The Blind Pig Read online

  Mulheisen smiled vaguely but said nothing. He watched the medical examiner turn the dead man back onto his stomach. The back of the windbreaker was torn and bloody.

  “This'd be a good one for you to take, Mul,” McClain said. “A grounder. Look good on your record.”

  “Hah!” Mulheisen shot back.

  “I got a couple dozen murders on my back, Mul, no lie. Your boys did this, anyway. What are you doing these days?”

  “Mutt and Jeff,” Mulheisen replied, referring to a long string of armed robberies that had plagued the 9th Precinct for months.

  “Mutt and Jeff! You shouldn't be doing crap like that, Mul! Look, I'll fix it with your lieutenant, what's his name, Johns. And I'll get you some slack from that jive-ass inspector of yours, Buchanan.”

  The tour doctor from the medical examiner's office was through with the body. He was willing to declare that “John Doe” was dead. Cause of death, apparent gunshot wound, pending autopsy and police investigation. The attendants loaded the body onto a wheeled stretcher. Mulheisen detained them so that he could take a closer look. The dead man was clean and well-shaven, white and apparently in his late twenties. Rain fell onto the unblinking eyes and into the open mouth. The man looked calm and intelligent. He wore neat, well-pressed slacks and a blue nylon windbreaker. On his feet were new athletic shoes.

  “What did he have on him?” Mulheisen asked McClain.

  “Nothing in his pockets but a dollar bill and a key. The key's probably to a hotel room, but it isn't stamped.”

  Mulheisen gazed at the face. “And a gun, too?”

  “Right. Colt .38. Fired twice. Frank's got it.” McClain nodded toward Frank Zeppanuk, of the Scientific Bureau.

  Mulheisen stood up. McClain, some inches taller, threw a heavy arm about Mulheisen's shoulders. “Hey, c'mon, okay? This is a grounder, Mul. As a favor. Please?”

  Mulheisen grimaced, showing his teeth in what could have been a grin or a snarl. He punched McClain playfully in the stomach. “Okay, Lad. As a favor. You keep Johns and Buchanan off my ass.”

  McClain punched Mulheisen's shoulder. “You got it, pal.” He and Joe Greene loafed off into the rain, McClain shielding his cigar with a cupped palm.

  A patrolman approached Mulheisen with three civilians in tow. “Mul, these people tried to drive into the alley. This one claims he lives here.” He pointed to a handsome young man in an expensive white raincoat.

  The man stepped forward and held out his hand. “I'm Jerry Vanni, Officer,” he said. He was tall and slender with a well-groomed black mustache and the rain was ruining his carefully shaped haircut. Vanni gestured to his companions, a young woman wearing a rain scarf and a belted trenchcoat and a stocky fellow with a heavy face that probably needed a shave every six hours. “These are my business associates and good friends, Miss Cecil and Leonard DenBoer.”

  Miss Cecil took a step toward the corpse, looking at it with interest. In the light Mulheisen could see that she was quite attractive, with a pale complexion and sharp features. Brilliant red hair glowed beyond the edges of her rain scarf.

  “I told you she should have stayed in the car,” DenBoer complained to Vanni. He wore a bulky car coat that looked damp and tight.

  “I've seen dead men before,” Miss Cecil said.

  “Where was that, Miss Cecil?” Mulheisen asked.

  “In Vietnam, Lieutenant. And the name is Mandy.”

  “The name is Mulheisen, Mandy, and it's Sergeant.”

  “Oh. I thought a homicide investigation would be conducted by a lieutenant,” Mandy Cecil said.

  “It's not a homicide case,” Mulheisen said.

  The young woman looked down at the corpse. “He just tripped and fell, I suppose?” she said innocently.

  Vanni stepped forward. “I didn't know you'd been in ‘Nam, Mandy,” he said.

  “I'm sorry, Jerry,” she said, smiling at him. “I thought I had told you everything.”

  Vanni colored slightly.

  “What were you doing in Vietnam?” Mulheisen asked. “Nurse?”

  “Intelligence,” Cecil answered. “I was in the Army.”

  “Hmmm. Well, you've seen dead men before, then. You ever see this one?”

  The woman shook her head. Vanni looked at the corpse and he, too, shook his head. DenBoer seemed unable to take his eyes off the dead man, but he said that he had never seen the man before.

  “Okay, get him out of here,” Mulheisen said to the ambulance attendants. He turned back to Vanni. “This is your house?”

  “That's right.”

  “You live here alone?”

  Vanni smiled slightly. “Most of the time,” he said. He glanced at Mandy Cecil but she did not react.

  “How about you?” Mulheisen said to DenBoer.

  “I live over on Canfield,” DenBoer said, “just a couple blocks from here.”

  Mulheisen jotted down the address and took Mandy Cecil's as well. She lived in an apartment in St. Clair Shores, near Lake St. Clair.

  “What brings you all together tonight?” Mulheisen asked.

  Vanni replied, “It was business. We had dinner together and we were coming back here to discuss a new venture. Then we saw all the commotion and wondered what was going on. What is going on, Sergeant?”

  Mulheisen didn't have a very clear idea himself, and he didn't like to expose his ignorance. He motioned the trio to one side and asked them to wait. Then he listened to Marshall and Stanos repeat their story for the fourth but not the last time. When he had it straight he returned to Vanni and his friends and gave them an abbreviated version.

  “I don't get it,” Vanni said. “What was the guy doing in the garage? Was he after the Chevy?”

  “It doesn't look like it,” Mulheisen said. “The door is unlocked and he had plenty of time to hot-wire the car if he'd wanted to. He doesn't seem to have disturbed anything at all. No, I'd say he was waiting.”

  “Waiting?” Cecil said. “Waiting for what?”

  “Probably for Vanni,” Mulheisen said. “What's your usual procedure when you come home, Vanni?”

  Vanni shrugged. “Well, I drive up . . . I get out of the car . . . I lift the door. . . .” He made a bending and lifting movement and stopped with his hands over his head.

  Mulheisen said, “And there's a man in the garage with a gun. And you're perfectly outlined against your headlights. You'd make a nice target, Vanni.”

  There was a brief silence, then Vanni burst out: “But that's absurd! Who would want to. . . .” He stopped, unable to actually say the necessary words.

  “That's what I'd like to know, Vanni. Any candidates?” Mulheisen asked.

  Vanni shook his head. “Of course not. It's ridiculous.”

  “No enemies?” Mulheisen asked.

  Vanni shrugged. “Oh, maybe an irate husband or two,” he said in a jocular tone. Mulheisen did not respond to the joke and Vanni reddened. “Well, not really.”

  Mulheisen sighed. “All right. I'm not going to push it tonight. It's late. I'd like to see you folks tomorrow. Where can I get hold of you?”

  “We'll all be at work,” Vanni said. “I've got a trucking company on Eight Mile Road, near Gratiot. You can stop there. Mandy and Lenny are officers of the company.”

  Mulheisen took the address and the telephone number. He waved good-bye to Marshall and Stanos and walked off into the darkness, still holding a newspaper over his head to shed the rain. There were very few onlookers left, most of them departing when the body was removed.

  When they were back in the squad car, Marshall said to Stanos, “I had that guy in my sights, you know.”

  “Why didn't you blast him?” Stanos said.

  “I don't know. I never shot nobody,” Marshall said.

  “I never shot anybody, neither,” Stanos said. “But it was easy. I thought about it a lot. I thought it would be hard, but it's not. I mean, like the guy's there and, suddenly, you don't even think about it, you just ice him.”

  “Yeah, wel
l, I don't know. I just didn't shoot.”

  “Don't worry about it,” Stanos said. “Long as I'm around, nobody shoots my partner.”

  Jimmy looked at him in the darkness of the car. Stanos smiled calmly.

  Two

  Every weekday morning, the precinct inspector reviews the important events of the preceding twenty-four hours and takes a report down-town to his meeting with the other precinct inspectors and the bureau chiefs, in the office of the chief of police.

  Precinct inspector “Buck” Buchanan of the 9th was a small man for a policeman. He was slender and handsome, with silky black hair. He reminded Mulheisen of a seal. This morning Buchanan glanced through the report and said, “What's this about Dunkin slapping a woman?”

  “A prostitute, sir,” Ed Morgan, the “blue” lieutenant, said. “At first she claimed he raped her, but it's just bullshit. He picked her up in front of the Carib Club, across the street from the Uniroyal plant. He said she gave him a hard time and wouldn't get into the car. She was drunk and fighting with another hustler. I guess it was a sort of territorial dispute.”

  “My God,” Buchanan said. “We can't have this. Can't Dunkin arrest a goddamn whore without a brutality charge?”

  Buchanan had an absolute horror of brutality charges. The whole department was very sensitive on the issue, but Buchanan was nearly pathological about it. Especially disquieting to the officers of the 9th was the realization that Buchanan was not against brutality per se, he was just against brutality charges.

  A case in point was that of Patrolman Henry Vaughan. While making an arrest of two men stopped in a car listed as stolen on the daily “hot sheet,” one of the men turned unexpectedly violent. He knocked down Vaughan's partner, then leaped at Vaughan, who was busy shaking down the other suspect. Vaughan, pistol in hand, elected not to shoot but, instead, quickly transferred his pistol to his left hand, snatched out his regulation leather-wrapped sap and knocked his assailant silly with a fine backhand to the face.

  Unfortunately for the man, and for Vaughan, the blow seriously mangled the man's mouth and chin. Out on bail, the car thief appeared on a popular television program called “Afro-American Angles.” The show was a sensation, for the man could hardly speak. Patrolman Vaughan was accused of gratuitously beating a suspect while in custody. The officer was still on suspension and waiting for a hearing.

  To the disgust of every officer in the 9th, Buchanan refused to comment to either the press or television reporters. Thus there was no one to tell the public the police side of the story. Privately, in fact, Buchanan was heard to say, “That Vaughan is shafting us. Why in hell didn't he drill that bastard instead of clubbing him?”

  With this in mind, Lieutenant Morgan defended Patrolman Dunkin from the charge of having slapped a prostitute. “Dunkin's a good officer, sir. No previous problems. The woman was drunk and rowdy. I don't think she'll pursue the charge, and if she does, the Civilian Review Board will laugh at it.”

  “We can't take that chance,” Buchanan snapped. “Investigate it thoroughly. Now, Darrow, what's the picture on this Collins alley thing?”

  Lt. Darrow Johns was a portly man with dark-rimmed glasses. He was amiable and not stupid, but he looked like anything but a detective. He had the great virtue of absolute loyalty toward his superiors, a valuable factor when the superior had to choose between promoting two otherwise equally qualified candidates.

  Johns fleshed out the bare bones of the Collins-alley shooting that was contained in the inspector's report. He noted that Patrolman Stanos was automatically suspended for three days, but that he saw no reason to extend the suspension. He also said that McClain, of Homicide, had specifically asked that Mulheisen be assigned to the case.

  “Mulheisen?” Buchanan frowned. “Why Mulheisen? Why not Maki, or even the kid, Ayeh? McClain says its a grounder.”

  Buchanan did not like Mulheisen. He had a theory that Mulheisen had inherited a great fortune and was therefore just working the street for his own entertainment. He also believed that Mulheisen had secret connections with the very highest figures in police and political circles, not only in the city but in the state. It was true that Mulheisen's late father had been a union official and a tireless worker for the Democratic party. In later years Mulheisen père had held public positions that were political appointments. But the wealth and the influence were largely in Buchanan's mind.

  Johns now explained to Buchanan that Maki was busy on Mutt and Jeff, and Ayeh would probably be assisting Mulheisen, anyway.

  “Okay, okay,” Buchanan said. He gathered his papers with a sigh and put them into his briefcase. He turned to an attractive blond woman with a figure that even a police uniform did nothing to diminish. She was Buchanan's driver and secretary. “Take me to my leader,” he said. He said that every morning.

  On the way out, Buchanan saw Mulheisen standing by the teletype machine, smoking a large cigar. He nodded slightly to Mulheisen and hurried by. Mulheisen did not acknowledge the faint greeting.

  Mulheisen beckoned to Lieutenant Johns. Johns responded. One of Johns's virtues was that he was intelligent enough to know that neither Buchanan nor himself ran the detectives in the 9th. Mulheisen did. It was not stated—not by Mulheisen and not by Johns. Mulheisen was kind enough to pretend that it was otherwise.

  “I've got to have Ayeh,” Mulheisen said to Johns.

  “I thought you would.”

  “And Jensen and Field, too.”

  Johns scratched his balding head for a moment. “Okay,” he said. He started to walk away.

  “Wait a minute,” Mulheisen said. “What did Buck have to say about the shooting?”

  “Nothing,” Johns said.

  “Nothing at all?” Mulheisen considered this, then said, “I guess I should have known. The man is dead, therefore no complainant.”

  On his way back to his office Mulheisen encountered Dennis the Menace. “What are you doing here this time of the morning?” Mulheisen asked. “I thought I saw you out on the Street about midnight.”

  “Can't keep away from the place,” said the Big 4 boss. He followed Mulheisen into the little cubicle that was supposed to be an office. With Noell in the room there wasn't much space left for Mulheisen and the desk.

  “Really?” Mulheisen said. “You don't have anything better to do?”

  Noell shrugged. “I got divorced a couple months ago. Really, though, I enjoy it down here. Always something going on. What's biting you?” He perched his two hundred and forty pounds on the corner of the desk and Mulheisen inadvertently looked to make sure the desk wasn't crumbling.

  Mulheisen dragged on his cigar. “It's nothing. I just had my analysis of Buchanan's character reinforced. He didn't even peep at that shooting last night.”

  “So? What's the big deal? The guy comes out shooting, so Stanos takes him off. Good riddance.”

  “He didn't have to blast him,” Mulheisen said calmly. “Stanos was only a step or two away from the guy. What happened to the old nightstick routine? You bat the guy on the arm and he drops his gun. If he keeps up the funny business you spike him in the gut with the stick, or raise a knot on his head.”

  The Menace shook his head. “Old-fashioned,” he said. “They still teach that crap at the Academy, but no one listens anymore. That's ‘Steal an apple, Officer Flaherty’ stuff. We don't have beat cops anymore, Mul. We got patrolmen. You know what they're up against out there?” Noell gestured vaguely toward the traffic outside Mulheisen's window, presumably to indicate a vast criminal population at large. “They got M-sixteens. They smuggled ‘em home from ‘Nam. What do we got? Popguns.”

  Mulheisen noticed Dennis's “popgun,” prominently displayed on his hip. As the chief of the Big 4, it was not Noell's style to be subtle, hence the Colt “Python,” .357 magnum. Dennis claimed he needed the cannon for its knockdown power; precinct wags wondered how much consideration he had given to, say, a rock.

  “Did Stanos shoot this bird with a popgun?” Mulheisen asked.r />
  “For Christ's sake, the guy shot at his partner!” Dennis shouted. “What the hell's he supposed to do?” Noell went into a mock British accent: “Oh, I beg your pardon, sir, would you please deposit your firearm in the proper receptacle . . . It ain't like that, Mul. It's war out there. You gotta whack ’em.”

  Mulheisen had a pretty good idea what Noell meant by that. In the rear window of the Big 4 cruiser there was prominently displayed a Thompson .45-caliber submachinegun, the classic style with the drum magazine. The gun was meant to be seen, as the Big 4 themselves were meant to be seen. The Big 4's function as detectives was somewhat different from Mulheisen's. You don't put four huge monsters in a well-marked Chrysler and parade them around town during “prime time” for the purpose of detection. They are there to inhibit crime.

  Besides the Thompson, Mulheisen knew that the Big 4 carried a Stoner rifle, a Sten gun, a full complement of Winchester Model 97 12-gauge pump shotguns, and a supply of ax handles. The Stoner Weapons System, to use the proper nomenclature, is a .223-caliber semi or fully automatic rifle that fires 12.5 bullets per second. The bullets have high velocity and low mass. As a consequence, they develop a phenomenon known as hydrostatic shock, which is simply a super-sonic shock wave that arrives at the impact site immediately after the bullet does and causes widespread damage to animal tissue. The Big 4 customarily used a 30-shot banana clip. A 30-shot clip is exhausted in slightly more than two seconds, therefore two clips are taped end to end for quick reversal and resumption of fire.

  The Sten gun was usually carried in a pocket behind the front seat. It is a 9-mm. automatic carbine that is very simple and hardy, an inexpensive, even crudely made weapon compared with the elegant Thompson. But it has a high rate of fire, it's compact and quite reliable, even if it is sometimes known as the Plumber's Delight, or the Woolworth Gun.

  But the sight of the Big 4 walking into a barroom with ax handles dangling from their meaty paws was enough to quell most disturbances and banish thoughts of malefaction for hours at a time.

  “You gotta whack ‘em, Mul,” Dennis said again. “You let up for a minute and they'll kill you.”