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
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
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.”
