Killer's Choice

CHAPTER NINE

When a new man joins a firm, the other employees are apt to talk about him, speculate about him, generally form their own conclusions about him. If he contributes something colourful to the working day, the employees very often will take their talk home to their wives. They will dissect the newcomer at the dinner table.

Cops are only employees of the city. Cotton Hawes had contributed a most colourful tidbit to the working day, and so that night…

'All right, so he's polite,' Meyer Meyer said to his wife as he sliced the steak. 'This I can understand. A man is polite, he's polite. You can't separate a man from good manners that have been bred into him, am I right?'

Sarah Meyer nodded and spooned mashed potatoes on to the plates of the three Meyer children. She was a woman of thirty-four, with brown hair and eyes as blue as Meyer's. Around the table, Alan, Susie, and Jeff sat, three miniature blue-eyed reproductions of their parents.

'But now politeness,' Meyer said, putting the first slice of steak on to Sarah's plate, 'is a thing you have to be careful about.' He put the second slice of steak on to Susie's plate, and then served the boys. He served himself last. The children bowed their heads and clasped their hands. Meyer bowed his head and said, 'Thank you, dear Lord, for providing.' He picked up his fork. 'It may be polite to knock on a door and say, "Excuse me, sir, this is the police. Would you be so kind as to open up?" This may be considered very polite in the 30th Precinct. Maybe in the 30th Precinct, they got butlers to open the doors for cheap thieves. Maybe that's the way it works there.'

'Did Steve get shot?' Sarah asked.

'No,' Meyer said. 'Thank God, he didn't get shot. But that is not this Cotton Hawes's fault. Hawes was doing his polite best, you can bank on that.' Meyer nodded emphatically.

'Cotton is a stupid name, anyway,' Jeff, who was eight, said.

'Nobody asked you,' Meyer told him. 'Steve could have got his head blown off. He's lucky he didn't get it at least creased. Would you pass the green beans, please, Sarah darling?'

Sarah passed the green beans.

'He knocked on the door! Can you imagine that? He actually knocked on the door.'

'Ain't you supposed to knock on doors, Pop?' Alan, who was eleven, asked.

'Aren't,' Sarah corrected.

'Yeah, aren't?' Alan said.

'If you come to our bedroom,' Meyer said judiciously, 'and the door is closed, certainly you should knock. That's manners. Or even if you're visiting outside, and you come to a closed door, you should knock, certainly. That, too, is manners. We are not discussing your manners, Alan; or yours, Susie; or yours, Jeff.'

'Then whose?' Susie, who was ten, asked.

'We are discussing the manners of the police department,' Meyer said. 'And the best police department is the one which has hardly any manners at all.'

'Meyer,' Sarah warned. 'The children.'

'We already separated children from cops,' Meyer said. 'Would you pass me a roll, please? Besides, the children know that what's said in this house is family stuff and doesn't go beyond these four walls. Am I right, children?'

'Yes, Pop,' Jeff said.

Susie and Alan nodded as if Meyer had just entrusted them with the plans for the new atomic submarine. Meyer looked around the table for the butter.

'What's with this kosher bit?' he asked. 'Get me some butter, will you, darling, please?'

Sarah rose from the table, grinning. 'You're a heathen,' she said gently.

'I'm a heathen,' Meyer said, shrugging. 'I'm a cop. I got to keep up my strength. Who knows, some day I'll be out on a squeal with Mr Cotton, and we'll capture a criminal wanted in twenty states, and Mr Cotton will hand him his gun and say, "Hold this for me a minute, will you?" For this, you need strength.'

'He shouldn't have knocked, Daddy?' Susie asked.

'Darling,' Meyer said, 'the man in that apartment was wanted for murder. With a man who is wanted for murder, the only knocking you do is on his head.'

Susie giggled, and from the kitchen Sarah said, 'Meyer!'

'I should teach them to be kind to murderers?'

Sarah came back into the dining-room. 'That isn't it,' she said. 'You shouldn't joke about hitting people on the head.'

'All right, it's no joke,' Meyer admitted. 'The only joke around is Cotton Hawes. You should see him. He was bleeding from a hundred holes.'

'Meyer!' Sarah said sharply.

'Well, he was! Do you want me to say he wasn't bleeding from a hundred holes?'

'We happen to be eating.'

'I know. This is good steak. He had to go to the hospital. Nothing serious, but they bandaged him up like the invisible man. Crazy. He brought it on himself. Knocking! My God.'

'Was Steve angry?'

'I don't know. He wasn't saying much. This Mr Cotton should have calling cards printed. It should say on them "Cotton Hawes Calling." He should knock and then slide one under the door. I'll bet he lasts three days if he keeps knocking on doors. We'll be identifying him from something they drag out of the River Dix.'

'Meyer!'

'All right, all right, already,' Meyer said. He smiled ingratiatingly. 'Pass the salt, please, darling, would you please, Sarah darling?'

Lieutenant Peter Byrnes sat at the dinner table with his wife Harriet and his son Larry. He was a compact man, Byrnes, with a compact bullet head. He had tiny blue eyes set in a seamed and weathered face which was divided by a craggy nose. His upper lip was a little weak, but his lower lip was strong and pouting, and he owned a chin like a cleft boulder. His head sat snugly on his short, thick neck, as if he were ready to pull it in at a moment's notice. His hands were thick hands belonging to an honest man who had worked hard all his life.

He sat at the table emanating silence, and Harriet watched him. The only sound in the room was the sound of eighteen-year-old Larry wolfing his food.

'All right,' Harriet said at last. 'What is it?'

'I like Steve Carella,' Byrnes said. 'I mean it. I like that boy. By Christ, when we almost lost him last Christmas…'

'Did he do something wrong?' Harriet asked.

'No, he didn't do anything wrong,' Byrnes said, shaking his head. 'No, it isn't him. I'm just saying I like him, and I like his wife. I look at that girl as if she's my own daughter. I swear it. A man who runs a squad isn't supposed to have favourites, but I like that boy. He's a damned fine boy.'

Larry Byrnes said nothing. He ate with the complete abandon of a hungry adolescent. It had not been so long ago that Larry Byrnes's hunger had not been for the normal adolescent pleasures. He had not forgotten that Steve Carella had been shot trying to solve a narcotics case in which he'd been involved. That was all behind them now, a part of the Byrnes existence they no longer discussed, but he had not forgotten. He knew why his father's favourite cop was Steve Carella. His own favourite cop, since last Christmas, was a detective-lieutenant named Peter Byrnes. So he listened to his father attentively, but he none the less managed to gobble his food with total adolescent oblivion.

'I like Steve, too,' Harriet said. 'What happened?'

'He almost got killed today,' Byrnes said.

'What!'

'Yes, yes. Four bullets that missed him by maybe half an inch.'

'Steve? How?'

'Hawes,' Byrnes said. 'Cotton Hawes. They had to send him to me. Of all the precincts in the city, they had to pick mine. They take him out of a precinct which is a finishing school for young girls, and they send him to the 87th. The 87th! Of all the precincts! What did I do to deserve him? What did I do to deserve a man who knocks on a murderer's door and announces that the police are there?'

'Is that what he did?' Harriet asked, astonished.

'That's what he did.'

'What happened?'

'The guy opened fire. Almost ripped Steve's head off. Hawes got himself beat to a pulp. What am I gonna do with him? Put him on tracing lost bicycles? I need all the cops I can get. Havilland may have been a terrible guy personally, but he wasn't a bad cop. He really wasn't, Harriet. Loose with his hands, yes, and I don't go for that. But he wasn't a bad cop. He didn't pull stupid blunders. I can't afford to risk a man like Steve Carella because of a stupid blunder a jerk like Cotton Hawes makes!'

'The one who fired? Is he the man who killed Roger?'

'We think so.'

'And this Hawes knocked on the door?'

'Yes! Can you believe it? Harriet, tell me the God's honest truth. Would you have knocked on that door?'

'I'd have kicked it in,' Harriet said calmly, 'and shot at the first thing that moved.'

'Good,' Byrnes said. 'Would you like to join my squad?'

'I joined it the day we were married,' Harriet said, smiling.

Byrnes smiled, too. He looked at Larry. He sighed heavily.

'Son,' he said, 'I know a famine is expected this year, but go easy. We've been hoarding food in the basement.'

In the living-room of Claire Townsend's apartment, she and Detective Bert Kling were necking.

It was a pleasant spot to neck, much more comfortable than the back seat of an automobile. Ralph Townsend, Claire's father, had retired at 10.30, leaving the living-room to 'the kids,' figuring that nothing very terrible or spectacular could happen to two people who were already engaged. On that particular night, he was absolutely right because Bert Kling didn't have his mind on necking somehow. The lights were dimmed and there was soft music coming from the record player, but all Kling could do was talk about Cotton Hawes.

'Knocks on the door,' he said. 'This is me, Renfrew of the Mounted! Bang! Four shots come plowing through the wood. Steve almost collected his life insurance.'

'Are we going to talk about Cotton Hawes all night?'

'He's a danger,' Kling said. 'He's a positive danger. I hope to hell I never answer a squeal with him.'

'He's new. He'll learn.'

'When? When all the cops on the squad are dead? Oh, Claire, this man is dangerous.'

'I wish you were a little more dangerous.'

'How do you mean?'

'You figure it out.'

'Oh,' Kling said. He kissed her perfunctorily. 'But how can a man be so ignorant?' he persisted. 'How can a man deliberately…?'

'Is it considered impolite for policemen to knock on doors?'

'It's considered wonderful,' Kling said. 'Except when the man in the apartment is a suspected murderer.'

'This man was a suspected murderer?'

'This was the man who threw Roger Havilland into the plate glass window.'

'Oh.'

'So would you have knocked?'

'I'd have said "Kiss me, lover."' Claire said.

'What?'

'Kiss me, lover,' she repeated.

So he kissed her.

The only man who wasn't doing much complaining was Steve Carella. At home with Teddy, he had more important things on his mind. He did not like taking police work home with him. He saw too many things during the day which often left him feeling sick. He knew too many cops who had allowed the filth of criminal detection to wipe off on the floor mats of their homes. Teddy was a sweet girl, Teddy was his wife. Except when something was really troubling him, except when there was a nut too difficult to crack, he did not usually discuss the precinct or the squad with her. Besides, what had happened this afternoon was over and done with. It had been close, but he'd survived in one piece, and maybe Hawes had learned a lesson. The lesson undoubtedly would have been driven home with sharper impact had Carella been killed. Unfortunately, he had not. Hawes would have to derive from the lesson what he could—without the benefit of homicide.

Steve Carella kissed his wife. She was good to kiss. She was a brunette with brown eyes and full lips and a full body, and he enjoyed kissing her. The room was very quiet, dark except where the street lamps below filtered up to the open windows. Steve Carella didn't tell Teddy about Hawes. Steve Carella had more important things on his mind.