Dog Day Afternoon (13 page)

That had been ten years ago, his tenth on the force. He wasn’t doing that well, was he? He should have made lieutenant two years ago, but the shake-ups after the corruption exposures had turned everybody so goosy that even his political rabbi couldn’t help him.

So that’s why you look different, he told his reflection: You’re getting old and you’re getting to be a loser. You don’t have to lose a lot to be a loser, he thought. You only have to lose one thing, like a lieutenant’s bar.

Also, a man aged faster in this line of work. And more than that, a cop aged faster in a place like New York City than a place like, say, Dubuque.

Not that Queens was so bad—most of the loonies and junkies gravitated to Manhattan—but that still left plenty of weirdos for this borough. Not just petty thieves. Not just hustlers and con men and grifters and heist guys, not just shoplifters and check kiters and gypsy-switch artists. No, Queens had its share of hard guys, too. Armed robbery was common. Murder happened often enough in this precinct to keep Homicide busy. Rape was coming up fast as the new fad crime.

And if it wasn’t bad enough, Moretti thought, what people did to people, now there was a whole new brand of loony that tortured animals and killed them. Not that the cops got involved in crimes against animals, just that the
idea
of a mind that would do this alarmed detectives like Moretti, who understood a little about the human soul. Not much, he told his face in the mirror, but enough.

In this case, not much was too much.

He turned and left the toilet. He had been in there so long that he’d lost his sense of smell. His olfactory nerves had been paralyzed by the powerful piss-Lysol combination. As he got back to his typewriter, the telephone was ringing. Jerry jerked a thumb at it, as if to say he’d answer, but Moretti was in charge. He picked up the telephone.

“Detective Sergeant Moretti.”

“Tony?” a man asked.

Moretti frowned. His Christian name was Gaetano. Only his close friends ever used Tony, and this wasn’t the voice of a close friend. “Who’s this?”

“Lou.”

“Come on, Lou. Give me a last name.”

“Lou Bagradian, for Christ’s sake, Tony.” The man sounded hurt. “You know. I got the Aetna agency.”

“That Lou.
Wus machts du?”
Moretti spoke not only Italian and the Calabrese dialect, but knew enough Yiddish and Greek to get prompt service in any sandwich deli. He knew Bagradian wasn’t Jewish, but it seemed like a thing to do, after he’d presumed to call him Tony.

“Listen, did your prowl car check the Chase branch at closing time today?”

Moretti sat forward in his chair. “Lou, stop questioning the cops. Tell me what you want to tell me.”

“Don’t take my head off, okay? I’m just a citizen doing my duty. I would hope to God somebody would return me the favor if I ever needed it.”

“The Chase branch,” Moretti reminded him.

“Yeah. First of all, two guys went in there just at closing.”

“That’s shocking.”

“No humor, Tony, please,” the caller said in an aggrieved tone. “If you want honest citizens to back up the cops, let’s have a little respect.”

“You got it,
mein kind.”

“The next thing is that Leroy, the guard, doesn’t pull down the Venetian blind like he always does. No, one of these two guys pulls down the blind.”

Moretti sat up straighter. “Yes?”

“He was carrying a florist’s box, this one guy. I mean, you could hide a gun in a florist’s box. Anyway, I call Boyle over there to see if everything’s okay.”

“And he says yes?”

“Yeah, he says yes, but it takes him about fifteen rings to get the phone and then only after the guy with the florist’s box stands over him. In other words, he—”

“I get the picture. What explanation did Boyle give?”

“They’re guys from Chase. Systems men, some nonsense like that. But this is the thing that bothers me, one of the guys looks like some garage attendant or something. And the other one is all dressed up like a high-class pimp. I mean, like bank guys they don’t look. No way.”

“Jerry,” Moretti told his partner, “check Holmes. See if they had an alarm from the Chase branch.” Then, into the phone: “What else, Lou?”

“I’m going across the street and get a closer look. The girls are all kind of huddled in one place way in the back where I can’t see them. It’s just not the way things go after closing over there.”

“Lou, I think it’s too bad the insurance business is so lousy you have the time to watch all these things. We’ll check it out.”

“Why do all you guys have to be so smart-ass? I’m only doing what every citizen is supposed to do. What if it was my place being held up? I’d want somebody to call the cops. Why should they if all they get is cheap humor?”

Moretti stifled the urge to tell his caller that the way he ran his agency there wouldn’t be much cash around to tempt a heist guy. He glanced over at Jerry. “Anything?”

Jerry looked up from the phone. “No alarms.”

“Okay, Lou,” Moretti said into the telephone. “I’m going to check it out. Is that action or is that action? I mean, when we get an honest citizen we know how to take care of him.”

“Very funny. Good-bye.”

“Lou!”

“What?”

“Don’t make a scene at the bank. If something’s going on, you’ll only stir up the animals and get yourself shot. Just, you know, take a look and move along back to your office. Promise me that?”

“Okay.”

Moretti hung up. “You want to take a ride in a genuine air-conditioned Rambler?”

Jerry shook his head. “I got two reports to finish.”

“Guaranteed fifty degrees cooler inside.”

“Don’t tempt me. What’s the rumble at Chase?”

“No rumble. Just a nervous bystander with time on his hands. See you.”

Once outside the precinct house, the full blast of sun and heat hammered on Moretti’s head as though it were an anvil. He put on a narrow-brim cocoa-straw hat, knowing as he did so that it would make him feel even hotter, but Moretti always wore a hat, always.

He got into the baking Rambler and used the air conditioner to flush out all the heat before he closed his door and started off. The Chase branch was a mile away. He reached in his glove compartment for a small pair of binoculars, which he tucked into the side pocket of his jacket. He hoped Bagradian’s office was air conditioned. This kind of August was murder, almost literally. By tonight at least a handful of old-timers would be in the hospital, maybe in the morgue.

He passed the Chase branch doing about twenty-five miles an hour and gave it the once-over without seeming to. A chubby guy in a white short-sleeved shirt was standing in the doorway talking to Boyle, whom Moretti knew by sight, as he knew all the branch bank managers in the precinct. The sun was too glaring for Moretti to make out anything happening inside the bank. He circled around behind the Aetna agency and parked in the rear. He knocked on the back door, got no response, tried the lock and found it shut.

Moretti took out his wallet, from which he extracted a sheet of stiff celluloid about the size of a charge card. He worked the celluloid between the door and the frame so that it pushed back the catch. Chances were Bagradian hadn’t bolted it. Why would he? The catch slipped back and Moretti was inside the rear of the insurance office.

He moved to the front and sat down in a chair behind a loose-weave curtain that had been half pulled against the outside glare. He could see through the curtain but it hid him. He watched Bagradian make his way back across the street, dodging traffic. The terrible outside heat slowed his progress down to a near crawl. Inside the office, Moretti was pleased to note, the temperature was comfortable.

Bagradian unlocked his front door and let himself in. Moretti waited until he had walked back to the rear of the office, passing a few yards from Moretti without noticing him. “Lou,” the detective called. “Don’t panic. I’m inside. Don’t come rushing back here. Just move around naturally.”

“How the hell you get in?”

“Police secrets. What’d you find?”

“Not a damned thing. Boyle’s as cool as a cucumber. The guy who had the flower box is working on some books with Marge. I can’t see the rest of the people or the other guy, the hotshot pimp.”

“You realize how pissed off Boyle will be if there’s nothing going on over there and I start making cop noises.”

Bagradian loomed up behind the counter. “Tony, I swear to God, it don’t feel right. Boyle’s too cool. He’s too calm. And no chitchat. Usually the guy is good for a laugh or two. He’s a regular guy, Boyle. But today it’s all business.”

“Right.” Moretti took out the binoculars and tried focusing them through the loose-weave drapery. It didn’t work too well. The image was interrupted by fuzz. He moved cautiously sideways until one lens of the binoculars was clear of the curtain. “Okay,” he said, “this may take a while.”

“What’s happening?”

“You want a blow-by-blow?” Moretti asked. “None of them are in the lobby area now. Now here comes a lady with a gorgeous pair.”

“Marge.”

“My little Margie, I love you,” Moretti said. “She’s going to a cabinet. She’s giving some stuff to the garage-attendant guy. He’s been talking to a guy in an ice-cream suit. That’s your pimp, Lou. And your pimp is excited. Yes, he’s getting more excited,” Moretti went on, imitating a racetrack announcer. “He’s getting very excited and he’s waving his hand. Yes, and in his hand is—
oi, weh ist mir.
In his hand is a gun.” Moretti glanced back at the insurance agent. “You win, Louie. Congratulations.”

“What? What? What?”

“Hold it.” Moretti hunched forward, watching closely through the single barrel of the binoculars that cleared the edge of the curtain. “Now the garage guy and Boyle have disappeared. Sam, get me the telephone number of that branch, will you? Now the garage guy is back. He’s moving everybody out of sight. He’s talking to Marge. Got the number? Start dialing.”

“It’s ringing,” Bagradian reported a moment later.

“It’s ringing and nobody’s paying any attention to it. The garage guy and Marge have disappeared. Bring the phone over to me, Sam. Is there another phone on a different line?”

“In the back.”

“Call the precinct house, ask for Jerry Munoz in the detective room. Tell him what’s happening. Move.”

Moretti watched the man who wore chino pants. He was leading everyone back into sight now. He seemed to have a gun butt sticking out of the waistband of his trousers. The pimp in the ice-cream suit looked very nervous, even at this distance. Probably the insistent ringing of the telephone had all their nerves on edge. All Moretti wanted to do at this point was to ask Boyle for a clue. In the few seconds after Boyle answered the phone, he would have t—

Boyle was moving across the lobby toward the phone. He picked it up. “Boyle speaking.”

“Sergeant Moretti. I’m watching from across the street. Are they going to leave or will there be trouble? If they’re leaving, just hang up on me. We’ll get them later. Otherwise, let me talk to the head guy. Your decision.”

Boyle said nothing for a long moment. Then: “Hold on.”

11

“H
ello?” a man’s voice asked. Moretti classified it as local: a Queens boy.

“What are you doing in there?” he demanded.

“Who is this?”

“This,” the detective said, “is Detective Sergeant Moretti. We got you completely by the balls. You don’t believe me, I’m staring you right in the eye. Right now. Just look across the street at the insurance office, asshole.”

He watched the man in the chinos put down the phone and go to the window. Moretti got out of the chair and stepped from behind the drapery. He realized what a touchy spot he was in, but Boyle’s decision had put him there, and all he could do was play it light, keep the guy in the chinos from panicking. Moretti lifted his cocoa-straw hat and tipped it to the man. Then he held up the binoculars. He watched the man go back to the phone.

As he picked it up, Moretti began talking fast to gain the initiative. “Listen,” he said, “it’s not as bad as you think. We got you, but we’re not animals, understand. If nobody’s hurt in there, the rest is easy. Is anybody hurt?”

He could see the man listening to him. He could even hear his breathing over the telephone line. “Let’s be reasonable people,” Moretti went on. “Let’s not be stupid. Let’s take care of each other, get me? You fold your hands over your head and come out the door. Nobody’s going to shoot y—”

The line went dead as the man hung up. Son of a bitch. Moretti was cursing himself more than the man. Why had the goddamned manager put him on the line? What was going on over there that made Boyle decide to do it this way? “Lou,” he called back to the insurance man. “Did you get Jerry?”

The chubby man returned from the rear of the office. “What’s happening?”

“Nothing, the guy hung up on me.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have called,” Bagradian suggested. “You could’ve nabbed them when they left the bank.”

“I gave Boyle that option. He turned it down. What did Jerry tell you?”

“Said he would—” The insurance man stopped. Sirens sounded in the distance. “I guess that’s them.”