“Next case,” the chief of detectives said, and Hunter walked across the stage. When he reached the steps on the other side, he turned and shouted, “The city hasn’t heard the end of that goddamn pukey prison!” and then he went down the steps.
“Riverhead, two,” the chief of detectives said. “Donaldson, Chris, thirty-five. Tried to pick a man’s pocket in the subway. Transit cop made the pinch. Donaldson stated it was a mistake. How about it, Chris?”
Chris Donaldson could have been a double for Curt Hunter. As he walked across the stage, in fact, the chief of detectives murmured, “What is this? A twin act?” Donaldson was tall and blond and handsome. If there were any detectives in the audience with inferiority complexes, the combination of Hunter and Donaldson should have been enough to shove them over the thin line to psychosis. It was doubtful that the lineup had ever had such a combined display of masculine splendor since its inception. Donaldson seemed as unruffled as Hunter had been. He walked to the microphone. His head crossed the six-foot-three marker on the white wall behind him.
“There’s been a mistake,” Donaldson said.
“Really?”
“Yes,” he said calmly. “I didn’t pick anybody’s pocket, nor did I attempt to. I’m a gainfully employed citizen. The man whose pocket was picked simply accused the wrong person.”
“Then how come we found his wallet in your jacket pocket?”
“I have no idea,” Donaldson said. “Unless the real pickpocket dropped it there when he felt he was about to be discovered.”
“Tell us what happened,” the chief of detectives said, and then in an aside to the assembled bulls, he added, “This man has no record.”
“I was riding the subway home from work,” Donaldson said. “I work in Isola, live in Riverhead. I was reading my newspaper. The man standing in front of me suddenly wheeled around and said, ‘Where’s my wallet? Somebody took my wallet!’”
“Then what?”
“The car was packed. A man standing alongside us said he was a transit cop, and before you knew it, another man and I were grabbed and held. The cop searched us and found the wallet in my pocket.”
“Where’d the other man go?”
“I have no idea. When the transit cop found the wallet on me, he lost all interest in the other man.”
“And your story is that the other man was the pickpocket.”
“I don’t know who the pickpocket was. I only know that he wasn’t me. As I told you, I work for a living.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m an accountant.”
“For whom?”
“Binks and Lederle. It’s one of the oldest accounting firms in the city. I’ve worked there for a good many years.”
“Well, Chris,” the chief of detectives said, “it sounds good. It’s up to the judge, though.”
“There are people, you know,” Donaldson said, “who sue the city for false arrest.”
“We don’t know if it’s false arrest yet, do we?”
“I’m quite sure of it,” Donaldson said. “I’ve led an honest life, and I have no desire to get involved with the police.”
“Nobody does,” the chief of detectives said. “Next case.”
Donaldson walked off the stage. Kling watched him, wondering if his story were true, again making no connection between Mary Louise Proschek’s blond escort and the man who’d claimed he’d been falsely accused of pickpocketing.
“Diamondback, one,” the chief of detectives said. “Pereira, Genevieve, forty-seven. Slashed her husband with a bread knife. No statement. What happened, Jenny?”
Genevieve Pereira was a short woman with shrewd blue eyes. She stood with her lips pursed and her hands clasped. She was dressed neatly and quietly, the only garish thing about her being a smear of blood across the front of her dress.
“I detect an error in your notations, sir,” she said.
“Do you?”
“You’ve misrepresented me chronologically by two years. My age is only forty-five.”
“Forgive me, Jenny,” the chief of detectives said.
“I feel, too, that your familiarity is somewhat uncalled-for. Only my closest acquaintances call me Jenny. The appellation, for your exclusive benefit, is Genevieve.”
“Thank you,” the chief of detectives said, a smile in his voice. “And may I call you that?”
“If the necessity is so overwhelming,” Genevieve said.
“Why’d you stab your husband, Genevieve?”
“I did not stab him,” Genevieve answered. “He suffered, at best, a surface scratch. I’m sure he’ll convalesce.”
“You speak English beautifully,” the chief of detectives said.
“Your praise, though unsolicited,” Genevieve said, “is nonetheless appreciated. I’ve always tried to avoid dull clichés and transparent repetition.”
“Well, it certainly comes out beautifully,” the chief of detectives said, and Kling detected a new note of sarcasm.
“Any perseverant person can master the English tongue,” Genevieve said. “Application is all that is required. Plus, an abundant amount of native intelligence. And a detestation of the obvious.”
“Like what?”
“I’m sure I could not readily produce any examples.” She paused. “I would have to cogitate on it momentarily. I suggest, instead, that you read some of the various works of literature that have aided me.”
“Books like what?” the chief of detectives asked, and this time the sarcasm was unmistakable. “English for Martians? Or The English Language As A Lethal Weapon?”
“I find sarcastic males vulgar,” Genevieve said.
“Did you find stabbing your husband vulgar?”
“I did not stab him. I scratched him with a knife. I see no reason for promoting this case to federal proportions.”
“Why’d you stab him?”
“Nor do I see,” Genevieve persisted, “any pertinent reasons for discussing my marital affairs before an assemblage of barbarians.” She paused and cleared her throat. “If you would relinquish my wrapper, I assure you I would depart without—”
“Sure,” the chief of detectives said. “Next case.”
And that’s the way it went.
When it was all over, Kling and Brown went downstairs and lighted cigarettes.
“No con man,” Brown said.
“These lineups are a waste of time,” Kling offered. He blew out a stream of smoke. “How’d you like those two handsome bastards?”
Brown shrugged. “Come on,” he said, “we better get back to the squad.”
The two handsome bastards, considering the fact that one of them was a murderer, got off pretty lightly.
Curt Hunter was found guilty and paid a $500 fine, plus damages.
Chris Donaldson was found not guilty.
Both men were, once again, free to roam the city.
Twelve
Bert Kling expected trouble, and he was getting it.
Usually, he and Claire Townsend got along just jim-dandy. They’d had their quarrels, true, but who was there to claim that the path of true love ever ran smooth? In fact, considering the bad start their romance had had, their love was chugging along on a remarkably even keel. Kling had had a rough time in the beginning trying to dislodge the torch Claire was carrying from the firm grip with which she’d carried it. He’d succeeded. They had passed through the getting-acquainted stages, and had then progressed rapidly through the con man’s legend of going steady, and then through the con man’s formality of getting engaged, and then — if they weren’t careful — they would enter the con man’s legality of getting married, and then the con man’s nightmare of having children.
Provided they could leap this particular hurdle that confronted them on that Wednesday night.