That he did not was due, in part, to chance; in part, to Bufflehead Kelly.
Bufflehead was a not-too-bright, lazy, amiable elderly neighborhood cop who had learned that a policeman's survival in the ghetto could be lengthened by adroitly being somewhere else when trouble erupted, and by taking action only when a problem loomed directly under his nose. Superiors complained that his arrest record was the worst in the precinct, but against this in Bufflehead's view his retirement and pension moved satisfyingly closer every year.
But the teenage Nolan Wainwright had loomed under Bufflehead's nose the night of an attempted gang-bust into a warehouse which the beat cop unwittingly disturbed, so everyone had run, escaping, except Wainwright who tripped and fell at Bufflehead's feet.
"Y' stupid, clumsy monkey," Bufflehead complained. "Now it's all kinds of paper and court work you'll be causin' me this night."
Kelly detested paperwork and court appearances which cut annoyingly into a policeman's off-duty time.
In the end he compromised. Instead of arresting and charging Wainwright he took him, the same night, to the police gym and, in Bufflehead's own words, "beat the b'jesus out of him" in a boxing ring.
Nolan Wainwright, bruised, sore, and with one eye badly swollen though still with no arrest record reacted with hatred. As soon as possible he would smash Bufflehead Kelly to a pulp, an objective which brought him back to the police gym and Bufflehead for lessons in how to do it. It was, Wainwright realized long afterward, the needed outlet for his rage. He learned quickly. When the time arrived to reduce the slightly stupid, lazy cop to a punished punching bag, he found the desire to do so had evaporated. Instead he had become fond of the old man, an emotion surprising to the youth himself.
A year went by during which Wainwright continued boxing, stayed in school and managed to keep out of trouble. Then one night Bufflehead, while on duty, accidentally interrupted a holdup of a grocery store. Undoubtedly the cop was more startled than the two small-time hoodlums involved and would certainly not have impeded, them since both were armed. As investigation afterward brought out, Bufflehead did not even try to draw his gun.
But one robber panicked and, before running, fired a sawed-off shotgun into Bufflehead's gut.
News of the shooting spread quickly and a crowd gathered. It included young Nolan Wainwright.
He would always remember as he did now the sight and sound of harmless, lazy Bufflehead, conscious, writhing, wailing, screaming in demented agony as blood and entrails gushed from his capacious, mortal wound
An ambulance was a long time coming. Moments before it arrived, Bufflehead, still screaming, died.
The incident left its mark forever on Nolan Wainwright, though it was not Bufflehead's death itself which affected him most. Nor did the arrest and later execution of the thief who fired the shot, and his companion, seem more than anticlimactic.
What shocked and influenced him above all else was the appalling, senseless waste. The original crime was mean, foolish, foredoomed to failure; yet, in failing, its devastation was outrageously immense. Within young Wainwright's mind that single thought, that reasoning, persisted. It proved a catharsis through which he came to see all crime as equally negative, equally destructive and, later still, as an evil to be fought. Perhaps, from the beginning, a streak of puritanism had been latent, deep inside him. If so, it surfaced.
He progressed from youth to manhood as an individual with uncompromising standards and, because of this, became something of a loner, among his friends and eventually when he became a cop. But he was an efficient cop who learned and rose fast, and was incorruptible, as Ben Rosselli and his aides once learned.
And later still, within First Mercantile American Bank, Wainwright's strong feelings stayed with him.
It was possible that the security chief dozed off, but a key inserted in the apartment lock alerted him. Cautiously he sat up. His illuminated watch dial showed it was shortly after midnight.
A shadowy figure came in; a shaft of outside light revealed it as Eastin. Then the door closed and Wainwright heard Eastin fumble for a switch. The light came on.
Eastin saw Wainwright at once and his surprise was total. His mouth dropped open, blood drained from his face. He tried to speak, but gulped, and no words came.
Wainwright stood up, glaring. His voice cut like a knife. "How much did you steal today?"
Before Eastin could answer or recover, Wainwright seized him by the coat lapels, turned him and pushed. He fell sprawling on the sofa. As surprise turned to indignation, the young man spluttered, "Who let you in? What the hell do you…" His eyes moved to the money and the small black ledger, and he stopped.
"That's right," Wainwright said harshly, "I came for the bank's money, or what little is left." He motioned to the bills stacked on the table. "We know what's there, is what you took on Wednesday. And in case you're wondering, we know about the milked accounts and all the rest."
Miles Eastin stared, his expression frozen, stupefied. A convulsive shudder went through him. In fresh shock his head came down, his hands went to his face.
"Cut that outl" Wainwright reached over, pulled Eastin's hands free and pushed his head up, though not roughly, remembering his promise to the FBI man. No bruised potato.
He added, "You've got some talking to do, so let's start."
"Hey, time out, huh?" Eastin pleaded. "Give me a minute to think."
"Forget it!" The last thing Wainwright wanted was to give Eastin time to reflect. He was a bright young maw who might reason, correctly, that his wisest course was silence. The security chief knew that at this: moment he had two advantages. One was having Miles Eastin off balance, the other being unrestricted by rules.
If the FBI agents were here they would have to inform Eastin of his legal rights the right not to answer questions, and to have a lawyer present. Wainwright, not a policeman any more, had no such obligation.
What the security chief wanted was hard evidence pinning the six-thousand-dollar cash theft on Miles Eastin. A signed confession would do it.
He sat down facing Eastin, his eyes impaling the younger man. "We can do this the long, hard way or we can move fast."
When there was no response, Wainwright picked up the small black ledger and opened it. "Let's start with this." He put his finger on the list of sums and dates; besides each entry were other figures in a code. "These are: bets. Right?"
Through a muddled dullness Eastin nodded. "Explain this one."
It was a two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar bet, Miles Eastin mumbled, on the outcome of a football game between Texas and Notre Dame. He explained the odds. The bet had been on Notre Dame, Texas had won. "And this?"
Another mumbled answer: Another football game. Another loss.
"Go on;" Wainwright persisted, keeping his finger on the page, maintaining pressure.
Responses came slowly. Some of the entries covered basketball games. A few bets were on the winning side, though losses outnumbered them. The minimum bet was one hundred dollars, the highest three hundred. "Did you bet alone or with a group?" "A group." "Who was in it?" "Four other guys. Working. Like me." "Working at the bank?" - Eastin shook his head. "other places." "Did they lose, too?" "Some. But their batting average was better than mine.. "What are the names of the other four?" No answer. Wainwright let it go. "You made no bets on horses. Why?"
"We got together. Everybody knows horse racing is crooked, races fixed. Football and basketball are on the level. We worked out a system. With honest games, we figured we could beat the odds."
The total of losses showed how wrong that figuring had been. "Did you bet with one bookie, or more' "One." "His name?" Eastin stayed mute.
"The rest of the money you've been stealing from the bank where is it?"
The young man's mouth turned down. He answered miserably, "Gone." "And more besides?" An affirmative, dismal nod.
"We'll get to that later. Right now let's talk about this money." Wainwright touched the six thousand dollars which lay between them. "We know you took it on Wednesday. How?"
Eastin hesitated, then shrugged. "I guess you may as well know."
Wainwright said sharply, "You're guessing right but wasting time."
"Last Wednesday," Eastin said, "we had people away with flu. That day I filled in as a teller." "I know that. Get to what happened."