For his services Danny gets ten bucks from the detective to whom he divulges this. The ten bucks comes out of a fund loosely described as “Petty Cash.” Neither the detective nor Danny report this exchange on their income tax.
It was not at all surprising that very few people knew Danny was a stool pigeon since he could very easily have passed for a burglar or a mugger or a check passer, or any one of a number of criminal types, all of whom looked exactly the way Danny looked, which is to say they all looked like normal everyday human beings who were honest citizens. Except they happened to be crooks.
Danny didn’t happen to be a crook. He was as honest as the day is long. He only said he was a crook.
He had, in fact, spent five years in a prison in California when he got convicted in a criminal case out there back in 1938. It was this prison stay which convinced everyone that Danny Gimp was indeed a practicing burglar, especially since he told everyone he’d been serving a five and dime on a Burglary One conviction out there. This happened to be true. But actually he’d only gone to Los Angeles for his health.
He had been bothered with a persistent cold and an accompanying low fever for perhaps two months when his family physician suggested that he go out to California to get some sun and some rest, away from his normal city pursuits. Danny had just helped the bulls of the 71st to crack a particularly difficult whorehouse setup, and the bulls (in tandem with some Vice Squad cops) were grateful to the tune of 500 bucks for his assistance, mainly because five of them received promotions out of the crackdown. Danny, flush with his $500, running this low fever and coughing all the time, went out to Los Angeles.
Ah, land of glamour and mystery. Ah, city of sun and stars. Ah, cultural citadel!
He got arrested four days after he arrived.
The way he got arrested was very peculiar, since he had no idea he was committing a crime at the time. He met a fellow in a bar on La Brea and they began drinking and telling jokes, and the man asked Danny what line of work he was in and Danny said, “Communications.” The man thought this very interesting because he himself was in a line of work he described as “Redistribution,” and they had a few more drinks and it was then that the man asked Danny to accompany him to his house where he wanted to pick up some more money so they could continue their fun and revelry, drinking and talking shop and laughing it up in good old LA.
They drove up the Strip past La Cienega and then the man turned his car up into the hills and they pulled up in front of a good-looking Spanish-type hacienda house, all stuccoed and tiled, and Danny and the man got out of the car and went up to the back door which the man opened. They didn’t put on any lights because the man didn’t want to wake his brother, he said, who was a manic-depressive and lived in the back room.
The very polite Los Angeles police, all of whom had studied under Joe Friday, picked up Danny and his friend as they were leaving the house. Danny’s friend had not only taken several hundred dollars in cash from the bedroom of the house which (surprise!) was not his house at all, but he had also managed to pick up a diamond and ruby necklace which the police valued at $47,500.
Ah, land of glamour and mystery, citadel of culture.
Danny told the judge he had met the fellow in a bar and had only accompanied him to his…
Sure, sure, the judge said.
…house there in the Santa Monica Mountains because the man wanted to…
Sure, sure, the judge said.
…pick up some money so they could continue their evening of fun and revelry, drinking and talking shop and…
Sure, sure.
…laughing it up in good old LA.
A minimum of five and a maximum of ten, the judge said.
What? Danny said.
Next case, the judge said.
It wasn’t too bad. Danny lost his cold in stir, and also his accompanying low fever. He learned in stir that a stool pigeon is called “a snitch,” a piece of juvenile terminology which convinced him more than ever that the code against informing began somewhere in the lower grades of school. He also derived from prison the single “reference” that would be invaluable in his later working days. He could in the future, when talking to or listening to an assorted number of thieves, announce in all honesty that he had served a rap for burglary in a West Coast pen. Who then could possibly imagine that Danny Gimp was an informer, a stoolie, a rat, a tattletale, or even, God forbid, a snitch?
Steve Carella could.
He found Danny in the third booth on the right-hand side of the bar called Andy’s Pub. Danny was not an alcoholic, nor did he even drink to excess. He simply used the bar as a sort of office. It was cheaper than paying rent downtown, and it had the added attraction of a phone booth which he used regularly. The bar, too, was a good place to listen—and listening was one-half of Danny’s business.
Carella scanned the joint as he walked in, spotted Danny immediately in his customary booth, but also saw two known hoods sitting at the bar. He walked past Danny without so much as glancing at him, took a stool at the bar, and asked for a beer. Since cops emit a smell that can be detected by certain individuals, usually lawbreakers, the way certain sounds can be detected only by dogs, the bartender gave Carella his beer and then asked, “Anything wrong, Officer?”
“Just felt like having a beer,” Carella said.
The bartender smiled sweetly and said, “Then I take it this is an off-duty visit.”
“Mm-huh, that’s right,” Carella said.
“Not that we have anything to hide here,” the bartender said, still smiling.
Carella didn’t bother answering him. He finished his beer and was reaching into his pocket for his wallet when the bartender said, “It’s on the house, Officer.”
“I’d rather pay for it, thanks,” Carella said.
The bartender didn’t argue. He simply figured Carella was a cop who took bigger bribes. Carella paid for the beer, walked out of the bar without looking at Danny, pulled up his coat collar as he reached the street, walked two blocks downtown heading into a biting, bitter wind, then turned and began walking uptown again on the opposite side of the street, with the wind at his back. He ducked into a doorway across the street from the bar and waited for Danny Gimp to come out. Danny, who was playing this a little too goddamn cool for a January day with a twentymile-an-hour wind blowing, did not come out of the bar until some ten minutes later. By that time Carella’s toes and nose were freezing. He slapped his gloved hands together, pulled his collar up once more, and began following Danny. He did not overtake him until the two had walked almost seven blocks, one behind the other. Falling into step beside Danny, he said, “What the hell took you so long?”
“Hey, hi,” Danny said. “You must be froze, huh?”
“This isn’t exactly Miami Beach,” Carella said.
“Worse luck, huh?” Danny said. “Did you happen to glom the pair at the bar?”
“Yeah.”
“You make them?”
“Sure. Augie Andrucci and Pinky Deane.”
“Hey, that’s right,” Danny said. “Well, they made you, too. They spotted you for a bull right off, and they gave the bartender the eye to find out what you were doing there, and they didn’t buy none of that off-duty crap for a minute. So I figured it was better I stick around a little while instead of rushing right out here, you dig? Because, in my line, you got to be a little careful, you dig?”
“I dig,” Carella said.
“How come you didn’t call?”