worry about that guy's wife and kids? Stop being a damned fool, will you, Tim?'
That was the answer I got to my suggestion that we let Earl Bogen get in and see his family and have his Christmas and catch him on the way out. What was there to lose, I'd said. Give the guy a break, I'd said. I'd known, of course, that Mortell wouldn't have any part of that, but I'd had to try anyhow. Even though I knew the lieutenant would think of the same thing I had — that when it came time to go, Bogen might be twice as hard to take.
McKee's bored young voice cut into my thoughts: 'You think he'll really be armed? Bogen, I mean.'
'I think so.'
'I'm glad Mortell told us not to take any chances with him, that if he even makes a move that looks like he's going for a piece, we give it to him. He's a smart old cop, Mortell.'
'That's what they say. But did you ever look at his eyes?'
'What's the matter with his eyes?' McKee said.
'Skip it,' I said. 'A bus has stopped.'
We knew Earl Bogen had no car; we doubted he'd rent one or take a cab. He was supposed to be short of dough. A city bus from town stopped up at the corner. When he came he'd be on that, most likely. But he wasn't on this one. A lone woman got off and turned up the Avenue. I let out a slight sigh and looked at the radium dial of my watch. Ten-fifty. Another hour and ten minutes and we'd be relieved; it wouldn't happen on our tour. I hoped that was the way it would be. It was possible. The stoolie could have been wrong about the whole thing. Or something could have happened to change Bogen's plans, or at least to postpone his visit to the next day. I settled back to wait for the next bus.
McKee said: 'Have you ever killed a guy, Sarge?'
'No,' I said. 'I never had to. But I've been there when someone else did.'
'Yeah? What's it like?' McKee's voice took on an edge of excitement. 'I mean for the guy who did the shooting? How'd he feel about it?'
'I don't know. I didn't ask him. But I'll tell you how he looked. He looked as though he was going to be sick to his stomach, as though he should've been but couldn't be.'
'Oh,' McKee said. He sounded disappointed.
'How about the guy that was shot? What'd he do? I've never seen a guy shot.'
'Him?' I said. 'Oh, he screamed.'
'Screamed?'
'Yeah. Did you ever hear a child scream when it's had a door slammed on its fingers? That's how he screamed. He got shot in the groin.'
'Oh, I see,' McKee said, but he didn't sound as though he really did. I thought that McKee was going to be what they called a good cop — a nice, sane, completely insensitive type guy. For the millionth time I told myself that I ought to get out. Not after tonight's tour, not next month, next week, tomorrow, but right now. It would be the best Christmas present in the world I could give myself and my family. And at the same time I knew I never would do that. I didn't know exactly why. Fear of not being able to make a living outside; fear of winding up a burden to everybody in my old age the way my father was — those were some reasons but not the whole thing. If I talk about how after being a cop so long it gets in your blood no matter how you hate it, that sounds phony. And it would sound even worse if I said one reason I stuck was in hopes that I could make up for some of the others, that I could do some good sometimes.
'If I get to shoot Bogen,' McKee said, 'he won't scream.'
'Why not?'
'You know how I shoot. At close range like that, I'll put one right through his eye.'
'Sure, you will,' I told him. 'Except that you won't have the chance. We'll get him, quietly. We don't want any shooting in a neighborhood like this on Christmas Eve.'
Then we saw the lights of the next bus stop up at the corner. A man and a woman got off. The woman turned up the Avenue. The man, medium height but very thin, and his arms loaded with packages, started up the street.
'Here he comes,' I said. 'Get out of the car, McKee.'
We both got out, one on each side. The man walking toward us from the corner couldn't see us. The street was heavily shaded by strings of Australian pine planted along the walk.
'McKee,' I said. 'You know what the orders are. When we get up to him, Thrasher will reach him first and shove his gun into Bogen's back. Then you grab his hands and get the cuffs on him fast. I'll be back a few steps covering you. Mortell'll be behind Thrasher, covering him. You got it?'
'Right,' McKee said.
We kept walking, first hurrying a little, then slowing down some, so that we'd come up to Bogen, who was walking toward us, just right, before he reached the house where his family was but not before he'd passed Mortell and Thrasher's car.
When we were only a few yards from Bogen, he passed through an open space, where the thin slice of moon filtered down through tree branches. Bogen wore no hat, just a sport jacket and shirt and slacks. He was carrying about six packages, none of them very large but all of them wrapped with gaudily colored paper, foil and ribbon. Bogen's hair was crew cut, instead of long the way it was in police pictures and he'd grown a mustache; but none of that was much of a disguise.
Just then he saw us and hesitated in his stride. Then he stopped. Thrasher, right behind him, almost bumped into him. I heard Thrasher's bull-froggy voice say: 'Drop those packages and put your hands up, Bogen. Right now!'
He dropped the packages. They tumbled about his feet on the sidewalk and two of them split open. A toy racing car was in one of them. It must have been still slightly wound up because when it broke out of the package, the little motor whirred and the tiny toy car spurted across the sidewalk two or three feet. From the other package, a small doll fell and lay on its back on the sidewalk, its big, painted eyes staring upward. It was what they call a picture doll, I think; anyhow, it was dressed like a bride. From one of the other packages a liquid began to trickle out onto the sidewalk and I figured that had been a bottle of Christmas wine for Bogen and his wife.
But when Bogen dropped the packages, he didn't raise his hands. He spun around and the sound of his elbow hitting Thrasher's face was a sickening one. Then I heard Thrasher's gun go off as he squeezed the trigger in a reflex action, but the flash from his gun was pointed at the sky.
I raised my own gun just as Bogen reached inside his jacket but I never got to use it. McKee used his. Bogen's head went back as though somebody had jolted him under the chin with the heel of a hand. He staggered backward, twisted and fell.
I went up to Bogen with my flash. The bullet from McKee's gun had entered Bogen's right eye and there was nothing there now but a horrible hole. I moved the flash beam just for a moment, I couldn't resist it, to McKee's face. The kid looked very white but his eyes were bright with excitement and he didn't look sick at all. He kept licking his lips, nervously. He kept saying: 'He's dead. You don't have to be worrying about him, now. He's dead.'
Front door lights began to go on then in nearby houses and people began coming out of them. Mortell shouted to them: 'Go on back inside. There's nothing to see. Police business. Go on back inside.'
Of course, most of them didn't do that. They came and looked, although we didn't let them get near the body. Thrasher radioed back to Headquarters. Mortell told me: 'Tim, go tell his wife. And tell her she'll have to come down and make final identification for us.'
'Me?' I said. 'Why don't you send McKee? He's not the sensitive type. Or why don't you go? This whole cute little bit was your idea, anyhow, Lieutenant, remember?'
'Are you disobeying an order?'
Then I thought of something. 'No,' I told him. 'It's all right. I'll go.'
I left them and went to the house where Bogen's wife and kids lived. When she opened the door, I could see past her into the cheaply, plainly-furnished living room that somehow didn't look that way now, in the glow from the decorated tree. I could see the presents placed neatly around the tree. And peering around a corner of a bedroom, I saw the eyes, big with awe, of a little girl about six and a boy about two years older.
Mrs. Bogen saw me standing there and looked a little frightened. 'Yes?' she said. 'What is it?'
I thought about the newspapers, then. I thought: 'What's the use? It'll be in the newspapers tomorrow,
