In addition, Delaney guessed, Chief Pauley, with no announcement and no publicity, would put on 10 or 20 decoys on the streets of the 251st Precinct, from about ten p.m. till dawn. In civilian clothes, newspapers clutched under one arm, the detectives would scurry up one street and down the next, apparently residents hurrying home in the darkness, but actually inviting attack. That’s what Delaney would do. He was certain, knowing Pauley’s thoroughness, that the Chief would do it, too. It might work. And it might only serve to drive the killer farther afield if he recognized the decoys for what they were. But you took your chances and hoped. You had to do something.
He was still staring at the red dots on the map overlay, sipping cooled black coffee and trying to compute percentages and probabilities, when the desk phone rang. He snatched it up after one ring.
“Captain Edward X. Delaney here.”
“Thorsen. I’m calling from a tavern on Second Avenue. They had taken Gilbert to the hospital by the time I arrived. Broughton and Pauley are with him, hoping he’ll regain consciousness and say something.”
“Sure.”
“Gilbert’s wallet was on the sidewalk next to him, just like in the Lombard case. Someone’s at his home now, trying to find out what, if anything, is missing.”
“Was there money in it?”
“Dorfman tells me yes. He thinks it was about fifty dollars.”
“Untouched?”
“Apparently.”
“How is Dorfman managing?”
“Very well.”
“Good.”
“He’s a little nervous.”
“Naturally. Any prediction on whether Gilbert will live?”
“Nothing on that. He is a short man, about five-six or five-seven. He was hit from the front. The penetration went in high up on the skull, about an inch or so above where the hair line would have been.”
“ ‘Would have been’?”
“Gilbert is almost completely bald. Dorfman says just a fringe of thin, grey hair around the scalp, above the ears. But not in front. He was wearing a hat, so I assume some of the hat material was driven into the wound. Jesus, Edward, I don’t like this kind of work. I saw the blood and stuff where he lay. I want to get back to my personnel records.”
“I know. So you have nothing on whether or not he used hair oil?”
“No, nothing. I’m a lousy detective, I admit.”
“You did all you could. Why don’t you go home and try to get some sleep?”
“Yes. I’ll try. Anything else you need?”
“Copies of the Operation Lombard reports as soon as you can.
“I’ll put the pressure on. Edward…”
“Yes?”
“When I saw the pool of blood there, on the sidewalk, I got the feeling…”
“What?”
“That this business with Broughton is pretty small potatoes. You understand?”
“Yes,” Delaney said gently. “I know what you mean.”
“You’ve got to get this guy, Edward.”
“I’ll get him.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Good. I think I’ll go home now and try to get some sleep.”
“Yes, you do that.”
After he hung up, Delaney drew his list, “The Suspect,” from his top drawer and went through it, item by item. None of his notations had been negated by what Thorsen had told him. If anything, his supposition had been strengthened. Certainly a swinging blow high on the skull of a short man would indicate a tall assailant. But why the attack from the front when the rear attack on Lombard had been so successful? And couldn’t Gilbert see the blow coming and dodge or throw up an arm to ward it off? A puzzle.
He was almost ready to give it up for the night, to try to grab a few hours of sleep before dawn, when the phone rang. He reached for it, wondering again how much of his life was spent with that damned black thing pressing his ear flat and sticky.
“Captain Edward X. Delaney here.”
“Ferguson. I’m tired, I’m sleepy, I’m irritable. So I’ll go through this fast. And don’t interrupt.”
“I won’t.”
“You just did. Bernard Gilbert. White male. About forty years old. Five feet six or seven. About one-fifty. Around there. I’ll skip the medical lingo. Definitely a Lombard-type wound. Struck from the front. The penetration went in about two inches above the normal hair line. But the man is almost totally bald. That answers your hair oil question.”
“The hell it does. Just makes the cheese more binding.”
“I’ll ignore that. Foreign matter in the wound from the felt hat he was wearing. Penetration to a depth of four or five inches. Curving downward. He’s in a deep coma. Paralyzed. Prognosis: negative. Any questions?”
“How long do they figure?”
“From this instant to a week or so. His heart isn’t all that strong.”
“Will he recover consciousness?”
“Doubtful.”
Delaney could tell Ferguson’s patience was wearing thin. “Thank you, doctor. You’ve been a great help.”
“Any time,” Ferguson assured him. “Any two o’clock in the morning you want to call.”
“Oh, wait a minute,” Delaney said.
“I know,” Ferguson sighed. “‘One more thing.’”
“You won’t forget about the autopsy.”
Ferguson began to swear-ripe, sweaty curses-and Delaney hung up softly, smiling. Then he went to bed, but didn’t sleep.
It was something he hated and loved: hated because it kept his mind in a flux and robbed him of sleep; loved because it was a challenge: how many oranges could he juggle in the air at one time?
All difficult cases came eventually to this point of complexity; weapon, method, motives, suspects, alibis, timing. And he had to juggle them all, catching, tossing, watching them all every second, relaxed and laughing.
It had been his experience that when this point came in a difficult, involved investigation, when the time arrived when he wondered if he could hold onto all the threads, keep the writhings in his mind, at that point, at that time of almost total confusion, if he could just endure, and absorb more and more, then somehow the log jam loosened, he could see things beginning to run free.
Right now it was a jam, everything caught up and canted. But he began to see key logs, things to be loosened. Then it would all run out. Now the complexity didn’t worry him. He could accept it, and more. Pile it on! There wasn’t anything one man could do that a better man couldn’t undo. That was a stupid, arrogant belief, he admitted. But if he didn’t hold it, he really should be in another line of business.
4
Four days later Bernard Gilbert died without regaining consciousness. By that time Chief Pauley had established, to his satisfaction, that there was no link between Lombard and Gilbert, except the nature of the attack, and he had set in motion all those tilings Captain Delaney had predicted: the check-up of recent escapes from mental institutions, investigation of recently released inmates, questioning of known criminals with a record of mental instability, the posting of decoys in the 251st Precinct.
Delaney learned all this from copies of Operation Lombard reports supplied by Deputy Inspector Thorsen. Once again there were many of them, and they were long. He studied them all carefully, reading them several times. He learned details of Bernard Gilbert’s life. He learned that the victim’s wife, Monica Gilbert, had stated she believed the only thing missing from her husband’s wallet was an identification card.
The accountants for whom Bernard Gilbert worked audited the books of a Long Island manufacturer doing secret work for the U. S. government. To gain access to the premises of the manufacturer, it was necessary for Bernard Gilbert to show a special identification card with his photo attached. It was this special identification card that was missing. The FBI had been alerted by Chief Pauley but, as far as Delaney could determine, the federal agency was not taking any active role in the investigation at this time.