Dirty Harry 11 - Death in the Air Read Online Free PDF

saw nothing, and did nothing but pick up this pocketbook which was lying on the platform with no owner. He didn’t know this Murray girl, and he didn’t know that what was left of her was under the BART train. He had come in after the subway had run her down.
    Callahan knew he would have to hold off rest for a while longer, since they were heading for the hospital. At least back at his office he could catch some Z’s at his desk or curled up on Lieutenant Bressler’s couch. No such luck at S.F. General, unless he wanted to be mistaken for a patient.
    “Hand me the radio, will you?” he asked the patrolman, without opening his eyes. He felt the mike being put into his outstretched hand. Since patrolmen had been reduced to one to a car in an attempt at economizing, Petrillo didn’t mind Harry’s company or demands.
    Callahan got a clear channel to Homicide and asked for Sergeant Frank DiGeorgio. Soon, his longtime backup man got on the line.
    “I thought you’d be back home and in bed by now,” the heavy, Italian police vet greeted him.
    “Don’t rub it in,” Harry replied. “I’m in car number—” He looked at Petrillo.
    “Seventeen,” the cop informed him.
    “—Seventeen,” Callahan continued, “heading for the emergency ward at S.F. General.”
    “You all right, Harry?” another voice asked with concern. Callahan recognized the rough tone of his immediate superior.
    “I didn’t know you cared, Lieutenant,” he told Bressler. “Yeah, I’m fine. We just got a package of cold turkey in the back of the car here for delivery.”
    “So what’s the call for?” Bressler asked. “We know you don’t need a chaperone.”
    “I need DiGeorgio to meet me there with the files from this BART thing,” Harry replied.
    “Yeah,” said the Sergeant. “I heard about Fulton Station, already. That’s tough, Harry. It’s the third accident, but the first death.”
    “That doesn’t mean it was murder,” Bressler interrupted. “Let the detectives handle it, Harry. That’s their job. I need you back on the Goldfarb bust.”
    Hiram Goldfarb was a Hassidic Jew who was also one of the best jewelry men in the state. That didn’t keep him from winding up on a morgue slab, however, with two and one-half million dollars worth of diamonds missing. Bressler had gotten a line on his killers, but he wanted an experienced homicide team in on the arrests in case of trouble.
    “That ready to go yet?” Harry inquired. He had started the subway stakeout only because the Goldfarb thing needed some more legwork done.
    “Soon,” Bressler promised.
    “All right,” retorted Callahan. “In the meantime, give DiGeorgio the files and have him meet me at the hospital.” Without waiting for a reply, Harry signed off, hooked the mike back in place, and leaned back.
    Petrillo smirked, shaking his head in amazement. “Like pulling teeth to get anything done around here.”
    Without opening his eyes, Harry replied, “Just remember that, and you’ll go far. Always keep your pliers nearby.”
    San Francisco General Hospital was a venerable institution which had had several modern additions built onto it—looking like black-glass leeches sucking up to classic stone.
    Patrolman Petrillo followed the labyrinthian arrows which led them to the emergency entrance, where he and Harry unloaded a positively quaking Marshall Maggin. Maggin had already chewed his lower lip into bloody pulp, and he was groaning as if all his bones had suddenly sprouted thorns.
    “I can take it from here, Inspector,” Petrillo assured Harry. “I’m used to it. You can wait for your partner at the front desk.”
    Harry thanked him and started on his way to the lobby. He got lost twice in the maze of different-colored corridors with different names, so, after he reached his destination, it was only a few minutes before DiGeorgio appeared through the revolving doors. The stout, crew-cut partner was glancing at a stapled stack of papers in his