Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 105, No. 5, October 10, 1936

A Hand of Pinochle by Theodore Tinsley

“This goes for all of you,” Captain Daley snapped. “Don’t think that because you’ve been assigned to duty in a rural precinct in Queens that you have nothing to do but chuck old ladies under the chin. The commissioner sent me out here to pep up this precinct, and I intend to get results or there’ll be men up on charges.”

His eyes focussed meaningly on Patrolman Kirker. Kirker shuffled his big feet nervously and wished old Captain O’Brien were still alive. O’Brien had been easy-going, not like this new skipper with the youthful frown and the crisp snap to his voice. “If only I could get him to play pinochle!” Kirker thought sadly.

Eleven years on the force hadn’t made much change in Patrolman Adolph Kirker. His feet were a little flatter, his uniform a bit tighter across the stomach, his sun-wrinkled smile deeper. He had served in three boroughs and had made exactly three arrests. The first was an under-sized Sicilian junk peddler whom Adolph had caught viciously; larruping a bloated white horse from a rental stable in lower Manhattan. The second was a Bronx janitor who had celebrated an alcoholic birthday by blacking his wife’s eye. The third, a taxi driver in Queens, had tinkered unlawfully with his meter and had tried to collect the surcharge with his fists.

Adolph Kirker had drifted to Queens on the border of the city line, because there was no further spot to which a mild and inoffensive cop could be transferred to make room for the stronger jawed, more ambitious rookies who poured out of the police school every year.

Each time a new commissioner stepped up, Kirker stepped down. He was not at all bitter about it; quite the reverse. In Queens there were shady trees, friendly folk in neat frame houses who called him Mr. Kirker and were like as not to bring out a bottle of cold beer when he passed and asked about the health of his wife. In Manhattan Kirker had lived in a dark, dismal flat. Here he owned his own grassplot and home, or would as soon as he finished making the payments. And every Sunday afternoon, while his wife attended the Ladies’ Auxiliary of the Lutheran church, Kirker and his friend Otto Muller played pinochle.

Pinochle! That was the one thing that gave meaning and pleasure to the easy-going existence of Kirker. Even in Queens the virus of bridge had bitten deeply, so that it was hard to find a good steady pinochle player. But Otto Muller, an ex-cop who had taken a lighter job after being wounded and partly crippled, knew the finer points of pinochle and was fond of beer and Liederkranz. Kirker walked his beat, not from block to block but from Sunday to Sunday. In two years he was two dollars ahead of Muller and hopeful of increasing his lead. He smiled dimly at the prospect, the irate face of young Captain Daley a meaningless blur. Daley’s curt question cut ruthlessly through his daydream.

“Anything particularly exciting happen on your beat?”

“Some kids were playing baseball in a vacant lot on Division Avenue,” Kirker mumbled. “One of ’em broke a window, so I... I—”

“Ahh. A broken window. Did you make your annual arrest?”

Kirker’s ears were bright red. “I walked the kid a coupla blocks and talked to him like a... a Dutch uncle. He was scared stiff, a big overgrown kid. So I gave him a half dollar and told him to get the window fixed,”

“And reconstructed a potential criminal, eh?”

“Yes, sir,” Kirker said quietly. “I’ve watched kids like him before. All they need is a tap on the pants and a bit of help sometimes. Treaty ’em rough, sir, and they start robbing tills and buying a cheap gun in Jersey.”

“I see,” Captain Daley murmured. The red in his own face deepened. “A broken window and a bit of welfare work.” His voice rose as he struck the typewritten report in his hand a resounding whack with his palm. “Seven Long Island banks knocked over by Rod Cantor and his pal — no arrest. Thieves made a haul yesterday not a mile from this squad room — no arrest. From now on that kind of police work is ended. You’ll devote your attention to crooks and killers, or I’ll have you wishing you had.”

There was discreet silence. “That’s all,” Daley snapped and strode off to his sanctum with a brisk click of his heels.

“Try that on your pinochle deck, Adolph,” a sardonic voice muttered. Kirker grinned feebly. He was used to being kidded about his Sunday game with Muller.

Mrs. Kirker clucked indignantly when he told her about the new captain’s ultimatum. “Why didn’t you talk up to him, Adolph? Did you tell him what you did for young Charlie Franklin? Or now you put the fear of the Lord into Dave Martin and made him get busy and support that sweet little family of his?”

Kirker shrugged and didn’t answer. What was the use? Those were things the skipper wouldn’t understand.

“Anyone would think,” his wife sniffed, “that cops were a lot of quarrelsome thugs, running around day and night to shove people into cells. I’ve a good mind to go around to the station house tomorrow and give that whippersnapper a talking to.”

Kirker said mildly, “Now, Hattie!” He was sitting comfortably in a kitchen chair, his uniform coat off, the weight of his gun sagging his hip pocket. His wife bustled between cupboard and stove, preparing the coffee they always drank before they went to bed. She lifted the lid of the bread box and the irritation she felt toward Captain Daley transferred itself suddenly to household affairs.

“Oh, dear. I forgot the crumb cake. Tomorrow’s Sunday and the bakery will be closed all morning. Here, take a quarter and get some. The coffee’ll be ready by the time you get back.”

Kirker sighed. Without crumb cake, dipped in soggy chunks, coffee lacked savor. He padded heavily across the front porch and walked bareheaded up the dark street to the corner. He grunted with disgust as he saw that the bakery was already closed. His tired glance wavered hopefully toward the adjoining bank. He’d stop awhile and say hello to the watchman. Suddenly his blurred smile faded. There was a sedan parked at the curb, its motor quietly purring; and the locked door of the bank wasn’t locked — it was slowly opening.

As the door widened Kirker saw two strangers sneak cautiously out, carrying heavy suitcases. In a flash he darted toward the parked automobile to head off the thieves, his hand tugging at his gun. Pistols flared at him with a staccato roar, but the sedan shielded him. He fired and saw one of the crooks drop his suitcase and fall to the sidewalk. The other kept on and reached the car, and Kirker, puffing, sprang to the running-board as the sedan got under way.

A hot streak flicked across the flesh of his neck as he ducked. A quick clutch inward and his fingers jerked at the steering wheel. The sedan curved across the street and rammed head-on into a wooden telephone pole. The impact threw Kirker into the street on his face. A man who had peered out of a window down near the corner, began to blow shrilly on a police whistle and through the darkness came the thud-thud of running feet.

The crook, his escape cut off by a dead-end street, hesitated and then dashed straight for the open door of the bank. As the dazed Kirker staggered to his feet and clutched for his dropped gun, the bank door slammed and locked.

Kirker hesitated. He knew the inside of that bank better than the crook did! If he waited out front he could keep the killer bottled up until the precinct reserves arrived. He remembered the thin, taut-lipped sneer he had seen on a placard posted in the station house. He was facing Rod Cantor, the killer who had knocked over seven banks on Long Island; Cantor would fight a frontal attack to a finish, shielding himself behind the helpless body of the watchman.

White-faced, Kirker sprang to the tail telephone pole and climbed swiftly up the spiked footholds. It was a dangerous leap across to the roof of the bakery, but he made it. The bank roof was six feet higher. Kirker’s bleeding hands hauled him up a rusted vent pipe; a bat of his gun smashed the pane out of the bank’s skylight.

Down below Kirker could see Cantor’s gun jerk upward, and the sight sent a wave of grim rage through Kirker’s aching body. He dropped recklessly, feet first, through a crash of pistol fire. His body struck the crouched gunman and rebounded to the paved floor. Pinwheels of fire whirled through his brain. He lay for a moment, breathless and paralyzed; then, as he swayed to his knees, the glass of the front door crashed and policemen spilled into the bank. A hand clutched at Kirker and helped him to his feet. It was Captain Daley, wildly excited, shouting like a young fool. Kirker stared past him at Cantor, and saw steel cuffs on the sprawled crook’s wrists. He lay motionless on the tiled floor, his head twisted at a queer angle. The slugged watchman was stirring, groaning feebly.

In a daze Adolph Kirker found himself back in a crowded precinct house where every light was ablaze. The commissioner himself was there after a swift twenty minutes run from Manhattan. Flashlights popped, reporters jammed the tiny squad room. Kirker felt very tired.

“Why did you climb to the roof and pull that wild Tarzan jump?” a reporter asked. “Why didn’t you plug Cantor from the back door?”

“When you have over four hundred dollars in a bank, you get to know it,” Kirker said quietly. “There isn’t any back door.”

“Ummm... You got fighting mad when you realized you’d trapped Cantor, huh?”

Another camera popped and Captain Daley beamed. “Kirker was on his toes, that’s all. There’s been a shake-up in this precinct. You see, boys, the commissioner sent me here to—”

Kirker’s weary eyes were staring at the bandaged head of his friend, the watchman.

“I guess I did get a little mad,” he admitted. “The gall of that rat, Cantor! Damn him, he tried to kill Otto Muller — the only pinochle player in town.”