Killer's Choice

CHAPTER EIGHT

Regal Oldsmobile was in that part of the city called Riverhead. There was, in actuality, no river which had its head—or even its tail—in that part of the city. In the days of the old Dutch settlers the entire part of the city above Isola was owned by a patroon named Ryerhert. Ryerhert's Farms was good land interspersed with igneous and metamorphic rock. As the city grew, Ryerhert sold part of his land and donated the rest of it until eventually all of it was owned by the city. Ryerhert was hard to say. Even before 1917 when it became unfashionable for anything to sound even mildly Teutonic, Ryerhert had become Riverhead. There was, to be sure, water in Riverhead. But the water was a brook, really, and it wasn't even called a brook. It was called Five Mile Pond. It was not five miles wide, nor was it five miles long, nor was it five miles from any noticeable landmark. It was simply a brook which was called Five Mile Pond in a community called Riverhead which had no river's head in it. Riverhead could get confusing sometimes.

Regal Oldsmobile was in the heart of Riverhead on an avenue called Barbara Avenue beneath the elevated structure. Regal Oldsmobile was composed of two branches, or rather three. It was easy to make the error of thinking there were only two departments because there were only two buildings. But one of those buildings housed the new cars showroom and the service department. The other building housed the used cars department. Two buildings, three branches. Very confusing. Like Riverhead itself.

Detectives Cotton Hawes and Steve Carella were primarily interested in the service department of Regal Oldsmobile. They spoke there with a man named Buck Mosley. Buck was covered with oil. He had been engaged in changing a differential when the detectives arrived. Buck didn't like to talk much, anyway. He was good with his hands, and the other mechanics felt he did most of his talking to cars, but they never begrudged him the title of Service Manager because they knew he was the best damned mechanic at Regal. It isn't everyone who can talk to an automobile. And even fewer people can get an answer from one. Buck could do both these things. With people, it was different. With people, he was somewhat reticent. With people who also happened to be cops, Buck somehow resembled the lowly clam.

'It was you who called us in answer to our flyer, wasn't it?' Hawes asked.

'Uh-huh,' Buck said.

'You think your department did the paint job on the '47 Dodge?'

'Uh-huh.'

'What colour did you paint it?'

'Green,' Buck said.

'What kind of green?'

'Kelly.'

'Bright?'

'Uh-huh.'

'When was this?'

'Three weeks ago,' Buck said in a longish sentence which qualified him as a marathon lecturer.

'For whom?'

'Fellow.'

'Do you know his name?'

'Inside,' Buck said, gesturing to the office with his head. He began walking. Hawes and Carella followed him.

'Don't let him talk too much,' Carella whispered. 'Tire the poor fellow out.'

Hawes grinned. 'Uh-huh,' he said.

In the office, Buck did not speak until he found the service record. Then he extended it to Carella and said only, 'Here.'

Carella looked at the form.

'Charles Fetterick,' Carella said. 'Ever see him before?'

'Nope,' Buck said.

'Just came in off the street?' Hawes asked.

'Yep.'

'Car been in a smack-up?'

'Nope?'

'Stolen?'

'Checked the list,' Buck said loquaciously. 'Okay.'

'Just wanted it repainted,' Hawes said. 'That's strange.'

'It may have been spotted on another heist,' Carella said. He looked at the form again. '127 Boxer. That isn't far. Let's make the collar.'

'Shouldn't we run him through the I.B. first?'

'What for?'

'I like to know what I'm going against,' Hawes said.

'By the time we check on whether or not he's got a record, he may have moved to California,' Carella said. 'Let's nab him while we know where he is. If this is the real address.'

'Whatever you say,' Hawes said. He turned to Buck. 'Thanks a lot,' he told him.

'Welcome,' Buck said, and that was that.

It was by the sheerest good fortune that Steve Carella remained alive that day. When it was all over, he had only Cotton Hawes to thank for his close brush with the black angel. When it was all over, he was in no mood to thank Cotton Hawes. He said, instead, 'You stupid son of a bitch!' even though Hawes got his share of the lumps and was lying flat on his back in a tenement hallway.

They had left Regal Oldsmobile at ten minutes to noon. Hawes wanted to stop for lunch. Carella wanted to nab Fetterick. Hawes conceded.

The tenements lining Boxer Lane were perhaps better tenements than those to be found in the 87th Precinct territory. The ones in the 87th were generally cold water railroad flats heated by kerosene stoves. The kerosene stoves accounted for the fact that the fire house in the 87th was the most overworked house in the city, answering some 2,500 calls yearly, with the heaviest load in the winter. The tenements on Boxer Lane all had steam heat. Aside from that, the line between them and the 87th's tenements was a thin one. Tenements are tenements.

Cops, too, are cops. They are used to tenements. They are used to entering dimly lit entrance hallways and seeing broken mailboxes. They are used to garbage cans stacked on the ground floor, and narrow steps leading to each landing of the multiple dwelling. They are used to the smells of a tenement and the sounds of a tenement. The tenement in which Charles Fetterick, Thief, lived was no different from any other tenement in the world. Charles Fetterick, Thief, had his name in a broken mailbox. The apartment number lettered on the small white card was 34. Cotton Hawes and Steve Carella, Detectives, began climbing the steps to the third floor in hope of apprehending Charles Fetterick, Thief.

They passed an old man on the second floor. The old man knew they were bulls. He could tell simply by looking at them. He stood on the second floor landing and looked up after them curiously, wondering whom they were after.

On the third floor landing, Carella drew his service revolver. Hawes studied him dispassionately for a moment and then drew his own .38. He heard Carella click off the safety. He followed suit. In the dimness of the corridor, they found Apartment 34. Carella put his ear to the door. There was no sound from within the apartment. He backed away from the door and leaned momentarily against the opposite wall, preparatory to shoving himself off the wall and kicking out at the lock with the flat of his left foot. He was remembering that Charles Fetterick was perhaps the fellow who'd thrown Roger Havilland through a plate glass window and killed him. He was remembering that Roger Havilland wasn't exactly a half-pint, and that it must have taken quite a shove to brush him off into that window. He was remembering, too, that he had a lovely wife named Teddy, and he had no intention of leaving her a young widow. And so his .38 was cocked and ready in his right fist, and he backed off on to the opposite wall preparatory to kicking in a door lock, an operation he had performed perhaps fifty thousand or sixty thousand or sixty million times since he'd been a cop, a very simple and routine operation, a thing as common as answering the phone with '87th Squad, Detective Carella.'

When Hawes knocked on the door, Carella blinked.

When Hawes said, without waiting for an answer to his knock, 'Police, Fetterick. Open up!' Carella was speechless. He still would have kicked in the lock, except that a series of explosions sounded from within the apartment, and suddenly the wood of the door was splintering outward and bullets were whizzing past Carella's head and knocking big chunks of plaster from the wall. He didn't think anything then but DUCK! He fell flat to the floor with his pistol in his fist, and then the door opened and Charles Fetterick—or whoever the hell was inside the apartment—threw another shot out of the doorjamb, and Hawes stood with his mouth wide open and Fetterick—or whoever the hell was shoving his way out of the door—slammed his gun sidewards against Hawes' head without saying a word. Hawes brought up his hand to cover the wide gash of blood that suddenly crossed his eye and Fetterick—or whoever the hell was wielding that gun—lashed out at Hawes again, opening his nose and sending him sprawling backwards against Carella who hugged the floor and who was angling for a shot past the six-foot-two-inch bulk of Hawes. Hawes came down. He came down on to Carella's right hand, pinning the gun. Fetterick—or whoever the hell was wearing those size twelve shoes—kicked out at Hawes' face, splitting his lip, and then he ran for the steps. By the time Carella rolled Hawes off him and on to his back, Fetterick was in the street and probably eight blocks away. Carella walked back to Hawes. There were four shots in the plaster where Carella's head had once been. Hawes lay on the floor with his face open at every seam.

'You stupid son of a bitch!' Carella said. 'Are you all right?'