“Kling,” Kling said.
“Brown,” Brown said.
“Kling and Brown,” Turbo said into the phone, and listened again. “What precinct?” he asked them.
“The Eight-Seven,” Kling said.
“The Eight-Seven,” Turbo said into the phone. “A homicide. No, this is the guy’s place of business, the victim’s. So what should I do? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. I just want my ass covered, you understand, Mike? ‘Cause next thing you know, I’ll be doing time on a Burglary Three rap.” He listened. “What release form, who’s got a release form? Well, no, I don’t. So what should it say? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. You want both of them to sign it, or what? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. And that’ll do it, huh? Okay, Mike, you’re the boss. I’ll see you later,” he said, and hung up. “I need a release from you guys,” he said. “Authorizing me to open that thing. One signature’ll do it, whoever caught the squeal. I’ll give you the language.”
He dictated the words to Kling, who wrote them down in his pad, and then signed the page.
“Date it, please,” Turbo said.
Kling dated it.
“And you’d better let me have your rank and shield number, too.”
Kling scribbled his rank and shield number under his signature.
“I’m sorry to get so technical,” Turbo said, pocketing the sheet of paper Kling tore from his pad, “but if there’s anything of value in that safe, and it happens to disappear—”
“Right, you’re just covering your ass,” Brown said.
“Right,” Turbo said, and shot him a glare. “So let’s see if this guy left it on day comb.” He went to the safe again. “Lots of guys who are in and out of a box all day long, they’ll just give the dial a tiny little twist when they close it, you know? Then all they have to do is turn it back to the last number, saves a lot of time.” He turned the dial slowly, and yanked on the handle. “No such luck,” he said. “Let’s try the old five-ten.”
The detectives looked at him.
“Lots of guys, they have trouble remembering numbers, so when they order a safe, they’ll ask for the combination to be three numbers in a multiplication table. Like five, ten, fifteen. Or four, eight, twelve. Or six, twelve, eighteen, or whatever. Hardly ever the nine table, that’s a bitch, the nine table. What’s nine times three?” he asked Kling.
“Twenty-seven,” Kling said.
“Yeah, well, that’s the exception that proves the rule. So let’s give it a shot.”
As he began trying the multiplication-table combinations, he said, “Would you know this guy’s birthday?”
“No,” Brown said.
“ ‘Cause sometimes they use their birthdays, you know, anything to make it easy to remember. Like if he was born on October 15, 1926, the combination would be ten left, fifteen right, and then twenty-six left again. But you don’t know his birthday, huh?”
“No,” Brown said.
“Take a look at the phone there, what’s the number on it?”
“What?” Brown said.
“The phone. The phone I just used there. On the guy’s desk. What’s the first six digits? Sometimes they’ll use the first six digits of their phone number.”
“You want me to write this down, or what?” Brown asked.
“Yeah, write it down. I’m still only up to the six table. I usually only take it to eleven, because after that the tables get too tricky. Who the hell even knows what fourteen times three is?” he said.
“Forty-two,” Kling said, and Turbo gave him a sour look.
“Okay, give me that phone number,” he said.
Brown handed him the slip of paper on which he’d written down the first six digits of the number. Turbo tried them.
“No such luck,” he said. “Okay, let’s bring up the heavy artillery.” He opened his satchel, and took from it a small sledgehammer and a punch. “Best burglars in this city are on the Safe, Loft & Truck Squad,” he said, proudly, and with one swift blow knocked off the combination dial. “Looks like a lead spindle,” he said, “we’ll find out in a minute.” He began pounding on the exposed spindle. The spindle started mushrooming under the hammer blows. “Lead, sure as hell,” he said. “This here is what you call a money box here. That means it’s made of heavy steel layers, with a punch-resistant spindle, and sometimes a boltwork relock device, or even a copper sheet in the door so an acetylene torch on it don’t mean nothing. If I’da known what this was gonna be, I’da brought nitro.” He smiled suddenly. “I’m kidding. Your best burglars these days hardly ever use explosives. What I got to do here is I got to peel back the steel until I can get a big enough hole to force a jimmy in. Once I get to that lock, I can pry it loose and open the door. Make yourselves comfortable, this may take a while.”
Kling looked up at the clock. It was ten minutes past 4:00, and he had promised Eileen he’d meet her at 5:00. He debated calling her, decided not to.
“Can we get a little light in here?” Turbo asked. “Or were you partners with this dead guy?”
Brown flicked on the wall switch.
Turbo got to work.
He opened the box in twenty minutes. He was obviously very pleased with himself, and so both Brown and Kling congratulated him effusively before getting down on their hands and knees to see what was inside there.
There were not very many gems in the safe. Several pouches of rubies, emeralds, and sapphires, and one small pouch of diamonds. But on a shelf at the rear of the safe, stacked neatly there, the detectives found $300,000 in $100 bills.
“We’re in the wrong business,” Turbo told them.
Detective Richard Genero had been very leery about answering the telephone ever since he’d inadvertently yelled at a captain from downtown two days ago. You never knew who was going to be on the other end. That was the mystery of the telephone. There were other mysteries in life as well, which was why his mother constantly advised him to “mind his own business,” a warning that seemed absurd when directed to a policeman, whose business was minding other people’s business. When the telephone on Carella’s desk rang at 4:30 that Tuesday afternoon, Genero debated answering it. Carella was at the other end of the squadroom, putting on his coat, preparatory to leaving. Suppose this was that captain again? Carella and the captain seemed to be good friends. Carella had laughed a lot when he was talking to the captain on the telephone. Suppose the captain yelled at Genero again? The phone kept ringing.
“Will somebody please pick that up?” Carella shouted from across the room, where he was buttoning his coat.
Since Genero was the only other person in the room, he picked up the receiver, very gingerly, and held it a little distance from his ear, in case the captain started yelling again. “Hello?” he said, not wanting to give his name in case this was the captain again.
“Detective Carella, please,” the voice on the other end said.
“Who’s this, please?” Genero asked, very carefully.
“Tell him it’s Danny,” the voice said.
“Yes, sir,” Genero said, not knowing whether or not Danny was the same captain who’d called on Sunday, or perhaps even another captain. “Steve!” he yelled, “it’s Danny.”
Carella came across the room to his desk. “Why does it always ring when I’m on my way out?” he said.
“That’s the mystery of the telephone,” Genero said, and smiled like an angel. Carella took the receiver from him. Genero went back to his own desk, where he was working on a crossword puzzle, and having trouble with a three-letter word that meant feline.
“Hello, Danny,” Carella said.
“Steve? I hope this ain’t an inconvenient time.”