waited in the bullpen behind the line-up stage. No one talked. For the detectives with us, the line-up was an annoying duty too early in the day. For us prisoners it was the final moment of hope; the last chance.
Ninety percent of prisoners each day are small, habitual lawbreakers. Once arraigned and charged, they know the rest by heart. They can tell you the result of the trial, and the sentence, the instant they are charged before a judge. So it is the line-up they face uneasily. The line-up is where they can still hope for release, where maybe they will still walk away free for one more day. And as each name is called, they shuffle up the steps onto the stage, nervous and with hopeful eyes. For ninety-nine out of a hundred it is a feeble hope.
My turn came, and Freedman pushed me up the four steps. I stood out under the bright lights with my head just reaching the five-foot-ten mark. It is an unnerving experience. You can never know what you look like to other people, and on that stage you know you look guilty of every crime there is.
“This specimen is Daniel Fortune,” the interrogating officer of the day announced.
I recognized the voice. It was Captain Gazzo.
10
Gazzo talked to the audience, “Fortune was picked up on a tip. He was under morphine, the tools around him. He…”
I thought about that game they play on television: To Tell the Truth. It is the line-up made into amusement for the millions. Something is wrong with people who make the pain of the line-up into a parlor game. When a man is in the line-up, he is trying to save his existence. If he lies, it is because he is desperate, because he faces pain and the terror of a cell. On the TV show a man lies for applause and a prize. If he lies well, he feels important. It makes you wonder.
“Tell us about it, Fortune,” Grazzo said.
I told them about the frame, and about my search for Weiss, but I left out Baron’s story about Weiss and the $25,000. I heard them breathing out there. Most of them were police, professional and detached, but some were ordinary citizens. The public. The gray monster. Not because they were mean or vicious, but because they don’t know, they are in the dark. They cannot know the pain of the single stranger up on the stage. That is not an accusation; it is a fact. We are all part of the gray monster until, by some stroke of chance, we are up there alone on the stage.
“Fortune has no history of junk,” Gazzo explained to the audience. “He’s got no yellow sheet. He’s a private detective, when he works at it. He’s also been a seaman, waiter, tourist guide, farmhand, laborer, actor, student, sometime journalist, and God knows what else. A middle-age roustabout. I doubt if he ever made enough to support even a small habit. How come you never work hard, Fortune?”
“I never found the work, Captain.”
I never found work worth doing for its own sake. The best I found is trying to solve other people’s problems. I’ve talked to people all over the world, and not many could ever tell me, simply and with conviction, why they work at what they do, why they went into their work, or what they get out of it. Most gave me a three-hour sales talk full of overenthusiasm and too many words. A lot just stared at me. They seemed mystified. No one had ever asked them why they worked at their work, and they had obviously never asked themselves. Maybe they were afraid to ask themselves.
“All right, Fortune, step down.”
Usually a prisoner is ordered to Felony Court, or Magistrates Court, or some such disposition. Gazzo gave no instructions on me, so I knew that where I was going had been arranged in advance. That was good to know. It meant that Gazzo and the others had only been softening me up.
I was taken across to the Annex by a detective who made no show of guarding me. In Gazzo’s office the detective left me to wait with Gazzo’s female sergeant. She is pretty, but I never had learned her name. Gazzo doesn’t really know her name. He never married, and women make him nervous. I waited an hour in silence and cigarette smoke.
“Inside,” Gazzo said when he arrived.
I sat in the dim midnight of Gazzo’s inner office, and it was hard to believe that it was early morning out in the winter city. Gazzo watched me from behind his desk. He is a hard man who has lived long enough in a hard world to leave the obvious hardness to others. An eager man no longer eager to punish.
“I had enough to cool you a week, Dan.”
“I know,” I said. “You can get to business, Captain.”
“You’ve been busy,” Gazzo said. “Upper East Side, Lower East, the Village, Westchester. All for Sammy Weiss?”
“Why not for Weiss?”
“You’re not that close to him. Did he pay you big?”
“He didn’t pay me at all.”
“You’re sure, Dan?”
It was a serious question. Gazzo had a special reason for wanting to know if Weiss had paid me. Something more than whether or not Sammy had money or I could be bought. I let it slide. If he wanted me to know, he would tell me.
“I’m sure,” I said, and then I told him what I had done, except for my trip to the morgue and Baron’s story. I told him about George Ames, the North Chester people, Carmine Costa, and what I knew of the murder.
“Weiss said he hit Radford and left him alive?” Gazzo said.
“That’s what he said. About one-thirty.”
“So we know that Radford was alive at one-fifteen when Weiss got there. I wasn’t sure of that. The doorman saw him at one. We only had the Fallon girl’s word for one-fifteen. Now Weiss agrees.”
“He was alive when Sammy left at one-thirty, too.”
“According to Weiss only. Mrs. Radford got no answer at two. We know she had no key, and there wasn’t time for her to get in, kill Radford, and still get back down in time for the doorman to see her when he did.”
Gazzo rubbed his stubble. “Everyone in the family is clear from around noon until past three o’clock. We haven’t found any suspects in Radford’s private or business life. If Weiss didn’t kill him, we’ve got fifty minutes for someone else to get in, kill, and get out unseen. And we’ve got no reasonable suspect.”
“The sister, Morgana, suspects Deirdre Fallon.”
“Swell. Only she’s got an alibi, and not much motive.”
“The engagement is pretty sudden.”
“They all agree Jonathan liked her. What does she gain?”
“Walter is the prime suspect to me,” I said. “He needed money, he was on a leash that pinched, he had most to gain, and he’s a weak, arrogant type who probably never knows what he’ll do.”
“He’s been all that for a lot of years,” Gazzo said. “Why does he kill with less than a year to wait for his money?”
“Paul Baron.”
“Walter was squeezed before; he never killed.”
“The uncle wouldn’t pay this time. He admits that.”
“It’s not enough, not with just a year to go. Anyway, show me how Walter kills from North Chester and I’ll book him.”
“What about the weapon?”
“Looks like a souvenir Malay kris Jonathan had on his desk. It’s missing.” Gazzo’s gray eyes jabbed through me. “Okay, sure, it was crazy for anyone to take the knife, but that’s just what a panicky killer might do. We all know Weiss wouldn’t plan a murder, but he’s just the type to grab the knife out of fear, and then run with it. Too scared to stop and wipe the knife, but just smart enough to know his prints would be on it. Panic.”
I changed direction. “What do you know about Paul Baron?”
“Everything, including that we have nothing against him, unless you want to make a charge.” Gazzo grinned. He knew I had no charge that could stick. When I said nothing, he went on, “After Walter Radford told us it was Baron he really owed the money to, we looked for Baron. He came in on his own late last night. After he worked on
