“Next Saturday?” he said, smiling with relief and pleasure. “Same time?”
“I’d love to.”
The man who had abandoned the Buick twenty minutes earlier stood in the shadows of the parking lot watching O’Leary and the dark-haired waitress. It was like a movie, he realized with pleasure, the big plate-glass window and the people behind it outlined starkly by the restaurant’s bright lighting. A silent movie, of course. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he could see their shifting expressions and the smiles that came and went on their lips.
They weren’t talking business, he thought, and took a deliberate luxurious sip from his container of hot, heavily sweetened coffee. But the big trooper had been very businesslike until the slim, dark-haired girl came along. Talking to the attendant at the gas pumps, then going into the restaurant and quizzing the hostess and the stupid-looking little blonde at the take-out counter. Very serious and efficient. The man watching through the window had seen all that. But now the trooper’s manner had changed. He and the girl were smiling at each other, trying to be impersonal, of course, masking their feelings; but it was nakedly apparent, disgustingly evident to the man sipping the sweet coffee in the dark parking lot. His name was Harry Bogan, and despite his irritation at their intimate, suggestive smiles, he was still grateful they weren’t talking business. The trooper’s business, that is. For it was from this slender, dark-haired girl that Bogan had bought his coffee and frankfurter. And the trooper hadn’t asked her about it; that was obvious.
Without his overcoat Bogan was cold. But he stood motionless in the shadows until the trooper turned away from the counter after giving the girl a last quick smile and a soft salute. Then Bogan walked the length of the parking lot and moved silently into the opening between two cars. He ate his frankfurter in quick, greedy bites, savoring the tart bite of the mustard on his tongue, and dropped the empty, cradlelike container to the ground. Then he finished the coffee, tilting the cardboard cup high to let a little stream of liquefied sugar trickle into his mouth. He let the cup fall at his feet and drew a deep, satisfied breath. Sugar or honey usually made him feel grateful and at peace with himself.
He watched the doors of the restaurant as he pulled a pair or black-leather gloves over his thick, muscular hands. His eyes were bright with excitement. He shivered with pleasure as he found a crumb of sugar on his lip. His tongue moved dexterously, then flicked the tiny sweetness into his mouth.
Bogan did not have long to wait. Within a matter of seconds a plump, elderly man came hurrying along the line of parked cars, fumbling in his pockets for his keys. Bogan shifted his position slightly, moving into the deeper shadows until only his thick glasses glinted in the darkness, as steady and watchful as the eyes of a crouching cat.
O’Leary returned to his patrol car and reported to headquarters. Sergeant Tonelli said. “Captain Royce wants to talk to you, O’Leary. Hold on.”
The captain’s voice was hard and metallic, as arresting as a pistol shot. “O’Leary, did you get a lead on the man who abandoned that Buick?”
“No, sir. I drew blanks with the gas-pump attendants and the waitresses in the restaurant. He probably wasn’t wearing a hat or overcoat — that’s all I had to go on.”
“Get back to that car. Don’t let anyone near it. Lieutenant Trask and the lab men are on their way. That Buick was used in a double murder in New York not more than an hour ago. Get moving, O’Leary.”
Lt. Andy Trask was short and muscular with shoulders that bulged impressively against his black overcoat. At forty-five, the lieutenant was a study in somber tones — broad, tanned face, brown eyes and black hair that only in the past year had faded to silver along the temples. As the lab technicians went to work on the car, searching trunk and glove compartments, fingerprinting and photographing, Trask gave O’Leary an account of the information that headquarters had received in a three-state alarm from New York.
“We’ve got no description on the murderer, except that he’s big, and was wearing a light-colored tweed overcoat and a gray hat. Here’s what he did: Around six-thirty this evening he walked into a little furniture-repair-type shop on Third Avenue in Manhattan and shot and killed the owners, a young married couple named Swanson. It wasn’t a robbery: he just shot ’em and ran out The Buick belongs to a druggist who’d parked it about a half block from the furniture shop, with the keys in the ignition. The killer was seen running from the shop by an old woman in an apartment across the street; but she’s an invalid with no phone.
“It took her half an hour to get hold of her landlady. The landlady, like everybody else in the neighborhood, was down in the street talking about what had happened. So — half an hour later — the invalid tells her story. She described the clothes the guy was wearing and the license number of the Buick. But by that time the murderer had got through the Lincoln Tunnel and onto our pike.” Trask turned and jerked his thumb at the Buick. “Now he’s ditched this crate and more than likely is looking for another one. We’ve got to find him before somebody else gets hurt.”
“With no description,” O’Leary said slowly. “He’s got rid of the tweed coat and gray hat. We’ve got nothing to go on. He could be off and running by now in another car.” He glanced helplessly at the streams of traffic rolling smoothly past him. “Any car, lieutenant. With a gun he could force his way into a station wagonful of college kids. Or climb in with a nice little family group where he’d look like innocent Old Uncle Fred. He could be in a truck, or in a trailer, holding a gun against some woman’s head while her husband drives him off the pike. It’s like chasing ghosts blindfolded.”
The radio in Trask’s black, unmarked car cracked a signal sharply. Trask slipped into the front seat and picked up the receiver. He listened for a few seconds, a frown shading his somber features, and then said, “Check. We’ll get at it.” He dropped the receiver back on its hook and looked sharply at O’Leary. “You called it, Dan. He’s off and running. There’s a dead man up at Howard Johnson’s, and an empty space where his car was parked. Come on.”
The body of the dead man had been discovered by a young couple returning to their car after dinner. The woman almost fell over his legs. Her husband flicked his cigarette lighter to see what was wrong. She began to scream then, and her husband ran back toward the bright lights of the restaurant, shouting for help.
Sergeant Tonelli received the report of the murder from the manager of the Howard Johnson’s and relayed it immediately to Lieutenant Trask. He dispatched Trask and O’Leary to the restaurant and then flashed the information to the communications center at State Police Headquarters in Darmouth.
This was the nerve center of a communications web which embraced every patrol car, station and substation within the state-police organization. In addition it was linked in a master net with the facilities of sin nearby states; under emergency priorities Darmouth could alert the full resources of police departments from Maine to South Carolina, throw its signals across the entire North Atlantic seaboard.
Lieutenant Biersby was on duty in Communications when Sergeant Tonelli’s message was brought to his desk. Biersby, short, plump and methodical, walked with no evidence of haste into an outer room where a dozen civilian clerks under the supervision of state troopers worked at batteries of teletypewriters and radio transmitters.
Lieutenant Biersby’s special talent was judgment; each message Hashed from his office required a priority, and it was his responsibility to establish the order of precedence to be given the thousands of alerts and reports which clattered into the office on every eight-hour shift. A smooth flow, based on relative importance, was essential; lapses in judgment could jam the mechanical facilities and burden already overworked police departments with trivial details and reports.