Ed McBain_87th Precinct 22 Read Online Free PDF Page A

name without allowing him the return courtesy and:
    (a) You immediately make him a subordinate, and
    (b) You instantly rob the familiarity of any friendly connotation, charging its use with menace instead.
    “Where in Riverhead, Anthony?” Willis said.
    “1812 Johnson.”
    “Live alone?”
    “No, with my mother.”
    “Father dead?”
    “They’re separated.”
    “How old are you, Anthony?”
    “Twenty-six.”
    “What do you do for a living?”
    “I’m unemployed at the moment.”
    “What do you normally do?”
    “I’m a construction worker.”
    “When’s the last time you worked?”
    “I was laid off last month.”
    “Why?”
    “We completed the job.”
    “Haven’t worked since?”
    “I’ve been looking for work.”
    “But didn’t have any luck, right?”
    “That’s right.”
    “Tell us about the lunch pail.”
    “What about it?”
    “Well, what’s
in
it, first of all?”
    “Lunch, I guess,” La Bresca said. “Lunch, huh?”
    “Isn’t that what’s usually in lunch pails?”
    “We’re asking
you
, Anthony.”
    “Yeah, lunch,” La Bresca said.
    “Did you call this squadroom yesterday?” Brown asked.
    “No.”
    “How’d you know where that lunch pail would be?”
    “I was told it would be there.”
    “Who told you?”
    “This guy I met.”
    “What guy?”
    “At the employment agency.”
    “Go on,” Willis said, “let’s hear it.”
    “I was waiting on line outside this employment agency on Ainsley, they handle a lot of construction jobs, you know, and that’s where I got my last job from, so that’s where I went back today. And this guy is standing on line with me, and all of a sudden he snaps his fingers and says, ‘Jesus, I left my lunch in the park.’ So I didn’t say nothing, so he looks at me and says, ‘How do you like that, I left my lunch on a park bench.’ So I said that’s a shame, and all, I sympathized with him, you know. What the hell, poor guy left his lunch on a park bench.”
    “So then what?”
    “So he tells me he would run back into the park to getit, except he has a bum leg. So he asks me if I’d go get it for him.”
    “So naturally you said yes,” Brown said. “A strange guy asks you to walk all the way from Ainsley Avenue over to Grover and into the park to pick up his lunch pail, so naturally you said yes.”
    “No, naturally I said no,” La Bresca said.
    “Then what were you doing in the park?”
    “Well, we got to talking a little, and he explained how he got his leg hurt in World War II fighting against the Germans, picked up shrapnel from a mortar explosion, he had a pretty rough deal, you know?”
    “So naturally you decided to go for the lunch pail after all.”
    “No, naturally I still didn’t decide to do nothing.”
    “So how
did
you finally end up in the park?”
    “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
    “You took pity on this man, right? Because he had a bum leg, and because it was so cold outside, right?” Willis said.
    “Well, yes and no.”
    “You didn’t want him to have to walk all the way to the park, right?” Brown said.
    “Well, yes and no. I mean, the guy was a stranger, why the hell should I care if he walked to the park or not?”
    “Look, Anthony,” Willis said, beginning to lose his temper, and trying to control himself reminding himself that it was exceptionally difficult to interrogate suspects these days of Miranda-Escobedo when a man could simply refuse to answer at any given moment, Sorry, boys, no more questions, just shut your dear little flatfoot mouths or run the risk of blowing your case. “Look, Anthony,” he said more gently, “we’re only trying to find out how
you
happened to walk to the park and go directly to the third bench to pick up that lunch pail.
    “I know,” La Bresca said.
    “You met a disabled war veteran, right?”
    “Right.”
    “And he told you he left his lunch pail in the park.”
    “Well, he didn’t say lunch
pail
at first. He just