Even such a Philadelphia lawyer as Lt. Marty Dorfman had admitted his confusion. “Captain,” he had said, “they’ve demolished the old guidelines without substituting a new, definite code. Even the DA’s men are walking on eggs. As I see it, until all this gets straightened out and enough precedents established, each case will be judged on its own merits, and we’ll have to take our chances. It’s the old story: ‘The cop proposes, the judge disposes.’ Only now even the judges aren’t sure. That’s why the percentage of appeals is way, way up.”
Well, start from the beginning…His search of Dan’s apartment had been illegal. Nothing he saw or learned from that search could be used in court. No doubt about that. If he had taken away Dan’s “trophies,” it would have served no purpose other than to alert Blank that his apartment had been tossed, that he was under suspicion.
Now what about a search warrant? On what grounds? That Dan owned an ice ax of a type possibly used to kill four men? And, of course, of a type owned by hundreds of people all over the world. That blood of Dan’s type had been found at the scene of the most recent homicide? How many people had that blood type? That he possessed a can of light machine oil that a thousand other New Yorkers owned? And all of these facts established only by an illegal break-in. Or tell the judge that Daniel G. Blank was a known mountaineer and was suspected of carrying two dummy Christmas packages the night Albert Feinberg was slain? Delaney could imagine the judge’s reaction to a request for a search warrant on those grounds.
No, he
Later, when Blank was set free, as he was certain to be, Broughton would denounce “permissive justice,” “slack criminal laws,” “handcuffing the cops, not the crooks.” The fact that Blank walked away a free man would have little importance to Broughton compared to the publicity of the suspect’s release, the public outcry, the furtherance of exactly what the Group wanted.
But if Dan couldn’t legally-
Delaney ceased pondering, his head crooked over his shoulder. There was a man standing in the lighted lobby, talking to one of the doormen. The man was tall, slender, wearing a black topcoat, no hat. Delaney stopped midstride, took a sham look at a nonexistent wristwatch, made a gesture of impatience, turned in his tracks, walked toward the lobby. He should apply for an Actors Equity card, he thought; he really should.
He came abreast of the lobby, across the street, just as Daniel Blank exited from the glass doors and stood a moment. It was undeniably him: wide shoulders, slim hips, handsome with vaguely Oriental features. His left hand was thrust into his topcoat pocket. Delaney glanced long enough to watch him sniff the night air, button up his coat with his right hand, turn up the collar. Then Blank walked down the driveway, turned west in the direction Delaney was moving across the street.
Ah there, the Captain thought. Out for a stroll, Danny boy?
“Danny Boy.” The phrase amused him; he began to hum the tune. He matched Blank’s speed, and when Dan crossed Second Avenue, Delaney crossed on his side, keeping just a little behind his target. He was good at tailing, but not nearly as good as, say, Lt. Jeri Fernandez, known to his squad as the “Invisible Man.”
The problem was mainly one of physical appearance. Delaney was obvious. He was tall, big, stooped, lumbering, with a shapeless black overcoat, a stiff Homburg set squarely atop his heavy head. He could change his costume but not the man he was.
Fernandez was average and middle. Average height, middle weight, no distinguishing features. On a tail, he wore clothes a zillion other men wore. More than that, he had mastered the rhythm of the streets, a trick Delaney could never catch. Even within a single city, New York, people moved differently on different streets. In the Garment District they trotted and shoved. On Fifth Avenue they walked at a slower tempo, pausing to look in shop windows. On Park Avenue and upper eastside cross streets they sauntered. Wherever he tailed, Fernandez picked up the rhythm of the street, unconsciously, and moved like a wraith. Set him down in Brussels, Cairo, or Tokyo, the Captain was convinced, and Lt. Jeri Fernandez would take one quick look around and become a resident. Delaney wished he could do it.
But he did what he could, performed what tricks he knew. When Blank turned the corner onto Third Avenue, Delaney crossed the street to move up behind him. He increased his speed to tail from in front. The Captain stopped to look in a store window, watched the reflection in the glass as Blank passed him. Delaney took up a following tail again, dropping behind a couple, dogging their heels closely. If Blank looked back, he’d see a group of three.
Dan was walking slowly. Delaney’s covering couple turned away. He continued in his steady pace, passing his quarry again. He was conscious that Blank was now close behind him, but he felt no particular fear. The avenue was well-lighted; there were people about. Danny Boy might be crazy, but he wasn’t stupid. Besides, Delaney was certain, he always approached his victims from the front.
Delaney walked another half-block and stopped. He had lost him. He knew it, without turning to look. Instinct? Something atavistic? Fuck it. He just knew it. He turned back, searched, cursed his own stupidity. He should have known, or at least wondered.
Halfway down the block was a pet shop, still open, front window brilliantly lighted. Behind the glass were pups-fox terriers, poodles, spaniels-all frolicking on torn newspaper, and gumming each other, pissing, shitting up a storm, pressing noses and paws against the window where at least half a dozen people stood laughing, tapping the glass, saying things like “Kitchy-koo.” Daniel Blank was one of them.
He should have guessed, he repeated to himself. Even the dullest dick three learned that a high percentage of killers were animal lovers. They kept dogs, cats, parakeets, pigeons, even goldfish. They treated their pets with tender, loving care, feeding them at great expense, hustling them to the vet at the first sign of illness, talking to them, caressing them. Then they killed a human being, cutting off the victim’s nipples or slicing open the abdomen or shoving a beer bottle up the ass. Captain Edward X. Delaney really didn’t want to know the explanation of this predilection of animal lovers for homicide. It was difficult enough, after years of experience, to assimilate the facts of these things happening. The facts themselves were hard enough to accept; who had the time or stomach for explanations?
Then Blank moved off, crossed the street, dodging oncoming traffic. Delaney tailed him on his side of the avenue, but when Dan went into a large, two-window liquor store, the Captain crossed and stood staring at the shop’s window display. He was not alone; there were two couples inspecting Christmas gift packages, wicker baskets of liqueurs, cases of imported wine. Delaney inspected them, too, or appeared to. His head was tilted downward just enough so that he could observe Daniel Blank inside the store.
Dan’s actions were not puzzling. He took a paper from his righthand pocket, unfolded it, handed it to the clerk. The clerk glanced at it and nodded. The clerk took a bottle of Scotch from a shelf, showed it to Blank. The bottle was in a box, gift-wrapped, a red plastic bow on top. Blank inspected it and approved. The clerk replaced the bottle on the shelf. Blank took several sealed cards from his pocket. They looked to Delaney, standing outside, like Christmas cards. The clerk ran off a tape on an electric adding machine, showed it to Blank. Dan took a wallet from his pocket, extracted some bills, paid in cash. The clerk gave him change. The clerk kept the sheet of paper and the envelopes. They smiled at each other. Blank left the store. It wasn’t difficult to understand; Dan was sending several bottles of holiday-wrapped Scotch to several people, several addresses. He left his list and identical cards to be enclosed with each gift. He paid for the liquor and the delivery fee. So?
Delaney tailed him away from the store, south three blocks, east two blocks, north four blocks. Dan walked steadily, alertly; the Captain admired the way he moved: balls of feet touching before the heels came down. But he didn’t dawdle, apparently wasn’t inspecting, searching. Just getting a breath of air. Delaney was back and forth, across, behind, in front, quartering like a good pointer. Nothing.
In less than a half-hour, Dan was back in his apartment house, headed for the bank of elevators, and eventually disappeared. Delaney, across the street, took a swallow of brandy, ate half his bologna and onion sandwich as he paced, watching. He belched suddenly. Understandable. Brandy and bologna and onion?
Was Dan in for the night? Maybe, maybe not. In any event, Delaney would be there until dawn. Blank’s stroll had been-well, inconclusive. It made sense, but the Captain had a nagging feeling of having missed something. What? The man had been under his direct observation for-oh, well, say 75 percent of the time he had been out on the street. He had acted like any other completely innocent evening stroller, out to buy some Christmas booze for his friends, doormen, acquaintances. So?
It did nag. Something. Delaney re-wrapped his half-sandwich, continued his routine pacing. Now the thing to
