Manhunt. Volume 14, Number 1, February/March, 1966

It’s common knowledge among entrepreneurs that one hand washes the other. Some enterprising business men even join hands, merge, to better serve their customers.

* * *

A man wearing an old tweed cap and a sleeveless cardigan slowly ascended the six stone steps that led from the basement apartment of the brownstone house. Under the streetlight he stopped a moment to examine what he held in his hands. He shook his head and blinked his eyes as if trying to dispel the effects of alcohol. His right hand held a crumpled five-dollar bill; his left, a car key. He stuffed the bill into the pocket of his denim pants and, mumbling to himself, walked none too steadily toward a green Volkswagen parked at the curb.

Harral Street was muffled in that twilight quietness which often follows a hot day in the city. Through open windows floated the faint jangle of radio music intermixing with dramatic inflections of television dialogue. From the nearest corner, where Harral joined Columbus Avenue, came the hum of traffic and occasionally the strident sound of a horn.

The man in the cardigan opened the door on the curb side of the Volkswagen without using the key and then slid clumsily over to the driver’s seat. It took him nearly a minute to find the ignition lock and insert the key. It took him another minute to find the light switch. All the while he muttered to himself.

When he finally got the headlights on and the motor going he noticed randomly, with his foot lifting to the clutch, that the car door toward the curb was still open. A weary hiss of disgust escaped his lips and he started to lean across the seat. His outreaching hand was still two feet from the handle when a report like the crack of a bullwhip snapped at the quiet night.

At the same instant a spasm seemed to seize the reaching man’s body, twisting it backward and sidewise. A gasp popped softly from between his lips and his right hand at last encountered the handle of the open door, clutching it convulsively. For several seconds he remained in this half-reclining position, his bloodshot eyes wide open in dumb contemplation.

A buxom woman appeared hesitantly part way up the basement steps of the brownstone.

The man in the Volkswagen didn’t see her but now he was trying to speak or shout. All he managed was a dry whisper.

“...a backfire or somepin,” the buxom woman was saying to somebody invisible behind and below her. “Hey, but that’s kind of funny. The wagon’s still here and...”

The man in the car, using the door as a crutch, was getting out. It required a great effort to pull himself erect. The tweed cap sat askew on his bony head and beads of sweat were forming on his pale brow. The left side of the gray cardigan, near the waist, was stained a mottled brown.

The woman on the basement steps saw him. She grasped the front of the wraparound dress she was wearing and started up, saying to somebody still invisible, “Why, the bum hasn’t even left yet. In his condition he couldn’t drive a baby carriage.”

The man, appearing to concentrate on nothing but himself, released the car door and staggered three steps forward before going down on both knees. Then, his breathing a low whistle, he began to creep laboriously along the sidewalk, eyes closed.

“Jeez!” said the woman, a bit surprised.

Captain Thomas McFate had dined alone and poorly that night in a restaurant which had recently changed management for the worse. The breaded veal cutlet was lodged so solidly at midriff that he decided to shake it down with a brisk walk. When he arrived at a pharmacy at the corner of Columbus Avenue and Harral Street, however, he considered the advisability of seeking direct aid in the form of these explosive stomachics regularly advertised on television.

Just as he was about to enter the pharmacy, a familiar siren arrested his attention. A police cruiser took the corner leaning to one side and burning up rubber.

McFate stepped to the corner of the building as another different-sounding siren wailed down Columbus Avenue. He spotted the revolving domelight first amidst the slow divergence of traffic, then the white ambulance nosed free and took the turn at Harral Street with cushioned grace.

McFate’s eyes followed it down the block. The locus of trouble was obviously under a streetlight where a small foreign car was parked. A dozen people moved there in silhouette. McFate, forgetting the veal cutlet, started in that direction.

Lieutenant Bergeron was first to notice him. “You sure got the message fast, Skipper.”

McFate said, “I didn’t get any message. Just out for a walk. What happened?”

“Some wino’s been shot.”

“Dead?”

“No, not yet.”

“Who shot him?”

“Well, sir, we just got here. We haven’t begun to question anybody.”

“Let’s start,” said McFate. “With the ambulance doctor.”