Still shaking as if the ground was moving under him, Tom looked up and around and shouted as best he could.
‘For pity’s sake, stop gawking and somebody call the cops.’
THIRTEEN
Whether anyone actually called the cops or they were out patrolling the area, Tom never heard. All he knew was as soon as the two officers came pounding up the street, boots splashing, slickers swishing and handguns at the ready, most of the onlookers evaporated like wraiths, melting into side streets and doorways and the dark folds of the night. The handful of the grimly curious who remained were loudly and pointlessly instructed to keep back as the patrolmen took a look at what they’d got: one dead body spread-eagled in the street, and a tall guy sitting, head in hands, on the running board of a Dodge in the rain.
A pointed finger and a hurried conference followed. The younger of the two officers was dispatched to find a Gamewell box to call for assistance and a meat wagon from the morgue. The other stood well back and kept his weapon trained on the only obvious suspect present. Tom looked over, held his hands up to shoulder height and broke the silence. ‘It’s OK, I’m not armed. All I did was try and help the guy.’
The officer stepped up on the sidewalk and under a storefront canopy and signaled Tom to approach him. ‘OK, sir. Why don’t you come on over here, and keep those hands of yours where I can see ’em.’
Tom did as he was bid, slowly, and allowed the cop to pat him for a weapon.
‘Mind if I get my smokes out?’
He pulled the pack from his pocket, lit up and took a good look at the officer: a jaw grim with years on the job, eyes and hands still and steady. He was no more than a couple of years older than Tom, who guessed that beneath the rain slicker he’d probably have three stripes on his left cuff, one for each five years of service.
‘You ready to tell me what happened here?’ the cop asked. That the ‘sir’ had been dropped was not a good sign. The cop had been doing a character evaluation, too.
‘Yeah, yeah, I think so,’ Tom stuttered, his brain still fogged by the shock. All he’d done since the shooting happened was spool it back over and again in his mind like some endless looped projection reel. But how much it was wise to say to the cop was a different matter. He didn’t feel sharp enough to think through the implications. Keep it to the minimum for now, he reckoned, would probably be for the best.
‘I’m listening.’ Already the note of skepticism in the cop’s voice.
‘The shooter was in a Packard tourer,’ Tom said. ‘Big one, fully enclosed. Dark color – green maybe. I didn’t see the plate. I only noticed it because it was idling there, for five minutes, lights off, like they were waiting for someone to come out of that place.’
Tom indicated the doorway of Hannigan’s, certain that the cop would know exactly what trade went on inside, and that he probably supplemented his pay by ignoring it. But that wasn’t what he fixed on.
‘They?’ The cop was evidently surprised by his candor. ‘You mean you saw who shot him?’
Tom shook his head. ‘Too dark, but the shooter was in the back of the Packard; somebody had to be up front driving.’
‘Go on.’
‘This guy’ – Tom indicated the lifeless pile in the street – ‘came out, had a talk with the guy in the auto. Like I say, I didn’t see who, but pretty soon they began squawking at each other, and when this one started walking away, the guy inside the Packard started shooting. Took a pop at me too – when I ran out.’
Even that was more than he wanted to say. But the old ways of the cop in him, the need to do things right and by the book, were kicking in automatically, insisting he couldn’t risk being caught in a lie. The guys in Hannigan’s, if any were left in the joint, would be happy to squeal that they’d seen Tom talking to Madden a quarter-hour before he was killed – if only to draw the heat away from themselves.
‘And what was it you were doing out here?’ The cop’s eyes narrowed. ‘In the dark and rain.’
‘Waiting for him.’
The cop’s reaction was much as he expected – eyes widening, the peak of his cap dipping as his eyebrows rose to meet it. ‘You … you were waiting for this man?’
‘That’s right, I had some business I wanted to do with him. He never made it, as you can see.’ Tom breathed out heavily as he said it, knowing this was not a good way to go.
‘You knew the victim?’
‘No, not exactly, but—’
‘You know his name?’
‘Sure. Madden – nickname Shorty. I don’t—’
The cop drew a sharp breath, and looked back at the corpse as if understanding something for the first time. ‘And I guess you’re familiar with the kind of business Mr Madden conducted, seeing you were planning on doing some with him?’
‘You know him, then?’
‘Oh, yeah,’ the cop smiled. ‘I know Madden. Him and his rotten “business” interests are well known to all us cops round here. But I don’t recognize you, mister.’
Mister. And a growl in his voice. That was it, then. This square-jawed protector of the people was going to use all his years of experience to jump to the wrong conclusions.
‘Look, officer, you’re getting the wrong idea here. I’ve got nothing to do with this, other than I witnessed it.’
The cop smiled a hard smile and nodded at him knowingly.
‘I’m just working a job,’ Tom continued. ‘My business with Madden was legit. I wanted to get some information from him. Now, I’m happy to help you out but—’
He might as well have said he was an assassin. It couldn’t have gone down any worse. ‘Private, are you? Well, that’s just dandy. You’ll be able to help us out plenty, won’t you? But let’s save it for the station, yeah. You’ll be coming with us soon as the wagon arrives to clear up this mess.’
The cop refused to say any more to him, putting a hand up every time Tom opened his mouth. When the junior patrolman returned, he was instructed to stay with Tom while the senior went and spoke to the remaining onlookers. Tom’s spirits plunged when he saw the cop hammer on the door of Hannigan’s and drag the old doorman out. It wasn’t looking good. The younger officer – a rookie, twenty at most – seemed mesmerized by the sight of the bloodied corpse lying in the road, so much so that at one point he slipped off his slicker and muttered something about covering it. Tom put a hand up to stop him.
‘I wouldn’t do that, son. He’s past caring anyway.’
The young cop turned on him, a rush of anger reddening his farm-boy cheeks. ‘You’d know, would you? Done this kinda thing before, mister?’
Tom stared back at him, unmoved, remembering the first murder victim he’d seen, throat cut to the gizzard in the stinking privy of a Battery brothel years before. Rage had been his first response, too, and he didn’t imagine that fellow lived any more worthwhile a life than Madden.
‘Look, I used to be a cop myself,’ he said firmly. ‘You’ll only have to take it off again. The coroner’s men will want pictures.’
The kid made no answer to that, but made no move to go in the street either. They waited there in stone-hard silence for the time it took the backup men to arrive in a rackety old Dodge half-tonner. The eight cops hanging from it spilled into the street before the vehicle came to a halt. Given a bunch of old-style coats and felt helmets, Sennett could have signed them for Keystone on the spot. The coroner’s wagon pulled up a couple of minutes later and a pair of newsmen swept in behind them, tipped off no doubt, cameras at the ready. More and more, the coroners relied on press men to record murder scenes, not always having the photographic equipment themselves, especially for night work. Once they were done, the wagon driver and bearers peeled Madden’s sodden remains from the roadway on to a stretcher and covered him with a rubber sheet. From the dull-eyed, matter-of-fact look on their faces, Tom guessed they must have seen worse in their time, maybe in the trenches in France. It was the kind of work given to veterans, men inured to horror.
Once they finished, Tom a
pproached the officer who had taken charge, a short, thin martinet, cap brim low to shield his eyes even at this hour of night.
‘Officer, I was wondering if I might leave now, go back to my place and dry out, come into you again in an hour or so to make a statement. I’m kind of all done in. Collins is my name. I’m an ex-cop myself – New York. You can rely on me to show up.’
The cop looked Tom up and down. A nervous tic of the lips or a barely suppressed amusement set the corners of his mouth twitching. ‘Thank you, Mr Collins, but as you’re the only real, uh, witness to this incident, it’s out of the question for you to go anywhere except straight to the station with me. I guess you can appreciate the necessity all the more, given your experience on the job. You can dry out there.’
The words were polite enough, but there was an air of chill insistence to them, making it clear no further argument would be brooked. Tom nodded grudgingly. He wouldn’t have played it any different in this guy’s position. Still, he didn’t like the idea of being dragged in at night by a bunch of beat cops eager to make an impression. Or a reputation. He knew how the later the hour, the more dangerous a station house could be. Boots and billyclubs had a way of finding employment in the hours of darkness. But he forced himself to resign to it as any resistance on his part would only make matters worse. As the cops bundled him into the back of the old police wagon, it occurred to him that at least this was a cut-and-dried murder. The case would have to be handed over to Central and the detective squad more or less immediately – and him with it. That had to be about the best chance he stood of getting home before morning.
FOURTEEN
With its tile-and-beam overhang roof, fancy mock turrets and mission-style bell tower, Los Angeles Police Station No. 6 on North Cahuenga was, even by night, a striking if inelegant building. Shared half and half with the Fire Department, it had an air of brick-built solidity and radiated the kind of strength and municipal authority the good citizens of Hollywood respected, and the not-so-good knew to be wary of. During his time at Famous Players-Lasky, Tom had devoted many an hour to ensuring the studio’s precious cargo of talent never got anywhere near its stout wooden doors, or those of any other calaboose in the area. But on those occasions when one of his people did fall foul of the law, a mention of the Lasky studio name, and a hint at its munificent line in gratitude, was usually enough to ensure a quick exit, miscreant movie asset in tow.
This time, he was certain his experience would be different. He wasn’t so much escorted as frog-marched into the vestibule with its vaulted ceiling, drab cream walls and high wood-panel booking desk. The place was damnably busy, the room crammed with the usual Friday-night troublemakers and dregs, drunks caterwauling and crooning, waiting to be processed. Tom’s guardians swept him straight to the front of the line where the booking sergeant – an older, commanding gray-haired man of fifty or so – stood impossibly tall on the platform behind the plinth.
‘In for questioning, Sarge. Murder.’
‘Oh yes, we’ve been expecting you.’ The sergeant stepped back to study Tom with a detached professional curiosity before asking, ‘Name?’
‘I’m a witness,’ Tom said, shrugging off the hand one patrolman still clenched around his elbow. ‘I’m here voluntarily. I haven’t been arrested.’
The sergeant looked up from the ledger in front of him and put his pen down, staring critically at the patrolman. ‘Is this man under arrest, Cornell?’
‘Not yet, Sarge.’
‘OK,’ he said, turning to Tom again. ‘That’s noted, but unless you want to disappear in this station, with no one knowing who you are or how long you have been here – and I would strongly advise against that – you better give me your details.’
Tom gave the man his name and address and at the same time took a closer look at him, recognizing something in the face, in the German accent that should have been a cue, but he couldn’t place it.
The sergeant had been having similar thoughts, but with more success.
‘Collins?’ he said, scrutinizing Tom again, looking satisfied with himself. ‘Yeah, I know you. You’re with one of the studios, no?’
‘Lasky,’ Tom nodded. It couldn’t hurt if they believed he still worked there.
‘Sure, I remember now. I worked traffic before I got the desk last year. You used come in to spring movie types. Another time, too – couple years back – I saw you over in Hollenbeck, some St Patrick’s do – you were with that Sullivan guy from detectives, no? You Irish sure stick together.’
‘Sullivan and me do, yeah,’ Tom agreed, liking the way this was going. ‘Used to work a beat together in New York, back when I was in uniform.’
If the sergeant put any value on that, he chose not to show it. ‘Sure, I never forget a face. But another guy comes in from Lasky’s now, no? Luther or something?’
‘Roy Luther,’ Tom agreed. ‘He’s a good man.’
However he said it, the sergeant’s eyes narrowed. ‘Too good? He get your job?’
‘Something like that,’ Tom agreed. There didn’t seem any point saying more, knowing if his flush wasn’t busted already, it was about to be.
‘So you’re working where now?’
‘Nowhere. For myself, I mean. Private.’
The sergeant raised a skeptical eyebrow. ‘Private, as in gumshoe?’ The sergeant shook his gray head and turned away, muttering something about ‘old pals’, but Tom didn’t catch it.
And that was the end of the conviviality. Formalities complete, the patrolmen took him by the elbow again, pushing him through a set of heavy double doors and down a steep wood stairway towards the back of the building. They were on home ground now, and a cockiness was beginning to show through. Halfway along a dim-lit corridor, they stopped and flung open a door, shoving him into a small room empty but for a table, two chairs and a bare electric light hanging from the ceiling. One of them barked at him to sit, and they left him there, the key grinding in the door as they locked it.
He wasn’t so troubled by the lock as the chill atmosphere. Walls bearing the barely literate scrawls of men who had spent fretful hours incarcerated, waiting, staring up at the tiny window set high against the ceiling like a mouth gasping for air. Caution kept him on his feet, pacing the raw concrete floor, frustration bringing greater awareness, excoriating himself for not having torn through the dull veil of compliance that had settled on him since the shooting, blunting his edge. He should never have admitted to knowing Madden, given himself up to them like that. He’d been dumb, his brain all fuzzed up as if he had a concussion. Must have banged his head when he hit the sidewalk. He ran his fingers over the back of his skull, but there was nothing to confirm it.
Resuming his pacing, he began retracing the evening again, minute by minute, event by event, ensuring he had his story straight and undeviating in his own mind. Then he began whittling away at it, calculating what he could and couldn’t afford to say, feeling stronger, more in control, formulating a plan at last. Still the time dragged, and after an hour he succumbed to the temptation to sit, whereupon the boredom of confinement began to gnaw away at him anew. He was studying his wristwatch, a silver Waltham, trying to remember the name of the soldier he bought it from – a pitiful, whistle-breathed young veteran come West in the hope California’s remedial air would restore his gas-ravaged lungs – when he heard a coarse shout and a heavy tread coming along the corridor outside.
Something about it caused the hair to fizz up on his neck, a pin-sharp spike of memory he didn’t want to acknowledge, convinced it was the product of an over-anxious imagination. But as soon as the door swung open, and he heard the voice again, unmuffled, he realized with a fresh jolt of shock that his worst fears were about to be made flesh. And flesh was the only word to describe it, as into the room lurched the corpulent form of Sergeant Aloysius Devlin – a sight that, had Tom not been sitting down already, might have floored him with astonishment.
If there was one man Tom had optimistically counted upon n
ever meeting on the West Coast, it was Devlin – the rottenest apple he had ever encountered, and that from quite a barrelful. His presence in the room simply didn’t make sense. Last time he had seen Devlin was six years before, two thousand miles away in New York, when Devlin had sworn with unshakeable conviction that he would tear Tom limb from limb if ever he clapped eyes on him again. And with good reason, as Devlin had only minutes before been shackled and indicted on major corruption charges based largely on evidence gathered by Tom. That Devlin not only escaped prosecution subsequently but was reinstated in his job in the New York police department was down to an unrivalled network of corrupt connections. And the certainty that he would try to exact vengeance was one of the primary reasons Tom had eagerly accepted Adolph Zukor’s offer of a job riding shotgun for a movie studio out in peaceful, remote California. Knowing he wouldn’t have to spend the rest of his days looking over his shoulder for Big Al Devlin only made Tom’s journey West all the sweeter.
How in hell’s name the man came to be standing in front of him now in the basement of Hollywood Station and apparently in a position of authority, was beyond Tom’s powers of reasoning.
‘As I live and breathe, it really is you,’ Devlin said, licking his lips in anticipation. The rest of his face was a globular mass of dewlaps and jowls quivering above the strained confinement of his high-collared uniform.
With a snort, Devlin dismissed the patrolman waiting outside before shutting the door behind him and leaning back against it. For a moment he stood there, breathing deep, as though he could hardly believe his luck, pale-lashed blue eyes glinting out from behind drooping flesh-folds. Then, without warning, he crossed the floor at a rate miraculous for a man of his girth. Tom leapt up, too late. A brain-rattling haymaker caught him full on the jaw as he was rising, every pound of the sergeant’s bulk pumped into it. It was like being struck by a side of ham tossed from a railcar. Pain exploded behind Tom’s eyes as he was thrown back, wind knocked from his lungs, his skull colliding with the wall behind. He staggered, fell to his knees, struggling for breath and vision, crooking an arm up to fend off a following blow – that didn’t come.
The Long Silence Page 8
