Ed McBain_87th Precinct 22 Read Free Page B

night before, and advised him of their subsequent conversations with the man they now referred to as The Screwball. The lieutenant had mumbled a series of grunts into the telephone and then said, “I’ll be right down,” and then asked what time it was. They told him it was almost midnight. He grunted again, and hung up. When he got to the squadroom they filled him in more completely, and it was decided to call the parks commissioner to apprise him of the threat against his life and to discuss any possible action with him. The parks commissioner looked at his bedside clock the moment the phone rang and immediately informed Lieutenant Byrnes that it was half past midnight, wasn’t this something that could wait until morning?
    Byrnes cleared his throat and said, “Well, someone says he’s going to shoot you.”
    The parks commissioner cleared his throat and said, “Well, why didn’t you say so?”
    The situation was ridiculous.
    The parks commissioner had never heard of a more ridiculous situation, why this man had to be an absolute maniac to assume anyone would pay him five thousand dollars on the strength of a few phone calls. Byrnes agreed that the situation was ridiculous, but that nonetheless a great many crimes in this city were committed daily by misguided or unprincipled people, some of whom were doubtless screwballs, but sanity was not a prerequisite for the successful perpetration of a criminal act.
    The situation was unthinkable.
    The parks commissioner had never heard of a more unthinkable situation, he couldn’t even understand why they were bothering him with what were obviously the rantings of some kind of lunatic. Why didn’t they simply forget the entire matter?
    “Well,” Byrnes said, “I hate to behave like a television cop, sir, I would really
rather
forget the entire thing, as you suggest, but the possibility exists that there
is
a plan to murder you, and in all good conscience I cannot ignore that possibility, not without discussing it first with you.”
    “Well, you’ve discussed it with me,” the parks commissioner said, “and I say forget it.”
    “Sir,” Byrnes said, “we would like to try to apprehend the man who picks up the lunch pail, and we would also like to supply you with police protection tomorrow night. Had you planned on leaving the house tomorrow night?”
    The parks commissioner said that Byrnes could do whatever he thought fit in the matter of apprehending the man who picked up the lunch pail, but that he did indeed plan on going out tomorrow night, was in fact invited by the mayor to attend a performance of Beethoven’s
Eroica
given by the Philharmonic at the city’s recently opened music and theater complex near Remington Circle, and he did not want or need police protection.
    Byrnes said, “Well, sir, let’s see what results we have with the lunch pail, we’ll get back to you.”
    “Yes, get back to me,” the parks commissioner said, “but not in the middle of the night again, okay?” and hung up.
    At five A.M . on Tuesday morning while it was still dark, Detectives Hal Willis and Arthur Brown drank two fortifying cups of coffee in the silence of the squadroom, donned foul-weather gear requisitioned from an Emergency Squad truck, clipped on their holsters, and went out onto the arctic tundra to begin a lonely surveillance of the third bench on the Clinton Street footpath into Grover Park. Since most of the park’s paths meandered from north to south and naturally had entrances on either end, they thought at first there might be some confusion concerning the Clinton Street footpath. But a look at the map on the precinct wall showed that there was only one entrance to this particular path, which began on Grover Avenue, adjacent to the park, and then wound through the park to end at the band shell near the lake. Willis and Brown planted themselves on a shelf of rock overlookingthe suspect third bench, shielded from the path by a stand of naked elms. It was