Killer's Wedge

CHAPTER 4

The problem, Byrnes thought, is that we cannot communicate with each other. This, surely, has been the problem of the human race since the beginning of time, but it's especially aggravated right here and right now. I'm in my own squad room with three capable detectives, and we can't sit down together to discuss the ways and means of getting that gun and that nitro-if the nitro exists-away from that menacing little bitch. Four intelligent men with a nut cruncher of a problem, and we have no way of talking it out. Not with her sitting there.

Not with that .38 in her fist.

And so, lacking communication, I also lack command. In effect, Virginia Dodge now commands the 87th Squad.

She'll continue to command it until one of two things happens:

a) We disarm her.

b) Steve Carella arrives and she shoots him.

There is, of course, a third possibility.

There is the possibility that she'll get rattled and put a bullet into that purse with its alleged jar of nitro, and there we go. No more waiting for next week's chapter. It'll all be over in a mighty big way. They will probably hear the blast away the hell over in the 88th. The blast might even knock the commissioner out of bed. Assuming, of course, that there really is a jar of nitro in that bag. Unfortunately, we cannot proceed as if there isn't. We have to assume, along with Virginia Dodge, that the jar of nitro is as real as the .38. In which case, another interesting possibility presents itself. We can't fool around here. We can't go playing grab-ass because nitroglycerin is very potent stuff which can explode on the slightest provocation. Where the hell did she get a jar of nitro? From her safecracker husband's hope chest?

But even safe crackers-except in Scandinavia-don't use it on blow jobs any more. It's too damn unpredictable. I've known safe crackers who, when using nitro, carried it in a hot-water bottle.

So there she sits with a jar full of the stuff in her purse.

I wonder if she rode the subway with it in her purse? Brynes thought, and he smiled grimly.

Okay, the nitro is real. We play it as if it's real. It's the only way we can play it.

And this means no sudden moves, no grabs for the purse.

So what do we do?

Wait for Carella? And what time will he be back? What time is it now?

He looked up at the wall clock. 5:07.

Still broad daylight outside-well, maybe a hint of dusk-but still a golden afternoon, really. Does anyone out there know we're playing footsie with a bottle of soup?

No one, Byrnes thought. Not even meat headed Captain Frick. How do you set a fire under that man, how do you get the wall of bricks to fall on his head?

How the hell do we get out of this mess?

I wonder it she smokes, Byrnes thought.

If she smokes … Now wait a minute … now, let's work this out sensibly. Let's say she smokes. Okay. Okay, we've got that much.

Now.." if we can get her to put the purse on the desk, get it off her lap. That shouldn't be too hard … Where's the purse now? … Still in her lap … Virginia Dodge's goddamn lap dog, a bottle of nitro .. Okay, let's say I can get her to put the purse on the desk, out of the way … Then let's say I offer her a cigarette and then start to light it for her.

If I drop the lighted match in her lap, she'll jump a mile.

And when she jumps, I'll hit her.

I'm not worried about that .38-well, I'm worried, who the hell wants to get shot but I'm not really worried about it so long as that soup is out of the way. I don't want to have a scuffle anywhere near that explosive. I've faced guns before, but intro is another kiling one uun want them blotting me off the wall.

I wonder if she smokes.

"How have you been, Virginia?" Byrnes asked.

"You can cut it right now, Lieutenant."

"Cut what?"

"The sweet talk. I didn't come here to listen to any of your crap. I heard enough of that last time I was here."

"That was a long time ago, Virginia."

"Five years, three months, and seventeen days. That's how long ago it was."

"We don't make the laws, Virginia," Byrnes said gently.

"We only enforce them.

And when a person breaks ..

"I don't want a lecture. My husband is dead. Steve Carella sent him up. That's good enough for me."

"Steve only arrested him. A jury tried him, and a judge sentenced him."

"But Carella..

"Virginia, you're forgetting something, aren't you?"

"What?"

"Your husband blinded a man."

"That was an accident."

"Your husband fired a gun at a man during a holdup and deprived that man of his eyesight. And he didn't fire the gun by accident."

"He fired because the man began yelling cop. What would you have done?"

"I wouldn't have been holding up a gas station to begin with."

"No, huh? Big simon-pure Lieutenant Byrnes. I heard all about your junltie son, Lieutenant. The big shot cop with the drug addict son."

"That was a long time ago, too, Virginia.

My son is all right now."

He could never think back to that time in his life without some pain. Oh, not as much as in the beginning, no, there would never again be that much pain for him, the pain of discovering that his only son was a tried and-true drug addict, hooked through the bag and back again. A drug addict possibly involved in a homicide. Those had been days of black pain for Peter Byrnes, days when he had withheld information from the men of his own squad, until finally he had told everything to Steve Carella. Carella had almost lost his life working on that case. It had been touch and go after he'd been shot, and no man ever had prayed the way Byrnes did for any other man's recovery.

But it was all over now, except for the slight twinge of pain whenever he thought of it. The habit had been kicked, the household was in order. And now, Steve Carella, a man Byrnes almost considered as another son, had a rendezvous with a woman in black. And the woman in black spelled death.

"I'm glad your son is all right now," Virginia said sarcastically.

"My husband isn't. My husband is dead. And the way I read it, Carella killed him. Now let's cut the crap, shall we?"

"I'd rather talk awhile."

"Then talk to yourself. I'm not interested."

Byrnes sat on the corner of the desk. Virginia shifted the purse in her lap, the revolver pointing into the opening.

"Don't come any closer, Lieutenant. I'm warning you."

"What are your plans, exactly, Virginia?"

"I've already told you. When Carella gets here, I'm going to kill him. And then I'm going to leave. And if anyone tries to stop me, I drop the bag with the nitro."

"Suppose I try to get that gun away from you right this minute?"

"I wouldn't if I were you."

"Suppose I tried?"

"I'm banking on something, Lieutenant."

"What's that?"

"The fact that no man is really a hero. Whose life is more important to you-yours or Carella's? You make a try for the gun, and there's a chance the nitro will go off in your face.

Your face, not his. All right, you'll have saved Carella. But you'll have-destroyed yourself."

"Carella may mean a lot to me, Virginia. I might be willing to die for him."

"Yeah? And how much does he mean to the other men in this room? Would they be willing to die for him, too? Or for the crumby salary they're getting from the city? Why don't you take a vote, Lieutenant, and find out how many of your men are ready to lay down their lives rig at now? Go ahead. Take a vote."

He did not want to take a vote. He was not that familiar with courage or heroics.

He knew that each of the men in the room had acted heroically and courageously on many an occasion. But bravery in action was a thing dictated by the demands of the moment. Faced with certain death, would these men be willing to take an impossible gamble? He was not sure. But he felt fairly certain that given the choice "Your life or Carella's?" they would most probably choose to let Carella die. Selfish?

Perhaps.

Inhuman? Perhaps. But life was not something you could walk into a dime store to buy again if you happened to use one up or wear it out. Life was a thing you clung to and cherished. And even knowing Carella as he did, even (and the word was hard coming for a man like Byrnes) loving Carella, he dared not ask himself the question "Your life or Carella's?" He was too afraid of the answer he might give.

"How old are you, Virginia?"

"What difference does it make?"

"I'd like to know."

"Thirty-two."

Byrnes nodded.

"I look older, don't I?"

"A little."

"A lot. You can thank Carella for that, too. Have you ever seen Castleview Prison, Lieutenant? Have you ever seen the place Carella sent my Frank to? It's for animals, not men. And I had to live alone, waiting, knowing what Frank was going through.

How long do you think youth lasts? How long do you think good looks hang around when you've got sorrow and worry inside you like a… like a thing that's eating your guts?"

"Castleview isn't the best prison in the world, but ..

"It's a torture chamber!" Virginia shouted.

"Have you ever been inside it? It's dirty, filthy. And hot, and cramped, and rusting. It smells, Lieutenant. You can smell it for blocks before you approach it. And they crowd men into that hot ifithy stench.

Did my Frank cause trouble? Yes, of course he did. Frank was a man,

not an animal-and he refused to be treated like an animal, and so they labeled him a troublemaker."

"Well, you can't ..

"Do you know you're not allowed to talk to anyone during work hours at Castleview? Do you know they still have buckets in each cell buckets-no toilet facilities! Do you know what the stink is like in those sufferingly hot cubicles?

And my Frank was sick! Did Carella think about that, when he became a hero by arresting him?"

"He wasn't thinking of becoming a hero. He was doing his job. Can't you understand that, Virginia? Carella is a cop. He was only doing his job."

"And I'm doing mine," Virginia said flatly.

"How? Do you know what you're carrying in your goddamn purse? Do you realize that it might go up in your face when you fire that gun?

Nitroglycerin isn't toothpaste!"

"I don~t care."

"Thirty-two years old, and you're ready to kill a man and maybe take your own life in the bargain."

"I don't care."

"Talk sense, Virginia!"

"I don't have to talic sense with you or anyone.

I don't have to talk at all." Virginia moved violently, and the purse jiggled in her lap.

"I'm doing you a goddamn favor by talking to you."

"All right, relax," Byrnes said, nervously eyeing the purse.

"Just relax, willya? Why don't you put that purse on the desk, huh?"

"What for?"

"You're bouncing around like a rubber ball. If you don't care about it going off, I do."

Virginia smiled. Gingerly, she lifted the purse from her lap, and gingerly she placed it on the desk top before her, swinging the .38 around at the same time, as if .38 and nitroglycerin were newlyweds who couldn't bear to be parted for a moment.

"That's better," Byrnes said, and he sighed in relief.

"Relax. Don't get upset." He paused.

"Why don't we have a smoke?"

"I don't want one," Virginia said.

Byrnes took a package of cigarettes from his pocket. Casually, he moved to her side of the desk, conscious of the .38 against the fabric of the purse. He gauged the distance between him sell and Virginia, gauged how close he would be to her when he lighted her cigarette, with which hand he should slug her so that she would not go flying over against the purse. Would her instant reaction to the dropped match be a tightening of her trigger finger? He did not think so. She would pull back. And then he would hit her.

He shook a cigarette loose.

"Here," he said "Have one."

"Don't you smoke?"

"I smoke. I don't feel like one now."

"Come on. Nothing like a cigarette for relaxation.

"Here."

He thrust the package toward her.

"Oh, all right," she said. She shifted the38 to her left hand. The muzzle of the gun was an inch from the bag. With her right hand, she took the cigarette Byrnes offered.

Standing at her right, he figured he would extend the match with his left hand, let it fall into her lap, and then clip her with a roundhouse right when she pulled back in fright. Oddly, his heart was pounding furiously.

Suppose the gun went off when she pulled back?

He reached into his pocket for the matches. His hand was trembling. The cigarette dangled from Virginia's lips. Her left hand, holding the gun against the purse, was steady.

Byrnes struck the match.

And the telephone rang.