The 19th Precinct is on East 67th Street. You can always tell a cop from the 19th — they have a built-in bored look from standing guard outside foreign Embassies all day and night. They ought to float the UN over to Hoboken and save the city a lot of money. The move wouldn’t hurt Hoboken any, either.
Lieutenant Jaffee is a rough piece of work. He’s built like a tank and has a shiny dome. The men in the Division call him Bullethead. They tell me he got a law degree going to NYU nights, which gives me a great line about his studying in the dark.
I wasn’t two feet into the squadroom when he spots me and lowers the boom.
“What the hell do you want, Kelly?” my old pal greets me with a snarl. “Beat it.”
“Hello, Lieutenant, nice to see you again.” As you may have guessed, I can be very charming.
“Look, Jokeboy, I don’t need you around here. Scram.”
“Whoa, Lieutenant, just a sec. I have an interest in this case you’re on.”
“Your niece and nephew. I know. But I won’t hold that against the McQuades. I haven’t any news anyway, and if I did, I’d tell your sister, not you.”
“That’s proper. No argument from me. But I have some news, and I thought I’d give it to you rather than the newspapers. You see, Lieutenant, I have an affection for you. I want in every way to—”
“Cut the trimmings, will you, Kelly? If you have some information, dish it out. I’m not that vain.”
I’m thinking “a guy with a bullethead should be vain?” If Jaffee was a heckler in an audience, I could really take him apart. You know, like, “Well, I see the Fifth Artillery is in town,” or “Aren’t you glad the war is over so you can get parts for your head?” But I know Jaffee has a low boiling point beyond which he is not adverse to using his hands in the clenched position, so I stow the wisecracks and get down to business.
When I tell him about the kids wandering around dressed like Orientals, he first doesn’t believe me. Then he does believe me and almost cannonades himself through the ceiling. It’s beautiful. Then he tells a flunky to put the word out to the patrols and chews another one out for being a wall-eyed idiot. I assumed he was one of the great eye men at my sister’s apartment house.
After he gets that done, Jaffee gives me a piece of his mind about my probably being a bad influence on the kids and that if he were my brother-in-law he would make sure they never saw me. Bullethead as my brother-in-law! The one I’ve got is no peach, but Jaffee! My God, I’d commit sororicide, and even nephewcide and nieceacide.
“I know you feel very jubilant, Kelly, but don’t take any comfort from it. I almost wish Siepi’s guys did have them. At least they’d be safe.”
“What are you talking about, Jaffee? Safe?”
“Those kids are out there somewhere playing amateur detective, and you can bet someone is gunning for them. That’s not funny.”
You know, he was right. I hadn’t thought of that. If the entire police force couldn’t find them and a thousand cabbies couldn’t spot them, how could a lone killer do it? But still and all, it was a fact that wouldn’t go away.
Okay, enough of jaffing at Jaffee. I gave him the five names Tish had come up with and he grins.
“You can forget about Jeb Farrell the decorator and Phil Morgan the fight promoter. They’re accounted for at the time of the murder. Why look so surprised, Kelly? We sift through dirt, too. As for McIlroy, we have a possible. He’s been known to toss some weird parties and could be a blackmail victim, although he denies it. He says he was walking in Central Park at the time of the killing. Hah! The other two are new to me. We’ll check it out, but this Phyllis Court doesn’t fit into the picture. This was a man’s job, I’m sure of it. The last one, Calvin West, who’s he?”
“My source say he’s a painter with a past. No one knows too much about him.”
“Your source is Tish Loman, so stop being coy. You just can’t leave the ladies alone, can you, Kelly?”
Someday I am going to devote a whole day trying to analyze why Jaffee dislikes me. I am getting a sneaking suspicion it has to do with women. With his looks Jaffee couldn’t attract Tugboat Annie. When we have time I’ll do a whole number for you on my approach to women. It’s cool, man, cool.
Jaffee is busy sending out his underlings to check on the names and is ignoring me.
“What are you going to do about the kids, Lieutenant?”
“What the hell do you think I’m going to do? Only now it won’t be so difficult. I think I know where they are.”
“Yeah? Where do you think?”
“Two kids dressed up like Orientals, stand out in a crowd, and if this nephew of yours is half as smart as his mother thinks, then there’s only one place they’d head for. Chinatown.”
“But they don’t know anyone in Chinatown.”
“They don’t have to know anyone. It’s the Chinese New Year and there’ll be dancing in the streets all night. Hanragan,” he said to one of his plain-clothesmen, “get Mrs. McQuade on the phone and find out if either child has a Chinese classmate. They could be holing up there.”
I started to leave when Jaffee barked at me, “Kelly, you stay the hell out of Chinatown, do you hear me? I’ve got experts in that district and they can comb it clean without your help. By the way, you may care to know they’re celebrating the Year of the Rat.”
So Jaffee wants to play zap. He’s a creampuff.
“Oh, by the way, Lieutenant, I’ve been so busy digging up names for you to check and finding out about the kids that I didn’t have time to rush out to 241 Elizabeth Street in Tottenville. That’s in Staten Island, you know. You take the ferry over the waves. That’s where you’ll find Siepi’s brood. Out in Tottenville at 241 Elizabeth Street they are celebrating the Year of the Dope.”
I am out of there like a shot, flag a cab, and head back for the club. I’ve just got time to do the eleven o’clock show. I quiz the driver and he tells me he’s been clued in on the Chinese switch. I start wondering how much this is all costing me. Then I start planning just how I am going to punish my nephew. There is that season pass to the Knicks that I could lift. No, that’s capital punishment and that’s been outlawed. But why plan? He won’t be able to see after AH-thur gets hold of him.
It was a wild night. The eleven o’clock show went over good, but the two o’clock brought in a bunch of drunks, which is par. I stayed at the club all night so I could act on any calls from cabbies — I didn’t completely cotton to the Chinatown theory. We got a nibble about seven o’clock in the morning, but it turned out to be two real Chinese kids in the Bronx. It was the first time I had seen the sun come up in seven years. It hadn’t changed much.
Then, at 10:30, we got a hot tip. A driver spotted two Chinese kids in the 300 block on Jay Street in Brooklyn, then lost them. He thinks they might have ducked into one of the buildings, so he’s standing watch. I tell him to keep the meter running, then I make a jump for Mario’s waiting limo, and barrel out there.
We cruised up and down the 300 block, but no kids. Then it hit me. Why would they come all the way over to Brooklyn, I’m asking myself, when bango! There it is in front of me. The Transit Authority Building. The whole thing started on the subway, didn’t it? What a dummy I am. Flip is a smart little son of a gun.
The guy behind the Lost and Found counter did a double take when I asked him.
“What’s with the ostrich brief cases?” he says, giving a silent oy veh with the hands. I’m the third to ask that question this morning. First it was the guy with the mustache, and then it was the two kids, Chinese kids, and now me. More silent oy vehs and then he says the kids were there about twenty minutes ago. He can’t tell me much about the first guy, just that he had a mustache and a scar on his cheek.