The Heckler

“I want you to check out the apartment where Steve got it. I wouldn’t ask you ordinarily, Frankie, but I’m in one hell of a bind here. You know, we’ve got these damn stores under surveillance because Meyer and Kling’ve got me convinced this nut’s gonna hit one of them. Well, Captain Frick let me have the patrolmen I needed, but he reserved the right to pull them if he needs them anyplace else. So I had to work out some kind of a system where a team of detectives would be on the prowl ready to relieve any of these cops if something else came up. I couldn’t pull Parker out of the candy store, and I couldn’t get those two men back from Washington where they’re taking that damn FBI course, so I had to pull two men off vacation, and I’ve got these two teams cruising around now, Meyer and Kling, and this other pair, ready to either relieve or assist, whichever is necessary. I’m practically running the squad single-handed, Frankie. Steve’s in the hospital, and I’m going out of my mind worrying about him, that guy is like a son to me, Frankie. I’d check this out myself, believe me, but I got to go down to City Hall this afternoon to make arrangements for that damn ball game tomorrow—of all times the Governor’s got to come down to throw out the ball, and the damn ball park has to be in my precinct, so that’ll mean—I don’t know where I’m gonna get all the men, Frankie. I just don’t know.”

He paused.

There was another long silence.

“His face is all smashed in,” Byrnes said at last. “Did you see him, Frankie?”

“I didn’t get a chance to go over there yet, Pete. I had—”

“All smashed in,” Byrnes said.

The silence came back. Byrnes sighed.

“You can see what a bind I’m in. I’ve got to ask you to do me the favor, Frankie.”

“Whatever you say, Pete.”

“Would you check that apartment? The lab’s already been through it, but I want one of my own boys to go over it thoroughly. Will you?”

“Sure. What’s the address?”

“Four fifty-seven Franklin Street.”

“I’ll just have some breakfast and get dressed, Pete. Then I’ll go right over.”

“Thanks. Will you phone in later?”

“I’ll keep in touch.”

“Okay, fine. Frankie, you know, you’ve been on the case with Steve, you know what his thinking on it has been, so I thought…”

“I don’t mind at all, Pete.”

“Good. Call me later.”

“Right,” Hernandez said, and he hung up.

Hernandez did not, in truth, mind being called on his day off. To begin with, he knew that all policemen are on duty twenty-four hours a day every day of the year, and he further knew that Lieutenant Byrnes knew this. And knowing this, Byrnes did not have to ask Hernandez for a favor, all he had to do was say, “Get in here, I need you.” But hehad asked Hernandez if he’d mind, he had put it to him as a matter of choice, and Hernandez appreciated this immensely. Too, he had never heard the lieutenant sound quite so upset in all the time he’d been working for him. He had seen Peter Byrnes on the edge of total collapse, after three days without sleep, the man’s eyes shot with red, weariness in his mouth and his posture and his hands. He had heard his voice rapping out orders hoarsely, had seen his fingers trembling as he lifted a cup of coffee, had indeed known him at times when panic seemed but a hairsbreadth away. But he had never heard Byrnes the way he sounded this morning. Never.

There was something of weariness in his voice, yes, and something of panic, yes, and something of despair, but these elements did not combine to form the whole; the whole had been something else again, the whole had been something frightening which transmitted itself across the copper telephone wires and burst from the receiver on the other end with a bone-chilling sentience of its own. The whole had been as if—as if Byrnes were staring into the eyes of death, as if Byrnes were choking on the stench of death in his nostrils, as if Byrnes had a foreknowledge of what would happen to Steve Carella, a foreknowledge so strong that it leaped telephone wires and made the blood run suddenly cold.

In his tenement flat, with the sounds of the city coming alive outside his window, Frankie Hernandez suddenly felt the presence of death. He shuddered and went quickly into the bathroom to shower and shave.

JOEY, THE DOORMAN,recognized him as a policeman instantly.

“You come about mypaisan, huh?” Joey asked.

“Who’s yourpaisan?” Hernandez asked.

“Carella. The cop who got his block knocked off upstairs.”

“Yes, that’s who I’ve come about.”

“Hey, you ain’t Italian, are you?” Joey asked.

“No.”

“What are you, Spanish or something?”

“Puerto Rican,” Hernandez answered, and he was instantly ready to take offense. His eyes met Joey’s, searched them quickly and thoroughly. No, there would be no insult.

“You want to go up to the apartment? Hey, I don’t even know your name,” Joey said.

“Detective Hernandez.”

“That’s a pretty common Spanish name, ain’t it?”

“Pretty common,” Hernandez said as they went into the building.