“Captain,” he said. “I don’t see why we can’t cooperate on this.”
“Cooperation!” the Chilton Chief cried unexpectedly. “That’s what makes the world go ’round!”
They went to work, and by midnight they had it pretty well squared away, although many of the men and much of the equipment they had requisitioned had not yet arrived. But at least they had a tentative plan, filled it in and revised it as they went along.
The first thing they did was to establish a four-man walking patrol around the base of Devil’s Needle, the sentries carrying shotguns and sidearms. The walkers did four hours on, and eight off.
Delaney’s snipers established their blind in the fir copse, sitting crossed-legged atop folded blankets. They had mounted their scopes, donned black sweaters and pants, socks and shoes, jackets and tight black gloves. Each wore a flak vest on watch.
Squad cars were driven in as close as possible; their headlights and searchlights were used to illuminate the scene. Portable battery lanterns were set out to open up the shadows. Captain Delaney had called Special Operations and requisitioned a generator truck and a flatbed of heavy searchlights with cables long enough so the lights could be set up completely around Devil’s Needle.
Captain Bertram Sneed was bringing in a field radio receiver-transmitter; the local power company was running in a temporary line. The local telephone company was bringing in extra lines and setting up pay phones for the press.
Major Samuel Barnes had not yet put in an appearance, but Delaney spoke to him on the phone. Barnes was snappish and all business. He promised to reshuffle his patrol schedules and send another twenty troopers over by bus as soon as possible. He was also working on the road blocks, and expected to have the Chilton area sealed off by dawn.
He and Delaney agreed on some ground rules. Delaney would be the on-the-spot commander with Sneed acting as his deputy. But Major Barnes would be nominal commander when the first report to the press was made, calling the siege of Devil’s Needle a “joint operation” of New York State and New York City police. All press releases were to be okayed by both sides; no press conferences were to be held or interviews granted without representatives of both sides present.
Before agreeing. Captain Delaney called Deputy Inspector Thorsen to explain the situation and outline the terms of the oral agreement with the State. Thorsen said he'd call back; Delaney suspected he was checking with Deputy Mayor Alinski. In any event, Thorsen called back shortly and gave him the okay.
Little of what they accomplished would have been possible without the aid of Chief Evelyn Forrest. Laconic, unflappable, never rushing, the man was a miracle of efficiency, joshing the executives of the local power and telephone companies to get their men cracking.
It was Forrest who brought out a highway crew to open up the shut-off water fountains in the Park and set up two portable chemical toilets. The Chief also got the Chilton High School, closed for the Christmas holiday, to open up the gymnasium, to be used as a dormitory for the officers assigned to Devil’s Needle. Cots, mattresses, pillows and blankets were brought in from the county National Guard armory. Forrest even remembered to alert the Chilton disaster unit; they provided a van with sides that folded down to form counters. They served hot coffee and doughnuts in the Park around the clock, the van staffed by lady volunteers.
Chief Forrest had offered Captain Delaney the hospitality of his home, but the Captain opted for a National Guard cot set up in the gate-keeper’s cottage. But, the night being unexpectedly chill, he did accept the Chief’s loan of a coat. What a garment it was! Made of grey herringbone tweed, it was lined with raccoon fur with a wide collar of beaver. It came to Delaney’s ankles, the cuffs to his knuckles. The weight of it bowed his shoulders, but it was undeniably warm.
“My daddy’s coat,” Chief Forrest said proudly. “Made in Philadelphia in Nineteen-and-one. Can’t buy a coat like that these days.”
So they all worked hard, and Delaney had one moment of laughing fear when he thought of what fools they’d all look if it turned out that somehow Daniel G. Blank had already climbed down off his perch and escaped into the night. But he put that thought away from him.
Shortly after dark they started bullhorn appeals to the fugitive, to be repeated every hour on the hour:
“Daniel Blank, this is the police. You are surrounded and have no chance of escape. Come down and you will not be hurt. You will be given a fair trial, represented by legal counsel. Come down now and save yourself a lot of trouble. Daniel Blank, you will not be injured in any way if you come down now. You have no chance of escape.”
“Do any good, you think?” Forrest asked Delaney.
“No.”
“Well,” the Chief sighed, “at least it’ll make it harder for him to get some sleep.”
By 11:30 p.m., Delaney felt bone-weary and cruddy, wanted nothing more than a hot bath and eight hours of sleep. Yet when he lay down on his cold cot without undressing, just to rest for a few moments, he could not close his eyes, but lay stiffly awake, brain churning, nerves jangling. He rose, pulled on that marvelous coat, walked out onto the porch.
There were a lot of men still about-detectives and troopers, power and telephone repairmen, highway crews, reporters, television technicians. Delaney leaned against the railing, observed that all of them, sooner or later, went wandering off, affecting nonchalance, but looking back in guilt, anxious to see if anyone had noted their departure, half-ashamed of what they were doing. He knew what they were doing; they were going to Devil’s Needle to stand, stare up and wonder.
He did the same thing himself, drawn against his will. He went as far as the rock outcrops, then stepped back into the shadow of a huge, leafless sugar maple. From there he could see the slowly circling sentries, the sniper sitting patiently on his blanket, rifle cradled on one arm. And there were all the men who had come to watch, standing with heads thrown back, mouths open, eyes turned upward.
Then there was the palely illumined bulk of Devil’s Needle itself, looming like a veined apparition in the night. Captain Delaney, too, lifted his head, opened his mouth, turned his eyes upward. Above the stone, dimly, he could see stars whirling their courses in a black vault that went on forever.
He felt a vertigo, not so much of the body as of the spirit. He had never been so unsure of himself. His life seemed giddy and without purpose. Everything was toppling. His wife was dying and Devil’s Needle was falling. Monica Gilbert hated him and that man up there, that man…he knew it all. Yes,
Captain Edward X. Delaney decided, that man now knew it all, or was moving toward it with purpose and delight.
He became conscious of someone standing near him. Then he heard the words.
“…soon as I could,” Thomas Handry was saying. “Thanks for the tip. I filed a background story and then drove up. I’m staying at a motel just north of Chilton.”
Delaney nodded.
“You all right, Captain?”
“Yes. I’m all right.”
Handry turned to look at Devil’s Needle. Like the others, his head went back, mouth opened, eyes rolled up.
Suddenly they heard the bullhorn boom. It was midnight.
The bullhorn clicked off. The watching men strained their eyes upward. There was no movement atop Devil’s Needle.
“He’s not coming down, is he, Captain?” Handry asked softly.
“No,” Captain Delaney said wonderingly. “He’s not coming down.”
6
He awoke the first morning on Devil’s Needle, and it seemed to him he had been dreaming. He remembered a voice calling, “Daniel Blank…Daniel Blank…” That could have been his mother because she always used his full name. “Daniel Blank, have you done your homework? Daniel Blank, I want you to go to the store for me. Daniel Blank, did you wash your hands?” That was strange, he realized for the first time-she never called him Daniel or
