Dead End - Ed Lacy

     I'd been a regular cop for over a year and I felt I was going stale. Somehow the badge didn't have much of a kick any longer. Maybe I was bored with walking my arches flat, giving out tickets, breaking up family fights, shoving drunks and smart-aleck lads around. The high point of my day seemed to be dropping into Shep's for a drink. Along with Elma's nagging I wanted a little action. I was getting restless again.

     I found myself doing funny things. I'd do roadwork, as if I was still a pug—and as if my legs didn't get enough exercise. Or, suddenly I began spending time out at Daisy's grave, planting flowers, fixing it up. The third time I was out there some old clown who worked around the cemetery said it was his job to take care of the graves, against the rules to plant your own flowers. I didn't have any extra bucks. I told him I was her son but he kept running his mouth until I belted him. The clown must have found a phone; as I reached the subway station a radio car stopped me. I didn't want to tell them I was a cop—on all police records I hadn't put down anything about Laspiza, of course. I gave the car cops the pitch about a son had the right to plant flowers on his own mother's grave. Then they asked for identification, wanted to know how come if my name was Penn I was fooling with a grave marked Laspiza? I was ready to blow my lid, had to fight from socking them, especially when one cop spots the outline of my hip holster, throws a gun on me—to the delight of a small crowd of curious jerks. I had to show them my badge, lie that Daisy wasn't my real mother but merely a woman who had brought me up. They let me go, but it was a hell of a thing for me to deny my own mother.

     You see, the big trouble was I had nobody to talk to about a thing like that. I was barely talking to Elma, and what the devil would she understand? I nearly phoned Nate long-distance. I got his home address from the local office, but didn't have the nerve or the money to call him. I guess I could have reversed the charges, but the more I thought about him the more I hated his phony pride. If he hadn't been so stubborn about not adopting me, I wouldn't be in this mess, wouldn't have married Elma.

     That was another thing that made me restless: No matter how much I hated Nate, I couldn't forget him. I thought of him every time I saw a fight or ball game on TV, passed a fancy restaurant. He even spoiled the few times I was able to go surf casting.

     The truth is I didn't know what to do with myself. I got my first full vacation in November, after Election Day. Elma was nagging because we didn't have money to go away. Besides, where can you go in November except south, and that costs. (But less than a year later I was flying down to Miami at the height of the season, staying with Judy in the best hotel, in a suite that cost fifty bucks per day.)

     My “vacation” was a horror. It was impossible to hang around the house, and I couldn't even tramp the streets—it turned raw and snowed. I spent the first week in and out of cheap movies. One day I stopped at Shep's office, to get warm, and when he got rid of a customer, he said, excitement in his voice, “I've been looking for you, Bucky!”

     “I'm on vacation—it says in fine print. I—”

     “Listen, I'm positive I've seen Batty Johnson!”

     For a few seconds the name didn't mean a thing to me.

     “Batty Johnson!” Shep repeated.

     Then I got it. Johnson was at the top of the F.B.I. wanted list. I vaguely knew he was a rough thug with a long yellow sheet for murder, assault, and armed robbery. When he started out he was called Bat because he was always saying, “I'll bat you around.” He was said to be very handy with his mitts. Later the nickname became Batty because he was considered to be nuts. All of this I hadn't learned from the post condition board in the station house, but from the crime mags Elma stuffed herself with. I grinned at little Shep, asked, “Since when did you become a crime bug?”

     “Bucky, I'm serious. Here, take a look at this. It came in the mail a few days ago.” He fumbled in a drawer, handed me an F.B.I. wanted flyer with Johnson's hard puss staring out at us. Shep also got out his bottle, poured a couple of drinks.

     “You'll notice they say he has a muscular defect in his left eye, a form of phoria that—well, no point in my getting technical about it. It's a fairly rare defect. The eye has a tendency to turn up. In addition he is extremely nearsighted. The F.B.I. obviously is circularizing all optometrists and oculists in the nation because this thug wears glasses and if he should ever break the pair he has, or needs new ones, well...”

     “You mean he came in here?”

     “No, no. I saw him working in a car wash. His hair has been shaved around the temples and dyed white, and he's grown a mustache. He also has some sort of scar on his cheek. But I know it's him.”

     “Yeah? How?”

     Shep came over, put his arm on my shoulder as he pointed at the flyer with his free hand. “Bucky, I'm positive. When I was thinking of studying medicine, I wanted to go in for plastic surgery. Seemed like the best money deal. I made a study of the planes and bones of the face. When I first got this from the F.B.I. I studied his face and wondered why they hadn't put down in the physical description the fact that his ears are high up. And also notice the distance between the bridge of his nose and the big cheekbones—it's far too wide. Actually the bone structure of his face is abnormal, and that's something you can't disguise. This car washer had the same abnormalities.”

     I stared at the mug shot again. “The ears seem okay to me.”

     “You're a layman. In a normal face the top of the ear should be in line with the eyebrows, and the bottom of the ear is about in line with the end of the nose. His ears are much higher. Bucky, I know what I'm talking about!”

     Shep got off my shoulders to take another drink. I asked, “When did you see him?”

     “Day before yesterday. My car was splattered with slush. I happened to pass this auto laundry away uptown, and drove in.”

     “Have you told the police?”

     “I'm telling you. Bucky, Johnson's last job was robbing and killing an optometrist. I imagine that's how the F.B.I. got on to his faulty vision. I don't want to be the second eye man he murders. You're always talking about making that big arrest. I waited to tell you.”

     I studied the flyer again, not believing Shep. “Could you tell from his glasses—I mean by looking at him—if he had whatever you said was wrong with his eye?”

     “No, the lenses would correct the muscular condition. But he wasn't wearing glasses!” Shep said happily, as if we were playing guessing games.

     “You just told me he needs—”

     “What I meant was, he was using contact lenses!”

     “Start the record again, Shep. I'm not reading you.”

     “Don't you get it, Bucky? This proves he's your man! According to this wanted circular, Johnson is supposed to have ordered frame glasses from this Topeka optometrist, returned a few days later to pick them up, then killed and robbed the fellow, and destroyed the optometrist's office records. He did this under a phony name, but they knew it was Johnson. The F.B.I. then assumes there's something wrong with his sight, hence the reason for doing away with the records. They recheck his prison files and come up with the eye defect. All right, they were correct up to a point; but I started thinking. Johnson wore glasses all the time, even in prison, so that wasn't anything new—anything to destroy records over. Another thing: Why did he have to wait a few days for his glasses?”

     “Don't you have your customers return in a couple of days?”

     “Of course, but we usually carry a supply of various types of lenses in stock. If a customer is in a big rush, I could make up his glasses within an hour. Now, Johnson was in a hurry; it was dangerous for him to hang around for several days. Since he was going to kill the man, why didn't he force him at gun point to make his glasses at once?”

     “Why?”

     “Because he'd ordered a set of contact lenses and you have to send for them! An optometrist doesn't stock contact lenses. So when Johnson returns he not only picks up the frame glasses he ordered, but the contact lenses. He has the optometrist give them a final check, then he murders the fellow and destroys the records. The police are looking for a man with frame glasses, and Johnson is walking around wearing contacts! It lines up, Bucky.”

     “I don't know. The F.B.I. would have thought of the contact lenses, too.”

     “Why? They haven't any record of the dead man ordering the lenses. I think they slipped up. I only stumbled upon it, as I told you, because of the few days' delay in getting his frame glasses. Anyway, I'm certain this car washer has the same facial structure as Johnson and that he was wearing contact lenses!”

     I began to have a warm glow of excitement in the pit of my belly. Collar a Batty Johnson and I'd be set. “Shep, can the average person tell if a guy is wearing contact glasses?”

     “No. But I can.”

     “Doesn't a contact-lens wearer have to take them off every few hours?”

     “Now they can be worn for almost twenty-four hours. I get what you mean. You'd want to take him when he isn't wearing them. I'm sure he changes to ordinary glasses when he's in his room. Also, although he is very nearsighted, he has some vision without any glasses. He'd be able to walk the street, for example, without feeling his way, but he'd have to walk slowly, and he'd be lucky if he didn't bump into something or somebody. You see how smart he is? As I told you, the main description point is he has to be wearing these frame glasses they know the Topeka man made. But I'm certain he also had him make contact lenses.”

     “Did his height and weight match? Five eleven, a hundred and eighty pounds?”

     “The height is right, but he's put on weight. I'd judge he was close to two hundred and fifty now. Of course, that could be padding; these washers are bundled up. Bucky, I tell you I'm positive. When I was driving down here, after the car had been washed, I kept trying to place the man's face. I had a feeling I'd seen the odd structure someplace before. Then I studied this wanted flyer and on my way home I stopped in at the car wash again, and said I wondered if I'd dropped my overshoes out of the car. This time I knew exactly what I was looking for in Johnson's face—it was all there! It's an odd face.”

     “Wish you hadn't gone back,” I said, getting up. “Could have made him nervous, might have taken off. Where is this place?”

     “No, I was careful. Here's a card they gave me. It's just before you reach the park. What do you plan to do?”

     “Take a look-see at this guy.”

     “You know he's a killer?”

     “He isn't wanted for cheating at checkers.” I started for the door. “Keep this to yourself, Shep. Don't even tell your wife.... Have you told her?”

     He slipped me a silly grin. “I haven't told anybody but you. And I had to think carefully about even doing that. Keep me out of it, Bucky. I have plenty of living to do. Going after him right now?”

     “Maybe. I got to figure out how I'm going to do it.”

     As I opened the door, Shep came over and grabbed my arm. “You forgot your drink.”

     “I'm high on this info.”

     He slapped me on the back. “Be careful. They don't pay off on dead heroes.”

     “Two minds with a single thought. Thanks.”

     I rushed home and dug through Elma's magazines until I found the one with the article and pictures on Johnson. I reread the hopped-up story, then took a pair of scissors and cut out the pictures, pasted in bits of paper to cover up the eye glasses, used white paper to cover his hair—the hairline he had shaved—penciled in a moustache. I thought I had a fair picture of what he must look like now.

     Elma came out of the bathroom to yell, “What you tearing up the magazine for?”

     “Isn't reading this junk once enough for you?” I asked, checking my gun.

     “Why the gunplay?”

     “I'm on to something big that can make me a detective,” I told her, going out, thinking it could also make me a corpse. Batty wouldn't be taken without a fight. I went over to the precinct house, pretended I wanted something from my locker. I casually studied the flyers they had on him. The desk lieutenant said, “You're on vacation. Going for an eager beaver, Perm?”

     “Just getting in out of the cold, sir,” I told him, leaving. I dropped into a bar and had a shot of courage, told myself to cut it out: All I'd have to do was come upon Batty with my reflexes liquored up and I'd end being the most crocked man in the morgue. I didn't like facing him alone. I considered getting Ollie in on it; he was on vacation, too. But that would be dumb—sharing the credit.

     I had a kind of plan worked out and the first thing necessary was a car. I couldn't borrow Ollie's without explaining things, but I phoned and put a bite on him for twenty-five bucks until payday. I took a bus to his bank, where he was waiting for me. I mumbled something about a hot tip on a horse and he got a little miffed when I refused to give him the name of the nag.

     I hired a car for the day, and it was about 4 p.m. when I drove into the car wash. I had my gun loose in my overcoat pocket and my badge pinned to my shirt—my heart thumping a bongo under it. There was the owner, or manager of the joint, who took your money, and a big colored fellow in boots and several sweat shirts—and this fat white guy wearing rubbers and an old windbreaker. He had a wool cap on, but white hair showed; his mustache was ragged. And his eyes looked okay to me.

     They hooked the car to a moving belt and it was pulled under a spray shower while the men sponged it down with long-handled sponges. The colored guy told me, “You can stay in your car if you want, mister. But keep the windows closed. Only take a minute.”

     “I'll wait outside,” I said, studying the other guy, trying hard to be casual about it.