He grinned again and if it wasn't for his skinny neck he'd look okay. “Who isn't a college grad these days with the G.I. Bill? Did you know I put in two years in the army?”
“Get overseas?”
“No such luck, I never even got out of Fort Dix.” He looked around my office which seemed even crummier in the nighttime. “All this—hotel business—must be rather tame for you, isn't it, Marty?”
“Bounce a drunk now and then, catch a character running out with all his clothes on. That's about it.”
“Ever try your own agency?”
“That's strictly movie stuff.” There was a moment of silence till I kicked the drawer of my desk, asked, “Want a shot?”
“No, thanks. Are you still married to that dancer, Marty?”
“She wasn't much of a dancer. No, we busted up after a year or so. You married?”
“Not yet, but I will be soon as I get on the force.” His eyes studied my face. “Somehow you look... lonely... Dad.”
“Been a lot of years since you called me that.” The silly kid was always calling me Dad or Daddy.
“I always liked calling you Dad. Made me feel proud.”
“Yeah? So you think I'm lonely. I work and I sleep and the days go by. Except for this bad food I must have eaten last week, I get along okay. Suppose you've met Lieutenant Ash at the station house?”
“Indeed I did. Funny, I didn't recall ever seeing him, but he stopped me, asked if I wasn't Lawrence Bond, knew all about me. He looks like a square shooter, competent. How long were you partners?”
“Never added it up—maybe fifteen years. We were a good team. Used to say I was the brawn and he was the brains. Yeah, Bill Ash knows his business... I guess.”
There was another silence and the more I stared at the kid the more he looked like his father, except the senior Lawrence had been beefy. I never knew him—he'd walked into a stick-up and with a gun in his back had gone for his own revolver. I was pounding a beat then, and when the boys passed the hat for the widow, I was elected to bring the money to her. I often thought of Dot, the four years our marriage held up. She was a sweet girl, a real homebody. And Lawrence had been a quiet stringbean who thought I was the greatest thing ever.
I must have been daydreaming for quite a time, for suddenly he said, “Look, Marty, I've wanted to see you for a long time. But it was only when I talked to Lieutenant Ash that I even knew where you were. However I've also come to you for advice. A queer... uh... incident happened on my post a couple of hours ago and nobody at the precinct house is interested.”
I laughed. “I know how it is, your first collar always seems the greatest crime.... Wait a minute, can you volunteer cops make an arrest?”
“Yes, while we're on duty. Technically we're peace officers while in uniform. It's true this is the first... case... or trouble I've had, but I don't think that's a factor,” Lawrence said seriously.
I could hardly keep from smiling. Maybe he was twenty-one or twenty-two, but he still acted like a kid with a box-top badge. “What was the arrest?”
“There wasn't any arrest. You see, we do patrol duty in pairs and I was walking along Barren Street with my partner, an older man named John Breet. Well, the truth is he stopped at a bar to see if he could get a drink on the cuff. I don't go for that nonsense so I was standing outside the bar. A few doors down there's a small wholesale butcher, the Lande Meat Company. Not much, a double store with the windows painted black. The fact is, Wilhelm Lande, the owner, has had the place closed for the past several weeks. Willie, that's what they call Mr. Lande, says he had a stroke and his doctor advised him to take it easy. He's rather a nervous type.”
“What did he want you to do, steady his hand?” I corn-balled, thinking how batty a joker has to be to do police work for free.
“Marty, this isn't any joking matter. I have a feeling there's something seriously wrong here.”
“All right, you haven't even told me what the beef is.”
“Well, you see, they have to give us night tours, but they try to keep them during the light hours as much as possible. It was a little after 7 p.m. when a kid ran up and told me somebody had just broken the window of the butcher shop—from the inside. I didn't wait for Breet. I ran over to the shop and the door wasn't locked, and inside there's Lande the butcher tied up. He'd been robbed and trussed up around 6 p.m. according to his first statement, had finally managed to get ahold of a stapling machine, threw it at the window. I should say he was hysterical, almost in a state of shock as I untied him. He yelled he had been robbed of fifty thousand dollars by two teen-age kids.”
“Fifty grand? He must have a big insurance cover,” I said.
“That's one aspect of the case that has a false ring,” Lawrence said. “While I was taking down the details, and he gave me a fairly clear description of the kids, he suddenly shut up. Might call it abrupt, the way he did it. Said he had to make a phone call. Now, he has a little office in the store and a desk outside the office with a phone, and he dialed a number, whispered something about the holdup. I think I heard him say, Tm not sure, they knocked me out.' I wouldn't swear to that, but I thought he said that. The point is, he must have mentioned that a cop was there—you see, he thought I was a real policeman—for I saw him glance at me and nod as he said 'Yes, yes.' He listened for a couple of minutes, then hung up. When he came back to me, Lande was a new man, very calm, all one big smile. This will amaze you, he did a complete about-face in his story! He said the robbery had been something he dreamed, went to his icebox and brought out a canned ham, offered it to me, telling me there never was any fifty thousand, nor any two holdup men. Told me to forget the whole thing.”
I asked, “Where's the ham?”
“Marty, the man was trying to bribe me!”
“All right, all right, so you passed up a ham. How did he explain his being tied up?”
Lawrence pulled out a pack of butts, offered me one. I hadn't been able to smoke a cigarette all week, made me gag. I shook my head and as he lit one, sent a cloud of smoke out of his nose, the kid said, “That's the very first thing I asked about. He couldn't think very fast, gave me some clumsy cock-and-bull story about he'd seen an actor in a movie tie himself up, and he was trying it when he had an attack, felt he was choking, had thrown the stapling machine at the window to get help. He kept changing his story after the phone call. I wanted him to come to the station house with me, but he kept telling me to forget it, not to make a report. That's it. Like to see my on-the-spot notes?”
“No. What's the beef? He claims there wasn't any holdup.”
“But...”
“Lawrence, far as you're concerned it's over. Don't go looking for work, even when you're playing at being a cop.”
The kid flushed. “I don't consider this exactly playing— while I'm on duty I am a peace officer with certain powers.”
“All I meant was, don't stick your neck out unless you have to.”
“Wait till you hear the rest of it, Marty. I was in there about three-quarters of an hour. When I came out Breet wasn't in sight. I phoned the station house and the sergeant—our sergeant—bawled me out. Said Breet had returned and what the hell was I doing on patrol alone, all that. Our sergeant is a bit of a pompous old jerk, had me return to the precinct, wouldn't pay any attention to my story. So I went over his head, told Lieutenant Ash—he told me to forget it, too.”