Cop Hater (14 page)

The police stenographer poised his pen above his pad. The Chief of Detectives intoned, "Diamondback, One," calling off the area of the city in which the arrest had been made, and the number of the case from that area that day. "Diamondback, One. Anselmo, Joseph, 17, and Di Palermo, Frederick, 16, Forced the door of an apartment on Cambridge and Gribble. Occupant screamed for help, bringing patrolman to scene. No statement. How about it, Joe?"

Joseph Anselmo was a tall, thin boy with dark black hair and dark brown eyes. The eyes seemed darker than they were because they were set against a pale, white face. The whiteness was attributable to one emotion, and one emotion alone. Joseph Anselmo was scared.

"How about it, Joe?" the Chief of Detectives asked again.

"What do you want to know?" Anselmo said.

"Did you force the door to that apartment?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I don't know."

"Well, you forced a door, you must have had a reason for doing it. Did you know somebody was in the apartment?"

"No."

"Did you force it alone?"

Anselmo did not answer.

"How about it, Freddie. Were you with Joe when you broke that lock?"

Frederick Di Palermo was blond and blue-eyed. He was shorter than Anselmo, and he looked cleaner. He shared two things in common with his friend. First, he had been picked up on a felony offense. Second, he was scared. "I was with him," Di Palermo said. "How'd you force the door?" "We hit the lock." "What with?" "A hammer."

"Weren't you afraid it would make noise?" "We only give it a quick rap," Di Palermo said.
 
"We didn't know somebody was home."

"What'd you expect to get in that apartment?" the Chief of Detectives asked.

"I don't know," Di Palermo said.

"Now, look," the Chief of Detectives said patiently, "you both broke into an apartment. Now we know that, and you just admitted it, so you must have had a reason for going in there. What do you say?"

"The girls told us," Anselmo said. "What girls?"

"Oh, some chicks," Di Palermo answered. "What'd they tell you?" "To bust the door." "Why?"

"Like that," Anselmo said. "Like what?" "Like for kicks." "Only for kicks?"

"I don't know why we busted the door," Anselmo said, and he glanced quickly at Di Palermo.

"To
 
take something
 
out of the
 
apartment?"
 
the
 
Chief asked.

"Maybe a ..." Di Palermo shrugged. "Maybe what?"

"A couple of bucks. You know, like that." "You were planning a burglary then, is that right?" "Yeah, I guess."

"What'd you do when you discovered the apartment was occupied?"

"The lady screamed," Anselmo said.

"So we run," Di Palermo said.

"Next case," the Chief of Detectives said. The boys shuffled oft the stage to where their arresting officer was waiting for them. Actually, they had said a hell of a lot more than they should have. They'd have been within their rights if they'd insisted on not saying a word at the lineup. Not knowing this, not even knowing that their position was fortified because they'd made no statement when they'd been collared, they had answered the Chief of Detectives with remarkable naivete. A good lawyer, with a simple charge of unlawfully entering under circumstances or in a manner not amounting to a burglary, would have had his clients plead guilty to a misdemeanor. The Chief of Detectives, however, had asked the boys if they were planning to commit a burglary, and the boys had answered in the affirmative. And the Penal Law, Section 402, defines Burglary in first degree thusly:

A person, who, with intent to commit some crime therein, breaks and enters, in the night time, the dwelling-house of another, in which there is at the time a human being:

1.
  
Being armed with a dangerous weapon; or

2.
 
Arming himself therein with such a weapon; or

3.
 
Being assisted by a confederate actually present; or ...

Well, no matter. The boys had very carelessly tied the knot of a felony about their youthful necks, perhaps not realizing that burglary in the first degree is punishable by imprisonment in a state prison for an indeterminate term the minimum of which shall not be less than ten years and the maximum of which shall not be more than thirty years.

Apparently, "the girls" had told them wrong.

"Diamondback, Two," the Chief of Detectives said. "Pritchett, Virginia, 34. Struck her quote husband unquote about the neck and head with a hatchet at three a.m. in the morning. No statement."

Virginia Pritchett had walked onto the stage while the Chief of Detectives was talking. She was a small woman, barely clearing the five-foot-one-inch marker. She was thin, narrow-boned, with red hair of the fine, spider-webby type. She wore no lipstick. She wore no smile. Her eyes were dead.

"Virginia?" the Chief of Detectives said.

She raised her head. She kept her hands close to her waist, one fist folded over the other. Her eyes did not come to life. They were grey, and she stared into the glaring lights unblinkingly. "Virginia?"

"Yes, sir?" Her voice was very soft, barely audible. Ca-rella leaned forward to catch what she was saying.

"Have you ever been in trouble before,
 
Virginia?" the Chief of Detectives asked. "No, sir."

"What happened, Virginia?"

The girl shrugged, as if she too could not comprehend what had happened. The shrug was a small one, a gesture that would have been similar to passing a hand over the eyes.

"What happened, Virginia?"

The girl raised herself up to her full height, partly to speak into the permanently fixed microphone which dangled several inches before her face on a solid steel pipe, partly because there were eyes on her and because she apparently realized her shoulders were slumped. The room was deathly still. There was not a breeze in the city. Beyond the glaring lights, the detectives sat.

"We argued," she said, sighing. "Do you want to tell us about it?"

"We argued from the morning, from when we first got up. The heat. It's ... it was very hot in the apartment. Right from the morning. You . . . you lose your temper quickly in the heat." "Go on."

"He started with the orange juice. He said the orange juice wasn't cold enough. I told him I'd had it in the ice box all night, it wasn't my fault it wasn't cold.
 
Diamondback isn't ritzy, sir. We don't have refrigerators in Diamondback, and with this heat, the ice melts very fast. Well, he started complaining about the orange juice." "Were you married to this man?" "No, sir."

"How long have you been living together?" "Seven years, sir." "Go on."

"He said he was going down for breakfast, and I said he shouldn't go down because it was silly to spend money when you didn't have to. He stayed, but he complained about the orange juice all the while he ate. It went on like that all day."

"About the orange juice, you mean?"

"No, other things. I don't remember what. He was watching the ball game on tv, and drinking beer, and he'd pick on little things all day long. He was sitting in his under-shorts because of the heat. I had hardly anything on myself."

"Go on."

"We had supper late, just cold cuts. He was picking on me all that time. He didn't want to sleep in the bedroom that night, he wanted to sleep on the kitchen floor. I told him it was silly, even though the bedroom is very hot. He hit me."

"What do you mean, he hit you?"

"He hit me about the face. He closed one eye for me. I told him not to touch me again, or I would push him out the window. He laughed. He put a blanket on the kitchen floor, near the window, and he turned on the radio, and I went into the bedroom to sleep."

"Yes, go ahead, Virginia."

"I couldn't sleep because it was so hot. And he had the radio up loud. I went into the kitchen to tell him to please put the radio a little lower, and he said to go back to bed. I went into the bathroom, and I washed my face, and that was when I spied the hatchet."

"Where was the hatchet?"

"He keeps tools on a shelf in the bathroom, wrenches and a hammer, and the hatchet was with them. I thought I would go out and tell him to put the radio lower again, because it was very hot and the radio was very loud, and I wanted to try to get some sleep. But I didn't want him to hit me again, so I took the hatchet, to protect myself with, in case he tried to get rough again."

"Then what did you do?"

"I went out into the kitchen with the hatchet in my hands. He had got up off the floor and was sitting in a chair near the window, listening to the radio. His back was to me."

"Yes."

"I walked over to him, and he didn't turn around, and I didn't say anything to him."

"What did you do?"

"I struck him with the hatchet."

"Where?"

"On his head and on his neck."

"How many times?"

"I don't remember exactly. I just kept hitting him."

"Then what?"

"He fell off the chair, and I dropped the hatchet, and I went next door to Mr. Alanos, he's our neighbor, and I told him I had hit my husband with a hatchet, and he didn't believe me. He came into the apartment, and then he called the police, and an officer came."

"Your husband was taken to the hospital, did you know that?" "Yes."

"Do you know the disposition of his case?" Her voice was very low. "I heard he died," she said. She lowered her head and did not look out past the lights again. Her fists were still folded at her waist. Her eyes were still dead.

"Next case," the Chief of Detectives said. "She
murdered
him," Bush whispered, his voice curiously loaded with awe. Carella nodded.

"Majesta, One," the Chief of Detectives said. "Bronckin, David, 27. Had a lamp outage report at 10:24 P.M. last night, corner of Weaver and 69th North. Electric company notified at once, and then another lamp outage two blocks south reported, and then gunfire reported. Patrolman picked up Bronckin on Dicksen and 69th North. Bronckin was intoxicated, was going down the street shooting out lamppost fixtures. What about it, Dave?"

"I'm only Dave to my friends," Bronckin said.

"What about it?"

"What do you want from me? I got high, I shot out a few lights. I'll pay for the goddamn lights."

"What were you doing with the gun?"

"You
know
what I was doing. I was shooting at the lampposts."

"Did you start out with that idea? Shooting at the lamp-posts?"

"Yeah. Listen, I don't have to say anything to you. I want a lawyer."

"You'll have plenty opportunity for a lawyer."

"Well, I ain't answering any questions until I get one."

"Who's asking questions? We're trying to find out what possessed you to do a damn fool thing like shooting at light fixtures."

"I was high. What the hell, you never been high?"

"I don't go shooting at lampposts when I'm high," the Chief said.

"Well, I do. That's what makes horse races."

"Where were you Sunday night?" "What time Sunday night?" "About 11.40 or so." "I think I was at a movie."

"Which movie?"

"The Strand. Yeah, I was at a movie."

"Did you have the .45 with you?"

"I don't remember."

"Yes or no."

"I don't remember. If you want a yes or no, it'll have to be no. I'm no dope."

"What picture did you see?"

"An old one."

"Name it."

"The Creature from the Black Lagoon."

"What was it about?"

"A monster that comes up from the water."

"What was the co-feature?"

"I don't remember."

"Think."

"Something with John Garfield."

"What?"

"A prize-fight picture."

"What was the title?"

"I don't remember. He's a bum, and then he gets to be champ, and then he takes a dive."

"Body and Soul?"

"Yeah, that was it."

"Call The Strand, Hank," Carella said.

"Hey, what're you gonna do that for?" Bronckin asked.

"To check and see if those movies were playing Sunday night."

"They were playing, all right."

"We're also going to check that .45 with Ballistics, Bronckin."

"What for?"

"To see how it matches up against some slugs we've got. You can save us a lot of time."

"How?"

"What were you doing Monday night?"

"Monday, Monday? Jesus, who remembers?"

Bush had located the number in the directory, and was dialing.