey desk was Fatso Devlin. Seated on the edge of the blue trim was an extremely pretty brunette. Now, some brunettes were beautiful, like Leslie Ann Down; all sultry and rich. And some brunettes were just pretty, like the Mary Ann character on
Gilligan’s Island.
But this woman was extremely pretty: with creamy skin, full, perfect lips, and, to top everything else off, dark green eyes.

She was wearing a plaid shirt with a dark blue suit. The very edge of the shirt’s collar was fringed with a quarter inch of lace. Her smile was terrific, very fresh and honest and she was using it on Devlin when Harry walked in. When she turned and noticed him, then lightly hopped off the desk edge and walked toward him with her hand out, Harry momentarily entertained the fantasy that he had just crossed over into “Brigadoon.”

“Inspector Callahan?” she asked, hand still out, “I’m Sergeant McConnell, the cop you wouldn’t let go on your arrest this morning.”

Harry looked over the girl’s shoulder at Devlin. Fatso stroked one forefinger over the other at his partner in a “shame-on-you” motion. Harry looked back at the girl’s extremely pretty face, which was still stretched in an open smile fit to beat the band. He took her hand and shook it. It was warm, solid, and dry.

“You’re
the police woman from vice?” Harry marveled.

“Lynne McConnell, sergeant on the vice squad,” she retorted. “Want to see my badge?” Fatso had a hard time holding back his laugh. He wound up snorting on the desk top.

“That won’t be necessary,” Harry said somewhat stiffly. He walked around his desk and pulled back on his chair. “Why don’t you go wash windows or something?” he told Devlin.

“Right, Harry. Right,” said Fatso, getting up quickly.

Harry sat down and motioned for the sergeant to do the same. She did, crossing her slim muscular legs and smiling pleasantly. “What can I do for you, Sergeant McConnell?” Harry asked, rifling through the top drawer on his desk.

“I think it is a matter of what I can do for you, Inspector,” she replied easily.

“And what’s that?” Harry asked just as easily, going from his top drawer to the first one on the right.

“I’ve been assigned to this case as the vice squad officer in charge,” she explained with patience. “My job, no, my responsibility was to be with you this morning. I’m wondering why you wouldn’t let me.”

“I never,” Harry began, then turned to Devlin, who was standing by. “Where’s my cleaning kit?”

“Bottom drawer, Harry,” Fatso said quickly. “I used it while you were with the captain. Sorry.”

Harry pulled out the cleaning kit and dropped it on the desk. “I never said you could not go, Sergeant,” Harry continued.

“No, Sergeant,” Fatso took up, “all Harry said was, that given the situation, an extra officer from vice was not strictly necessary.”

“My exact words,” Harry overruled his partner, “were ‘I don’t want some girl from vice getting her ass shot off.’ The aquarium was no place for an observer this morning.”

The office got very quiet for a few seconds after that. McConnell’s face had lost its smile. Instead she watched Harry very intently. Fatso stood back, trying to get into the next office by osmosis. Harry made the first new noise by standing, pulling off the dark suit jacket he had changed into, and hanging it on a wall hook. He then pulled out his Magnum, opened it, and started cleaning.

“Inspector Callahan,” McConnell said carefully. “I have been on this case longer than you have. If it hadn’t been for my department’s work, you would have never known where to find those men. You would not have heard of The Professor. I think we had . . .
I
had . . . a right to be on the arrest.”

“Sergeant McConnell,” he answered, keeping his eyes on his weapon, “I don’t doubt that you were instrumental in this arrest, and I do not deny that you had a perfect right to be there this morning. But I must add that if I had met you prior to the arrest, I would have been so concerned over your well-being that my own capability would have been severely handicapped.”

This time the silence was stunned. Fatso looked at his partner as if he had sprouted wings. McConnell was completely disarmed. All the calm, rational answers she had been mentally preparing shot out through her scalp and into outer space. Suddenly she smiled warmly. Harry looked up from his gun, smiled back, and clicked it shut.

“Inspector Callahan,” she asked, “what are you doing for lunch?”

“Sorry, Sergeant,” said a new voice behind her chair, “but Callahan is going to be busy.” She turned to see Lieutenant Bressler stride in. “All hell’s broken loose, Harry,” he said. “You’d better come into my office. You too, Sergeant McConnell.” Both officers got up.

“What about me?” Devlin asked.

“Go have lunch,” Bressler instructed.

“Thank God!” said the starving cop.

“But don’t leave the building,” the lieutenant added.

Fatso’s joy turned to resignation. “Great. Cafeteria franks ’n beans again.”

“You eat that stuff,” Harry told him as he pulled on his jacket and went out the door, “and you won’t be sharing any squad car with me.”

Bressler’s office was different from all the other offices on the seventh floor in that it had a door that locked, its own ceiling, and a long leatherette couch. Both officers stood before the lieutenant’s regulation desk as Bressler leaned on the back of his padded chair.

“Harry, you’re off The Professor case,” he said bluntly. “I’m sorry, but Captain Avery demanded it. I did my best, but you know Avery.”

“Yeah,” said Harry, who had been expecting it. It wasn’t the first time he and the captain had had a similar conversation. And it probably wouldn’t be the last.

“But what about the investigation?” McConnell inquired. “The Professor is still the head of the organization, and he’s still at large.”

“Your part of the investigation will continue,” Bressler told her. “The captain commends you on your work so far. Only you’ll be teamed with another set of homicide officers.”

“But I’m so used to Inspector Callahan,” McConnell said realistically. Harry glanced at her as Bressler looked down at his desk. She was grinning at him. When the lieutenant looked back up, both their expressions were back to normal.

“I’m sorry, Sergeant, but that’s the way it is. You can go back to your department for the moment.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, turning to Harry. “It was a pleasure dealing with you, Inspector. I hope we can team up on another project some day.” She held out her hand. Harry took it. They shook for the second time that morning. Harry nodded slightly. Both were well aware that she had chosen her words precisely.

McConnell then gracefully left. Harry unabashedly watched her go.

When the door had closed behind her, Bressler sat down with a heavy, wistful sigh.

“What is a girl like that doing on the vice squad?” Harry asked, turning to the desk.

“Driving everybody crazy,” Bressler replied. “She’s so damn angelic and earthy-looking, you don’t know whether to give her some fatherly advise or attack her in the halls.”

“She seems pretty sure of herself,” Harry commented.

“Perfectly at peace,” Bressler decided. “Knows what she’s about and how good she looks. Can take care of herself, too. Top marks in self-defense and firearms. Dangerous combination.”

“For who?” Harry wondered.

Bressler looked up. “What does that mean?”

“Skip it,” Harry said, sitting on the couch. “What shit has hit which fan?”

“Fillmore District. Mission District. The headquarters of Uhuru.”

“Oh Christ,” said Harry. “Is that still around?”

“Still going strong, but quiet. Until now. What do you know about it?”

“It’s a black liberation group,” recalled Harry without much difficulty. “Big Ed Mohamid ran it. He was the guy who helped me out when the mayor was kidnapped by that People’s Revolutionary Strike Force, and Captain McKay pegged Uhuru as the guys who did it.”

“Yeah,” Bressler said. “The ‘Enforcer’ case.”

“Yeah,” echoed Harry. “The one where Kate Moore got killed. Remember?”

“Yeah. Right. Sorry Harry. I should’ve figured you wouldn’t have forgotten that.”

Harry shrugged it off. “Anyway, I heard Mohamid kept a low profile after that. Started all sorts of charity programs and shit like that. Fed and clothed the poor. Bought a ramshackle old Victorian house as a headquarters. What happened to all that?”

“Nothing,” Bressler informed him. “It’s all still there. But according to an anonymous phone tip we got this morning, only one thing has been added. A dead girl in the cellar.”