Ed McBain_87th Precinct 47 (5 page)

“And you say you get along with all of them.”

“Yes.”

“This man who calls you … do you recognize his voice, by any chance?”

“No.”

“Doesn’t sound at all familiar, him?”

“No.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t think it would. But sometimes …”

“Well, he doesn’t sound like anyone I
know,
if that’s what you mean.
Personally, I
mean. If that’s what you mean.”

“Yes, that’s what I …”

“But he
does
sound familiar.”

“Oh
^?“

“He sounds like Jack Nicholson.”

“Jack … ?”

“The actor.”

“
Oh
.“

“That same sort of voice.”

“I see. But you don’t
know
Jack Nicholson personally, is what you’re …”

“I
wish
I knew him,” she said, and rolled her eyes.

“But you don’t.”

“No, I don’t.”

“The caller just
sounds
like Jack Nicholson.”

“Or somebody trying to
imitate
Jack Nicholson.”

“I don’t suppose you know anyone who does Jack Nicholson imitations, do you?

“Yes, I do,” she said.

“You do?” he said, and leaned across the desk toward her. “Who?”

“Everybody.”

“I meant
personally.
Anyone in your circle of friends or… ?”

“No.”

“Can you think of anyone at
all
who might want to harm you, Miss Cassidy?”

“No, I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t suppose you have caller ID, do you?”

“I sure don’t,” she said.

“Well,” he said, “let me talk this over with some of the other detectives, get their opinion, run it by the lieutenant, see
if he thinks we can get a court order for a trap-and-trace. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

“I wish you would,” she said. “I think he’s serious.”

There were three deputy chiefs working under the police department’s chief surgeon. One of these was an elderly shrink, another
was an administrative executive, and the third was Sharyn herself. Sharyn was a board-certified surgeon with four years of
medical school behind her, plus five years of residency as a surgeon, plus four years as chief resident at the hospital. The
shingle on the door to her office read:

She had worked here at 24 Rankin Plaza for the past five years, competing for the job against a hundred applicants, some of
whom now served elsewhere in the police department’s medical system; there were twenty-five district surgeons employed in
five police clinics throughout the city. Each of them earned $62,500 a year. As one of the deputy
chief
surgeons, Sharyn earned $68,000 a year, for which she had to put in some fifteen to eighteen hours a week here in the Majesta
office. During the rest of the week, she maintained her own private practice in an office not far from Mount Pleasant Hospital
in Diamondback. In a good year, Deputy Chief Cooke earned about five times what Detective/Third Grade Kling earned.

Which had nothing to do with the price of fish, as her mother was fond of saying.

She had not yet told her mother she’d dated a white man last night.

Probably never
would
tell her.

The man in her office at four-thirty that Monday after-noon was a black man. There were some thirty-one thousand police officers
in this city, and whenever one of them got sick, he or she—fourteen percent of the force was female—reported to one of the
district police surgeons who worked for two and a half hours every day of the week at staggered times specified by the department
and familiar to every member of the force. The district surgeon conducted a thorough
physical
examination, and then determined whether the officer should be allowed to stay out sick—with full pay, of course—or be put
on limited-capacity duty for ninety days, after which the officer was expected to return to active duty unless he was
still
sick. It was up to the district surgeons and ultimately the deputy chief surgeon to determine whether a cop was really ill
or simply malingering. Any cop who was out sick for more than a year was brought before the Retirement Boad under Article
IV, and requested either to return to full duty or else leave the job. There was no alternative. It was all or nothing at
all.

The black man sitting in a straight-backed metal chair alongside Sharyn’s desk had been out sick for a hundred and twenty-two
days now. Part of that time, he’d been flat on his back in bed at home. The rest of the time, he’d worked on and off at restricted-duty
desk jobs in precincts here and there throughout the city. His name was Randall Garrod. He was thirty-four years old and had
been a member of the force for thirteen years. Before he began developing severe chest pains, he had worked as an undercover
out of a narcotics unit in Riverhead.

“How are the pains now?” Sharyn asked.

“Same,” he said.

“I see you’ve had an electrocardiogram… ”

“Yeah.”

“… and a stress test… ”

“Yeah.”

“…
and
a thallium stress test, all of them normal.”

“That’s what they say. But I still have the pains.”

“Gastroenterologist took X rays, did an endoscopy, found nothing.”

“Mm.”

“I see you’ve even had an echocardiogram. No indication of a mitral valve prolapse, everything normal. So what’s wrong with
you, Detective Garrod?”

“You’re the doctor,” he said.

“Take off your shirt for me, will you?”

He was a hit shorter than she was, five-seven or -eight, Sharyn guessed, a small wiry man who stood now and unbuttoned his
shirt and then draped it neatly over the back of the metal chair. His chest, arms, and abdomen were well-muscled, he obviously
worked out regularly. His skin was the color of a coconut shell.

She thought suddenly of Bert Kling. Stethoscope to Garrod’s chest, she listened.

That color is good for you.

Referring to her suit. The blue of her suit. The smoky blue that matched her eye shadow.

“Deep breath,” she said. “And hold it.”

Listening.

Sinatra was singing “Kiss” for the ten thousand, two hundred and twenty-eighth time.

—So hold me tight and whisper

—Words of

—Love against my eyes.

—And kiss me sweet and promise

—Me your

—Kisses won’t be lies…

“Another one, please. And hold it.”

—That color is good for you.

But what had he
really
been saying, this blond, hazel-eyed honkie sitting opposite her, twirling linguini on a fork, what had he
really
been saying about color? Or
trying
to say. How come he hadn’t until that very moment noticed or remarked upon the very obvious fact that she was black and he
was white?
That color
is
good for you, sistuh
, and then moving on fast to comment pithily on a dumb song featuring a drunk in a saloon pouring out his heart to a jaded
bartender who kept setting them up, Joe, when all
she
wanted to know …

—Is it because I’m black?

—Is what because you’re black?

—That you asked me out.

—No, I don’t think so. Is it because
I’m
white? That you accepted?

—Maybe.

—Well … do you want to talk about it?

—No. Not now.

—When?

—Maybe never.

—Okay.

Which, of course, had been the end of all conversation until it calve time to say Gee, you know, Bert, I don’t think we have
time to catch that movie, really, and besides we’ve both got to be up early tomorrow morning, and anyway do you
really
like cop movies, maybe we ought to call it a night, huh?

—Thank you, I had a very nice time.

—No, hey, thank
you.
I had a nice time, too. Palpating the chest wall now, pushing along the sternum…

“Feel any pain here?”

“No.”

“How about here?”

“No.”

Ruling out any inflammation of the carti…

“What’s this?” she asked suddenly.

“What’s
what?”
Garrod said.

“This scar on your shoulder.”

“Yeah.”

“Looks like a healed bullet wound.”

“Yeah.”

“Is that what it is?”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t see anything in your file about… ”

“It’s in there, all right.”

“A gunshot wound? How’d I miss a gunshot wound?”

“Maybe you didn’t go back far enough.”

“When did you get shot?”

“Six, seven months ago.”

“Before the chest pains started?”

“Yeah.”

She looked at him.

“The scar’s got nothin to do with those pains,” he said. “The scar don’t hurt at all.”

“But the pains started after you got shot.”

“Yeah.”

“You keep testing normal ...”

“Yeah, but ...”

“EKGs, stress tests, GI tests, everything normal, no muscular problems … ”

“One thing’s got nothing to do with …”

“How soon after the shooting did you go back to work?”

“Few weeks after rehab.”

“Where was that?”

“Buenavista.”

“Good program there.”

“Yeah.”

“Went back to undercover?”

“Yeah.”

“Were you doing undercover when the chest pains started?”

“Yeah, but …”

“Who’d you work with at Buenavista?”

“Oh, the physical therapists. Getting the shoulder working again. I’m
in good
shape, you know …”

“Yes.”

“So it didn’t take long.”

“Did you talk to anyone about getting shot?”

“Oh, sure.’’

“About the psychological aftereffects of getting shot?”

“Sure.”

“About post-trauma syndrome?”

“Lots of cops in this city get shot, you know. I’m not anybody special.”

“But you
did
talk to someone at Buenavista about …”

“Well, it didn’t apply, you see. I had no problem with it.”

Sharyn looked at him again.

“There’s someone I’d like you to see,” she said. “I want you to stop at the sick-call desk on your way out, and make an appointment
with him. His name is Simon Waggenstein,” she said, writing it on one of her cards. “He’s one of the deputy chief surgeons
here.”

“Why do I have to see another doctor? All I’ve done so far is go from one doctor to… ”

“This one’s a psychiatrist.”

“No way,” Garrod said at once, and stood up, and yanked his shirt from where he had draped it over the chair. “Send me back
to active duty, fuck it, I ain’t seeing no psychiatrist.”

“He may be able to help you.”

“I got
chest
pains and you want me to see a
head
doctor? Come on, willya?”

Angrily pulling on the shirt, buttoning it swiftly, not looking at her.

“Why haven’t you applied for a pension?” she asked.

“I don’t want a pension.”

“You want to stay on the force, is that it?”

“I’m a good cop,” he said flatly. “Getting shot don’t make inc no less a good cop.”

“But you can quit with a pension anytime you want… ”

“I don’t want to quit.”

“You don’t have to invent imaginary chest pains to keep you off the street… ”

“They’re not imaginary!”

“You’re
entitled
to the pension… ”

“I don’t
want
the …”

“You can claim …”

“I want
back
on the street!”

“… federal disability incur …”

“I wasn’t afraid to go
back!
”

“But if you didn’t want to risk it again, nobody would blame… ”

“They
already
blame me!” he said. “They think I got shot because I wasn’t doing the job right. I must’ve been doing something wrong or
I wouldn’ta got shot in the first place, you understand? To them, I’m some kinda failure. They don’t even want to be
around
me, man, they’re afraid
they’re
liable’a get shot if they’re even
around
me. I take that disability pension… ”

He stopped, shook his head.

“I’m a good cop,” he said again.

“You go another eight months with chest pains nobody can find, you’ll be looking at an Article Four …”

“Yeah, but if I
quit
… ”

“Yeah?”

“If I grab the pension and run… ”

“Yeah?”

“They’ll say the nigguh’s got no balls.”

“Neither have I,” Sharyn said.

They stood looking at each other. The phone rang, startling them both. She picked up the receiver.

“Chief Cooke,” she said.

“Sharyn? It’s me.”

Bert Kling?

Now
what the hell?

“Just a second,” she said, and covered the mouthpiece. “Promise me you’ll make that appointment,” she said.

“Give me the fuckin card,” he said, and snatched it from her hand.

The rehearsal had resumed at five
P.M.
that Monday and it was now a little past six. All four actors in the leading roles had been on the stage together for the
past hour in three of the play’s most difficult scenes. Tempers were beginning to fray.