“Do you think it’ll work?”
“No. Broughton has had about five hundred dicks working for him. Figure each detective has a minimum of three or four snitches on his wire. That means about two thousand informers, all over the city, and they’ve come up with zilch. If there was a crazy running wild-a crazy with a record-someone would know about it, or notice something weird, or hear some talk. Our man is new. Probably no record. Probably normal-appearing. I’ve already got him on my list as a good appearance, possibly well-dressed.”
“What list?”
Delaney was silent a moment, cursing his lapse. That list was his.
“A stupid list I made out of things I suspect about the guy. It’s all smoke. I don’t know anything.”
Now Thorsen was silent a moment. Then…
“I think maybe you and Johnson and I better have a meeting.”
“All right,” Delaney said glumly.
“And bring your list.”
“Can it wait until I see the reports on this Bernard Gilbert assault?”
“Sure. Anything I can do?”
“Will you have a man at the scene-or involved in the investigation?”
“Well…” Thorsen said cautiously, “maybe.”
“If you do, a couple of things…Is anything missing from the victim’s wallet? Particularly identification of any kind? And second, does he-or did he-use hair oil of any kind?”
“Hair oil? What the hell is that all about?”
Delaney frowned at the telephone. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. Probably not important. But can you check?”
“I’ll try. Anything else?”
“One more thing. If this Bernard Gilbert dies, and it’s proved similar to the Lombard snuff, the papers are going to get hold of it, so you better be prepared for ‘Maniacal Killer on Loose’ type of thing. It’s going to get hairy.”
“Oh God. I suppose so.”
“Most of the pressure will be on Broughton.”
“And the Commish.”
“Him, too, of course. But it will affect Chief Pauley most. He’s sure to get hundreds of phony leads and false confessions. They’ll all have to be checked out, of course. And there’s a good possibility there may be imitative assaults and homicides in other parts of the city. It usually happens. But don’t be spooked by them. Eventually they’ll be weeded out.
He had more conversation with Deputy Inspector Thorsen. They agreed that since Dorfman was recently appointed Acting Commander of the 251st Precinct, and since Thorsen was head of personnel of the patrol division, it would be entirely logical and understandable if Thorsen went to the scene of the Gilbert assault, ostensibly to check up on how Dorfman was handling things. Thorsen promised to call Delaney back as soon as possible, and he would, personally, try to check out the question of missing identification from Bernard Gilbert’s wallet and whether or not the victim used hair oil.
The moment he hung up, Delaney dialed the home number of Dr. Sanford Ferguson. It was getting on to 2:00 a.m., but the doctor was awake and cheerful.
“Edward!” he said. “How’s by you? I just came in from an on-the-spot inspection of a luscious young piece. Couldn’t have been over twenty-six or seven. Oh so lovely.”
“Dead?”
“Oh so dead. Apparently cardiac arrest. But doesn’t that strike you as odd, Edward? A luscious young piece with a shattered heart?”
“Married?”
“Not legally.”
“Is the boy friend a doctor or medical student?”
There was silence a moment.
“You bastard,” Ferguson said finally, “you scare me, you know that? In case you’re interested, the boy friend is a pharmacist.”
“Beautiful,” Delaney said. “Well, he probably found a younger, more luscious piece. But doctor, why I called…There’s been an assault in the Two-five-one Precinct. Tonight. Preliminary, reports are that the wound and weapon used are similar to the Lombard homicide. The victim in this case, still alive, a man named Bernard Gilbert, will be taken or has been taken to Mother of Mercy.”
“Dear old Mother.”
“I wondered If you’ve been assigned to this?”
“No, I have not.”
“I wondered if you could call the attending doctors and surgeons at Mother of Mercy and find out if it really is a Lombard-type penetration, and whether he’ll live or not, and-you know-whatever they’ll tell you.”
Again there was silence. Then…
“You know, Edward, you want a lot for one lousy lunch.”
“I’ll buy you another lousy lunch.”
Ferguson laughed. “You treat everyone differently, don’t you?”
“Don’t we all?”
“I guess so. And you want me to call you back with whatever I can get?”
“If you would. Please. Also, doctor, if this man should die, will there be an autopsy?”
“Of course. On every homicide victim. Or suspected victim.”
“With or without next-of-kin’s consent?”
“That’s correct.”
“If this man dies-this Bernard Gilbert-could you do the autopsy?”
“I’m not the Chief Medical Examiner, Edward. I’m just one of the slaves.”
“But could you wangle it?”
“I might be able to wangle it.”
“I wish you would. If he dies.”
“All right, Edward. I’ll try.”
“One more thing…”
Ferguson’s laughter almost broke his eardrum; Delaney held the phone up in the air until the doctor stopped spluttering.
“Edward,” Ferguson said, “I love you. I really do. With you it’s always ‘I want two things’ or ‘I’d like three favors.’ But then you always say, ‘Oh, just one more thing.’ You’re great. Okay, what’s your ‘one more thing’?”
“If you should happen to talk to a doctor or surgeon up at Mother of Mercy, or if you should happen to do the postmortem, find out if the victim used hair oil, will you?”
“Hair oil?” Ferguson asked. “Hair oil,” Ferguson said. “Hair oil!” Ferguson cried. “Jesus Christ, Edward, you never forget a thing, do you?”
“Sometimes,” Captain Delaney acknowledged.
“Nothing important, I’ll bet. All right, I’ll keep the hair oil in mind if I do the cut-’em-up. I’m certainly not going to bother the men in emergency at Mother of Mercy with a thing like that right now.”
“Good enough. You’ll get back to me?”
“If I learn anything. If you don’t hear from me, it means I’ve drawn a blank.”
Delaney rejected the idea of sleep, and went into the kitchen to put water on for instant coffee. While it was heating, he returned to the study and from a corner closet he dragged out a three-by-four ft. bulletin board to which he had pinned a black-and-white street map of the 251st Precinct. The map was covered with a clear plastic flap that could be wiped clean. In the past, while on active duty, Delaney had used the map to chart location and incidence of street crimes, breaking-and-entering, felonious assaults, etc. The map was a miniature of the big one on the wall of the commander’s office in the precinct house.
Now he wiped the plastic overlay clean with a paper tissue, returned to the kitchen to mix his cup of black coffee, brought it back with him and sat at the desk, the map before him. He sharpened a red grease pencil and carefully marked two fat dots: on East 73rd Street where Lombard had been killed and on East 84th Street where Gilbert had been assaulted. Alongside each dot he wrote the last name of the victim and the date of the attack.
Two red dots, he acknowledged, hardly constituted a pattern, or even a crime wave. But from his experience and reading of the histories of mass murders, he was convinced additional assaults would be confined to a limited area, probably the 251st Precinct, and the assailant was probably a resident of the area. (Probably! Probably! Everything was probably.) The assassin’s success in the Lombard killing would certainly make him feel safe in his home territory.
Delaney sat back and stared at the red dots. He gave Chief Pauley about three days to acknowledge there was no connection between the victims. Then Pauley would opt for a psychopathic killer and would do all those things Delaney had mentioned to Deputy Inspector Thorsen.