“When will this be?” Hank asked.
“I’m sending them over right now. The trial ain’t till Monday, am I right?”
“That’s right.”
“Sure. So you got all weekend to think about it.” Canotti chuckled again. “I hope it don’t upset your case, Mr. Bell.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you read the report. Like I said, it’s pretty interesting.”
“Okay, I’ll read the report.”
“Sure. So long, Mr. Bell. It was nice dealing with you.” And Canotti hung up. Hank replaced the receiver on the cradle. The instrument erupted into sound again instantly. He picked up the receiver again.
“Hello?”
“Bell? This is Lieutenant Gunnison of the twenty-seventh. I got something that might interest you. Can you run up here?”
“What is it?”
“It’s connected with the Morrez case. It might give you a new slant.”
“I can’t get away right this minute,” Hank said. “After lunch sometime?”
“I’ll be here all afternoon. Come whenever you can. There’s somebody I’d like you to talk to.”
“Okay, I’ll see you later,” Hank said, and he hung up.
The report from the police laboratory did not arrive until two-thirty that afternoon. Hank, packing his briefcase to leave the office, stuffed the report in with his other papers, locked the enveloped knives in his desk drawer, and then signed the receipt while the messenger waited. His plan was to stop in on Gunnison and then go directly home, where he would put the finishing touches to his case before beginning the selection of jurors on Monday.
He did not reach the precinct house until a little after three. He looked up at the green lanterns flanking the wide stone stoop and then climbed the steps into the muster room. A sign at the desk read: “All visitors must state their business to the desk officer.” He walked to the high desk, caught the sergeant’s eye and said, “I want to see Lieutenant Gunnison. I’m from the district attorney’s office.”
“Upstairs,” the sergeant said, and he went back to his work.
Hank followed the pointing DETECTIVE DIVISION sign into the upstairs corridor. A man in shirt sleeves, a .38 hanging from a shoulder holster, stopped him just outside the squad room.
“Help you, sir?” he said.
“I want Lieutenant Gunnison,” Hank said.
“The loot’s busy just now. Somebody else help you?”
“Gunnison called me this morning, asked me to stop by. I’m from the D.A.’s office.”
“You Bell?”
“Yes.”
“Hello. I’m Detective Levine. Come on in and have a chair. I’ll tell the loot you’re here.”
Hank passed through the slatted rail divider and sat at one of the desks. Levine went into the lieutenant’s office and emerged a moment later with Gunnison.
“Mr. Bell?” Gunnison said.
“Yes, how do you do?”
“I’m Lieutenant Gunnison. You got a few minutes?”
“Sure. What’s up?”
“I had a visitor this morning. An eighteen-year-old kid named Dominick Savarese. Ring a bell?”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
“He’s a punk, they’re all punks. But he’s also the leader of the Thunderbirds. They call him Big Dom.”
“Oh yes. I’ve heard of him.”
“Yeah, well, he told me something interesting, not that I didn’t suspect as much all along. They’re all punks, believe me.”
“What’d he tell you?”
“I’d like you to hear it from his own mouth. I know where we can find him if you’ve got a few minutes.”
“I’ve got plenty of time.”
“Fine, let me get my hat.”
There was, Hank noticed as they walked through Harlem, a perpetual look of sourness on the face of Richard Gunnison. It was as if he carried garbage in his back pocket but, rather than put it into the nearest garbage can, he preferred to bear the smell stoically and with great malice. His eyes flicked over the streets as they walked, and the look of sourness claimed his face completely.
“Harlem,” he said at last. “Beautiful, ain’t it? I been stuck in this lousy squad for twenty-four years. I’d rather be in a Russian concentration camp in Siberia. Look at them!”
“They don’t look too bad,” Hank said.
“That’s ’cause you don’t know them. They’re all thieves, every single one of them. Or pimps. Or whores. Or gamblers. Or junkies. You see that old lady there with the shopping bag?”
“Yes,” Hank said.
“Go over to her and ask her what number’s leading. She’ll tell you in a minute. The numbers racket is against the law, and everybody in Harlem knows it. But anytime in the afternoon, you can stop anybody on the street and say, ‘What’s leading?’ and they’ll tell you. They can’t feed their kids, but they can scrape up that two, three bucks to lay on a number.”
“I’m not for lawbreaking,” Hank said, “but those people probably feel that the numbers are a pretty harmless diversion. A lot of countries have legal lotteries, you know.”
“This ain’t a lot of countries, this is Harlem, and it’s against the law here, and half the goddamn police force is kept busy shagging ass after the offenders. Look at them! And half these people you see on the street are junkies, you know that? We got enough junk in Harlem to keep everybody in the world supplied for the next ten years.”
“Then why don’t you do something about it?”
“We try, all right. And the Narcotics Squad ain’t exactly asleep, either. But we ain’t got enough cops to go around. I’ll tell you something, Bell. I’ve never known a cop to take a bribe on a narcotics pinch. That’s the truth. I’m not saying you can’t fix anything else you’d care to in this city — including maybe murder. But junk, absolutely not. There ain’t a cop in this city who’ll take a nickel to square a junk rap. So you can’t say we ain’t trying. We just ain’t got the men. You know how many people there are in this precinct? Thousands! And we’ve only got a hundred and eighty-five patrolmen and eighteen detectives attached to the Twenty-seventh. And they’re supposed to keep all these people from slitting each others’ throats or taking dope or burglarizing apartments or selling stolen goods or mugging or pimping or whoring, and I tell you, my friend, it just can’t be done. You think we’d have these street gangs if we had enough cops? We’d rap these kids with a nightstick whenever they even looked at anybody cockeyed. That’s all half of them need, anyway.”
“Maybe,” Hank said.
“No maybes about it. A punk is a punk, and these kids are all punks. And I never yet seen a punk who didn’t begin blubbering the minute you cracked him one.” He paused. “We’re going to a poolroom on Second Avenue. We can find Big Dom there.”
“In your opinion, then,” Hank said, “all we have to do is get tough and we’ll wipe out the juvenile delinquency problem, is that right?”
“That’s right. A swift kick in the ass instead of all this mollycoddling. Since when have the psychiatrists become the ones who decide what’s right and wrong? A criminal is a criminal! We got enough nuts in the booby hatch now without trying to excuse every thief of his crime by saying he’s a disturbed personality. So who ain’t a disturbed personality? You? Me? We’re all a little nuts, but we’re also law-abiding citizens. Crack their goddamn skulls, that’s the answer. If a punk steps out of line, send him up and throw away the key. That’s the answer.” He paused. “Here’s the poolroom. You’re about to meet another punk who should have been locked up when he was six years old.”
They climbed the stairs leading to the second floor. There was the strong smell of urine in the hallway. Hank wondered, as they climbed, whether there was a single flight of stairs anywhere in Harlem which did not smell of human waste.