He waited, rapped again, then tried the door. It was open as usual. Carmody walked into the hallway, hung his hat automatically on the halltree and turned into the familiar shabby living room. Nothing much had changed in the seven years that he had been gone; the old man’s outsized leather chair stood with its back to the windows, his piano was still stacked with Irish songs and church music and the dark, shadowy copy of Rafael’s Madonna hung over the mantel, slightly crooked as always. The room was clean and he wondered if Eddie did the work himself. Very probably, he thought.
“Eddie?” he called. “You up yet?”
Eddie’s voice sounded from the basement. “Hey, who’s that?”
“Mike. Come on up.”
“I’ve got to wash my hands. Sit down and make yourself at home.”
Make yourself at home! Carmody glanced around with a wry little smile. There was no place in the world where that would be less possible. He couldn’t be comfortable here; he felt smaller and less certain of himself in the old man’s home. The memories of his father crowded around him, evoking all the past pain and friction. That was why he hadn’t come back even after the old man died; he hated the uncertainty and guilt this shabby, middle-class room could produce in him. But it wasn’t just the room, it was his father, Carmody knew. His feeling about the old man had started long before he had gone to work for Beaumonte, before he had learned that his job could be made to pay off like a rigged slot machine. It had begun with those arguments about right and wrong. To his father those words defined immutable categories of conduct, but to Carmody they were just words applied by men to suit their convenience. It was an emotional clash between a man of faith and a man of reason, in Carmody’s mind. His father was a big, gentle, good-natured person, who believed like a trusting baby in the fables of his childhood. Like Eddie, for that matter. But you couldn’t tell them different. It only hurt and angered them. Maybe that’s why I feel guilty, he thought. It’s the reaction to destroying anyone’s dream, even if you’re only showing up Santa Claus as the neighbor across the street with a pillow under his shirt and a dime-store beard on his chin.
Turning to the mantel, he picked up a dried-out baseball from a wooden saucer. He was remembering the game in which it had been used, as he tossed it up and down in his hand. The police department against the Phillies’ bench. A big charity blowout. Carmody had tripled home the winning run in the bottom of the tenth inning. This was the ball he hit off a pitcher who was good enough to win thirteen games in the majors that season. Eight years ago! He was working for Beaumonte then, taking the easy money casually and without much reflection; it seemed like just another tribute to his superior brains and strength. But he couldn’t fool his father about the source of the money. The old man saw the new convertible, the good clothes, the expensive vacations, and that was when the sharp, worried look had come into his eyes. The blowup came the night after the game in which Carmody had tripled home the winning run.
He had picked up a set of silverware by way of celebration, the kind they’d never been able to own, and when he walked in with it trouble had started. Carmody tossed the baseball up and down in his hand, frowning at his father’s piano. The old man had been singing something from the Mass the choir was doing the coming Sunday. It had got on Carmody’s nerves. He had said something about it as he unwrapped the silver, and that touched off their last row.
Somewhere in the middle of the argument the old man had picked up the crate of silverware, walked to the door and had thrown it out into the street.
“And you can follow it, laddy me boy,” he’d yelled in his big formidable voice. “No thief is going to sleep in my house.”
That had done it. Carmody walked out and didn’t see the old man until his funeral, a year later.
He heard Eddie on the basement stairs and quickly put the baseball back in the little wooden saucer. Eddie came in wearing a white T shirt and faded army suntan slacks. A lock of his hair was plastered damply against his forehead and his big forearms were streaked with sweat and dust. “Well, this is a surprise,” he said, smiling slowly.
“You’re up early.”
“I had some work to do in the basement. How about a beer or something?”
“Sounds good.”
“Sure, one won’t hurt us,” Eddie said. He went to the kitchen and returned in a few moments with two uncapped, frosted bottles of beer. Handing one to Carmody he tilted the other to his mouth and took a long swallow.
“That hits the spot,” he said, shaking his head. “You working out this way today?”
“No, I’m here to see you,” Carmody said, and watched the little frown that came on Eddie’s face. “I told Ackerman and Beaumonte that you’d be sensible. They want to see you tonight at ten o’clock.”
“You had no right to do that,” Eddie said.
“Would you rather I sat back and let them blow your brains out?”
“Let me worry about that.” Eddie looked badgered and harassed; a mixture of sadness and anger was nakedly apparent in his eyes. “I hate having you mixed up with those creeps,” he said, almost shouting at Carmody. “I always have. You know that. But I don’t want any part of them. Can you get that?”
“You should be grateful I work for them,” Carmody said, holding onto his temper. “Do you think you’d get this break if you were some ordinary beat-tramping clown?”
“Grateful you work for them?” Eddie said slowly. “That’s almost funny, Mike. Listen to me now. I always thought you were a great guy. Next to the old man, I suppose, you were the biggest thing in my life. I carried your bat home from games, I hung around Fourteenth Street when you were on traffic, watching you blow the whistle and wave your arms as if it was the most important thing anyone in the world could do.”
“All kid brothers are that way,” Carmody said.
“Then you had the blowup with the old man,” Eddie went on, ignoring him. “I didn’t understand it, he never talked about it, but it damn near tore me in two. Then I found out about it a little later when I was a rookie in the old Twenty-seventh. The cop whose locker was next to mine was talking about a guy who’d got into trouble for clipping a drunken driver for ten bucks. And he wound up by saying, ‘Your brother’s got the right idea, kid. Take it big, or don’t take it at all.’ ” Eddie turned away and pounded a fist into his palm. “They had to pull me off him. I damn near killed him. Then I did some checking and you know where that led. I had to apologize to that cop, I had to say, ‘You were dead right, my brother’s a thief.’ ”
“You take things too seriously,” Carmody said. “You sound like a recording of the old man.”
“Is that bad?”
“No, hell no,” Carmody said angrily. “It’s great if you want to live in a dump like this and go through life being grateful to the gas company for a fifty-dollar-a-week job.”
“That’s all you saw, eh?” Eddie said in a soft, puzzled voice. “And you’re supposed to be smart. The old man enjoyed his food, he slept a solid eight hours every night and when he died grown men and women cried for him. None of them had memories of him that weren’t pretty good, one way or the other. They still miss him in the neighborhood. Those things are part of the picture, too, Mike, along with this dump as you call it, and the fifty-dollar-a-week job. But you never saw any of that, I suppose.”
“Let’s get off the old man,” Carmody said shortly.
“You brought him up. You always do. You’re still fighting him, if you want my guess.”
“Well, I don’t want your guesses,” Carmody said. He knew he was making no progress, and this baffled and angered him. Why couldn’t he sell this deal? Eddie stood up to facts as if they were knives Carmody was throwing at his father. That was why they came to the boiling point so quickly in any argument; in anything important the old man came between them. He was the symbol of their opposed values and Eddie was always fighting to defend him, fighting to prove the worth of what his brother had rejected. Carmody understood that now and h
e wondered bitterly how he could save him against those odds.
“Just listen to me calmly for a second,” he said, drawing a deep breath. “Go along with Ackerman and Beaumonte. Tell them you won’t identify Delaney. At the trial you can cross them and put the finger on him. They won’t dare touch you then, the heat will be too big. Is there anything wrong with that?”
“You don’t think so, obviously,” Eddie said. He looked mad and disgusted. “You don’t care about double-crossing them, eh?”
“I’m thinking about you,” Carmody said, angered by Eddie’s contempt. “Maybe I don’t look very noble, but that’s how the world is run.” He had the disturbing thought that their roles had somehow become reversed; Eddie was calm and sure of himself, while he was getting more worried by the minute.
“Let’s drop it,” Eddie said flatly. “You couldn’t change my mind in a million years. Now I’ve got to wash up. I’m meeting Father Ahearn at St. Pat’s in fifteen minutes.”
“More vespers?” Carmody asked sarcastically. He couldn’t quite believe he had failed.
“No, it’s a personal matter,” Eddie said. He hesitated, then said in an even, impersonal voice: “I want to talk to him about Karen. She’s not a Catholic and I’m going to find out where I stand.”
“You’ll marry her?”
“If she says the word.”
“You’re dumber than I thought,” Carmody said, in a hard, clipped voice. He knew he had taken a step that could never be retraced but he was too angry to care. “Look that merchandise over carefully before you buy it, kid.”
Eddie stared at him, swallowing hard. Then he said, “Get out, Mike. While you’re in one piece.”
“Ask her about Danny Nimo,” Carmody said coldly. “See what happens when you do, kid.”
“She told me about Nimo,” Eddie said quietly.
“I’ll bet she made a sweet bedtime story out of it,” Carmody said. But he was jarred; he’d been certain she wouldn’t tell him about Nimo.
“She simply told me about it,” Eddie said. “That’s all. What you make of it depends on how you look at things. Everything in the world is twisted and dirty to you because you’re always looking in a mirror.”
“She’s playing you for a fool,” Carmody snapped. His anger had stripped away all his judgment; nothing mattered to him but blasting Eddie’s ignorant trusting dream. “Ask her about me, about the scene we played last night. Maybe that will wake you up.”
Eddie walked toward him slowly, his big fists swinging at his sides. There were tears in his eyes and his square face had twisted with anguish. “Get out, get out of here!” he cried in a trembling voice. He stopped two feet from Carmody and threw a sweeping roundhouse blow at his head.
He can’t even fight, Carmody thought despairingly, as he stepped back and let the punch sail past him. Pushing Eddie away from him, he saw that he was crying, terribly and silently. Goddamn, he thought, as a savage anger ran through him, why doesn’t he pick up a chair and bust me wide open? Doesn’t he even know that much?
Stepping in quickly, he snapped a right into his brother’s stomach, knowing he had to end this fast. Eddie went down, doubling up with pain and working hard for each mouthful of air. He stared up at Carmody in helpless agony. “Don’t go, let me fight you,” he whispered.
Carmody looked away from him and wet his lips. “I didn’t mean to hit you, kid,” he said. “I was lying about Karen. Remember that.”
“Don’t leave, let me get up,” Eddie said, working himself painfully to his knees.
Carmody couldn’t look at him; but he couldn’t look at anything else in the room either. The piano, the Madonna, his father’s chair, they were all as mercilessly accusing as his brother’s eyes. He strode out the front door and went quickly down the steps to his car. It was tom open now, he thought bitterly. Karen was his last chance. Eddie’s last chance. He pulled up at the first drug store he came to, went in and rang her apartment. When she answered he said, “This is Mike Carmody. I’ve got to see you. Can I come up?”
“I’ll meet you downstairs,” she said after a short pause.
“Okay, ten minutes,” he said. She didn’t want him in her apartment again; he knew that from the tone of her voice. “Don’t keep me waiting,” he said, and hung up.
She was standing at the curb when he got to her hotel, looking slim and cool in a chocolate-colored dress and brown-and-white spectator pumps. Her hair was brushed back cleanly and the sun touched it here and there with tiny lights. She had style, he thought irrelevantly, as she crossed in front of the car. It showed in her well-cared-for shoes and immaculate white gloves, in the way she held her head and shoulders. Phony or not, she looked like good people.
She slid in beside him, moving with the suggestion of tentativeness that was peculiar to her; that was the accident, he thought, glancing instinctively at her legs. What had Anelli said? A dozen breaks?
“We’ll drive around,” he said. “I just talked to Eddie and we wound up in a brawl.”
“How did that happen?”
“It was about you.” He headed for the river, frowning as he hunted for words. “You told him about Nimo, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I told him,” she said.
Carmody glanced angrily at her, then back to the road. “Why didn’t you tell me that last night?”
“Would you have believed me?”
“I guess not,” he said. What was he supposed to conclude from this? That she was playing it straight with Eddie? Or was she shrewd enough to know that he would be disarmed by a clean-breast approach?
When they reached the river he parked in a grassy, picnicking area. The water sparkled with sunlight and in the distance he could see the tall buildings of center-city, shrouded with mists of fog and smoke. It was a pleasant summer scene; a few boys were playing at the river bank and sparrows hopped along through the thick fragrant grass. Carmody twisted around in the seat and got out his cigarettes. “I made no impression on Eddie,” he said. “So now it’s your turn. But first I’ve got to tell you something. I told him about us.” He went on hurriedly as she turned sharply on him, a touch of angry color appearing in her pale face. “Now listen to me; I told him to ask you about the scene we played last night. He took a swing at me and I had to hit him. Then I told him I’d been lying about you and me. Whether he believed me or not I don’t know.”
“You told him about us, and then you hit him?” She shook her head incredulously. “In God’s name, why?”
“I had to,” he said stubbornly.
“You had to! Who made you? Who forced you to?” She stared at him, her eyes blazing.
Carmody looked through the windshield at the city in the distance. Then he sighed heavily. “I don’t know, it just happened,” he said. “But I’m trying to save his life. I struck out, so it’s up to you.”
“What kind of threats will you use now?” she asked him bitterly. “He knows about Danny Nimo, and you told him about us. You don’t have anything on me now. So what comes next? A session of arm-twisting? A gentle slapping around?”
“Unless you want him killed, you’ve got to help,” Carmody said. Her words had stung him but he felt no anger at her, only a heavy dissatisfaction with himself. “Tell him you need ten thousand for an operation and you may save his life.”
“Supposing it doesn’t work,” she said, watching him. “Then what will you do?”
“What can I do?”
“You’re a detective, aren’t you? Why don’t you arrest them?”
“That’s a pretty picture,” he said, smiling ironically. “A pretty picture right out of a fairy tale. Will you see Eddie tonight?”
“Yes, at eight.”
“Okay,” Carmody said, switching on the ignition. “He leaves for the station around eleven-thirty, I guess. So I’ll call you at twelve.”
“All right,” she said quietly.
“I’ll drop you home. I’ve got to get to work.”
“The nearest cab stand will
do,” she said. “Thanks, anyway.”
“Okay,” Carmody said, and rubbed his forehead tiredly. He wished this were over, with Eddie alive and Ackerman and Beaumonte satisfied with the way he’d handled it. He’d had no idea it would be so tough.
It was three o’clock when Carmody checked into Headquarters. He nodded to Dirksen and Abrams, who had come in early, and walked into Lieutenant Wilson’s office.
Wilson glanced at him briefly. “Sit down, Mike,” he said.
“Sorry I’m late,” Carmody said, taking a chair and loosening his tie.
“What kept you? The Fairmount Park murder?”
“No, a personal matter.” Carmody was becoming annoyed. Wilson was a short, powerfully built man with curly black hair and a set of belligerent, no-nonsense features. He seldom hounded Carmody because he knew there was no point in it. But now he was acting like a truant officer with a boy who’d been playing hooky.
“I said I wanted to see you this morning,” he said, pushing aside a report. “Didn’t that mean anything to you?”
“Frankly, not a hell of a lot,” Carmody said. “I was off duty and I had some personal matters to take care of.”
Wilson’s face hardened as he left his desk and closed the door of his office. “You didn’t see a paper this morning, I guess,” he said looking down at Carmody.
“No. What’s up?”
“Superintendent Shortall resigned. Because of his health.”
Carmody started to smile and then he saw that Wilson was serious. He whistled softly. “Well, well,” he said. There was nothing wrong with Shortall’s health; he was sound as a hickory nut. The significant thing was that Shortall had been Ackerman’s man. “Who’ll get his job?” he asked Wilson.
“Somebody honest, I hope.”
“You think that’s likely?”
“Listen to me, Mike,” Wilson said, sitting on the edge of his desk and studying Carmody with serious eyes. “I’ve known and liked you a long time. I don’t understand why. Maybe it’s because you were the best cop in the city for a half-a-dozen years. But, anyway, I’m giving you a tip; don’t be a smart guy too long. There comes a time when a city values a bit of dumb, old-fashioned honesty.”
Rogue Cop Page 6
