The 1st Deadly Sin

4

After that call from Monica Gilbert, Daniel Blank had dropped the phone and gone trotting through the rooms of his apartment, mouth open, scream caught in his throat; he could not end it. Finally, it dribbled away to moans, heaves, gulps, coughs, tears. Then he was in the bedroom, forehead against the full-length mirror, staring at his strange, contorted face, torn apart.

When he quieted, fearful that his shriek had been heard by neighbors, he went directly to the bedroom phone extension, intending to call Celia Montfort and ask one question: “Why did you betray me?” But there was an odd-sounding dial tone, and he remembered he had dropped the living room handset. He hung up, went back into the living room, hung up that phone, too. He decided not to call Celia. What could she possibly say?

He had never felt such a sense of dissolution and, in self-preservation, undressed, checked window and door locks, turned out the lights and slid into bed naked. He rolled back and forth until silk sheet and wool blanket were wrapped about him tightly, mummifying him, holding him together.

He thought, his mind churning, that he might be awake forever, staring at the darkness and wondering. But curiously, he fell asleep almost instantly: a deep, dreamless slumber, more coma than sleep, heavy and depressing. He awoke at 7:18 a.m. the next morning, sodden with weariness. His eyelids were stuck shut; he realized he had wept during the night.

But the panic of the previous day had been replaced by a lethargy, a non-thinking state. Even after going through the motions of bathing, shaving, dressing, breakfasting, he found himself in a thoughtless world, as if his overworked brain had said, “All right! Enough already!” and doughtily rejected all fears, hopes, passions, visions, ardors. Even his body was subdued; his pulse seemed to beat patiently at a reduced rate, his limbs were slack. Dressed for work, like an actor waiting for his cue, he sat quietly in his living room, staring at the mirrored wall, content merely to exist, breathing.

His phone rang twice, at an hour’s interval, but he did not answer. It could be his office calling. Or Celia Montfort. Or…or anyone. But he did not answer, but sat rigidly in a kind of catalepsy, only his eyes wandering across his mirrored wall. He needed this time of peace, quiet, non-thinking. He might even have dozed off, there in his Eames chair, but it wasn’t important.

He roused early in the afternoon, looked at his watch; it seemed to be 2:18 p.m. That was possible; he was willing to accept it. He thought vaguely that he should get out, take a walk, get some fresh air.

But he only got as far as the lobby. He walked past the locked mail boxes. The mail had been delivered, but he just didn’t care. Late Christmas cards, probably. And bills. And…well, it wasn’t worth thinking about. Had Gilda sent him a Christmas card this year? He couldn’t remember. He hadn’t sent her one; of that he was certain.

Charles Lipsky stopped him.

“Message for you, Mr. Blank,” he said brightly. “In your box.” And he stepped behind the counter.

Blank suddenly realized he hadn’t given the doormen any thing for Christmas, nor the garage attendant, nor his cleaning woman. Or had he? Had he bought a Christmas gift for Celia? He couldn’t remember. Why did she betray him?

He looked at the plain white envelope Lipsky thrust into his hand. “Mr. Daniel G. Blank.” That was his name. He knew that. He suddenly realized he better not take that short walk-not right now. He’d never make it. He knew he’d never make it.

“Thank you,” he said to Lipsky. That was a funny name-Lipsky. Then he turned around, took the elevator back up to his apartment, still moving in that slow, lethargic dream, his knees water, his body ready to melt into a dark, scummed puddle on the lobby carpet if an elevator didn’t come soon. He took a deep breath. He’d make it.

When the door was bolted, he leaned back against it and slowly opened the white envelope. Holiday Greetings from the Kope Family. Ah well. Why had she betrayed him? What possible reason could she have, since everything he had done had been at her gentle urging and wise tutelage?

He went directly to the bedroom, took out the drawer, turned it upside down on the bed, scattering the contents. He ripped the sealed envelope free. The souvenirs had been a foolish mistake, he thought lazily, but no harm had been done. There they were. No one had taken them. No one had seen them.

He brought in a pair of heavy shears from the kitchen and chopped Lombard’s license, Gilbert’s ID card, Kope’s identification and leatherette holder, and Feinberg’s rose petals into small bits, cutting, cutting, cutting. Then he flushed the whole mess down the toilet, watching to make sure it disappeared, then flushing twice more.

That left only Detective third grade Roger Kope’s shield. Blank sat on the edge of the bed, bouncing the metal on his palm, wondering dreamily how to get rid of it. He could drop it down the incinerator, but it might endure, charred but legible enough to start someone thinking. Throw it out the window? Ridiculous. Into the river would be best-but could he walk that far and risk someone seeing? The most obvious was best. He would put the shield in a small brown paper bag, walk no more than two blocks or so, and push it down into a corner litter basket. Picked up by the Sanitation Department, dumped into the back of one of those monster trucks, squashed in with coffee grounds and grape fruit rinds, and eventually disgorged onto a dump or landfill in Brooklyn. Perfect. He giggled softly.

He pulled on gloves, wiped the shield with an oily rag, then dropped it into a small brown paper bag. He put on his topcoat; the bag went into the righthand pocket. Through the lefthand pocket he carried his ice ax, beneath the coat, though for what reason he could not say.

He walked over to Third Avenue, turned south. He paused halfway down the block, spotting a litter basket on the next corner. He paused to look in a shop window, inspecting an horrendous display of canes, walkers, wheelchairs, prosthetic devices, trusses, pads and bandages, emergency oxygen bottles, do-it-yourself urinalysis kits. He turned casually away from the window and inspected the block. No uniformed cops. No squad cars or anything that looked like an unmarked police car. No one who could be a plainclothes detective. Just the usual detritus of a Manhattan street-housewives and executives, hippies and hookers, pushers and priests: the swarm of the city, swimming in the street current.

He walked quickly to the litter basket at the corner, took out the small brown paper bag with the shield of Detective Kope inside, thrust it down into the accumulated trash: brown paper bags just like his, discarded newspapers, a dead rat, all the raw garbage of a living city. He looked about quickly. No one was watching him; everyone was busy with his own agonies.

He turned and walked home quickly, smiling. The simplest and most obvious was best.

The phone was ringing when he entered his apartment. He let it ring, not answering. He hung away his topcoat, put the ice ax in its place. Then he mixed a lovely vodka martini, stirring endlessly to get it as chilled as possible and, humming, took it into the living room where he lay full-length upon the couch, balanced his drink on his chest, and wondered why she had betrayed him.

After awhile, after he had taken a few sips of his drink, still coming out of his trance, rising to the surface like something long drowned and hidden, rising on a tide or cannon shot or storm to show itself, the phone rang again. He got up immediately, set his drink carefully and steadily on the glass cocktail table, went into the kitchen and selected a knife, a razor-sharp seven-inch blade with a comfortable handle.

Strange, but knives didn’t bother him anymore; they felt good. He walked back into the living room, almost prancing, stooped, and with his sharp, comfortable knife, sawed through the coiled cord holding the handset to the telephone body. He put the severed part gently aside, intestine dangling.

With that severance, he cut himself loose. He felt it. Free from events, the world, all reality.

Captain Delaney awoke with a feeling of nagging unease. He fretted that he had neglected something, overlooked some obvious detail that would enable Danny Boy to escape the vigil, fly off to Europe, slide into anonymity in the city streets, or even murder once again. The Captain brooded over the organization of the guard, but could not see how the net could be drawn tighter.

But he was in a grumpy mood when he went down for breakfast. He drew a cup of coffee in the kitchen, wandered back through the radio room, dining room, hallways, and he did become aware of something. There were no night men sleeping on the cots in their underwear Everyone was awake and dressed; even as he looked about, he saw three men strapping on their guns.

Most of the cops in Operation Lombard were detectives and carried the standard.38 Police Special. A few lucky ones had.357 Magnums or.45 automatics. Some men had two weapons. Some bolstered on the hip; some in front, at the waist. One man carried an extra holster and a small.32 at his back. One man carried an even smaller.22 strapped to his calf, under his trouser leg.

Delaney had no objection to this display of unofficial hardware. A dick carried what gave him most comfort on a job in which the next opened door might mean death. The Captain knew some carried saps, brass knuckles, switch-blade knives. That was all right. They were entitled to anything that might give them that extra edge of confidence and see them through.

But what was unusual was to see them make these preparations now, as if they sensed their long watch was drawing to a close. Delaney could guess what they were thinking, what they were discussing in low voices, looking up at him nervously as he stalked by.

First of all, they were not unintelligent men; you were not promoted from patrolman to detective by passing a “stupid test.” When Captain Delaney took over command of Operation Lombard, all their efforts were concentrated on Daniel G. Blank, with investigations of other suspects halted. The dicks realized the Captain knew something they didn’t know: Danny Boy was their pigeon. Delaney was too old and experienced a cop to put his cock on the line if he wasn’t sure, of that they were certain.

Then the word got around that he had requested the Kope photo. Then the telephone men heard the taped replay, from the man tapping Danny Boy’s phone, of the phone call from Monica Gilbert. Then the special guard was placed on the Gilbert widow and her children. All that was chewed over in radio room and squad car, on lonely night watches and long hours of patrol. They knew now, or guessed, what he was up to. It was a wonder, Delaney realized, he had been able to keep it private as long as he had. Well, at least it was his responsibility. His alone. If it failed, no one else would suffer from it. If it failed…

There was no report of any activity from Danny Boy at 9:00 a.m., 9:15, 9:30, 9:45, 10:00. Early on when the vigil was first established, they had discovered a back entrance to Blank’s apartment house, a seldom-used service door that opened onto a walk leading to 82nd Street. An unmarked car, with one man, was positioned there, in full view of this back exit, with orders to report in every fifteen minutes. This unit was coded Bulldog 10, but was familiarly known as Ten-0. Now, as Delaney passed back and forth through the radio room, he heard the reports from Ten-0 and from Bulldog One, the Con Ed van parked on the street in front of the White House.

10:15, nothing, 10:30, nothing. No report of Danny Boy at 10:45, 11:00, 11:15, 11:30. Shortly before 12:00, Delaney went into his study and called Blank’s apartment. The phone rang and rang, but there was no answer. He hung up; he was worried.

He took a cab over to the hospital. Barbara seemed in a semi-comatose state and refused to eat her meal. So he sat helplessly alongside her bed, holding her limp hand, pondering his options if Blank didn’t appear for the rest of the day.

It might be that he was up there, just not answering his phone. It might be that he had slipped through their net, was long gone. And it might be that he had slit his throat after receiving the Kope photo, and was up there all right, leaking blood all over his polished floor. Delaney had told Sergeant MacDonald that Danny Boy wouldn’t suicide, but he was going by patterns, by percentages. No one knew better than he that percentages weren’t certainties.

He got back to his brownstone a little after 1:00 p.m. Ten-0 and Bulldog One had just reported in. No sign of Danny Boy. Delaney had Stryker called at the Factory. Blank hadn’t arrived at the office. The Captain went back into his study and called Blank’s apartment again. Again the phone rang and rang. No answer.

By this time, without intending to, he had communicated his mood to his men; now he wasn’t the only one pacing through the rooms, hands in pockets, head lowered. The men, he noticed, were keeping their faces deliberately expressionless, but he knew they feared what he feared: the pigeon had flown.

By two o’clock he had worked out a contingency plan. If Danny Boy didn’t show within another hour, at 3:00 p.m., he’d send a uniformed officer over to the White House with a trumped-up story that the Department had received an anonymous threat against Daniel Blank. The patrolman would go up to Blank’s apartment with the doorman, and listen. If they heard Blank moving about, or if he answered his bell, they would say it was a mistake and come away. If they heard nothing, and if Blank didn’t answer his bell, then the officer would request the doorman or manager to open Blank’s apartment with the pass-keys “just to make certain everything is all right.”

It was a sleazy plan, the Captain acknowledged. There were a hundred holes in it; it might endanger the whole operation. But it was the best he could come up with; it had to be done. If Danny Boy was long gone, or dead, they couldn’t sit around watching an empty hole. He’d order it at exactly 3:00 p.m.

He was in the radio room, and at 2:48 p.m. there was a burst of static from one of the radio speakers, then it cleared. “Barbara from Bulldog One.”

“Got you, Bulldog One.”

“Fernandez,” the voice said triumphantly. “Danny Boy just came out.”

There was a sigh in the radio room; Captain Delaney realized part of it was his.

“What’s he wearing?” he asked the radioman.

The operator started to repeat the question into his mike, but Fernandez had heard the Captain’s loud voice.

“Black topcoat,” he reported. “No hat. Hands in pockets. He’s not waiting for a cab. Walking west. Looks like he’s out for a stroll. I’ll put Bulldog Three on him, far back, and two sneaks on foot. Officer LeMolle, designated Bulldog Twenty. Officer Sanchez, designated Bulldog Forty. Got that?”

“LeMolle is Bulldog Twenty, Sanchez is Forty.”

“Right. You’ll get radio checks from them as soon as possible. Danny Boy is nearing Second Avenue now, still heading west. I’m out.”

Delaney stood next to the radio table. The other men in the room closed in, heads turned, ears to the loudspeaker.

Silence for almost five minutes. One man coughed, looked apologetically at the others.

Then, almost a whisper: “Barbara from Bulldog Twenty. Read me?”

“Soft but good, Twenty.”

“Danny Boy between Second and Third on Eighty-third, heading west. Out.” It was a woman’s voice.

“Who’s Lemolle?” Delaney asked Blankenship. “Policewoman Martha LeMolle. Her cover is a housewife-shopping bag, the whole bit.”

Delaney opened his mouth to speak, but the radio crackled again.

“Barbara from Bulldog Forty. Make me?”

“Yes, Forty. Good. Where is he?”

“Turning south on Third. Out.”

Blankenship turned to Delaney without waiting for his question. “Forty is Detective second grade Ramon Sanchez. Dressed like an orthodox Jewish rabbi.”

So when Daniel G. Blank deposited the brown paper bag in the litter basket, the housewife was less than twenty feet behind him and saw him do it, and the rabbi was across the avenue and saw him do it. They both shadowed Danny Boy back to his apartment house, but by the time he arrived they had both reported he had discarded something in a litter basket, they had given the exact location (northeast corner, Third and 82nd; and, at Delaney’s command, Blankenship had an unmarked car on the way with orders to pick up the entire basket and bring it back to the brownstone. Delaney thought it might be the ice ax.

At least twenty men crowded into the kitchen when the two plainclothesmen carried in the garbage basket and set it on the linoleum.

“I always knew you’d end up in Sanitation, Tommy,” someone called. There were a few nervous laughs.

“Empty it,” Delaney ordered. “Slowly. Put the crap on the floor. Shake out every newspaper. Look into every bag.”

The two detectives pulled on their gloves. They began to snake out the sodden packages, the neatly wrapped bags, the dead rat (handled by the tip of its tail), loose garbage, a blood-soaked towel. The stench filled the room, but no one left; they had all smelled worse odors than that.

It went slowly, for almost ten minutes, as bags were pulled out, emptied onto the floor, and tied packages were cut open and unrolled. Then one of the dicks reached in, came out with a small brown paper bag, opened it, looked inside.

“Jesus Christ!”

The waiting men said nothing, but there was a tightening of the circle; Captain Delaney felt himself pressed closer until his thighs were tight against the kitchen table. Holding the bag by the bottom, the detective slowly slid the contents out onto the tabletop. Cop’s shield.

There was something: a collective moan, a gasp, something of anguish and fear. The men peered closer.

“That’s Kope’s tin,” someone cried, voice crackling with fury. “I worked with him. That’s Kope’s number. I know it.”

Someone said: “Oh, that dirty cocksucker.”

Someone said, over and over: “Motherfucker, motherfucker, motherfucker.…”

Someone said: “Let’s get him right now. Let’s waste him.”

Delaney had been bending over, staring at the buzzer. It wasn’t hard to imagine what had happened: Daniel G. Blank had destroyed the evidence, the ID cards and rose petals flushed down the toilet or thrown into the incinerator. But this was good metal, so he figured he better ditch it. Not smart, Danny Boy.

“Let’s waste him,” someone repeated, in a louder voice.

And here was another problem, one he had hoped to avoid by keeping his knowledge of Daniel Blank’s definite guilt to himself. He knew that when a cop was killed, all cops became Sicilians. He had seen it happen: a patrolman shot down, and immediately his precinct house was flooded with cops from all over the city, wearing plaid windbreakers and business suits, shields pinned to lapels, offering to work on their own time. Was there anything they could do? Anything?

It was a mixture of fear, fury, anguish, sorrow. You couldn’t possibly understand it unless you belonged. Because it was a brotherhood, and corrupt cops, stupid cops, cowardly cops had nothing to do with it. If you were a cop, then any cop’s murder diminished you. You could not endure that.

The trouble was, Captain Edward X. Delaney acknowledged to himself, the trouble was that he could understand all this on an intellectual level without feeling the emotional involvement these men were feeling now, staring at a murdered cop’s tin. It wasn’t so much a lack in him, he assured himself, as that he looked at things differently from these furious men. To him all murders, in sanity and without conscience, demanded judgment, whether assassinated President, child thrown from rooftop, drunk knifed to death in a tavern brawl, whatever, wherever, whomever. His brotherhood was wider, larger, broader, and encompassed all, all, all…

But meanwhile, he was surrounded by a ring of blood-charged men. He knew he had only to say, “All right, let’s take him,” and they would be with him, surging, breaking down doors. Daniel G. Blank would dissolve in a million plucking bullets, torn and falling into darkness.

Captain Delaney raised his head slowly, looked around at those faces: stony, twisted, blazing.

“We’ll do it my way,” he said, keeping his voice as toneless as he could. “Blankenship, have the shield dusted. Get this mess cleaned up. Return the basket to the street corner. The rest of you men get back to your posts.”

He strode into his study, closed all the doors. He sat stolidly at his desk and listened. He heard the mutterings, shufflings of feet. He figured he had another 24 hours, no more. Then some hothead would get to Blank and gun him down. Exactly what he told Monica Gilbert he would do. But for different reasons.

About 7:30 p.m., he dressed warmly and left the house, telling the log-man he was going to the hospital. But instead, he went on his daily unannounced inspection. He knew the men on duty were aware of these unscheduled tours; he wanted them to know. He decided to walk-he had been inside, sitting, for too many hours-and he marched vigorously over to East End Avenue. He made certain Tiger One-the man watching the Castle-was in position and not goofing off. It was a game with him to spot Tiger One without being spotted. This night he won, bowing his shoulders, staring at the sidewalk, limping by Tiger One with no sign of recognition. Well, at least the kid was on duty, walking a beat across from the Castle and, Delaney hoped, not spending too much time grabbing a hot coffee somewhere or a shot of something stronger.

He walked briskly back to the White House and stood across the street, staring up at Blank’s apartment house. Hopefully, Danny Boy was tucked in for the night. Captain Delaney stared and stared. Once again he had the irrational urge to go up there and ring the bell.

“My name is Captain Edward X. Delaney, New York Police Department. I’d like to talk to you.”

Crazy. Blank wouldn’t let him in. But that’s all Delaney really wanted-just to talk. He didn’t want to collar Blank or injure him. Just talk, and maybe understand. But it was hopeless; he’d have to imagine.

He knocked on the door of the Con Ed van; it was unlocked and opened cautiously. The man at the door recognized him and swung the door wide, throwing a half-assed salute. Delaney stepped inside; the door was locked behind him. There was one man with binoculars at the concealed flap, another man at the radio desk. Three men, three shifts; counting the guy in the hole and extras, there were about 20 men assigned to Bulldog One.

“How’s it going?” he asked.

They assured him it was going fine. He looked around at the hot plate they had rigged up, the coffee percolator, a miniature refrigerator they had scrounged from somewhere.

“All the comforts of home,” he nodded.

They nodded in return, and he wished them a Happy New Year. Outside again, he paused at the hole they had dug through the pavement of East 83rd Street, exposing steam pipes, sewer lines, telephone conduits. There was one man down there, dressed like a Con Ed repairman, holding a transistor radio to his ear under his hardhat. He took it away when he recognized Delaney.

“Get to China yet?” the Captain asked, gesturing toward the shovel leaning against the side of the excavation.

The officer was black.

“Getting there, Captain,” he said solemnly, “Getting there. Slowly.”

“Many complaints from residents?”

“Oh, we got plenty of those, Captain. No shortage.”

Delaney smiled. “Keep at it. Happy New Year.”

“Same to you, sir. Many of them.”

He walked away westward, disgusted with himself. He did this sort of thing badly, he knew: talking informally with men under his command. He tried to be easy, relaxed, jovial. It just didn’t work.

One of his problems was his reputation. “Iron Balls.” But it wasn’t only his record; they sensed something in him. Every cop had to draw his own boundaries of heroism, reality, stupidity, cowardice. In a dicey situation, you could go strictly by the book and get an inspector’s funeral. Captain Edward X. Delaney would be there, wearing his Number Ones and white gloves. But all situations didn’t call for sacrifice. Some called for a reasoned response. Some called for surrender. Each man had his own limits, set his own boundaries.

But what the men sensed was that Delaney’s boundaries were narrower, stricter than theirs. Too bad there wasn’t a word for it: coppishness, copicity, copanity-something like that. “Soldiership” came close, but didn’t tell the whole story. What was needed was a special word for the special quality of being a cop.

What his men sensed, why he could never communicate with them on equal terms, was that he had this quality to a frightening degree. He was the quintessential cop, and they didn’t need any new words to know it. They understood that he would throw them into the grinder as fast as he would throw himself.

He got to the florist’s shop just as it was closing. They didn’t want to let him in, but he assured them it was an order for the following day. He described exactly what he wanted: a single longstem rose to be placed, no greenery, in a long, white florists’ box and delivered at 9:00 a.m. the next morning.

“Deliver one rose?” the clerk asked in astonishment. “Oh, sir, we’ll have to charge extra for that.”

“Of course,” Delaney nodded. “I understand. I’ll pay whatever’s necessary. Just make certain it gets there first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Would you like to enclose a card, sir?”

“I would.”

He wrote out the small white card: “Dear Dan, here’s a fresh rose for the one you destroyed.” He signed the card “Albert Feinberg,” then slid the card in the little envelope, sealed the flap, addressed the envelope to Daniel G. Blank, including his street address and apartment number.

“You’re certain it will get there by nine tomorrow morning?”

“Yes, sir. We’ll take care of it. That’s a lot of money to spend on one flower, sir. A sentimental occasion?”

“Yes,” Captain Edward X. Delaney smiled. “Something like that.”