“I was in no condition …”
The detective cut him off. “This man we picked up, Peter — this Franklin Hart Windsor — had a toy pistol in the pocket of his coat. A kid’s cap pistol. Harmless, except that it is heavy enough to break a man’s head in.”
Peter was thinking, distracted — chronically at his unease with the police — that it would be nice, almost worth the day’s loss, to recover the money that had been stolen from him, but in his heart he anticipated only more trouble than he already had.
“We didn’t really know what we had, Peter, until the lab report came in this morning. Our men found particles of blood on the barrel and handle of Windsor’s toy pistol. What do you think of that, Peter?”
Reflexively, Peter felt the back of his head, which was still raw, soft-scabbed.
The detective smiled for the first time, his closed mouth like an iron rod bent up at the ends, an economy of gesture. “Caught you looking the wrong way, didn’t he?”
“I guess he did.” Ha ha. He wondered what they would do to him if he punched the detective in the mouth, though as a matter of tact he decided against it.
Sitting behind his desk, the detective looked busy, browsed through a pile of official-looking reports; separating one from the others, he pored over it with solemn deliberation, nodding to himself as he read, making notations with a red pencil, Peter growing increasingly impatient.
“Is that all?”
“What?” The detective looked up as if surprised to see Peter standing in front of his desk.
“Damn paper work,” he grumbled. ‘You can’t blow your nose without filling it out in triplicate.” His glance seemed to hold Peter responsible. “Pete, this description you gave us of your assailant jibes more or less perfectly with our old queer, Franklin Hart Windsor, who was picked up about two or three blocks away from where you say you were robbed. It looks to me like we have your man, Peter. How does it look to you?”
“I’d have to see him first.”
“It sounds like the man, though, doesn’t it?”
Peter shrugged, admitted grudgingly — giving nothing away — that it did.
“So as not to take up any more of your valuable time,” the detective said, with just the trace of irony in his toneless voice, “we’ll have him in here for you to identify in a very few minutes. Okay?”
As if on cue, a side door opened — a door Peter hadn’t noticed before — and a distinguished-looking middle-aged man swaggered in as though he were on a guided tour, an armed policeman his escort.
“Persecution is as old as sin,” Franklin Windsor said to the detective. He smiled at Peter as if they were old friends.
“What do you think?” The detective nudged Peter. “Take a good look at him.”
Arms out, Franklin Windsor turned himself around as if he was modeling the crumpled gray suit he had slept in.
“Ain’t he a beauty?” the guard said.
“What’s the verdict?” the detective said to Peter, winking at him.
At first Peter was sure that Windsor had been the man in his cab, but the more he looked at the suspect, the more it seemed possible that it might not have been Windsor. This man, this Franklin Windsor, standing clown-eyed between guard and detective, seemed more bloated than the man Peter remembered, though probably the night in prison explained the discrepancy — or the light, or the failure of Peter’s memory.
“Can you have him say something?” Peter asked, embarrassed at discussing Windsor as if he weren’t there.
“You have to wind me up first before I talk,” Windsor said.
“Mr. Windsor,” the detective said gently, with the soft pleasure of malice, “disrespect for the law is not going to help your case. Co-operate with us, and we’ll do our best to make it easier on you. Peter,” he continued, talking into Windsor’s face, “this man fits the description you gave us of your assailant. Take a good look at him. I want you to be absolutely sure before you make an identification.”
“Whatever you think I’ve done,” Windsor said, regaining his composure, “I assure you it was done by someone else.”
Peter knew what he meant.
“I suppose it was done by your girl friend,” the detective said, a close-mouthed smile for his audience.
“It is altogether possible,” Windsor said to the detective, “that this crime, whatever it was, was committed by you.”
The detective laughed like a man with feathers in his mouth.
“That’s not going to help you, mister,” the guard said to Windsor.
The detective laughed, a man who saw humor on all sides. “Well?” he said to Peter. “Is he or isn’t he?”
“I don’t know. I’m not absolutely sure.”
“Come on, Peter, don’t give us a hard time. You described this man to us. It’s in the report on my desk, in your own words, signed by you.” The detective smiled like knives. (Windsor, looking pleased and sad, farted.)
Peter felt the threat, the intention of threat, like the point of a weapon at the back of his neck. He had been indoctrinated in the Army to “Know Your Enemy,” and if as a matter of will he had unlearned everything else they had taught him, his knowledge of the enemy seemed ineradicable. This nerve of instinct was so well developed in him that he knew even more enemies than he had.
“It is possible that this is the man,” Peter said, the detective so close to him that he could smell the stale mint on his breath, “but since I’m not absolutely sure, I don’t think I ought to make an identification. The man who was in my cab was different in certain ways.”
The detective shook his head remorsefully, as though he were reprimanding a child. “All right,” he said to the guard, “take him away.” Windsor clicked his heels, made a Nazi salute. The guard prodded him in the back with the butt of his rifle. Windsor mock-grimaced. “I don’t mind pain,” he said to Peter as he left.
“To tell you the truth,” the detective said, sitting on the edge of his desk, “I think you’re either afraid of that man, Peter, or in conspiracy with him.” He turned his sharp face away, then back again, his eyes an assault. “Don’t you believe in law and order, Peter?”
“I believe in it,” Peter said. His hands were sweating.
“Without law and order,” the detective said, baring the teeth of a smile, “you people would go around all day beating each other over the head, stealing whatever you could get your greedy hands on.”
Peter nodded, looking at his watch, anxious to be on his way.
“You have contempt for the law, Peter, don’t you?”
“No.” It came out a whisper. “Lieutenant, I have to get back to work.”
“There’s no rush,” the detective said, going behind his desk. “Have a seat.”
Peter glanced behind him at the door, which was ajar. “Are you going to stop me from leaving?”
‘You surprise me, Peter,” the detective said, drumming his fingers on the desk. “I’m not ordering you to stay here, I’m asking you to give me a few more minutes of your time. Please sit down,” he ordered.
Peter remained standing, leaning over the detective’s desk, towering over it.
“If I let this man Windsor go,” the detective said, “the likelihood is — there are statistics that prove this — the likelihood is that he will commit the same kind of crime all over again, and the next cabbie he hits may not be as lucky as you. Do you want something like that on your head, Peter?”