“You wanted to see me, Sergeant?”
The sergeant cleared his throat; speaking almost seemed to be painful for him.
“You told the captain I was drinking, didn’t you, Lieutenant?”
“That’s right.” Reardon steeled himself to stick to his principals, although at the moment they seemed to him to be a bit shabby. In light of the happy mood in which he had wakened, and which had remained with him until this moment, he wondered what on earth had made him shoot off his big mouth to the captain the night before. You’re a moody bastard, Reardon, he told himself; you’re going to have to watch that sort of thing. He returned his attention to the man seated beside him. “I’m sorry if I caused you any trouble, Sergeant, but you know as well as I do the hazards of drinking on duty. Especially for a patrol car driver.”
“Yes, sir.” The sergeant’s tone was fatalistic; he made no attempt to excuse his conduct. “The captain asked me if I’d really been drinking and I didn’t deny it. He took me off my car. Temporarily, he said.” There was a slight pause. “I’m supposed to work with you.”
“You’re supposed to work with—?” Reardon sighed. “All right, Sergeant; there’s certainly enough work to be done. Go down and get yourself some coffee while I go through these reports. I’ll have something for you when you get back.”
“Yes, sir.”
The elderly sergeant came to his feet. He hesitated a moment as if to say something further, possibly excusing his conduct the day before, but then he turned abruptly and left the room. Reardon looked after him, shook his head helplessly, and turned to his paper work, but the thought of going through a pile of reports to learn facts he could pick up in a few minutes conversation with Dondero, struck him as foolish. He pushed to his feet, walked down the hall to the detective bullpen, and pushed through the door. Dondero was holding forth to two or three other men there. Reardon was about to interrupt, but Dondero’s excited tone caused him to pause and listen.
“—like a netted fish, I’m telling you. One hundred and God knows how many feet up in the air, swinging in the breeze like a baby in a hammock. The painters saw him first when they come to work. This one painter says he saw the smear on the railing and figured somebody did a jump, and he looks over the edge and there he is, just a couple of feet down in the safety net. They brought him up and he’s dead as they come, so they figured he couldn’t be a jumper, because you can’t kill yourself falling ten feet into a net. Unless you scare yourself to death thinking of those rocks a couple of hundred feet below—”
“What happened?” Reardon asked.
Dondero turned at the interruption. “Oh, hello, Jim. I was just telling the guys — they found a guy in a safety net under the Bay Bridge. He’s down in the morgue right now.”
“Who’s assigned to it?”
Dondero shrugged. “I haven’t the slightest. I don’t think they even know yet if it was homicide or not. A guy could die of a heart attack jumping even a couple of feet, if he really thought—”
“Yeah.”
Memory struck Dondero. “Hey, I forgot. They were paging you a while ago. Captain Tower wants to see you as soon as you come in.”
“And I’ll bet I know what for.” The lieutenant started to leave and then stopped. “By the way, Don — when I get back I want to know all about your job last night.”
“You mean checking garbage?” He turned to the other men. “Hey, you guys know I moonlight for the sanitation department now? You ought to get a piece of the action. Overtime, and all the tin cans you can eat.” He came back to Reardon. “I wrote it all up, Lieutenant.” His voice held the hint of reproof; it implied that if spending half your life writing reports was an essential of detective work, why did the other half need to be devoted to delivering those same reports verbally? “It’s on your desk.”
“I know. I’d rather hear it.”
Reardon walked from the room before outright mutiny could be registered; he came to the end of the long corridor, turned a corner and entered an anteroom whose secretary was missing at the moment. Probably, he thought, having coffee or teasing her hair. What had happened to the beauty of the day? He rapped on the door; Captain Tower’s deep voice answered.
“Come in!”
Reardon turned the knob, entered and closed the door behind him. Captain Tower was standing at the window, staring out over the city to the distant hills of Oakland, brown under the strong autumn sun. Reardon wondered at the expression on his superior’s face; it was solemn, even, he thought, a bit worried. Over Bennett? It was odd for the captain to be anything but completely self-assured, especially where men in the department were concerned. Reardon cleared his throat.
“Good morning, Captain. You wanted to see me?”
Captain Tower swung around. “Good morning, Jim.”
“About Bennett, Captain—”
Captain Tower held up one of his huge hands, cutting off the lieutenant’s comments. “Jim, they found a body caught in a painter’s safety net under the Bay Bridge this morning, a few hundred yards past the tunnel on Yerba Buena Island—”
“I know. I heard Dondero talking about it.” Reardon pulled a chair close to the desk and sat down, wondering; the captain also seated himself and picked up the stub of his cigar, smoldering in an ashtray, but instead of smoking it, he merely rolled it in his thick fingers, staring at it gravely, as if it might contain some badly wanted answers.
“Yes,” he said at last. “Well, identification just came through a few minutes ago; from his fingerprints, because there weren’t any papers on him and all the labels in his clothes were gone. But even without the fingerprints we’d have made him just from his face. It was Ray Martin. Number three on my list. He handled all the gambling for the mob. But you know all that.” His eyes went to the list; Reardon noticed it now lay on top of the glass instead of beneath it. “Number three... It’s too much for coincidence this time.” His eyes came up, looking at Reardon flatly. “It’s one more for you, Jim. They all have to be tied together, part of the same deal.”
“I’d agree, sir.” Reardon nodded and then frowned. “But what’s your idea, Captain? A mob housecleaning?”
“I don’t have any thoughts. It sounds like a mob affair, but it certainly doesn’t look like the way they work. On the other hand, maybe they’re working differently these days. There’s no law says they have to mow people down with machine guns like they did in the old days.” His fingers drummed on the desk. “What about that so-called suicide of Pete Falcone last night?”
“Well,” Reardon said, “there was a girl with him when he jumped — in his apartment, I mean. My guess is she helped him jump, probably without his even asking her to. And I agree with you, Captain; I never heard of the Syndicate using women for muscle.” He smiled faintly. “Although with Women’s Liberation, you can’t tell these days. Maybe they demanded equal rights.” His smile faded. “Well, it’s one more thing to look into. What was the story on Martin?”
“I’ll see you get a copy of the autopsy report,” Captain Tower said. “There’s no sense on going into half-details when the report will give you the full story. And I’ll send along the patrol car’s report on how he was found and all that — as soon as I get it myself, that is. The painters called the troopers at the toll plaza; they’re state, of course, and it takes a while to get a report out of them.”
“Yes, sir.” Reardon paused and then looked up, frowning. “Captain, one more question — what about John Sekara? He’s number four on that list of yours.”
“What about him?”
“Well—” Reardon hesitated a moment. “I mean, do we give him protection? If we’re right, and I’m fairly sure we are, then somebody’s decided to wipe out the bunch. Is crime prevention part of our job where a hood like Sekara is concerned?”