Ed McBain_87th Precinct 22 Read Free Page A

park bench?” Kling asked.
    “You’ve got it,” the man said, and hung up.
    “You think that’s all of it?” Kling asked Hawes.
    “I don’t know,” Hawes said. He looked up at the wall clock. “Let’s give him till midnight. If we don’t get another call by then, we’ll ring Pete.”
    “Okay,” Kling said.
    He began typing again. He typed hunched over the machine, using a six-finger system that was uniquely his own, typing rapidly and with a great many mistakes, overscoring or erasing as the whim struck him, detesting the paperwork that went into police work, wondering why anyone would want a metal pail left on a park bench where any passing stranger might pick it up, cursing the decrepit machineprovided by the city, and then wondering how anyone could have the unmitigated gall to demand five thousand dollars
not
to commit a murder. He frowned as he worked, and because he was the youngest detective on the squad, with a face comparatively unravaged by the pressures of his chosen profession, the only wrinkle in evidence was the one caused by the frown, a deep cutting ridge across his smooth forehead. He was a blond man, six feet tall, with hazel eyes and an open countenance. He wore a yellow sleeveless pullover, and his brown sports jacket was draped over the back of his chair. The Colt .38 Detective’s Special he usually wore clipped to his belt was in its holster in the top drawer of his desk.
    He took seven calls in the next half-hour, but none of them were from the man who had threatened to kill Cowper. He was finishing his report, a routine listing of the persons interrogated in a mugging on Ainsley Avenue, when the telephone rang again. He reached for the receiver automatically. Automatically, Hawes lifted the extension.
    “Last call tonight,” the man said. “I want the money before noon tomorrow. There are more than one of us, so don’t attempt to arrest the man who picks it up or the commissioner will be killed. If the lunch pail is empty, or if it contains paper scraps or phony bills or marked bills, or if for any reason or by any circumstance the money is not on that bench before noon tomorrow, the plan to kill the commissioner will go into effect. If you have any questions, ask them now.”
    “You don’t really expect us to hand you five thousand dollars on a silver platter, do you?”
    “No, in a lunch pail,” the man said, and again Kling had the impression he was smiling.
    “I’ll have to discuss this with the lieutenant,” Kling said.
    “Yes, and he’ll doubtless have to discuss it with the parks commissioner,” the man said.
    “Is there any way we can reach you?” Kling asked, taking a wild gamble, thinking the man might hastily and automatically reveal his home number or his address.
    “You’ll have to speak louder,” the man said. “I’m a little hard of hearing.”
    “I said is there any way …”
    And the man hung up.
    The bitch city can intimidate you sometimes by her size alone, but when she works in tandem with the weather shecan make you wish you were dead. Cotton Hawes wished he was dead on that Tuesday, March 5. The temperature as recorded at the Grover Park Lake at seven A.M . that morning was twelve degrees above zero, and by nine A.M .—when he started onto the Clinton Street footpath—it had risen only two degrees to stand at a frigid fourteen above. A strong harsh wind was blowing off the River Harb to the north, racing untrammeled through the narrow north-south corridor leading directly to the path. His red hair whipped fitfully about his hatless head, the tails of his overcoat were flat against the backs of his legs. He was wearing gloves and carrying a black lunch pail in his left hand. The third button of his overcoat, waist high, was open, and the butt of his Magnum rested just behind the gaping flap, ready for a quick right-handed, spring-assisted draw.
    The lunch pail was empty.
    They had awakened Lieutenant Byrnes at five minutes to twelve the