The Heckler

“They won’t get caught,” Chuck said.

“Suppose. And suppose they tell?”

“They wouldn’t do that.”

“Wouldn’t they?”

“Shut up,” Chuck said. He was silent for a moment. Then he said, “No, they wouldn’t.”

THE PATROLMAN CAME OUTof the waiting room, looked past the ice-cream truck and over the river, sucked the good drizzly air of April into his lungs, put his hands on his hips, and studied the cherry-red glow in the sky to the south. He did not realize he was an instrument of probability. He was one of those cops who, either through accident or design, had been left on his post rather than pulled southward to help in the emergency. He knew there was a big fire on the River Dix, but his beat was the thirty waterfront blocks on the River Harb, starting with the ferry waiting room and working east to the water tower on North Forty-first. He had no concept of the vastness of what was happening to the south, and he had no idea whatever that the ice-cream truck standing not ten feet away from him carried two and a half million dollars, more or less, in its ice box.

He was just a lousy patrolman who had come on duty at 3:45P.M. and who would go off duty at 11:45P.M., and he wasn’t anticipating trouble here at the ferry slip connecting Isola to the sleepy section called Majesta. He stood with his hands on his hips for a moment longer, studying the sky. Then he casually strolled toward the ice-cream truck.

“Relax,” the deaf man said.

“He’s coming over!”

“Relax!”

“Hi,” the patrolman said.

“Hello,” the deaf man answered pleasantly.

“I’d like an ice-cream pop,” the patrolman said.

THEY HAD MANAGEDto control the fire at the stadium, and Lieutenant Byrnes, with the help of three traffic commands, had got the traffic unsnarled and then supervised the loading of the ambulances with the badly burned and trampled victims of the deaf man’s plot. Byrnes had tried, meanwhile, to keep pace with what was happening in his precinct. The reports had filtered in slowly at first, and then had come with increasing suddenness. An incendiary bomb in a paint shop, the fire and explosion touching off a row of apartment houses. A bomb left in a bus on Culver Avenue, the bomb exploding while the bus was at an intersection, bottling traffic in both directions for miles. Scare calls, panic calls,real calls, and in the midst of all the confusion a goddam gang rumble in the housing project on South Tenth, just what he needed; let the little bastards kill themselves.

Now, covered with sweat and grime, threading his way through the fire hoses snaked across the street, hearing the clang of ambulance gongs and the moan of sirens, seeing the red glow in the sky over the River Dix, he crossed the street and headed for a telephone because there was one call hehad to make, one thing hehad to know.

Hernandez followed him silently and stood outside the phone booth while Byrnes dialed.

“Rhodes Clinic,” the starched voice said.

“This is Lieutenant Byrnes. How’s Carella?”

“Carella, sir?”

“Detective Carella. The policeman who was admitted with the shotgun wou—”

“Oh, yes sir. I’m sorry, sir. There’s been so much confusion here. People being admitted—the fires, you know. Just a moment, sir.”

Byrnes waited.

“Sir?” the woman said.

“Yes?”

“He seems to have come through the crisis. His temperature’s gone down radically, and he’s resting quietly. Sir, I’m sorry, the switchboard is—”

“Go ahead, take your calls,” Byrnes said, and he hung up.

“How is he?” Hernandez asked.

“He’ll be all right,” Byrnes said. He nodded. “He’ll be all right.”

“I could feel the shadow,” Hernandez said suddenly, but he did not explain his words.

*   *   *

“ONE OF THEM SPECIALSyou got advertised on the side of the truck,” the patrolman said. “With the chopped walnuts.”

“We’re all out of the walnut crunch,” the deaf man said quickly. He was not frightened, only annoyed. He could see the ferry boat approaching the slip, could see the captain on the bridge leaning out over the windshield, peering into the rain as he maneuvered the boat.

“No walnut?” the patrolman said. “That’s too bad. I had my face fixed for one.”

“Yes, that’s too bad,” the deaf man said. The ferry nudged the dock pilings and moved in tight, wedging toward the dock. A deck hand leaped ashore and turned on the mechanism to lower the dock to meet the boat’s deck.

“Okay, let me have a plain chocolate pop,” the patrolman said.

“We’re all out of those, too,” the deaf man said.

“Well, what have you got?”

“We’re empty. We were heading back for the plant.”

“In Majesta?”

“Yes,” the deaf man said.