Cops and Robbers

Tom

My first squeal of the day was a robbery with assault, in an apartment over on Central Park West. Actually it was my partner, Ed Dantino, that took the call. Ed is a couple inches shorter than me and maybe ten pounds heavier, but he still has all his hair. Maybe he started using his wife’s shower cap earlier than I did.

Finishing the call, Ed hung up the phone and said, “Okay, Tom. We’re going for a ride.”

“In this heat?” I was feeling a little queasy today, from the beer last night. Usually a feeling like that goes away toward midmorning, but the heat and the humidity were keeping me from shaking it today. I’d been looking forward to a couple hours of relaxation in the squadroom until I felt better.

The squadroom isn’t all that great. It’s a big square room with plaster walls painted a really sickening green, and big globe lights hanging down from the ceiling. The room is full of desks, all of them old, no two of them alike, and a general smell of old cigars and used socks. But it’s up on the second floor of the precinct house, and there’s a big fan in the corner near the windows, and on hot humid days there’s a little breath of air that passes through from time to time, giving a promise that life may be possible after all, if we just hang in there.

But Ed said, “It’s on Central Park West, Tom.”

“Oh,” I said. With rich people, we make house calls. So I got to my feet and followed Ed downstairs. When we got to our car, an unmarked green Ford, he volunteered to drive and I didn’t argue with him.

Going across town, I started thinking again about what Joe had told me this morning in the car. I still thought sometimes he was pulling my leg, but then I’d remember the way he’d talked about it, and I’d know for sure he’d been telling the truth.

What a crazy thing to do! Thinking of it was the only thing to make me forget my stomach. I’d be sitting there, trying to burp and not being able to, and the first thing you know I’d be grinning instead, thinking about Joe and the liquor store.

I almost told Ed, in the car, while we drove over, but finally decided not to. Actually it hadn’t been very smart of Joe even to tell me, and God knows I wasn’t going to turn him in. But the more people that know a thing, the more chance that the wrong people can find it out. Like, if I told Ed, I could be sure he wouldn’t report it, but he just might tell somebody else. Who would tell somebody else, who would tell somebody else, and who knew where it would end?

But I could understand why Joe hadn’t been able to stop himself from telling at least one other person about it, and I was kind of flattered I’d been the one he’d picked. I mean, we’d been friends for years, we lived next door to each other, we worked out of the same precinct, but when a guy trusts you with a secret that could put him away for maybe twenty years you know you’ve got a friend.

And a pretty wild-ass friend at that. Imagine going into a liquor store, in uniform, and pulling out a gun and just taking everything in the cash register! And he had to get away with it because who would believe a robber in a policeman’s uniform was really a policeman?

While I meditated about Joe’s Great Liquor Store Robbery, Ed drove directly over to Central Park West and turned south toward the address we wanted. He didn’t have the siren on; where we were going, the crime had already been committed and the criminals had already gotten away, so there wasn’t any sense of urgency. They were reporting the robbery because their insurance required it, and we were making a house call because they were rich.

I love Central Park West. On the one side there’s the park, green and rolling, and on the other side the apartment buildings full of rich people, rolling in green. The East Side has become more fashionable in the last few years, as the slums of Harlem have crowded down from the north and the Puerto Rican slum of Amsterdam and Columbus Avenues has crowded over from the west, but there’s still plenty of wealth to be found on Central Park West, particularly toward the southern end.

We parked in front of the address. It had a canopy and a doorman, both of which I liked. We went inside, and going up in the elevator I said, “You do the talking, okay?”

I’d already told Ed I was under the weather, so he just said, “Sure.”

It was a very expensive apartment we were headed for, on a high floor. The woman herself let us in, opening the door as though she weren’t used to that kind of manual labor. She was about forty-five, and holding time away with every pill and diet and exercise she could find. She looked expensive but old, like her apartment.

She took us into the living room, but didn’t suggest we sit down. It was a beautiful room, all golden and brown, with high windows overlooking the park. An air-conditioner hummed, and the sun shone through the windows, and you could almost hear the buzz of lazy insects. You get the idea; everything sun-dappled and rich and comfortable and beautiful and easy. It was just a great room to be in.

Ed did the talking for both of us, while I wandered around the room, digging how good it felt to be there. She had knickknacks and whatnots all over the place, in marble and onyx and different kinds of wood, and some in chrome or glass or green stone, and every one of them was just a pleasure to be with.

Over by the window, Ed and the woman were talking, their voices seeming to be muffled by the sunlight, muted and indistinct, like voices in another room when you’re sick in bed in the daytime. From time to time I’d tune in on what they were saying, but I just couldn’t build up any interest. It was the room I cared about, I didn’t give a shit about the two spades that had busted in here.

At one point, I heard Ed say, “And they came in through the service entrance?”

“Yes,” she said. She had a voice like a prune, very offensive. “They struck my maid,” she said. “They cut the inside of her mouth, I sent her downstairs to my doctor. I could have her sent back up if you need a statement.”

“Maybe later,” Ed said.

“I can’t think why they struck her,” she said. “She is black, after all.”

Ed said, “Then they came in here, is that it?”

“No,” she said, “they never came in here at all, thank goodness. I have some rather valuable things in here. They went from the kitchen into the bedroom.”

“Where were you?”

On a glass coffee table was an ornate lacquered Oriental wooden box. I picked it up and opened it, and it had half a dozen cigarettes inside. Virginia Slims. The wood inside the box was a warm golden color, like imported beer.

The woman was saying, “I was in my office. It connects with the bedroom. I heard them rummaging around, and went to the door. As soon as I saw them, of course, I realized what they were doing.”

“Can you give me a description?”

“I honestly didn’t—”

I said, “How much would a thing like this cost?”

The woman looked at me, baffled. “I beg your pardon?”

I showed her the Oriental box. “This thing,” I said. “How much would it go for?”

She talked down her nose at me. “I believe that was thirty-seven hundred dollars. Under four thousand.”

What a great thing! Four thousand dollars for this little box. “To hold cigarettes in,” I said, mainly to myself, and turned away again to put it back on the coffee table.

Behind me, the woman was being a little miffed, saying to Ed, “Where were we?”

I looked at the things on the coffee table. It made me happy to be with them. I couldn’t help smiling.