Reardon

Chapter 11

Wednesday — 6:20 P.M.

Whoever named the restaurant the Mess Hall did an accurate job, Reardon thought critically, drawing the Charger to the curb before the joint and switching off the ignition. A cutey-cute name, but more accurate than the namer meant. Even before he descended from the car, the sight of the place brought back memories of days in his youth when he had been reduced to eating in places like that, and he repressed an involuntary shudder. Without going in he could imagine the unwiped formica counter-top, the vinyl tile floor with tiles broken and missing and littered with unswept cigarette butts, the coffee urn misty with grime, the doughnuts soggy in their cardboard box on the shelf, the faintly sour odor of the place. He sighed, climbed down, joined Dondero on the sidewalk, and opened the door.

A cursory inspection proved his forecast eminently correct. He looked around. Other than the counterman the place was empty. Reardon’s eyebrows rose. While it certainly was not the Top of the Mark or Freddy’s, still people must eat here, he thought, and the people in this type neighborhood didn’t normally dine at ten in the evening. He shrugged the thought away, staring down the counter. The counterman was a thin, pimply-faced character in his late forties or early fifties, with a filthy apron over equally stained ex-white trousers and T-shirt, and tennis shoes without socks. He sat at the last stool before the counter reading a newspaper, a toothpick locked in his mouth. He didn’t look up when they opened the door; it wasn’t until Dondero closed it with significant force that he bothered to note their presence. He came to his feet resignedly, shuffled back of the counter and stared at them.

“Yeah? What’ll you have?”

No need for subterfuge with this one, Reardon decided at once. He pulled his wallet from his back trouser pocket, flipped it open to display his badge on one side and his I.D. on the other, and extended it before the other’s eyes.

“Police.”

“Surprise, surprise,” the counterman said, impressed not at all. “Cops pay for coffee in this joint same as everybody else.” His voice had the aplomb of a man who was in the clear and knew it.

Reardon looked him in the eye for a moment, but the thin pimply-faced man met his look with confidence. The lieutenant nodded and sat down on a stool.

“Fair enough. Make mine black, plenty of sugar.”

“Better put some milk in mine,” Dondero said and straddled the adjoining stool.

“And join us, if you don’t mind,” Reardon added.

The counterman considered him a moment from beneath hooded lids, turned and drew three coffees in chipped and not-too-clean mugs. He set them on the counter, added spoons from a shelf beneath, and pushed over a pitcher of milk and a shaker of sugar. The two detectives dragged the mugs closer; Reardon added sugar, stirred and tasted, but Dondero, considering the scum on the surface of the milk, decided he hadn’t wanted any coffee in the first place. The lieutenant sipped his, paused to nod in a manner that could have indicated either appreciation or confirmation of a previous opinion. He looked up.

“I have a few questions I’d like to ask.”

The counterman shrugged. His sharp eyes were faintly amused; they seemed to indicate he had scarcely figured the police were there for the coffee. He continued to pour sugar into his mug. His voice was equable.

“Go ahead.”

“Know a guy named Crocker?”

“No.”

“Maybe you know him as Ralph. Ralph Crocker.”

“The answer is still no.” The pimply-faced man stirred his coffee and then checked it. It seemed to come up to specifications; he sipped again. He didn’t seem to be faintly interested in either the lieutenant’s question or his own answer.

Reardon felt a sudden flash of elation, but no part of it showed on his expressionless face. At his side Dondero looked up for a moment, and then looked away. Reardon continued.

“He says you do.”

“And I say I don’t.”

There was no argumentativeness in the counterman’s voice; not even boredom. He was stating facts, neither in a hurry to end the interview nor to necessarily extend it. He sipped and set his mug down. He had been standing erect back of the counter; now he placed one foot on the shelf beneath, pushing something aside with his toe to make room, and leaned forward, making himself more comfortable, enjoying his coffee.

Reardon suddenly changed course. “How come the place is empty?”

There was a brief flash of humor in the other’s eyes. “Because nobody is in here eating.” The counterman decided that humor was wasted on police. “Because we get busy around a quarter to nine, nine o’clock, when the factories around here start their second-shift lunch breaks. We ain’t exactly a family restaurant.” The flash of humor returned. “Why? You guys thinking of buying in?”

“So between eight and eight-thirty last night you must have been pretty empty.”

“We wasn’t turning them away in droves,” the counterman said.

“Then you ought to remember this guy Crocker. He claims to have been here last night at that time. Says he had a sandwich and a cup of coffee and left at eight-thirty.”

“Oh him? Yeah. There was a guy here about that time. Had him a hamburger with nothing on. And coffee. But I don’t know his name.”

Reardon’s previous elation disappeared. He took a deep breath. “What did he look like?”

“What do you want him for?”

“What difference does it make?”

The counterman considered the question judiciously and came to the conclusion the red-headed cop lieutenant was right. It wasn’t any skin off his butt and it would be stupid to make it any skin off his butt.

“Don’t make no difference,” he said. “I was just curious.”

“Well, he was in an accident,” Reardon said evenly. Dondero sat listening, stirring his untouched coffee idly, watching the oily surface break up in little swirls.

“Get hurt bad?” The counterman sounded more polite than interested.

“No.”

“Well, if it was the same guy, he’s been in a couple of times before. Tall, skinny guy your age maybe. Maybe a couple years older. I don’t remember what he had on in the way of clothes.”

“Did you see his car?”

“Yeah. It was parked outside, right in front. Big, black job, hundred years old.” The counterman finished his coffee, studied his toothpick critically and decided he had earned a new one. He picked one from the holder on the counter and put it in place.

Reardon sighed, drumming his fingers on the formica counter-top, trying to think of some useful questions to ask, but none seemed to come. At last he looked up, filling in more than anything else, waiting for a better idea to come.

“It’s odd you didn’t know his name. He claims you were friends.”

“Friends?” The counterman shook his head slowly in negation. “He was just a guy comes in for a sandwich and a coffee.”

“He says he liked to talk to you.”

“I can’t say.”

Reardon frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I mean, I can’t say. He always did the talking. Sometimes I listened, sometimes I didn’t.” The tiny flash of humor returned momentarily. “When I didn’t I don’t think I missed much.”

“Why? What did he talk about?”

“That what I’m saying. He didn’t talk about anything.”

Something had been bothering Dondero and he finally recognized what it was. He couldn’t see what it advanced the lieutenant’s case any — he couldn’t see where anything could or would — but it bothered him and he wanted to get it off his chest. He cleared his throat introductorily and cut into the conversation.

“You say he always parked that big car of his outside. Well, he only had it for a week.”

The counterman shrugged. “So he never come in before a week ago.”

Reardon looked up, alert. “You mean, the couple of times before he was here were all in the last week?”

“That’s what I mean.”

The feeling of elation, of discovery, was beginning to return; cautious and wary now, but none the less on the move. Reardon kept his voice the same. “What else can you tell us about the man?”

“Like what?”

“Like anything at all.”

The counterman considered a moment. “Well,” he said at last, “the first time he comes in, I remember he says, “Where’s the clock?’”

“Where’s the clock?” Reardon looked around the bare walls. “Where is the clock?”

“There ain’t. Oh, we had one but it got busted,” the counterman explained, “and the boss sent it out to be fixed. Or anyway, he says he sent it out to be fixed. I’m betting dough he’s a goddamn liar; he’s too cheap to pay for fixing it. But I couldn’t care less; who needs it? Once the second-shift lunch break at the factories ends, I shut the joint down. I even leave the dirty dishes. Guy on days does them before he opens up.”

Reardon was feeling that old, familiar feeling of being onto something.

“Go ahead about the clock.”

“That’s all there is. He says, ‘Where’s the clock?’ and I says, ‘We ain’t got one,’ and he says, ‘Oh,’ and that’s it.” He shrugged. “Don’t know what he was griping about; he had a wristwatch.”

Reardon felt a strong hunch. “Let me ask you something else. Did he ever ask about a television?”

Dondero frowned at him as if he were crazy, but the counterman grinned.

“Cops must be getting smarter than in my day. How you knew I don’t know, but he sure did. Second time he was in here — last Friday, I think. Yeah, it couldn’t have been Saturday because they got different hours, Saturday, at the plants.”

“Go ahead.”

“Well, he asks do we have a TV and I says to him, I says, ‘Look around, does it look like we got a TV? We don’t keep it in the safe, you know, because we also ain’t got a safe.’” His tiny eyes twinkled with the memory. “Then he asks if we got a radio, and I told him the tight bastard owns the joint figures a radio takes a guy’s mind off his work. What the boss means is radios cost dough, and damned if I’ll bring in my own. So I says to this guy, I says, ‘No, we ain’t got a radio. Entertainment, you go over on Broadway. Here, we just feed people.’”

Reardon smiled in response to the thin man’s grin. “And what time did he leave last night?”

The grin disappeared, replaced with a look of disgust.

“Well,” the counterman said, and expertly shifted the toothpick to the other side of his mouth, “he says to me, I got to run, it’s getting late, eight-thirty on the button.’ And he pays his tab and hits the road. Well, eight-thirty I got to start putting up fresh coffee for that gang due in in a couple minutes; I’m late even. Which is mighty unusual, because I always get a feeling when it’s time to put the coffee up, if you know what I mean—” He looked at Reardon expectantly.

“I know what you mean,” Reardon said softly.

“Yeah. Christ, I ought to be able to tell, I been doing it long enough. Anyways, so I rush around like a goddamn maniac boiling the water, making up the pot, seeing to it there’s fresh milk in the pitchers—” Dondero made a slight sound but the counterman disregarded it. “—and then, goddamn it, I sit on my butt for half hour before the first guy from the factory shows. So I says to him — his name’s Ken something — I says, ‘What’s with the shifts tonight you’re late, Ken?’ And Ken says to me, he says, ‘No, they’re on time, you got to be early,’ and he laughs.” The counterman sniffed in disgust. “That character should talk about how we ain’t got a clock! He ought to get his own watch fixed.”

Reardon kept his voice conversational. He was moving his empty cup in aimless circles around the stained formica top, his eyes following his hands, watching the damp trails, not watching the counterman at all.

“So you figure he actually left here about eight-fifteen?”

“If then,” the counterman said and looked at Dondero. “Ain’t you going to drink your coffee?” The look on Dondero’s face gave him his answer. “It’s from the guy on days,” he said defensively and took the three mugs, shoving them under the counter.

Reardon came to his feet, pulling out his wallet.

“That’s twenty cents,” the counterman said. “You don’t have to pay for me. Come the day I pay for coffee in this joint!”

Reardon extracted a ten-dollar bill and handed it over.

“Keep the change. And thanks for the information.” He smiled. “Take the dough and go someplace and buy yourself a good meal.”

The counterman took the bill, looked at it a moment, and then folded it and tucked it neatly into his watch pocket. He smiled back, faintly as if the muscles in his face were unaccustomed to form themselves into smiles for cops.

“The food here ain’t as bad as you might think. True, the place needs a little touching up, not to mention a good cleaning, but I don’t get paid for that. I get paid for short-order cooking, and if I say so myself, I make a fair hamburger and a damned good western.” His smile faded completely; he looked Reardon in the eye, even removing the toothpick for emphasis. “As for the information, I ain’t got nothing to hide from the cops. Sure I been in Q. The boss knows it and you knew it the minute you walked in here. But I’m clean. I been clean over eight years, now.”

“I believe you,” Reardon said. “Even the part about the hamburgers.”

He smiled, waved a hand at the man, and walked out the door with Dondero immediately behind him. They climbed into the Charger; the engine turned over and they pulled away from the curb. The lieutenant was smiling in self-satisfaction.

“You look like the canary that swallowed the cat,” Dondero said in disgust. He patted his pockets for his cigarettes, remembered his pledge, and shook his head. “Stan went back to them, but he’s got no guts,” he said, apropos of nothing, and then returned to the subject at hand. “And just what did you think you discovered back there that takes you anyplace at all?”

“The time,” Reardon said softly, and smiled without humor. “Our friend Crocker tried to set up an alibi based on time. That was the reason he was at that coffeepot — I mean that particular one instead of one over near the market, or another in that general neighborhood. He scouted places until he found one without a clock...”

“Oh, come on, Jim!” Dondero almost snorted; it ended up a half sneeze. He dragged out a handkerchief, used it, and returned to the battle. “So he doesn’t see a clock and he asks about it!”

“Oh, ‘Come on, Jim,’ my foot! How about that television and radio bit?”

“What about them?”

Reardon glanced over at him in surprise and then returned his eyes to the road. He turned back into Third Street.

“Wake up, Don; you’re really not that thick. Crocker wanted a place without a television set or a radio so the counterman couldn’t catch him out when he made up that My-goodness-it’s-eight-thirty-on-the-button-I’ve-got-to-rush-old-pal garbage. Suppose he says it’s eight-thirty and the man is watching TV and it’s in the middle of a program? Or suppose he has a favorite program at eight-thirty he wants to see, and turns it on and finds it’s far from eight-thirty?”

“And suppose the counterman happens to own a watch?” Dondero couldn’t hide the sarcasm in his voice.

“So what? Then we’ve got one man’s word against another as to which watch is accurate. But NBC or CBS are hard to argue with. For Christ’s sake, Don, what other reason could he possibly have for asking if the joint had a TV or radio?”

“Well,” Dondero said easily, “I’ll tell you what I’d say if I was him — or if I was his lawyer. I’d say something like the counterman was a lousy conversationalist — which he admits — so Crocker would like some TV or radio to keep him company while he eats because he’s a lonely guy looking for somebody to listen to. Lots of people can’t eat alone without TV or radio or a book or newspaper or something. I happen to be one of them,” he added, half defiantly.

Reardon shook his head in mock admiration. “Beautiful! So he’s lonely and he wants TV or radio, so he picks the only joint in town without them. Remind me never to have you for my lawyer.”

He turned from Third Street into Nineteenth. Dondero looked at the clock on the dashboard.

“We’re going to be late for our dates.” It was a most deliberate change of subject.

“I want to drive by that accident scene again. I have a feeling that whatever’s bugging me started there. And you ought to see the block, anyway. We’ll only be there a few minutes.” He glanced across at Dondero and smiled. “Don’t look so woeful. All we’re going to be late for is a shower and a change. So we won’t eat anywhere fancy. Maybe we’ll drop into Tommy’s Joynt, or eat at the Wharf.”

“We could always go back to the Mess Hall,” Dondero said with a grin. “If we time it right and get there just before the factory boys, we might even get a decent — or anyway, fresh — cup of coffee. Who knows? Maybe our friend there is a good cook.”

“I’d rather take his word for it,” Reardon said with a smile and became serious again. “Well? You still haven’t answered my argument. Why did Crocker pick the only place without TV or a radio?”

“Who knows?” Dondero said glumly and then brightened. “I know. Maybe he hates TV and radio and wanted to be sure nobody would turn it on while he was eating. There’re people like that too.”

“What it proves,” Reardon said firmly, “is that he lied about the time, and he must have had a damned good reason for doing so. He gave himself an extra fifteen minutes at the minimum before he called that accident in. Why? Where was he during those fifteen minutes? What was he doing? It’s about four minutes from the Mess Hall to where we’re going.” He looked at Dondero sardonically. “You’re so good at finding excuses for everything Crocker did and said, find one for that.”

“Easy,” Dondero was not easily cowed. “He stopped for gas, and—”

“The gas gauge was at a quarter full,” Reardon said, remembering, scotching that argument in its infancy.

“Then he stopped at a gas station and used the john. Hell, does he have to explain all that in court? There’s only one pinpointed time in this whole business, and that’s when he called it in. Communications has that fixed. The rest is all guesswork on somebody’s part. You still can’t get around the fact that if he knew his victim you can’t prove it. Or show any reason why he would run him down.”

“He must have known him. And he must have had a reason for killing him. He isn’t a nut.” He frowned. “We just haven’t run across the proof yet.”

He swung the wheel; they turned into Indiana. Reardon pulled to the curb and stopped. His headlights were brought up to high beam; the street lay before them as it had the night before, seen from the opposite direction. The blank-faced warehouses loomed over them, fronting the pavement. They seemed even deeper in shadow because of the bright lights reflected over their roofs from the Central Basin docks. Reardon turned to Dondero.

“Here’s where it happened. That’s the phone booth he called from. Do want to get out and look?”

“Not me.” Dondero shook his head emphatically. “If Frank Wilkins checked this area a few minutes after it happened, I’m not going to waste time trying to be Columbus a day later.” He looked at his superior sympathetically; the stocky lieutenant was staring around him in the rapidly growing dusk. There was an almost desperate intensity to his concentration. “Do you see anything that helps you scratch that itch of yours, Jim?”

Reardon gave up the search in despair.

“No. Forget it.” He suddenly swung around on the seat, staring at Dondero intensely, almost fiercely. “Don, you heard that youngster at the used-car lot. You heard that counterman a few minutes ago. What do you think? What do you honest-to-God think? Am I really making up stories to suit myself?”

Dondero hesitated a moment before answering, but when he did answer it was to give as straight an answer as he knew how to give. Jim Reardon was more than a higher grade he happened to be assigned to work with that day; he was also a very close friend.

“Jim,” he said slowly, “if you are, you have a reason for it. You always have had reasons for everything you did, and I’m sure you have now. At least in your own mind. I’ll admit there are various interpretations for everything we heard, and I know that one of those interpretations could easily support your arguments. I’ve been playing the devil’s advocate, in a way, and I honestly don’t know if it was because I was just trying to anticipate what a defense attorney would say, or because I really think you’re off base on this one. I’ve seen you wrong before, but never so sure.”

He hesitated. Reardon waited, his face a mask. Dondero sighed.

“But I’ll tell you this, Jim — and I think you know it: with the case you have right now, together with catching him flagrantly spitting on the sidewalk, we couldn’t hold Crocker for a misdemeanor.”

Reardon looked at him for several seconds and then turned to stare out of the car window, looking down the street, letting his gaze move back to the telephone pole in the middle of the block. His big hands held the steering wheel of the car lightly. He sighed deeply.

“I suppose you’re right,” he said. “In fact, I know you’re right. But I’m right too. That’s the problem.”

He started to put the car into gear. Dondero put out his hand, touching the lieutenant’s arm.

“Jim—”

Reardon turned. “Yes?”

“There’s just one thing—” He hesitated a moment and then went on. “You’ve been living this thing pretty intensely for the past twenty-four hours. I haven’t had it that long, but I’ve had a piece of it. Now, you and me, well, we’re used to it. It’s our job. But with Penny it’s different. Penny—”

“What about Penny?”

Dondero tried to explain. “Well, we’re all going out to dinner to relax. If we kick this thing around all evening, nobody’s going to be very relaxed. Especially Penny. Let’s drop the whole subject of Bob Cooke and Crocker and accidents and murder and everything else that comes under the heading of police work. For tonight, I mean. Let’s try to have fun, or as much fun as we can under the circumstances.”

“Fair enough,” Reardon said quietly and then suddenly grinned. He slid the car into gear and fed her gas, heading toward Mariposa and the nearest entrance to the Skyway. He seemed to be more at ease than he had been all day. “One thing is sure — Jan won’t mind...”