Chapter 8

He went down the stairs lightly. It was pitch dark now and a street light down a half a block away made the only blob of light anywhere except in the windows of the houses. At the bottom of the stairs he stopped, looked up and down. Everything looked all right. He began walking down in the direction of the park road.

Someone came up behind him. A soft voice spoke.

"Been making yourself kind of scarce lately, haven't you, Sal?"

Sal stopped, spun on his heel, peered into the man's face. It was Larkey. Detective Sergeant Larkey of Newark.

"Hello, Larkey," said Sal, making his voice smooth, making himself feel cool and smooth. "Kind of out of your territory, aren't you?"

Sergeant Larkey smiled faintly.

"You think so?"

"This is Belleville," Sal said, feeling cool and smooth. "You're supposed to be in Newark."

"I go a lot of places where I'm not supposed to go Sal. So what?"

"Nothing what. It was just a remark."

"I wish you'd come down with me, Sal," said Sergeant Larkey. "There are some things I'd like to go over with you." His voice was soft, confidential, friendly.

"You can talk over any goddamn thing you want right here," Sal said.

"All right. But it would be better if we went down to headquarters." He put his hand on Sal's arm. Sal took it off again. "Don't be stubborn, Sal," Larkey said.

"What are you trying to do, make a pinch? You can't arrest me here. This is Belleville."

He saw Larkey's faint smile.

"I'm not arresting you, Sal. I just want to talk to you."

"Well, the hell with it."

"All right, Sal, do it the hard way." Larkey stepped to the curb and raised his arm. A Belleville police car rolled up out of the shadows and stopped. There were two uniformed cops in it.

"Okay, Bert," one of them said. "What do we do?"

"He wants to do it the hard way," Sergeant Larkey said softly and wearily. "You'll have to throw him in the Belleville can. He thinks it isn't legal for me to do it."

"Well, what do ya know," one of the cops said, "A hoosegow lawyer, already." He started to get out of the car. "Okay, Mac. We'll throw you in any kind of a jail you like. You want one with hot and cold running blondes?"

Sal looked at the two Belleville cops, and then he looked at Larkey. Larkey was chewing on the end of a matchstick and looking tired and bored. Larkey was the best bet of the three.

"I don't mind going with you, Larkey," Sal said. "I got nothing to hide."

"That's good. That's fine. You don't mind if these boys frisk you, do you? Just to be legal, we better let the Belleville cops do it."

The cop was out of the car now and went over Sal with swift practiced hands. He examined the wallet and looked at the Newark Social Club card. He handed it back and he seemed a little surprised that he had found nothing. Sal was glad he'd had the sense to anticipate something like this. And none too soon, either.

"O.K., Bert," the cop said. "He's clean as a whistle."

"Good," Larkey said. "Now how about driving us down to the city line? I don't want any shyster throwing this up in my face three months from now when we get this kid in court."

"What do you think you are going to get me in court for?" Sal asked.

"Nothing," said Larkey softly. "Nothing whatever."

At the city line they transferred from the Belleville car to Larkey's car. There was another guy in plain clothes at the wheel. Larkey put Sal in the back seat and climbed in beside him. The car took off, moving swiftly through North Newark, threading in and out of the traffic.

"What's it all about?" Sal asked.

But Sergeant Larkey only yawned and looked out the window.

At headquarters they went in swiftly and unobtrusively. Sal held his head up and stared at everyone, although nobody paid him the slightest bit of attention. He was between Larkey and the other guy; Larkey was ahead, Sal in between, the other guy last. They were doing it just like a real pinch. Well, it wasn't a real pinch; they didn't have a goddamn thing on him. They got to the door marked Detective Bureau and opened the door and they went in, but not before Sal saw who was down at the end of the corridor, sitting on a plain bench, while a uniformed cop, with his shirt unbuttoned and hanging sloppily open, was badgering them. He made a quick sign with his finger to his lips, and Shoney nodded very slowly. The uniformed cop swung around to look, just as Sal went inside the door.

"Sit down, Sal," said Larkey. "Make yourself comfortable. We're going to have a talk. Maybe it might be a very, very long talk. Depends on what you tell me."

Sal sat down in one of the hard armchairs at the end of a battered table. Larkey sat down at the opposite end of the table, pushed his hat to the back of his head and threw out a package of Camels. Sal stared at him, pulled his own hat down a little farther over his eyes and pulled out his own Camels. He lighted one of his and Larkey lighted one of his own. The other plainclothes guy stood by the door.

"I known this kid a long time," Larkey said. "You just leave me talk to him alone for a while."

"Okay by me," said the other plainclothes guy. He put a stub of a cigar in his mouth and went out the door, slamming it.

"You know him?" said Larkey. "Name's Houlihan. Been on the force a long time. Just got out of uniform a while ago. Used to have a beat in Clinton Hill. Made him a detective sergeant and put him on the pickpocket detail for a while."

Larkey's tone and manner was easy, friendly, and loquacious in a tired way. Sal watched him carefully, measuring him, measuring him physically and measuring the man inside, the way he always measured people.

"Now he's on the bandit squad, I guess," said Sal.

Larkey smiled in a tired way and said: "You don't have to believe everything you read in the papers, Sal," he said.

"I don't believe anything period," Sal said.

Larkey shifted his position and pushed his hat a little further back on his head.

"You were always a pretty smart kid, the way I figured you," he said. "Too smart to get yourself into trouble."

Sal weighed this and then said: "I was never in any trouble."

Larkey smiled a kind of a tired smile. "Well," he said, "we had you in here a couple of times. Breaking and entering once, mugging the next time."

"I was just a kid," Sal said. "And you didn't have a damn thing on me. You said so yourself."

Sergeant Larkey was looking at him dreamily, blowing smoke at the ceiling.

"We got something on you this time, Sal," he said.

"Like what?"

Sergeant Larkey got up, walked to the window, opened it a little, and pitched his cigarette into the areaway below. Then he shut the window and sat down in his chair again.

"I knew your dad when he was alive," Larkey said. "A good hard-working honest man. I knew your mother, too, Sal. There was never a better woman born."

Sal put out his cigarette and lighted another. He stared at Larkey. He didn't believe what he had said, but he didn't say anything.

"They tried to bring you up right, Sal. I know that."

"All right. They tried to bring me up right. So what?"

Sergeant Larkey leaned forward. "Don't you think you owe something to them?"

"What if I do? How could I pay it? They're dead!"

"I know that," Larkey said softly. Then he lapsed into silence. He picked up a copy of True Detective magazine that was lying on the table, thumbed through it, then laid it down. Then suddenly he got up, walked halfway across the room, put his hand on Sal's shoulder and gazed down at him earnestly.

"Tell you what," he said. "You give me a break and I'll give you a break. I can help you a lot. You can help me a lot, too. Why do everything the hard way?"

"What are you talking about?" Sal asked. He took Sergeant Larkey's hand off his shoulder, but Sergeant Larkey stood there gazing down at him.

"You know what I'm talking about," Larkey said.

"I haven't got the goddamndest idea," said Sal.

"Didn't you see a couple of guys you know outside in the corridor?"

"You mean PeeWee Schoenfeld and Pete Koscki."

"Yeh."

"I saw them. So what?"

"They've been talking. Plenty. Both of them."

Sal let his eyes go like slits, feeling cool and smooth, looking at Sergeant Larkey between the slits.

"That's a goddamn lie," he said after a while, "that's a goddamn lie and you know it."

"That's the God's truth," Larkey said softly. "They put the finger on you."

"The hell they did. What for?"

"That business at the awning company, Sal."

"What business at what awning company?"

Sergeant Larkey took a turn around the room and came right back where he was in the first place. "Now, for God's sake, Sal, you aren't that dumb."

"I'm not dumb," Sal said with a razor edge on his voice.

"All right, then. Don't try to tell me you didn't know about the stickup on Verona Avenue. The one where the girl was knocked off."

The picture of the car door springing open, the girl tumbling out head first streaming blood, crossed Sal's mind. He put the picture away, quickly, and locked it up.

"Oh, that," he said. "Sure I knew about that. I read it in the papers like everybody else."

"Your pals said you know more about it than reading it in the papers."

"Well, they're full of shit. That's all I know about it."

"Your pal Koscki told us how he dropped the gun the special cop picked up, and how you went over the Erie embankment."

Sal thought that over for a split second. Then he said: "Bull." He made his eyes like slits, and let his hands rest, relaxed, in his lap. He knew Larkey was watching his hands as well as his face, and he wasn't going to show anything with his hands or his face or anything. He repeated the one word, "Bull." But he thought it over swiftly. That was the way it happened, and had Pete Koscki, the big dumb son of a farmer bastard, really spilled it? He might have, at that. But so what? He could brass it out, some way. Pete Koscki's word against his. What the hell! But he wasn't by any means certain that Koscki had spilled, even if he was a big dumb bastard. Sal was wise to this copper's trick. They kept you in separate rooms, they questioned you separately, and they didn't get a damn thing out of you. So then they suddenly told you the other guy had spilled, and if they could make it look good enough, then you spilled, really spilled, told the whole damn story to make it look worse for the other guy, figuring he had already spilled. Then they went back to the other guy and this time the other guy really spilled, too, and that was that.

Well, he wasn't so stupid. He wasn't going to fall for Larkey's soft-sounding talk, and, as dumb as Shoney and Pete were, he didn't think they'd fall for it, either.

"You think it's bull, do you?"

"Sure, if they said it, it's bull. But I think it's only you that said it, and it's still bull."

Larkey blew a long bar of cigarette smoke toward the window. The bar broke up into spirals, became diffused, became a part of the general smoky atmosphere.

"You wouldn't say that if you saw their signed statements."

"They made signed statements?" Sal let his eyes go like slits, his jaw relaxed, his fingers limp in his lap. Then he said: "Why don't you show me the statements?"

Sergeant Larkey's tired ghost of a smile came back to his face. "Not yet, Sal. I want to see how it all checks out."

"Bull," Sal said again.

Larkey got up again, began pacing back and forth. His weariness seemed to have left him, and he began speaking sharply and rapidly.

"Now look, Sal. I'm not going to play around with you all night. I've got the whole story from those guys. If you come clean I'll get you off easy. If you don't-well, nobody's going to help you when you get into court. You know what the penalty for murder is in New Jersey."

Larkey stared at Sal, and Sal kept quiet; the hands in his lap were limp and quiet.

"I don't know anything about any murder," Sal said.

Suddenly Larkey took a long stride across the room, shook a finger in Sal's face. His voice trembled with emotion.

"Sal! What would your mother say if she saw you here? What would your mother say about you sitting here and lying to me? What would she say, Sal? She would say, Sal, tell the truth; Sal, come clean; Sal, make up for every bad thing you've ever done. Wouldn't she, Sal? Wouldn't she?"

Sergeant Larkey's voice was trembling, and the finger in front of Sal's face was trembling. He had everything but a sob in his voice.

Sal sat still, watching his own hands, limp on his lap. Then a tight smile began to play around his lips. He had seen all that done before, too; he was on to all of these goddamn copper's tricks.

"Bull," he said.

Sergeant Larkey exhaled a sharp breath, walked to the window, and looked out into Court Street. Then he turned around.

"I'm sorry, Sal," he said, "I'm through. There's going to be a couple of other men questioning you; they won't know you from Adam, and they won't be much interested in what happens to you. They won't care whether you get the hot seat or not."

Sal braced himself against his chair.

"Fuck you, Larkey," he said. "And fuck the two other guys, too."

Sergeant Larkey gave him a long reproachful weary look, went to the door, made a sign and let two other men in. They also were in plain clothes; one of them was short and stocky, and the other was long and rangy.

They stood at the door and Larkey spoke to them in quick, low tones. "Get what you can out of him," he said, "but none of that movie third-degree stuff. You both had suspensions for that before, and if it happens again you'll get kicked off the force. I don't want it and the department doesn't want it. Understand?"

Neither one of the other guys said anything. Then Larkey spoke again. "You can get what you want out of him with ordinary questioning. Use your heads for a change. Okay?"

One of the guys said "Okay" as though he hadn't heard what Larkey was talking about.

Sergeant Larkey looked at Sal and indicated the short one. "This is Sergeant Bostock." He pointed to the other one, and said: "Sergeant Grimes."

"Mutt and Jeff?" said Sal.

"No goddamn wise remarks out of you, smart guy," said Sergeant Bostock. Larkey shut the door after him.