The sign on the door said FINGERPRINTS.
Captain Luper was standing in the doorway.
The files were kept next door nowadays, in the Annex, but old Luper of course wouldn’t move and so they had to come over and check routine matters out with him.
It had been Captain Luper’s habit, as far back as anyone was able to remember, that he would stand in his doorway and ask of the world at large, “Any coffee?” The Police Officers’ Association had been known to receive complaints such as that it was not a police officer’s duty to be at some higher-up’s beck and calclass="underline" but, always, someone went and got the coffee.
And now here came Sergeant Novak with one of the new men on the force. “Captain Luper.” Luper didn’t look at him. After a minute he said, “Yeah, whaddaya want?” His eyes were like oysters.
“Captain, this is Kovacs, Jerome T. for Theodore, one of the new—”
Luper turned and walked back into his office. Sitting next to the desk with the paper folded was Old Tim Flint, retired, but always coming back. Luper said, “Who you got in the third?” Tim said he liked Ranger. Luper snorted. “Ranger, Ranger. That palooka.”
“Yeah. But look who he’s racin’ against.”
Luper said, “Whaddaya want, Novak? — Kovac, Novak,” he said, pronouncing the names the same. “All the bohunks in the state tryin’ ta get on the force. What’s a matter, the coal mines close?”
Novak gave a polite little laugh. Kovacs said, “Excuse me, Captain, it’s pronounced Ko-votch.”
This time Luper looked at him. For a long while. Then he said, “You want it pronounced Ko-votch, you spell it Ko-votch. Whaddaya want—”
Novak said, very quickly, “Well. Homicide? Om. This old woman? Mrs. Fisher? Found D.O.A. in her home, 33-A Lombardy? Multiple contusions, lacerations, and—” He stopped. Luper was looking at him.
“He thinks I don’t read the reports,” Luper said.
“Oh I know you read the reports, Captain, it’s the—”
Old Tim said, “Look who he’s racin’ against. Corvette and Stamina. Corvette, I lost five on him before I retire, even. Ready for the glue factory. And Stamina, STAMina, for cry-sake, is a mudpuppy. You see any rain today, Lupe?”
Luper said, “Aaa.” He cleared his sinuses and spat in the spittoon.
“Well, they, uh, Homicide didn’t turn up nothing. Or nobody. So, om, Captain Blaine, he thinks—”
“Captain Blaine thinks. Last time Captain Blaine had a thought he took an aspirin and it went away.” Sergeant and new man didn’t say a word. Flint sighed, coughed, scratched his armpit, shook his head, shook his folded paper.
“Stamina,” Tim Flint said. “Corvette.”
In the silence a buzzing was heard. A fly thudded against the window.
“All right. The File Number Eight, then, right?”
“Right, Captain.” Novak looked slightly relieved. “They all been checked out, Captain. And, om—”
“And?”
Somewhere downstairs a drunk began a loud litany of curses. There was a slight sound. The noise stopped.
“Humpty Smith was in the hospital, Jack Garbet went to his sister’s in Cairo Illinoise last month and hasn’t come back, Larry Macmar was in Murrey’s Bowling Alley the whole night watching the turnament, Robert Smith, he—” Again the sergeant stopped abruptly.
Old Tim looked up, smiling. “Robert Alfred Smith? the smokey? Yeah? You remember his sister, Lupe.”
“Naa.”
“You don’t remember his sister, Lupe. Aaah, come on. You remember his sister, Lupe. Nanny Smith. She was at, uh, Number Four School with yune me, couple classes behind. She had a head, Nanny Smith, she had a head shape just like a lemon. Lemon-head Nanny Smith, we use ta call her.”
Novak said, “Yeah, well, she died last night, Lieutenant Flint. See. And her brother, Robert Smith, he was there the whole time with the whole family at the home. So that lets him out.”
Captain Luper took from his drawer a small packet of small cigars with plastic holders already attached to them. He took one out, then he shook his head very slightly, then he slipped it back in the box and put the box back in his drawer. “Okay, okay, who’s left?” he asked. He sounded a little bit tired.
Timmy’s face showed surprise. “Nanny Smith died? Lemon-head Nanny Smith? She died, huh. She died.” After a moment Flint said, “Rest her soul. She was at Old Number Four School, with yune me, Lupe.” Shaking his head, he slowly returned to his paper.
“And so the only one unaccounted for, and we picked him up right away and check him out and he hadn’t got no explanation of his whereabouts, like, just, like, he said, he was just, like walking around. And he didn’t see anybody and nobody saw him. So we lettum go, a course, and been keepin’ a eye on— Oh. Uh. Sorry, Captain. Stanley L. for Lewis Pine. Is the only one left in the Eight File. So, om, Captain Blaine, he—”
Luper nodded. Muscles jumped in his grey cheeks. “He thought. Yeah. Gimme the package.” For a while there was only the sound of Captain Luper’s shuffling through the records. Then he began to separate them into piles on the desk. Then he began to talk, almost to himself.
“Drunk and disorderly. Drunk and disorderly. Fourteen-year-old girl, parents changed their mind, wouldn’t press charges. Breaking and entering. Attempted assault of an officer, lawyer got him off. Bob Baimbridge, you wouldn’t believe the pull that one had. Attempted second degree A. and R., she wouldn’t press no charges, either. Complaint from old housewife on Williston Street: loitering and looking in— Nol-pros. Attempted...” His voice died away. He began to count. “—and seven. And eight,” he concluded. He shoved the records away from him. Sergeant Novak gathered them up.
“Well.” Captain Luper didn’t exactly look cheerful. But he looked more alert. “Stanley L. for Lewis Pine. That ballbreaker. He had his chances. Eight of um. You understand the procedure, Officer Kovacs.”
The new man nodded. “Yes, Captain. It’s been explained to me.”
“You got the warrant.”
They nodded. “Yes, Captain.”
A note of irritation in Captain Luper’s voice. “Well, what uh the two a ya waitin’ for. Christmas?”
“Yes, Captain. Uh, no Captain. Thanks, Captain.” The two men turned and started out. Old Tim Flint looked up and guffawed. A faint movement that served for a smile tugged at the corners of Captain Luper’s large, loose mouth. Novak clicked his tongue and gave his head a reproving jerk. Kovacs blushed.
“Well?”
Embarrassed, apologetic — “The prints. Yeah. Oh yeah, Captain. We forgot about the—”
Luper waved the sergeant’s hasty comments away. “What about the prints? Huh. New man on the force, pronounced—”