Part 10 (1/2)
”You got nothing to book us on”
”I found jimmy marks on the loft door,” the patrolman said drily.
”That must've been from some other time it got knocked over,” Di Paolo said. ”You find any burglar's tools on us?”
”He knows all about burglar's tools,” the sergeant said, and then turned to Di Paolo and said, ”You know all about burglar's tools, don't you?”
”If you live in this crumby neighborhood, you learn all about everything,” Di Paolo said.
”Also about how to break and enter a dress loft and steal some clothes? Do you learn all about that?”
”We was after the pigeons,” Mancuso said.
”What pigeons?”
”Our pigeons.”
”In the dress loft, huh?”
”No, on the roof.”
”You keep pigeons on the roof of that building?”
”No, we keep pigeons on the roof of 2335 Twelfth Street, that's where.”
”What's that got to do with the dress loft?”
”Nothing,” Mancuso said.
”We ain't got nothing to do with the loft, either,” Di Paolo said. ”We were only in that building because our pigeons were on the roof.”
”We only went up to get them,” Mancuso said.
”What's the matter?” the sergeant asked. ”Don't your pigeons know how to fly?”
The patrolman laughed.
”They've got pigeons that don't know how to fly,” the sergeant said, encouraged, and the patrolman laughed again.
”They know how to fly, but sometimes they don't come back when you call them. So from where we were on our roof, we could see these two birds sitting on the roof of the building where the dress loft was in-”
”Oh, you knew there was a dress loft in that building, huh?”
”No, we didn't know until we got over there. When we was climbing to the roof, we saw the sign for the dress loft.”
”And decided to jimmy open the door while you were at it.”
”What jimmy? We were going up the roof for our pigeons.”
”Where are they?”
”Where's what?”
”The birds.”
”They flew away when we got up there.”
”I thought they didn't know how to fly.”
”Who said that? You said that, not us.”
A man came down the iron-runged steps leading into the muster room, and the men at the desk turned momentarily to look at him. He was well-dressed, clean-shaven, with eyes that slanted to give his face an almost Oriental look. He wore no hat, and his hair was a sandy brown, cut close to his head, but not in a crew cut. He was reading something, some form or other, as he crossed the room, and then he folded the form and put it in his inside jacket pocket and stopped at the desk. The sergeant looked up.
”Dave, I'm going out to lunch,” the man said. ”Anybody calls for me, I'll be back around one-thirty, two o'clock.”
”Right, Steve,” the sergeant said. ”You recognize these two?” he asked.
The man called Steve looked at Mancuso and Di Paolo and then shook his head. ”No,” he said. ”Who are they?”
”A couple of pigeon fanciers.” The sergeant looked at the patrolman, and the patrolman laughed. ”You don't make them, huh?”
”No.”
The sergeant looked at Di Paolo and said, ”You see this fellow here? He's one of the meanest cops in this precinct. Am I right, Steve?”
The man, who was obviously a plainclothes detective, smiled and said, ”Sure, sure.”
”I'm only telling you this because if you're smart you'll give your story to me, and not wait until he gets you upstairs. He's got a rubber hose up there, right, Steve?”
”Two rubber hoses,” the detective answered. ”And a lead pipe.”
”There ain't no story to give,” Mancuso said.
”We was going up after the pigeons, and-”
”See you, Dave,” the detective said.
”-that's the truth. We spotted them on the roof from where we was flying the pigeons-”
”So long, Steve. In February?”
”What do you mean?”
”Flying your pigeons on a day you could freeze your a.s.s off?”
”What's that got to do with . . .”