Dog Day Afternoon (14 page)

Moretti nodded. He dialed the precinct-house number. “Abie,” he told the desk sergeant, “it’s Moretti. Get this message on the air to the squad cars coming to the Chase. Tell them to surround the joint and get on my walkie-talkie frequency. Do nothing else. Just take a plant, sit tight, and wait to hear from me. And get some more cars from some other precinct. Okay?”

Moretti hung up and handed some keys to Bagradian. “There’s a cream-colored Rambler parked behind your office. In the glove compartment pick up two things. A box of cartridges and a walkie-talkie. Understand?”

The insurance man’s face went very solemn. “Got you, Tony.” He wheeled and made off. The thrill of a lifetime, Moretti thought, watching him march away. He’s going to tell this story for the rest of his life. People!

“Lou,” he called. “What’s the bank phone number?”

The chubby man gave it to him, and Moretti dialed again. This time it was answered on the second ring. “Boyle speaking.”

“Why did you put him on the line?” Moretti demanded. “I’m sorry now I phoned.”

“You don’t understand what’s—” Moretti saw the telephone being snatched away from the manager.

“All right, prick,” the man in chinos shouted over the phone. “Keep away from the bank or we start throwing dead ones out the front door. You got that?”

“Is anybody hurt in there?” Moretti asked calmly.

“No, but you’re trying, aren’t you?”

“I don’t want anybody hurt, starting with you,” Moretti assured him. He was keeping his voice level, almost hypnotic. “You’re in a spot, I don’t have to tell you that. But you can get out of it real easy. We’re here to help you. You—” Sirens howled close by, and the line went dead again.

One squad car pulled up in front of the insurance office, blocking Moretti’s view. He waved the cop driver to move the car along a few yards, and it took several minutes for him to get the message. By then the insurance man was back with the walkie-talkie.

Moretti switched it on. “This is Moretti. I see Car one oh eight. Where’s the other vehicle? Over.”

The instrument crackled and hissed for a while. Then: “Car four one four behind the bank. Over.”

“A robbery is in progress. Two suspects, male, Caucasian, mid-twenties, armed. Have ordered reinforcements. Maintain surveillance. Car four one four report any activity at rear door. Car one oh eight maintain position till further notice. Out.”

He put the walkie-talkie down on the chair, picked up the phone, and dialed the precinct house. “Moretti. Let me talk to Jerry.” As he waited, he saw that some sort of argument was going on inside the bank. From the way people gestured, faced, and talked, it was clear that the man in the chinos was the leader. The pimp in the fancy suit was the enforcer. He hadn’t entered the argument at all, but Boyle and Marge had.

“What’s up, Tony?” Jerry’s voice asked.

“Standoff, for now. Do I get my other cars?”

“You got four more coming. Plus a traffic detail to close off the street.”

“I think it ought to be over quick, because they know we’re here and they know they haven’t got a chance. A few more cars ought to help them make up their minds.”

“Any ID on them?”

“Not yet.”

“Tony,” Jerry started, then stopped. After a pause, “Tony, you know it’s the law. This is a national bank. So I had to notify the FBI.”

“Jesus H. Christ!”

“I got no choice, Tony,” Jerry whined. “It’s my ass if I don’t.”

“You couldn’t delay it half an hour?” Moretti demanded. “Half an hour I could talk those two monkeys out of there.”

“The last time we held up notification we got such a chewing—”

“Ah, shit,” Moretti cut in. “The whole place will be swarming with Batman and his little Robins. All these Feebies know to do is chuck in tear-gas bombs and shoot whoever comes out.”

“Tony, it ain’t that bad. It’ll probably be Baker who’s the agent in charge.”

“Baker? Working with Baker is like working with five pounds of chilled liver.”

“But at least you’ve worked with him before. It’s easier than some faceless John they send in out of the blue.”

“Baker,” Moretti repeated. “What did I do to deserve this? The next time I take a personal, you answer the phone. You take the whole case. Okay?”

“Right, Tony,” Jerry said, laughing. “Give me the number there.”

Moretti gave him various telephone numbers. As he did, another squad car pulled up, blocking his view of the bank. He waved savagely at the driver and finally got him to back up.

“Jerry, have somebody pick up a high-powered telescope or something. These binoculars aren’t worth shit. Get Krachmal. He’s supposed to be a lip-reader, right? Send him in here with the telescope. In uniform, Jerry. I want to show lots of blue around here.”

He hung up and switched his walkie-talkie to “Send.” He was aware that the heavy breathing from behind him was Lou, the insurance man. Just a thrill a minute. “Car six one oh, I read you. The other car, come in for ID and placement. Over.”

“Car two oh seven, behind the bank. Over.”

“Okay,” Moretti told them. “Walkie-talkies on ‘Receive’ from here on. The layout is two cars behind, two in front. I want one officer from each to leave the vehicle and move around. Show yourselves. Show your walkie-talkies. Traffic detail will be closing the thoroughfare. At that point, remove riot guns from vehicles and show weapons. Not now. When instructed. Out.”

“Car one oh eight. Show the weapon now, Sarge? Over.”

“Negative. Show weapon when instructed. Out.”

“Car six one oh. Which weapon is that, Sarge?”

Moretti took a long, steadying breath. “The pump gun. Do not, repeat, do not show pump gun till instructed. Out.”

Moretti waited for another idiot question, but got none. He opened the front door of the insurance office and stepped out on the street at about the time uniformed men in each car showed themselves. Moretti moved out onto the asphalt.

The black surface radiated a furnace heat. The soles of his shoes stuck to the tarry stuff with each step. He glanced both ways along the street and saw that roadblocks had already been set up on either side. In the distance, fresh sirens wailed. He could hear a machine-gun sound from somewhere nearby and glanced up.

Two helicopters hovered over the area, helping the traffic detail reroute cars and trucks. Moretti waved one of the choppers in. It wouldn’t hurt to show the man in the chino slacks what kind of backup forces were being assembled. The police helicopter bobbed lower over Moretti and hung there, sending a fierce downdraft that rattled the brim of Moretti’s hat. He waved the chopper away and it lifted suddenly, as if it were a balloon whose string had just been cut.

When he walked back inside the insurance office, the chubby man was on the telephone. “For you, Sarge,” he said.

Moretti registered the fact that the gravity of the situation had somehow upgraded him from Tony to Sarge. He took the phone. “Detective Sergeant Moretti.”

“I hear you got yourself a little fracas, kiddo?” The voice was rich, thick with good living, as if filtered past both an expensive cigar and a quality cognac. Moretti recognized the voice of his rabbi, a Tammany hack named Mulvey who still clung to his post as assistant commissioner, the man to whom Moretti owed everything and would like to owe more.

“Good to hear your voice, Commissioner,” Moretti said. “How’d you get the news?”

“Good news travels fast.”

“Good?”

“Good for you, kiddo,” the man assured him. “This is exactly what you’ve needed for the past few years, publicity. The rest will be a lead-pipe cinch.”

“If I can get them without anybody being hurt,” Moretti added.

“I’m counting on you, Tony. You’re my man.” The voice went deeper and richer with fat overtones of patronage. “Just one thing.”

“I know.”

“Right. Don’t let those bastards in gray steal the headlines.”

“It’s Baker again,” Moretti said.

“You can handle him. He’s not God.”

“I’ll try.”

“You have to do better than try, Tony,” the man corrected him. “This isn’t just your career. The honor of the force is riding with you. I don’t have to tell you that, do I?”

“Commissioner,” Moretti said, “the only thing I can promise is the best goddamned try in the world.”

There was silence at the other end. “Well, in a sense, I guess that’s all I can ask, Tony,” the man’s fat voice admitted. “But as a human being who has your good at heart, who wants to be able to send you right in there for your lieutenant’s bar, I can’t help but hope for more than a good try.”

Moretti closed his eyes for a moment against the glare through the plate glass. Why was talking to this man so difficult? Was he saying something the guy didn’t understand, or was it the other way around? He wished they were face to face, but the commissioner had rarely appeared in public since the corruption scare had started.

“I understand how important this is,” Moretti assured him. “I’m giving it everything I’ve got.”

“Good. It may be your last major shot,” the voice reminded him. “This sort of chance doesn’t grow on trees. Make it count.” He hung up without waiting for a good-bye.

Moretti replaced the phone in its cradle. God, it was nice to deal with bloodless shits like Commissioner Aloysius Mulvey. Why couldn’t he have inherited a more human rabbi?

But you didn’t choose your political protector. Accidents of birth, who you were and where you lived, dictated whom you had to see in the political machinery to have a good word put in for you. And the tribute exacted by a rabbi was fierce. Mulvey hadn’t really leaned on him in a year or two, but there were occasions, middle-of-the-night emergency phone calls, in which Moretti was told to kill a case against a gambler, or release a heroin dealer on his own recognizance, or any one of a dozen illegal favors. And Mulvey was by no means the most corrupt pol in town.

Moretti pulled out his bandanna, removed his hat, and mopped his forehead. When he replaced his hat on his head, the leather band inside felt unpleasantly clammy with sweat. And it was cool in the insurance office. A warning call like that brought out a different kind of sweat.

So this was to be it, Moretti realized, his last chance at a lieutenant’s bars. Easy. Nothing to do it. Just snake the two bandits out of there without anybody being hurt and make sure the Feebies didn’t get any credit for it.

With Baker on hand, it would be touch and go. Baker was as hungry for publicity, in his own anemic way, as Mulvey. “The honor of the force.” Wasn’t that what that mealy-mouthed Mulvey had said? As if the man’s being alive and breathing the polluted air of New York wasn’t dishonor enough. But Baker probably had the same ambitions, for himself and for “the honor of the Bureau.”

People! Christ!

As if on cue, a gray four-door Ford moved slowly down the street. Since it had been allowed through the barricades, and since it was gray, Moretti already knew it to be an FBI vehicle.

It pulled to a halt at an angle to the curb, as if the driver were from another part of the planet where they had never heard of parallel parking. The first one out of the gray car was Baker, gray-haired in a suit just a shade darker gray than the car.

Behind him three younger Feebies moved with tiny, economical gestures, hands at their sides. No gesticulations, no facial expressions, except that they stuck close to Baker and moved in a kind of phalanx with him. All four men wore gray hats, but one of them didn’t wear a gray suit. It was a charcoal color. They stood for a moment, surveying the bank façade, and then let themselves into the insurance office.

“Oh, it’s you, Moretti,” Baker said.

His voice had a whisper quality to it, as if he produced it by rubbing his hind legs together. No “hello.” No “how are you?” No “long time no see.” Moretti nodded. “I can’t have all those people in here,” he started right out. “Send two of them back to the car.”

Baker paused. His small-featured face was immobile. Moretti figured they were probably the same age, about forty. But Baker moved in such a tight way that he seemed like an old man, lacking the energy for sweeping movements. After a moment, he turned and nodded to two of his agents, who left the office and returned to their car.

“All right?” he asked Moretti. Then, without waiting for an answer, “Who’s he?” indicating the insurance man with a nod of his gray head.

“Lou Bagradian. This is his office we’re using.”

“Sorry, Mr. Bagradian,” Baker said. “You’ll have to vacate the premises.”

“B-but—”

“Lou turned in the alarm,” Moretti said. He felt sorry for the chubby little guy in his short-sleeved shirt. All his fun was going to be spoiled, and he didn’t deserve that. “We’d never have known about the robbery except that Lou spotted it.”

“Very commendable,” Baker said in his neutral, Midwest voice. “But the law is quite clear about it, Mr. Bagradian. Please vacate by the rear entrance, if there is one.”

“This is my office,” the insurance man protested.

“You’ll be adequately recompensed for any damage incurred in the course of maintaining law and order in, on, or nearby these premises,” Baker told him.

Moretti gave up the struggle. Baker was right, of course. Civilians had no place here now. But he couldn’t stand the look on Bagradian’s face as he picked up his jacket and left. Nor could he stand the look in Baker’s eye: dead, almost unseeing, as if the removal of Bagradian were a detail only slightly less important than stepping on an ant.

“Are you going to give me any more trouble, Baker?” Moretti pounced. The only way to keep a Feebie in line was to constantly keep him on the defensive.

“More?”

“I don’t want any of your snipers killing civilians,” Moretti went on, maintaining pressure. “No shootouts. Here in New York we deal with people as if they were human beings. Understand?”

Baker eyed him with distaste. “You really think this will earn you that bar?”

Moretti grinned evilly at Baker. “You bet your ass, Baker. And nobody, not you and not the whole Bureau, is going to keep me from it.”

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