Detroit Deathwatch

'They're not talking to me yet.'

'No?'

'No. But yours are, I guess.'

The inspector picked up a phone and said a few crisp words into it, Holzer held his tongue and fidgeted, his gaze roaming over the wall displays.

Daley hung up the phone and told his young friend, 'Look, the guy hit your beat first. I can understand how you feel. You have a territorial claim. Okay. But a good cop — '

'It isn't that, Joe. It's... well... either I've completely flipped or I was talking to that guy a little while ago.'

Shrewd eyes measured the youngster. 'Yeah? Where?'

Holzer's gaze swerved left. 'Right over there.'

'Right over where?'

'Just about where Kelso is standing right now.'

'I thought we were talking about Bolan.'

Holzer swallowed and said, 'That's the one.'

Joe Daley scratched his cheek. 'And when was this?'

The lieutenant from Grosse Pointe consulted his watch. 'Thirty minutes ago.'

'Why didn't you say something then?'

'The guy had vanished by the time my shivers stared talking sense.'

'And when was that?'

Holzer made a wry face. 'Just about the moment he disappeared. I looked for him. Ran through the building like a loony searching for him. No catch.'

Daley commented, 'And still no speak until now. Why not?'

'Do you always speak your shivers right off, Joe?'

'If it seems appropriate. Just what are you telling me, Johnny? Are you saying the guy came in and looked us over? He walked right into a police station, somehow found the right office out of a hundred possibles, cased the joint, and walked out? Without anyone in the place recognizing him — except you?'

'Yeah. Yeah.' Holzer bunched his shoulders and gazed at the wall.

'Why would he do that?'

'That's what I've been wondering for the past thirty minutes. Aw, damn it, Joe. Look at the record on this guy! He's made monkeys out of every force in the country. The feds have been chasing him from hell to breakfast ever since his first hit. Not only that but every hood in the country who can scrape up the price of a Saturday night special is dreaming of collecting bounty on the guy. The mob has been fielding special head units from the word go. But he just strolls blithely through it all. How? How does he do that? We can't even get a decent artist's composite! What the hell does he really look like? Are cops really turning their heads when he passes by, or is it just that they don't even know the guy is there? There has to be some explanation for — '

'Hey cool it, hold it there! In one-syllable words, exactly what the hell are you telling me, Johnny?'

'That's the hell of it, I just don't know,' Holzer admitted miserably. 'Except... damnit, I know the guy was in here. And...'

'Yeah?'

'It doesn't seem to be a police case, Joe.'

'What is it, then?'

'I don't know what it is. I know what it's not. Look. Police methods are geared to the apprehension of criminals.'

'Whoever said they weren't? And whoever said Mack Bolan was anything but a criminal?'

'That's just it. You've hit it right there, Joe. It's why the guy comes and goes as he damn pleases. Wrong methods, Joe. Damnit, we're going about it all wrong.'

'You're a cop, Johnny.'

'Right, I am.'

'Your old man was a cop. I'm a cop. Every man in this damn room is a cop. Now, how should we go about our jobs? What method should we be using?'

'This guy is militating us.'

'He's what?'

'All right, maybe I used the wrong word. But this guy's a soldier. He's fighting a war, damn it. It is not a gang war — not in the sense we think of gang wars. And he's not fighting us. He's fighting them.'

'So? Go on.'

Several detectives were standing in the background, listening with interest to the conversation at Daley's desk.

Holzer shot a glance at the men behind him and went doggedly on. 'The guy was in here, Joe. He walked around the strike room for ten minutes or more, talking to everybody, reading the postings, taking notes. I thought he was some cop I knew from somewhere. I guess everybody else who thought anything at all had the same impression. But somehow my interest showed more than anybody else's. He caught that, Joe. He caught it right off, knew I was wondering. He split quick then, and I tagged him into this room. He'd gone up to Kelso and shook him with some uncomplimentary observation. Kelso was debating the guy. The guy saw me coming after him. He picked my name off somewhere and hit me with it. Quick, oh boy, smooth and quick, and he worked me to a final sigh, let me tell you. Even got me to arguing with Kelso, then he simply faded away. Now, Joe — tell me something — have you ever known a hood or any other criminal type who could get away with something like that?'

The old cop was thinking about it. He sighed and came to his feet. 'How many times,' he asked ponderously, 'have you damn near hung a man with a thin-air case like that one? You expect me to go to the skipper with a Swiss cheese hypothesis like this? There's more holes than facts. It probably was a cop you knew from somewhere. We got guys coming in here every five minutes. We got another planeload of feds due in most any minute. They swarm to this Bolan guy like bees to a honeycomb. It's like a police convention around here. We got — '

'Joe, damn it — Inspector — I went back and studied the composites. They're close. Damned close. And my hackles have been yelling at me ever since.'

'Well, get out of here with your hackles,' Daley said gruffly. He caught theagony in the young cop's eyes and added, 'Look, you're a good cop. I wouldn't take that away from you, Holzer. But hell, we're all jumpy today. Instincts can be wrong as hell, especially when we're leaping at every shadow. Based on what you've told me, I'm not going to go to the skipper and tell him that the man who caused this massive mobilization of very expensive police manpower casually dropped in to hobnob and swap ideas while we labored on with the dragnet for the guy. I'm not going to do that, Holzer. So you get out of here, get back to your own detail, and take your shivers with you.'

Someone in the background chuckled.

Holzer opened his mouth and closed it, then spun blindly away in angered defeat.

He bounced off another officer who had just hurried over for a piece of the watch commander's attention.

'Inspector,' the guy announced worriedly, 'we have something funny going on in Communications.'

Holzer froze and cocked his ear.

'What now?' Daley asked disgustedly.

'The roving details start with the night watch — right? There's been no change in that?'

'No change,' Daley growled. 'You don't need those communications until — '

'That's just it. The strike dispatcher accidentally turned on the delta channel monitor, and he heard a roving leader talking to a stake-out detail up in Harper Woods. I got to checking. Two other disricts report radio contacts with roving leaders. That's in Strike 7, Strike 8, and Strike 9.'

Holzer had moved back into position at Daley's desk, listening with interest to the report.