A good crowd for so early in the evening; by midnight it would probably be jammed. Bellsey was the best- dressed man in the joint. Most of the others looked like cruds: construction workers in hard hats, seamen with stocking caps, a sprinkling of derelicts. There was one bum facedown on a table, sleeping off a drunk.
Hogan couldn't figure why a moneyed guy like Bellsey would patronize a grungy joint Re this-until he saw that the wall behind the bar was covered with framed and autographed photos of boxers: dead ones, old ones, new ones-all in trunks, gloved, posed in attitudes of ferocious attack.
Big Tim remembered that Jason had said Bellsey was an ex-pug, so he probably dropped in here to gas about fights and fighters. The guys he was talking to, and the bartender, had all the stigmata: hunched shoulders, bent noses, cauliflower ears.
They looked like they could chew up Timothy Hogan and spit him over the left-field fence.
'Yeah?'
He looked up, startled. A waitress was slouched by his booth. She was an old dame with lumpy legs encased in thick elastic stockings. There was a heavy welt on her chin with two wiry black hairs sticking out.
'What kind of bottled beer you got?' he asked her.
'Bud, Miller, Heineken.'
'I'll have a Bud and a burger.'
'Okay.
'Make the burger rare.'
'Lotsa luck,' she said dourly and shuffled away.
He had two hamburgers-so bad that he would have walked out after the first bite if he hadn't been so hungry.
Even the dill pickle was lousy. How in hell could a cook spoil a pickle'?
He saw that Bellsey was alone now, talking to the bartender. Hogan carried his second bottle of beer and glass over to the bar and took a nearby stool. The two men were arguing about who had the better right hook, Dempsey or Louis.
Hogan took a swallow of beer.
'What about Marciano?' he said loudly.
Bellsey turned slowly to look at him.
'Who the fuck asked you?' he demanded.
'I was just-, the detective started.
'Just butt out,' the other man advised.
'This is a private conversation.'
If Timothy Hogan had had any sense, he'd have stopped right there, finished his beer, paid his bill, and left. He could see his first guess had been right: Bellsey had been boozing that afternoon, maybe all day, and was carrying a load.
He wasn't swaying or slurring his speech or anything like that, but his eyes were shrunken and bloodshot, and he was leaning forward with a truculent chin thrust out. He looked ready and eager to climb into a ring and go ten.
'What the hell you staring at?' Bellsey said to him.
'You piece of shit.'
Hogan reached casually inside his jacket to touch his holster. He knew it was there, but he wanted to make sure.
'Take it easy,' he said to Bellsey.
'I don't like talk like that.'
'Well, fuck you, fatso,' Bellsey said.
'You don't like it, wheel your ass somewhere else.'
'Hey, Ron,' the bartender said in a raspy voice, 'cool it.
More trouble I don't need.'
By this time the bar had quieted. Everyone seemed to have his head down, staring into his drink. But they were all listening.
'No trouble, Eddie,' Bellsey said.
'Not from this little shithead.'
'Mister,' the bartender said to Hogan, 'do me a favor: Finish your beer, pay up, and try another joint. Please.'
It gave the detective an out, and finally he had enough sense to take it. He finished his beer, put a bill on the bar.
'What kind of a place you running here?' he said aggrievedly and stalked toward the door.
'Asshole!' Bellsey yelled after him.
Hogan walked toward his car, thinking the subject was a real psycho and an odds-on favorite for having bashed Ellerbee's skull. He was so intent on planning what he was going to put in his report to Jason T. Jason that he didn't hear the soft footfalls behind him.
The first punch was to his kidneys and felt like someone had swung a sledgehammer. He went stumbling forward, mouth open, gasping for air. He tried to grab at a trash can for support, but a left hook crunched into his ribs just below the heart, and he went down into the gutter, fumbling at his holster.
Heavy shoes were thudding into his gut, his head, and he tried to cover his eyes with folded arms. It went on and on, and he vomited up the beer and burgers. Just before he lost consciousness he was certain he was gone, and Wondered why he was dying in a street like this, his vital report unwritten.
A different report from Roosevelt Hospital went up and down the chain of police command, and eventually a blue working the case called Jason. He, in turn, alerted Boone. By midnight, the two of them were at Roosevelt, talking to doctors and guys from Midtown North, trying to collect as much information as they could before taking it to Edward X. Delaney.
They woke him up a little after 5:00 A.M. Sunday morning and related what had happened. He told them to come over as soon as possible. He said he'd have coffee for them.
'What is it, Edward?' Monica said drowsily from her bed.
I'll tell you later,' he said.
'Boone and Jason are coming over for a few minutes. You go back to sleep.'
When they arrived, he took them into the kitchen. He was wearing his old flannel bathrobe with the frayed cord. His short hair spiked up like a cactus.
He had used the six-cup percolator and put a tray of frozen blueberry muffins in the oven. They sat around the kitchen table, sipping the steamy black coffee and munching on muffins while Sergeant Boone reported what had happened.
A squad car on patrol had spotted Detective Timothy Hogan lying semiconscious in the gutter and had called for an ambulance. It wasn't until they got him to Roosevelt Emergency that they found his ID and knew that one of New York's Finest had been assaulted.
'He had his ID?' Delaney said sharply.
'Yes, sir,' Boone said.
'And his gun.'
'And his wallet,' Jason added.
'Nothing missing. It wasn't one of your ordinary, everyday muggings.'
'But he's going to be all right?'
'Oh, hell, yes,' Boone said.
'Cracked ribs, bruised kidneys, a gorgeous shiner, and assorted cuts and abrasions. He looks like he's been through a meat grinder-stomped up something fierce.'
'I think his pride was hurt more than anything else,' Jason offered.
'It should be,' Delaney said grurripily.
'Letting himself be jumped like that. You talked to him?' -For a while,'
Boone said.
'They got him shot full of painkillers so he wasn't too coherent.'
He told Delaney what they had been able to drag out of a groggy Timothy Hogan: How he had made Mrs.
