More Oddments

Opportunity

Coretti and I went to check the thing out.

The call had come in to the captain of detectives at eight thirty-five from an occasionally reliable department informant named Scully. We were logging reports in the squad room when the word came down. It had been a quiet night, like you can get in early winter; the sound of the wind and a thin rain snapping at the windows, and none of us relished the thought of leaving the warmth of the squad room. So we matched coins with the two other teams of inspectors on the four-to-midnight swing to see who would take the squeal. Coretti and I lost.

It didn’t sound like much, but then you never know. A parlor collector for a string of bookie joints in Southern California had vanished with a substantial amount of weekend receipts. Scully didn’t know how much, but since the betting had been unusually heavy at Caliente on Saturday his guess was six figures. Scully’s tip, uncorroborated and filtering north on the grapevine, was that this Feldstein had beat it to San Francisco and gone into hiding in a tenement hotel near Hunters Point. The captain thought we ought to run a check.

Coretti and I rode the elevator down to the garage in the basement of the Hall of Justice and signed a check-out slip for an unmarked sedan. We drove out into the frigid, drizzling San Francisco night. The hotel Scully had named was off Third Street, in an area that was primarily industrial. At least it wouldn’t be a long ride.

Neither of us had much to say. We’d been partners a long time and we didn’t need a lot of conversation. The heater in the sedan made labored whirring sounds and threw nothing but cold air against our feet.

Coretti picked up Third at Townsend, followed it out over China Basin. I lit a cigarette as we passed over the bridge, and as soon as I exhaled smoke the pain in my stomach almost doubled me over on the seat. I jammed my hand under my breastbone and held it there, waiting for the sharpness of the seizure to subside so I could breathe again.

“Arne,” Coretti said, “you all right?”

I fumbled out the bottle of prescription painkiller, swallowed some of it. It was strong stuff and it worked quickly. Pretty soon I said, “Yeah. Okay now.”

“The ulcer again?”

“What else,” I said.

“You take that medicine like it was candy. Doesn’t seem to be helping much.”

“It’s mostly for the pain. Doc says I’ve got to have an operation. He’s afraid the thing will rupture.”

“So when you going in, Arne?”

“I’m not.”

He gave me a sharp look. “Why not? Man, a perforated ulcer can kill you.”

“I can’t afford an operation right now. I’m up to my ass in bills. You’ve got a family, Bob. You know how it is.”

“Yeah, I know how it is.”

“Maybe next summer,” I said. “The car loan’Il be paid off then.”

“Does the captain know how bad the ulcer is?”

“No, and don’t you tell him. I haven’t even told my wife yet.”

“You can’t keep it a secret, Arne,” Coretti said. “Some of the boys are beginning to notice these spasms you get. Captain’s bound to find out. It’d be a lot easier if you told him yourself.”

“You know as well as I do what it means if I tell him — disability. I can barely live on what I make now, Bob. How can I live on disability pay?”

“Just the same, you can’t keep on this way. You look worn out. If you won’t go in for the operation, why not take some time off at least? You’ve got sick leave coming.”

“Maybe you’re right. I could use a rest.”

“Sure I’m right,” Coretti said. “And if I were you, I’d do some serious thinking about that operation. Talk it over with Gerry, too.”

“Some R&R is all I need for now. I’ll tell Gerry when the time comes.”

“When you can’t put the operation off any longer, you mean.”

“Let’s just drop the subject, okay? I don’t feel like talking anymore right now.”

It had begun to rain in earnest now. Coretti put the wipers on high. The bitter cold wind blowing in across the Bay whipped sheets of water across the windshield, and you could hear it howling at the windows of the sedan. I sat with my legs straight out in front of me to ease the gnawing in my stomach. I wished I were home in bed with Gerry’s warm little body against my back.

Coretti made a left-hand turn, drove two blocks, made another turn. The hotel stood between a storage warehouse for an interstate truck line and an iron foundry, midway on the block. It was a three-story wooden affair, well over half a century old — a shambling reminder of another era. A narrow alley separated it from the iron foundry on the right.

We left the sedan’s semi-warmth and hurried inside. The rain was like ice on the back of my neck. The lobby stank of age-must and disinfectant, the smell of death wrapped in formaldehyde. It was small, dark, sparsely furnished; no elevator, just a staircase leading to the upper floors. A desk paralleled the wall on the right. No one was behind it.

“Nice place,” Coretti said, glancing around. “Homey, you know?”

From behind a closed door next to the desk came the sounds of a TV, the volume turned up high. We went over there and I knocked and pretty soon a rheumy-looking old character in a T-shirt and baggy trousers held up by three-inch-wide suspenders peered out at us.

“You the night clerk?” I asked him.

“Yep. Night clerk, night manager, handyman.” He peered harder. “You fellas looking for a room? If you are, I got to tell you we—”

“Police,” I said. We showed him our shields. “Inspectors Kelstrom and Coretti. We’re here about one of your tenants.”

“That so? Which one?”

“The man’s name is Feldstein, but I doubt he’d be using it.”

“Feldstein?” The old man shook his head. “Nope, no one here by that name. Only a few of the rooms occupied now. We’re closing up month after next. Building’s being torn down.”

“Is that right?”

“Yep. Don’t know what I’m gonna do then. Retire, maybe, if I can find a place to live on my lousy pension.” Noise erupted from the TV behind him. He cocked an ear, listened until the noise subsided. “I been watching the fights,” he said. “Heavyweight match tonight. Not much of a scrap, though. They don’t put on a show like they used to. You fellas fight fans?”

“No,” I said. I wished I had some coffee, and to hell with what the doctor had said. It was damn cold in this rat trap. “These few tenants of yours. Any of them new, here just a couple of days?”

“Matter of fact, there is one fella. Day clerk didn’t want to rent to him, on account of us closing up pretty soon, but he paid extra. Wish it’d been me on duty got that little bonus.” He sighed. “Name’s Collins. I only seen him once. Stays in his room, mostly.”

“What does he look like?”

“Little guy, kind of skinny. Has a mole or something on his left cheek.”

Coretti and I exchanged a glance. The description matched Feldstein’s.

“He in his room now?” Coretti asked.

“Far as I know.”

“What’s his room number?”

“Three-o-six.” The old man did some more peering. “There ain’t going to be any trouble, is there?”

“Let’s hope not,” I said. “You just stay in your room and watch the rest of the fights.”

“Sure. Sure thing, Inspector.”

We left him and took the stairs up to the third floor. The hallway was lit only by a pale bulb on the wall at the far end. No sounds came from behind any of the closed doors we passed. When we reached 306, I stood against the wall on one side of the door and Coretti did the same on the other. Then I reached out and rapped sharply on the panel.

Inside, there was a faint creaking of bedsprings, then nothing but silence. I knocked again. Nothing. I felt the tiny hairs on my neck lift and my stomach started to ache. The cold, stale air seemed suddenly charged with tension.

We had our service revolvers drawn when a wary voice said from inside, “Who is it?”

“Night clerk,” I said.

I thought it was a passable imitation of the old man’s voice, but it wasn’t. The slugs came fast, three of them, ripping jagged splinters from the wood and gouging plaster from the opposite wall. The reports seemed to echo for a couple of seconds. Then it was quiet again.

Coretti and I hugged the wall, waiting. After a little time I heard a faint scraping sound, another that I had no trouble identifying. Feldstein was trying to get out the window.

I stepped back to get leverage, moved over in front of the door and slammed my foot against the wood just above the knob. The lock ripped loose and the door banged against the inner wall. I went in low and to the left, Coretti right behind me. Feldstein was at the window, one leg over the sill, a pasteboard suitcase in one hand and a snubnosed revolver in the other. I threw myself to the floor as he fired, spoiling the shot I had at him. The bullet missed both of us. Coretti squeezed off in return, dodging, but he missed, too. In the next second Feldstein was out through the window and on the fire escape, a dim shadow in the rain.

I pulled up onto my knees, snapped a quick shot that shattered the window glass. Another miss. I heard the fugitive’s heavy shoes pounding down the fire escape as I gained my feet. Coretti had gotten tangled up in a chair, I saw then. I yelled at him, “Downstairs, Bob! Cut him off in the alley!”

I ran to the window and got my head out. Not a smart move because Feldstein was directly below, with a clear upward slant. His first slug tore a hole in the window frame a few inches above my head, the second screamed off the railing in front of me and sprayed my face with iron filings.

Feldstein didn’t wait to try a third shot. I could hear him running again. Cursing myself for a fool, the pain like a hot iron in my gut, I heaved myself through the window and crouched on the slats. He was at the second floor level now, scrambling down the rain-slick steps. I steadied my weapon and fired low, trying for his legs. That shot missed wide, but the next took him in the hip or thigh. I saw him buckle. He lost his grip on the suitcase and his arms flailed as he staggered sideways. He banged hard into the railing. The bar caught him just below the waist and pitched him over. I heard him scream once, just once, then the thud of his body slamming the alley floor below.

I straightened slowly, wiping sweat and rain off my face. Coretti was coming up the alley, running. I looked to see if anyone was behind him, roused by the gunfire, but there was no one.

The fire escape was one of the old-fashioned types that ended flush with the pavement. That made it easy for me to get down there in a hurry. Coretti was bent over Feldstein by then. I started toward him, and all of a sudden I couldn’t seem to get any air into my lungs. A tongue of fire licked down from my stomach to my groin. I dropped to one knee, my head hanging down, fighting to breathe.

“Arne, you hit?” Coretti was beside me now, one hand on my shoulder.

“No. Ulcer... medicine...”

He found the bottle in my coat pocket, uncapped it, got some of the painkiller into me. It seemed to take a long time for it to work. When the hurt finally subsided and I could get my breath, he helped me to my feet.

“You okay now?”

“Better. Just give me a minute.”

“Maybe I ought to call the paramedics...”

“No. I’m okay I tell you.” The pain was almost completely gone. I sucked in some of the damp air, looking over to where Feldstein lay. “What about him?”

“Dead. Broken neck.”

“We’ve got to radio in.”

“Better get the suitcase first. Can you climb back up the stairs?”

I said I could, but I leaned on Coretti on the way up. I was pretty shaky, all right. At the second floor level, the pasteboard suitcase lay against the wire mesh of the railing. Coretti picked it up. When we reached the third floor and climbed back into Feldstein’s room, I was oozing sweat.

Coretti laid the suitcase on the bed. I said, “Open it up, let’s have a look.” He nodded, flipped the catches, lifted the lid.

The suitcase was jammed full of money — fifties and hundreds in thick bundles. Plain wrappers with numbers written on them in pencil bound each stack. We stood there looking down at them, neither of us saying anything. The stench of cordite still lingered in the air.

I could feel tension rebuilding. Outside, the rain hammered in a steady cadence on the fire escape. The wind coming through the shattered window felt icy. In the hallway somebody coughed, somebody else said something in a low nervous voice. Other tenants. But they were hanging back, too scared to look in here. Coretti went over and yelled at them to get back in their rooms, then closed the door.

When he returned to the bed he said softly, “How much you think is in there, Arne?”

“I don’t know.”

Coretti began to take the bundles out of the suitcase, putting them on the bed. I didn’t try to stop him. “If the numbers on those wrappers are right,” he said when he was done, “there’s a hundred and twelve thousand here. A hundred and twelve thousand dollars, Arne.” His voice had a funny sound to it.

My throat was dry. I hadn’t thought about the money before. A routine assignment, stolen cash, a thief in hiding — it happens every day, it’s just a part of the job. But now, looking down at the bundles on the bed, the money took on weight, substance. It filled my thoughts. I kept staring at it, transfixed by it, more money than I would ever see again in my lifetime, and I was thinking what it would be like to have that much cash, half that much, enough to pay off the bulk of my debts, enough for the operation, enough so Gerry and I could start living decently.

It could be ours, it could be ours so damned easy. No one would ever know, we could tell them we didn’t find any money here, it was dirty money anyway. It could be ours, one hundred and twelve thousand dollars, fifty-six thousand apiece.

My stomach throbbed again. I could hear my heart pounding. I was still sweating, sweating like a pig in this cold room.

“Arne?” Coretti’s voice was almost a whisper.

I swallowed against the dryness in my throat. I didn’t say anything.

“You’re thinking it, too, aren’t you.”

“Yeah,” I said, “I’m thinking it, too.”

“We could do it, Arne.”

“I don’t know. Maybe, but... I don’t know.”

“We could do it,” Coretti said again.

“In fifteen years I’ve never taken a penny. Never even fixed a parking ticket.”

“Neither have I. But this isn’t a piece of small-time graft, this is a hundred and twelve thousand dollars. A chance like this comes once in a lifetime. Just once.”

“I know that, dammit.”

He licked his lips. “Well?”

The windblown rain was coming down harder now. I could feel the chill wetness against my face. “It’s a hell of a big risk. You know what’d happen if we got caught.”

“Sure I know. But I say it’s worth it. I say we won’t get caught.”

“If we claim there wasn’t any money, the captain’ll be suspicious.”

“Let him be. What could he prove?”

“The day clerk probably saw the suitcase when Feldstein checked in.”

“So we leave the suitcase. We can carry all the money in our pockets, under our coats.”

“There’d still be an investigation.”

“What could he prove, Arne?”

“As soon as we started spending the money they’d know.”

“A little at a time,” Coretti said. “That’s what we do, parcel it out a little at a time. It’s gambling money, there’s no way the bills can be traced.”

“Christ, Bob, you’ve been a cop as long as I have. It’s the little things that trip you up, the unforeseen things. You know that as well as I do.”

Coretti tongued his lips again.

“We’d go to prison,” I said. “Think about your family. What becomes of them if that happens?”

“I am thinking about my family. I’m thinking about all the things I want my wife and kids to have that I can’t give them. That’s all I’m thinking about right now.”

I kept looking at the money, and thinking, the way Coretti was, about the piled-up bills and the secondhand furniture and car and the second-rate clothing and all the doing without and the burning, throbbing thing that was eating a hole in the pit of my stomach. But at the same time I was thinking about the fifteen years I’d been a straight arrow, an honest cop, and the convictions a man has, the pattern of life he sets for himself, and what would happen if he were to sacrifice everything he believed in for one big gamble, one grab for the brass ring. Even if we got away with it, I knew that it would prey on my conscience, eat a hole in me bigger than the one in my gut and eventually destroy me.

I closed my eyes, and I saw Gerry’s face, Gerry’s proud smile, and I took a deep breath and opened my eyes and I said to Coretti, “No. I can’t do it, I won’t do it.”

“Arne—”

“No, Bob. No.”

Quickly, savagely, I began stuffing the bundles of cash back into the suitcase. Coretti grabbed my arm, but I shook it off and kept on refilling the case. When I was done I snapped the catch shut and hefted it and turned to face him.

“I’m going downstairs and report in,” I said. “And I’m going to tell them about the money, every dollar of it. That’s the way it’s going to be, Bob. That’s the way it has to be.”

He didn’t say anything. His eyes locked with mine.

“You going to try to stop me?” I said.

A few seconds passed before he said, “No,” and stepped aside.

I went out into the hail and down the stairs, feeling the weight of the suitcase in my hand and against my leg, and I didn’t look back. The old man was waiting in the lobby, his eyes big and scared behind his glasses. He rattled questions at me, but I shoved past him and went out to the sedan. I locked the suitcase in the trunk, then called the Hall and told them what had happened.

Afterward I sat waiting with the wheezing heater on high. I’d been there five minutes when Coretti showed. He walked slowly to the passenger side and got in without looking at me. Both of us just sat there. The silence was as deep as it had been in the room upstairs.

He broke it by asking, “Did you report in?”

“Yeah.”

Silence again. Then he said, “God help me, I almost shot you up there. When you were putting the money back in the suitcase. I almost pulled my weapon and shot you in the back.”

I had nothing to say. What can you say to a thing like that?

“Don’t you understand?” Coretti said. “I almost murdered you. You’ve been my friend and my partner for ten years and I almost blew you away.”

“But you didn’t,” I said finally.

“But I almost did.”

“Money like that... it can do funny things to a man. Think how we’d be, what we might do, if we’d taken it.”

“Maybe you’re right. I still think we could’ve gotten away with it. Now we’ll never know. But it scared the hell out of me, what I almost did up there. I thought I knew myself, but now...” He shook his head.

“You think it was an easy decision for me, Bob?”

“I know it wasn’t. Don’t you think I know that?”

“The best thing for both of us is to try to forget it ever happened.”

“I don’t know if I can,” Coretti said.

My hand wasn’t steady as I reached into the pocket of my shirt for a cigarette. The pack was crushed and wet. I crumpled it, threw it into the back seat. Wordlessly Coretti extended his pack to me. I took one, and our eyes met again, briefly, then we both looked away.

I lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply, feeling the smoke curl into my lungs. I stared out at the empty street and the falling rain, taking slow drags — and there was a savage tearing sensation under my breastbone, a fiery pain so intense I cried out. Then I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. My vision blurred. The last thing I saw was Coretti reaching out to me. And the last thing I heard was the high, keening wail of sirens slicing through the wet, black night.

I woke up in the hospital. Full of dope, hooked up to machines and an IV. I didn’t feel any pain, but my middle was a mass of bandages. A nurse came in, looked at me, went away again. Then my doctor was there. He asked me how I was feeling. I told him groggy and then asked him, “What happened?”

“Exactly what I warned you might happen,” he said. “Your ulcer perforated. You’re a very lucky man, Mr. Kelstrom. You almost died on the operating table.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Lucky.”

“If you’d listened to me when I first told you you needed an operation, this would not have happened. As it is... well, barring complications you should be all right in time.”

“In time. What’s that mean? How long am I going to be in here?”

“A few weeks. After that, two or three months convalescence at home.”

“Weeks? Months?”

“Recovery from a perforated ulcer is a slow process, Mr. Kelstrom.”

“I’ve got a wife and kid. How can I support my family if I’m flat on my back?”

“I’m sorry,” the doctor said, “but you really have no one to blame but yourself.”

He went away and the nurse came back and gave me some more dope that knocked me out. When I woke up again, Gerry was there holding my hand.

“Oh, Arne,” she said, “we almost lost you. Why didn’t you tell me how bad the ulcer was? Why didn’t you have the operation right away?”

“We couldn’t afford it. All the damn bills...”

“We could’ve managed. We’ll manage as it is, but—” She broke off and looked away. Then she put on a smile and said, “We’ll be all right. Don’t worry; everything’s going to be fine.”

I didn’t say anything. This time I was the one who looked away.

Later, Coretti and the captain came in. They stood awkwardly, Coretti not making eye contact with me. The whole time he was there he looked at a spot on the wall above my head. The captain said some things about what a good cop I was, how he was putting Coretti and me up for departmental citations. He said I’d get full disability while I was recuperating. He said that if it turned out I couldn’t work the field anymore, he’d see to it I had a desk job for as long as I wanted it. He didn’t mention the money, but he didn’t need to. We all knew that it would be unclaimed and eventually wind up going to the state.

Coretti didn’t say a word until they were ready to leave. Then he said to the wall, “Good luck, Arne. Take care of yourself.” That was all. After they were gone, I wondered if he’d be back to see me. I didn’t think he would. I didn’t think I’d be seeing much of him at all anymore.

I lay there and thought about the money. One hundred and twelve thousand dollars divided in two, fifty-six thousand dollars — the one big opportunity that I’d turned my back on. I thought about the fifteen years I’d been an honest, by-the-book cop, and all the bribes and payoffs, all the chances I’d had for some quick and easy cash that would have made my life and Gerry’s life easier, all those other opportunities I’d let slip away because of convictions that you couldn’t eat and couldn’t pay the bills with.

We’ll manage, Gerry had said. Don’t worry, everything’s going to be fine.

Well, I wasn’t worrying. Not anymore. And everything was going to be fine. Because now I knew with a brand new conviction what I was going to do when I returned to duty.

I knew just exactly what I was going to do.