Westlake, Donald E - Novel 32 by Cops (and) Robbers (missing pg 22-23) (v1.1) Page A

he never
looked at the clipboard at all.
                 Here’s
how it went: ‘Tragedy struck today at the site of the new Transcontinental
Airlines Building on Columbus Avenue when a worker fell thirty-seven stories
within the uncompleted building to his death. Patrolman Joseph Loomis was among
the first at the scene.” Then he turned to me and said, “Officer Loomis, could
you describe what happened?”
                 I
said, "The decedent was a full-blooded Mohawk Indian employed in putting
the steel framework of the building up. What they call working the high iron.
His name was George Brook. He was forty-three years of age.”
                 The
interviewer had been looking me straight in the eye the whole time I talked, as
though I was hypnotizing him. As soon as I stopped, he whipped the microphone
from my mouth back to his and said, “What apparently went wrong, Officer
Loomis?”
                 I
said, “Apparently his foot slipped. He was on the fifty-second story, which is
as high as they have so far reached, and he fell thirty-seven stories and
landed on the concrete floor at the fifteenth. He fell through the interior of
the building, and the fifteenth is the highest story that they have a floor
finished and put down.”
                 Zip,
the microphone went back over to him, and he said, “He found death thirty-seven
stories down.” Zip, the microphone
came back to me.
                I said, “No, he was probably dead
from about the fortieth story on down. He kept hitting different metal beams on
the way. They knocked some parts off him.”
                 A
spade can’t turn white, but he tried. His eyes looked panicky, and very fast he
said, “There are many full- blooded Mohawk Indians working the high iron,
aren’t there, Officer Loomis?”
                 He
wanted to change the subject? I didn’t give a damn. I said, “That’s right.
There’s a couple tribes of them live over in Brooklyn , they’re all steelworkers.”
                 Zip. “That’s because they have a special
affinity for heights, isn’t it?” Zip.
                 I
said, “I don’t think so. They come down pretty often. About
as often as anybody else.”
                 You
could see I’d suddenly caught his attention. He was interested in spite of
himself. He said, “Then why do they do it?”
                 I
shrugged. I said, “I suppose they have to make a living.”
                 Not
on television. His eyes filmed over, and in the furriest of brush-off voices he
said, “Thank you very much, Officer Loomis,” and turned away from me, ready to
go into a close-out spiel.
                 Screw
him. Just to louse up his timing, I said, “My pleasure,” as he was opening his
mouth again. TTien I turned around and walked off.
                 I
watched it that night, and all they used was the very
first part of what I’d said. The rest was something the interviewer did on his
own after I’d left; he stood in the same spot, with the construction going on
behind him, and told you what happened. He said, among other things, “He found
death thirty-seven stories down.” So much for accuracy, the
bastards.
                 I
don’t know what Paul said, but he didn’t get on the tube at all. He claimed
afterwards it was anti-Semitism.

           Tom
     
     
     
                 Two
big Mafia men had got picked up in our area the night before, and Ed and I were
among the six plain- clothesmen assigned to take them downtown this morning.
                These were really very big important
Mafia people from New Jersey , and it was rare to find them actually in the city like this, where we
could get hold of them. One of them was named Anthony Vigano and the other was
named Louis Sambella.
                 Nobody
knew if there was