Jigsaw

4

The Bureau of Criminal Identification was located at Headquarters, downtown on High Street. It was open twenty-four hours a day, its sole reason for existence being the collection, compilation, and cataloguing of any and all information descriptive of criminals. The IB maintained a Fingerprint File, a Criminal Index File, a Wanted File, a Degenerate File, a Parolee File, a Released Prisoner File, and Known Gamblers, Known Rapists, Known Muggers, Known You-Name-It files. Its Modus Operandi File alone contained more than 100,000 photographs of known criminals. And since all persons charged with and convicted of a crime were photographed and fingerprinted as specified by law, the file was continually growing and continually being brought up to date. The IB received and classified some 206,000 sets of prints yearly, and answered requests for more than 250,000 criminal records from police departments all over the country. Arthur Brown’s request for information on Albert Weinberg was one of those. The package from the IB was waiting on his desk when he got to work that Friday morning.

As Krutch had faithfully reported, Weinberg had indeed been busted several years back. According to the supplementary information enclosed with his yellow sheet, he had started a fistfight in a bar, and then — for no apparent reason — suddenly attacked a little old lady who was sitting on a stool at the end of the bar, knocking her senseless and taking seventeen dollars and eighty-four cents from her purse. He had pleaded guilty to all charges and had served his time at Castleview Prison upstate, from which he had been released two years back. He had not been in any trouble with the law since.

Brown studied the information carefully, glanced up at the clock on the squadroom wall, and decided he had better get his ass down to the Criminal Courts Building. He told Carella where he was going, advised him that he would probably try to contact Weinberg later that day, and then left the office. He thought of the snapshot all the way downtown. There were now three pieces: the one they had found clenched in the dead Ehrbach’s fist, and which was shaped somewhat like a dancing girl; the one Irving Krutch had voluntarily delivered to the squadroom, and which was obviously a corner piece; and now the one they had found hidden in Ehrbach’s floor lamp, shaped like a drunken amoeba. He kept thinking of those pieces all during the trial.

His testimony was relatively simple. He explained to the assistant district attorney that at the time of the arrest, the defendant Michael Lloyd had been sitting in the kitchen of his home with a bloody bread knife in his hand. His wife was in the bedroom, stabbed in the shoulder. Her lover was no place to be found; he had apparently left in a great hurry, leaving behind his shoes and his socks. Brown testified that the defendant Michael Lloyd had not resisted arrest, and that he had told the arresting officers that he had tried to kill his wife and hoped the bitch was dead. On the basis of his statement and the evidence of the bloody knife in his hands and the wounded woman in the bedroom, he had been charged with attempted murder. In the cross-examination, the defense lawyer asked a lot of questions about Lloyd’s “alleged” statement at the time of his arrest, wanting of course to know whether the prisoner had been properly advised of his rights, and Brown testified that everything had been conducted according to Miranda-Escobedo, and the district attorney excused him without a redirect, and called his next witness, the patrolman who had been present in the apartment when Lloyd had made his statement about having wanted to kill his wife. Brown left the Criminal Courts Building at 3:00 that afternoon.

Now, at 6:00 P.M., he sat at a table near the plate-glass front window of a cafeteria called The R&R, and knew that he was being cased from the street outside by none other than Albert Weinberg himself in person. Weinberg was even bigger than Krutch had described him, and certainly bigger than he had looked in the IB’s mug shot. At least as tall as Brown, heavier, with tremendous shoulders and powerful arms, a huge barrel chest and massive hands, he walked past the plate-glass window four times before deciding to come into the restaurant. He was wearing a plaid, long-sleeved sports shirt, the sleeves rolled up past his thick wrists. His reddish-blond hair was curly and long, giving his green-eyed face a cherubic look that denied the brute power of his body. He came directly to Brown’s table, approaching him with the confident stride most very strong men possess, stood staring down at him, and immediately said, “You look like fuzz.”

“So do you,” Brown answered.

“How do I know you’re not?”

“How do I know you’re not?” Brown said. “Why don’t you sit down?”

“Sure,” Weinberg answered. He pulled out a chair, adjusted his body to the seat and back as though he were maneuvering a bulldozer into a tight corner, and then folded his huge hands on the tabletop. “Let’s hear it again,” he said.

“From the top?”

“From the top,” Weinberg said, and nodded. “First, your name.”

“Artie Stokes. I’m from Salt Lake City, you ever been there?”

“No.”

“Nice city,” Brown said. “Do you ski? Supposed to be great powder skiing at Alta.”

“Did you call me to talk about the Olympics, or what?” Weinberg said.

“I thought you might be a skier,” Brown answered.

“Are you?”

“How many Negroes have you ever seen on the ski slopes?”

“I’ve never been on the ski slopes.”

“But you get my point.”

“I’m still waiting for your story, Stokes.”

“I already gave it to you on the phone.”

“Give it to me again.”

“Why?”

“Let’s say we had a poor connection.”

“Okay,” Brown said, and sighed. “Couple of weeks ago, I bought a piece of a picture and a couple of names from a guy in Salt Lake. I paid two grand for the package. Guy who sold it to me was fresh out of Utah State, and strapped for cash.”

“What’s his name?”

“Danny Firth. He was doing eight years for armed robbery, got out in April, and needed a stake to set up his next job. That’s why he was willing to part with what he had.”

“What’d he have?”

“I just told you. Two names and a piece of a snapshot.”

“And you were willing to pay two grand for that?”

“That’s right.”

“Why?”

“Because Firth told me I could get seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars just by fitting my piece of the snapshot into the whole picture.”

“He told you that, huh?”

“That’s what he told me.”

“I’m surprised he didn’t sell you the Calm’s Point Bridge while he was at it.”

“This ain’t the Calm’s Point Bridge, Weinberg, and you know it.”

Weinberg was silent for a few moments. He kept looking down at his clasped hands. Then he raised his eyes to Brown’s and said, “You’ve a piece of the snapshot, huh?”

“That’s right.”

“And I’m one of them, huh?”

“That’s right.”

“What’re the two names?”

“Yours is one of them.”

“And the other one?”

“I’ll tell you that after we make a deal.”

“And what’re these names supposed to be?”

“They’re supposed to be the names of two people who’ve also got pieces of that picture.”

“And I’m one of them, huh?”

“That’s right.”

“You’re nuts,” Weinberg said.

“I told you most of this on the phone,” Brown said. “If you think I’m nuts, what’re you doing here?”

Weinberg studied him again. He unclasped his hands, took a cigarette from a package in his pocket, offered one to Brown, and then lighted both of them. He let out a stream of smoke, leaned back in his chair, and said, “Did your pal Danny Firth say how you could get seven hundred and fifty G’s by pasting a picture together?”

“He did.”

“How?”

“Weinberg... you know, and I know the full picture shows where Carmine Bonamico dropped the NSLA loot.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about. Now how about it? You want to keep playing cute, or you want to talk a deal?”

“I want some more information.”

“Like what?”

“Like how’d your pal Danny Firth come across his piece?”

“He got it from a guy at Utah State. The guy was doing life, no chance of getting out unless he busted out, which he wasn’t about to do. Danny promised to look after his wife and kids if he recovered the loot.”

“So Danny gets out, and turns right around and sells you his piece, huh?”

“That’s right.”

“Nice guy, Danny.”

“What do you expect?” Brown said, and smiled. “Honor among thieves?”

“Which brings us to you,” Weinberg said, returning the smile. “What’s your bag?”

“I’m in and out of a lot of things.”

“Like what?”

“The last thing I was in and out of was San Quentin,” Brown said, and smiled again. “I did five years for hanging some paper. It was a bum rap.”

“It’s always a bum rap,” Weinberg said. “Let’s get back to the picture for a minute. How many pieces are there, do you know?”

“I was hoping you’d know.”

“I don’t.”

“We can talk a deal, anyway.”

“Maybe,” Weinberg said. “Who else knows about this?”

“Nobody.”

“You sure you didn’t tell your brother all about it? Or some broad?”

“I haven’t got a brother. And I never tell broads nothing.” Brown paused. “Why? Who’d you tell?”

“Not a soul. You think I’m crazy? There’s big money involved here.”

“Oh, all at once you know there’s big money involved, huh?”

“What’s the other name on your list?”

“Do we have a deal?”

“Only if it’s a name I don’t already have.”

“How many do you have?”

“Just one.”

“That makes us even.”

“Unless it’s the same name.”

“If it’s the same name, neither of us have lost anything. Here’s the deal, Weinberg, take it or leave it. I put up the name and the piece I’ve got, you put up the name and the piece you’ve got. If we find the loot, we split it fifty-fifty — after deducting expenses. I’ve already laid out two grand, you know.”

“That’s your headache,” Weinberg said. “I’m willing to share whatever expenses we have from now on, but don’t expect me to pay for a bar mitzvah when you were thirteen.”

“Okay, forget the two grand. Have we got a deal?”

“We’ve got a deal,” Weinberg said, and extended his hand across the table. Brown took it. “Let’s see your piece of the picture,” Weinberg said.

“Amateur night in Dixie,” Brown said, shaking his head. “You didn’t really think I’d have it with me, did you?”

“No harm trying,” Weinberg said, and grinned. “Meet me later tonight. We’ll put it all on the table then.”

“Where?”

“My place?” Weinberg asked.

“Where’s that?”

“220 South Kirby. Apartment 36.”

“What time?”

“Eleven o’clock okay with you?”

“I’ll be there,” Brown said.

220 South Kirby was in a slum as rank as a cesspool. Arthur Brown knew such slums well. The overflowing garbage cans in front of the building were quite familiar to him. The front stoop held no surprises; cracked cement steps, the middle riser of which was lettered in white paint with the words NO SITTING ON STOOP; rusted wrought-iron railings; a shattered pane of glass in the entrance door. The locks on the mailboxes in the foyer, where welfare checks were deposited each month, were broken. There was no light in the foyer and only a single naked bulb illuminated the first-floor landing. The hallway smelled of cooking, breathing, eliminating. The stench that assailed Brown as he climbed to the third floor brought back too many memories of a lanky boy lying in bed in his underwear, listening to the sounds of rats foraging in the kitchen. His sister, in the bed next to his, in the same bedroom shared by his mother and father, would whisper in the darkness, “Are they here again, Artie?” and he would nod wide-eyed and say reassuringly, “They’ll go away, Penny.”

One night, Penny said, “Suppose they don’t, Artie?”

He could find no answer. In his mind’s eye, he saw himself walking into the kitchen the next morning to discover the room swarming with long-tailed rats, their sharp fangs dripping blood.

Even now, he shuddered at the thought.

Suppose they don’t, Artie?

His sister had died at the age of seventeen, from an overdose of heroin administered in a cellar club by a teenage girl who, like Penny, was one of the debs in a street gang called The Warrior Princes. He could remember a time when one of the boys painted the name of the gang in four-foot high letters on the brick wall of a housing project — THE WARIOR PRINCES.

In the darkness of the third-floor landing, Brown rapped on the door to 36, and heard Weinberg say from within, “Yes, who is it?”

“Me,” he answered. “Stokes.”

“It’s open, come in,” Weinberg said.

He opened the door.

Something warned him a second too late. As he opened the door, he could see through into the kitchen, but Weinberg was nowhere in sight. And then the warning came, the knowledge that Weinberg’s voice had sounded very near to the closed door. He turned to his right, started to bring up his hand in protection against the coming blow — but too late. Something hard hit him on the side of his head, just below the temple. He fell sideways, almost blacked out, tried to get to his knees, stumbled, and looked up into the muzzle of a .38 Special.

“Hello there, Stokes,” Weinberg said, and grinned. “Keep your hands flat on the floor, don’t make a move or I’ll kill you. That’s it.”

He stepped gingerly around Brown, reached under his jacket from behind, and pulled his gun from the shoulder holster there.

“I hope you’ve got a license for this,” he said, grinned again, and tucked the gun into the waistband of his trousers. “Now get up.”

“What do you hope to accomplish?” Brown said.

“I hope to get what I want without having to make any cockamamie deals.”

“And when you’ve got it? Then what?”

“I move on to bigger and better things. Without you.”

“You’d better move far and fast,” Brown said. “I’m sure as hell going to find you.”

“Not if you’re dead, you won’t.”

“You’d cool me in your own apartment? Who’re you trying to kid?”

“It’s not my apartment,” Weinberg said, and grinned again.

“I checked the address with...” Brown started, and shut his mouth before he’d said, “the Identification Bureau.”

“Yeah, with what?”

“With your name in the phone book. Don’t try to con me, Weinberg. This is your pad, all right.”

“Used to be, only used to be. I moved out two months ago, kept the same phone number.”

“Then how’d you get in here tonight?”

“The super’s a wino. A bottle of Thunderbird goes a long way in this building.”

“What about whoever lives here now?”

“He’s a night watchman. He leaves here at ten and doesn’t get home until six in the morning. Any other questions?”

“Yeah,” Brown said. “What makes you think I’m in this alone?”

“What difference does it make?”

“I’ll tell you what difference it makes. You can take my piece of the snapshot — oh, sure, I’ve got it with me — but if I am in this with another guy, or two other guys, or a dozen other guys, you can bet your ass they’ve all got prints of it. So where does that leave you? I’m dead, and you’ve got the picture, but so have they. You’re right back where you started.”

“If there’s anybody else in it with you.”

“Right. And if there’s anybody else, they know who you are, pal, believe me. You pull that trigger, you’d better start running. Fast.”

“You told me nobody knew about this.”

“Sure. You told me we had a deal.”

“Maybe you’re full of shit this time, too.”

“Or maybe not. You ready to chance it? You know the kind of heat you’d be asking for? Oh, not only from the cops — homicide’s still against the law, you know. But also from...”

“The cops don’t bother me. They’ll go looking for the guy who lives here.”

“Unless one of my friends tells them you and I had a meeting here tonight.”

“It sounds very good, Stokes. But only if you’ve really got some friends out there. Otherwise, it ain’t worth a nickel.”

“Consider another angle then. You kill me, and you get my piece of the picture, sure. But you don’t get that name you want. That’s up here, Weinberg.” He tapped his temple with his forefinger.

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Weinberg said.

“Think about it now,” Brown said. “I’ll give you five minutes.”

“You’ll give me five minutes?” Weinberg said, and burst out laughing. “I’m holding the gun, and you’re giving me five minutes.”

“Always play ’em like you’ve got ’em, my daddy used to tell me,” Brown said, and smiled.

“Your daddy ever get hit with a slug from a .38?”

“No, but he did get hit with a baseball bat one time,” Brown said, and Weinberg burst out laughing again.

“Maybe you wouldn’t make such a bad partner after all,” he said.

“So what do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

“Put up the gun. Give mine back, and we’ll be on equal terms again. Then let’s cut the crap and get on with the goddamn business.”

“How do I know you won’t try to cold-cock me?”

“Because maybe you’ve got friends, too, same as me.”

“Always play ‘em like you’ve got ‘em,” Weinberg said, and chuckled.

“Yes or no?”

“Sure,” Weinberg said. He took Brown’s gun from his waistband and handed it to him muzzle first. Brown immediately put it back into his holster. Weinberg hesitated a moment, and then put his own gun into a holster on his right hip. “Okay,” he said. “Do we shake hands all over again?”

“I’d like to,” Brown said.

The two men shook hands.

“Let’s see your piece of the picture,” Weinberg said.

“Let’s see yours,” Brown said.

“The Mutual Faith and Trust Society,” Weinberg said. “Okay, we’ll do it together.”

Together, both men took out their wallets. Together, both men removed from plastic compartments the glossy segments of the larger photograph. The piece Brown placed on the tabletop was the one he and Carella had found hidden in Ehrbach’s floor lamp. The piece Weinberg placed beside it was a corner piece unlike any the police already had in their possession.

Both men studied the pieces. Weinberg began moving them around on the tabletop. A grin cracked across his face. “We’re gonna make good partners,” he said. “Look at this. They fit.”

Brown looked.

Then he smiled. He smiled because the pieces sure as hell did fit. But he also smiled because, heh-heh, unbeknownst to his new partner and straight man, there were two additional pieces of the picture in the top drawer of his desk back at the squadroom, and two and two make four, and who knew what these two pieces and those two pieces together might reveal, who indeed? So Brown smiled, and Weinberg smiled, and everybody was having just a wonderful old time putting together the pieces of this old jigsaw puzzle.

“Now the names,” Weinberg said, sounding very much like the MC at the Annual Academy Awards Presentations.

“Eugene Edward Ehrbach,” Brown said, smiling.

“Geraldine Ferguson,” Weinberg said, smiling.

“Ehrbach’s dead,” Brown said, and the smile dropped from Weinberg’s face.

“What?” he shouted. “What the hell kind of...?”

“He was killed Wednesday night. The cops found...”

“Dead?” Weinberg shouted. “Dead?”

“Dead,” Brown said. “But the cops found...”

“Is this a double cross? Is that what this is? Some kind of a double cross?”

“You’ve got to learn to calm down,” Brown said.

“I’ll calm down! I’ll break your head in a million pieces, that’s what I’ll do.”

“He was carrying a piece of the picture,” Brown said softly.

“What? Who?”

“Ehrbach.”

“A piece of our picture?”

“That’s right.”

“Why didn’t you say so? Where is it?”

“The cops have it.”

“The cops! Jesus Christ, Stokes...”

“Cops can be bought,” Brown said, “same as anybody else. Ehrbach’s dead and anything they found on him is probably in a brown paper bag someplace being watched by a police clerk. All we got to do is find out where, and then cross a few palms.”

“I don’t like negotiating with fuzz,” Weinberg said.

“Who does? But to survive in this city, you got to deal with them every now and then.”

“Biggest fuckin’ thieves in the world,” Weinberg said.

“Look,” Brown said, “if even a felony can be squared for a couple of bills, we should be able to lay our hands on Ehrbach’s piece for maybe fifty, sixty bucks. All we got to do is find out where it is.”

“How do we do that? Call the cops and ask?”

“Maybe. I got to think about it a little. Now what about this Geraldine what’s-her-name?”

“Ferguson. She runs an art gallery on Jefferson Avenue. I’ve busted into her apartment maybe six or seven times already, couldn’t find the picture. I wouldn’t be surprised she stuck it up her twat,” Weinberg said, and burst out laughing. Brown laughed with him. They were still good old buddies and still thrilled and amazed by the fact that their two separate pieces fit together as neatly as Yin and Yang.

“Have you got a print of this?” Brown asked.

“Naturally,” Weinberg said. “And you?”

“Naturally.”

“You want to exchange pieces, is that it?”

“That’s it.”

“Done,” Weinberg said, and picked up the section Brown had placed on the tabletop. Brown picked up the remaining section, and both men grinned again. “Now let’s go down for a drink,” Weinberg said. “We got a lot of strategy to work out.”

“Right,” Brown said. As they went toward the front door, he said — casually, he thought — “By the way, how’d you happen to get your piece of the snapshot?”

“Be happy to tell you,” Weinberg said.

“Good.”

“As soon as you tell me how you really got yours,” Weinberg added, and began chuckling.

Brown suddenly wondered which of them was the straight man.