The Mugger (3 page)

“No,” Kling answered.

“There’s a chance, too, she is in with some crumbs. What then? Ain’t a cop supposed to prevent crime, nip it in the bud? You’re a big disappointment to me, Bert.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Okay, okay, no hard feelings,” Bell said. He rose, seemingly ready to go. “If you should change your mind, though, I’ll leave my address with you.” He took his wallet out of his pocket and fished for a scrap of paper.

“There’s no sense—”

“Just in case you should change your mind,” Bell said. “Here, now.” He took a pencil stub from the pocket of the leather jacket and began scribbling on the paper scrap. “It’s on De Witt Street, the big house in the middle of the block. You can’t miss it. If you should change your mind, come around tomorrow night. I’ll keep Jeannie home until nine o’clock. Okay?”

“I don’t think I’ll change my mind,” Kling said.

“If you should,” Bell answered, “I’d appreciate it, Bert. That’s tomorrow night. Wednesday. Okay? Here’s the address.” He handed Bert the paper. “I put the telephone number down, too, in case you should get lost. You better put it in your wallet.”

Kling took the paper, and then, because Bell was watching him so closely, he put it into his wallet.

“I hope you come,” Bell said. He walked to the door. “Thanks for listening to me, anyway. It was good seeing you again, Bert.”

“Yes,” Kling said.

“So long now.” Bell closed the door behind him. The room was suddenly very quiet.

Kling went to the window. He saw Bell when he emerged from the building. He watched as Bell climbed into a green-and-yellow taxicab and then gunned away from the curb. The cab had been parked alongside a fire hydrant.

They write songs about Saturday night.

The songs all promote the idea that Saturday is a particularly lonely night. The myth has become a part of American culture, and everybody is familiar with it. Stop anybody, six to sixty, and ask, “What’s the loneliest night of the week?” and the answer you’ll get is “Saturday.”

Well, Tuesday’s not such a prize, either.

Tuesday hasn’t had the benefit of press agentry and promotion, and nobody’s written a song about Tuesday. But to a lot of people, the Saturday nights and the Tuesday nights are one and the same. You can’t estimate degrees of loneliness. Who is more lonely, a man on a desert island on a Saturday night or a woman carrying a torch in the biggest, noisiest nightclub on a Tuesday night? Loneliness doesn’t respect the calendar. Saturday, Tuesday, Friday, Thursday—they’re all the same, and they’re all gray.

On Tuesday night, September 12, a black Mercury sedan was parked on one of the city’s loneliest streets, and the two men sitting on the front seat were doing one of the world’s loneliest jobs.

In Los Angeles, they call this job “stakeout.” In the city for which these two men worked, the job was known as “a plant.”

A plant requires a certain immunity to sleepiness, a definite immunity to loneliness, and a good deal of patience.

Of the two men sitting in the Mercury sedan, Detective 2nd/ Grade Meyer was the more patient. He was, in fact, the most patient cop in the 87th Precinct, if not the entire city. Meyer had a father who considered himself a very humorous man. His father’s name was Max. When Meyer was born, Max named him Meyer. This was considered convulsively comic, a kid named Meyer Meyer. You have to be very patient if you’re born a Jew to begin with. You have to be supernaturally patient if your hilarious old man tags you with a handle like Meyer Meyer. He was patient. But a lifelong devotion to patience often provides a strain, and as the saying goes, something’s got to give. Meyer Meyer was as bald as a cue ball, even though he was only thirty-seven years old.

Detective 3rd/Grade Temple was falling asleep. Meyer could always tell when Temple was ready to cork off. Temple was a giant of a man, and big men needed more sleep, Meyer supposed.

“Hey!” he said.

Temple’s shaggy brows shot up onto his forehead. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. What do you think of a mugger who calls himself Clifford?”

“I think he should be shot,” Temple said. He turned and faced the penetrating stare of Meyer’s mild blue eyes.

“I think so, too,” Meyer said, smiling. “You awake?”

“I’m awake.” Temple scratched his chin. “I’ve had this damn itch for the past three days. Drives me nuts.” He scratched himself again.

“If I were a mugger,” Meyer said, figuring the only way to keep Temple awake was to talk to him, “I wouldn’t pick a name like Clifford.”

“Clifford sounds like a pansy,” Temple agreed.

“Steve is a good name for a mugger,” Meyer said.

“Don’t let Carella hear you say that.”

“But Clifford. I don’t know. You think it’s his real name?”

“It could be. Why bother giving it if it’s not his real name?”

“That’s a point,” Meyer said.

“I got him tabbed as a psycho, anyway,” Temple said. “Who else would take a deep bow and then thank his victim? He’s a screwball. He’s knocked over thirteen so far. Did Willis tell you about the dame who came in this afternoon?”

Meyer glanced at his watch.
“Yesterday
afternoon,” he corrected. “Yes, he told me. Maybe thirteen’ll be Cliff’s unlucky number, huh?”

“Yeah, maybe. I don’t like muggers, you know? They give me a pain.” He scratched himself. “I like gentlemen thieves.”

“Like what?”

“Like murderers, even. Murderers, it seems to me, have more class than muggers.”

“Give Cliff time,” Meyer said. “He’s still warming up.”

Both men fell silent. Meyer seemed to be getting something straight in his mind. At last, he said, “I’ve been following this case in the papers. One of the other precincts. 33rd, I think.”

“Yeah, what about it?”

“Some guy’s going around stealing cats.”

“Yeah?” Temple asked. “You mean cats?”

“Yeah,” Meyer said, watching Temple closely. “You know, house pets. So far, they’ve had eighteen squeals on it in the past week. Something, huh?”

“I’ll say,” Temple said.

“I’ve been following it,” Meyer said. “I’ll let you know how it turns out.” He kept watching Temple, a twinkle in his blue eyes. Meyer was a very patient man. If he’d told Temple about the kidnapped cats, he’d done so for a very good reason. He was still watching Temple when he saw him sit suddenly erect.

“What?” he said.

“Shhh!” Temple said.

They listened together. From far off down the darkened street, they could hear the steady clatter of a woman’s high-heeled shoes on the pavement. The city was silent around them, like an immense cathedral closed for the night. Only the hollow, piercing chatter of the wooden heels broke the stillness. They sat in silence, waiting, watching.

The girl went past the car, not turning her head to look at it. She walked quickly, her head high. She was in her early thirties, a tall girl with long blonde hair. She swept past the car, and the sound of her heels faded, and still the men were silent, listening.

The even cadence of a second pair of heels came to them. Not the light, empty chatter a woman’s feet make. This was heavy conversation. These were the footsteps of a man.

“Clifford?” Temple asked.

“Maybe.”

They waited. The footsteps came closer. They watched the man approaching in the rearview mirror. Then, simultaneously, both Temple and Meyer stepped out of the car from opposite sides.

The man stopped, fright darting into his eyes.

“What…” he said. “What is this? A holdup?”

Meyer cut around behind the car and came up alongside of the man. Temple was already blocking his path.

“Your name Clifford?” Temple asked.

“Wah?”

“Clifford.”

“No,” the man said, shaking his head violently. “You got the wrong party. Look, I—”

“Police,” Temple said tersely, and he flashed the tin.

“P—p—police? What’d I do?”

“Where’re you going?” Meyer asked.

“Home. I just come from a movie.”

“Little late to be getting out of a movie, isn’t it?”

“Wah? Oh, yeah, we stopped in a bar.”

“Where do you live?”

“Right down the street.” The man pointed, perplexed, frightened.

“What’s your name?”

“Frankie’s my name.” He paused. “Ask anybody.”

“Frankie what?”

“Oroglio. With a
g.”

“What were you doing following that girl?” Meyer shot.

“Wah? Girl? Hey, whatta you nuts or something?”

“You were following a girl!” Temple said. “Why?”

“Me?” Oroglio pointed both hands at his chest. “Me? Hey, listen, you made a mistake, fellers. I mean it. You got the wrong guy.”

“A blonde just walked down this street,” Temple said, “and you came along behind her. If you weren’t following—”

“A blonde?” Oroglio said.

“Yes, a blonde,” Temple said, his voice rising. “Now how about it, mister?”

“In a blue coat?” Oroglio asked. “Like in a little blue coat? Is that who you mean?”

“That’s who we mean,” Temple said.

“Oh my God,” Oroglio said.

“HOW ABOUT IT?” Temple shouted.

“That’s my wife!”

“What?”

“My wife, my wife, Conchetta.” Oroglio was wagging his head wildly now. “My wife, Conchetta. She ain’t no blonde. She bleaches it.”

“Look, mister.”

“I swear. We went to the show together, and then we stopped for a few beers. We had a fight in the bar. So she walked out alone. She always does that. She’s nuts.”

“Yeah?” Meyer said.

“I swear on my Aunt Christina’s hair. She blows up, and she takes off, and I give her four, five minutes. Then I follow her. That’s all there is to it. Lord, I wouldn’t follow no blonde.”

Temple looked at Meyer.

“I’ll take you up to the house,” Oroglio said, plunging on. “I’ll introduce you. She’s my wife! Listen, what do you want? She’s my wife!”

“I’ll bet she is,” Meyer said resignedly. Patiently, he turned to Temple. “Go back to the car, George,” he said. “I’ll check this out.”

Oroglio sighed. “Gee, this is kind of funny, you know that?” he said, relieved. “I mean being accused of following my own wife. It’s kind of funny.”

“It could’ve been funnier,” Meyer said.

“Yeah? How?”

“She could’ve been somebody else’s wife.”

He stood in the shadows of the alley, wearing the night like a cloak. He could hear his own shallow breathing and beyond that the vast murmur of the city, the murmur of a big-bellied woman
in sleep. There were lights in some of the apartments, solitary sentinels piercing the blackness with unblinking yellow. It was dark where he stood, though, and the darkness was a friend to him, and they stood shoulder to shoulder. Only his eyes glowed in the darkness, watching, waiting.

He saw the woman long before she crossed the street.

She was wearing flats, rubber-soled and rubber-heeled, and she made no sound, but he saw her instantly, and he tensed himself against the sooty brick wall of the building, waiting, studying her, watching the careless way in which she carried her purse.

She looked athletic, this one.

A beer barrel with squat legs. He liked them better when they looked feminine. This one didn’t wear high heels, and there was a springy bounce to her walk; she was probably one of these walkers, one of these girls who do six miles before breakfast. She was closer now, still with that bounce in her step as if she were on a pogo stick. She was grinning, too, grinning like a big baboon picking lice; maybe she was coming home from bingo or maybe a poker session; maybe she’d just made a big killing, and maybe this big bouncing baby’s bag was just crammed full of juicy bills.

He reached out.

His arm circled her neck, and he pulled her to him before she could scream, yanking her into the blackened mouth of the alley. He swung her around then, releasing her neck, catching her sweater up in one big hand, holding it bunched in his fist, slamming her against the brick wall of the building.

“Quiet,” he said. His voice was very low. He looked at her face. She had hard green eyes, and the eyes were narrow now, watching him. She had a thick nose and leathery skin.

“What do you want from me?” she asked. Her voice was gruff.

“Your purse,” he answered. “Quick.”

“Why are you wearing sunglasses?”

“Give me your purse!”

He reached for it, and she swung it away from him. His hand tightened on the sweater. He pulled her off the wall for an instant and then slammed her back against the bricks again. “The purse!”

“No!”

He bunched his left fist and hurled it at her mouth. The woman’s head rocked back. She shook it, dazed.

“Listen,” he said, “listen to me. I don’t want to hurt you, you hear? That was just a warning. Now, give me the purse, and don’t make a peep after I’m gone, you hear? Not a peep!”

The woman slowly wiped the back of her hand across her mouth. She looked at the blood in the darkness, and then she hissed, “Don’t touch me again, you punk!”

He brought back his fist. She kicked him suddenly, and he bent over in pain. She struck out at his face, her fleshy fists bunching, hitting him over and over again.

“You stupid…” he started, and then he caught her hands and shoved her back against the wall. He hit her twice, feeling his bunched knuckles smashing into her stupid, ugly face. She fell back against the wall, moaned, and then collapsed to the concrete at his feet.

He stood over her, breathing heavily. He looked over his shoulder, staring off down the street, lifting the sunglasses for a better view. There was no one in sight. Hastily, he bent down and retrieved the purse from where it had fallen.

The woman did not move.

He looked at her again, wondering. Dammit, why had she been so stupid? He hadn’t wanted this to happen. He bent down again, and he put his head on her bosom. She was breathing. He rose, satisfied, and a small smile flitted across his face.

He stood over her, and he bowed, the hand with the purse crossing his waist gallantly, and he said, “Clifford thanks you, madam.”

And then he ran into the night.