Let’s Hear It For The Deaf Man

15

Something was wrong with the day.

Heady breezes blew in off the River Harb, brilliant sunshine touched avenue and street; May was just around the corner, and April seemed bent on jubilant collision.

But there was no further communication from the Deaf Man. The first mail had already been delivered, and there was no manila envelope addressed to Carella, no duplication of the football team. Had this been an oversight, or was it a deliberate act of omission with deep significance? The detectives of the 87th Squad pondered this with the concern of a proctological convention considering oral hygiene. The case had been turned over to the stalwarts of the 86th; let their mothers worry.

The clock on the sidewalk outside the bank read twelve minutes past nine. Sitting on a bench in the small park around which ran Van Buren Circle, the Deaf Man checked his own watch, and then glanced up the street. In three minutes, if the armored truck followed its usual Friday morning routine, enough cash to cover the combined McCormick, Meredith, and Holt payrolls would be delivered to the bank. At eleven o’clock, the money would be withdrawn, despite the efforts of the toy police, who were already inside the bank. The Deaf Man had seen them arriving at a little past nine, three burly detectives and one lady cop, undoubtedly there to replace the tellers. He credited them with having enough intelligence to realize he might strike at some time other than the announced eleven o’clock, but then even a cretin might have surmised that. And besides, they were wrong. The bank would be robbed at eleven. Whatever else the Deaf Man was, he was scrupulously fair. When dealing with inferiors, there was no other way.

The armored truck was coming up the street.

It pulled to the curb outside the bank. The driver got out and walked swiftly to the rear of the truck, taking up position near the door, a rifle in his hands. The door on the curbside opened, and the second guard got out and followed his partner, pistol still holstered. From a key attached to his belt with a chain, he unlocked the rear door of the truck. Then he took the pistol from its holster, turned up the butt, and rapped sharply on the door, twice, the signal for the guard inside to unlock the door from within. The rear door of the truck opened. The guard with the rifle covered his companions as they transferred the two sacks of cash from the truck to the pavement. The guard inside the truck climbed down, pistol in hand, and picked up one of the sacks. The second guard picked up the other sack. As they walked toward the revolving doors, the guard with the rifle covered the sidewalk. It was all very routine, and all very efficient.

As they disappeared inside the bank, the Deaf Man nodded, smiled, and walked swiftly to a pay phone on the corner. He dialed his own number, and the phone on the other end was lifted on the second ring.

“Hello?” a voice said.

“Kerry?”

“Yes?”

“This is Mr. Taubman.”

“Yes, Mr. Taubman.”

“The money is here. You and the others may come for it at once.”

“Thank you, Mr. Taubman.”

There was a click on the line. Still smiling, the Deaf Man replaced the receiver on the hook and went back to his command post on the park bench.

Inside the bank, Detective Schmitt of the 86th was briefing Mr. Alton yet another time. The clock on the wall opposite the tellers’ cages read 9:21.

“There’s nothing to worry about,” Schmitt said. “I’ve got experienced men at windows number one and two, and an experienced policewoman at the car teller’s window. I’ll be covering window number three myself.”

“Yes, thank you,” Alton said. He hesitated, and glanced nervously around the bank. “What do I do meanwhile?”

“Just go about your business as usual,” Schmitt said. “Try to relax. There’s no sense upsetting your customers. Everything’s under control. Believe me, Mr. Alton, with the four of us here, nobody’s going to rob this bank.”

Schmitt didn’t realize it, but he was right.

At 9:37 A.M. Kerry Donovan, his head shaved bald and gleaming in the sun, a new but nonetheless rather respectable mustache under his nose, entered the bank carrying a large black rectangular case. He asked the guard where the manager’s office was, and the guard asked whether he had an appointment. Donovan said yes, he had called last week to make an appointment with Mr. Alton. The guard asked Donovan his name, and he replied, “Mr. Dunmore. Karl Dunmore.”

“One second, Mr. Dunmore,” the guard said, and signaled to one of the bank clerks, an attractive young girl in her twenties, who immediately came over to him.

“Mr. Karl Dunmore to see Mr. Alton,” the guard said.

“Just a moment, please,” the girl said, and walked to the rear of the bank and into Alton’s office. She came out not a moment later, walked back to where the guard and Donovan where engaged in polite conversation about the beautiful weather, and asked Donovan if he would come with her, please. Donovan followed her up the length of the bank, passing the Deaf Man, who stood at one of the islands making out a deposit slip. She opened the door to Alton’s office, ushered him in, and closed the door behind him.

The Deaf Man thought it a pity that Kerry Donovan did not know the bank was full of policemen.

“Mr. Dunmore,” Alton said, and extended his hand. “Nice to see you.”

“Good of you to make time for me,” Donovan said.

“What have you brought me?”

“Well, as we discussed on the phone, I thought we might make more progress once you’d actually seen the plans and scale model of our project. I know we’re asking for an unusually large amount of development money, but I’m hoping you’ll agree our expectations for profit are realistic. May I use your desk top?” Donovan asked, and quickly realized that the model was too big for Alton’s cluttered desk. “Or perhaps the floor would be better,” he said, improvising. “We can spread the plans out that way, get a better look at them.”

“Yes, certainly,” Alton said. “As you wish.”

Donovan opened the black case and carefully removed from it a scale model of a forty-unit housing development, complete with winding roads, miniature trees, lampposts, and fire hydrants. He put this on the floor in front of the desk, and then reached into the case for a rolled sheaf of architectural drawings. He removed the rubber band from the roll, and spread the plans on the floor.

“I wonder if I could have something to hold these down?” he said.

“Will this do?” Alton asked.

“Yes, thank you,” Donovan said, and accepted the offered cut-glass paperweight. “Just to hold down this one end of it.”

“Yes,” Alton said.

“If you’ll come around here, Mr. Alton, I think you’ll be able to...”

“Where’s the proposed location?” Alton said, coming around the desk.

“I explained that in my initial...”

“Yes, but we deal with so many...”

“It’s on Sands Spit, sir.”

“Have you sought development money out there?”

“No, sir. Our offices are here in Isola. We thought it preferable to deal with a local bank.”

“I see.”

“This top drawing is a schematic of the entire development. If you compare it with the model...”

Alton was standing just to Donovan’s left now, looking down at the model. Donovan rose, drew a pistol from his coat pocket, and pointed it at Alton’s head.

“Don’t make a sound,” he said. “This is a holdup. Do exactly what I tell you to do, or I’ll kill you.”

Alton, his lip trembling, stared at the muzzle of the gun. The Deaf Man had deliberately armed Donovan with a Colt.45, the meanest-looking handgun he could think of.

“Do you understand?” Donovan asked.

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

“Good. We’re going into the vault now,” Donovan said, and stopped, and quickly snapped the case shut. “If we meet anyone on the way, you’re to tell them I’m here to inspect the alarm. If there’s anyone in the vault, you will ask that person to leave us alone. Clear?”

“Yes.”

“No signals to anyone, no attempts to indicate that anything out of the ordinary is happening. I promise you, Mr. Alton, a felony conviction will send me to jail for life, and I have no qualms about shooting you dead. I’m going to put this gun back in my pocket now, but it’ll be pointed right at you, Mr. Alton, and I’ll fire through the pocket if you so much as raise an eyebrow to anyone. Are you ready?”

“Yes, I’m ready.”

“Let’s go then.”

From where he stood at the island in the center of the bank, the Deaf Man saw Donovan and Alton coming out of the office and heading for the vault. Donovan was smiling and chatting amiably, the black case in his left hand, his right hand in the pocket of his coat. Both men went into the vault, and the Deaf Man headed swiftly toward the revolving doors at the front of the bank. According to the outlined plan, he was supposed to initiate the second phase of the plan only after Donovan was safely out of the vault and back in the manager’s office. Instead, he walked out of the bank now, his appearance on the sidewalk being the signal to the two automobiles parked on the other side of the small park. He saw Rudy Manello pulling the first car away from the curb. Angela Gould’s car followed immediately behind it. In less than a minute Rudy had driven around the curving street and turned into the driveway on the right-hand side of the bank, Angela following in the second automobile. When Angela’s car was directly abreast of the driveway, she cut the engine, and pretended helpless female indignation at things mechanical. An instant later John Preiss stepped out of the first car and swung a sledge hammer at the car teller’s window.

An instant after that, both he and Rudy were shot dead by the policewoman behind the shattered window. Kerry Donovan, still in the bank vault stuffing banded stacks of bills into the black case, heard the shots and realized at once that something had gone wrong. He dropped the bills in his hand, rushed out of the vault, saw that the woman in the car teller’s window was armed, and recognized in panic that he could not make his escape as planned. He was running for the revolving doors at the front of the bank when he was felled by bullets from the guns of the three separate detectives manning the interior tellers’ cages.

Outside the bank Angela Gould heard all the shooting and immediately started the car. In her panic she would not have stopped to pick up the Deaf Man even if he’d been waiting on the sidewalk where he was supposed to be. But by that time he was in a taxicab half a mile away, heading for a rendezvous with the second team.

Something was still wrong with the day, only more so.

When Albert Schmitt of the 86th called Carella to report that the attempted robbery had been foiled, Carella was somewhat taken aback.

“What do you mean?” he asked, and looked up at the wall clock. “It’s only ten-thirty.”

“That’s right,” Schmitt said. “They hit early.”

“When?”

“Almost an hour ago. They came in about twenty to ten. It was all over by ten.”

“Who? How many?”

“One guy inside, two outside. I don’t know what the plan was, but how they ever expected to get away with it is beyond me. Especially after all the warning beforehand. I don’t get it, Carella, I really don’t.”

“Who were the men involved in the attempt?” Carella asked.

“Identification we found on the bodies...”

“They’re all dead?”

“All three of them. Rudy Manello, John Preiss, and Kerry Donovan. Names mean anything to you?”

“Nothing at all. Any of them wearing a hearing aid?”

“A what?”

“A hearing aid.”

“No.”

“Any of them tall and blond?”

“No.”

“Then he got away.”

“Who did?”

“The guy who masterminded it.”

“Some mastermind,” Schmitt said. “My six-year-old kid could’ve planned a better caper. It’s like nothing ever happened, Carella. The glazier already had the window fixed before I left. I pulled my people out because even the guys from the security office were leaving. Anyway, we can forget about it now. It’s all over and done with.”

“Well, good,” Carella said, “good,” and hung up feeling mildly disappointed. The squadroom was unusually silent, the windows open to the sounds of light morning traffic. Carella sat at his desk and sipped coffee from a cardboard container. This was not like the Deaf Man. If Carella had figured him correctly (and he probably hadn’t), the “delicate symbiosis” of which he had spoken was composed of several interlocking elements.

Not the least of these was the Deaf Man himself. It now seemed apparent that he worked with different pickup gangs on each job, rather like a jazz soloist recruiting sidemen in the various cities on his tour. In the past any apprehended gang members did not know the true identity of their leader; he had presented himself once as L. Sordo and again as Mort Orecchio, the former name meaning “the deaf one” in Spanish, the latter meaning “dead ear” in Italian. The hearing aid itself may have been a phony, even though he always took pains to announce that he was hard of hearing. But whatever he was or whoever he was, the crimes he conceived were always grand in scale and involved large sums of money.

Nor was conceiving crimes and executing them quite enough for the Deaf Man. The second symbiotic element consisted of telling the police what he was going to do long before he did it. At first Carella had supposed this to be evidence of a monumental ego, but he had come to learn that the Deaf Man used the police as a sort of second pickup gang, larger than the nucleus group, but equally essential to the successful commission of the crime. That he had been thwarted on two previous occasions was entirely due to chance. He was smarter than the police, and he used the police, and he let the police know they were being used, and that was where the third element locked into place.

Knowing they were being used, but not how; knowing he was telling them a great deal about the crime, but not enough; knowing he would do what he predicted, but not exactly, the police generally reacted like country bumpkins on a hick police force. Their behavior in turn strengthened the Deaf Man’s premise that they were singularly inept. Given their now-demonstrated ineffectiveness, he became more and more outrageous, more and more daring. And the bolder he became, the more they tripped over their own flat feet. It was, indeed, a delicate symbiosis.

But the deception this time seemed unworthy of someone of his caliber. The cheapest thief in the precinct could just as easily have announced that he would rob a bank at eleven and then rob it at nine-thirty. Big deal. A lie of such petty dimensions hardly required duplication. Yet the Deaf Man had thought it necessary to tell them all about it twice. So apparently he himself was convinced that he was about to pull off the biggest caper in the history of criminal endeavor, gigantic enough to be announced not only once, but then once again — like 50 DANCING GIRLS 50.

Carella picked up the container and sipped at his coffee. It was getting cold. He swallowed the remainder of it in a single gulp and then almost choked on the startling suddenness of an exceptionally brilliant thought: the Deaf Man had not said everything twice. True enough, he had said almost everything twice, but there had been only one photostat pinpointing the time of the holdup. Carella shoved back his chair and reached for his jacket. He had brought another gun to work with him this morning, the first revolver he’d owned, back when he was a patrolman. He eased it out of the holster now, the grip unfamiliar to him, and hoped he would not have to use it, hoped somehow he was wrong. But it was a quarter to eleven on the face of the squadroom clock, and Carella now thought he knew why there’d been any duplication at all, and it did not have a damn thing to do with his twins or the Deaf Man’s ego.

Oddly, it had only to do with playing the crime game fair.

He came through the revolving doors at ten minutes to eleven, walked directly to the bank guard, and opened his wallet.

“Detective Carella,” he said, “87th Squad. I’d like to see Mr. Alton, please.”

The bank guard studied the detective’s shield pinned to a leather tab opposite an identification card. He nodded, and then said, “Right this way, sir,” and led him through the bank to a door at the far end, adjacent to the vault. Discreetly, he knocked.

“Yes?” a voice said.

“It’s me, Mr. Alton. Corrigan.”

“Come in,” Alton said.

The bank guard entered the office, and came out again not a moment later. “Go right in, Mr. Carella,” he said.

Alton was sitting behind his desk, but he rose and extended his hand at once. “How do you do?” he said.

“How do you do, sir? I’m Detective Carella of the 87th Squad.” He showed his shield and I.D. card again, and then smiled. “How do you feel after all that excitement?” he asked, and pulled a chair up to the desk, and sat.

“Much better now,” Alton said. “What can I do for you, Detective Carella?”

“Well, sir, I won’t be more than a few minutes. We’re the squad that caught the original squeal and later turned it over to the 86th. My lieutenant asked me to stop by and complete this check list, if that’s okay with you.”

“What sort of check list?” Alton asked.

“Well, sir, I hate to bother you with interdepartmental problems, but that’s exactly what this is, and I hope you’ll bear with me. You see, because the case was turned over to another squad, that doesn’t mean it isn’t still officially ours. The final disposition of it, I mean.”

“I’m not sure I understand,” Alton said.

“We’re responsible for it, sir. It’s as simple as that.”

“I see,” Alton said, but he still looked puzzled.

“These questions are just to make sure that the 86th handled things properly. I’ll be honest with you, Mr. Alton, it’s our insurance in case there’s any static later on. From the brass upstairs, I mean.”

“I see,” Alton said, finally comprehending. “What are the questions?”

“Just a few, sir,” he said, and took a sheet of paper from his pocket, unfolded it, and put it on the desk. There were several typewritten questions on the sheet. He took out a ballpoint pen, glanced at the first question, and said, “How many police officers were inside the bank at the time of the attempted robbery?”

“Four,” Alton said.

“Would you know their names?”

“The man in charge was Detective Schmitt. I don’t know the names of the others.”

“I can get that from the 86th,” he said, and wrote “Schmitt” on the typewritten sheet, and then went on to the next question. “Were you treated courteously by the police at all times?”

“Oh yes, most definitely,” Alton said.

He wrote the word “Yes” alongside the question, and then said, “Did any of the police officers have access to cash while they were inside the bank?”

“Yes. The ones at the tellers’ windows.”

“Has this cash been tallied since the police officers left the bank?”

“No, Mr. Carella, it has not.”

“When will a tally be made?”

“This afternoon.”

“Would you please give me a call after the tally is made, sir? The number is Frederick 7-8025.”

“Yes, I’ll do that.”

“Just so I’ll know it’s all there,” he said, and smiled.

“Yes,” Alton said.

“Just a few more questions. Did any of the police officers enter the vault at any time while they were inside the bank?”

“No.”

“Sir, can you tell me how much cash was actually delivered to the bank this morning?”

“Five hundred thousand, three hundred dollars.”

“Was it counted after the holdup, sir?”

“It was.”

“By whom?”

“My assistant manager. Mr. Warshaw.”

“Was it all there?”

“Every penny.”

“Then the perpetrators were entirely unsuccessful.”

“Entirely.”

“Good. I’d like to get Mr. Warshaw’s signature later, stating that he counted the money after the attempted holdup and after the police officers had left the bank...”

“Well, they were still in the bank while he was counting.”

“But not in the vault?”

“No.”

“That’s just as good, Mr. Alton. I only need verification, that’s all. Could we go into the vault now?”

“The vault? What for?”

“To satisfy my lieutenant’s request.”

“What is your lieutenant’s request, Detective Carella?”

“He wants me to make sure the cash is all there.”

“I’ve just told you it’s all there.”

“He wants me to ascertain the fact, sir.”

“How?”

“By counting it.”

“That’s absurd,” Alton said, and looked at his watch. “We’ll be sending the cash out to the tellers in just a little while. An accurate count would take you...”

“I’ll be very quick about it, Mr. Alton. Would it be all right if we went into the vault now? So I can get started?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Alton said.

“Why not, sir?”

“I’ve just told you. I don’t mind cooperating with a departmental request, but not if it’s going to further upset the bank’s routine. I’ve had enough confusion here today, and I don’t need...”

“Sir, this is more than just a departmental request. In order to close out the investigation and satisfy my lieutenant’s...”

“Perhaps I’d best discuss this with your lieutenant then,” Alton said, and reached for the telephone. “What did you say your number was?”

“Don’t touch that phone, Mr. Alton.”

The man was holding a revolver in his fist, and pointing it directly at Alton’s head. For a moment Alton had a terrible feeling of déja vu. He thought, No, this cannot possibly be happening twice in the same day, and then he heard the man saying, “Now listen to me very carefully, Mr. Alton. We are going into the vault and you are going to tell anyone we meet on the way or in the vault itself that I am Detective Carella of the 87th Squad and that we are taking the cash to your office for a count according to police regulations. If you say anything to the contrary, I’ll put a hole in your fucking head. Have you got that, Mr. Alton?”

Alton sighed and said, “Yes, I’ve got it.”

From where he stood at the island counter, the Deaf Man saw Harold and Alton leaving the manager’s office. Harold’s right hand was in the pocket of his coat, undoubtedly around the butt of his pistol. He watched as they entered the vault. On the withdrawal slip before him, he wrote the date, and the number of his account, and then he filled in the amount as Five hundred thousand and no/100, and in the space provided wrote the amount in numerals, $500,000, and then signed the slip D. R. Taubman.

Alton was coming out of the vault already, carrying a sack of cash. Harold was directly behind him, carrying the second sack, his right hand still in his coat pocket. Together, they went into Alton’s office. The door closed behind them, and the Deaf Man started for the front of the bank.

He was feeling quite proud of himself. Folklore maintained that lightning never struck twice, especially within the space of less than an hour and a half. Yet Harold already had all that sweet cash in his possession, and in just several minutes more (as soon as the Deaf Man stepped outside the bank) Danny and Roger would drive up to the car teller’s window, Florence would park her car across the driveway, and the robbery would happen all over again. The only difference was that this time it would work. It would work because it had already failed, and nobody expects failure to be an essential part of any plan. Having foiled a daring robbery attempt, everyone was now content to sit back and bask in the glory of the achievement. When that teller’s window was smashed in just a very few minutes, and the alarm sounded at the 86th Precinct and the Security Office, the Deaf Man would not be surprised if everyone considered it an error. He was willing to bet that the phone in Mr. Alton’s office would ring immediately, asking if this was legit or if there was something malfunctioning. In any case, Harold would be out of the office the moment he heard the glass smashing, and they would all be on their way before the police responded. It was almost too simple. And yet it was delicious.

He reached the revolving doors and started through them.

A man was pushing his way through from the street side.

It had been a long time since the Deaf Man had seen Carella. But when you’ve once fired a shotgun at a man and he later returns the compliment with a.38 Detective’s Special, you’re not too terribly likely to forget his face. The Deaf Man knew at once that the man shoving his way into the bank was Detective Steve Carella, whom his cohorts had clobbered and robbed of identification the night before. In that split second of recognition, the Deaf Man found himself outside the bank, while Carella moved inside and walked directly to the guard.

Carella had not seen him.

But the Deaf Man’s appearance on the sidewalk was the signal for Roger and Danny to start their car and head for the teller’s window, which they did now with frightening alacrity. Similarly, it was the signal for Florence to move her car across the mouth of the bank’s driveway, and the Deaf Man was dismayed to see that she had learned her job only too well, and was proceeding to perform it with all possible haste. Carella was talking to the bank guard, who looked extremely puzzled, as well he might when presented with two detectives in the space of fifteen minutes, each of whom claimed to be the same person. The Deaf Man figured the jig was up. He did what any sensible master criminal would have done in the same situation. He got the hell out of there, fast.

A lot of things happened in the next few minutes.

Following the guard to the manager’s office, Carella heard glass shattering on his right. He turned and saw a man smashing the car teller’s window with a sledge hammer. He did what any sensible crack detective would have done in the same situation. He drew his revolver and fired at the man, and then ran to the counter and fired across it at a second man, sitting in the driver’s seat of a car outside the window. In that instant a third man came running out of the manager’s office carrying two sacks of cash. The bank guard, thinking he had somehow lived through all of this before, in the not-too-distant past, nonetheless drew his own pistol and began firing at the man with the cash, whom he had previously met as Detective Carella; it was all very confusing. He hit the vault door, he hit the door to Mr. Alton’s office, and he also hit Mr. Warshaw, the assistant manager, in the right arm. But he did not hit the man carrying the sacks of cash. The man dropped one sack, pulled a pistol from his coat pocket, and began spraying the center aisle with bullets. He leaped the counter, and was heading for the broken teller’s window when Carella shot him in the leg. He whirled and, dragging himself toward the window, fired at Carella, shoved the frightened car teller out of his way, and attempted to climb through the broken glass to where one of his colleagues lay dead at the wheel of the car. Carella felled him with his second shot, and then leaped the counter himself and rushed to the broken window. The man who had smashed it with the sledge hammer was badly wounded and trying to crawl up the driveway to where a car engine suddenly started. Carella leaned out and fired at the car as it pulled away, tires screeching. One of the lady tellers screamed. A uniformed policeman rushed into the bank and starting firing at Carella, who yelled, “I’m a cop!” And then the bank was swarming with policemen from the 86th and private security officers, all of them answering the alarm for the second time that day. Two blocks away from the bank, the lady driving the getaway car ran a traffic light and was stopped by a patrolman. She tried to shoot him with a.22 caliber revolver she pulled from her purse, so the patrolman hit her with his nightstick and clapped her into handcuffs.

Her name was Florence Barrows.

Florence had once told the Deaf Man that she’d never met a man she could trust and didn’t expect anyone to trust her, either.

She told the detectives everything she knew.

“His name is Taubman,” she said, “and we had our meetings in a room at the Hotel Remington. Room 604. I’d never met him before he contacted me for the caper, and I don’t know anything else about him.”

This time, they had him.

They didn’t expect to find anybody at the Hotel Remington, and they didn’t. But now, at least, they had a name for him. They began going through all the city directories, encouraged by the scarcity of Taubmans, determined to track down each and every one of them until they got their man — even if it took forever.

It did not take nearly that long.

Detective Schmitt of the 86th Squad called while they were still going through the directories and compiling a list of Taubmans.

“Hey, how about that?” he said to Carella. “Son of a bitch really did try to bring it off at eleven, huh?”

“He sure did,” Carella said.

“I understand he got away, though,” Schmitt said.

“Yeah, but we’ve got a lead.”

“Oh? What’ve you got?”

“His name.”

“Great. Has he got a record?”

“We’re checking that with the I.S. right this minute.”

“Good, good. Is it a common name?”

“Only eleven of them in the Isola directory. Five in Calm’s Point. We’re checking the others now.”

“What’s the name?” Schmitt asked.

“Taubman.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Carella said. There had been a curious lilt to Schmitt’s voice just then, a mixture of incredulity and mirth. “Why?” Carella asked at once.

“Didn’t you say the guy was deaf?”

“Yes, I did. What...?”

“Because, you know... I guess you know... or maybe you don’t.”

“What?”

“It’s German. Taubman.”

“So?”

“It means the deaf man. ‘Der taube mann.’ That means ‘the deaf man’ in German.”

“I see,” Carella said.

“Yeah,” Schmitt said.

“Thank you,” Carella said.

“Don’t mention it,” Schmitt said, and hung up.

Carella put the phone back onto its cradle and decided to become a fireman.