The girl looked up when he approached the booth.
“Miss Blair?” he said. “Penelope Blair?”
“Yes,” the girl answered. “Who are you?”
“Detective O’Brien,” he said, “the Eighty-seventh Squad. Your mother was in last night, Penny. She asked me to tell you—”
“Flake off, cop,” Penelope Blair said. “Go stop a riot someplace.”
O’Brien looked at her silently for a moment. He nodded then, and turned away, and went back to the table.
“Anything?” Kling asked.
“You can’t win ’em all,” O’Brien said.
Chapter II
Daywatch
The boy who lay naked on the concrete in the backyard of the tenement was perhaps eighteen years old. He wore his hair quite long, and he had recently begun growing a beard. His hair and his beard were black. His body was very white, and the blood that oozed onto the concrete pavement beneath him was very red.
The superintendent of the building discovered him at two minutes before 6 A.M., when he went to put his garbage in one of the cans out back. The boy was lying facedown in his own blood, and the super did not recognize him. He was shocked, of course. He did not ordinarily discover naked dead men in the backyard when he went to put out his garbage. But considering his shock, and considering his advanced age (he was approaching eighty), he managed to notify the police with considerable dispatch, something not every good citizen of the city managed to do quite so well or so speedily.
Hal Willis arrived on the scene at fifteen minutes pat six, accompanied by Richard Genero, who was the newest man on the squad, having been recently promoted from patrolman to detective 3rd/Grade. Forbes and Phelps, the two men from Homicide, were already there. It was Willis’s contention that any pair of Homicide cops was the same as any other pair of Homicide cops. He had never, for example, seen Forbes and Phelps in the same room with Monoghan and Monroe. Was this not undeniable proof that they were one and the same couple? Moreover, it seemed to Willis that all Homicide cops exchanged clothing regularly, and that Forbes and Phelps could on any given day of the week be found wearing suits and overcoats belonging to Monoghan and Monroe.
“Good morning,” Willis said.
“Morning,” Phelps said.
Forbes grunted.
“Nice way to start a goddamn Sunday, right?” Phelps asked.
“You fellows got here pretty fast,” Genero said.
Forbes looked at him. “Who’re you?”
“Dick Genero.”
“Never heard of you,” Forbes said.
“I never heard of you, neither,” Genero answered, and glanced to Willis for approval.
“Who’s the dead man?” Willis asked drily. “Anybody ever hear of him?”
“He sure as hell ain’t carrying any identification,” Phelps said, and cackled hoarsely.
“Not unless he’s got it shoved up his ass someplace,” Forbes said, and began laughing along with his partner.
“Who found the body?” Willis asked.
“Building superintendent.”
“Want to get him, Dick?”
“Right,” Genero said, and walked off.
“I hate to start my day like this,” Phelps said.
“Grisly,” Forbes said.
“All I had this morning was a cup of coffee,” Phelps said. “And now this. Disgusting.”
“Nauseating,” Forbes said.
“Least have the decency to put on some goddamn clothes before he jumps off the roof,” Phelps said.
“How do you know he jumped off the roof?” Willis asked.
“I don’t. I’m only saying.”
“What do you think he was doing?” Forbes asked. “Walking around the backyard naked?”
“I don’t know,” Willis said, and shrugged.
“Looks like a jumper to me,” Phelps said. He glanced up at the rear wall of the building. “Isn’t that a broken window up there?”
“Where?”
“Fourth floor there. Isn’t that window broken there?”
“Looks like it,” Forbes said.
“Sure looks like it to me,” Phelps said.
“Hal, here’s the super,” Genero said, approaching with the old man. “Name’s Mr. Dennison, been working here for close to thirty years.”
“How do you do, Mr. Dennison? I’m Detective Willis.”
Dennison nodded and said nothing.
“I understand you found the body.”
“That’s right.”
“When was that?”
“Just before I called the cops.”
“What time was that, Mr. Dennison?”
“Little after six, I guess.”
“Know who it is?”
“Can’t see his face,” Dennison said.
“We’ll roll him over for you as soon as the M.E. gets here,” Genero said.
“Don’t do me no favors,” Dennison answered.
Unlike patrolmen, detectives — with the final approval of the chief downtown — decide upon their own work schedules. As a result, the shifts will vary according to the whims of the men on the squad. For the past three months, and based on the dubious assumption that the night shift was more arduous than the day, the detectives of the 87th Squad had broken their working hours into two shifts, the first beginning at six in the morning and ending at eight in the evening, the second beginning then and ending at six the next day. The daywatch was fourteen hours long, the nightwatch only ten. But there were more men on duty during the day, and presumably this equalized the load. That some of those men were testifying in court or out on special assignments some of the time seemed not to bother any of the detectives, who considered the schedule equitable. At least for the time being. In another month or so, someone would come up with suggestions for a revised schedule, and they’d hold a meeting in the interrogation office and agree that they ought to try something new. A change was as good as a rest, provided the chief approved.
As with any schedule, though, there were ways of beating it if you tried hard enough. Relieving the departing team at fifteen minutes before the hour was a mandatory courtesy, and one way of avoiding a 5:45 A.M. arrival at the squadroom was to plant yourself in a grocery store that did not open its doors until six-thirty. Detective Andy Parker found himself just such a grocery store on this bright October morning. The fact that the store had been robbed three times in broad daylight during the past month was only incidental. The point was that some detective had to cover the joint, and Andy Parker fortuitously happened to be that detective. The first thing he did to ingratiate himself with the owner was to swipe an apple from the fruit stand outside the store. The owner, one Silvio Corradini, who was sharp of eye for all his seventy-two years, noticed the petty larceny the moment it was committed. He was about to run out on the sidewalk to apprehend the brigand, when the man began walking directly into the store, eating the apple as he came. It was then that Silvio realized the man could be nothing but a cop.
“Good morning,” Parker said.
“Good morning,” Silvio replied. “You enjoy the fruit?”
“Yeah, very good apple,” Parker said. “Thanks a lot.” He grinned amiably. “I’m Detective Parker,” he said, “I’ve been assigned to these holdups.”
“What happened to the other detective?”
“Di Maeo? He’s on vacation.”
“In October?”
“We can’t all get the summertime, huh?” Parker said, and grinned again. He was a huge man wearing rumpled brown corduroy trousers and a soiled tan windbreaker. He had shaved this morning before eating breakfast, but he managed to look unshaven nonetheless. He bit into the apple ferociously, juice spilling onto his chin. Silvio, watching him, thought he resembled a hired gun for the Mafia.