Malone told the story leaving out nothing. The radio man listened without a word. When Malone was finished Chief Secco told about using WRUD to get to Hinch. “Will you do it, Harvey?”
For the first time Malone heard Rudd’s voice.
“I have two children of my own.” Malone had expected a voice like a cheap guitar, like fellow-officer Sherm Hamlin’s, Sherm had been born in Boothbay Harbor and had served as a guard at the prison in Thomaston before following his married daughter down to New Bradford, he had never lost his whangy accent. But this voice was more like one of Lawrence Welk’s baritone saxes. “What exactly did you have in mind, John?”
“Well, I got an idea while Wes was filling you in. You could put on the air a series of those now-what d’ye call ‘em?-like trailers, teasers, of a, say, radio drama. You know, like you were working up advance interest in a show you were going to run next week or month, give pieces of the plot. Like that. What we’d do is use the actual facts of this case, except we’d make out like the head man of the gang was double-crossing the other two. The idea is to get Hinch to worrying… No, Harvey?”
Rudd was shaking his head. “In the first place, John, WRUD doesn’t run dramatic shows, they went out a long time ago on radio, so it would sound phony straight off to anybody who does any listening at all. Second, if this Hinch is as stupid as you say he is you’re not going to get anything through his skull with subtlety. Third, from what Mr. Malone says, there’s no time to prepare anything elaborate. What-ever’s done has to be started right away- today, if possible.”
“Then how would you handle it?”
“I’d do it on a straight news basis. It’s something even a halfwit would understand and it would have the added advantage of sounding legitimate.”
“You can’t do that, Mr. Rudd,” Malone said.
“Why not?”
“Because Furia would hear it, too. And he’d know that the only way such information could have gotten out was through me or my wife shooting our mouths off. That would spell curtains for my little girl. He warned us to keep quiet or else. He’s dangerous, Mr. Rudd, maybe even psycho. He means it. At least I can’t take the chance that he doesn’t.”
“We can handle it so you and Mrs. Malone are put absolutely in the clear.”
“How?”
“You leave that to me.”
Malone’s chin flattened. There was a pulse beating in the bruise. “I don’t know. I’d have to think about it.”
“Will you let me work on it, Mr. Malone? I promise not a word will go out over the air without your okay. Have you got a typewriter here?”
“No.”
“Then just some paper,” Rudd said easily, “I can’t type worth a damn, anyway.”
Malone went hunting for paper while he listened for a sign of life from upstairs and heard it, the creak-creak of the rocker in Barbara’s room.
The kid was acting up again and Furia said give the little puke some more juice but Goldie said any more and she might get poisoned you want her alive don’t you. She came up with a bottle of Sleep-Tite tablets she found in one of the upstairs bathrooms, so that problem was solved.
Furia ordered a top sirloin roast for his Saturday night dinner and Goldie had it thawing all day. The Thatchers had obliged by installing an electric spit in the old kitchen fireplace and Goldie built just the right fire, a slow one, to do the roast over. Furia spent a good twenty minutes watching it go round and round. I picked me a real cool broad, he said, fondly pinching her behind, I ought to set you up in the chow business, Goldie, I’ll have that banana ripple ice cream for dessert they got in the freezer. Then he went back to the living room where Hinch was nursing an Old Crow on the rocks like a grudge, Furia had put him on short rations after the broken mirror, Hinch wasn’t taking it as well as usual. Furia turned on the radio, which was set at WRUD, and stretched out on the sofa while Hinch brooded over at him.
There was the national news, then the news from the state capital, and Furia said to the radio come on, come on. Finally the announcer, who had a voice like a saxophone, said: “And now for the Taugus Valley news.
“First Selectman Russ Fairhouse urged residents of New Bradford today to support the Jaycee cleanup campaign, Operation Civic Pride. ‘Please join your neighbors,’ Mr. Fair-house pleaded, ‘in picking up gum wrappers and such and ridding our town of unsightly junk like abandoned old cars and washing machines and any other thrown-out items that may be laying around your property causing eyesores. Your administration is doing its part repairing the highway signs defaced mostly by teenagers the past summer, please do yours and impress on your children that in the end the cost of such vandalism is borne by you, the taxpayer.’
“A two-car accident on The Pike one mile north of Tonekeneke Falls today took the life of nineteen-year-old Alison Springer of Southville and sent three other teenagers to the New Bradford Hospital with critical injuries. State police say that the cars were engaged in a drag race.
“There has been no progress in the statewide hunt for the two holdup men who shot Thomas F. Howland to death and stole the Aztec Paper Products Company’s payroll Wednesday night, according to Colonel Doug Pearce of the state police. ‘It’s my belief,’ Colonel Pearce told WRUD today, ‘that they made it out of the state. An All Points went out to authorities in adjoining states yesterday.’ “
“Aha,” Furia said with a grin. “They sure freaked out. Hear that, Hinch?”
“So what,” Hinch grumbled. “We ain’t got the bread.”
“And now for today’s Lighter-Side-of-the-News item,” the saxophone continued with a chuckle in it. “There’s another mystery of sorts in New Bradford that for a while today had Police Chief John Secco and his department thinking they were in the middle of a crime wave.
“A twelve-year-old boy named Willie, who runs a paper route in the Lovers Hill section of New Bradford delivering the New Bradford
“What the hell.” Hinch sat up. “Shut up, let’s hear this!” Furia hissed. “ ‘-and he took off the stocking and beat it down the road.’ Willie alleges that he followed the mysterious man and saw him turn into Lovers Hill with the black bag and head for the center of town still on foot.”
Hinch was looking at Furia with his mouth open. Furia was on his feet glaring at the radio.
“Willie, who wears thick glasses, could give no description of the man beyond his short height and skinniness. Chief Secco was doubtful about the story on the face of it, since no housebreaking was reported Thursday and Willie, it seems, has a reputation for an overactive imagination. Nevertheless, the chief sent Officer Harry Rawlson to Old Bradford Road with the boy, who pointed out the house he claimed the man had burgled. It turned out that Chief Secco’s doubts were all too justified. It was the home of a member of the New Bradford force, Officer Wesley Malone. Officer Malone, who has been off duty for a few days, said that he and Mrs. Malone had had no visitors at all on Thursday, illegal or otherwise, and that in any event nothing was missing. Mrs. Malone confirmed this, stating that they had never owned a little black bag. ‘Willie either made a mistake about the house,’ Officer Malone told his fellow-officer, ‘or he’s been reading too many mystery stories.’ A check of the other houses on Old Bradford Road produced no confirmation of Willie’s story, and he was sent home after a fatherly lecture by Chief Secco.
“Thus endeth New Bradford’s latest excitement.
“Funeral services will be held tomorrow at two p.m. at Christ Church, Stonytown, for-”
Furia jabbed the radio off. When he turned around he saw Goldie standing in the doorway from the kitchen.
