The 1st Deadly Sin

them. They said they’d discuss it and let him know within a week. He felt good about it, but resolved not to be too optimistic when he discussed it with Monica. In case…

He turned into his own block. It had not yet been equipped with the new street lights, and far ahead, in the gloom, he saw a man walking toward him. Naturally, he was alerted-at that hour, in this city. But as they drew closer he saw the other man was about his age, well-dressed, coat flapping wide. He was striding along jauntily, left hand in his pocket, right arm swinging free.

They came close. Bernard Gilbert saw the other man was staring at him. But he was smiling. Gilbert smiled in return. Obviously the man lived in the neighborhood and wanted to be friendly. Gilbert decided he would say, “Good-evening.”

They were two steps apart, and he had said, “Good-” when the man’s right hand darted beneath the open flap of his coat and came out with something with a handle, something with a point, something that gleamed even in the dull street light.

Bernard Gilbert never did say, “-evening.” He knew he halted and drew back. But the thing was in the air, swinging down. He tried to lift a defending arm, but it was too heavy. He saw the man’s face, handsome and tender, and there was no hate there, nor madness, but a kind of ardor. Something struck high on Bernard Gilbert’s forehead, slamming him down, and he knew he was falling, felt the crash of sidewalk against his back, wondered what had happened to his newfound joy, and heard God say, “Okay, Bernie, enough’s enough.”

Part V 1

Three times a week a commercial messenger arrived at Captain Delaney’s home with copies of the most recent Operation Lombard reports. Delaney noted they were becoming fewer and shorter, and Chief Pauley was sending his detectives back to recheck matters already covered: Lombard’s private life and political career; possible links with organized crime; any similar assaults or homicides in the 251st Precinct, neighboring precincts, and eventually all of Manhattan, then all of New York; and then queries to the FBI and the police departments of large cities asking for reports of homicides of a similar nature.

Delaney admired Chief Pauley’s professional competence. The Chief had assembled a force of almost 500 detectives brought in from all over the city. Many of these men Delaney knew personally or by reputation, and they included assault specialists, weapons technicians, men familiar with the political jungle, and detectives whose success was based on their interrogative techniques.

The result was nil: no angle, no handle, no apparent motive. Chief Pauley, in a confidential memo to Deputy Commissioner Broughton, had even suggested a possibility that Delaney himself had considered: the snuff had been committed by a policeman angered by Lombard’s public attacks on the efficiency of the Department. Pauley didn’t believe it.

Captain Delaney didn’t either. A policeman would probably kill with a gun. But most career cops, who had seen mayors, commissioners, and politicians of all ranks come and go, would shrug off Lombard’s criticism as just some more publicity bullshit, and go about their jobs.

The more Delaney pondered the killing, the more Operation Lombard reports he studied, the more firmly he became convinced that it was a motiveless crime. Not motiveless to the killer, of course, but motiveless to any rational man. Lombard had been a chance victim.

Delaney tried to fill up his hours. He visited his wife in the hospital twice a day, at noon and in the early evening. He did some brief interrogations of his own, visiting Frank Lombard’s partner, his mother, and a few of his political associates. For these interviews Delaney wore his uniform and badge, risking Broughton’s wrath if he should somehow discover what Delaney was up to. But it was all a waste of time; he learned nothing of value.

One evening, despairing of his failure to make any meaningful progress, he took a long pad of legal notepaper, yellow and ruled, and headed it “The Suspect.” He then drew a line down the center of the page. The lefthand column he headed “Physical,” the righthand column “Psychological.” He resolved to write down everything he knew or suspected about the killer. Under “Physical” he listed:

“Probably male, white.”

“Tall, probably over six feet.”

“Strong and young. Under 35?”

“Of average or good appearance. Possibly well-dressed.”

“Very quick with good muscular coordination. An athlete?” Under “Psychological” he listed:

“Cool, determined.”

“Driven by unknown motive.”

“Psychopath? Unruh type?”

At the bottom of the page he made a general heading he called “Additional Notes.” Under this he listed:

“Third person involved? Because of stolen license as ‘proof of homicide.’”

“Resident of 251st Precinct?”

Then he reread his list. It was, he admitted, distressingly skimpy. But just the act of writing down what he knew-or guessed, rather; he knew nothing-made him feel better. It was all smoke and shadows. But he began to feel someone was there. Someone dimly glimpsed…

He read the list again, and again, and again. He kept coming back to the notation “Driven by unknown motive.”

In all his personal experiences with and research on psychopathic killers he had never come across or read of a killer totally without motive. Certainly the motive might be irrational, senseless, but in every case, particularly those involving multiple murders, the killer had a “motive.” It might be as obvious as financial gain; it might be an incredible philosophical structure as creepy and cheap as an Eiffel Tower built of glued toothpicks.

But however mad the assassin, he had his reasons: the slights of society, the whispers of God, the evil of man, the demands of political faith, the fire of ego, the scorn of women, the terrors of loneliness…whatever. But he had his reasons. Nowhere, in Delaney’s experience or in his readings, existed the truly motiveless killer, the quintessentially evil man who slew as naturally and casually as another man lighted a cigarette or picked his nose.

There was no completely good man alive upon this earth and, Delaney believed-hoped! — there was no completely evil man. It was not a moral problem; it was just that no man was complete, in any way. So the killer of Frank Lombard had crushed his skull for a reason, a reason beyond logic and sense, but for a purpose that had meaning to him, twisted and contorted though it might be.

Sitting there in the gloom of his study, reading and rereading his sad little “Portrait of a Killer,” Edward Delaney thought of this man existing, quite possibly not too far from where he now sat. He wondered what this man might be thinking and dreaming, might be hoping and planning.

In the morning he made his own breakfast, since it had been arranged that their day-only maid, Mary, would go directly from her home to the hospital, bringing Barbara fresh nightgowns and an address book she had requested. Delaney drank a glass of tomato juice, doggedly ate his way through two slices of unbuttered whole wheat toast, and drank two cups of black coffee. He scanned the morning paper as he ate. The Lombard story had fallen back to page 14. It said, in essence, there was nothing to say.

Wearing his winter overcoat, for the November day was chill, and the air smelled of snow, Delaney left the house before ten a.m. and walked over to Second Avenue, to a phone booth in a candy store. He dialed Deputy Inspector Thorsen’s answering service, left his phone booth number, hung up, waited patiently. Thorsen was back to him within five minutes. “I have nothing to report,” Delaney said flatly. “Nothing.” Thorsen must have caught something in his tone, for he attempted to soothe.

“Take it easy, Edward. Broughton doesn’t have anything either.”

“I know.”

“But I have some good news for you.”

“What’s that?”

“We were able to get your Lieutenant Dorfman a temporary appointment as Acting Commander of the Two-