Ten Plus One

10

The enemy, like all good enemies everywhere, vanished from sight.

There were no subsequent killings that week, and it seemed indeed as though detectives from all over the city had been mobilized to combat a ghost. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday passed uneventfully. The cruelest month was gone, taking part of May with it, and the murderer seemed to have disappeared.

On Sunday, May 6, two detectives from the 12th Precinct, near the Calm’s Point Bridge downtown, decided it would be a good idea to look up Frankie Pierce. Carella had mentioned the name casually to them, as that of an ex-con who had once been a client of Randolph Norden. He had also mentioned that, in view of later developments, it seemed to him Pierce was clean, and not worth picking up. But the two detectives from the 12th were detectives/1st grade, and Carella was only a detective/2nd grade, and they didn’t much like being told how to investigate a homicide by someone whom they outranked, even if the squeal happened to be Carella’s. Besides, the two detectives from the 12th were bulls.

One was named Masterson, and the other was named Brock. The two had been working together as a pair for a long time, and they had a long series of arrests and convictions to their credit, but they were nonetheless bulls. On that first Sunday in May, with the carnelian cherry blossoms bursting in the park, and a mild breeze blowing in off the River Dix from the south, Masterson and Brock got a little restless in the stuffy-squadroom of the 12th, and decided they could use a little fresh air. And then, since they were simply cruising around the streets in the vicinity of the Calm’s Point Bridge, they decided to look up Frankie Pierce, who lived at 371 Horton in the bridge’s shadow.

Frankie Pierce had no idea he was about to be visited by detectives, or by detectives who were bulls. He was in constant touch with his parole officer, and he knew he had done nothing to break parole. He was, in fact, working at a garage as a mechanic and he had every intention of going straight, like they say in the movies. His employer was a fair-minded man who knew Frankie was on parole, but who felt that a man deserves a chance at rehabilitation. Frankie was a good worker and a hard worker. His employer was satisfied with him and had given him a raise only the month before.

But Frankie made a couple of mistakes on that first Sunday in May when the bulls named Masterson and Brock visited him. The first mistake he made was in assuming the two detectives were only detectives and not bulls. The second mistake he made was in believing that people are understanding.

He had a date that afternoon with a girl who was the cashier in a restaurant near the garage. He had told the girl he was an ex-con because he wanted to get things straight with her from the start. The girl had looked him over very carefully and then said, “What do I care what you used to be?” and that was that. He was going to take her over to the park, where they would go rowing for a while, and then have dinner at the outdoor restaurant, and then maybe walk up the Stem and take in a movie later. He was standing before the mirror putting on his tie when the knock sounded on his door.

“Who is it?” he asked.

“Police. Open up, Frankie.”

A puzzled look crossed his face. He looked at himself in the mirror, as though expecting an answer from his own image, then shrugged and walked to the door.

Masterson and Brock stood in the hallway. They were both well over six feet tall, each weighing about 200 pounds, both wearing slacks and short-sleeved sports shirts that showed the bulge of their chest and arm muscles. Frankie, standing in front of them in the open door, looked very small, even though he was five feet ten inches tall and weighed 165 pounds.

“Frankie Pierce?” Masterson asked.

“That’s right,” he answered.

“Get your hat, Frankie,” Masterson said.

“What’s the matter?”

“We want to talk to you.”

“What about?”

“Get your hat.”

“I don’t wear a hat. What’s the matter?”

“We want to ask you a few questions, Frankie.”

“Well…well, why don’t you ask them then?”

“You gonna be a wise guy?” Brock asked suddenly. It was the first time he had spoken, and the effect of his words was chilling. He had slate-gray eyes and a thick nose, and a mouth drawn across his face with a draftsman’s pen, tight and hard, and barely moving when he spoke.

“No, look,” Frankie said. “I don’t mind answering some questions. It’s just I have a date, that’s all.”

“You want to finish tying your tie, Frankie?” Masterson asked. “Or do you want to come along the way you are?”

“Well…well, I’d like to tie my tie and…you know, I want to polish my shoes and…” He hesitated. “I told you, I have a date.”

“Yeah, you told us. Go tie your tie.”

“Is this gonna take long?”

“That depends on you, don’t it, Frankie?”

“What do you mean?”

“Tie your tie.”

He went to the mirror and finished the Windsor knot he had started. He was annoyed when he noticed his hands were trembling. He looked in the mirror at the two detectives who waited for him just inside the door, wondering if they had noticed, too, that his hands were trembling.

“You want to shake a leg, Frankie?” Masterson said.

“Sure, be right with you,” Frankie said pleasantly. “I wish you guys would tell me what this is all about.”

“You’ll find out, Frankie.”

“I mean, if you think I broke parole or something, you can give my parole officer a call, his name’s McLaughlin, he can tell you…”

“We don’t have to give nobody a call,” Brock said in that same chilling voice.

“Well…well, okay, let me just put on my jacket.”

He put on his jacket, and then walked to the door, and followed the detectives out, and locked the door behind him. There were a lot of people on the front stoop of the building and hanging around the candy store, and he was embarrassed because he knew everybody in the neighborhood could smell a cop from away the hell across the street, and he didn’t want anybody to think he was in trouble again. He kept telling himself all the way crosstown to the station house that he wasn’t in trouble, this was probably some kind of routine pickup, somebody done something, so they were naturally rounding up all the ex-cons in the neighborhood, something like that. It would just be a matter of explaining to them, of making them understand he was going straight, had a good job with a good salary, wasn’t even seeing any of the guys he used to run with before he got busted.

The two detectives said hello to the desk sergeant on their way into the building, and then Brock said in his chilling voice, “No calls, Mike,” and they walked him to the back of the building where the detective squadroom was, and then into the squadroom itself, and then into a small room with the word INTERROGATION lettered on the frosted glass door. Brock closed the door, took a key out of his pocket, locked the door, and put the key in his pocket.

“Sit down, Frankie,” Masterson said.

Frankie sat. He had heard what Brock said to the desk sergeant, and he had seen Brock lock the door and put the key in his pocket, and he was beginning to think that maybe something very serious had been done, and he wanted no part of it, whatever the hell it was. At the same time, he knew he was an ex-con, and he knew that it was only natural for them to go looking up a guy with a record if something was done, but once he explained, once they understood he was straight now…

“How long you been out, Frankie?” Masterson asked.

“Since November fifteenth.”

“Castleview?”

“Yeah.”

“What were you in for?”

“Third-degree burglary.”

“You were a good boy, huh?”

“Well, yeah, I didn’t give nobody any trouble.”

“That’s nice, Frankie,” Masterson said.

“How long you been living down there on Horton?” Brock asked.

“Since I got out.”

“You working?”

“Yeah. I got a job.”

“Where?”

“The Esso station near the bridge. Right where the approach…”

“What do you do there?”

“I’m a mechanic.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, I worked in the automobile shop up at Castle—”

“Doing what? Making license plates?” Masterson said, and Brock laughed. His laugh was a curious thing. It never made a sound. It came into his throat and erupted there only as a series of muscular spasms.

“No, I learned a trade,” Frankie said. “Listen, I was good enough for the garage to hire me.”

“That’s nice, Frankie,” Masterson said.

“What’s this all about?” Frankie asked. “Somebody pull a job?”

“Yeah, somebody pulled a job.”

“Well, it wasn’t me,” Frankie said. “I learned my lesson.”

“Did you?”

“Five years was enough for me.” He shook his head. “No more. Never again.”

“It’s good to hear that, Frankie,” Masterson said.

“Well, I happen to mean it. I’m making eighty bucks a week now, and I work like a dog for it, but it’s clean, you know. They deduct all the taxes from it, and what’s left is mine, earned honest, no problems. I report once a week to my parole…”

“Yeah, Frankie, you know a guy named Randolph Norden?”

“Sure I do. He was my lawyer.”

“Was?”

“Yeah. When I had the trouble. Was. Why? What’s the matter?”

“How do you feel about him, Frankie?”

“He’s a good lawyer. Why?”

“A good lawyer? He got you sent up, didn’t he?”

“That wasn’t his fault. He wanted me to plead not guilty, but this guy I knew, he was a kid in and out of jail since he could walk, he told me I should cop out, that maybe I’d get a suspended sentence. So I argued with Norden, and he kept saying not guilty, not guilty, but I told him I’d decided to cop out. So I copped out, and got ten years. Some jerk I was, huh?”

“So you liked Norden, huh?”

“Yeah, he was okay.”

“Maybe he shoulda argued a little more, don’t you think? Convinced you? Don’t you think that’s what a good lawyer shoulda done?”

“He tried to, but I wouldn’t listen. I figured all I had on my record so far was juvenile stuff, you know, rumbles, and once when I was carrying a zip gun, the Sullivan Act. But I figured, what it amounted to, the burglary rap was a first offense really, and I figured if I copped out they’d go easy, maybe make it a suspended sentence. Instead, we got a judge he figured I’d learn a lesson behind bars for a little while.” Frankie shrugged. “Maybe he was right.”

“You’re a pretty nice fellow, ain’t you, Frankie? You forgive Norden for steering you wrong, and now you’re forgiving the judge for sending you away. That’s real nice of you, Frankie.”

“A judge only has a job to do,” Frankie said, and he shrugged again. “Listen, I don’t understand what this is all about. What’s this go to do with…?”

“With what, Frankie?”

“With…well, with whatever. With…with why you dragged me up here. What’s the story?”

“You read the papers, Frankie?”

“Sometimes.”

“When’s the last time?”

“I don’t know. I go to work early, and I ain’t got time to stop for them. Anyway, I don’t read so good. That’s why I got in all that trouble when I was still in high school. Everybody else was reading…”

“Yeah, let’s never mind the underprivileged-kid bit, Frankie,” Masterson said. “When’s the last time you read a newspaper?”

“I don’t know. I just told you…”

“You listen to the radio?” Brock asked in his even, emotionless voice.

“Sure I do.”

“You heard about the guy who’s going around shooting people?”

“What guy?”

“The sniper.”

“Yeah, I think I heard something about it. Yeah, that’s right, he shot some guy up in Riverhead, didn’t he? A fruit man or something. Yeah, I heard that.” Frankie looked up at the detectives, puzzled. “I don’t get it. What…what…?”

“All right, let’s cut the crap,” Brock said, and the room went silent.

Frankie looked up at them expectantly, and they looked down at him patiently, waiting. Frankie wasn’t sure what crap he was expected to cut, but he suddenly wanted that door to be unlocked, suddenly wanted that telephone to ring. The two detectives stood over him silently, and he looked up at them silently, each waiting, he not knowing what he was expected to say or do, they seemingly possessed of infinite patience. He wiped his upper lip. He shrugged, the silence lengthened unbearably. He could hear the clock ticking on the wall.

“Look,” he said at last, “could you tell me what…?” and Brock hit him. He hit him suddenly and effortlessly, his arm coming up swiftly from its position at his side, his hand open, his palm catching Frankie noisily on the cheek. Frankie was more surprised than hurt. He brought his hands up too late, felt the stinging slap, and then looked up at Brock with a puzzled expression.

“What’d I do?” he asked plaintively.

“Randolph Norden is dead, Frankie,” Masterson said.

Frankie sat still for several moments, looking up at the detectives, sweating freely now, feeling trapped in this small room with its locked door. “What…what do you want from me?”

Brock hit him again. He hit him very hard this time, drawing back his fist and smashing it full into Frankie’s face. Frankie felt the hard knuckles colliding with his nose, and he said, “What are you doing?” and started to come out of the chair, when Masterson put both meaty hands on his shoulders and slammed him down again, so hard that the shock rumbled up his spine and into his neck. “Hey!” he said, and Brock hit him once more, and this time Frankie felt something break in his nose, heard the terrible crunching sound of his own nose breaking, and then immediately touched his upper lip and felt the blood pouring onto his hand.

“Why’d you do it, Frankie?” Brock said tightly.

“I didn’t do nothing. Listen, will you listen…?”

Brock bunched his fist and raised it over his head as if he were holding a hammer in it, and then brought it down as if the fist itself were the head of the hammer, onto the bridge of Frankie’s nose, and Frankie screamed in pain and fell out of the chair. Masterson kicked him in the ribs, once, sharply.

“Get up,” Brock said.

“Look, look, will you please…?”

“Get up!”

He struggled to his feet. There was an unbearable pain in his nose, and blood was dripping onto his lip and all over his white shirt and the new tie he had bought for his afternoon date.

“Listen,” he said, “listen to me. I’ve got a job, I’m working, I’m straight, can’t you understand…?” and Brock hit him. “Listen!” he screamed. “Listen to me! I didn’t do anything! You hear me? Can you understand me?” and Brock hit him again, because Brock did not understand him at all. Brock understood only that Frankie Pierce was a punk who had been cutting up other punks in street rumbles since the time he was twelve. He understood only that the punk named Frankie Pierce had graduated into the cheap thief who was Frankie Pierce, and then into the jailbird, and then into the ex-con, all of which still made him a punk, that was the understanding Brock had. So he kept following him around the room while Frankie backed against the walls trying to explain that he was straight now, he was honest, he was working, kept hitting the broken nose over and over again until it was only a sodden shapeless mass plastered to his face, don’t you understand, hit him as Frankie reached for the phone and tried to pick up the receiver, won’t you please understand, kicked him when he fell to the floor whimpering in pain, please, please, understand, and then stood over him with his fists bunched and ready and yelled, “Why’d you kill him, you little son of a bitch?” and hit him again when he couldn’t answer.

The girl waited for Frankie in the park for two hours. He never showed up for the date because Brock and Masterson kept him in the locked interrogation room for six hours, alternately rousing him and then beating him senseless again, while asking why he had killed a man he hadn’t seen in five years. At the end of their session, they were convinced he was clean. They wrote out a report stating he had broken parole by assaulting a police officer during a routine interrogation.

Frankie Pierce was removed to the criminal ward of the hospital on Walker Island in the River Dix, to recuperate before he was shipped back to the penitentiary at Castleview, upstate.