Gilbert Coney’s Arrest

Gilbert Coney’s arrest turns the search for Ullman into a threat against the Minna Men: Gilbert is taken into custody for a killing Lionel Essrog does not believe he committed, and the case offers no immediate way to separate accusation from evidence. The arrest leaves Lionel with both a missing colleague and a clue that may have been destroyed with its source.

The Arrest and the Accusation

Gilbert was arrested as he came out of the place where Ullman had been found dead. The police had apparently been tipped off: the garbage cop who later spoke to Lionel described the homicide officers as having arrived as though they already knew to expect Gilbert. The account identifies Gilbert as the suspect in Ullman’s killing, not as someone whose guilt had been established.

The accusation carried particular weight because Tony Vermonte had sent Gilbert to find Ullman. When Lionel heard that Gilbert was being held, he connected the arrest to that assignment and to the newly discovered death. The apparent sequence made Gilbert look implicated, but it did not explain what had happened inside the place or establish that Gilbert had killed Ullman.

Lionel’s Doubts

Lionel could not reconcile the charge with what he knew of Gilbert. He had seen Gilbert react blankly to Ullman’s name, and he did not believe Gilbert capable of killing a man. Self-defense remained one possibility in Lionel’s reasoning; being framed was another. The arrest therefore sharpened his fear that someone was hunting the Minna Men rather than resolving the case.

The report that Ullman was already dead when Gilbert arrived reinforced Lionel’s suspicion. Gilbert had reportedly said little without a lawyer, but the garbage cop relayed that account and said the homicide officers had taken Gilbert as he left. Lionel’s belief that the case might be a setup remained an inference, not a proven explanation.

Detention and Immediate Consequences

Lionel drove an agency car to Manhattan to try to see Gilbert at the precinct house, but Gilbert had already been moved from the front cage to a group of newly arrested men held overnight. Loomis had used up the officers’ patience by pursuing Gilbert’s rights and access; Gilbert had made his phone call and received a brief visit at the cell bars, but no further access would be allowed until at least the next morning. Arraignment and transfer to the Tombs were still ahead, as was the prospect of bail.

The visit produced no new account from Gilbert. It did, however, leave Lionel driving Loomis back to Brooklyn and gave him a chance to hear what the garbage cop knew: Gilbert had asked for a lawyer after the police picked him up, and had apparently tried to call L&L without reaching Lionel. The cop also reported that Gilbert seemed affected by Frank Minna’s death. Gilbert’s detention thus unfolded amid two losses—the killing under investigation and the recent death of the man who had gathered the Minna Men.

The Arrest’s Place in the Investigation

When Lionel later explained the situation to Danny Fantl, he reduced the charge to the case’s blunt, consequential fact: Ullman, the man Tony had sent Gilbert to find, had turned up dead, and the police had pinned the killing on Gilbert. Danny responded thoughtfully rather than with surprise. The arrest had become part of the unsettled aftermath of Frank Minna’s death, not a self-contained resolution of the murder.

For Lionel, Ullman’s death also meant the loss of a possible lead. He felt no grief for Ullman as a person, but he had regarded him as a direction into the case; with Ullman dead and Gilbert in custody, that avenue seemed to close. The arrest intensified the investigation by making Gilbert’s fate and the possibility of a wider threat inseparable from the search for what had happened to Ullman.