Masters of Noir: Volume 4

I Don’t Fool Around by Lawrence Block

Fischer pulled up at a curb and we got out of the car in a hurry, heading for the black Chevy with the people standing around it. The precinct cop made room for us and we went on through. As far as I was concerned, this was just a formality. I knew who was dead and I knew who had killed him. Taking a good long look at the corpse wasn’t going to change that.

The punk slumped over the wheel with holes in his head had lived longer than we had expected. He was a hood named Johnny Blue, a strongarm-weakbrain who crossed some of the wrong people. He’d been due for a hit for weeks, according to the rumbles that filtered through to Manhattan West. Now he’d been hit, and hard.

One slug in the side of the face. Another in the neck. Three more in the back of the head.

“Who is he?” Fischer asked. I told him.

“A messy way to do it,” the kid went on. “Any of those shots would have killed him. Why shoot him up like that?”

My college cop. My new partner, my cross to bear ever since some genius switched Danny Taggert to Vice. My Little Boy Lost, who wanted murder to be a nice clean affair, with one bullet lodged in the heart and, if you please, as little blood as possible.

I said, “The killer didn’t want to take chances.”

“Chances? But—”

I was very tired. “This wasn’t a tavern brawl,” I told him. “This wasn’t one guy hitting another guy over the head with a bar stool. This was a pro killing.”

“It doesn’t look so professional to me. A mess.”

“That’s because you don’t know what to look for.” I turned away, sick of the corpse and the killer, sick of Fischer, sick of West 46th Street at three in the morning. Sick of murder.

“It’s a pro killing,” I said again. “In a car, on a quiet street, in the middle of the night. Five bullets, any one of which would have caused death. That’s a trademark.”

“Why?”

“Because hired killers don’t fool around,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”

The coffee was bitter but it was black and it was hot. I sipped it as I read through the file again. I knew everything in the file by heart. I read it automatically, then shoved it over to Fischer.

“Name,” I said, “Frank Calder. First arrest at age 14, 1948, grand theft auto. Suspended. Arrested three months later, GTA again, six months in Elmira. Three years later he was picked up for assault with a deadly weapon. A knife. The victim refused to press charges and we dropped them.”

I sipped some more of the coffee. “That was eight years ago. Since then he’s been picked up fifteen times. Same charge each time. Suspicion of homicide.”

“Innocent?”

“Guilty, of course. Fifteen times that we know about. Probably a dozen more that we don’t know about. Fourteen times we let him go. Once we thought we had a case.”

“What happened?”

“Grand jury disagreed with us. Indictment quashed.”

Fischer nodded. “And you think he may have killed Blue?”

“No.”

“Then why are we—”

“I don’t think he might have killed Blue,” I said. “I know damn well he killed Blue. Calder does most of his work in the Kitchen. A Hell’s Kitchen boy from the start, grew up on 39th Street west of Ninth. Gun used was a.38. Calder always uses a.38. Likes to shoot people in cars.”

“Still, you can’t be sure that—”

“I can be sure,” I cut in. I wished that Vice would send Danny back to me. Fischer was impossible. “Calder works for Nino Popo a lot of the time. Popo had a thing against Blue. Quit sounding like a public defender, will you? This was one of Calder’s. Period.”

“We pick him up now?”

“No.”

“But you just said—”

“I know what I said. I know damn well what I said and I don’t need a parrot to toss it back at me.”

“But—”

“Shut up.” I finished the coffee. “I told you Calder was a pro. You know what that means? You understand what that record says? He’s a hired killer. You pay him and he shoots people. That’s how he makes his living. A good living. He dresses in three-hundred-dollar suits. He wears gold cuff links. He lives in a penthouse overlooking Central Park. The west side of the park — he’s not a millionaire. But he does well in his job.”

I paused for breath. I just wanted to get home and go to bed. I was tired. “I told you about pros,” I said. “They don’t fool around. They don’t leave loopholes. It’s their business and they know it. They don’t crack under pressure. If we pick up Calder he’ll be out in no time at all. No witnesses. A cast-iron alibi. No holes at all.”

“So what do we do?”

“We go home,” I said. “We go home and take hot showers and go to bed. Tomorrow we pick him up.”

I left him there to wonder what I was talking about. I went home and took a hot shower and fell asleep the minute I hit the bed.

Homicide is rugged. There are good things about it — we don’t take bribes, we stay clean. There are also bad things.

Because there are only three types of murder, and of the three there is only one that we solve. There is the amateur killing with a motive, the husband who strangles his wife, the tavern brawl, the grudge murder. There you have your suspect at the start and you look around for the proof. And find it, no matter how clever a job they do of burying it. That is the kind that gets solved.

There is also the silly killing. The bum beaten to death on the Bowery. The hustler with a knife in her belly. The fag killed in his own apartment by a casual conquest. The mugging victim with a crushed skull. These we don’t solve. Not without a break.

And there is the professional murder. And those we never solve.

I met Fischer at five in the afternoon. He was carrying a folded copy of an afternoon tabloid. The headline ran GANGLAND SLAYING IN HELL’S KITCHEN. I could have guessed it word for word. I took the paper from him and gave the story a quick run-through. It was about the same as the morning papers had it.

It didn’t say we had nothing to work with. It didn’t say we had anything to work with. It said that Johnny Blue had been found in a parked car with holes in him, and that he was dead. Then there were a few paragraphs trying to turn the career of a fourth-rater into something notorious, and then there was some nonsense to the effect that the cops were keeping mum.

Mum?

“We’re on Calder,” I told him. “No other assignment until we nail him. Got that?”

“Sure.”

“I wanted it that way. I want to get Calder. I want to get him good.”

“I thought you said it was impossible.”

“It is.”

“Then—”

“You talk too much,” I said. I waited for him to get mad but he didn’t. He was hurt — it showed in his face, in the way he wouldn’t look at me. But he wouldn’t get mad. And this made me like him that much less. He never got mad at anything. He didn’t know how to hate.

I don’t like college cops. I don’t like people who are up to their ears in understanding and sympathy and sweetness and sunshine. I don’t like people who don’t know how to hate.

Maybe it’s just the way a person is. If I were Calder I would hate cops. I’m a cop. I hate Calder. I hate him because he breaks laws and shoots people. I hate him because he gets away with it. I hated Johnny Blue. He used to get away with things too. Now he was dead and Calder had killed him and I hated Calder.

I was going to get him.

“Look it over again,” I said, sliding Calder’s file over to Fischer again. “Skip the record. Look at the picture.”

Dark black hair. A flat face, not too bad-looking. Hard eyes, a long nose, a little scar on the chin. I don’t know how he got the scar. Maybe he cut himself shaving.

“You said we pick him up today. Were you kidding?”

“I don’t kid. I was serious.”

“They found evidence?”

“No.”

He looked at me. He was afraid to open his mouth. Gutless.

“We worry him a little. Don’t bother your head about it. Go get the car and meet me out front. And wear a gun.”

He didn’t say anything, just went off for the car. I checked my gun, then stuck it back in the holster. I picked up Calder’s file, and took a good long look at it. I let the face burn into my brain. I stood there for a minute or two and hated.

Then I went out to the car where Fischer was waiting.

The building was fancy. A uniformed doorman stood at attention out in front. I had to show him my shield before he let us inside. He was there to keep out undesirables. Unless they lived in the penthouse.

The carpet was deep in the lobby. The elevator rose in silence. I stood there and hated Calder.

He had the whole top floor. I got out of the elevator and took my gun out of its holster, wondering whether or not the doorman had called Calder yet. Probably.

I rang the bell.

“Yeah?”

A penthouse overlooking the park didn’t get Hell’s Kitchen out of his speech. Nothing would.

“Police.”

“Whattaya want?”

“Open the door and shut up.”

A few seconds later the door opened. He was short, five-six or five-seven. He was wearing a silk bathrobe and slippers that looked expensive. The apartment was well-furnished but for what he had paid he could have used an interior decorator. There was a shoddiness about the place. Maybe the shoddiness was Calder.

“Come on in,” he said. “You use a drink?”

I ignored him. “You’re under arrest,” I told him.

“What for?”

“Murder.”

“Yeah?” A wide smile. “Somebody got killed?”

“Johnny Blue.”

“I’m covered,” he said. No I’m innocent but I’m covered. “I was playing cards with some fellows.”

“Uh-huh.”

He shrugged heroically. “You want, we can go down to the station. My lawyer’ll have me out right away. I’m clean.”

“You’re never clean,” I said. “You were born filthy.”

The smile widened. But there was uncertainty behind it. I was getting to him.

“You’re cheap and rotten,” I said. “You’re a punk. You spend a fortune on cologne and it still doesn’t cover the smell.”

Now the smile was gone.

“Your sister sleeps with bums,” I said. “Your mother was the cheapest whore on the West Side. She died of syphilis.”

That did it. He was a few feet away — then he lowered his head and charged. I could have clubbed him with the gun. I didn’t.

I shot him.

He gave a yell like a wounded steer and fell to his knees. The bullet had taken him in the right shoulder. I guess it hurt. I hoped so.

“You shot him.” It was Fischer talking.

“Good thinking,” I told him. “You’re on the ball.”

“Now what?”

I shrugged. “We can take him in,” I suggested. “We can book him for resisting arrest and a few other things.”

“Not murder?”

“You heard him,” I said. “He’s clean.”

I looked at Fischer. That was the answer to my college cop, my buddy. Here was a murderer, a murderer with a shoulder wound. Now we would be nice to him. Get him to a hospital quick before he lost too much blood. Maybe drop the resisting arrest charge because, after all, he was a sick man.

I had my gun in my hand. I stepped back a few feet and aimed. I watched the play of expressions on Calder’s face. He didn’t know whether or not to believe it.

I shot him in the face.

I talked to Fischer while I found a gun in a drawer, picked it up in a towel, and wrapped Calder’s fingers around it. It made it look good — he had drawn on me, I shot him in the shoulder, he went on and held onto the gun, and I shot him dead. It would look good enough — there wasn’t going to be any investigation.

“Maybe thirty killings,” I said. “That’s what this animal had to his credit. He made beating the law a business. He didn’t fool around. And there was no way to get him.”

No answer from my partner.

“So this time he lost. He doesn’t fool around. Well, neither do I.”

I knew Fischer wasn’t satisfied. He wouldn’t blab, but it would worry him. He would feel uncomfortable with me. I don’t fit into his moral scheme of things. Maybe he’ll put in for a transfer.

I hope so.