Manhunt. Volume 2, Number 10, December, 1954

A Life for a Life by Robert Turner

Tom was just doing his job. He didn’t understand why Hollenbeck thought he was a killer.

We worked the clock around, four of us at a time, in three shifts, so that it was two to one it wouldn’t happen on my tour. The fact that it did was probably fate or justice or something because, you see, the whole thing was my idea.

I was on the four-to-twelve swing and Hollenbeck was with me. He’s Third-Grade, a boy wonder only on the cops four years and in plain clothes already, but not a bad kid. Only he had a little to learn, of course.

We were in a supply room, off the hospital lobby, to the left of the visitor’s reception desk. We kept the door open and fixed a mirror so we could see out without being seen from the desk. On the other side of the lobby in a small office were the other two. Smitty, another Third Grade but he’d done it the hard way, twelve years and a couple of special commendations. And Weigand. Sergeant Weigand, in charge of this.

For three nights Hollenbeck and I sat it out, smoking too much, talking not enough. It was on our nerves now and there was still two nights to go. The Lieutenant gave it five. They only kept women in the maternity ward five days on an average these times.

We were on a half hour this night when Hollenbeck started on me again. He was cute about it. I guess they get pretty cute, graduating a University before they join the cops, these kids. At some things, anyhow.

“You do much fishing, Tom?” Hollenbeck asked. Hollenbeck is the crew-cut, rosy-cheeked outdoors type. He looked maybe twenty although he was at least six, seven years older. He looked very innocent.

“Why?” I said. I knew what was coming. I just didn’t know in what form this time.

“Well, I was thinking about all the different ways of fishing there are,” he said, his eyes on the mirror, not on me. “Like, there’s seining. You get a bunch of guys and get drunk and whoop it up and drag a big net from bank to bank, along a small creek. You get a lot of fish. It can’t miss. It’s real sport. The fish don’t have a chance. Or you can set fish traps. That’s almost as good.”

“I see.” I felt my neck getting red. The comparison wasn’t too good but it was different.

“Well,” he continued, “me, I like to fish, too. But I like to use a fly-rod. Sometimes I don’t have much luck, but I don’t know, when I do hook something I get a bigger bang out of it. I got a silly notion that even fish deserves at least a fighting chance... And, of course, there’s shooting fish in a barrel. You ever do that, Tom?”

It took awhile to ease the needle out of my arm so I could talk. Then I told him: “All the time. When I’m not doing that, I’m spotlighting deer.”

He looked at me long and blandly and he didn’t say anything else. After awhile I felt some of the red go out of my neck. “You’ve got the wrong man,” I said, then. “Weigand, over there, is the one. He likes to shoot. He’s the sportsman. Ask him to show you his target medals. Or better, ask him about how he shot three unarmed kids in a stolen car, once. And watch his eyes. Me, I don’t consider this like hunting or fishing; it’s a job and I do it the quickest, easiest way I can. You understand that?”

He didn’t. I could tell. He said: “That’s what I mean. He’ll shoot him. Weigand will kill Meade before he can open his mouth, even. You know that. Eventually Meade would have been picked up somewhere in the regular way. It didn’t have to be like this.”

I told Hollenbeck that I didn’t know Weigand would be in on it and I didn’t like that, either, but there was nothing I could do. I’d thought about everything except that, though, when I first got the idea, before I took it to the Lieutenant. I said:

“Meade took a chance on getting killed, himself, breaking out and it didn’t bother him to slug that guard. The guard died, don’t forget. Maybe it wouldn’t bother Meade to kill a few more rather than go back for the rest of that life jolt. The sooner he’s nailed, no matter how, the sooner he’ll stop being even a possible menace.”

Hollenbeck snorted. “He likely won’t even have a gun. Meade wasn’t a gun boy. He never carried one. And they don’t change.”

I got a little sick of all of this, of trying to justify something that maybe couldn’t be justified and one way or the other it wasn’t any skin off Hollenbeck. I started to tell him that fair or unfair, dirty pool or not, if the gimmick worked and we recaptured Meade, it would mean a commendation for me for cooking it up. A commendation would mean points on the next Sergeant’s exam. I wanted that promotion. I had to have it now, with another mouth to feed. But I didn’t tell that to Hollenbeck. I still didn’t think he’d get it.

This idea was simple and I wasn’t exactly proud of it, but it was practical. Some nine months ago, before Danny Meade was picked up for his fourth breaking-and-entering, he was living with an Agnes Borst. Later we learned that when Meade was convicted, she’d gone back to her family in the midwest. Meade didn’t know this, though. Nobody in the underworld knew what happened to her. We found out by accident.

Anyhow, when I heard Danny escaped and was believed holed-up in the city, I got this idea to root him out. A snow-bird stoolie did the job for us. He circulated it around that Agnes Borst was in Polyclinic, registered as a Mrs. Nizlek, having a baby, Danny Meade’s baby. It figured that when Meade heard that, he’d want to see his kid. What man wouldn’t?

We had some trouble getting the hospital to cooperate but after we assured them there’d be no shooting in the building under any circumstances, they agreed.

It was nine o’clock and visiting hours were about over and I somehow couldn’t get Hollenbeck’s attitude out of my mind and was wondering if maybe he was right and maybe there weren’t any game laws for hunting criminals but maybe there were some other kind, when a little red light flicked over the door of our room, inside.

I looked toward the mirror and saw a slightly built man with his hat pulled low over his face, talking to the receptionist. Huskily, I said to Hollenbeck: “Yea-boy, let’s go.”

We were wearing white intern coats. Meade didn’t know any of us so we figured to get right up to him and grab him before he knew what was happening. None of us were to speak until the first one reached him and collared him.

Hollenbeck and I walked out of the room and toward the man at the desk, who was looking nervously toward Smitty and Weigand, approaching from the other side. But the white coats threw him off. He swung his eyes back to the receptionist. I heard him say: “I wasn’t listening. What ward did you say she’s in?”

It was obvious we were going to pin him easily. I was in front of Hollenbeck and only a step away from Meade and he still wasn’t tipped. Then I looked past him and saw Weigand’s moon face. He was flushed and his fat-embedded eyes shone terribly and I knew this was going to go wrong. This wasn’t going to be good enough for him.

I wish I could describe Weigand better. He isn’t really so awful fat. He’s more solid, chunky, yet he gives this impression of terrible grossness. And not because he’s dirty. He’s neat and clean enough. I don’t know what it is. But Weigand’s eyes I can tell you about. They usually look dull and stupid but they didn’t look that way now. They were as near to what you’d call laughing as that kind of eyes would ever get.

Weigand’s voice, a little reedy for a man his bulk, called out: “Watch it, Meade! Don’t try to make any break!”

Meade hadn’t even known we were alive but now he almost came out of his skin. His head swiveled and he ducked under my too quick, desperate lunge. The woman behind the desk screamed. When I looked around again, Meade’s spindly legs were scissoring toward the hospital’s front door.

Weigand wasn’t hardly hurrying, it seemed. Hollenbeck and Smitty were running and yet Weigand still got to the door before them. His gun was in his hand at his side. I’ll give him this: he kept our promise and there was no shooting inside the building. But as he went outside his gun slammed twice.

When I got out there Weigand was standing on the hospital steps, blowing smoke from the barrel of his Special. He turned to the rest of us. Once I’d had a golf partner make a hole in one. I’d never seen anyone so tickled with himself, so proud and the whole big world was his own little old oyster that moment. Not until now. Weigand’s moon face held that same expression.

He gestured with the gun. “There he is.” He was so happy and excited spittle sprayed when he spoke. “How’s that for shooting, huh?”

About thirty yards away on the lawn in front of the hospital there was a crumpled heap in the tree-and-shrubbery-dappled moonglow. Neither Hollenbeck nor I, nor Smitty spoke.

“Fifty, maybe sixty feet, by God,” Weigand blurted. “And he was running, dodging, don’t forget. You shouldn’ve seen him, almost doubled-over and spinning, twisting like a damn broken field runner. For a moment, all those highlights and shadows from the moon and shrubbery out there, I thought I was going to miss. But they don’t just hand me those target shooting medals every year for nothing, by God.”

Nobody said anything. But very deliberately, Hollenbeck hawked and spat, his eyes on Weigand while he did it. You couldn’t mistake what he had in mind. I guess maybe instinctively I had to show Hollenbeck I agreed with him on this, no matter what. I said:

“Oh, goody, goody. You can carve another notch on your gun, now, Sarge. And maybe we can call you Wild Bill Weigand — The Only Law West Of The Polyclinic?”

Ordinarily Weigand doesn’t take stuff like that. He knew nobody liked him and at times he almost gloried in that but you weren’t supposed to come right out and say it. You were supposed to be too afraid, to have too much respect for his rank. But neither Hollenbeck nor I seemed to get through to him, now.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s take a look. Five’ll get you ten if I didn’t hit with both slugs and he’s ready for the meat wagon.”

He started down the steps and across the grass toward that huddled dark heap, moving fast. We followed more slowly, like men on their feet for the first time after a long illness.

Danny Meade had no gun in his long, thin, dirty-nailed hand. Smitty searched him and there was no weapon on him at all, not even a pocket knife. He was still alive. If you’d call it that. His thin, once good looking face was so gray you could see the veins in it. His cheeks were all sucked in and his lips were two pale welts against his teeth. Sweat was globed on his face and his stringy hair was soaked with it.

I’d seen death in men’s eyes before and I knew Meade didn’t have long. He was still able to talk, though, in a hoarse whisper. He lay there, spilling curses at all of us while Hollenbeck ran to Emergency for help.

Weigand stood over Meade and after awhile he said, chuckling: “Ah-ah-ah! Better save those last few breaths, Danny. Sticks and stones, you know...” Weigand was a great one for worn out sayings.

I turned away. I felt sick at even being part of the same race as Weigand, let alone being on the same job. I heard Hollenbeck, back again, say: “Why did you do it, Sarge?” He asked that as though he’d been knocking himself out trying to figure the answer ever since it had happened but now he had to give up; the riddle was too much for him. “If you hadn’t hollered—”

“Why, he reached toward his pocket, didn’t he?” Weigand cut Hollenbeck off. “What you so upset about? He killed a prison guard, didn’t he? Well, a life for a life.”

“I didn’t see him reach for anything.” Hollenbeck’s voice sounded gritty.

“That’s funny. I did.” I could almost see Weigand looking straight and hard at Hollenbeck and grinning.

We all knew, then, that’s the way it would be. No charges against Weigand for this. Nobody could prove he hadn’t seen Meade make a threatening gesture. I wondered how many more times this would happen. Weigand had at least ten years before retirement.

At the same time I could feel young Hollenbeck’s eyes boring into my back and they felt a little like Weigand’s bullets must have felt to Meade. I walked away.

The doc said Meade might go in fifteen minutes or he might last the night. He lapsed into unconsciousness after they took him to Emergency. He might or might not come out of it again, the doc said.

Weigand assigned me to stay with Meade. He thought that was a master touch, I guess. He could see by looking at me how I felt about my idea ending the way it had. The way I felt was not good. And it had nothing to do with the fact that I probably wouldn’t get any commendation now that the gimmick had inadvertently set Weigand up for some live target practice, the way even the Brass in the department felt about him. But I didn’t care about that. That wasn’t what was bothering me.

Weigand and the others were about to leave when Meade came to again and whispered something to the doc. The doc had to bend his head down almost to Meade’s mouth, his voice was now so weak. I heard the doc say: “Okay.”

Then the doc straightened and called: “Sergeant, this man says he’s got something to say to the one who shot him. He said to tell the fat slob who shot him he wants to talk to him. Those were his words.” The doc grinned.

Weigand didn’t like that. He looked hard at the doc and he wanted to say something, you could tell. But what could he say? With a snort of disgust he stalked back into the room. He stood over the rolling table where Meade was stretched out on his back.

“What the hell is it?” Weigand demanded, impatiently.

Meade coughed. “If I’d — known it was you, Weigand, I’d — never — have run. I’ve heard — about you. You — never miss, do you?” He spoke hoarsely, haltingly. His skinny hand clawed toward his throat. “I... I can’t talk loud. It... it hurts my throat. Can’t you bend down so I don’t have to strain so much? I got one last thing to tell you, sharp-shooter. It... it’s important.”

Weigand looked him over. He couldn’t see any danger. Meade was dying and didn’t have strength to hit him or try and grab him or anything. As Meade began to whisper something unintelligble, then, Weigand bent and put his ear close to Meade’s mouth, to hear.

We were all watching. We saw Meade’s hand move suddenly but the angle of Weigand’s head blocked us from seeing what Meade did with that hand. But we saw Weigand straighten like someone had goosed him with a white hot poker. We saw his fat fists pushed against both eyes. He screamed once, a thin, womanish sound that faded in a few moments to a sick whinnying. We all stared, dumbfounded.

We watched Weigand stamp his feet like a kid playing soldier and bend and straighten and then bend again, over and over, while he lurched around the room, bumping into a table and a desk and finally the wall. He leaned against the wall, all bent over and we saw the trickle of blood running down his cheek from under one fist.

The doc ran to Weigand then and forcibly tore the big man’s hands away from his face.

“Jesus!” the doc said when he saw Weigand’s eyes.

I looked at Danny Meade, then. His right hand was across his chest and he still had the first two fingers forked, the thumb holding the others out of the way, and I knew what he had done. There was something like a grin on Meade’s drawn gray face. He whispered loud enough for all of us to hear: “He won’t ever shoot anyone again, will he?”

Weigand didn’t hear it, though. We saw he had fainted. The doc ran out into the hall to get help. I walked over to Meade and when I reached him I saw that he was gone, now, for sure. That same expression, the grin, or maybe it was just a death contraction, I don’t know, was still on his face...

We waited around until the doc came down from the operating room, some time later. He shook his head. He said: “Meade must’ve had nails like a Mandarin’s. There wasn’t much we could do. A specialist might be able to save partial sight, later, but he’ll have to wear glasses thick as headlight lenses. He won’t be much good as a cop anymore, I’m afraid.”

“Hell,” Hollenbeck said, then, belatedly. “He never was.”

I looked at Hollenbeck. I said: “Kid, does a fine, sensitive young sporting gentleman like you ever think about going out and getting roaring drunk? For emetic purposes, only, of course?”

He didn’t look at me but he said: “You’re damn well told. Let’s get out of here.”

And he and I and Smitty, we did that.