Death of a Pusher

Chapter 24

When we uncovered the cache, Goodie White looked at his ex-assistant with an expression of revulsion on his face.

“You louse,” he said. “How many kids do you figure you’ve put on the skids?”

Jack Carr sullenly looked at his feet.

White turned to me. “I don’t understand all of this, Matt. Did he kill Benny Polacek too?”

“We’ll get the answer to that when we get him down to headquarters,” I said.

“If he did, why? Seems to me it loused up his original plan.”

I shrugged. “Maybe Benny backed out and was going to turn him in. Don’t worry, we’ll find out. I’ll let you know.”

When we led Carr outside, we told Lincoln and Carter to follow us back to headquarters.

Contrary to popular conception, more crimes are solved through police interrogation than through scientific methods or brilliant deduction. Once we get hold of a suspect whom we’re reasonably certain is guilty, it’s only a question of time before he breaks down under interrogation and admits everything. We don’t use rubber hoses. In fact, we don’t lay a hand on him. It isn’t necessary if you know the techniques of interrogation.

It was only two-thirty P.M. when we got back to headquarters. The four of us threw questions at Jack Carr until six o’clock without getting him to admit a thing. Wynn sent Carter and Lincoln to eat at six, while the two of us continued to pound at the man. At six-thirty Carter and Lincoln came back, and Wynn and I went to eat.

After that we took him in relays. By eight he was beginning to contradict himself and make a few minor admissions. By nine he had admitted being the local wholesale supplier of heroin. By ten we had the names of twelve pushers he had been supplying. At ten-thirty he gave us the name of the syndicate contact who brought him the stuff from out of town and told us where and when he was supposed to make the next contact with the man to receive a shipment.

But he steadfastly refused to admit that he knew a thing about Benny Polacek’s death. By eleven we began to believe him.

At eleven-thirty we had him sign a statement admitting all his misdeeds except murder. Then we took him down to the felony section, had him thrown in a cell, and quit for the night.

Since we had put in a fifteen-hour day, Lieutenant Wynn generously told us we didn’t have to report for duty until ten the next morning. I got home shortly after midnight.

The spring lock on my apartment door hadn’t caught again, as I discovered when I shoved in the key and the door opened from the pressure. Resolving to call my landlord about it the very next day, I closed the door from inside and pressed hard against it until I heard the bolt click home.

A lamp was burning in the front room, which surprised me, for I certainly hadn’t left it on that morning. Walking into the bedroom, I switched on the overhead light and discovered I had a visitor.

Beverly Arden lay sound asleep on the bed in her favorite bedtime wear: nothing but a long-sleeved blouse. This time it was a black one, unbuttoned and hanging open.

My first reaction was to be irked. It would be a fine situation if I had walked in with another woman. Then, gazing at the rhythmic rise and fall of her bare breasts, I began to forgive her. Despite a fifteen-hour day, I wasn’t particularly tired, for I had gotten in seven hours’ sleep the night before and ten hours the night before that. I decided it was kind of pleasant to find such a nice surprise waiting.

Hanging my suit coat in the closet, I went over to the bed and ran my eyes up and down her softly curved body. She was certainly well built, I thought. It was a shame she always insisted on retaining that one garment. I had the desire just once to see her completely nude.

On impulse I rolled her over on her stomach and, before she was awake enough to know what was going on, jerked the blouse down over her shoulders. Another quick jerk and it came off with the sleeves turned inside out.

Beverly swung around to a seated position, stared up at me in confusion, then realized she was stark naked and an expression of consternation crossed her face. Her arms went across her bosom to hug herself.

But not in time. I had already seen the tiny scars from countless needles on the insides of her forearms.

For a long time I gazed at her, and she stared back at me whitely. Finally I let out a long breath.

“No wonder you’re so impulsive,” I said heavily. “I should have known when you practically threw yourself at me the first time we met. Junkies don’t have any inhibitions.”

Jumping from the bed, she snatched up her blouse and tugged the sleeves right-side out. Slipping it on, she rapidly buttoned it to the throat, grabbed her skirt from the back of a chair, and stepped into it. Momentarily she sat on the bed to slip on high-heeled shoes. Then she jumped up again and headed for the door. All the time she hadn’t looked at me once.

Beating her to the door, I put my back against it.

“Not so fast, Beverly,” I said. “How long have you been on the stuff?”

“Is that any of your business?” she asked frigidly.

“I think so,” I said. “I’m investigating the murder of a pusher who was killed while you were present. It seems kind of significant that you turned out to be a junkie. You were one of Benny’s customers, weren’t you?”

“Suppose I was?” she flared. “I didn’t kill him. You think I’d cut off my own source of supply?”

I studied her consideringly. “That’s another thing. You don’t exhibit any of the symptoms of withdrawal. Where are you getting it since Benny died?”

“I’m not. I kicked the habit.”

I gave my head a slow shake. “Nobody kicks it that easy. Your brother’s been easing you over the hump, hasn’t he? He has access to all the narcotics he needs. Except heroin, of course. That’s illegal even in hospitals. What’s he been substituting to keep you from shaking apart? Morphine?”

For several minutes she stared at me without answering. Then she lowered her face to her hands and began to cry. Leading her over to a chair, I let her sit and cry herself out. Eventually, when she started to sniff, I handed her a handkerchief.

Wiping her eyes, she said in a small voice, “I don’t want to get Norman in trouble. He’s been wonderful. He just gives me enough to quiet my nerves, cutting it down all the time. He’s going to cure me.”

“Sure,” I said. “The mental hospitals are full of voluntary cures.”

It was true. There are cases of voluntary cure of drug addiction, I suppose, but the only former addicts I knew had kicked it by being locked up long enough to dry out completely. And often even they got right back on the dream wagon the minute they were pushed back into society.

“He is curing me,” she said with a touch of spirit. “I’ve already cut down a quarter of a grain a day in this short time.”

A quarter of a grain, and she thought she was making progress.

While she was crying, I had been thinking. And I was beginning to suspect what might have happened that night. Picking up the bedside phone, I dialed headquarters, asked for Communications, and issued some instructions to be relayed to the radio car cruising closest to 427 Clarkson Boulevard.

When I hung up, I said to Beverly, “Come on. I’m going to drive you home.”

“I have my own car,” she said.

“It’ll keep. I’ll have it brought to your apartment later.”

A squad car was parked in front of the building when we arrived. There was a storm drain right in front of the building, and its manhole cover was off. A uniformed policeman stood over the hole, directing a flashlight downward.

As we climbed from the car, the patrolman looked up. “You Sergeant Rudd?” he inquired.

“Uh-huh. Any luck?”

“I think my partner just found it. He’s coming up.”

A man’s head emerged from the hole, and a second policeman climbed out. He was shirtless, barefoot, and his trousers were rolled above his knees. He had a small, nickel-plated revolver in his hand.

While the man who had been down in the storm sewer went over to the squad car to dry his hands and feet on a handkerchief and get back into uniform, I examined the gun. It was a five-shot, hammerless Smith and Wesson thirty-two, probably at least fifty years old.

“This must have been in the family for some time,” I said to Beverly. “No wonder it wasn’t registered.”

“It belonged to my father,” she said dully.

I said, “Give me your car keys.”

Obediently she probed in her purse and brought them out. Handing them to the policeman, I described her car, told him where it was, and asked him to drive it to the lot behind the apartment building and leave the keys in the glove compartment.

Then I took Beverly inside. Norman was in bed. When I flicked on his bedroom light, he sat up and stared at us. Seeing Beverly’s expression, he gradually paled.

I said, “We just found the gun in the storm sewer out front, Doctor. You were almost lucky. If that woman across the street had kept looking out her window a few more seconds, she would have seen you ditch it.”

“You told?” he asked Beverly.

She shook her head miserably. “He guessed. He found out I was an addict.”

Norman Arden got up and started to dress, pulling his clothes on over his pajamas.

“Want to tell me about it?” I asked.

“Why not?” he said in a colorless voice. “I still don’t regret it. I’d kill him again. You would have too, if you had watched your sister on her knees begging for a hypo.”

“You walked in on them?”

“Sure. I knew what was the matter with Bev. I’d been watching her all evening. She had the hall door open, waiting for that creep to come home, jumping out of her skin — I thought she’d shake apart. When he finally stuck his key in his door, she shot across the hall so fast, she was just a blurred streak. At first I only meant to turn the man over to the police. I deliberately waited fifteen minutes, hoping to walk in and catch him in the act of giving her a shot. Then I meant to hold him at gunpoint and call the police. But it didn’t work out that way, because he didn’t have any heroin to give her.”

“Then why’d you shoot him?” I asked.

Momentarily he closed his eyes. “They were in the kitchen and he was making her coffee, trying to quiet her down. She was down on her knees begging for a shot and he was saying he didn’t have any because he was in trouble with the police and had gotten rid of it. Just as I reached the kitchen door, my sister made her last plea. She said if he would give her just one fix, she would not only pay him double, but he could have her.”

He opened his eyes again and said calmly, “So I shot him.”

No one said anything for a time. Finally I said heavily, “Suck to that defense, Doc. If any jury gives you more than manslaughter, I’ll serve part of your time. Ready to go?”

“I’m ready,” he said quietly.

It was nearly two A.M. by the time I had booked Dr. Norman Arden and had checked Beverly into the narcotics ward at City Hospital. When I headed for home, I was in no mood for sleep. I kept thinking of the wreckage that men such as Benny Polacek left in their wake. How many vital young women similar to Beverly Arden had he hooked into abject slavery to a drug? Even in death he had wrought havoc, ruining the career of a young doctor whose only real crime was devotion to his sister.

They ought to give him a medal, I thought. But I knew they wouldn’t. As the young doctor himself had said, you can’t condone the murder of even lice such as Benny Polacek without risking anarchy.

I felt the need of diversion to take my mind from its depressing thoughts. Heading north, I was nearly to the Palace when I remembered that this was April’s night off.

Two A.M. was a devil of a time to go calling on a young lady, but I continued on to her rooming house anyway. The front door was locked, but I knew which room on the second floor was hers, and there was a light on inside. An instant after I tossed a pebble against the screen, the curtains parted, and she peered down at me.

She smiled delightedly when she saw who it was, then forced her expression into stern lines. “You just wait right there,” she called down in a low voice.

Less than a minute later she let herself out the front door. “I’ve been sitting at home all evening because you said you might drop by,” she said. “I ought to be mad at you.”

“I’m here,” I said reasonably. “I just got off work.”

“Oh,” she said. “In that case I won’t be mad.”

I helped her into the car, went around it and slid under the wheel.

“What time do you have to check in tomorrow morning?” she asked.

“I’m supposed to be in at ten, but I have some time coming. I’m going to phone in and take the day off.”

“Umm,” she said. “In that case we can have a long breakfast.”