Cop Out

Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday
The Weakness

The house was cold. Malone turned up the thermostat but nothing happened. He went down into the cellar and pressed the emergency button on the stack and the furnace boomed. Afterward he could not remember anything about the heat, the cellar, or the furnace.

It had been a night to forget. Ellen had spent the day cleaning up the mess and getting things put back, and after Malone got home she cooked a dinner from something the visitors had left in the fridge and Malone could not remember what he had put in his mouth. He had not wanted to go to bed, saying “Suppose… “ but Ellen rapped his lips with her finger and stripped his shirt and pants off and his underwear and socks and got him into his pajamas as if he were a child. As if he were Bibby. She tucked him in and crept in beside him and for the first time Malone cried. He kept jerking as if under a whip and Ellen tightened her arms and legs about him and murmured mothering sounds until, like a child, he fell asleep.

When he fell asleep Ellen got out of bed and shuffled to Barbara’s room. She spent the rest of the night sitting in Barbara’s little rocker with Miss Twitchit in her lap. Once she sang the soft song she had made up before Bibby could even crawl, not the tune really, it was let’s face it the Brahms Lullaby, I couldn’t make up a tune Ellen used to say with a laugh I’m practically tone-deaf. But the words were her own, hush and baby and love, words that came from her womb.

She woke up in a nasty dawn and found that she was crying. When she was over it she put Miss Twitchit back in her doll cradle that Loney had made from a broken-down rocker of his mother’s and only then did she go back to the big bedroom and stretch out beside her husband. She lay on the edge of the bed so as not to disturb him. When she heard him grunt and sit up she made sure to have her eyes shut.

Thank God she’s getting a decent sleep.

At first Goldie was all for lighting out, even before they came back for the kid.

“It’s getting more and more risky, Fure. I don’t like this hanging around New Bradford.”

“The payroll,” Furia said.

“I know, but what’s the sense being mules about it when we’re hot for a murder rap? There are plenty other payrolls around. So we take our lumps on this one. I say let’s scramble and lose ourselves in the scenery. We ought to get out of the state. Maybe hit for Kansas or Indiana, those farmers out there are sitting ducks.”

“I ain’t leaving here without the bread,” Furia said, and from the way he said it Goldie knew that she had better clam up, her skin was starting to itch again.

She picked the emergency holeup after they got the kid back. The shack they had rented at Balsam Lake was out of the question, they agreed on that, but Furia wanted to bust into one of the other cabins, maybe at the other end of the Lake, he was in a rotten mood and it took special methods to work him out of it. Goldie worked him out of it on the bed in the shack they were abandoning after she did what he liked best, which Hinch had watched through a good crack in the door, it was his favorite. Hinch was supposed to be guarding the kid, Furia had told him to, but he enjoyed their wrestling holds when he could do a Peeping Tom without getting caught. Anyways the kid was too scared to try anything, she was right there with him in the kitchen shivering on a chair, he could hear her teeth going clackety-clack without turning around.

“The Lake is the first place he’ll look, Fure, believe me,” Goldie said, “as soon as he gets the message we grabbed the kid again. He’ll tear up these woods. So it figures like we get out of here fast and settle in where he can look all year long and he won’t find us. We oughtn’t to have come back to this shack at all. What’s the sense having to cool him before you get the money back?”

“Okay, okay,” Furia said dreamily, “I buy it.”

Hinch was making faces at the kid for kicks when they came out of the bedroom.

They spotted the Saab with Malone at the wheel hellbent for the Lake, he was hunched over blind, he passed the Chrysler without a look.

“What did I tell you?” Goldie said with a laugh. “Drive on, Stinkfoot.”

The house she had picked was at the other side of town, near the town line of Tonekeneke Falls but well away from both centers, standing by itself on a back road a good hundred yards in and hidden by shade trees taller than the house. You could pass it a thousand times and never know it was here, Goldie said. Which is a fact, Furia said with satisfaction.

There was even a flagstoned patio out back and an outdoor pool with a heater attachment, but the pool was drained for the winter, too bad, Furia said, we could have had ourselves a dunk like the richbitches.

The place was owned by a New York family who used it for summers and long holiday weekends the rest of the year. Goldie knew about it because her sister Nanette had mentioned the Thatchers in her letters, she was their regular summer baby-sitter, they went out a lot. They had three impossible children but Nanette said they paid her twice the going rate so who’s kicking. There was no chance of the Thatchers showing up all of a sudden because they had traipsed off to Europe till after the Christmas holidays, that’s how the other half lives.

Furia approved. Aside from the money he was feeling great after Goldie’s special treatment and when Hinch broke through the back door and Goldie locked Barbara in the downstairs maid’s room he didn’t even get mad at the furnace, it wouldn’t go on, the tanks must need oil. Maybe they don’t pay their bills, he cracked.

He went around admiring. The country furniture was king-size and handfinished, white pine treated with just linseed oil, all dowels, not a nail in them. The fieldstone fireplace in the living room was almost tall enough for Hinch to walk into and there were genuine oil paintings on the walls. Though Furia took a dim view of the paintings. They look like cripples did them a skillion years ago, he said, and look how they’re all browned up and full of cracks. There was even a big-screen color TV set in a special white pine cabinet which right away Goldie turned on, but Furia said, “The hell with that, we got to listen to what’s going on around here,” and he turned off the TV and turned on the radio, a kingsize transistor, standing on the mantelpiece. He tuned in the station at Tonekeneke Falls, there was a rock combo on, and he left it on while he went exploring.

The country kitchen made him do a little dance like Hitler. It was all of pine and brick with a regular Rockette lineup of gleamy copper pots and skillets on wrought iron racks hanging from the beams, like a color spread in House Beautiful or something. “Would this ‘a’ bugged my old lady’s eyes out! What she had to cook in shouldn’t happen to a dog. When she had something to cook.” The refrigerator was empty, but there was a twenty-cubic-foot freezer loaded with steaks and roasts and other great stuff and a for-real cooking fireplace with a black iron door at the back that opened into something Goldie said they called a Dutch oven big enough to do a whole lamb in and a black iron pot hanging on a black iron dohinky that swung out in the damnedest way. “Man, that pot’s bigger than my old lady’s washtub,” Furia said, practically smiling, “you sure can pick ‘em, Goldie.”

He felt so good that when Hinch found a room lousy with books from floor to ceiling and a white pine bar full of bottles of the best stuff and poured himself a waterglass of Black Label, Furia let him. “Live it up, Hinch, have yourself a grin.” But then he had to show what a big man he was, he said, “What the hell is the kid bawling for? I’ll give her something to bawl,” and he unlocked the door to the maid’s room and slapped the little girl around some, not much, he pulled his punches, he had nothing against kids, but it only made her bawl louder. “What’s with this little punk?” Furia said disgustedly. “You’d think being her old man is fuzz she’d be used to getting banged around, give her some booze, Goldie, and shut her up.” So Goldie got a couple slugs of Jack Daniels into Barbara and after a while she stopped crying and fell asleep on the bed with her mouth open, snoring like a little lush. Furia got a charge out of that and when he locked her back in he was smiling again.

He kicked off his shoes and stretched out on the pine-and-cowhide sofa in the living room like the little king. “Think I’ll have me a couple filly minyons for supper tonight, Goldie,” Furia said. “Can you make ‘em like the fat cats do, in that kitchen fireplace?”

“Don’t see why not,” Goldie said, “though I can’t barbecue them, I don’t see any charcoal.”

“What the hell difference? Medium well, Goldie, can you do medium well in a fireplace?”

“Coming up,” Goldie said, she was certainly anxious to please these days, “if Stinkfoot ‘11 get me a load of kindling and firewood. I saw a woodshed out back that’s stacked.”

But by this time Hinch had finished the fifth and thrown it through the mirror behind the bar.

“He shouldn’t ought to done that,” Furia said, “not a high-class dump like this. Hinch?”

“I heard her,” Hinch said, coming in from the den. His face was white and his nose red, his eyes bugging. He looked steamy. “I ain’t lugging no wood for her, I ain’t her nigger.”

“That shows how ignorant you are,” Goldie said. “You have to say Negro or black.”

“Nigger nigger nigger,” Hinch said. “I ain’t hauling no wood for nobody, special not for her.”

“How about for me?” Furia asked.

“I don’t feel so good,” Hinch said, and sat down on the floor suddenly.

“You ain’t used to fat cat booze is why,” Furia said indulgently. “It’s my fault for letting you. What the hell, Goldie, I’ll get the wood,” and to her surprise he sprang off the sofa and trotted out on his stockinged feet. She almost called after him it’s a dirt floor out there but didn’t, you never knew with Fure and things were going too good. She heard the back door open and stay open.

Goldie went into the downstairs bathroom which was all tiled in black and white real tiles and used the black porcelain john, it made her feel like a movie queen squatting there. Christ I’m going to live this way and no fooling, it’s the only life. Soon as I shake Fure and that smelly Hinch.

She was primping her hair in the bathroom mirror which had the cutest little frosted bulbs set all around the frame a la Hollywood stars’ dressing rooms when she jumped a foot. She had never heard such a scream except in the movies. It was like a police siren going off in her ear or a pig getting stuck, she remembered that from when she was a little girl and sneaked off to Hurley’s chicken farm after her old man against orders just to watch what they did to the pigs. When the sound turned all bubbly she could practically see it choking on its blood.

She made it to the woodshed before Hinch, who had trouble getting off the floor.

Furia was backed off in a corner of the shed chucking firewood in every direction while his mouth opened and closed and nothing came out. The shed was full of furry things jumping and dodging. His eyes were dropping out of his head, the corners of his nose were blue. There was drool coming out of his mouth.

“Rats… “

Goldie couldn’t believe her ears. She walked over to him and shook his arm hard.

“What are you talking about, Fure?” she said. “They’re field mice.”

“Rats,” he panted. His tough little body felt like Jello under her hand.

“Fure, for Chrissake. I ought to know a field mouse when I see one. They used to run all over our kitchen in the Hollow. They won’t hurt you.”

“They went for me… “

“They couldn’t do that. They’re harmless.”

“They bite… “

“Not people. They’re grain eaters. Not like rats. See, they’re all gone now.” There was a hundred-pound sack stamped golden bulky in the shed. The mice had gnawed holes in it, the dirt floor was honey brown where they had burrowed. “The Thatchers must keep a horse here summers. This is horse feed, Fure, that’s what they were after, not you.”

He didn’t believe her. He kept shivering and hugging himself.

Hinch was spreadlegged in the entrance with a puzzle written on his face. He was looking from Furia to the dirt floor of the shed and back again. Furia’s wild heaves had struck two mice. One was lying with its head flattened out in an omelet of blood and brains. The other was still alive, scrabbling with its forelegs as if its back were broken.

“You scared of these bitty things?” Hinch asked in a wondering voice.

Furia swallowed convulsively.

Hinch walked over to the wounded mouse with a grin and kicked. It flew up and against the back wall of the shed and fell like a shot. He picked it up by the tail and went back and picked up the other one by the tail and went back again and dangled the two dead mice inches from Furia’s nose. Furia screeched and tried to climb the wall. Then he was sick all over the dirt. Goldie had to jump back.

“Be goddam if he ain’t scared shitless,” Hinch said. He walked out and threw the mice all the way over into the empty pool. It was as if Hinch had just learned that babies didn’t come out of their mothers’ armpits.

Furia couldn’t get down more than a couple of mouthfuls even though Goldie did the steaks exactly the way he liked them. She almost laughed in his face.

She found it a gas too the way he kept hanging on to the fireplace poker, a five-footer with three prongs at the business end. His eyes had grown as quick as the mice, darting about the floor, especially in corners. He drank three cups of black coffee without letting go of the poker.

Barbara woke up whimpering and Furia got ugly. “Shut that brat’s yap or so help me Jeese I’ll ram this thing down her goddam throat.”

“All right, Fure, all right,” Goldie said, and found some powdered milk in the cupboard and stirred up a glass. She brought the child the milk and a piece of cold steak. Barbara sipped some of the milk but turned away from the meat, her eyes were rolling up, I guess I gave her too much of a slug, well, better drunk than dead. She finally dropped back to sleep.

“She won’t bother you now,” Goldie said, coming out.

“Cool it, big man,” Hinch said with a wink. “A couple of lousy mice.”

That was when Furia swung the long fire tool and ripped Hinch’s cheek. If Hinch hadn’t been so quick the prongs would have gone through to his tonsils. He looked astounded. Goldie had to swab the wound with antiseptic she found in the medicine chest, she swabbed good and hard, and she slapped one of those three-inch Band-Aids over it.

Hinch kept looking at Furia with his eyebrows humped up like questions.

Saturday morning passed in jerks like a film jumping its sprockets. Malone wandered about the house picking things up and setting them down as if to satisfy himself that they were still there. The next thing he was taking in the milk. The milk brought Bibby into focus and he shut the refrigerator door as reverently as if it were the lid of a coffin. When Ellen set breakfast before him he simply sat and looked at it. He did not even drink the coffee. She finally took the dishes away.

Ellen had mourning under her eyes, bands of dark gray. Once she said, “Noon. What happens after noon, Loney?”

He turned away. He resents my reminding him. As if he needs reminding. What a thing to say, now of all times. Why am I so good to him at night and so bitchy daytimes?

But she’s my child.

My lost, my frightened baby.

They sat in the parlor, he on the sofa, she on the rocker, watching the little cathedral clock on the mantel. When noon came they both sat up straight, as if at a call. When the clock stopped striking it was like a death.

Ellen began to cry again.

Malone jumped up and ran out into Old Bradford Road leaving the front door open. It was a mean day and the meanness slid into the house. He stood in the middle of the empty street staring in the direction of Lovers Hill. The Cunninghams’ mongrel bitch came trotting up and licked his hand. Malone wiped his hand on his pants and went back into the house, shutting the door this time. Ellen was upstairs, he heard her moving about in one of the bedrooms.

Bibby’s I’ll bet.

He sank onto the sofa again and placed his hands uselessly on his knees, looking at the clock. When John Secco drove up it was twenty minutes of two and Malone was still sitting there.

Secco came in his own car, a three-year-old Ford wagon with no markings. He was in civvies.

“No sense getting your neighbors wondering,” the chief said. He had more than midafternoon shadow and Malone doubted he had shaved. For some reason it made him angry. “Ellen, I know how this has hit me, I can imagine what you’re going through.” Ellen said nothing. “Been a call? Letter, message?”

“Nothing,” Malone said.

“Well, it’s early. Could be they’re putting some pressure on. Or giving you plenty of time to play ball.”

“With what?” Ellen said. Secco was silent. “I knew that’s what you’d do, Loney.”

“Do what?” Malone said.

“Tell the whole thing to John. You promised you wouldn’t. I told you I’d walk out on you if you did.”

“Wes did the only thing,” Secco said. “Do you suppose I’d put your little girl in danger, Ellen?”

“I don’t know.”

“I thought you considered me your friend.”

“You’re a policeman.”

“I’m also a husband and a father. You ought to know me better than that.”

“I don’t know anything any more.”

“Do you want me to leave?” the chief asked.

They waited for a long time. Finally Ellen’s mouth loosened and she said, “John, we don’t know what to do, where to turn.”

“That’s why I’m here, Ellen. I want to help.”

“Sure,” Malone said. “Get me that money.”

“Ask me something that’s possible, Wes. Anyway, I think there’s something we can do.”

“Without the twenty-four thousand?” Malone laughed. “Furia thinks I’ve lifted it. You figured out a way to convince him I didn’t?”

“I’ve been thinking over what you told me, I mean about what you did on your own.” Secco seemed to be picking his way through the available words and choosing only the finest. “Maybe when they rented that cabin at the Lake last summer they at the same time rented a second cabin as a backup just in case. I thought it worth a try.”

Malone raised his head. “I never thought of that.”

“Only they didn’t. I’ve spent the day so far doing another check of the real estate offices.” He added quickly, “Don’t worry. I didn’t tip the hand.”

Malone slumped back. Ellen just sat there.

“All the other possibilities were either vacated as of Labor Day or they’re rented the year round by people who are known. So wherever they’ve dug in this time it’s likely not at the Lake. It could be anywhere, out of the county even. It would take a hundred men-”

“You mustn’t do that!” Ellen cried.

“Ellen, I told you. I wouldn’t take chances with Barbara’s safety.”

“All I know is I want my baby back.”

“Isn’t that what we all want? Look. Wes, you listening?”

“I’m listening,” Malone said.

“This woman who hijacked the payroll, Goldie. She could be working with Furia against the other man, Hinch, to squeeze Hinch out. They could be both putting on an act for Hinch’s benefit.”

“Damn,” Malone said. “I never thought of that, either.”

“But I doubt it. From what you told me about the way Furia acted when they were here in your house, it’s likelier she’s doublecrossing the two of them the way you doped it.”

“Round and round we go,” Malone said.

“No, listen.” Chief Secco leaned forward in his effort to hold them, they slipped away so easily. “The way you described this Hinch, Wes, he seems to be the weak sister of the three, a dumb character.”

“He hasn’t a brain in his head.”

“The dumb ones of a gang are the ones to go after. In this case, from what you say, the groundwork with Hinch has already been laid.”

“How do you mean?”

“You told me that the first time they came here-when they first took Barbara-Furia told Hinch to meet them at the cabin and Hinch was upset, you got the impression he was worried they might run out on him.”

“So?”

“You also said that the second time they came, after you got Barbara back, when you told them the money’d been stolen from the house and Ellen accused Furia of having been the one, Hinch seemed half convinced it was true. That’s what I mean by the groundwork being laid. He doesn’t trust Furia. He’s already got his doubts. Suppose we could convince him.”

“That Furia took the money? But he didn’t, John. Goldie Vorshek took it.”

“We know that and the Vorshek woman knows it, but Hinch and Furia don’t.” There was nothing in the chief’s voice or manner to suggest that he was about to sell something, he was being very careful about that. “If we can get Hinch to believing that Furia is playing him for a sucker, even a bear of little brain like that is going to start thinking of his own hide. It’s a cinch he’s in this thing for his cut of the loot. If there’s no cut for him he’s going to want out. The only way Hinch could get out now is by making a deal with us, in his own interest and to get back at the partner taking him for a ride. He’ll make contact. He’ll tell us where they’re hiding.

He might even help us when we close in. That’s the way I figure it.”

“And that’s the way my Bibby would get killed,” Ellen said. “Absolutely no.”

“Ellen,” Secco said. “Would Barbara be in more danger than she’s in right now if they got to distrusting one another? She might even be in less, because if the plan worked out Hinch would have a personal interest in seeing she stays safe. He’d know what would happen to him if he let Furia hurt her.” Secco took out his pipe and fiddled with it. He put it back in his pocket. “Look, I’m not saying this is guaranteed. There are a lot of ifs when you’re dealing with dangerous morons like these. But as things stand, Furia won’t give up Barbara without the money, if then-I have to be frank with you, Ellen-and we don’t have the money to give them. You’ve got to accept how things are, not how you’d like them to be.”

Ellen was giving her head little stubborn shakes.

“But, of course, you’ve got to make the decision. I don’t have the right to make it for you. Even if I had, I wouldn’t.”

“The answer is no,” Ellen said.

“Ellen.” There was a hint of life in Malone’s eyes. “Maybe John has something. God knows we don’t. Maybe such a trick… “

“No.”

“Wait. John, how would you get to Hinch? What do you have in mind?”

“Wherever they’re hiding out it’s a sure thing they’ve got a radio. So that’s our channel of communication. Manufactured story, some cooked-up announcements on the air, I don’t know, I haven’t laid it out yet. But the point is, if we can get the right message through to him-”

“But Furia and this Goldie would hear it, too.”

“Let them. It would make her more jittery than she already is, a doublecross inside the gang is the last thing she wants the other two to start kicking around. And as far as Furia’s concerned, it puts him on the defensive with Hinch and that could make them go for each other’s throats. It’s a tactic that’s broken up a lot of gangs. But as I say, I can’t make the decision for you people. She’s your flesh and blood.”

“It’s up to you, Ellen,” Malone said. “What do you say?”

“Oh, God.”

Secco got up and went to the window. He took out his pipe again and sucked on it emptily. His back said he wasn’t there.

“Loney, help me, help me,” Ellen moaned.

“Do you want me to make the decision?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know.”

“You’ve got to know. There’s no time for this, Ellen. Do I decide for both of us, or do you, or what?”

“They’ll murder her, Loney.”

“They may murder her anyway.”

She stiffened as if he had struck her.

Ellen, Ellen, how else do you prepare yourself?

“Well?”

He could just hear her. “Whatever you say.”

“John,” Malone said.

Secco turned around.

“We go for broke.”

It turned out that the chief had Harvey Rudd waiting in the wagon. “I brought Harvey along in case you said yes,” Secco said. “He’ll have to be briefed, Wes. I told him nothing.”

Harvey Rudd was The Voice of Taugus Valley. He was an ex-Maine news broadcaster who had passed up a top job with a New York network to start an independent radio station, WRUD, in Tonekeneke Falls. He owned it, programed it, edited its news, sometimes took its mike, and he had been known to sweep it out. He was a fortyish Down Easter with a long Yank nose and a short Yank tongue.

Ellen said one thing in Rudd’s presence. She said it to Chief Secco. “Can this man be trusted?”

When the chief said, “Yes,” Ellen nodded and went upstairs, not to be seen again during the afternoon.

Rudd didn’t say anything, not even with his eyes, which were northern ocean blue and looked as if they belonged in a four-master’s crow’s-nest. They did not even express anything at the sight of the plaster on Malone’s hair and the welt on his jaw. He set his surprising Texas-style white Stetson on the sofa beside him and waited.

Malone told the story leaving out nothing. The radio man listened without a word. When Malone was finished Chief Secco told about using WRUD to get to Hinch. “Will you do it, Harvey?”

For the first time Malone heard Rudd’s voice.

“I have two children of my own.” Malone had expected a voice like a cheap guitar, like fellow-officer Sherm Hamlin’s, Sherm had been born in Boothbay Harbor and had served as a guard at the prison in Thomaston before following his married daughter down to New Bradford, he had never lost his whangy accent. But this voice was more like one of Lawrence Welk’s baritone saxes. “What exactly did you have in mind, John?”

“Well, I got an idea while Wes was filling you in. You could put on the air a series of those now-what d’ye call ‘em?-like trailers, teasers, of a, say, radio drama. You know, like you were working up advance interest in a show you were going to run next week or month, give pieces of the plot. Like that. What we’d do is use the actual facts of this case, except we’d make out like the head man of the gang was double-crossing the other two. The idea is to get Hinch to worrying… No, Harvey?”

Rudd was shaking his head. “In the first place, John, WRUD doesn’t run dramatic shows, they went out a long time ago on radio, so it would sound phony straight off to anybody who does any listening at all. Second, if this Hinch is as stupid as you say he is you’re not going to get anything through his skull with subtlety. Third, from what Mr. Malone says, there’s no time to prepare anything elaborate. What-ever’s done has to be started right away-today, if possible.”

“Then how would you handle it?”

“I’d do it on a straight news basis. It’s something even a halfwit would understand and it would have the added advantage of sounding legitimate.”

“You can’t do that, Mr. Rudd,” Malone said.

“Why not?”

“Because Furia would hear it, too. And he’d know that the only way such information could have gotten out was through me or my wife shooting our mouths off. That would spell curtains for my little girl. He warned us to keep quiet or else. He’s dangerous, Mr. Rudd, maybe even psycho. He means it. At least I can’t take the chance that he doesn’t.”

“We can handle it so you and Mrs. Malone are put absolutely in the clear.”

“How?”

“You leave that to me.”

Malone’s chin flattened. There was a pulse beating in the bruise. “I don’t know. I’d have to think about it.”

“Will you let me work on it, Mr. Malone? I promise not a word will go out over the air without your okay. Have you got a typewriter here?”

“No.”

“Then just some paper,” Rudd said easily, “I can’t type worth a damn, anyway.”

Malone went hunting for paper while he listened for a sign of life from upstairs and heard it, the creak-creak of the rocker in Barbara’s room.

The kid was acting up again and Furia said give the little puke some more juice but Goldie said any more and she might get poisoned you want her alive don’t you. She came up with a bottle of Sleep-Tite tablets she found in one of the upstairs bathrooms, so that problem was solved.

Furia ordered a top sirloin roast for his Saturday night dinner and Goldie had it thawing all day. The Thatchers had obliged by installing an electric spit in the old kitchen fireplace and Goldie built just the right fire, a slow one, to do the roast over. Furia spent a good twenty minutes watching it go round and round. I picked me a real cool broad, he said, fondly pinching her behind, I ought to set you up in the chow business, Goldie, I’ll have that banana ripple ice cream for dessert they got in the freezer. Then he went back to the living room where Hinch was nursing an Old Crow on the rocks like a grudge, Furia had put him on short rations after the broken mirror, Hinch wasn’t taking it as well as usual. Furia turned on the radio, which was set at WRUD, and stretched out on the sofa while Hinch brooded over at him.

There was the national news, then the news from the state capital, and Furia said to the radio come on, come on. Finally the announcer, who had a voice like a saxophone, said: “And now for the Taugus Valley news.

“First Selectman Russ Fairhouse urged residents of New Bradford today to support the Jaycee cleanup campaign, Operation Civic Pride. ‘Please join your neighbors,’ Mr. Fair-house pleaded, ‘in picking up gum wrappers and such and ridding our town of unsightly junk like abandoned old cars and washing machines and any other thrown-out items that may be laying around your property causing eyesores. Your administration is doing its part repairing the highway signs defaced mostly by teenagers the past summer, please do yours and impress on your children that in the end the cost of such vandalism is borne by you, the taxpayer.’

“A two-car accident on The Pike one mile north of Tonekeneke Falls today took the life of nineteen-year-old Alison Springer of Southville and sent three other teenagers to the New Bradford Hospital with critical injuries. State police say that the cars were engaged in a drag race.

“There has been no progress in the statewide hunt for the two holdup men who shot Thomas F. Howland to death and stole the Aztec Paper Products Company’s payroll Wednesday night, according to Colonel Doug Pearce of the state police. ‘It’s my belief,’ Colonel Pearce told WRUD today, ‘that they made it out of the state. An All Points went out to authorities in adjoining states yesterday.’ “

“Aha,” Furia said with a grin. “They sure freaked out. Hear that, Hinch?”

“So what,” Hinch grumbled. “We ain’t got the bread.”

“And now for today’s Lighter-Side-of-the-News item,” the saxophone continued with a chuckle in it. “There’s another mystery of sorts in New Bradford that for a while today had Police Chief John Secco and his department thinking they were in the middle of a crime wave.

“A twelve-year-old boy named Willie, who runs a paper route in the Lovers Hill section of New Bradford delivering the New Bradford Times-Press, came into police headquarters this morning to report a crime. Willie claimed that on Thursday afternoon, while he was delivering his papers on his bicycle at the upper end of Old Bradford Road, he witnessed-in Willie’s own words-’a short skinny guy with like a stocking over his head’ sneaking into one of the houses. According to Willie, he promptly hid behind a rhododendron bush across the road and watched. ‘The man came scooting out after a while,’ Willie said, ‘and he was carrying a little black bag that he didn’t have when he went in-’ “

“What the hell.” Hinch sat up. “Shut up, let’s hear this!” Furia hissed. “ ‘-and he took off the stocking and beat it down the road.’ Willie alleges that he followed the mysterious man and saw him turn into Lovers Hill with the black bag and head for the center of town still on foot.”

Hinch was looking at Furia with his mouth open. Furia was on his feet glaring at the radio.

“Willie, who wears thick glasses, could give no description of the man beyond his short height and skinniness. Chief Secco was doubtful about the story on the face of it, since no housebreaking was reported Thursday and Willie, it seems, has a reputation for an overactive imagination. Nevertheless, the chief sent Officer Harry Rawlson to Old Bradford Road with the boy, who pointed out the house he claimed the man had burgled. It turned out that Chief Secco’s doubts were all too justified. It was the home of a member of the New Bradford force, Officer Wesley Malone. Officer Malone, who has been off duty for a few days, said that he and Mrs. Malone had had no visitors at all on Thursday, illegal or otherwise, and that in any event nothing was missing. Mrs. Malone confirmed this, stating that they had never owned a little black bag. ‘Willie either made a mistake about the house,’ Officer Malone told his fellow-officer, ‘or he’s been reading too many mystery stories.’ A check of the other houses on Old Bradford Road produced no confirmation of Willie’s story, and he was sent home after a fatherly lecture by Chief Secco.

“Thus endeth New Bradford’s latest excitement.

“Funeral services will be held tomorrow at two p.m. at Christ Church, Stonytown, for-”

Furia jabbed the radio off. When he turned around he saw Goldie standing in the doorway from the kitchen.

“What was that all about?” Goldie said.

“Nothing!” Furia said.

“Thursday afternoon,” Hinch said slowly. “Small skinny guy. That fuzz and his old lady were telling the truth. I’ll be goddam.”

“Don’t look at me!” Furia yelled. “It wasn’t me! I was in the shack, damn it. I didn’t even have the car, so how would I get into town?”

“Neither did the skinny guy,” Hinch said. “He walked, this Willie said.”

“So it was some local,” Goldie said, “the way Malone said. There are lots of small skinny guys in this world. Looks to me, Fure, like this really ties it. Why don’t we give it up as a bad job?”

“No,” Furia said. ‘Wo.”

“How do you expect Malone to get the money back when he doesn’t even know who took it?”

“That’s his problem!”

“You could ‘a’ walked,” Hinch said, “it ain’t that far. I hoofed it easy the night we pulled the heist.”

“Maybe it was you!”

“Small, skinny,” Hinch said. “Do I look small and skinny? Anyways, Fure, I wouldn’t do that.”

“And I would?”

Hinch did not reply. He was looking into his empty glass and frowning.

“Well, at least Malone and his wife didn’t blow the whistle, you scared ‘em good,” Goldie said brightly. She was scratching one hand with the other. After a while she said, “The roast won’t be long now. No potatoes or I’d make you some French fries, Fure. What vedge do you want?”

Furia told her what she could do with her vedge.

“I still think it’s taking useless chances to hang around here,” Goldie said. “Specially now that we know somebody did hijack the payroll. What do you say we write it off, Fure? We could be somewhere opening a bank and like grabbing us a real pile, not some snotty twenty-four grand.”

“What do you think, Hinch?” Furia asked suddenly.

Hinch looked up.

“You think we ought to cut out, like Goldie says?”

Hinch got to his feet. He seemed to go up and up indefinitely. Goldie took one look at the expression on his face and stepped back into the kitchen.

“I think,” Hinch said deliberately, “I’m going to make myself another drinkee.”

Fure was uptight all Saturday evening, brooding over at Hinch getting smashed in his corner.

Furia had his right hand stuck under his coat like Napoleon. But he wasn’t dreaming of new worlds to conquer, he wanted the Colt in his shoulder holster handy just in case, at least that was Goldie’s analysis. This whole thing is a bust why did I ever tie in with these cockamamies? Better watch your step, girl, this could wind up with fireworks.

There was almost a fight over the TV. Furia wanted the TV on, Hinch wanted the radio on. The nine o’clock movie was a remake of The Maltese Falcon, I like that old fat guy, Furia said, he’s real cool. Goldie said he’s also been real dead for years it’s somebody else in this version, why doesn’t Hinch take the radio into the den then everybody’s happy. Hinch said to hell with you bitch I like it right here. Furia said I want to see Humphrey Bogart and that’s it and Goldie said he’s dead too, Fure. Fure said according to you everybody’s dead and Hinch said in a peculiar way so let that be a lesson to you. And he wasn’t looking at Goldie when he said it. Goldie decided to go to the bathroom in case the argument heated up.

In the end Hinch took the radio into the den and Furia watched his movie. He kept complaining all through that it stank I liked the fat guy and Bogey better.

But Goldie noticed that he turned his chair so he could keep one eye on the den.

Come eleven o’clock there was Furia standing in the doorway of the den.

“What you listening to?” he asked Hinch.

“What do you think?” Hinch said. There were about three fingers left in the bottle of Smirnoff’s.

“At the signal it will be exactly eleven o’clock,” the announcer said. “This is Station WRUD, the Voice of Taugus Valley. Now for the news.”

“What do you got to listen to the news for?” Furia said. “We heard it on the six o’clock.”

“You don’t want to hear it don’t,” Hinch said. “Me, I want to hear it.”

“They didn’t find us, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Furia said. Hinch said nothing. “That’s a joke, son.”

Hinch said nothing.

Furia stayed where he was, looking at Hinch. He kept his hand under his coat.

Goldie turned the TV off in the living room so she could listen, too. From the living room.

National news. Statewide news. Then the saxophone voice said, “One of the three teenagers injured in today’s two-car accident at Tonekeneke Falls which took the life of nineteen-year-old Alison Springer of Southville died this evening at the New Bradford Hospital. He was Kelly Wilson, Junior, eighteen, of Haddison. The two surviving teenagers are still listed in critical condition.

“Review of the additional salary upgradings proposed for New Bradford town employees last week has been completed, First Selectman Russ Fairhouse announced today, and the revised salary schedule will be brought before a town meeting next Friday night at eight p.m. in the New Bradford High School cafeteria.

“A combined meeting of the Women’s Auxiliaries of the fire departments of Taugus Valley will be held Monday evening at eight o’clock at the home of Mrs. Jeanine Lukenberry of Stonytown to complete plans for the joint pre-Christmas rummage sale for the benefit of Better Fire Prevention.”

“Aaaa, turn it off,” Furia said. “Who’s interested in that crap?”

“I am,” Hinch said, not moving.

“-a footnote to the Lighter-Side-of-the-News item we broadcast on our six o’clock news,” the baritone sax was playing.

“See what I mean?” Hinch said. “You got to wait for the good stuff. What’s the matter, Fure, you nervous?”

“Listen here, you-”

“Shut up,” Hinch said quietly, “I want to hear this.”

Furia’s ear-points began to turn red. But he shut up.

“-seems that Willie is a persistent little cuss,” the voice chuckled. “When Chief John Secco sent him home this afternoon, Willie didn’t go home. He went back to Old Bradford Road and, as he told WRUD’s Lighter-Side-of-the-News reporter this evening, ‘I scouted around, they don’t believe me about the man with the stocking over his face I’ll prove it to ‘em, I seen him throw that stocking away.’ To everyone’s surprise but Willie’s he did just that. He went back to New Bradford police headquarters with a woman’s nylon stocking which he claimed he found under the privet hedge in front of Officer Wesley Malone’s house, where the alleged housebreaking took place. Chief Secco sent an officer over to the Malone place with the stocking, and Mrs. Malone identified it as one of hers which she had had drying on her clothesline and which had disappeared days ago. ‘It must have been Rags that did it, she’s the Cunninghams’ dog next door, she’s always stealing things off my line,” Mrs. Malone told the officer. Willie was sent home with a personal escort, Officer Mert Peck. Officer Peck advised Willie’s father to take Willie on a tour of the woodshed, which Willie’s father said he sure as heck was going to do. Please don’t report any howling you may hear from that section of New Bradford. It’s just Willie learning that free enterprise doesn’t always pay.

“In one minute the music of the Taugus Rock Quarriers. But first, a message from-”

Hinch snapped the radio off. He turned about and began a leisurely survey of Furia. Furia’s hand dug deeper under his coat.

“Hinch,” Furia said. “I don’t know from no stocking. That’s the word.”

“If you say so, Fure.” Hinch held out the Smirnoff. “Need a little snort?”

Furia snarled, “That ‘11 be the day,” and backed out.

Furia looked up the Malones’ number in the book and dialed.

Right away Malone’s voice said hoarsely, “Yes?”

“It’s me,” Furia said. “Don’t bother trying to trace this call, fuzz, it’s a public booth a long ways from you. Well?”

“I haven’t got it,” Malone said. “For God’s sake, I told you and told you. Look, there was a boy in town here who saw the thief sneak into my house Thursday and come out with the black bag-”

“I know, we heard it on the radio,” Furia said. “You and your missus played it cool, that was smart, fuzz. But I don’t care who took it. I want it back.”

“I told you-! How is my little girl?”

“She’s okay. So far. Did you think I was kidding, Malone? I want that bread or you never see your kid again.”

“How am I supposed to do it? Why don’t you get it through your head that you lost out on this deal through no fault of anybody and let Barbara go?”

“No dice,” Furia said. “Look, it don’t have to be the payroll. I ain’t particular. Any twenty-four grand ‘11 do. Work on it, Malone. I’ll call you.”

“Damn you, where would I get-?”

Furia hung up and stepped from the booth outside the railroad station. It was Sunday morning and Freight Street looked like Gary Cooper’s town at high noon. When he turned around there was Hinch.

“What are you doing here?” Furia snarled. “I thought I told you to stay in the house.”

“Cabin fever,” Hinch said.

Furia hesitated.

“I took the car, too,” Hinch said. “You want to make something of it?”

Furia began to walk.

Hinch swung into step. The crease between his pink eyes had smoothed out.

“I’ll give you a ride back,” Hinch said. “If you say please?”

“I should never have listened to you,” Malone stormed. “I should have told him Goldie had it and about the safe deposit box while I had him on the phone.”

“That would have queered the whole setup, Wes,” John Secco said. “You heard Furia. It’s working. They’ve swallowed Rudd’s bait hook and line. That means it’s stewing around in Hinch’s head. He can’t possibly have missed it, dumb or not. Give him a chance. When he’s finally made up his mind that Furia crossed him he’ll call in for a deal.”

“But Goldie-”

“You said yourself she’d talk Furia out of it if you accused her. Then the whole thing might be shot. Don’t go complicating things now, Wes. Have a little patience.”

“But I can prove it to him!”

“How?”

“I forgot about the keys. When you rent a safe deposit box you get your own key, even a duplicate. So she’s got two keys to a Taugus National safe deposit box. All Furia has to do is search her and that’s it for Goldie.”

“Do you think a woman like that would be fool enough to keep them on her, Wes? She’s hidden them somewhere. That was the first thing I thought of.” Secco shook his head. “Go up to Ellen.”

Malone went upstairs. Ellen was in bed with a slight fever. She had an icebag on her forehead and her eyes were closed.

He sat down and thought of Barbara. Everything else was boiling around.

Chief Secco sucked on his pipe downstairs beside the telephone.

Thank God I was raised the son of a farmer.

A farmer grew patience the way he grew grass.

The call came two hours before daylight on Tuesday morning. Secco was sleeping on the cot in the kitchen near the wall extension, Malone on the sofa in the parlor beside the phone. He had it off the cradle before it rang twice. Secco was a breath behind picking up the extension.

“Hello?” Malone said.

“This Malone?” It was the cougar voice, the cougar voice, pitched in a mutter.

“Yes? Yes?”

“This is Hinch. You know. Look, I can’t talk long, I had to wait till they were corked off good before I could use the phone. I’ll make a deal.”

“Yes?”

“I want out. I’ll turn state’s evidence. Do I get a deal?”

“Yes,” Malone said, “yes.”

Secco came running in noiselessly. He put his lips to Malone’s ear and whispered, “Ask him where they are.”

“Yes,” Malone said again. “Where is the house?”

“I don’t know where, I mean the street. Some crummy back road. It ain’t far.”

“Telephone number,” Secco whispered.

“What’s the phone number there?”

“7420.”

“7420.”

Secco wrote it down.

“Can you get my girl out of there, Hinch?”

“Fure took all the artillery. Anyways, Goldie’s got her sleeping in with her and she locked the door.”

“Then don’t try anything. Stay put. We’ll be out there. If you see a chance after we show, make a break for it with Barbara. Anything happens to my daughter it’s no deal, Hinch, you get the book thrown at you. You hear me?”

“Yeah,” Hinch muttered. He hung up.

Malone hung up.

He sat back and looked at the chief. Secco said briskly, “Don’t sit there, Wes. Hand me the phone.”

Malone handed it to him.

Secco dialed 411. It took a long time for the local information operator to answer. He waited patiently. When she answered he said, “This is John Secco. Who’s this, Margaret?”

“Sally, Chief.”

“Sally. This is an emergency. Who in town has the number 7420?”

He waited again.

“Thanks, Sally. Keep quiet about this.” He hung up. “It’s on Maccabee Road, the Thatcher place. They closed it up for the winter. Wes?”

“I’m listening, John,” Malone said.

“Why don’t you go up and tell Ellen about this? I’ve got a police department to round up.”

“John.”

Secco stopped in the act of picking up the phone again. “What, Wes?”

“Maybe one man could get in and cover Furia before he can wake up-”

“You mean you.”

“Give me a gun.”

Secco shook his head. “You said yourself Furia sleeps like a cat, so no one man’s going to take him in bed. Anyway, Wes, you’re too involved, you’d be sure to mess it up. This is going to be a delicate business even with a squad. Let me handle it regulation procedure. It’s the right way. The only way.”

“She’s my child-”

“And you’re one of my officers, Wes. One of them.”

“All right,” Malone said. “But, John, I swear to you, if anything goes wrong-”

“How well have you done by yourself?” John Secco asked.

They stared at each other.

“Loney? What’s going on down there?”

Malone went upstairs running away.