In the time it took Meyer to snap off four rapid shots, Carella was on his feet and racing to the doorframe. He stood to the right of the bedroom door now, flattened against the wall, wondering if Meyer could see him there.
"Meyer!" he yelled.
"Here!”
"We go on three!" he shouted.
"Got it!”
Silence.
Denker waiting in the dark. Five cartridges left in the automatic, was there another gun in there? Waiting for them to rush the room on the count of three, not knowing that these men had worked together for years and years and that when one of them yelled "We go on three!" it meant nobody was going anywhere, everybody was sitting tight right where he was, the words we go negating the whole damn thing. They were not going to storm that door on the count of three, they were merely hoping Denker would begin firing on three and would shoot himself out of yet another magazine.
Silence.
Outside on the street, another ambulance siren. Busy night tonight. Carella was hoping they wouldn't need an ambulance here. Or a body bag. Especially not for Denker. Better to take him out of here without any leaky holes in him.
Carry him out of here on a stretcher and some shyster lawyer would start the Wheels of Technicality rolling even before the ambulance attendants got down to the second floor. As it was, the detectives would have to justify the use of deadly force, convince the people downtown that they hadn't used the gun as a means of apprehension but had opened fire only in self-defense. This city, you sometimes felt everybody was trying to make the job more difficult than it actually was. All they were trying to do here was arrest a killer.
Meanwhile, they waited in the darkness, hoping the trick that had worked for them a hundred times before would work again for them now. Knowing, too, that even if it did work, even if they managed to fool Denker into emptying his gun at an empty doorframe, he might reload before they'd moved a foot into the room, or-worse yet-he might cut them down with a second gun.
"Stand by!" Carella shouted.
Denker had to know he was just outside the room, standing to the right of the door. Denker had to be waiting to blow him away the moment he stepped into the frame. But nobody would be there.
"One!" Carella shouted.
Silence.
"Two!" he shouted.
More silence.
"Three!" he shouted, and Denker opened up.
He was taking no chances. He fired two shots to the right of the jamb, where he knew Carella had to be, another shot straight down the middle, where the other cop might be, and the last two to the left, where the other cop might also be. Five shots altogether, plus the two he'd fired at Carella's head earlier, which made seven for an empty magazine. There was a click and then another click and then Denker yelled "Shit!”
because nobody'd been counting but us chickens, boss, and now he was in it up to his nostrils. Nobody had to yell go, nobody had to give any kind of signal to storm that room right this minute, both cops knew this was it, there'd be no second chance if they blew this one. Denker was starting to slide a fresh magazine into the gun when they rushed him. Meyer kicked him in the balls, and Carella rabbit-punched him at the back of his head. The magazine fell to the floor, but Denker swung out backhanded with the empty gun, catching Carella just below his right ear and sending him reeling back across the room.
"Freeze!" Meyer shouted, but nobody was freezing.
Denker whirled on him with the gun, the barrel clutched in his fist now, wielding the gun like a hammer, its butt in striking position, moving up fast on Meyer who stood in the gunfighter's crouch they'd taught him at the Academy all those many years ago, and who said again, very softly this time, looking down the length of the gun directly into Denker's eyes, "Freeze," and this time the single word stopped Denker in his tracks because maybe he'd seen what was in Meyer's eyes and figured he'd rather take his chances with twelve good men and true. Or women, for that matter.
He dropped the gun.
Carella snapped the cuffs on him.
They were all breathing very hard.
Nellie Brand had been to a late party and had just fallen into a deep sleep when her boss phoned. Her boss was the district attorney.
He told her the Eight-Seven had made an arrest in the Bowles case, and she'd better get uptown right away because it looked like real meat. This was at a quarter to two in the morning. Mumbling, Nellie lumbered out of bed, stumbled to the bathroom, and stood under the shower for a full ten minutes before she began feeling moderately alive again.
An assistant D.A. was no less an authority figure than a doctor; both had to look well-dressed even when making a house call in the middle of the night. Nellie wore her sand-colored hair in a breezy flying wedge; all she had to do was use the dryer on it, and run a comb through it. She put on black pantyhose and bra, a pale pink long-sleeved blouse, a gray woolen pants suit, - and black pumps with low heels. No jewelry but her wedding band. She inspected herself in the mirror on the back of the bathroom door. All things considered, she looked reasonably representative of The Law. She kissed her sleeping husband goodbye, put on a down overcoat, took from one of its pockets a blue woolen hat that matched her eyes, and pulled it down over her ears. She locked both locks on the apartment door, and then went downstairs to look for a taxi.
When she got to the 87th Precinct that morning, it was almost two-thirty.
Miscolo offered her a cup of coffee he'd personally brewed in the Clerical Office, but she'd been up here before and she politely declined. Carella diplomatically suggested that perhaps they should send out for some Danish, and while they were at it get some coffee delivered, too. He called the order in to a deli on Culver Avenue. The food got there half an hour later.
They sat drinking coffee and eating cheese Danish at three o'clock in the morning. There was something almost cozy about it. The squadroom was piping hot, radiators hissing, windows melting frost now that someone had turned up the thermostat.
They'd worked together before, these three. They knew each other and liked each other. Carella had poured his coffee from its cardboard container into his personal squadroom mug, marked in red nail polish with the initials S.C. Meyer's mug was marked M.M. Nellie drank from a plain white guest mug. They sat around Carella's desk as if it were a kitchen table. The coffee was very hot and very good. The Danish was good, too. This was nice. Three people here or there in their thirties, all of them more or less in the same business, all of them just sitting here eating and drinking at three o'clock in the morning while Andrew Denker cooled his heels in a holding cell downstairs.
"So what've we got?" Nellie asked.
"Everything but the ballistics report,”
Carella said. "We're waiting for that now. I was promised a quick comeback.”
"Which means next month," Nellie said.
"Usually, but I said we had a prisoner here we were waiting to question.”
"When was this?”
"When I messengered the stuff downtown. Twelve-thirty, a quarter to one. As soon as we got back here.”
"What'd you send them?”
"Denker's gun, and some spent cartridge cases and bullets.”
"That his name? Denker?”
"Andrew Denker," Meyer said, nodding.
"Andrew, not Andy. He doesn't like to be called Andy.”
"A contract player from Chicago," Carella said.
"Very expensive hit men there," Nellie said.
"We've got expensive ones here, too,”
Meyer said.
"Why don't you give Ballistics another call?" Nellie said, turning to Carella.
"Goose them along.”
Carella looked up at the clock.