The Chief smiled. He had to hand it to the Commissioner, the man didn’t play around. “No, sir, I’m not trying anything of the kind. In fact, like on this case, I’m doing everything I can to strengthen your position. I think we’ll get a good solution very quickly. It’ll help you and because of that it’ll help me. That’s as far as my ambition goes.”
Now it was the Commissioner’s turn to smile. He turned on a crinkly, jolly one, wore it for a few seconds, then nodded, seemingly satisfied. He spread his hands in a gesture of meekest assent. “OK,” he said, “just keep up the good work. Glad you’re still on the team.”
Underwood left after further protestations of loyalty, capped by a solemn handshake. The Commissioner watched him go. Hell, with technique like that the guy would make a damn fine commissioner if he won out. Good projection of sincerity. Handles himself well.
But he ain’t gonna fuck me. He must think I’m some kind of schoolboy. He closed the door behind Underwood and stood there a long moment. Soon the Chief would be blown so high and wide he wouldn’t have a political future of any kind. So the son of a bitch wanted to kill off Bob Righter. Fine, let him try! Now the Commissioner’s face set. He leafed through a report on his desk. It was titled “Project Werewolf. Eyes Only.” It had been seen only by Merillo, the new mayor, and the current mayor. It had been written by Bob Righter, in longhand.
This was the only copy.
He opened it, reading to review. He had written it three hours ago, had taken it to the Mayor and then to the Mayor-elect. There had been a meeting and it had been agreed that not one word of the report would be made public unless absolutely necessary. The Commissioner started to say his thoughts aloud, then stopped, the words unspoken in his throat. How often do I talk to myself, he wondered. Getting old. But not tired, dammit. Let Herb Underwood realize that once and for all. Not tired. Underwood was going off on a hell of a wild-goose chase. That stinking Wilson had been much closer from the start. Brilliant but a creep. A good cop after his fashion. A good cop with a good partner… Becky Neff… no matter how old you get, you’d still like to get into something like that. Hell, stay clear. Her husband was bent—maybe she was too for that matter…
He dismissed them from his mind and returned to the matter of the report. It was the first time in his career that he had written something so secret, and kept its contents so close to the top. In a position like his a man gets into the habit of using advisers, conferees, administrative assistants. He becomes not an individual but an office. He identifies himself as “we.” Not in this case, though. There was too much here to entrust to staff members. It was not only a horrendous crime, it was also a priceless opportunity to completely outdistance Underwood, to crush him. “Herbie’s gonna love me,” he said, this time without realizing he had spoken aloud. Now that he had the endorsement of both his current and future bosses he would begin to draw together the team that would solve the real Werewolf case. He pulled out a yellow legal pad and put it down beside his report. He drew a box at the top, and put the letter C in the box. That’s me, he thought. Then he drew a dotted line to the Chief of Detectives and put a U in that box. And that’s as far as he goes. All alone in his box with his Goddamn U. Now another box, with a full line to the Commissioner. Call him Deputy Assistant for Internal Affairs. DAIA. OK, now give him a staff. Three more boxes under him, all Police Commanders. Now a team. Three squads under the three Commanders, All high power. Now assign a Tactical Patrol Force Group to the Deputy Assistant, the grunt-work department so all these officers don’t have to get their hands dirty. Very nice. About two hundred men. The Mad Bomber had commanded a crew of two hundred and fifty. Son of Sam had tied up three hundred. The Werewolf Killers would be more economical with just two hundred.
Now he pulled a small cassette recorder out of his desk drawer. He rewound the cassette and played it again. Voices, confusion, then a whispered word, unintelligible. Then more. “Mama… hey look out (a sob)… there it is… (Voice: what is it, Jack?) Dog… somethin’ weird… don’t don’t get it… hey… oh, wow that was—oh, hey it cut, cut my uniform… ouch… aaaAAHH! (Voice: Jack, you need more? The doc’s gonna give you more painkiller.) Yeah… OK, there was a dog… big motherfucker… weird, like a human face… a couple of others standing nearby… face, not like a person… you’ll never get it…” More whispers. (Second voice: the patient is expiring.) Tape ends.
The patrolman hadn’t given them much to go on, but it was more than they had gotten before. Enough for a good start. M.O. was established. This added a rough description. He read the first sentence of his report: “The Werewolf Killers are a group of twisted individuals utilizing an extremely skillful disguise…” That was where Underwood was falling down: he didn’t realize that there was a whole group, or that they were disguised.
Outside the museum tension was building. The sun had moved far down the sky. The first, faint smells of cooking were coming into the afternoon air. When the subways stopped beneath the street the sound of more and more feet were heard getting off. Man’s afternoon ritual of moving back to his nest was under way. And this would also be occurring to the hated ones inside the building. There would be no need to take the risk of going inside after them. Soon they would want their food and their nests, and start their movement. Then the moment would come, not so long from now. Waiting like this made your heart soar, knowing that relief and success lay as the reward for patience. Soon they would come out, very soon.
Garner had returned to the scene of the Evans murder and picked up Rich Fields, the photographer the paper had sent to join him on the story. “We’re gonna take some pictures of a couple of cops,” he said to Fields.
“What for?”
“Nothin’. Don’t even waste film. Just flashes. I want flashes.”
“Great. Makes good sense. Keep convincin’ me.”
“Shut up, Fields, you’re too dumb to understand.”
They got into Garner’s car and rattled out of the park, back up to the Museum of Natural History. Garner felt full of vitamins. There was a Goddamn good story in here and these two detectives were the exact center of the whole little cyclone. Ah, a beautiful story, had to be. Let the Times send fifty gentlemen downtown to worry the Police Commissioner, Sam Garner was going to stick right close to these two detectives until he got the story. He parked his car directly in front of the museum and settled back to wait. “Want me to start shootin’?”
“Shut up, Tonto. I’ll tell you when. And make it fuckin’ good if you don’t mind. I mean, run up and flash at ’em. Make ’em mad.”
“You payin’ my hospital bills, honey?”
“The Post‘ll take care of you, darlin’. Just do your thing.”
He stared at the huge edifice. Sometime soon the two cops would appear in the doorway and start down. Fields would get after them with the camera. No words, no more questions. Those two cops were scared already. This would panic them. If they were hiding anything interesting the little picture-taking session would make them think the Post was on to it. So next time Sam Garner got to them maybe they’d start trying to save their own asses by doing a little singing.
It had happened before. Pressure breeds information. The first rule of investigative reporting. Make ’em think you know enough to hang ’em, then they’ll give you what you need. Visions of delicious headlines went through his head. He didn’t know exactly what they said, but they were there. The way it felt, he had a good week of dynamite on his hands. The boss would love it. It must be something really horrible. Whatever was going on, somebody had seen fit to tear the Medical Examiner apart. Not just kill him, but actually tear him apart. The skin had even been pulled down off the skull, the face nearly separated from the body. The throat was gone. The stomach was pulled open and the body severed so completely that the legs fell to the floor of the car when the orderlies tried to move the body. It had been a vicious murder, particularly so, unusually so. A monstrous murder. Hell of a bad thing. All of a sudden he felt kind of chilled, sick inside, like he was going to throw up. “Hurry up,” he muttered under his breath. A drink lay just the other side of this little assignment and he needed it very badly.