Implausible, Bucky. Completely implausible."
"Well, it looks legitimate to me," Bucky said doggedly.
"Look..." Jim started. And Sammy interrupted with, "Let me handle this, Jimbo."
"Well, it looks legitimate to me," Bucky said doggedly.
"Is it signed?" Sammy said.
"Do you see a signature?"
"Sure," Bucky said.
"Detective 2nd/Gr ..
"It's typed. But is it signed?"
"So?"
"So what?"
"So, look. You want to stew about this thing all night?"
"No, but ..
"What'd we come up here for?"
"Well ..
"To play space patrol with Buck Rogers?"
"No, but ..
"To waste our time with phony cops and robbers messages typed up by some kid on his brother's typewriter?"
"No, but ..
"I'm gonna ask you a simple question, man," Sammy said.
"Plain and simple. And I want a plain and simple answer, man.
Okay?"
"Sure," Bucky said.
"But it looks legit ..
"Did you come up here to get laid or didn't you?"
"I did."
"Well?"
"V,/ell ..
"Come on. Throw that away. Let's get started. The night is young. Huh?" Sammy grinned.
"Huh? Come on, man. Come on, huh? What do you say? How about it? Huh?
Okay?"
Bucky thought it over for a moment.
Then he said, "You go ahead without me.
I want to call this number."
"Oh, for the love of holy Buddha!"
Sammy said.
The telephone in the squad room rang at 6:55. Hal Willis waited for Virginia's signal, and then picked up the receiver.
"Eighty-seventh Squad," he said.
"Detective Willis speaking."
"Just a second," the voice on the other end said. The voice retreated from the phone, obviously talking to someone else in the room.
"How the hell do I know?" it said.
"Turn it over to the Bunco Squad. No, for Christ's sake, what would we be doing with a pickpocket file? Oh, Riley, you're the stupidest sonofabitch I've ever had to work with. I'm on the phone, can yo~i wait just one goddamn minute?" The voice came back onto the line.
"Hello?"
"Hello?" Willis said. At the desk opposite him, Virginia Dodge watched and listened.
"Who'm I speaking to?" the voice asked.
"Hal Willis."
"You're a detective, did you say?"
"Yes."
"This the 87th Squad?"
"Yes."
"Yeah. Well then I guess it's a crank."
"Huh?"
"This is Mike Sullivan down Headquarters. We got a call a little while ago, clocked in at ... ah ... just a second..."
Sullivan rattled some papers on the other end of the line ..... six forty-nine. Yeah."
"What kind of a call?" Willis said.
"Some college kid. Said he picked up a D.D. report in the street. Had a message typed on it. Something about a broad with a bottle of nitro. Know anything about it?"
At her desk, Virginia Dodge stiffened visibly. The revolver came up close to the neck of the bottle. From where Willis stood, he could see her trembling.
"Nitro?" he said into the phone, and he watched her hand, and he was certain the barrel of the gun would collide with the bottle at any moment.
"Yeah. Nitroglycerin. How about that?"
"No," Willis said.
"There's... there's nothing like that up here."
"Yeah, that's what I figured. But the kid gave his name and all, so it sounded like it might be a real squeal. Well, that's the way it goes. Thought I'd check anyway, though.
No harm in checking, huh?" Sullivan laughed heartily.
"No," Willis said, desperately trying to think of some way to tell Sullivan that the message was real; whoever had sent it, the damn thing was real.
"There's certainly no harm checking." He watched Virginia, watched the trembling gun in her hand.
Sullivan continued laughing.
"Never know when there'll really be some nut up there with a bomb, huh, Willis?" Sullivan said, and he burst into louder laughter.
"No, you.." you never know," Willis said.
"Sure." Sullivan's laughter trailed off.
"Incidentally, is there a cop up there by the name of Meyer?"
Willis hesitated. Had Meyer sent the message? Was it signed? If he said "Yes," would that be the end of it, and would Sullivan make the connection? If he said "No," would Sullivan investigate further, check to see which cops manned the 87th.
And would Meyer .
"You with me?" Sullivan asked.
"What? Oh, yes."
"Answer him!" Virginia whispered.
"We sometimes get a lousy counection," Sullivan said, "I thought maybe we'd got cut off."
"No, I'm still here," Willis said.
"Yeah. Well, how about it Any Meyer there?"
"Yes. We have a Meyer."
"Second grade?"
"Yes."
"That's funny," Sullivan said.
"This kid said the note was signed by a second grade named Meyer. That's funny, all right."
"Yes," Willis said.
"And you got a Meyer up there, huh?"
"Yes."
"Boy, that sure is funny," Sullivan said.
"Well, no harm in checking, huh? What?
For God sake's, Riley, can't you see I'm on the phone? I gotta go, Willis. Take it easy, huh? Nice talking to you."
And he hung up.
Willis put the phone back into the cradle.
Virginia Dodge put down her receiver, picked up the bottle of nitro and slowly walked to where Meyer Meyer was sitting at the desk near the window.
She did not say a word.
She put the bottle down on the desk before him and then she brought her arm across her body and swung the gun in a backhanded swipe which ripped open Meyer's lip. Meyer put up his hands to cover his face, and again the gun came across, again, again, numbing his wrists, forcing his hands down until there was only the vicious metal swiping at his eyes and his bald head and his nose and his mouth.
Virginia's eyes were bright and hard.
Viciously, cruelly, brutally, she kept the pistol going like a whipsaw until, bleeding and dazed, Meyer Meyer collapsed, on the desk top, almost overturning the bottle of nitroglycerin.