Ed Lacy - The Men From the Boys

“Lawrence, you told him you were an auxiliary cop, didn't you?”

The kid nodded. “He noticed my shoulder patch when I returned, practically ordered me out of the store. I explained that...”

“You use your stick on him?”

Lawrence looked astonished. “Hit him? Certainly not.”

“Then he can't make any complaints, so what's troubling you? And even if you got bounced off this volunteer force, so what?”

“I don't have a 'so what' attitude. I plan to make the force my career and therefore ...”

“You talk like a bad cops-and-robbers movie, like a jerk.”

The kid went white and stood up. “Marty, you were a great cop, a top detective. I bring you a case, a crime, and all you can say is ...”

“Sit down, Lawrence,” I said, trying to make my voice soft. I slipped him a grin. “It's a hot night and we haven't seen each other for a lot of years. All right, maybe this is important to you, but as for me—one thing I learned while I was a kid—never work for free.” He sort of slumped in his chair and I added, “Seems to me you're making a fuss over nothing—the butcher isn't making any charges. And he could even jam you up—when you went back there you weren't on duty, had no police powers—not even as a peace officer, whatever that is.”

“I know that,” Lawrence said. “But if you could only have seen how hysterical he was at first—I believe he was robbed of fifty thousand dollars and that for some reason the money was returned to him.”

“Aren't you getting a little... uh... hysterical, kid? You said yourself he doesn't do a business to have that kind of cash around, and if he was robbed, why would it be returned to him? And in a few hours' time, too? It doesn't make sense. Far as you're concerned, forget it.”

The kid stared at me for a second, his eyes thoughtful. “Marty, I'm certain there was a robbery.”

“So what? You're not involved.”

“Not involved? It happened on my beat, and if for no other reason I'm involved because as a citizen it's my duty to report any crime I ...”

“You really believe this slop you're handing me?”

“I certainly do!”

“You better forget trying to become a cop, then. Kid, I'm going to give you some advice I'm sure you won't pay no attention to, but just in case you do become a cop, or even this part-time stuff you're doing, I don't want to see you make a fool of yourself. There's hardly...”

“I fail to understand your attitude toward the law, Marty!”

“Relax, and listen to me. There's hardly a day goes by in which the average citizen doesn't break some law—maybe letting his dog off a leash or spitting on the sidewalk. Also, there's hundreds of laws, maybe thousands, that don't make sense and shouldn't be on the books. For example, a girl can be hustling ever since she's thirteen, selling it a dozen times a day, yet until she's eighteen every one of her customers is guilty of statutory rape. Isn't that something, raping a whore!”

“A prostitute has rights, the protection of the law. The very fact that she may be under age proves...”

“Damn it, Lawrence, stop talking like a schoolboy reciting his lessons,” I said. “You dream of being a cop, then remember this—a cop only enforces the laws he has to, otherwise he'd go nuts—looks the other way whenever he can. Maybe this...”

“That's not my idea of law enforcement. At all times the...”

“Shut up! Maybe your butcher was robbed, maybe he wasn't. He says he wasn't. Maybe he also exceeded the speed limit driving to his shop today. Lawrence, what I'm trying to say is, don't be an eager beaver. Here you're only a volunteer cop for a couple hours a week, and you're already in an uproar over something that's none of your business. And don't hand me that honest-citizen crap. Lande's story is so wacky it can be true. He's robbed of fifty grand he says he hasn't, then an hour later the punks return the dough all tied in pink ribbons—probably said they were bad boys. Forget it.”

“I can't, there's too many weird angles. If only for curiosity's sake, I'm going to keep looking into this.”

“The cemeteries are full of curious people.”

“Marty, you've slowed down.”

“Maybe. And maybe if you were a stranger I'd knock you through the wall, badge, club, and all. Maybe that's what Lande should have done. Lawrence, I can't tell you what to do, but don't make a horse's rear out of yourself, especially if you might get on the force someday.”

“Marty, I'm not a kid looking for a thrill. I think there's something wrong here. I have a feeling, a hunch—and Lande's cockeyed story.”

I shrugged, dug for another mint. I was all out of the damn things. “Told you—you wouldn't take my advice. Do what you want, only try not to make a fool of yourself.”

He got to his feet. “Anyway, it's good to see you. I'll drop in to see you again, if you don't mind.”

I stood up and squeezed his shoulder. He didn't have much meat on him. “Where do you get that if-you-don't-mind slop? Drop in any time. Maybe we'll have supper together when my gut is hitting on all cylinders. You see Dot much?”

“Of course. I'm living at home.”

“Tell her I asked for her. Ain't you kind of old for still living at home? What's the name of your girl and are you sleeping with her?”

“That's none of your business, but we have been intimate. Name is Helen Samuels.”

“Sounds like a Jew.”

“She is. Why are you so bigoted, Marty?”

“You really going to marry a Jew-girl?”

“Why not?”

I shrugged. “I'm hardly the one to give advice on marriage. Also I'm not bigoted. I've known some pretty good nigger cops and Jew-boys. And Bill Ash is a Roman. I don't know, as a cop you got to start off by hating a lot of people, most people. Makes it easier to hate 'em if you hate their skin, their religion.”

He sort of laughed at me, punched my arm. It was odd, all of him was a kid except his eyes and his voice. He said, “You're like a rock, Marty, unchangeable. Remember when you gave me boxing lessons? I was a fair bantamweight in the army.”

We walked toward the door. “If I'd known you were going to be such a busybody, I would have given you lessons in kneeing and kicking.”

I walked the kid out to the lobby and said good-by. It was a few minutes past midnight on the clock behind the desk when I grabbed a morning paper, told Dewey, “Maybe I can get some shut-eye now.”

Dewey was a retired postal clerk, a moonface with watery eyes, and the veins on his fat nose like a complicated map—from the barrels of wine he'd guzzled during his sixty-eight years.

He said, “Too hot for sleep. The boy badge have his hand out?”

“No—merely dropped in to see me.”

“Funny-looking cop. He's too young to have been on the force with you.”

“He was my son—for a few years,” I said, walking toward my room. Dewey never even blinked.

I washed my teeth and took a shower, felt pretty good. Then I stretched out on my bed and read the paper, starting backward from the sporting page.

There wasn't a damn thing in the paper: the Giants' shortstop turned his ankle, the Dodgers still had a “mathematical” chance of getting the pennant, and the comics weren't funny. There was a cheesecake picture of some lush babe asking for a divorce because her marriage was “kissless.” A mild-looking guy named Mudd was accused of taking a bank for forty-five thousand dollars with a toy gun, and Albert Bochio, the syndicate treasurer, was still barricaded in a Miami hotel daring the authorities to boot him out, talking out of both sides of his mouth about suing the city of Miami for calling him a “gangster.” And the front page had the usual war scare. One of the columnists hinted that the fight game was crooked, and also commented on the fact Bochio was never so headline-brave before. There was a standard item about a Hollywood busted marriage “which will spill dirt all over the papers when it comes to court.”

I tossed the paper on the floor and turned off the light. Somehow the promised dirt never came out and I wondered if the columnists ran these items when they were short of material. And a guy has to have more courage than people think to use a toy gun in a stick-up. But they were right about Bochio—one of those unknown big shots. He was rapped once for assault when he was twenty-three, then dropped out of the gang picture till a Senate television show spotlighted him as the pillar of a swank New Jersey community, son at Yale, daughter in some finishing school... and holder of the purse strings of the biggest crime mob in the country.

I turned over a couple of times, got comfortable. Wondered how soon Lawrence would find out about me and the hotel. As a part-time cop he wouldn't know the score. And what did I care if he did?

It turned a bit cool and I covered myself with the sheet and dropped off. I awoke just before six, sweating like a pig, the dream still with me. Crazy, I hadn't had that dream in years... this Mrs. DeCosta's face screwed up with hate, screaming at me, “You thug with a badge!” I could see her plainly, as if she was next to me—and that wouldn't have been bad either, she was a fine-looking chick. What the hell she want to marry that crippled spick artist for?

Probably dreamed of her because I'd been thinking of Dot. Women... Now, why did Dot have to leave me because of that? The beatings were none of her business. And what finally became of the DeCosta blonde, or was she still in the loony bin?

I stretched and sat up, the stink still in my mouth. I was all done with sleep so I turned on the radio and then I got to thinking about Mudd who'd taken the bank with a toy rod. How did they know his name? Turning on the light I picked up the paper, read the whole piece this time. Amateur crooks are dumb as hell.... Mudd had been a depositor in the very bank he held up. By this time the cops would have him for sure.

I got up and showered. Except for my breath I felt pretty good. Not eating or drinking much, being on the run this last week, along with the heat, had taken about ten pounds off me. My muscles were showing again.

Dressing in a tropical blue suit that proved “bargains” aren't for big men, I walked through the lobby. One of the maids was starting to clean up, still half asleep, and Dewey was pounding his ear in the big chair behind the desk—his favorite bed. As I went through the doorway, Lawson the day clerk (and elevator pilot and bellhop) was coming in.

He was sporting a silk polo shirt and a crew cut, a big book under his arm. He was always reading, and was probably a fag—went around with the Village artists. He glanced at the way my suit hung on me, asked, “A circus come with that tent?”

“Why? You want a job as a fire-eater? Probably the only thing you don't eat.”

“Your humor is like your suit—it doesn't fit you. Up early, aren't you, Mr. Bond?”

“Yeah, I'm checking on your time.”

His thin lips gave me what passed for a sneer. “They got a nerve, with the twelve-hour day I put in.”

“You going for a union here?” Wouldn't surprise me if the smart bastard was a radical. We all put in long hours, but the gravy was worth it. And Lawson didn't do a damn thing but read. We never got busy till late afternoon and Dewey was on then.

I walked over to Hamilton Square and had coffee and toast, got hungry and knocked off a stack of pancakes, a hunk of pie, and more coffee. It was only seven and I had nothing to do.

Walking over to Washington Park, I sat around for a while watching some old nut open a bag of crumbs and feed the pigeons. When a couple of them hopped up on his hands, he glanced at me proudly. I decided to take a bus ride uptown, buy some socks and a couple of shirts. I rode up to Fifty-seventh Street and then down to Macy's, but the store wasn't open yet. I had a glass of iced coffee and tried smoking a cigarette.