“Because he knows we’re looking for him. Besides, that check is only for a hundred ten dollars and seventy-nine cents.”
“So? The one he cashed today isn’t for a hell of a lot more.”
“The first one he cashed,” Carella said.
“You think there’ll be more?”
“I think he’ll milk the account dry before he takes off for wherever he’s heading.”
“Then you think he killed them for the money? A measly three thousand bucks?”
“I know people who’ve killed people for a measly nickel,” Carella said, and nodded. “My guess is that tomorrow morning bright and early, Damascus’ll start hitting all the other branches of Commerce of America, cashing small checks in each of them.” He nodded again, briefly. “Only this time, we’ll be ready for him.”
11
There were seven branches of Commerce of America, but the police reasoned that Damascus would never try to pass himself off as Leyden at the branch where the dead man was known. They reasoned, too, that he would not try to cash a second check at the branch on Harris and Aley, and so that left only five banks to cover. There were sixteen detectives on the squad, two of whom were on special assignment, three of whom were off duty, and three of whom were serving patrol days. That left eight available men; Lieutenant Byrnes took five of the eight, paired them off with patrolmen in plainclothes, and stationed them in the banks they guessed Damascus would hit.
Steve Carella was paired with Patrolman Benny Breach in the branch on Dock Street, all the way downtown in the financial section. The plan they had worked out with the bank officers was a simple one. If Damascus came up to any of the tellers with a check, the routine was not to vary an iota from what it had been yesterday when Edward Graham cashed the $200 check for him. The teller would first ask for identification, and then say he wanted to call the main branch to verify that there were sufficient funds in the account. He would then go to a telephone and dial the manager’s office, where Carella and Breach would be waiting. Without arousing Damascus’s suspicion in any way, he would smilingly come back to the window, ask him how he wanted the cash, and begin paying the check. By that time, Carella and Breach would have come out of the manager’s office to make the arrest.
In practice, the plan worked almost that way.
Almost, but not quite.
Damascus came into the bank at 11:15 and walked directly to one of the windows. He was a tall, good-looking man, well-dressed, exactly as Edward Graham had described him. He reached into his back pocket for his wallet, withdrew a check from it, and shoved it across the counter. His hands were huge. The printed names ROSE AND ANDREW LEYDEN fairly leaped up at the teller from the top of the check. He wet his lips, and then glanced at the check with only routine interest. It was made payable to Cash, in the amount of $200; it was dated October 17, and signed by Andrew Leyden. The teller turned it over, glanced at the endorsement on the back, and then casually said, “May I see some identification, please, Mr. Leyden?”
“Yes, certainly.” Damascus reached into his wallet. Locating the driver’s license, he smiled at the teller, and slid it across the counter.
“Thank you, sir,” the teller said, routinely comparing the signatures on the check with the one on the driver’s license. “I’ll just have to check our main branch, this won’t take a moment.”
“Certainly.”
The teller walked away from his cage. He picked up a phone on the desk some ten feet from the window. When Carella answered, he said, “He’s here. Window number six.”
“Right,” Carella said, and hung up.
The teller nodded pleasantly, replaced the receiver on its cradle, smiled, and walked back to the window.
“How would you like that, Mr. Leyden?” he asked.
“In tens, please.”
“Yes, sir.”
The teller opened the cash drawer. He took out a sheaf of tens, and began counting them off. He had reached seventy when Carella appeared at the window, gun in hand.
“Mr. Damascus,” Carella said, “you’re under arrest.”
His answer was a short sharp paralyzing uppercut to the point of the jaw. His gun went off wildly, he heard footsteps clattering away across the marble floor and then Patrolman Breach’s voice shouting, “Stop or I’ll shoot!” and then another gun going off. He stood dizzily swaying for a moment, heard Patrolman Breach firing again, shook his head to clear it, and then took aim on Damascus as he rushed toward the revolving entrance doors. He squeezed off the shot, saw the slug connect, saw blood on the neat gray shoulder of the suit, ran toward the revolving doors, and was again surprised when Damascus reversed direction and kicked out at the gun in his hand. A woman screamed, the gun arced up into the air, spiraled down toward the marble floor, clattered away out of reach. Patrolman Breach was firing again, what did they teach you to hit at the Academy? Carella wondered, and then hurled himself onto Damascus’s back as he moved again toward the revolving doors. The left sleeve of Damascus’s jacket began to tear where Carella clung to it, finally ripped loose at the shoulder seam, and pulled free of the coat itself to expose a short-sleeved white shirt and a powerful forearm. Something on that forearm almost caused Carella to relax his grip. He opened his eyes wide in surprise and then, without stopping to think about the meaning of what he had just seen, he seized the ragged shoulder of the jacket with his right hand, pulled back on it, and hurled his left fist at the same instant. He felt nose bones splintering, heard a scream of outraged pain. He swung out again with his right, and then closed in for the kill, breathing harshly, swearing as he battered the big man to the marble floor of the bank, senseless.
On his left arm was a tattooed blue dagger with the name “Andy” lettered across its blade in red.
In the squadroom, in the presence of an attorney, Andrew Lloyd Leyden told them what had happened. He told them in his own words while Carella, Kling, Lieutenant Byrnes, and a police stenographer listened. His voice was very low as he spoke. He sat with his jacket draped over his bandaged shoulder, his head bent except when he glanced up at the detectives to ask rhetorical questions. They knew he was finished only when he stopped speaking; he gave no other sign. The police stenographer typed the statement in triplicate, and they gave the original to Leyden to read before signing, while Byrnes studied one copy and Carella and Kling shared the other. The squadroom was silent as the men read the confession:
I learned about them in May.
It was the beginning of May. I had been on the road, and when I came back I found out. I found out by accident. I didn’t... you see... I didn’t even know she was pregnant. You see, I had gone to the Coast in February, I take this one very long trip each spring, I leave here on February 1st, and I get back around May 1st, it’s the longest trip I take each year. It... you see I had been gone since February and when... she miscarried, you see, and... and the doctor said the... he said she was... only two months pregnant so... so you see... I knew. I realized.
I didn’t know what to do at first.
Whatever you do is wrong.
There’s no right way for a man to behave when his wife and a stranger have made a fool of him, there’s no way, all the ways are wrong. I kept wondering, you know, how she could have done it, didn’t she know how much I loved her, I kept wondering that all the time. And I kept wondering, too, what would have happened if she hadn’t miscarried. Was she planning to have the baby, did she think I was that great a fool, didn’t she know I could count, for Christ’s sake-or had they worked out something else? I didn’t know, you see. I just didn’t know. But there was nothing to do, nothing to do but shut up and carry the knowledge inside me. And die. Slowly die.