Cop Out (15 page)

He didn't believe her. He kept shivering and hugging himself.

Hinch was spreadlegged in the entrance with a puzzle written on his face. He was looking from Furia to the dirt floor of the shed and back again. Furia's wild heaves had struck two mice. One was lying with its head flattened out in an omelet of blood and brains. The other was still alive, scrabbling with its forelegs as if its back were broken.

“You scared of these bitty things?” Hinch asked in a wondering voice.

Furia swallowed convulsively.

Hinch walked over to the wounded mouse with a grin and kicked. It flew up and against the back wall of the shed and fell like a shot. He picked it up by the tail and went back and picked up the other one by the tail and went back again and dangled the two dead mice inches from Furia's nose. Furia screeched and tried to climb the wall. Then he was sick all over the dirt. Goldie had to jump back.

“Be goddam if he ain't scared shitless,” Hinch said. He walked out and threw the mice all the way over into the empty pool. It was as if Hinch had just learned that babies didn't come out of their mothers' armpits.

Furia couldn't get down more than a couple of mouthfuls even though Goldie did the steaks exactly the way he liked them. She almost laughed in his face.

She found it a gas too the way he kept hanging on to the fireplace poker, a five-footer with three prongs at the business end. His eyes had grown as quick as the mice, darting about the floor, especially in corners. He drank three cups of black coffee without letting go of the poker.

Barbara woke up whimpering and Furia got ugly. “Shut that brat's yap or so help me Jeese I'll ram this thing down her goddam throat.”

“All right, Fure, all right,” Goldie said, and found some powdered milk in the cupboard and stirred up a glass. She brought the child the milk and a piece of cold steak. Barbara sipped some of the milk but turned away from the meat, her eyes were rolling up, I guess I gave her too much of a slug, well, better drunk than dead. She finally dropped back to sleep.

“She won't bother you now,” Goldie said, coming out.

“Cool it, big man,” Hinch said with a wink. “A couple of lousy mice.”

That was when Furia swung the long fire tool and ripped Hinch's cheek. If Hinch hadn't been so quick the prongs would have gone through to his tonsils. He looked astounded. Goldie had to swab the wound with antiseptic she found in the medicine chest, she swabbed good and hard, and she slapped one of those three-inch Band-Aids over it.

Hinch kept looking at Furia with his eyebrows humped up like questions.

Saturday morning passed in jerks like a film jumping its sprockets. Malone wandered about the house picking things up and setting them down as if to satisfy himself that they were still there. The next thing he was taking in the milk. The milk brought Bibby into focus and he shut the refrigerator door as reverently as if it were the lid of a coffin. When Ellen set breakfast before him he simply sat and looked at it. He did not even drink the coffee. She finally took the dishes away.

Ellen had mourning under her eyes, bands of dark gray. Once she said, “Noon. What happens afternoon, Loney?”

He turned away. He resents my reminding him. As if he needs reminding. What a thing to say, now of all times. Why am I so good to him at night and so bitchy daytimes?

But she's my child.

My lost, my frightened baby.

They sat in the parlor, he on the sofa, she on the rocker, watching the little cathedral clock on the mantel. When noon came they both sat up straight, as if at a call. When the clock stopped striking it was like a death.

Ellen began to cry again.

Malone jumped up and ran out into Old Bradford Road leaving the front door open. It was a mean day and the meanness slid into the house. He stood in the middle of the empty street staring in the direction of Lovers Hill. The Cunninghams' mongrel bitch came trotting up and licked his hand. Malone wiped his hand on his pants and went back into the house, shutting the door this time. Ellen was upstairs, he heard her moving about in one of the bedrooms.

Bibby's I'll bet.

He sank onto the sofa again and placed his hands uselessly on his knees, looking at the clock. When John Secco drove up it was twenty minutes of two and Malone was still sitting there.

Secco came in his own car, a three-year-old Ford wagon with no markings. He was in civvies.

“No sense getting your neighbors wondering,” the chief said. He had more than midafternoon shadow and Malone doubted he had shaved. For some reason it made him angry. “Ellen, I know how this has hit me, I can imagine what you're going through.” Ellen said nothing. “Been a call? Letter, message?”

“Nothing,” Malone said.

“Well, it's early. Could be they're putting some pressure on. Or giving you plenty of time to play ball.”

“With what?” Ellen said. Secco was silent. “I knew that's what you'd do, Loney.”

“Do what?” Malone said.

“Tell the whole thing to John. You promised you wouldn't. I told you I'd walk out on you if you did.”

“Wes did the only thing,” Secco said. “Do you suppose I'd put your little girl in danger, Ellen?”

“I don't know.”

“I thought you considered me your friend.”

“You're a policeman.”

“I'm also a husband and a father. You ought to know me better than that.”

“I don't know anything any more.”

“Do you want me to leave?” the chief asked.

They waited for a long time. Finally Ellen's mouth loosened and she said, “John, we don't know what to do, where to turn.”

“That's why I'm here, Ellen. I want to help.”

“Sure,” Malone said. “Get me that money.”

“Ask me something that's possible, Wes. Anyway, I think there's something we can do.”

“Without the twenty-four thousand?” Malone laughed. “Furia thinks I've lifted it. You figured out a way to convince him I didn't?”

“I've been thinking over what you told me, I mean about what you did on your own.” Secco seemed to be picking his way through the available words and choosing only the finest. “Maybe when they rented that cabin at the Lake last summer they at the same time rented a second cabin as a backup just in case. I thought it worth a try.”

Malone raised his head. “I never thought of that.”

“Only they didn't. I've spent the day so far doing another check of the real estate offices.” He added quickly, “Don't worry. I didn't tip the hand.”

Malone slumped back. Ellen just sat there.

“All the other possibilities were either vacated as of Labor Day or they're rented the year round by people who are known. So wherever they've dug in this time it's likely not at the Lake. It could be anywhere, out of the county even. It would take a hundred men—”

“You mustn't do that!” Ellen cried.

“Ellen, I told you. I wouldn't take chances with Barbara's safety.”

“All I know is I want my baby back.”

“Isn't that what we all want? Look. Wes, you listening?”

“I'm listening,” Malone said.

“This woman who hijacked the payroll, Goldie. She could be working with Furia against the other man, Hinch, to squeeze Hinch out. They could be both putting on an act for Hinch's benefit.”

“Damn,” Malone said. “I never thought of that, either.”

“But I doubt it. From what you told me about the way Furia acted when they were here in your house, it's likelier she's doublecrossing the two of them the way you doped it.”

“Round and round we go,” Malone said.

“No, listen.” Chief Secco leaned forward in his effort to hold them, they slipped away so easily. “The way you described this Hinch, Wes, he seems to be the weak sister of the three, a dumb character.”

“He hasn't a brain in his head.”

“The dumb ones of a gang are the ones to go after. In this case, from what you say, the groundwork with Hinch has already been laid.”

“How do you mean?”

“You told me that the first time they came here—when they first took Barbara—Furia told Hinch to meet them at the cabin and Hinch was upset, you got the impression he was worried they might run out on him.”

“So?”

“You also said that the second time they came, after you got Barbara back, when you told them the money's been stolen from the house and Ellen accused Furia of having been the one, Hinch seemed half convinced it was true. That's what I mean by the groundwork being laid. He doesn't trust Furia. He's already got his doubts. Suppose we could convince him.”

“That Furia took the money? But he didn't, John. Goldie Vorshek took it.”

“We know that and the Vorshek woman knows it, but Hinch and Furia don't.” There was nothing in the chief's voice or manner to suggest that he was about to sell something, he was being very careful about that. “If we can get Hinch to believing that Furia is playing him for a sucker, even a bear of little brain like that is going to start thinking of his own hide. It's a cinch he's in this thing for his cut of the loot. If there's no cut for him he's going to want out. The only way Hinch could get out now is by making a deal with us, in his own interest and to get back at the partner taking him for a ride. He'll make contact. He'll tell us where they're hiding. He might even help us when we close in. That's the way I figure it.”

“And that's the way my Bibby would get killed,” Ellen said. “Absolutely no.”

“Ellen,” Secco said. “Would Barbara be in more danger than she's in right now if they got to distrusting one another? She might even be in less, because if the plan worked out Hinch would have a personal interest in seeing she stays safe. He'd know what would happen to him if he let Furia hurt her.” Secco took out his pipe and fiddled with it. He put it back in his pocket. “Look, I'm not saying this is guaranteed. There are a lot of ifs when you're dealing with dangerous morons like these. But as things stand, Furia won't give up Barbara without the money, if then—I have to be frank with you, Ellen—and we don't have the money to give them. You've got to accept how things are, not how you'd like them to be.”

Ellen was giving her head little stubborn shakes.

“But, of course, you've got to make the decision. I don't have the right to make it for you. Even if I had, I wouldn't.”

“The answer is no,” Ellen said.

“Ellen.” There was a hint of life in Malone's eyes. “Maybe John has something. God knows we don't. Maybe such a trick …”

“No.”

“Wait. John, how would you get to Hinch? What do you have in mind?”

“Wherever they're hiding out it's a sure thing they've got a radio. So that's our channel of communication. Manufactured story, some cooked-up announcements on the air, I don't know, I haven't laid it out yet. But the point is, if we can get the right message through to him—”

“But Furia and this Goldie would hear it, too.”

“Let them. It would make her more jittery than she already is, a doublecross inside the gang is the last thing she wants the other two to start kicking around. And as far as Furia's concerned, it puts him on the defensive with Hinch and that could make them go for each other's throats. It's a tactic that's broken up a lot of gangs. But as I say, I can't make the decision for you people. She's your flesh and blood.”

“It's up to you, Ellen,” Malone said. “What do you say?”

“Oh, God.”

Secco got up and went to the window. He took out his pipe again and sucked on it emptily. His back said he wasn't there.

“Loney, help me, help me,” Ellen moaned.

“Do you want me to make the decision?”

“I don't know, I don't know.”

“You've got to know. There's no time for this, Ellen. Do I decide for both of us, or do you, or what?”

“They'll murder her, Loney.”

“They may murder her anyway.”

She stiffened as if he had struck her.

Ellen, Ellen, how else do you prepare yourself?

“Well?”

He could just hear her. “Whatever you say.”

“John,” Malone said.

Secco turned around.

“We go for broke.”

It turned out that the chief had Harvey Rudd waiting in the wagon. “I brought Harvey along in case you said yes,” Secco said. “He'll have to be briefed, Wes. I told him nothing.”

Harvey Rudd was The Voice of Taugus Valley. He was an ex-Maine news broadcaster who had passed up a top job with a New York network to start an independent radio station, WRUD, in Tonekeneke Falls. He owned it, programed it, edited its news, sometimes took its mike, and he had been known to sweep it out. He was a fortyish Down Easter with a long Yank nose and a short Yank tongue.

Ellen said one thing in Rudd's presence. She said it to Chief Secco. “Can this man be trusted?”

When the chief said, “Yes,” Ellen nodded and went upstairs, not to be seen again during the afternoon.

Rudd didn't say anything, not even with his eyes, which were northern ocean blue and looked as if they belonged in a four-master's crow's-nest. They did not even express anything at the sight of the plaster on Malone's hair and the welt on his jaw. He set his surprising Texas-style white Stetson on the sofa beside him and waited.

Malone told the story leaving out nothing. The radio man listened without a word. When Malone was finished Chief Secco told about using WRUD to get to Hinch. “Will you do it, Harvey?”

For the first time Malone heard Rudd's voice.

“I have two children of my own.” Malone had expected a voice like a cheap guitar, like fellow-officer Sherm Hamlin's. Sherm had been born in Boothbay Harbor and had served as a guard at the prison in Thomaston before following his married daughter down to New Bradford, he had never lost his whangy accent. But this voice was more like one of Lawrence Welk's baritone saxes. “What exactly did you have in mind, John?”