There was no more time to talk about it. On a hand signal from one of the federal agents, the cops rushed through the doors of the store. We cautiously approached, but were stopped on the sidewalk. “Stand back,” a cop said. “There’s liable to be shooting.”
There wasn’t any shooting, but within a minute there was the damndest screeching coming out of the store I’ve ever heard. It sounded like a cat with his tail caught in a door. Next, we heard glass breaking and men yelling and women screaming. We tried to peer in over the cop’s shoulder, but whatever was happening was out of our line of sight.
“Hey, let us in,” Mooniman told the cop. “The chief told me we could be in on this.”
“He didn’t tell me,” the young cop said.
“He didn’t tell you who he was gonna put on the midnight to six a.m. shift either,” Mooniman said. “But I can give you a damn good guess if you screw up his chance to get good press on this story.”
The cop hesitated, shrugged, and stood aside as the volume and variety of noise from inside increased. Dick led as we went into the main sales floor of the store.
Kapplan’s was one of your old style department stores—a high-ceilinged, unpartitioned first floor with clusters of merchandise tables and display cases marking off the various departments. You could stand at the front and easily see all the way to the rear, where the elevators and dressing rooms were located. The departments on the first floor were all soft goods, men’s and women’s ready-to-wear, stationery, candy, and so on.
What we saw as we stepped into the store looked like an explosion in a laundry. Clothing of all descriptions was strewn in the aisles, display cases were tipped over and against the back wall, several knots of very frightened looking salespeople and customers were standing and crouching behind tables and clothing racks.
In the middle of the room about ten cops were gathered in what looked like one of those rugby scrums, lurching and staggering as they struggled with someone we couldn’t see.
But we could hear him. A stream of profanity like I’ve never heard, since my basic training sergeant stumbled into a slit trench, was coming out of the center of the heaving melee.
Liz jumped up on one of the tables, kicked aside a stack of polo shirts, and began taking pictures. I looked up and had one of those wondrous flashes of cognition that light up the mind like an aerial flare on a moonless night.
I had been instantly attracted to this pretty blonde girl when I first saw her, but that happened to me a lot. It was a function of the gonads with no reference to the brain. But now, as she stood on the table, oblivious to everything except the action and handling the camera like she had been born with it, I experienced the most complete and overwhelming feeling of warm joy of my life. If it wasn’t something Id eaten, it must have been love.
Mooniman and I tried to get closer, but the mass of struggling cops was moving toward the door. We had to stand aside as they went by and could see a man in the middle of the group being carried spread-eagle—a couple of cops on each arm and leg. He was bucking and squirming like a fresh-caught pickerel and screaming at the top of his lungs.
“Bastards! Sonsabitches! Dirty shits! Lemme down! Fuckin’ cops, I’ll kill you. Lemme down and I’ll cream ya all! Lemme down, goddamn it!”
The man, bald except for a fringe of dirty gray hair around the side of his head, twisted around and sunk his teeth into the hand of one of the cops, whose turn it was to let out a bellow. He backed away and another cop tried to grab the mans arm, which flailed around and hit him square across the nose. Blood spurted and the man lunged at the cop’s leg with his mouth. As he bit down, another policeman pulled his billy club out of his belt and whacked the man across the side of the head with a sound like a baseball bat against a watermelon. The man sagged, but as the cops tried again to lift him, he got a leg loose and fetched one of the officers a kick just below the belt buckle. The cop with the club really wound up this time and skulled the guy hard enough to roll his eyes back into his head. Peace was restored.
The cops dragged the guy outside and laid him out on the sidewalk. The man couldn’t have been taller than five feet three nor weighed more than 120 pounds. He wore a baggy coverall with “Kapplan Bros.” on the sleeve and the name “Norris” above the chest pocket, and appeared to be about fifty, maybe fifty-five years old, with a seamed face, baggy eyes, and a nose that had been broken several times. He looked like a punched-out lightweight or maybe a jockey who had gotten trampled a couple of times.
He came to a lot faster than anyone hit that hard had a right to. With difficulty and more shrieking, the cops shackled his legs and cuffed his hands behind his back. Then they stood him up and began propelling him toward one of the cars.
“Did you see that, Bob? The guy couldn’t have been bigger than Mickey Rooney,” Mooniman said as the squad car pulled away. “But did you ever see such a fighter?”
Mooniman and I hitched a ride in another squad car to the jail and Liz headed back to the paper with the camera.
Gib Bock, the chief, called us into his office. With him was one of the FBI men.
“Gentlemen,” Gib said, “we have just taken into custody Norris Barkis, one of the ten most-wanted criminals in the United States. This man is one of the most vicious felons in the country, and I can tell you that it is to the credit of this department that…”
The agent interrupted. “Just a moment, chief. I am Calvin Decker, Special Agent in Charge in the City. Mr. Barkis is a federal prisoner, and any information about this apprehension will have to be released by the Bureau.”
“Now, wait a minute,” Bock said.
“Chief, the Bureau is very grateful to you and your men for their help. But the information function is outside your jurisdiction.”
“The hell you say, mister,” Bock retorted. “My guys made the collar, my guys got chewed up, and I’m gonna tell the press about it. Don’t give me that federal jurisdiction crap.”
The agent stared at him and shrugged. You could just tell he was thinking, “OK, you old fart. Lucky for you J. Edgar ain’t around any more.”
“Okay,” Gib said. “This Barkis is a fugitive from the federal pen downstate in Illinois. He was doing twenty to thirty for a string of robberies and assaults as long as a horse pecker. He made the most-wanted list two months ago. He’s been working at Kapplan’s for six weeks as a stock clerk and used the name Norris Harkin. Mostly he worked in the stockrooms, but once in a while he had to bring stuff out to the sales floor. Well, one of the old ladies who shop at Kapplan’s recognized him day before yesterday from a mug shot in one of those true detective magazines. Called us and we notified the FBI.”
Bock threw a glance at the agent. “As a courtesy to them, we waited till they got up here this morning and busted the guy. Jumped him while he was stacking ladies’ undies.”
“Was he armed?” Mooniman asked. “I know damn well he resisted.”
“No gun,” Gib said. “But he used his usual weapon.”
“What’s that?” I asked.”
“His goddamn teeth,” the chief said. “The guy is a street fighter… goes for ears, fingers, noses, you name it, he’ll bite it. He took chunks out of three of our guys before we got him down. They’re over at City General getting tetanus and God knows what other shots. We’re going to slap mayhem charges on him to go with the rest.”
“Can we interview him?” Mooniman asked.
“Wait a minute,” the agent started. The chief glared at him.
“Not now, Dick. He’s back there in the cell block still raving and acting the nut. We got to book him and all the rest first. We’ll consider it when things cool down a bit.” Bock made it sound final, and knowing his man, Dick didn’t argue.