Stakeout by Dan J. Marlowe

An unauthorized surveillance is a tricky business. It gets trickier when one corpse too many turns up!

I cut the ignition and switched off the car lights at the blinking yellow signal of the intersection. Beside me on the front seat, my detective partner, Tony Costanza, checked the set of his shoulder holster as our unmarked black police sedan rolled ahead silently into the next block.

The car curved in a sweeping arc into the shadowed mouth of an alley and drifted down a narrow, walled-in passageway. I eased the car to a stop with just a touch of the brake as the early-morning stillness settled in around us.

I raised an arm and sleeved the breathless summer night’s perspiration from my forehead, then sat for a second listening to the low-pitched street noises and other night sounds peculiar to this particular backwater of the city.

“Let’s go, Mickey,” Tony growled. “Move it. He’s not comin’ to us out here.”

“He’s not coming to us in there, either, if he hears us,” I said softly. “Don’t slam the car door when you get out.”

Tony’s snort was muffled. “Eleven nights in a row we stake out this miserable hole, an’ eleven nights you got to say ‘Don’t slam the car door’? At least get yourself a new line.”

I slid out on my side. The macadam underfoot was damp with night mist. Tony’s sardonic whisper floated out to me from the front seat. “I was tellin’ Louise before you picked me up tonight it was a damn good thing this had been her idea in the first place, or she’d never have trusted me out till all hours all these nights, even with you as chaperone.”

I grimaced at the mention of Louise’s name. I removed my watch with its tell-tale radium dial and put it into my pocket. Across the alley Tony scrambled from the sedan. We met at the front of the car, Tony’s solid two hundred pounds bulking larger-than-life in the night.

Tony had been my detective partner for two years. He was three years younger. We had both made plainclothes from the ranks, within a month of each other. With little in common between us, the partnership had worked. Originally we had tolerated each other. Lately it had been something less than that. And no wonder.

I turned left into the darkness and followed the alley brickwork with my palm until I came to a heavy wooden door set flush with the building line. “Bronson called me this mornin’ an’ asked for his keys back,” Tony muttered from behind me.

“Tell me inside,” I said tautly.

I wanted no distractions while we were getting inside. The big key in my left hand opened the alley door whose bottom sill was eighteen inches above the bed of the alley. I felt the familiar tensed apprehension in stomach and chest as I stepped up into the pitch-black opening. Automatically I freed my arm from the clinging pull of my shoulder holster, the leather made sticky by the night’s humidity.

I took two steps forward and stopped, listening, my hearing pitched up into the forefront of my consciousness. Behind me I could hear Tony’s breathing and the faint rasp of the closing door. I crept soft-footedly down the wooden-floored corridor, so solidly dark it was like pushing into a substance with weight.

I placed my feet carefully, a hand on the wall beside me checking off the corridor doors. At the third one I produced another key and with infinite care unlocked and eased open the door.

In a sliver of murky light from the front room of the jewelry shop beyond, I could see the usual jumble of materials on the watchmaker’s bench in the dingy little workroom immediately before me. I widened the aperture silently and stepped inside.

Tony moved in past me, and I closed the door gently. A man might get used to that dry-mouthed, adrenalin-accelerated, heart-pounding corridor-walk in a hundred years, I reflected. And then again, he might not.

I could see the heavy timber leaning against the wall, the timber that should have fitted snugly into the stout braces bolted to either side of the door through which we’d entered. It had taken a lot of talking to induce Joe Bronson to leave that timber down eleven nights in a row. Talking wouldn’t have been enough if I hadn’t had something on Joe Bronson.

Tony walked out through the hanging curtain into the front part of the shop. I made an instinctive negative gesture he couldn’t see. For an instant I could see him silhouetted against the lighter background of the shop’s front windows. The off-street refraction of light illumined the blunt, swarthy features and the surprising red hair, the rough, rusty red of the off-type redhead. I knew that thick, hirsute forearms and pillar-like thighs bulged the material of the lightweight summer suit that was just a blur in the part-darkness.

I kept my voice down when Tony walked back into the workroom. “One of these nights you’re going to do that one time too often, man.”

“Ahhhhh, we’re wastin’ our time here.” Tony’s disgust was evident in his voice. A penlight flashed on in his hand and spotlighted the base of a telephone on the watchmaker’s bench. Tony dialed rapidly, the whirring clicks staccato in the quiet.

“Costanza,” he said curtly. “Where is he?” He listened impatiently. “All right, all right,” he interrupted. “You told me. Music with it I can’t use. We’ll call you when we leave.” He replaced the receiver. “No action again tonight. Jigger says our man is in bed.”

His tone was an accusation. “He doesn’t have to stay in bed,” I pointed out grimly. “We’ve got Jigger out there hoping for advance notice, but this boy has fooled a lot smarter people than Jigger.” I watched while the thin beam of the flashlight probed restlessly at a corner of the workroom and came to rest upon the thin roll of a mattress pad. “Do you want to call it off?” I asked harshly.

“You’re the thinkin’ man, chief. Everyone knows I’m just the muscle in this outfit.” Tony’s mocking tone grated. “From my wife I get it now. Brains I should have, like Mickey. That’s what I get with my pasta. Brains I heard nothin’ about when I was courtin’ her on her old lady’s livin’ room couch. I’m not—”

“I asked you if you want to call it off.”

“Hell, man, d’ you blame me?” Tony’s tone was defensive. “It’s not like we were sent here. How long d’ you think we can keep the lid on? Bronson’s plenty itchy. He wants us out’ve here. An’ this character don’t show. He must have our action taped.”

“He can’t have it taped.” I tried to put all the weight of my conviction into my lowered tone. “He’s just being careful since he cashed in the watchman on the Merivale job. He’ll bite on this. Didn’t we tailor-make it for him?”

Tony’s grunt was noncommittal. He walked to the corner and picked up the mattress roll, then in three long strides disappeared with it through the shadow of the hanging curtain. I could hear the slight scraping sounds as he unrolled the mattress pad behind the counter inside the shop.

Tony was always like this on a stakeout, I reminded myself. It wasn’t nerves. Tony had no nerves, because he had no imagination. It was the inactivity that galled him. He didn’t mind losing an equivalent amount of sleep, but only in what he considered a better cause.

It had been a joke at first that night at Tony’s apartment when Louise, listening to us butt our heads together in frustration about the wave of jewelry store burglaries, had suggested a stakeout. But the second Tony and I looked at each other it jelled. This was the way. So it wasn’t authorized. Knock it over on its back and no one would say a word. This was a big one. Did we want to be answering poor-box robbery calls for the rest of our time on the police force?

I settled back upon the uncomfortable watchmaker’s bench that made keeping awake no problem. I eased the hot, clinging weight of my shoulder holster, then stretched to work cramped sinews. In the silence I heard a muscle pop.

Louise... I felt a warming sensation as my lips formed her name. I could almost see her tall, lithe figure and the cameo-smooth perfection of her ivory features with her brows forming black wings. I shut off the picture hastily.

One thing I had to give Tony: never before had we been this far out on a limb. Sure, we’d cut corners, but always with at least tacit authority. Georgie had a way of looking at the results. But just let Lieutenant George McDonald find Hanrahan and Costanza on an unauthorized stakeout on a case to which we hadn’t even been assigned, and he’d burn us right down to the stubble.

I hitched myself uneasily on the stool. Cut it out, I told myself roughly. Nothing’s going wrong. What’s to go wrong? The trap’s baited, and any time now — with just a little bit more patience — you’ll spring it.

The hanging curtain in front of me suddenly rustled and bulged, and the blood thudded in my ears until I recognized the shape of Tony’s head. I snatched my hand away from the grip of my .38 in its holster.

“Boy, you ’re asking for it!”

“Ahhhh, what’s the matter with you?” he demanded impatiently. I heard the sound of him shrugging out of his jacket. It was followed by the muffled thump of his automatic as he put it down on the bench. “Had to get out’ve that sling,” his heavy whisper informed me. “Chafin’ the hide off me whenever I moved.” There was the subdued squeak of the weapon being removed from the sweaty leather.

Tony continued in a low tone, half-wheedling, half-blustering. “How’s about usin’ your pad the first night we knock off this lousy detail?” I could almost see his grin, sheepishly defiant. “Nothin’ more cozy for a married cat than a bachelor partner with his own apartment.”

“Louise—” I began.

“The hell with Louise. Course, if she found out—” Tony paused. “Deliver me from narrow-minded women. Last time she like to holed me at the waterline.” He paused again. “This time it might be worth it. Did I tell you about the department store beef Georgie sent out on the other day? No? Well, I met this really stacked limejuicer in the office there. The works: the accent, an’ icicles on her nose when she looks down it. I phoned her a couple times since, an’ she hasn’t said no. I wanna see what happens to those icicles when I get head-to-head with her.”

“How do you expect Louise to put up with—”

“Now don’t you start tellin’ me she’s too good for me. I get enough of that from her. I spread my action around where it’s appreciated, an Louise can like it or lump it. You, too, partner. Just tell me yes or no on the apartment.”

“Yes.”

“That’s more like it, partner. Now you’re pitchin’ a strong game. You’re — say! What’s today? Tuesday?”

“Wednesday, now.”

I could hear Tony slapping at his pockets, and his penlight came on again. “Last time I talked to the limejuicer she gimme a fat hint her birthday’s this Friday. I’ll bull Bronson into lettin’ me have somethin’ out’ve his stock at wholesale. I saw a pin an’ earring set in one of the displays the other night—”

The curtain rustled again as Tony disappeared beyond it.

I chewed on my lower lip. I wondered why I’d said yes about the loan of the apartment, and I didn’t like the train of thought it generated. Louise — we’d said we were through with that. We’d said we were going to find a better way.

Inside the shop I could see the quicksilver gleam of Tony’s penlight-beam reflected from crystalware and jewelry. I shook my head. Sometimes it seemed that Tony—

And then a light came on inside. I stared in paralyzed disbelief as a single flourescent ceiling-tube came on and brightened the showroom. My heels slammed hard into the floor as I propelled myself from the stool. Had Tony lost his damn mind?

I reached the curtain in a scrambling slide. Everything was blurred to eyes dilated by darkness. I could see Tony’s chunky body at a showcase from which he had whirled to stare blankly at a figure in black mask and dark clothing, standing just inside the opened front door. I could see the gloved right hand still on the light switch and wirecutters in the left hand.

Tony lunged across his chest instinctively for the automatic still lying inside on the watchmaker’s bench. Metal glinted darkly as a gun appeared in the black-masked intruder’s right hand. In desperation, Tony raised his arm to throw the penlight, his only weapon. The gun in Black Mask’s hand cracked twice, blue flame jetting.

Tony’s uplifted arm seemed to fall in sections as his knees slackened. A gout of crimson spurted from his forehead as he went over backward to the floor. I burst through the curtain, the gun I didn’t remember drawing in my hand. I fired and stumbled over a foot-stool in the same instant Black Mask’s arm swung to confront me.

The dark-clothed figure was already backing out the door, but the small-caliber gun snapped viciously. I felt a searing touch my wrist. I rolled over, digging with my knees for leverage. I heard the gun go off again, and the overhead fluorescent tube shattered. The room went dark, twice as dark after the light. Tiny glass particles cascaded floor-ward in a tinkling shower.

I surged up in a half-crouch in the silence that followed. I sensed that Black Mask was gone. I knew I should be instantly in pursuit, but the way Tony had fallen...

I plunged across the floor on hands and knees, below the window level. Glass fragments crunched under me. I could hardly see at all. Then I touched Tony. Frantically I removed the penlight from his relaxed hand, and when it came on the hard little core of light emblazoned the bright splash of blood on the forehead and the crimson, trickling worms on the swarthy, still features.

“Tony!” I said urgently. My hands raced to his heart, pulse, and temple with an increasing sinking sensation. I couldn’t feel a thing. I sat back slowly on my heels, my hands shaking.

Tony Costanza was dead.

And Black Mask, who had killed him, was six inches and forty pounds short of measuring up to the only man who should have come through that baited door.

I never knew how long I remained in my cramped, heel-sitting position. I straightened awkwardly, finally, my leg muscles almost rigid. I waited for impaired circulation to speed up while my mind still tried to take it all in.

Tony Costanza dead?

It couldn’t be.

The swaggering, rough-riding, hard-drinking man; the frosty-eyed, tough-talking, hardbitten cop — Tony dead?

Impossible.

But there among the floor shadows, the darker shadow of Tony’s body said that it was true.

My hands knotted tightly. When I found Black Mask, I’d damn well settle up a few scores. I’d — I pulled myself up short. Find Black Mask? I’d never get a chance to look. There wasn’t a chance in the world of explaining the situation to Lieutenant George McDonald. Or to anyone else in the department. Mickey Hanrahan would be up on charges so fast I’d never get my breath. And then it would be back to riding a patrol car, if I didn’t get busted out completely.

I drew a long, quivering breath. Where had it gone wrong? It had to be the man we’d been looking for. Was I sure of what I’d seen? It had been all action and movement. The killer had been masked. Was I sure it wasn’t the right man?

Call up, I prodded myself.

Call Jigger.

If it’s the right man, maybe there’s still a chance.

I hurried to the telephone on the watchmaker’s bench inside the curtain. A faint hope burgeoned as I dialed. Hope, and the beginning of anger.

If Jigger had fallen asleep...

If our man had slipped past him...

The click came in the middle of the first ring. “Yeah? Who is it?” Jigger’s hoarsened voice, souvenir of an elbow in the throat during a street fight, was unmistakable. My grip on the receiver slackened. Jigger hadn’t been asleep.

I had to clear my throat before I could find my voice. “It’s Hanrahan.”

“Oh, yeah, boss. We knockin’ off, I hope?”

I circled dry lips with the tip of my tongue. “Anything new on your end?”

“Not a thing, boss. Your boy’s never even rolled over since he tucked it into the quilts at eleven thirty.”

So it hadn’t been the man we’d been watching, which meant it could have been anyone. Even if I had a chance to go after him, I’d be looking for a masked man I’d be unable to recognize. A masked man who had had a damn good look at me.

Frustration bubbled within me. Come on, I jibed at myself. Was I going to lie down and roll over for this? Get yourself in gear, man.

“Hold on a minute, Jigger,” I said. I turned my head and spoke away from the mouthpiece. “What’d you say, Tony?” I backed away and deepened my voice, a palm partly covering the mouthpiece. “Tell the little wart I want to see him tomorrow.” I leaned back into the phone. “Tony says—”

“I heard him, boss.” The rasping voice was respectful. “Tell him I’ll be at the usual place.”

“We’re leaving now.”

I stared down at the replaced phone, conscious that my lips were drawn back from my teeth.

Well, Hanrahan? You’ve made up your mind already? That’s quick work. Your partner’s turning cold on the floor inside because of your stupidity, but you’re already building bridges to get out from under. You’re a nice guy, Hanrahan. You’ll go far.

Ahhhh, stop it, you fool, I told myself sharply. So we’d been waiting for the wrong man, and Tony had been killed. It could have been me. Would it do anyone any good if I sat down and waited to get struck by the official lightning?

The fermenting brew in my mind drove me from the workbench out into the shop again.

I came to a dead stop.

Louise!

I winced at the thought of her. For weeks I’d carefully compartmented Tony and Louise in my thinking. Tony was my partner. Louise was — well...

What was I going to do about Louise? She knew where we were, and why. When the official knock came on her apartment door, if she spoke incautiously, it would put the lid on any covering up Mickey Hanrahan hoped to do.

I stood for a moment, listening to my own breathing. It was simple, really. I had to talk to her first. I couldn’t turn a wheel until I knew what Louise Constanza’s reaction would be.

I returned to the telephone and stood beside it.

What are you worrying about, Hanrahan? You know what her reaction will be. She’ll back you up all the way. No, that’s not good enough. You only think you know. Go on, pick up the phone. How much time do you think you have? You’re a big boy now. Pick up the phone and tell her. If you’re looking for an easy way, there isn’t any.

I grabbed at the phone with an animal sound, then dialed furiously with a stabbing forefinger. The phone rang four times before Louise’s sleepy “hello” came faintly from the depths of slumber. Little nerve prickles ran through me at the sound of the warm, drowsy voice.

“Louise—” I said strongly, and then my throat closed up.

“Mickey? It is you?” Her voice was stronger. “Why are you calling at this time of night?”

I tried again. “Louise—” I pushed my face into the mouthpiece. “Tony—”

I could hear the hissing intake of her breath. “Tony? He’s — hurt?” She continued on before I could speak, every drop of emotion squeezed from her voice. “You’d never have called if he was hurt. He’s dead, isn’t he?”

“He—” I tried to think of some other way to say it. “Yes.” The silence built up for so long I was afraid she had fainted. “Louise!”

“I’m here. Did you kill him, Mickey?”

Anger flared from my hair to the soles of my feet. “No, goddammit, I didn’t! Don’t talk foolishness!”

“You’re sure? When we talked about finding a way—”

“Will you start making sense? It was the stakeout.” I gestured at my surroundings. “It went wrong.”

“Please God you’re telling me the truth. Ohhhh, I can’t think! What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to take him out of here.”

The line hummed emptily in my ear for an instant. “I don’t — you’re going to do what?”

My nerve-ends were jangling at her slowness. “I’ll try to set up something on the outside so no one can point a finger at me.”

Her slow exhalation whispered in my ear. “Why?”

Exasperation overwhelmed me. “So I can save my damn job, that’s why! Maybe my life, if other people think like you do! Do you realize the spot I’m in here? Or maybe you think I should put my .38 in my mouth and even things up?”

“Don’t talk like that, Mickey.” Her voice was much stronger. “Are you sure it’s the thing to do?”

“No, I’m not sure. But I’m damn sure if I stay here my ass has had the course.”

“What can I do to help?”

I swallowed a sigh of relief. “They’ll be knocking on your door. Watch yourself. Watch what you say. You don’t know anything about where we were.” A thought crossed my mind. “What we were talking about Sunday — your getting a divorce? You didn’t mention it to anyone, did you?”

“No. I haven’t had—”

“Then don’t,” I interrupted her. “Someone might think—”

“That I killed Tony?”

It startled me. “You? Hell, no!”

“Someone might.”

“They’re far more likely to think it’s me. Listen, I’ve got to get out of here, right now.”

“P-lease be c-careful, Mickey.” I could hear her crying. “I’m just beginning to realize. Please be careful!”

“You know it.” The forlorn note in her voice made me ache for her. “Hold tight, now. We’ll ride it out.” I hung up.

So there’s your passport, Hanrahan. She’ll handle them when they come to her door. That’s an all-purpose woman. Who should know better than you? Now get started on what you have to do.

I had a sudden, sharp picture of the full-bodied Louise lying wide-eyed in bed in the silent apartment. A lot depended upon her nerve. In the first moment of shock I’d only had time to think about saving my job. If anyone found out about us, it could come down to saving my neck, or hers.

I had to get the body out into the car and then set up something to make it look like we’d run into something unexpected on the street. It might work or it might not, but at least it was a chance.

Louise had asked me if I’d killed Tony. I’d already been thinking about the stocky, black-masked gunman who had entered the jewelry shop. Had it been a small man? Or a tall, full-bodied woman?

Stop it, man.

That way lies disaster.

Get moving. You’ve got a job to do. You’ve got—

A scratchy sound from inside the showroom bristled the hair on the back of my neck and produced my automatic in my hand without my even thinking about it. I approached the curtain stealthily. Gun at the ready, I beamed Tony’s penlight around the four corners of the room.

The beam lingered on the corner near the showcases, then froze.

I stopped breathing.

Tony Costanza was sitting up in front of the showcase.

A bloody-faced Tony Costanza was staring into the light. “That you, Mickey?” he asked hoarsely. “Man, what a headache! Feels like that shot lifted a flap off the front of my forehead. Did you get the bastard?”

My hands were shaking worse than when I had been unable to find a pulse or heartbeat on him. “N-no.” Leaden-footed, I approached him where he still sat on the floor.

He brushed at the blood obscuring his vision, then looked at his hand. “Were we right?” he asked. “Was it the right guy?”

“No. I was wrong.” Kill him now, the inner voices said. Kill him. He’s already dead in your mind. He’s already dead in Louise’s mind.

Tony was heaving himself shakily to his feet. “Can’t win ’em all,” he said. “We’ll just have to try somethin’ else. But first we’re goin’ after this buzzard.” He started for the workroom, weaving a little. “I’ll get the first aid kit from the car so you can patch me up. No use scarin’ Louise.”

My .38 was lined up on his broad back as he went through the curtain.

Then I lowered it and returned it to its holster.

There had to be a better way.

I had to call Louise and tell her it had been a mistake.

We had a reprieve straight out of hell.

Reassessments could wait.

Survival and sex were two of the strongest instincts of mankind. The strongest was survival, but not by much.

I headed for the telephone.

I wasn’t a better man for what had happened during the last few moments, but I was a different man.

Louise — and the police department — would have to settle for that.