Ricky stepped through the window out onto the fire escape and he smiled. It was laughably easy-like some low-rent junkie step-over artist, the bums who made a living out of climbing fire escapes and literally stepping over the side to enter apartments through open windows or reaching in and grabbing whatever they could. Imagine, taking that sort of chance! If it weren’t so stupid, Ricky might have admired the courage of these idiots. He lowered the window behind him, checked up and down the alley, then smashed the single big pane with a jab of his foot. The shattering glass made a cymbal-crash. Gingerly he raised the window sash again. Was that the way they did it? He guessed so. It certainly looked messy enough. He descended the stairs like a debutante and rode the drop-ladder down to the sidewalk.
A block away, at the corner of Hemenway and Westland Avenue, he called the police from a phone booth.
“Station Sixteen.”
“Yes, I’d like to report a burglary.”
“What is your name, sir?”
“I’d rather not get involved. I’m just a concerned citizen. The address is fifty Symphony Road, apartment seven.”
“Alright, we’ll send someone right over.”
“Okay, and listen, can you do me a favor? I think you better call Tom Hart in Homicide and tell him Kurt Lindstrom’s apartment just got broken into and there’ll be cops inside there.”
“Excuse me?”
An hour later, the Daley brothers waited together on Symphony Road, across the street from number fifty. In the dim New England light-like a bulb burning out-the three of them appeared to smolder in hues of dull gray. Michael stood front and center, arms folded, watching patiently. Joe hulked behind, at Michael’s shoulder. Some part of Joe was always in motion: a hand explored a pocket, his head cricked this way or that, his foot pawed the sidewalk. Ricky had retreated to a stoop to smoke a butt. He alone seemed to realize the process would take a while.
A black-and-white cruiser and an unmarked car were double-parked in front of number fifty.
At length, Tom Hart came out of the building. He wore a crumpled fedora on his bald head. He made his way around the unmarked car to the driver’s door, which brought him within a dozen feet of the brothers. He caught Michael’s eye and shook his head with a little frown. Nothing. They had found nothing.