Thompson smiled as he lit a cigarette.
“It was easy, given the original hunch,” he said. “You remember that neither of us was happy about Jeff settling down in our precinct after the parole board turned him loose the last time, since we both had him figured for a real wrongo. I kept checking with his parole officer, and a month ago he told me he’d had unconfirmed rumors of Jeff’s cutting corners on his parole regulations, hanging out in taverns in wrong company, that sort of thing.
“I knew he was up to something, so I went by his rooming house one day and coaxed his landlord into giving me a look at his room. It was about what you’d expect, except that in one corner I saw an expensive-looking hi-fi unit with a quarter inch of dust on it, indicating that it wasn’t being used. I knew right then how I was going to find out what Jefferson was up to. I spent ten minutes hooking up the speaker in the hi-fi so it was operating as a microphone, and then I ran a wire—”
“Wait a minute!” Carl Robey protested. “Wait a minute! You changed a speaker into a microphone? What kind of talk is that?”
“All speakers are microphones, properly converted,” Thompson replied. “Usually you need an amplifier, because there’s a loss of power, but it’s no great trick. Just take the wire leading—”
“Spare me the lesson in electronics,” Carl Robey said gloomily. “You know I never made it out of the sixth grade.”
Thompson smiled. “All I did was run a wire from the converted speaker down to the basement, then brought in my voice-actuated portable tape recorder and connected it up in a closet to which the landlord gave me the key. Every morning I’d run in and put on a fresh reel of tape and take off the full one. I’ve got a stack of tapes at home in which Jeff outlined the entire job.
“I knew everything about it except the date, although I knew it was going to be this weekend. I think Jeff didn’t tell even his partners when he planned to move in to prevent exactly what happened.”
“So if you knew all this, why’d you have me losing sleep?” Robey demanded indignantly. “We could’ve scooped ’em in their room and wrapped ’em up.”
Thompson shook his head.
“Most courts won’t accept that kind of evidence,” he explained. “Now, anyway, although I believe they’ll come to it. They should, since they’re taking away so many of the lawman’s tools.” He smiled at Robey. “Simple, wasn’t it?”
“Not for me,” his partner said emphatically. “The Wizard of Oz has nothing on you, boy.” A slow grin spread over his broad features. “Crime prevention — that’s the name of the game!”
“This time the name of the game was tape,” Thompson said.
“Okay, okay,” Robey said. “You know what worries me? After this, what do we do for an encore the next time the lieutenant lines us up on a job?”
“When we need it, I’ll think of something,” Thompson said.
“I wouldn’t bet against it, partner,” Robey said.
Together they went out into what was left of the night.
Extreme Shock
by V. A. Levine
A man who lived in his private hell... a girl who had spent her life keeping him there... Somehow I had to get past certain death to bring them together for the, last time — before I walked into the waiting bullets...
It was a cool November wind that blew me into the United Nations Secretariat early that Tuesday morning.
I took the escalator to the second floor of the conference building and strode down the corridor to the security office. I unlocked the door to my glass cubicle, the one reading CASIMIRO LOWRY, Assistant Chief, U.N. Security, removed my coat and sat behind the desk. I lit a cigarette and watched a tug pulling a string of barges downriver. I checked my watch. Eight-forty-five. The phone rang.
“Miro-san.” It was the boss, Inspector Ryonosuke Akutagawa. “Konnichi-wa. Good morning. Come and have some tea. We have things to discuss.”
I came, slowly. He had a case. I needed a vacation. I had one scheduled for Friday. It looked like I was out of luck.
“Ah.” Akutagawa half rose and bowed as I entered. “Please sit. You are well?” He poured the tea as he spoke. He handed me a miniature ceremonial cup.
“For the moment I am well.”
“Excellent,” We sipped. He said, “I have not forgotten your fishing holiday.” He grinned — many wrinkles in a square shaped face with deepset black eyes. “However, this is rather serious and the secretary-general has ordered an investigation.”
I sighed.
Akutagawa said, “Eleanor Draftsman was lifted off the IRT subway tracks at West Twenty-third Street at eight this morning.”
Eleanor Draftsman was the personal secretary to the Chef de Cabinet, one of the chief executive officers of the UN next to the secretary-general. I said: “Dead, I suppose.”
He shook his head. “Alive. She had the presence of mind to hug the center well of the trackbed, so the train ran over her without touching her. Also, she avoided the live rail. Naturally, she’s in shock. They took her to St. Vincent’s.”
I didn’t like the way he’d put it. “You’re not thinking she was pushed?”
“It is impossible to say at the moment.” He made a slight negative motion. “It happened during the rush hour. Such accidents are not unknown.”
I said, “She could have jumped, of course.”
“If so, why seek the center well?”
“Changed her mind at the last minute. It’s a hell of a way to go.”
Akutagawa shook his head. “She either fell or she was pushed. Either way, I want a full report, Miro-san. We cannot afford to take a chance on its being a simple accident. She is too close to the S-G.”
I asked about motive. He had a nine appointment with the secretary-general and the Chef de Cabinet. He felt he’d have a better idea once, he talked to them. After he left I called Angus Narijian at the Manhattan D.A.s office. Narijian, an assistant D.A., was our official contact on all confidential cases. We got along all right, though he had a habit of going off half-cocked.
“No leads,” he said, “no witnesses.” His big basso came rumbling through the earpiece of the phone like an IRT express. “Just confusion, packed sweating bodies and minimal visibility.”
“Sounds like she slipped and fell.”
“Yeah, that’s what I think. You know how it is, Lowry; the train comes in and the crowd pushes forward, just like they always do. Then, pow, she slips, loses her balance, teeters on the edge, someone reaches out to grab her, misses. She falls, just as the local comes thundering in. I wouldn’t have given a dime for her chances. My opinion, she’s lucky she didn’t end up in the morgue.”
I thanked him for his opinion and hung up. After talking to Angus Narijian I began to see that Akutagawa was just possibly right. It was looking like less of an accident. Like something more deliberate. Subway crowds don’t usually surge forward when a train comes in. They step back. Also, it seemed just too pat that Mrs. Draftsman should slip at the precise moment the train arrived.
Still, I thought Akutagawa had unfairly dismissed my theory, that Mrs. Draftsman had changed her mind at the last minute. Why not? Women change their minds all the time. Besides, I didn’t like to think of her having been pushed. A probe of that type could take months. I had three days. And those Canadian bass were dancing in dazzling arcs before my eyes.
Akutagawa returned from his appointment on the 38th floor looking neither happy nor sad. He looked — well so help me — he looked inscrutable, all five feet five inches of him, and he was treading warily, like a dancer or judo player. He was no dancer but he was a judo player in the fourth rank, which meant the black belt and a whole lot of very discreet recognition.