The Heckler

His mind was churning with probabilities. Jump for the ferry? No, because I’m unarmed and the captain will take me into custody. Run for the street? No, because the patrolman will gun me down before I’m halfway across the dock, all that money, all that sweet money, predicted error, Idid predict the error, dammit, I did take into account that fact that some policemen would undoubtedly be somewhere on our escape route, but an ice-cream pop, God, an ice-cream pop! the river is the only way, and he ran for the fence.

“Halt!” the patrolman shouted. “Halt, or I’ll fire!”

The deaf man kept running. How long can I hold my breath under water? he wondered. How far can I swim?

The patrolman fired over his head, and then he aimed at the deaf man’s legs as the deaf man scrambled over the cyclone fence separating the dock from the water.

He stood poised on the top of the fence for just a moment, as if undecided, as if uncertain that the percentages were truly with him, and then suddenly he leaped into the air and away from the fence and the dock, just as the patrolman triggered off another shot. He hung silhouetted against the gray sky, and then dropped like a stone to the water below. The patrolman rushed to the fence.

Five shots, the deaf man thought. He’ll have to reload. Quickly, he surfaced, took a deep, lung-filling breath, and then ducked below the surface again.

All that money,he thought.Well—next time.

The patrolman’s hammer clicked on an empty chamber. He reloaded rapidly and then fired another burst at the water.

The deaf man did not resurface.

There was only a widening circle of ripples to show that he had existed at all.

17.

IT WAS SURPRISING how co-operative a thief can become when he has a bullet wound in his shoulder and he knows the jig is up. Even before they carted Rafe off to the hospital, he had given them the names of his confederates waiting in the rented house. The Majesta cops picked up Chuck and Pop in five minutes flat.

It is surprising, too, how consistent thieves are. It was one thing to be facing a rap for a bank holdup. It was quite another to be facing charges like wholesale murder, arson, riot and—man, this was the clincher—possible treason. A bright boy in the D.A.’s office looked up the Penal Law and said that these birds had committed treason against the state by virtue of having leviedwar against the people of the state. Now that was a terrifying charge, even if it didn’t carry a death penalty. War against the people of the state?War? My God!

The three thieves named Rafe, Chuck and Pop were somehow up to their necks in something more than they had bargained for. They didn’t mind spending the rest of their lives in Castleview Prison upstate, but there was a certain electrically wired chair up there in which they had no particular desire to sit. And so, in concert, they recognized that a ready-made scapegoat was at hand. Or, if not quite at hand, at least somewhere below the surface of the River Harb.

And, in concert, they consistently repeated that the man in the river was responsible for all the mayhem and all the death, that he and he alone had shot John Smith and set all those bombs, thathe had waged the war, and that their part in this little caper was confined to the robbery of the bank, did they look like the kind of men who valued human life so cheaply? Did they look like fellows who would derail trains and set fires in baseball stadiums just for a little money? No, no, the fellow in the river was responsible for all that.

And the fellow’s name?

Consistently, and in concert, they identified him solely as “the deaf man.” More than that, they could not, or would not say.

Their consistency was admirable, to be sure.

And, admirably, they were booked and arraigned oneach of the charges for acting in concert, and it was the opinion of the police and the District Attorney’s office that all three of them had a very good chance of frying, or at the very least, spending the rest of their natural lives behind bars at Castleview Prison upstate. The probabilities were good either way, the police felt.

On May 21, Dave Raskin came up to the squadroom. He walked directly to Meyer Meyer’s desk and said, “So what do you think, Meyer?”

“I don’t know,” Meyer said. “What should I think?”

“I’m moving out of that loft.”

“What?”

“Sure. Who needs that cockamamie loft? I tell you the truth, without the bank downstairs, I got nobody to look at out the window. Before, it was a busy place. Now, nothing.”

“Well,” Meyer said, and he shrugged.

“How’s the cop who got shot?”

“He’ll be out of the hospital in a few weeks,” Meyer said.

“Good, good. I’m glad to hear that. Listen, if your wife needs some nice dresses, stop around, okay? I’ll pick out some pretty ones for her, compliments of Dave Raskin.”

“Thank you,” Meyer said.