Mother of Mercy Hospital for suicide attempts. Slashed wrists, and once her stomach had to be pumped out. We’re checking other hospitals, but nothing definite yet.”
“The kid seems to be a young fag,” Blankenship said, “but no one’s given me anything yet that makes a pattern. Like Pops said, it’s a weird set-up. I don’t think anyone knows what’s going on over there. Nothing we can chart, anyway. She’s in, she’s out, at all hours of the day and night. She was gone for two days. Where was she? We don’t know and won’t until we put a special tail on her. Captain?”
“No,” Delaney said. “Not yet. Keep at it.”
Keep at it. Keep at it. That’s all they heard from him, and they did because he seemed to know what he was doing, radiated an aura of confidence, never appeared to doubt that if they all kept at it, they’d nail this psycho and the killings would stop.
Daniel G. Blank. Captain Delaney knew his name, and now the others did, too. Had to. The men on the street, in the Con Ed van, in the unmarked cars adopted, by common consent, the code name “Danny Boy” for the man they watched. They had his photo now, reprinted by the hundreds, they knew his home address and shadowed his comings and goings. But they were told only that he was a “suspect.”
Sometime during that week, Captain Delaney could never recall later exactly when, he scheduled his first press conference. It was held in the now empty detectives’ squad room of the 251st Precinct house. There were reporters from newspapers, magazines, local TV news programs. The cameras were there, too, and the lights were hot. Captain Delaney wore his Number Ones and delivered, from memory, a brief statement he had labored over a long time the previous evening.
“My name is Captain Edward X. Delaney,” he started, standing erect, staring into the TV cameras, hoping the sweat on his face didn’t show. “I have been assigned command of Operation Lombard. This case, as you all know, involves the apparently unconnected homicides of four men: Frank Lombard, Bernard Gilbert, Detective Roger Kope, and Albert Feinberg. I have spent several days going through the records of Operation Lombard during the time it was commanded by former Deputy Commissioner Broughton. There is nothing in that record that might possibly lead to the indictment, conviction, or even identification of a suspect. It is a record of complete and utter failure.”
There was a gasp from the assembled reporters; they scribbled furiously. Delaney didn’t change expression, but he was grinning inwardly. Did Broughton really think he could talk to Delaney the way he had and not pay for it, eventually? The Department functioned on favors. It also functioned on vengeance. Run for mayor, would he? Lots of luck, Broughton!
“So,” Captain Delaney continued, “because there is such a complete lack of evidence in the files of Operation Lombard while it was under the command of former Deputy Commissioner Broughton, I am starting from the beginning, with the death of Frank Lombard, and intend to conduct a totally new investigation into the homicides of all four men. I promise you nothing, I prefer to be judged by my acts rather than by my words. This is the first and last press conference I intend to hold until I either have the killer or am relieved of command. I will not answer any questions.”
An hour after this brief interview, shown in its entirety, appeared on local TV news programs, Captain Delaney received a package at his home. It was brought into his study by one of the uniformed patrolmen on guard duty at the outside door-a 24-hour watch. No one went in or out without showing a special pass Delaney had printed up, issued only to bona fide members of Operation Lombard. The patrolman placed the package on Delaney’s desk.
“Couldn’t be a bomb, could it, Captain?” he asked anxiously. “You was on TV tonight, you know.”
“I know,” the Captain nodded. He inspected the package, then picked it up gingerly. He tilted it gently, back and forth. Something sloshed.
“No,” he said to the nervous officer, “I don’t think it’s a bomb. But you did well to suggest it. You can return to your post.”
“Yes, sir,” the young patrolman said, saluted and left.
Handsome, Delaney thought, but those sideburns were too goddamned long.
He opened the package. It was a bottle of 25-year-old brandy with a little envelope taped to the side. Delaney opened the bottle and sniffed; first things first. He wanted to taste it immediately. Then he opened the sealed envelope. A stiff card. Two words: “Beautiful” and “Alinski.”
The mood of the “war councils” changed imperceptibly in the three days before Christmas. It was obvious they now had a working, efficient organization. Danny Boy was blanketed by spooks every time he stepped outside home or office. Blankenship’s bookkeeping and communications were beyond reproach. Detective sergeant MacDonald’s snoops had built up a file on Blank that took up three drawers of a locked cabinet in Delaney’s study. It included the story of his refusal to attend his parents’ funeral and a revealing interview with a married woman in Boston who agreed to give her impressions of Daniel Blank while he was in college, under the cover story that Blank was being considered for a high-level security government job. Her comments were damning, but nothing that could be presented to a grand jury. Blank’s ex-wife had remarried and was presently on an around-the-world honeymoon cruise.
During those last three days before Christmas, the impression was growing amongst Delaney’s assistants-he could
“Maybe he’s on to us,” Blankenship. “Maybe he knows the decoys are out every night, and he’s being tailed.”
“Can’t be,” Fernandez growled angrily. “No way. He don’ even
“I don’t know what else we can do,” MacDonald confessed. “We’ve got him sliced up so thin I can see right through him. Birth certificate, diplomas, passport, bank statements-everything. You’ve seen the file. The man’s laid out there, bareassed naked. Read the file and you’ve got him. Sure, maybe he’s a psychopath, capable of killing I guess. He’s a cold, smart, slick sonofabitch. But take him into court on what we’ve got? Uh-uh. Never. That’s my guess.”
“Keep at it,” Captain Edward X. Delaney said.
Things slowed down on Christmas Eve. That was natural, men wanted to be home with their families. Squads were cut to a minimum (mostly bachelors or volunteers), and men sent home early. Delaney spent that quiet afternoon in his study, reading once again through his original Daniel G. Blank file and the great mass of material assembled by Pops and his squad who seemed to get their kicks sifting through dusty documents, military records, tax returns.
He read it all once more, sipping slowly from a balloon glass of that marvelous brandy Alinski had sent. He would have to call the Deputy Mayor to thank him, or perhaps mail a thank-you note, but meanwhile Alinski’s envelope was added to the stack of unopened Christmas cards and presents that had accumulated in a corner of the study. He’d get to them, eventually, or take them over to Barbara when she was well enough to open them and enjoy them.
So he sipped brandy through a long Christmas Eve afternoon (the usual conference had been cancelled). As he read, the belief grew in him that the chilling of Danny Boy would come about through the man’s personality, not by any clever police work, the discovery of a “clue,” or by a sudden revelation of friend or lover.
Who was Daniel G. Blank? Who
Delaney was fascinated by him because he seemed to be two men. He had been a cold, lonely boy who grew up in what apparently had been a loveless home. No record of juvenile delinquency. He was quiet, collected rocks and, until college, didn’t show any particular interest in girls. Then he refused to attend his parents’ funeral. That seemed significant to Delaney. How could anyone, no matter how young, do a thing like that? There was a callous brutality about it that was frightening.
Then there was his marriage-what was it Lipsky had called her? A big
