A Private Party Read online

  "I'm a boss stevedore. I don't keep track of cops and watchmen." He extended his hand for the work sheet.

  The policeman knew—or sensed—that there was something the man could tell him. But it would have to be asked for, not volunteered, and he could not think what it could be. But then he asked, "Suppose these watchmen find something left on the pier?"

  "Suppose they do?"

  "Don't they call you to move it?"

  The stevedore shook his head.

  "But they can't move it themselves," said Bannerman. "Isn't that a union rule?"

  "Sure it's a rule."

  "Then who moves it?"

  "There's a pair of stevedores with them," was the reluctant, unwilling answer.

  Bannerman held the work sheet to his eyes. There were forty names. Beside each name was a box to indicate starting time, finishing time and overtime. His finger trailed the first fourteen and, sure enough he came to one whose finishing-time box was unmarked. The name of that stevedore was Abe Kline. Near the bottom of the list was another incompletion. This one was for a Bernie Lane.

  "They had nothing to do with this," said the boss.

  "How do you know?"

  "I'm telling you."

  "Who did have something to do with it?"

  "The city's paying you, you find out."

  Bannerman swung to a plain-clothes man. "I want you and your partner to pick up two stevedores," he said. "Their names are Bernie Lane and Abe Kline. He'll give you their addresses," he added, indicating the boss. "And if he doesn't, take him over to the 16th and throw him in the can."

  "What for?" shouted the boss.

  "For spitting in a public place," said Bannerman blandly and strode away.

  It all came back to him as he sat at his desk with the newspaper. There, below the small picture of Ralph Bogan, the faces of Bernie Lane and Abe Kline stared out at him.

  "You let us down, Bannerman."

  He read the words in their eyes.

  "You promised us protection. You said Stanzyck would never get to us. What happened, Bannerman?"

  What had happened?

  Picked up for questioning, the two stevedores readily admitted that it was they who had called the 16th Precinct about the body on the pier. But as to seeing the actual crime, neither would say a thing. Bannerman's threats rolled off their broad backs. His pleas left them unmoved. Cajolery was wasted.

  It wasn't until he inquired pointlessly about their families that he discovered the simple reason for their tight silence. Both men were married, both had children. And both knew the record of Al Stanzyck. An amazing history that included thirty-three different arrests and only one conviction. Thirty-three arrests and eight of them for suspicion of homicide. But not a single murder conviction, two of the cases the witnesses changed their stories. In six of them, the witnesses were dead before Al Stanzyck came to trial.

  Abe Kline and Bernie Lane had good reason to know absolutely nothing about the shooting of Ralph Bogan. But it was the policeman who finally had his way. In exchange for his personal pledge that they and their families would be guarded, the steyedores gave their eyewitness account of the murder—and picked Al Stanzyck out at a line-up of thirty as the man who had held the gun.

  It was, on the surface, a model example of a homicide committed and a homicide solved. John Doe had shot and killed Richard Roe in the presence, unknown to him, of Richard Roe Number Two and Richard Roe Number Three. The Assistant District Attorney, in fact, required only twenty-five minutes before the Grand Jury to secure an indictment of murder in the first. But other wheels were already turning. For one, the newspapers, and especially Bogan's paper, The Star, did not let the opportunity slip by. Not only had a newspaperman been killed, but a newspaperman on an assignment, and his death was viewed as a ruthless threat against all newspapermen. Ralph Bogan's life was traced from the cradle; his brief career as copy boy, legman and reporter was eulogized beyond all proportion in thousands of lines of type. When that was exhausted, the city desk turned to the dead man's sister, Ann Bogan, and found the facts made to order for their purpose. She and her brother had been orphaned five years before by an automobile accident. Only sixteen then, Ann had remained in high school at the insistence of her twenty-one-year-old brother, who himself finished college and took a job with The Star. It was an improvement on the Hansel-and-Gretel story and made good copy. What the city editor and the sob-sister reporter never knew was that they were actually stating the facts when they printed stories of Ann's deep love for her brother and her feeling of tremendous loss at his death. Ralph truly was all the girl had. The spotlight then turned on the police work in the case, and two editions later Lieutenant Joe Bannerman was a household word to some eight million persons.

  They knew that he was short—"a fighting bantam"—graying—"a relentless silver eagle"—honest—"he wore his reputation like a suit of shining armor"—and a competent policeman—"after twenty-two years in the Homicide Division, fearless Joe Bannerman is recognized as one of the nation's shrewdest experts on murder."

  This had the result of effecting an immediate recovery in his superior, Captain Galetta, who flew back from his sick leave in Miami Beach with acid comments on "newspaper heroes and publicity hounds who don't care what their badge is used for." Galetta had gone to Florida in a pique over his failure to gain an inspectorship in the recent promotions, and now he ruefully discovered that or the night Ralph Bogan was killed, he Galetta, would have had the duty. He gave top priority to knocking Banner-man back to size.

  Nor was the District Attorney a happy man. In a few months the party bosses were going to pick the man to be the next mayor—and now, of all times, the newspapers were all but ignoring him and creating the impression that the Police Department did all the crime busting in the city, What concerned him deeply was that the Police Commissioner was his only rival for the mayoralty nomination.

  On his desk the next morning was a confidential memorandum from his political rival. Though signed by the Commissioner, it was actually Bannerman's plan for the protection of Abe Kline, Bernie Lane and their families. It was suggested that all of them be moved to a place called Pipe Stream, Arizona. Not only was Pipe Stream remote and spacious, pointed out the memo, but it was the least likely place for Al Stanzyck's gunmen to look. Furthermore, Pipe Stream was a National Monument and the Commissioner (still not mentioning Bannerman's thoroughness) had the offer of federal aid, via guards, to protect the two witnesses. Finally, Detectives Weir and Stern would be detached from duty with the Homicide Squad to implement, or replace, the men the District Attorney would assign.

  The District Attorney slashed a huge X through the memorandum. The colossal gall of the man, he thought angrily. He couldn't remember encountering such a cheap and brazen political trick in his career—and he could remember plenty.

  His secretary prepared this answer:

  Re: Stanzyck Case

  Your surprising memo concerning suitable protection of messes has been duly noted. This Office sees no occasion to depart from standard security measures. However, the Police Department desires to take responsibility for said witnesses, and will make public acknowledgment of me in the press, this Office will transfer the witnesses to your custody. Please be reminded the Police Department would bear all expenses for your proposed Cook's Tour.

  P.S. The detectives handpicked by this Office and assigned it are, and have been, fully adequate. If we ever have needed for others we will secure them through the proper channels.

  The Commissioner, himself, though not unaware of the political advantage he possessed via the arrest of Al Stanzyck, had actually sent his own memo at the persistent urging of Lieutenant Bannerman. The D.A.'s sharp reply sent a caution alarm ringing sharply in his mind. Cook's Tour? All expenses? His appropriation from City Hall was thin enough as it was. If anyone had money to burn, it was the D.A.—unless that treacherous bastard was burying his money in a private pre-nomination campaign fund. That reminded the Commissioner
that he wanted to earmark fifteen hundred dollars for a "small dinner" next month with certain influential district leaders.

  Pipe Stream, Arizona, was abandoned. The District Attorney retained custody. Bernie Lane and his family were moved into a suite at the Standish Hotel in midtown Manhattan. Abe Kline and his were installed in another hotel in Brooklyn. And until Kline's "suicide"—he threw himself, for some unexplained reason, off the roof of the hotel—the D.A. was pleased to refer to the Police Commissioner's "Pipe dream about Pipe Stream." The second witness, Bernie Lane, did not throw himself out of a window. He was shot down in a Times Square restaurant, surrounded by his family, and at a table next to one that seated two of the District Attorney's detectives. (The papers noted that though five bullets struck the remaining eyewitness, neither of the near-by policemen managed to unholster his own gun, let alone apprehend the killer or present a description of him. It was later rumored, though desperately denied by the D.A., that both detectives had left their revolvers in the hotel room.)

  The big wheels turned, setting smaller wheels in motion.

  For besides the holy circus made of the case by the newspapers, and the shabby behind-the-scenes maneuvering by the politicians, there was the inevitable occurrence that Detective Bill Weir should fall in love with Ann Bogan.

  Not inevitable because he was tall, good-looking and a bachelor, or that she was extremely pretty and endowed with generous physical attractions. It was in the nature of their relationship. With the death of her brother, Ann literally had no one to turn to. Any young man coming into her life at that precise moment would have found her resistance low. But that the young man should be directly concerned with her tragedy, that it should fall to him, as his sworn duty, his job, to avenge her brother's murder, wiped away the barriers that generally plague strangers and brought them to a level of casualness and intimacy, both in words and action, that would have taken just any young man months to reach.

  Joe Bannerman, a sensitive man and sentimentally attuned to any situation, was aware of the important crisis in Bill Weir's life. It was, in the beginning, a source of humor to the members of the squad. Bannerman pointed out that he had ordered Weir to take care of the girl that night on the pier. Suppose, he supposed, he had chosen Mike Stern? Stern was the ladies' man of the Division. Not as big as Weir, he had a sleek compactness that made his partner look clumsy and awkward by comparison. And while Weir's face was broad and open, splashed with freckles, Stern's was sculptured, each feature in proportion, complementing another. His complexion was dark, almost the color of olives, and there was a withdrawal in his expression that gave him an air of sophistication even while he shaved.

  What would have happened if Stern had been thrown together with Ann Bogan? Weir thought he knew damn well what would have happened, and the look he gave his best friend warned that it damn well better not.

  But the levity and the sly questions stopped abruptly after Abe Kline was found dead in the Brooklyn street, Anger swept through the Homicide Squad, a kind of raging helplessness at the District Attorney and the Police Academy rookies he depended on for guarding. But there was other work to be done, other murders to be investigated, and Bannerman's men returned to it. Not Bill Weir. He wandered around with a preoccupied air, his conversation was terse, he contributed nothing. Plainly, the detective was being worried by something important.

  Bannerman tried to root it out of his assistant, but Weir only dug deeper into his shell. All that he seemed concerned about, the only subject that interested him, was the details of the plan to safeguard the remaining witness.

  "Whatever it is," Bannerman advised him, "it probably won't be worth a damn. But there's nothing you can do about it now."

  “There's plenty I can do about it," said Weir.

  “Stick to your own apples, Bill. The Stanzyck case isn't ours any more, it's a football being kicked around between Headquarters and Leonard Street."

  "Nothing better happen to that witness," Weir insisted darkly.

  He had walked away then, ending the conversation. But, later, Bannerman cornered him in the squad room. How's Ann Bogan these days?" he asked.

  “Ann's fine."

  "Is she as upset as you are about what happened?"

  "Why should she be?"

  Bannerman blinked. "Don't jump all over a man like that,” he cautioned.

  “Excuse it," the younger man apologized. "I'd just as on not talk about it, Loot."

  And he didn't talk about it. Nor did Bannerman press him. But the old detective wondered, and the result of his wanderings was the conviction that Bill Weir was committing the cardinal sin: His personal interest in the electrocution of Al Stanzyck was overriding his professional concern.

  And being sure he was right about that, some policeman's sixth sense began gnawing at his mind until it produced" another suspicion. A bad one.

  "I've been thinking," he said to Weir when they were alone again, "that we might have taken too much for granted in the Stanzyck killing."

  "How do you mean?" Weir seemed to be giving unusual attention to adjusting his service revolver in the holster at his waist.

  "We might not have been thorough enough," said Bannerman.

  "No? What more could you want? We produced a perfect motive—Ralph Bogan was digging into Stanzyck's loading racket. Stanzyck had warned him off—"

  "Did he?" asked Bannerman, too casually.

  Weir's voice hurried on. "And we have—we had two eyewitnesses. What could be simpler?"

  "I talked to Al Stanzyck a dozen times," said the lieutenant. "I had the file out just this morning. I didn't see anything about Bogan being threatened."

  "I guess I made a mistake," Weir explained.

  "I guess you did, Bill. I hope you're not making another one."

  "I don't get you, Lieutenant."

  "As I started to say," said Bannerman, "we might not have been as complete in our investigation as we usually try to be."

  "What did we miss?"

  "We missed talking to Ann Bogan, for one thing."

  "What would Ann know about it? She was home when her brother was shot."

  "We inferred that," said Bannerman easily. "But we never questioned her formally that I can remember."

  "There's no reason to."

  "How do you know that?"

  "How? Because it's all Ann and I do talk about!" "What are you getting so hot about?"

  "I'm not getting hot," said Weir more calmly. "I just don't like to talk about a girl that a man's going to marry like she was just some run-of-the-mill witness."

  “When you and Ann talk, Bill," asked Bannerman, “does she just tell you anything we don't already know?”

  Bill Weir looked up at the other man’s face slowly. His eyes were steady on Bannerman’s. “No,” he said. “Ann doesn't know anything about her brother's death."

  What do you do? You meet a kid three years before in the course of an investigation. He's in harness, eight months a cop, and he happens to be on the beat where there's a homicide. By the time you get there he's done so much intelligent work—done so little that's damaging—that you are forced to remember him and note his shield. And you talk to him, and before you know it, you've got him assigned to your squad as a plain-clothes man. Paper work doesn't faze him, he seems to thrive on two hours' sleep, he's a bull with his fists, a deadly marksman with his revolver—and best of all, he seems to understand instinctively that police work is fifty percent routine and fifty percent luck. On top of that, he's the son and grandson of policemen. Three years go by and he's a third grade detective with two departmental commendations. There is nothing in his way. By Christmas he'll make first. A year later, sergeant—if they don't jump him clear to lieutenant.

  What's to stop him? Nothing, thought Bannerman. Unless be falls in love with a girl who happens to have important evidence in a homicide. Unless her evidence, whatever it is, can forge a link in the chain that will send Al Stanzyck to the electric chair. Unless the promising young c
op, with his career ahead of him, decides to bury that evidence to keep Stanzyck's gunmen away from her.

  No wonder you're worried about Bernie Lane, thought Bannerman as he looked into Bill Weir's face that day. If they get him, then what are you going to do about your girl?

  And they did get him. From the-moment the news of the assassination was flashed on the teletype, Bannerman put Bill Weir under his own personal surveillance.

  Not a word was spoken between them about Bernie Lane or Al Stanzyck. Not by the flicker of an eyelash did Bannerman hint that he knew of the desperate problem gripping his assistant. They went about their work as though there never had been a Stanzyck—and Bannerman waited to see what Weir was going to do . . .

  And now, this morning, Bannerman was reading that Al Stanzyck was dead. But there was something in the story that was missing. Something very important, something that Joe Bannerman, a lieutenant of detectives, knew.

  The telephone on his desk rang sharply.

  "This is Timothy Dane, Joe," said a familiar voice.

  "What can I do for you, Tim?" He was always puzzled talking to Dane, or seeing him in person. For though the man was a private investigator, for some strange reason Bannerman found that he could tolerate him. Even like him.

  "I've got three men in my office," said Dane. "Their names are Bert Hill, George King and Nick Mayer."

  "I know them," said Bannerman.

  "That's why I'm calling, Joe. They want me to find out who killed Al Stanzyck."

  "And what did you say to that?"

  "I turned it down, Joe. But then they said something else. They seem to think a policeman killed Stanzyck.”

  Bannerman let Dane's voice trail away.

  "What makes them think a thing like that?" he said at last.

  "They haven't told me," said the private detective. "But I thought you might be interested."

  "I am. If Stanzyck had been killed in the city I'd be looking into it myself."

  "Then you want me to take it until they're convinced no cop would have done it?"