bulletin board on which, in addition to items of more importance, there were two small posters.
One pictured a blue-uniformed police officer guarding a school crossing, set in an idealized suburban America of the mid-1950s.
The caption read,
'The Police Officer is your friend. Trust him ' The other, hand-lettered by an anonymous precinct-house philosopher, proclaimed simply,
'God loves Negroes. That's why there's so many of them.'
'I found the girl,' Hearn said.
'Apartment Three-C?'
Hearn nodded.
'A high-priced hooker,' he said, 'unless my eyesight is failing. What I don't know is whether she's doing bar pickups or whether she has a little black book. There's no other female in the building who Ryder would have been on top of.'
'Did you show her Ryder's picture?'
'She recognized it. And she wouldn't talk sa 'Okay,' said Shassad casually but with dissatisfaction @ know what's next.'
By the next morning, Shassad had obtained four extra detectives, two teams of two, to aid in the Ryder case. A surveillance unit in a panel truck was placed on Seventy-third Street to observe Debbie Moran. At four fifty that afternoon she emerged from her building, hailed a yellow cab, and led two detectives in a plain car to Gypsys Bar at Fifty-fifth between Sixth and Seventh avenues.
Ten minutes later an undercover detective from the Midtown Anti-Vice Squad (known in the police vulgate as the 'Pussy Possie') entered the bar. The detective's name was Samuel McGowan. His partner was a policewoman named Theresa Duchecki, better known as Saint Theresa for reasons which were dear to anyone who'd met her. McGowan was wired.
McGowan spotted Debbie sitting alone at the center of the bar.
He approached the bar and seated himself at the far right end. He watched the clock until twenty minutes past five. Then, certain that she'd been watching him, he initiated an aimless conversation.
Several minutes passed. Debbie wanted to know if she was wasting her time.
'Look,' she finally purred, leaning slightly forward so that McGowan could look down her dress, 'what do you say we cut out the talk and have some fun?'
'I'm having fun right now,' he said.
'Come on, sugar,' she intoned,
'I have a nice apartment where I'm all alone.'
'I don't know,' he said, fidgeting with his drink.
'You look like the type of guy who'll pay to have a super evening.'
Pay?'
'Don't you like what you see, sugar?'
'Sure,' he stammered, 'but, uh, well… How much?'
'A hundred and fifty dollars,' she whispered, never suspecting that the cigarette case in his pocket contained a microphone and no tobacco.
'You get whatever you want twice. And I have to be back here by ten o'clock' 'Let's go' he said.
They went, but not to Seventy-third Street. They were no farther than the sidewalk when they were joined by Saint Theresa. They didn't have to tell Debbie she was under arrest. She knew immediately.
'We've pegged something wrong somewhere,' Hearn said sipping lukewarm coffee from a plastic container.
'Maybe they were a pair of standard muggers dressed up in good coats.'
'No way, Patty,' said Shassad, his dark eyes narrowing.
'You saw those knife wounds. A surgeon couldn't make better incisions.'
'Then what's wrong?' asked an exasperated Hearn, heavy circles forming beneath his eyes.
Then finding no method to the crime, Hearn sarcastically answered his own question.
'Maybe they got the wrong man.'
Shassad, in thought, said nothing. But his eyes were wide.
'Jumping Jesus I ' Shassad then said softly 'Of course. The wrong man.'
'What?'
'Debbie Moran and her rent-a-muff had nothing to do with it.
Try this: Her customer-Ryder-had the luck to walk out the building at the wrong second. Two professionals were there waiting for a hit. But not Ryder. No one cared about him. No, sir. They were waiting for someone more important who was supposed to step out precisely the same time. And who nearly did.'
Hearn twisted his face, half in enlightenment, half in skepticism.
'Daniels?' he asked.
– Yeah' said Shassad, opening his hands expansively.
'Yeah, why the hell not?' They paused and considered it.
'He said himself that he was coming out right at that same time '
Shassad paused a few seconds between sentences, stopping to think as he spoke.
'How big is Daniels? Five ten? Five eleven?'
'Approximately.'
'Same as Ryder, right?'
Hearn nodded.
'Coloring? Hair? Build? All similar, right? Similar enough to be mistaken by people who were waiting for a man they'd never met before?
Waiting on a rainy 'night in January when they knew their victim would be coming out of that building.'
'But they'd have to know right down to the minute in order to jump to a conclusion like that?'
'Of course. They did know. Don't you see?'
'Sorry. No.'
'The janitor wanted to know almost to the minute how soon Daniels would be leaving. Remember?'
Hearn's face was assuming a slow glow.
'And sure,' said Shassad, getting to his feet excitedly and slapping the back of an open palm into his other hand, 'one of the men on the street was back and forth to the telephone. That's how they knew when to look for Daniels. They were tipped from Thirty-first Street.
Huh? What do you think?' Shassad folded his arms against his chest, as if in summation of his case.
'I like it,' answered Hearn slowly. He was thoughtful.
'Ryder goes out the front door while Daniels steps out the back. Poof Ryder gets carved in Daniels's place. Now,' he added with an almost imperceptible pause, 'who wants Daniels dead?'
'Only one possibility in the world so far,' said Shassad.
'Jacobus!' 'Why?'
Shassad poked at the air with a forefinger.
'That's what we find out next.'
Chapter 19
Jacobus was the thin thread which stitched Shassa(Ts theory together. Like the slaying of Ryder, Jacobus also made little sense.
Shassad had reassigned two support teams of detectives. No longer did they shadow Thomas Daniels in hopes that the young attorney would lead them to the missin woman. Instead, Jacobus was now under twenty- four-hour surveillance by three different two-man detective teams. After three days, the accumulation of information on Jacobus had been a genuine team effort. No one had discovered anything.
Shassad and Hearn were plainly worried. jacobus's house in Astoria had been watched; no one unusual had
