Invitation to Violence

CHAPTER FIVE

Leaving the house early Monday morning, Gerald departed by the front door and looked into the mailbox as he went down to the garage. It was empty, but he expected as much. The mail wouldn’t be delivered until sometime in the forenoon and it would bring the envelope he’d mailed himself on Saturday. He would let it stay in the box when it came until he was ready to use it contents. The box would be the safest place. The police might be back; might possibly search him and the apartment. The one spot they would never think of would be the mailbox itself.

He drove the Chevvie, leaving it at the railway station parking lot in Manhasset as he usually did on weekdays, and took the train into Penn Station. He arrived at the office at his usual time.

He wanted very much to see either Baxter or one of the other men who had been at the Friday night poker session, but he made an effort to control any temptation to seek them out. The opportunity came, as he expected it would, during the midmorning coffee break. He was at the counter in the drugstore in the lobby of the building, when Bill Baxter entered and spotted him. Baxter moved onto the stool next to his immediately.

“Hi, boy,” he said. He laid a heavy hand on Gerald’s shoulder. “Say, what were you up to after you left Friday night, anyway?”

“Up to?”

“Yeah,” Baxter said. “Don’t try and kid me now. What did you do, get picked up for drunken driving or something?” Bill looked at him and laughed but there was a curious expression on his bland face. “The police called me Saturday afternoon-wanted to know all about the poker game and especially wanted to know all about you. Funny thing, the guy who phoned me said he was a detective connected with the Homicide Bureau. Who’d you murder, kid?”

Gerald forced a laugh.

“Oh, that,” he said. He shook his head, ruefully. “Damnedest thing you can imagine, Bill,” he said. “Seems on my way home I passed the scene of a robbery and shooting. Maybe you read about it. Out in Manhasset. Couple of cops and some gunmen had it out after the gunmen were found robbing a jewelry store.”

“Jees,” Bill said, “don’t tell me you were in on that one!”

“Well, I must have just missed it. Anyway, it seems someone spotted a Chevvie with a license number somewhat similar to mine and so the cops came around and checked up on me.”

“Did you see anything; were you there when…”

“Hell, I missed it,” Gerald said. “It was just that I happened to be in the neighborhood at the time or near abouts. I understand the gang got away with a quarter of a million in jewelry.”

Bill Baxter whistled.

“You sure you haven’t got the loot stashed away, kid? Boy, a quarter of a million.”

“I wish I had,” Gerald laughed. “By the way,” he said, “that stuff was insured according to the papers. It must have been for plenty. I wonder who…”

“They can afford it,” Baxter said.

“Who can afford it?”

“Well, without doubt it would be Great Eastern Surety. Used to work for them. They handle all of those big jewelry accounts. And they have more damned money than they know what to do with.”

“Eastern, eh?”

“Yeah, a real tight outfit. Incidentally, a pal of mine, Jack Rogers, is probably the man on the account. He takes care of most of the stuff around town here. Know him?”

Gerald shook his head.

“I’m sort of interested in the thing,” he said. “You know, what with the cops being by and questioning me and everything.”

“Jack can probably give you the low-down. He works pretty close with the police on these things.” Baxter hesitated a second. “Tell you what,” he said, “I’m tied up this noon, got an appointment at the Downtown Athletic Club. But if you’d like, and really want the story about it, I’ll give Jack a buzz and if he’s free, I’ll set up a lunch date for you.”

“Say Bill, that would be great,” Gerald said. “You know, with the cops talking to me and everything…”

“I’ll give him a buzz,” Bill said. “You be in your office all morning?”

“All morning.”

Hanna picked Jack Rogers up at the latter’s office at twelve-fifteen. He took him to lunch in a Schrafft’s restaurant in the neighborhood after a rather embarrassed introduction.

Rogers, a heavy-set, middle-aged man with a perpetually worried look, ordered a cold salad and a glass of iced tea and then turned to Gerald as the waitress left.

“Bill said you were interested in the Frost job, out in Manhasset,” he said. “Said the police had been around asking you about it or something?” He looked at Gerald with mild curiosity.

Gerald nodded.

“They sure did,” he said. “Damnedest thing, I was at a poker session at Bill’s Friday night. I left sometime after midnight and drove out to the Island. I live out in Roslyn. Anyway, “i must have passed that jewelry store in Manhasset either just before or just after the thing took place.”

“It wouldn’t be just after,” Rogers said. “You’d have seen the police and the ambulances and everything.”

“Just before then. Anyway, I was driving a Chevvie. And it seems that someone spotted a Chevvie at the scene-supposed to be a getaway car or something-and the last number on the license plate was the same as mine. What do you think of that for a coincidence!”

“It happens,” Rogers said morosely. “Happens more often than you would suspect.”

“Anyway, the police were around the next day. Checking up on me and on my car. They sure asked a million questions.”

“They would,” Rogers said. “They don’t miss much, you know. After all, there was a quarter of a million in jewels lifted. That ain’t hay.”

“Do you think they’ll turn up?” Gerald asked.

“They usually do,” Rogers said. “We have offered the usual reward-a hundred thousand dollars in this case. Yes, they usually turn up.”

“A hundred thousand!” Gerald whistled.

Rogers shook his head, looking sad.

“The reward won’t bring them in this time,” he said.

“No?”

“No. You see-this is off the record of course-in most cases like this a deal is made sooner or later. There’s a cooling off period and then, sooner of later, someone contacts us. Usually the contact is a perfectly respectable front, either a lawyer or something like that. We pay the reward and we get the jewels.”

“You mean the police…”

“Well, let’s put it this way. The police undoubtedly know that a deal is made. Sometimes the mob throws them a fall guy, and sometimes not. But the big thing is getting the stuff back. After they’ve had their crack at it and if they fail to produce, well, then we go to work on it. Of course we are in on it from the beginning, as far as that goes.”

“Then you mean that sooner or later you’ll recover the quarter of a million in jewels they got away with?”

Rogers shook his head.

“No,” he said. “No, not this time, I’m afraid.”

Hanna looked up at him, his head twisted in curiosity.

“Not this time?”

“Not a chance,” Rogers said. “You see, this is a little different. This isn’t just a simple heist or stick-up. Two cops were shot. Shot and killed. As far as the jewels are concerned, we’re just as much interested as we’d ever be. But this time it’s different. We don’t have the freedom to move that we’d have normally. A robbery is one thing. Even a robbery and a murder or two. But not this time. Not when they kill a cop. The police aren’t partial to cop killings.”

“Then you mean that the thieves…”

“Well, they got three of them, I understand. But the jewels are missing and that means there are others. Or at least one other. Although I would bet my right arm there’s an organized mob in back of it. Anyway, no deals can be made now. Not after they shot those two cops. The police would never stand for that. They don’t care about the jewels now. All they want to do is get the guys who are responsible for those two murders.”

“And so, you mean, you people get stuck then. That the reward won’t bring in…”

“We still offer the reward of course. There’s always the chance that someone may have some knowledge. Maybe one of the mob itself will turn rat. A hundred thousand is a lot of money. But frankly, I wouldn’t count on it. We may or may not get the stuff back, but as far as I’m concerned, I don’t think the reward will have much to do with it. No, this one will be cracked by the cops themselves. As I say, they don’t like to have people going around knocking off their men. They’ll go to work on this and they’ll stay with it. Sooner or later they’ll crack it. They almost always do. When a cop is killed.”

They finished their lunch and Gerald asked Rogers if he didn’t want a second iced tea. Rogers refused.

“No thanks,” he said. “Ate too much as it is,” he added, patting his belly and looking sadder than ever.

Gerald insisted on picking up the check. He walked back as far as the door of the building where Rogers had his office.

“Well,” he said, “it must be damned interesting work. And thanks a lot for lunching with me. I was really pretty interested, you know, with the police being around and all.”

Rogers grunted.

“Not too interesting,” he said. “After all, we turn it over to a private detective agency and they really do the investigating from their end. I just sort of keep track of things.” He belched and held out his hand.

“Nice to see you,” he said. “By the way, is that poker game that you and Bill have every week open to strangers?”

“Glad to have you-any time at all,” Gerald said. “But you want to watch the boys; you know how these percentage players are. Especially guys with insurance companies.”

“I’ll give Bill a ring,” Rogers said. “Be seeing you.”

Gerald, hurrying through the noonday crowds on his way back to the office, was torn by mixed emotions. A hundred thousand reward. Great. Couldn’t be better. But then he remembered what Rogers had told him. This time it would be different. This time two policemen had been murdered. This time it wouldn’t be a case of the loot being returned and a hundred thousand dollars being paid over and things allowed to be quietly forgotten. No, this time the police were going to stay right with it. Right up until the end.

As he pushed his way through the streets, he mulled the thing over in his mind. Finally, nearing his office, he slowly nodded, smiling to himself in quiet satisfaction.

He knew what he would have to do. He knew the answer. It was ticklish, devilishly ticklish. But he wasn’t licked. Not by a long shot.

At three o’clock that afternoon, Gerald knocked at the door of the private office of his supervisor.

“And so if it’s all right,” he said, “I’d like to get away a little early. I’ve got everything pretty much cleared up on my desk and I feel a little bit under the weather. Probably a virus or something,” he said.

The supervisor told him to go on home, to take it easy and if he still didn’t feel all right in the morning, not to come in. Gerald thanked him and within twenty minutes had left the office.

He had returned to his desk only long enough to type out the note.

He went directly to Penn Station and took the train out to Long Island. In Manhasset he got into his car and drove to Roslyn. The trip, actually, wasn’t at all necessary. But he couldn’t resist the temptation to stop by at the apartment. He wanted to make sure that the envelope had arrived.

It was in the mailbox and Gerald breathed a sigh of relief when he spotted the white of the paper through the air holes. He didn’t open the box but instead returned to the car which he had left at the curb with its engine running. It was probably because he was concentrating on what he was about to do, that he failed to notice the taxi which pulled up behind him as he was putting the Chevvie into gear.

Maryjane Swiftwater leaned forward on the leather seat and stared through the side window of the taxicab.

“Well!” She took a long breath and slowly expelled it.

“What did you say, Miss?” The driver looked over his shoulder.

For a second she stared at him blankly. And then her eyes focused, staring at him in anger.

“That car,” she said. “The Chevrolet which just pulled away. I want you to follow it.”

“Follow it?”

“Yes. Follow it. That’s what I said. I want you to follow that car. I don’t want you to let the driver know…”

“I’m no private detective, Miss,” the cabbie said. “I don’t want to get mixed up in no divorce case or nothin’ like that.”

If she had had a minute to think about it, she would never have been able to do it. But Maryjane moved without thinking and her hand shot into her bag and she found the tightly rolled-up bills, the money she’d been secretly saving for months now not putting it in her savings account, not letting anyone know about it. The dollar and five dollar bills which she changed into larger denominations as the sum built up and which she always carried with her. It was her own private hoard, held out from her frugal and careful life. Money she was going to use someday to buy the fur coat she’d always dreamed of and always wanted.

She peeled off a bill at random and waved it over the driver’s shoulder.

“Hurry,” she said, “just follow that car. It isn’t a divorce case or anything like that. Here-” she forced the bill into his hand, where it rested on the wheel. “It’s yours,” she said, “if you don’t lose sight of him.”

It wasn’t until she leaned back in the seat, jerked to the rear cushion as the car suddenly shot forward, that she realized she had handed the man a twenty dollar bill. Her shock at the knowledge was almost as great as had been her shock at seeing Gerald Hanna leaving from in front of his house at four-fifteen in the afternoon-a full two hours before he was even due to be home from his office. She couldn’t, to save her life, imagine what he was up to. But she was certainly going to find out. Yes, indeed, there were a lot of things she was going to find out about Gerald and his behavior of the last few days.

Gerald, several hundred yards in front of the taxi, drove at a moderate speed, his mind only half on the traffic, which was comparatively light. He wasn’t quite sure of the best way to get where he was going, but he knew the general direction. Once in Long Island City, he stopped to ask a traffic officer for directions, checking the address on a slip of paper. The officer told him and five minutes later he was in front of the building which housed the offices of the messenger service.

It was a calculated risk, but one that he knew he would have to take. There was, of course, the chance that the girl wouldn’t be home, wouldn’t, in fact, return home at all that night. But she had to come sooner or later. It was merely a matter of time. The greater risk was that she would go at once to the police. But this Gerald was inclined to doubt. Sisters of gunmen and killers, didn’t, as far as he knew, have any great love for policemen.

But even if she did, even if worse turned to worst, he still had an out. The most they could do would be to convict him of butting into police business. And certainly he had an excuse for being curious.

But Gerald doubted very much that Sue Dunne would go to the police after getting the note. No, she’d be too much interested in seeing him; interested in finding out about her brother.

It took him a little while to make it clear to the manager of the agency just what it was he wanted. The man was suspicious, but then, after Gerald had slipped him the extra five dollar bill, he apparently was willing enough to overlook it. He assured Gerald that the matter would be taken care of.

Returning to his car, Gerald decided to go directly into New York. He could kill some time driving around Central Park, then stop by the Cavern On The Green and have a drink. It was something he’d always wanted to do.

He might just as well relax. Either she’d come or she wouldn’t. It was out of his hands.

He only hoped that the breaks would be with him; only hoped that she’d be alone when she got the note. That it wouldn’t fall into the hands of the police before she had a chance to make up her mind.

By six-thirty Gerald was seated at a round iron-topped table slowly sipping a gin and tonic. He had perhaps an hour and a half to kill and he was determined to enjoy himself while he was killing it. His car was parked in the lot a few hundred yards away, and for the moment he was at peace with the world. He felt like a million dollars. Keyed up-yes. But still, fine.

He began to visualize the future. A gin and tonic before dinner, every night. Miami perhaps. Or maybe Bermuda would be pleasant at this time of the year.

The thoughts going through the head of Maryjane Swiftwater, however, were anything but pleasant. She herself was sweltering in the back seat of the taxi where it stood with its motor idling a few yards from the spot where Gerald had parked the Chevvie. She’d just returned to the car after walking to the entrance to the tavern for the second time and watching Gerald sitting there over his drink. And she had also just parted with the second twenty dollar bill to the cab driver, who had the audacity to not only accept it, but to accept it with a whine of protest.

But it was going to be worth it. Worth every cent of it, no matter what it cost her.

Maryjane was no longer perplexed. She was sure. Absolutely sure. Gerald could be sitting there for only one reason. He was waiting for someone; waiting for some other girl.

Much as Maryjane regretted parting with the money, she was determined to sit it out. She just wanted to see this girl. See what sort of witch…

Gerald drained his drink, smiled complacently, and raised a finger to beckon the waiter.

By seven o’clock the messenger was about ready to call it quits and leave. Hell’s bells, he’d been standing here in front of the place for at least an hour and a half. People were beginning to get suspicious of him. That woman, the one of the ground-floor front, had twice opened her window now and stared out at him. It made him damned nervous.

For about the tenth time, he turned and slowly started walking around the block. He’d give it just one more try and then the hell with it. Even if she hadn’t shown up by the time he got back, well, an extra couple of bucks or not, he’d just take off. He was due to quit at six-thirty and here already he’d spent an extra half hour overtime. He could just put the damned note in the mailbox and shove off. She’d find it. What could be so damned important about handing it to her personally, anyway?

He passed the tavern again and this time he ducked in and ordered a quick beer. At seven-ten he was back in the lobby of the building and pushing the bell. He was surprised when he heard the answering click of the door lock.

At eight-twenty-eight, Maryjane Swiftwater returned to the taxi in the parking lot for the last time and dismissed the driver. She was so mad that she failed to ask for change from the second twenty-dollar bill which she had given the man.

As far as the driver himself was concerned, he didn’t waste any time hanging around. He was anxious to get back to Long Island and get home and have his dinner. And he didn’t want any more of his present fare, in any case. He knew an irate female when he saw one and there was no doubt in his mind about his latest fare. He was glad to be well out of it. Forty bucks for a few hours’ work was all very well and good, but he didn’t want to get mixed up in any sort of hassle. Not when a girl with a jaw like that girl had, was involved.

She found a phone booth and it took her several minutes to make it clear to information just what it was she wanted. The stupid girl seemed to think that the only Police Department in the world was in New York. But finally she got it clear and within another minute or two, Maryjane had the right number. She was in luck. This man Hopper, the detective who had called her at her home in Connecticut, was in the office. It took her a couple of minutes to make him understand just who she was.

“Don’t you remember,” she said, her voice high-pitched in irritation. “Miss Swiftwater, Miss Maryjane Swiftwater. You called me about a Mr. Gerald Hanna.”

There was a pause and then the man’s voice came back to her.

“Yes, yes of course, Miss Swiftwater. And just what…”

“You wanted to know all about him. At least you seemed awfully curious about him. Remember, you wanted to know why he broke our appointment. Well! I can certainly tell you. It was because he has another girl. Can you imagine…”

Hopper cut in with a long-suffering voice.

“I see, Miss Swiftwater. So, he has another girl…”

“He has. And not a word, not one single blessed word about it to me. I don’t know why you were interested in him, but I can certainly tell you this. If ever a man was deceitful, if ever a man was a downright cad and liar…”

“Of course, Miss Swiftwater,” Hopper said. “You mean that when he was supposed to come and visit you, you’ve discovered he was with this other woman…”

“I wouldn’t know about that,” she cut in shortly. “But I can tell you this. He’s with her right now. Sitting with her and guzzling…”

“And where is Mr. Hanna right now?” Hopper asked in a bored voice.

“Some place here in New York. A place called Cavern On The Green. And that woman has just come in and joined him.”

“Perhaps a relative…”

“It certainly is not,” Maryjane said in indignation. “I know all of Gerald’s relatives and business acquaintances. This girl is a blonde, a painted-up blonde. Her name’s Dunne. I heard her give it to the waiter when she came here and asked for him. I heard…”

“What did you say?” This time the voice at the other end of the line was hard and sharp. “What did you say the girl’s name was?”

“Dunne. I heard her very distinctly. She came in a taxi and she told the headwaiter Mr. Hanna was expecting her. She said her name was Dunne. Mr. Hanna is my fiance and I want…”

It took Hopper another three minutes to get her off the wire and hang up. It took him a little less than two minutes to reach Detective Finn.

They’d been together for more than half an hour now, sitting across from each other at the small, round-topped table in the secluded corner of the terrace. She hadn’t touched the Martini which the waiter had brought and put down in front of her and he himself had let the gin and tonic grow lukewarm in the tall glass.

She wore a cheap little cotton suit, but well cut as though she might have made it herself, and her makeup was smeared. Her slender-fingered hands beat an insistent tattoo on the edge of the table and when she spoke there was a note of controlled hysteria in her voice. When she looked at him, the azure eyes were filled with loathing.

But in spite of her expression, he could tell that she was very pretty. Her eyes were really beautiful. He only wished he could see them without the anger. Nothing, of course, could detract from her slender, perfect figure.

Looking at her, Gerald’s mind unconsciously went to his fiancee, Maryjane. She would never have approved of this lovely golden girl. Maryjane didn’t like women who wore their hair free and careless, who…

She reached across the table suddenly, jerking him by the sleeve of his jacket and interrupting his thoughts.

“You wanted to talk to me, Mister,” she said, fury in her low, husky voice. “What kind of man are you, anyway? Don’t just sit there staring at me. Tell me…”

“I’m sorry,” he said, refocusing his eyes on her.

“I don’t understand you,” Sue Dunne said. “I don’t understand you at all. I have to believe you, but I simply can’t understand you. You don’t look like a hoodlum-and God knows, I’ve seen enough of them to know. You don’t look like a thief or a crook. Maybe you are an insurance man like you say. Maybe you are legitimate.

“And yet you come here, or rather bring me here, and tell me about my brother. Tell me about his getting into your car. You say that he had the jewels and that now you have them. Or that you know how to get hold of them.

“Why? Why in the name of God do you come to me?”

“It’s like I explained,” Gerald said. “There was nothing I could have done for your brother. He died within minutes of the time he got into the car. There was nothing I could have done for him. But, I want to know who else is mixed up in the thing. If anyone else was involved in the robbery. I want to know how they planned to get rid of the stuff once they had it.”

“But why? Why do you want to know? Say, are you some kind of cop or something? You said you were an insurance man. Is that why…”

Gerald slowly shook his head.

“No,” he said. “No that isn’t why. And I am not any sort of cop or anything like that. It’s like I have told you. Five men have already died because of these jewels. One of them was your brother. Nothing can be done about that part of it any longer. But you have to be sensible, be realistic. It doesn’t make the jewels any less valuable.”

He hesitated a second and watched her closely.

“You see,” he said, “I don’t know anything about mobs, or gangsters, or fences, or anything like that. I just assumed that maybe you, being the sister of one of the men who took the stuff…”

She pushed back her chair and angrily got to her feet, leaning down with her hands on the table and staring into his face.

“My brother’s dead,” she said. “I don’t say that he didn’t get what was coming to him; I don’t even blame the policeman who fired the bullet which killed him. But the very thought of those jewels makes me sick. Makes me want to vomit. Do you understand? I hate the jewels and I hate the men who helped Vincent steal them.”

Her slender body suddenly began to shake and Gerald himself leaned forward, taking her by the arms. In a moment she again sat down, half collapsing in the seat.

He leaned forward, still holding her.

“Please,” he said. “Please. Just take it easy. I’m not trying to hurt you. I don’t want to…”

She swallowed a sob and looked up at him. The hatred was still there, but there was a difference. He could tell that the hatred had nothing to do with him personally. He was no longer important.

“If there is anything I could do to see that the man who got Vince into this thing was arrested,” she said in a low, choked voice, “anything I could do at all, why I’d give my life.”

She lifted her eyes again and stared at him intently. “And you expect me to help you contact him? You expect me to help you make money out of the very thing which killed my brother? You must be a fool as well as a scoundrel!”

She leaned back in her seat in sudden tired resignation and he could see the tears forming in the corners of her eyes.

“Vince was weak,” she said, her voice soft and barely above a whisper, as though she were speaking to herself and had forgotten his very presence. “Yes, Vince was weak. I always knew that he wasn’t much good. But if they’d let him alone, if they’d only left him alone! He could have turned out all right. I would have seen to that. I could have helped him, protected him.”

She looked up again and once more her mood changed.

“Yes,” she said, bitterly. “Yes, I could have helped him. But they didn’t. They didn’t leave him alone. They need kids like Vince to do their dirty work-take the chances they are afraid to take themselves.”

Suddenly she reached for the Martini and lifting it to her lips, swallowed it in one long draught. She made a wry face as she replaced the glass.

“As far as you’re concerned,” she said, looking into his face and not bothering to conceal the repugnance in her voice, “as far as you’re concerned, if you have the jewels like you say you do, then keep them. Or, if you aren’t just a cheap thief, give them back to the people they belong to.

“I wouldn’t help you if I could. I don’t even know why I’m stupid enough to sit here talking to you. I think maybe you are as bad as Fred Slaughter himself. There’s something darned funny about you and I think maybe I should just go to the telephone and…”

“Slaughter? Was this Fred Slaughter the man-the fence or whatever it is?”

For a long moment she stared at him and then quickly looked away.

“If you are smart,” she said, “you’ll forget that name. Forget that you ever heard it.”

This time when she stood up there was no doubt about what her intentions were.

“I don’t know what your angle is, Mister,” she said. “Maybe you are just a screwball after all. You certainly don’t look like a thief and you don’t look like a cop. But if you should by any chance know anything about those stolen jewels, I would advise you to get rid of them just as quickly as you can. I’d advise you to go right to the police and tell them everything you know.”

She hesitated a moment and for the first time as she looked at him, there was no longer the disgust and the dislike in her expression.

“You are older than Vince was,” she said. “You should be a lot smarter. Maybe you are and maybe you’re not. Maybe, you too just have to be told what is right and what is wrong.”

She moved a step away from the table as he started to stand up.

“I’m going now,” she said. “We’ve had our talk. I’m going home now and I don’t think I ever want to see you again.”

She swung on her heel and stalked out into the night and Gerald stood there.

Somehow he felt a sudden sadness, a sudden odd sense of loss. It didn’t matter how she felt about it. He knew that he himself would want to see her again. Would like to see her soon and often and…

He didn’t notice the man several tables away who also sat watching the girl leave. The man himself, for a moment, made as though to get up and follow her. Then, after a moment, he once more sat back and his eyes returned to Gerald.

It was a decision he had to make on the spur of the moment. There was no time to call in and find out which one of the two they wanted him to keep his eye on in case they split up. Well, he couldn’t, very obviously, tail both of them. And he guessed that the man would probably be the most important one. The man usually was.

It is more or less of a shame that he reached this particular decision, because, if he hadn’t and had decided to follow Sue Dunne instead of stay with Gerald Hanna, he might have been able to do something about what was to happen a few moments later.

At least he would have seen the car which was waiting at the curb, in front of Sue’s apartment house when she arrived. He would have seen the man who leaped to the dark street and crossed over and accosted her and a second later threw a strangle hold around her neck and pulled her to the edge of the gutter. He would have seen the other hands reach out and drag her into the machine as it left the curb to speed off into the night.

But instead, this man who had to make the decision stayed on as Gerald sat and finished his warm drink and called the waiter over and asked for his check. He followed him when Gerald went out and got into his car. He was behind him, in his own unmarked police car, all of the way out to Long Island. He was parked across the street, watching, as Gerald closed the garage doors and went on up to his apartment.

He wasn’t prepared for it. It was funny how that was the first thought that passed through his mind as his hand reached out and he flicked on the wall switch in the living room.

Even before the sense of surprise, of fear, reached his brain, that was the thought. He should have known or at least have guessed. But he hadn’t. That was the trouble with having no experience. Experience was always valuable. Gerald could only assume the rule applied to almost any given situation.

A criminal, a man who operated outside the law, would have had that experience and would have known. Would have sensed it the moment he entered the room. But he, Gerald Hanna, was without experience and that is why, as the yellow brilliance filtered through the dark room and he saw the two of them, one on the couch and the other standing by the door, he reacted as he did.

The hand which had found the fight switch went to his mouth and his eyes, in the sudden glare of the light, were wide and almost hysterical. He gasped and instinctively he turned and took a step back toward the hallway.

It was the short, fat one, the one called Finn, who spoke. He didn’t move and didn’t take the dead cigar from between his lips and he didn’t raise his voice but spoke in a cool, detached manner.

“Don’t leave now, Mr. Hanna,” he said. “You just got here. This is your house, you know. Your castle. You may stay.”

Detective Lieutenant Hopper merely sat still and relaxed on the couch, his glasses half down on his thin, bony nose and his hat pushed back on his head. He didn’t look up. His eyes were on the floor and he seemed to be inspecting the carpet under Gerald’s feet.

“Yes, do stay. It wouldn’t be polite to leave while you have guests,” Finn said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He dusted a spot of cigar ash from the unpressed lapel of his dark-gray suit and looked up into Gerald’s face, smiling politely.

“You’re real cute, Mr. Hanna,” he said.

Lieutenant Hopper raised his eyes and sighed. He looked over at the fat man, ignoring Gerald, who still stood half in and half out of the doorway.

“I’ll take it, Finn,” he said in a tired voice. He transferred his gaze to Gerald.

“Come in and sit down, Mr. Hanna,” he said. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

Gerald entered the room, attempting to compose his expression. He took off his hat and carefully placed it on the side table and then moved across the room and pulled a straight-backed chair out from the wall. He straddled it and then just sat there, waiting.

“Where have you been?”

The lieutenant’s expression was disinterested as he asked the question in a soft, gentle voice.

“Why… why, out,” Gerald said. The moment the words left his lips he realized the inane vacuity of them. Realized how silly they sounded. But he still hadn’t gotten over his shock at finding the men in his apartment, hadn’t adjusted to the reality of their presence.

“He’s been out,” Finn said, his voice heavy with sarcasm. “I told you he’s cute, Lieutenant. Not tricky-nothing cagey or deceitful or reticent about him. Just cute. You ask him where he’s been and like a little man he ups and he tells you. He’s been out. Simple? Straightforward? Certainly. A man would have to be a damned ingrate not to be satisfied with that sort of answer.”

He moved then, moved with amazing swiftness for a man of his bulk. He was halfway across the room when he again spoke.

“Why, you dirty little…”

“Sit down, Finn. I said I’d take it!”

The lieutenant stood up then himself and stared down at Gerald. He began to speak in the same soft, unimpassioned tone of voice, almost apologetically, but his gray eyes were like ice.

“I’d like to explain something to you, Mr. Hanna,” he said. He took a step forward, standing in front of Gerald on straddled legs. As he spoke he reached up and pushed his glasses into position.

“I don’t believe it’s any news to you that we have been working on a robbery. The Gorden-Frost job, to be precise. A quarter of a million dollars in stones and assorted gems. But do you know, in spite of the money involved, in spite of the fact that the thieves got away with the stuff, we aren’t really primarily concerned. Interested of course, that more or less being our business, but not hysterical about it or anything.

“On the other hand, it just so happens that two policemen were shot during that particular robbery. One of them was a man a year or so younger than you, but unlike you, he was married. Had a two-year-old baby. His name was Hardy, Don Hardy. I never knew him personally as he was just a rookie when he was shot. He’ll never be anything else. He’s dead.

“The other one was a man named Dillon. Dillon was a sergeant, an old-timer. Dillon I did know. Knew him. knew his wife, and knew his two sons and his daughter. You’d have liked Dillon-a good solid family man and honest as the day is long. Dillon was the sort of cop who hated to write out a traffic ticket. He wasn’t a cop’s cop-he was a layman’s cop. Everyone liked Dillon. Well, he’s dead too. I take his death pretty hard; you see he stood up at my wedding and we were friends.

“But I don’t want you to let that influence your reaction to what I am saying to you. A lot of men have friends and a lot of those friends die, sooner or later. Not exactly the way Hardy and Dillon died, of course, but they do die.”

Lieutenant Hopper shifted his weight and scratched vaguely at the side of his nose before going on. His voice was softer than ever.

“Around New York,” he said, “we take it seriously when someone shoots a cop. We don’t like it. Not at all, we don’t like it.”

Gerald, staring up at the other man, half nodded. He didn’t speak.

“Now let’s take you,” the lieutenant said. “By some amazing coincidence, you just happen to be driving by the scene of a crime at the time or around the time it is taking place. And, through an even more fascinating coincidence, you were driving the same make of car which was driven by one of the men who engineered the getaway.

“Sort of coincidental, eh? But that isn’t all of it. Oh, no, we have even more and greater surprises in store. Your license plate ends in the same number as the license plate of the getaway car. The truth is really stranger than fiction, isn’t it, Mr. Hanna?”

The lieutenant tipped his hat back a bit farther on his head and then took off his glasses. He pulled a linen handkerchief from his breast pocket, carefully polished both lenses and then put the glasses into a leather case and placed the case back in his jacket pocket.

“Now you tell us, Mr, Hanna, that you didn’t know anything about that robbery. Didn’t know anything about those two policemen who were killed in the line of duty. You tell us further that you didn’t know the three men who were known to have been involved in the crime. That you never as much as heard of Vince Dunne, or Dominick Petri or Jake Riddle.

“And yet, tonight, by another one of those utterly fascinating coincidences, you spent a few casual, carefree hours with the sister of one of those men. You met her at a pleasant, restful saloon and the two of you enjoyed the cool of the summer evening over a few drinks. I certainly can’t criticize you for that, Mr. Hanna. Having met the young lady, I can only congratulate you on your good taste. I can only envy you your youth and your freedom and your luck. But do you know something, Mr. Hanna? Do you know that I experience another sensation even stronger than envy?”

Suddenly the soft voice was no longer soft, no longer gentle and conciliatory.

“You s-o-b,” the lieutenant said, “start talking! Start talking and make it good. Make it damned good!”

As Lieutenant Hopper finished speaking, Finn moved swiftly across the room. His meaty right hand swung from his hip and the hard side of the palm caught Gerald across the eyes. Twice more, before Gerald could raise his arms in defense, Finn back slapped him, rocking his head from side to side.

“He’ll talk,” Finn said. “He’ll talk. You’re damn right he’ll talk.”

Gerald talked.

He tried not to lose his head, tried not to panic. Tried to tell them the truth, straight and simple.

Yes, he’d met Sue Dunne and he’d spent an hour or so with her.

They didn’t interrupt him as he explained it. He told them that he had read about the robbery in the newspapers and that after that first visit the two had paid him, he’d made the connection and reread the stories in the newspapers. He had realized what it was they had wanted to see him about.

Naturally he had been curious. Who wouldn’t be? He’d gone on and followed the case for the last couple of days, reading the papers and tuning in on the news broadcasts. He himself had been fascinated by the coincidences in the thing. The fact that he had a Chevvie, that its license ended in the number “3.” That he had been near the scene of the crime at the time it had taken place. Who wouldn’t be curious?

He’d seen the girl’s name in the newspapers and her address as well. There had been a picture of her and he had thought she was enchanting.

At this point Lieutenant Hopper interrupted his story. Finn was back, seated on the couch and the lieutenant still stood, a few feet away.

“Enchanting?” he said. “I’m rather surprised, Mr. Hanna… and you an engaged man. In fact, I believe that you and Miss Swiftwater have been engaged for several years. A nice girl, Miss Swiftwater. Not enchanting, perhaps, but nice. I don’t believe, however, that nice as she is, she would quite approve of her fiance finding Miss Dunne enchanting.”

Gerald blushed, but continued.

“I couldn’t understand,” Gerald said, “how a girl who looked like Miss Dunne could be mixed up with a lot of thugs.”

“And is she mixed up with thugs?” the lieutenant asked.

“What I mean to say,” Gerald explained, “is how she could be the sister of a thief and a gunman. In any case, curiosity got the better of me, and because I was interested in the case, and because you had questioned me about it, I looked up Miss Dunne and arranged to see her. It was as simple as that.”

But it wasn’t as simple as that. It wasn’t simple at all.

The questioning continued, continued endlessly. A half a dozen times Finn would get up and cross the room and raise his thick hand and slap him. The lieutenant never struck him and he alternated between suaveness and detachment and cold fury. But neither of them shook his story. Neither of them made him admit a thing beyond the bare outlines of his original statement. He had seen the girl’s picture and her address, she had interested him, and he had made a date with her.

What had they talked about? Nothing much really. He had offered to help her in any way he could. He had expressed his sympathy over her brother’s death.

“It is too bad you didn’t sympathize with Hardy’s widow or with Dillon’s widow,” Hopper said. “But then I don’t suppose that they tweeked your curiosity. I don’t suppose that you found the same ‘enchantment’ in them.”

That was when Finn hit him the hardest.

At one time during the evening the telephone rang and Hopper quickly reached for it. The call was for him and he spoke into the instrument for several moments, mostly in monosyllables. Once or twice he looked across the room curiously at Gerald as he listened to the voice on the other end of the wire. When he hung up, he swung back to Hanna.

“When you left Miss Dunne,” he asked, “where did she say she was going?”

“She said she was going back to her apartment.”

Hopper nodded.

“You had your car,” he said. “Why didn’t you drive her back?”

“Perhaps she didn’t find Mr. Hanna as enchanting as he found her,” Finn said.

The lieutenant turned and stared at his partner for a moment and then returned his attention to Gerald.

“Well?”

“Miss Dunne resented my curiosity,” Gerald said. “Also, she was very upset, about her brother, you know. She just wanted to be left alone. I offered to drive her home, but she preferred to leave by herself.”

“I can’t say I blame her,” Finn cut in.

“It couldn’t have been because she knew you were mixed up in the robbery, now could it?” Hopper said. “It couldn’t be that she just didn’t want any part of…”

“I am not mixed up in anything,” Gerald interrupted. “The only thing I know about the robbery is what I have read in the papers. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again. I have absolutely no knowledge…”

They left around five o’clock in the morning. It was the lieutenant who had the last words as they stood in the doorway.

“Brother,” he said, “this time we are really going to check you. We’re going to find out everything there is to find out. When I get through, I’ll know if you ever as much as spit on the sidewalk. I’ll know about the time you skipped school when you were in the second grade at P.S. 40. I’ll know about the first girl you kissed and the last one you made a play for. There won’t be one damned thing I won’t know about you.”

He pulled his hat forward on his head and his eyes were deadly.

“And if you are mixed up in this thing,” he said, “we’ll get you. We’ll get you and we’ll fry you!”

He didn’t bother to close the door as he followed Finn out of the apartment.

Closing the door behind the two detectives, Gerald had an almost irresistible desire to wait for a few moments and then go to the mailbox. He wanted to be absolutely sure that the envelope was there, where it should be. Silently he congratulated himself for having come up from the garage by the inside stairway. Had he locked the garage from the outside and walked around to the front of the house, he would have very likely stopped at the box and removed the letter on his way in. He would have had it in his hand when he was accosted by Hopper and Finn.

Well, thank God, he hadn’t made that mistake. And he wouldn’t make the mistake now of going to the box. The envelope containing the two baggage checks would be there all right. It had to be there. If Hopper and Finn had taken it out, certainly they would never have walked off and left Gerald free.

Reluctantly, he slowly turned and went in through the bedroom and turned on the light in the bathroom. He’d take a shower before turning in for a couple of hours sleep. He needed a shower, needed to wash off the feel of Finn’s heavy hands.