Ed McBain_87th Precinct 22 by Fuzz

which the two shots were fired that killed Parks Commissioner Cowper.”
    “Sir, the crime was not committed in our precinct. Philharmonic Hall, sir, is in the 53rd Precinct and, as I’m sure the commissioner realizes, a homicide is investigated by the detectives assigned to the squad in the precinct in which the homicide was committed.”
    “Don’t give me any of that bullshit, Byrnes,” the police commissioner said.
    “That is the way we do it in this city, sir,” Byrnes said.
    “This is your case,” the commissioner answered. “You got that, Byrnes?”
    “If you say so, sir.”
    “I say so. Get some men over to the area, and find that goddamn apartment.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “And report back to me.”
    “Yes, sir,” Byrnes said, and hung up.
    “Getting a little static, huh?” the first painter said.
    “Getting your ass chewed out, huh?” the second painter said.
    Both men were on their ladders, grinning and dripping apple green paint on the floor.
    “Get the hell out of this office!” Byrnes shouted.
    “We ain’t finished yet,” the first painter said.
    “We don’t leave till we finish,” the second painter said.
    “That’s our orders,” the first painter said.
    “We don’t work for the Police Department, you know.”
    “We work for the Department of Public Works.”
    “Maintenance and Repair.”
    “And we don’t quit a job till we finish it.”
    “Stop dripping paint all over my goddamn floor!” Byrnes shouted, and stormed out of the office. “Hawes!” he shouted “Kling! Willis! Brown! Where the hell
is
everybody?” he shouted.
    Meyer came out of the men’s room, zipping up his fly.
    “What’s up, Skipper?” he said.
    “Where were you?”
    “Taking a leak. Why, what’s up?”
    “Get somebody over to the area!” Byrnes shouted.
    “What area?”
    “Where the goddamn commissioner got shot!”
    “Okay, sure,” Meyer said. “But why? That’s not our case.”
    “It is now.”
    “Oh?”
    “Who’s catching?”
    “I am.”
    “Where’s Kling?”
    “Day off.”
    “Where’s Brown?”
    “On that wire tap.”
    “And Willis?”
    “He went to the hospital to see Steve.”
    “And Hawes?”
    “He went down for some Danish.”
    “What the hell am I running here, a resort in the mountains?”
    “No, sir. We …”
    “Send Hawes over there! Send him over the minute he gets back. Get on the phone to Ballistics. Find out what they’ve got. Call the M.E.’s office and get that autopsy report. Get cracking, Meyer!”
    “Yes,
sir!”
Meyer snapped, and went immediately to the telephone.
    “This goddamn racket drives me crazy,” Byrnes said, and started to storm back into his office, remembered that the jolly green painters were in there slopping around, and stormed into the Clerical Office instead.
    “Get those files in order!” he shouted. “What the hell do you do in here all day, Miscolo, make coffee?”
    “Sir?” Miscolo said, because that’s exactly what he was doing at the moment.
    Bert Kling was in love.
    It was not a good time of the year to be in love. It is better to be in love when flowers are blooming and balmy breezes are wafting in off the river, and strange animals come up to lick your hand. There’s only one good thing about being in love in March, and that’s that it’s better to be in love in March than not to be in love at all, as the wise man once remarked.
    Bert Kling was madly in love.
    He was madly in love with a girl who was twenty-three years old, full-breasted and wide-hipped, her blond hair long and trailing midway down her back or sometimes curled into a honey conch shell at the back of her head, her eyes a cornflower blue, a tall girl who came just level with his chin when she was wearing heels. He was madly in love with a scholarly girl who was studying at night for her master’s degree in psychology while working during the day conducting interviews for a firm downtown on Shepherd Street; a serious girl who hoped to go on for