First Deadly Sin Page 11

  “And the third?”

  Ferguson came over, gripped Delaney by the right arm, and almost lifted him to his feet. The Captain had forgotten how strong he was.

  “Go have your wife’s kidney stones cut out,” the doctor said brutally. “She’ll either live or die. Which is true for all of us. No way out, m’lad.”

  Delaney took a deep breath.

  “All right, doctor,” he said. “Thank you for your time and your—your patience. I’m sorry to have bothered you.”

  “Bother?” Ferguson said gruffly. “Idiot.”

  He walked Delaney to the door. “I might just stop by to see Barbara,” he said casually. “Just as a friend of the family.”

  “Yes,” Delaney nodded dumbly. “Please do that. She doesn’t want any visitors, but I know she’ll be glad to see you.”

  In the foyer Ferguson took Delaney by the shoulders and turned him to the light.

  “Have you been sleeping okay, Edward?” he demanded.

  “Not too well.”

  “Don’t take pills. Take a stiff shot. Brandy is best. Or a glass of port. Or a bottle of stout just before you get into bed.”

  “Yes. All right. Thank you. I will.”

  They shook hands.

  “Oh wait,” Ferguson said. “You forgot your papers. I’ll get the file for you.”

  But when he returned, Delaney had gone.

  He stopped at his home to put on a heavy wool sweater under his uniform jacket. Then he walked next door to the Precinct house. There was a civilian car parked directly in front of the entrance. Inside the windshield, on the passenger’s side, a large card was displayed: PRESS.

  Delaney stalked inside. There was a civilian talking to the Desk Sergeant. Both men broke off their conversation and turned when he tramped in.

  “Is that your car?” he asked the man. “In front of the station?”

  “Yes, that’s mine. I was—”

  “You a reporter?”

  “Yes. I was just—”

  “Move it. You’re parked in a zone reserved for official cars only. It’s clearly marked.”

  “I just wanted—”

  “Sergeant,” Delaney said, “if that car isn’t moved within two minutes, issue this man a summons. If it’s still there after five minutes, call a truck and have it towed away. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Now look here—” the man started.

  Delaney walked by him and went up to his office. He took a black-painted three-cell flashlight from the top drawer of his file cabinet. He also slipped a short, hard rubber truncheon into his jacket pocket and hung a steel “come-along” on his gun belt.

  When he came out into the chilly night again, the Press car had been reparked across the street. But the reporter was standing on the sidewalk in front of the Precinct house.

  “What’s your name?” he asked angrily.

  “Captain Edward X. Delaney. You want my shield number?”

  “Oh … Delaney. I’ve heard about you.”

  “Have you?”

  “ ‘Iron Balls.’ Isn’t that what they call you?”

  “Yes.”

  The reporter stared, then suddenly laughed and held out his hand.

  “The name’s Handry, Captain. Thomas Handry. Sorry about the car. You were entirely right and I was entirely wrong.”

  Delaney shook his hand.

  “Where you going with the flashlight, Captain?”

  “Just taking a look around.”

  “Mind if I tag along?”

  Delaney shrugged. “If you like.”

  They walked over to First Avenue, then turned north. The street was lined with stores, supermarkets, banks. Most of them had locked gates across doors and windows. All had a light burning within.

  “See that?” Delaney gestured. “I sent a letter to every commercial establishment in my precinct requesting they keep at least a hundred-watt bulb burning all night. I kept after them. Now I have ninety-eight-point-two percent compliance. A simple thing, but it reduced breaking-and-entering of commercial establishments in this precinct by fourteen-point-seven percent.”

  He stopped in front of a shoe repair shop that had no iron gates. Delaney tried the door. It was securely locked.

  “A little unusual, isn’t it?” Handry asked, amused. “A captain making the rounds? Don’t you have foot patrolmen for that?”

  “Of course. When I first took over the 251st, discipline was extremely lax. So I started unscheduled inspections, on foot, mostly at night. It worked. The men never know when or where I may turn up. They stay alert.”

  “You do it every night?”

  “Yes. Of course, I can’t cover the entire precinct, but I do a different five or six blocks every night. I don’t have to do it anymore, you understand; my men are on their toes. But it’s become a habit. I think I enjoy it. As a matter of fact, I can’t get to sleep until I’ve made my rounds. My wife says I’m like a householder who has to go around trying all the windows and doors before he goes to bed.”

  A two-man squad car came purring by. The passenger officer inspected them, recognized the Captain and threw him a salute, which he returned.

  Delaney tried a few more un-gated doors and then, flashlight burning, went prowling up an alleyway, the beam flickering over garbage cans and refuse heaps. Handry stayed close behind him.

  They walked a few more blocks, then turned eastward toward York Avenue.

  “What were you doing in my Precinct house, Handry?” the Captain asked suddenly.

  “Nosing around,” the reporter said. “I’m working on an article. Or rather a series of articles.”

  “On what?”

  “Why a man wants to become a policeman, and what happens to him after he does.”

  “Again?” Delaney sighed. “It’s been done a dozen times.”

  “I know. And it’s going to be done again, by me. The first piece is on requirements, screening, examination, and all that. The second will be on the Academy and probationary training. Now I’m trying to find out what happens to a man after he’s assigned, and all the different directions he can go. You were originally in the detective division, weren’t you?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Homicide, wasn’t it?”

  “For a while.”

  “They still talk about you, about some of your cases.”

  “Do they?”

  “Why did you switch to patrol, Captain?”

  “I wanted administrative experience,” Delaney said shortly.

  This time Handry sighed. He was a slender, dapper young man who looked more like an insurance salesman than a reporter. His suit was carefully pressed, shoes shined, narrow-brim hat exactly squared on his head. He wore a vest. He moved with a light-footed eagerness.

  His face betrayed a certain tension, a secret passion held rigidly under control. Lips were pressed, forehead bland, eyes deliberately expressionless. Delaney had noted the bitten fingernails and a habit of stroking the upper lip downward with the second joint of his index finger.

  “When did you shave your mustache?” he asked.

  “You should have stayed in the detective division,” Handry said. “I know I can’t stop stroking my lip. Tell me, Captain—why won’t policemen talk to me? Oh, they’ll talk, but they won’t really open up. I can’t get into them. If I’m going to be a writer, that’s what I’ve got to learn to do—how to get into people. Is it me, or are they afraid to talk for publication, or what the hell is it?”

  “It isn’t you—not you personally. It’s just that you’re not a cop. You don’t belong. There’s a gulf.”

  “But I’m trying to understand—really I am. This series is going to be very sympathetic to the police. I want it to be. I’m not out to do a hatchet job.”

  “I’m glad you’re not. We get enough of that.”

  “All right, then you tell me: why does a man become a policeman? Who the hell in his right mind would want a job like that in this city? T
he pay is miserable, the hours are miserable, everyone thinks you’re on the take, snot-nosed kids call you ‘pig’ and throw sacks of shit at you. So what the hell is the point?”

  They were passing a private driveway alongside a luxury apartment house. Delaney heard something.

  “Stay here,” he whispered to Handry.

  He went moving quietly up the driveway, the flashlight dark. His right hand was beneath his jacket flap, fingers on the butt of his gun.

  He was back in a minute, smiling.

  “A cat,” he said, “in the garbage cans.”

  “It could have been a drug addict with a knife,” Handry said.

  “Yes,” Delaney agreed, “it could have been.”

  “Well then, why?” Handry asked angrily.

  They were strolling slowly southward on York Avenue heading back toward the Precinct house. Traffic was light at that hour, and the few pedestrians scurried along, glancing nervously over their shoulders.

  “My wife and I were talking about that a few weeks ago,” Delaney mused, remembering that bright afternoon in the Park. “I said I had become a cop because, essentially, I am a very orderly man. I like everything neat and tidy, and crime offends my sense of order. My wife laughed. She said I became a policeman because at heart I am an artist and want a world of beauty where everything is true and nothing is false. Since that conversation—partly because of what has happened since then—I have been thinking of what I said and what she said. And I have decided we are not so far apart—two sides of the same coin actually. You see, I became a policeman, I think, because there is, or should be, a logic to life. And this logic is both orderly and beautiful, as all good logic is. So I was right and my wife was right. I want this logic to endure. It is a simple logic of natural birth, natural living, and natural death. It is the mortality of one of us and the immortality of all of us. It is the on-going. This logic is the life of the individual, the family, the nation, and finally all people everywhere, and all things animate and inanimate. And anything that interrupts the rhythm of this logic—for all good logic does have a beautiful rhythm, you know—well, anything that interrupts that rhythm is evil. That includes cruelty, crime, and war. I can’t do much about cruelty in other people; much of it is immoral but not illegal. I can guard against cruelty in myself, of course. And I can’t do a great deal about war. I can do something about crime. Not a lot, I admit, but something. Because crime, all crime, is irrational. It is opposed to the logic of life, and so it is evil. And that is why I became a cop. I think.”

  “My God!” Handry cried. “That’s great! I’ve got to use that. But I promise I won’t mention your name.”

  “Please don’t.” Delaney said ruefully. “I’d never live it down.”

  Handry left him at the Precinct house. Delaney climbed slowly to his office to put away his “beat” equipment. Then he slumped in the worn swivel chair behind his desk. He wondered if he would ever sleep again.

  He was ashamed of himself, as he always was when he talked too much. And what nonsense he had talked!

  “Logic … immortality … evil.” Just to tickle his vanity, of course, and give him the glow of voicing “deep thoughts” to a young reporter. But what did all that blathering have to do with the price of beans?

  It was all pretty poetry, but reality was a frightened woman who had never done an unkind thing in her life now lying in a hospital bed nerving herself for what might come. There were animals you couldn’t see gnawing away deep inside her, and her world would soon be blood, vomit, pus, and feces. Don’t you ever forget it, m’lad. And tears.

  “Rather her than me” suddenly popped into his brain, and he was so disgusted with himself, so furious at having this indecent thought of the woman he loved, that he groaned aloud and struck a clenched fist on the desk. Oh, life wasn’t all that much of a joy; it was a job you worked at, and didn’t often succeed.

  He sat there in the gloom, hunched, thinking of all the things he must now do and the order in which he must do them. Brooding, he glowered, frowned, occasionally drew lips back to show large, yellowed teeth. He looked like some great beast brought to bay.

  3

  IN THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM of Art there is a gallery of Roman heads. Stone faces are chipped and worn. But they have a quality. Staring into those socket eyes, at those broken noses, crushed ears, splintered lips, still one feels the power of men long dead. Kill the slave who betrayed you or, if your dreams have perished, a short sword in your own gut. Edward Delaney had that kind of face; crumbling majesty.

  He was seated now in his wife’s hospital room, the hard sunlight profiling him. Barbara Delaney stared through a drugged dimness and saw for the first time how his features had been harshened by violence and the responsibilities of command. She remembered the young, nervy patrolman who had courted her with violets and once, a dreadful poem.

  The years and duty had not destroyed him, but they had pressed him in upon himself, condensing him. Each year he spoke less and less, laughed infrequently, and withdrew to some iron core that was his alone; she was not allowed there.

  He was still a handsome man, she thought approvingly, and carried himself well and watched his weight and didn’t smoke or drink too much. But now there was a somber solidity to him, and too often he sat brooding. “What is it?” she would ask. And slowly his eyes would come up from that inward stare, focus on her and life, and he would say, “Nothing.” Did he think himself Nemesis for the entire world?

  He had not aged so much as weathered. Seeing him now, seated heavily in sharp sunlight, she could not understand why she had never called him “Father.” It was incredible that he should be younger than she. With a prescience of doom, she wondered if he could exist without her. She decided he would. He would grieve, certainly. He would be numb and rocked. But he would survive. He was complete.

  In his methodical way, he had made notes of the things he felt they should discuss. He took his little leather-bound notebook from his inside pocket and flipped the pages, then put on his heavy glasses.

  “I called the children last night,” he said, not looking up.

  “I know, dear. I wish you hadn’t. Liza called this morning. She wanted to come, but I told her absolutely not. She’s almost in her eighth month now, and I don’t want her traveling. Do you want a boy or girl?”

  “Boy.”

  “Beast. Well, I told her you’d call as soon as it’s over; there was no need for her to come.”

  “Very good,” he nodded. “Eddie was planning to come up in two weeks anyway, and I told him that would be fine, not to change his plans. He’s thinking of getting into politics down there. They want him to run for district attorney. I think they call it ‘public prosecutor’ in that state. What do you think?”

  “What does Eddie want to do?”

  “He’s not sure. That’s why he wants to come up, to discuss it with us.”

  “How do you feel about it, Edward?”

  “I want to know more about it. Who’ll be putting up the campaign funds. What he’ll owe. I don’t want him getting into a mess.”

  “Eddie wouldn’t do that.”

  “Not deliberately. Maybe from inexperience. He’s still a young man, Barbara. Politics is new to him. He must be careful. Those men who want him to run have their own ambitions. Well … we’ll talk about it when he comes up. He promised not to make any decision until he talks to us. Now then …” He consulted his notes “… how do you feel about Spencer?”

  He was referring to the surgeon introduced by Dr. Bernardi. He was a brusque, no-nonsense man without warmth, but he had impressed Delaney with his direct questions, quick decisions, his sharp interruptions of Bernardi’s effusions. The operation was scheduled for late in the afternoon of the following day. Delaney had followed the surgeon out into the hall.

  “Do you anticipate any trouble, doctor?” he asked.

  The surgeon, Dr. K. B. Spencer, looked at him coldly.

  “No,” he said.

&nb
sp; “Oh, I suppose he’s all right,” Barbara Delaney said vaguely. “What do you think of him, dear?”

  “I trust him,” Delaney said promptly. “He’s a professional. I asked Ferguson to check him out, and he says Spencer is a fine surgeon and a wealthy man.”

  “Good,” Barbara smiled faintly. “I wouldn’t want a poor surgeon.”

  She seemed to be tiring, and there was a hectic flush in her cheeks. Delaney put his notebook aside for a moment to wring out a cloth in a basin of cold water and lay it tenderly across her brow. She was already on intravenous feeding and had been instructed to move as little as possible.

  “Thank you, dear,” she said in a voice so low he could hardly hear her. He hurried through the remainder of his notes.

  “Now then,” he said, “what shall I bring tomorrow? You wanted the blue quilted robe?”

  “Yes,” she whispered. “And the fluffy mules. The pink ones. They’re in the righthand corner of my closet. My feet are swollen so badly I can’t get into my slippers.”

  “All right,” he said briskly, making a note. “Anything else? Clothes, makeup, books, fruit … anything?”

  “No.”

  “Should I rent a TV set?”

  She didn’t answer, and when he raised his head to look at her, she seemed asleep. He took off his glasses, replaced his notebook in his pocket, began to tiptoe from the room.

  “Please,” she said in a weak voice, “don’t go yet. Sit with me for a few minutes.”

  “As long as you want me,” he said. He pulled a chair up to the bedside and sat hunched over, holding her hand. They sat in silence for almost five minutes.

  “Edward,” she breathed, her eyes closed.

  “Yes. I’m here.”

  “Edward.”

  “Yes,” he repeated. “I’m here.”

  “I want you to promise me something.”

  “Anything,” he vowed.

  “If anything should happen to me—”

  “Barbara.”

  “If anything should—”

  “Dear.”

  “I want you to marry again. If you meet a woman … Someone … I want you to. Will you promise?”