Carmody lit a cigarette and flipped the match at the ashtray on Wilson’s desk. “What’s on your mind, Jim?”
“Just this; I’m tired of the fix, I’m tired of guys like you and Shortall. And if they put an honest man on top of this department I’m going to turn in an unfitness report on you.”
“Why the advance warning?” Carmody said, smiling slightly.
Wilson’s face was troubled. “I told you, damn it. I like you, Mike. And here’s the rest of my deal. If you start right now being a full-time cop again, I’ll forget that report.”
Carmody was silent a moment, staring at the curl of smoke from his cigarette. It would be a relief, he thought, to have nothing on his mind but being a full-time cop. He knew that this edgy feeling had grown from his concern over Eddie, but that didn’t help him to shake it; how could he relax while his brother was stubbornly asking for a ticket to the morgue?
“Think it over,” Wilson said, watching Carmody’s troubled face closely. “And remember this; the city’s changing. Big defense plants have come into this town in the last few years, and the men running them pay a houseful of taxes. And they want value from them. Parks, schools, things like that. They don’t want bookies and brothels and bars clipping their workers every week. Neither do the unions. And when you get the unions working with the men who run the companies you got a clout that can stand right up to Ackerman and Beaumonte. Look at Shortall. They made the Mayor can him. And they’ve got others on their list. You’re a tough guy, but don’t get in their way, Mike.”
Carmody had heard rumors of this before, but he hadn’t been too concerned. He still wasn’t, as a matter of fact. He had too abiding a faith in man’s lack of goodness to believe in reform and regeneration. These things were cynical, expedient measures that people forgot all about when the baseball race got tight or the job of being good citizens became a bore.
“Just think it over,” Wilson said. “But don’t take too long about it.”
“Okay, Jim, thanks.”
Carmody went out to his desk and checked the day’s work with Sergeant Klipperman who was going off duty. Everything was quiet; two manslaughters were pending and he sent Abrams and Dirksen out to wrap them up. Myers came in fifteen minutes late, walking fast and trying to look as if he’d been delayed by something important. Carmody glanced at the big clock beside the police speaker but said nothing. He settled in his chair and studied the reports on cases being handled by his shift.
Myers drifted over in his shirt sleeves and made some comment on the weather. Then he said, “That was pretty sharp guesswork on those whiskey bottles last night.” He smiled cautiously, trying to analyze the brooding expression on Carmody’s hard handsome face. “Dirk and I would have caught it, but you beat us to it, I got to admit that.”
Yes, you’ve got to admit it, Carmody thought wearily. A frank generous admission that you’re a dope makes everything just dandy. He started to say something sarcastic but changed his mind. Why jump on Myers? Why jump on anybody? “I came after you’d handled the routine,” he said. “I had a better chance to look around.”
“That’s right, with the routine out of the way you can look around,” Myers said, nodding. He sauntered away, looking relieved.
Carmody worked listlessly, almost hoping for a flurry of something to take his mind off Eddie. Finally, he left his desk and walked across the street to the drug store. He had to call Beaumonte and tell him Eddie couldn’t keep the appointment with Ackerman. Putting it off any longer would only make matters worse.
Nancy Drake answered the phone and it took him a moment to get through her to Beaumonte. She was in a giggling, half-tight mood and insisted on telling him of some hilarious impropriety her dog had committed. Carmody listened impatiently, feeling the heat of the booth settling around him and aware that his temper was dangerously short.
“Great, hilarious,” he said. “Funniest thing I’ve heard in the last two minutes. Now put Beaumonte on.”
“We are in a most pleasant mood, I must say,” she said with drunken dignity. Then she let out a little scream and giggled again. “Dan just whacked me on the tail. Would you do that to a girl, Mike? Come on, tell me.”
Carmody swore softly and rubbed the back of his hand over his damp forehead. Then Beaumonte’s soft rich voice was in his ear. “Mike, she had six brandy punches before breakfast, if you can believe it.” He didn’t sound angry, just tolerantly amused. “When she pickles herself for good I think I’ll put her in a bottle over the mantel. Like a four-masted schooner, only she’s missing a couple of masts.”
Beaumonte had been drinking, too, Carmody guessed. “What’s the deal on Shortall’s resignation?”
“Where you phoning from?” Beaumonte said, after a short pause. “A drug store.”
“Oh. There’s nothing to worry about, Mike. Ackerman will put a man in tomorrow probably. Is everything set for tonight, by the way? With your brother, I mean?”
“That’s why I called,” Carmody said. “He can’t make it.”
Beaumonte paused, and Carmody heard his long intake of breath. “This isn’t good,” Beaumonte said quietly.
“The kid had a date and wouldn’t break it,” Carmody said. “Should I put a gun in his back and march him up to your place?”
“Maybe that wouldn’t have been a bad idea,” Beaumonte said. “When can he make it?”
“Tomorrow night.”
“Okay, I’ll tell Ackerman. But he don’t like being stood up.”
“Don’t worry, he’ll be there tomorrow.”
“I’m not worrying,” Beaumonte said. “That’s your job. Remember that, Mike.”
When Carmody returned to the City Hall he saw Degget, the little man who’d been mixed up in the Wagner Hotel homicide, standing at the house sergeant’s window, collecting his personal effects. Degget recognized him and smiled awkwardly. “Sarge, I know what you did for me,” he said. “They had me down as a murderer until you came in.”
“Well, it’s all over now,” Carmody said.
“No, it won’t ever be over for me,” Degget said, his small mouth twisting with embarrassment and pain. “You know how a small town is. They’ll hold this over me and my family till we’re in our graves. And I don’t even know if my family will want me around any more. It was in the papers, you see. I wired my wife but she hasn’t answered yet.”
“These things blow over,” Carmody said. He squeezed Degget’s thin shoulder with his hand. “It won’t last.” Why should I give a good damn, he thought, watching Degget’s worried hopeless eyes.
“Well, it’s my goose that got cooked,” Degget said. “And I asked for it.” Then he said quickly, “Look, I want to show my appreciation for what you’ve done.” He reached for his wallet but Carmody caught his arm. “Never mind,” he said. “I don’t want—” He paused, remembering Myers’ invalid wife and young daughters. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “If you want to buy someone a drink, buy one for Detective Myers. Leave something in an envelope with the house sergeant. He’ll see that he gets it. And Myers can use it.”
“I’ll do that, I sure will,” Degget said.
Carmody started for the stairs but stopped and looked back at Degget’s doleful little figure. He winked at him and said, “Cheer up. The boys at home will think you’re a hero.”
“Well, they’ll want all the details anyway,” Degget said, smiling sheepishly.
The afternoon and evening wore on slowly. It was one of those nights when the city seemed to be inhabited by saints. But the inactivity irritated him because it gave him too much time to think. When his shift was finally over he was in a touchy, explosive mood. At his hotel he called the Fanfair and asked for Karen.
When she answered he said, “This is Mike. Did you talk to Eddie?”
“Yes — he’s just gone.” Against the background noise of the bar her voice was high and light.
“What happened?”
“I couldn’t do it,” she said. “I couldn’t
tell him I needed ten thousand dollars for an operation.”
Carmody stared at the phone in his hand, his face hardening into cold bitter lines. “This is pretty,” he said. “Did lying to him go against your principles?”
“No one has the right to put that kind of pressure on him. To force him to make that kind of decision.”
“You sweet little fake,” he said savagely. “You didn’t have the right, eh? Well, do you have the right to let him get killed?”
“I begged him to take care of himself,” she said, and he heard her voice break suddenly. “He said there was nothing to worry about. He said—”
“You missed your chance, baby.”
“Then don’t miss yours,” she cried at him.
“What do you mean? Listen—”
The phone clicked in his ear. Carmody stared at the receiver a moment, then slammed it down in the cradle. She was checking out. The act was over; Danny Nimo’s girl knew when it was time to switch roles. But with his anger there was a cynical respect for her; she was looking after Number One, and that was playing it smart.
Carmody crossed the room to the windows and stared out at the scene spreading below him; the river was shining palely and the high buildings loomed massively against the sky, their lighted windows forming irregular designs in the darkness. Eddie is my job, he thought, I was a fool to think anyone else cared a damn whether he lived or died.
5
Carmody slept uneasily that night and was up early in the morning. One thing had occurred to him by then: Why were Ackerman and Beaumonte worried about Delaney? This was something he should have checked immediately, and he realized that his emotional concern over Eddie was ruining his cop-wise judgment. What had Beaumonte said? That if Delaney talked it would cause trouble. But for whom? Ackerman or Beaumonte?
Carmody sat down at the phone, a cigarette between his lips, and began a cautious check on Delaney. He talked with two Magistrates, a Judge and half-a-dozen bookies, trying to learn something from casual gossip. The word was around, he soon realized; they knew Delaney was threatening to sing and that the big boys were worried. But no one cared to speculate on the nature of Delaney’s information. Carmody gave it up after a while, but he wasn’t discouraged. The clue might be in Delaney’s past; Delaney had been a muscle boy in the organization when Ackerman and Beaumonte were on-the-make hoodlums instead of semirespectable public figures. That would be the angle to check.
Delaney’s evidence must be something tangible and conclusive; otherwise, his threats to sing wouldn’t bother Beaumonte and Ackerman. The job was to find that evidence and destroy it; that would pull Delaney’s stinger, take the pressure off the big boys and leave Eddie in the clear. It wasn’t a simple job and it had to be done quickly, but Carmody wasn’t worried; he knew how to handle this kind of work. The city couldn’t keep any secrets from him; he had studied it too long for that. A map of the city blazed in his mind; he knew the look of a thousand intersections and could reel off the houses and shops on each corner as easily as he could the alphabet. He knew politicians from the Mayor down to precinct drifters, and he understood the intricate balancings and give-and-take of the city’s administration. The brothels and bars, the clubs and cliques, the little blondes and brunettes tucked away in handsome apartments in center-city, guys on the make, on the skids, on the way up — Carmody had them all indexed and cross-indexed in his formidable memory.
No, finding Delaney’s source of pressure wouldn’t be impossible, he thought.
Carmody went into the bathroom to shower and when he came out the phone was ringing. He picked it up and said, “Yes?”
“This is Beaumonte, Mike. Can you get over here around four? Ackerman wants to see you.”
“Four? Sure, that’s okay,” Carmody said easily. He stood with his feet wide apart, a towel around his middle feeling the drops of water drying on his big hard shoulders. “What’s on his mind?” he asked. “My brother?” It was a stupid, dangerous question, but he had to know.
“Some friend of his wants to open a handbook in West,” Beaumonte said. “Ackerman wants you to take good care of him.”
“Sure, sure,” Carmody said, releasing his breath slowly. “Four o’clock then.”
“Right, Mike.”
Carmody went out to lunch and got back to his hotel at three o’clock. He washed his hands and face, changed into a dark-gray flannel suit and was on his way to the door when the phone stopped him. A high-pitched irritable voice blasted into his ear when he raised the receiver. “Mike Carmody? Is that you, boy?”
“That’s right. Who’s this?”
“Father Ahearn. I want to see you.”
“I’m just on my way out, Father,” he said.
“I’m down in the lobby. This won’t take long.”
Carmody checked his watch and frowned. “Okay, I’ll be down. But I’m in a hurry.”
“I’ll be waiting at the elevator so don’t try sneaking past me.”
Carmody hung up, finding a grim humor in the situation. The old priest acted as if he were talking to one of his altar boys.
When the elevator doors opened Carmody saw that the last eight years had been hard on the old priest. At his father’s funeral, which was the last time Carmody had seen him, Father Ahearn had been lively and vigorous, a tall man with gray hair and alert flashing eyes. But now he was slightly stooped and the tremors of age were noticeable in his heavily-knuckled hands. His hair had turned almost white but his eyes hadn’t changed at all; they still flashed fiercely above the bold strong nose. He looked incongruous in the smart glitter of the lobby, a tired, bent old man in a black suit which had turned a grayish-green with age.
Carmody shook hands with him and suggested they take a seat at the side of the lobby.
“You want to go off and hide, eh?” Father Ahearn said.
You never manage him, Carmody remembered. “What’s on your mind?” he said, edging him tactfully out of the traffic flowing toward the elevators.
“What’s the trouble with you and Eddie?”
“That’s a personal matter, Father.”
“None of my business, eh? Well, when one brother strikes another in my parish I make it my business.”
“Eddie told you I hit him?”
“Yes. I could see he’d been hurt. But that’s all he would tell me.” The old priest tilted his head and studied Carmody with his fierce eyes. “What was it? The girl?”
“I suppose you could say that.”
“And what makes it any of your business?”
“I’m his brother.”
“Ah,” the old priest said softly. “His brother, is it? His keeper, you are. Isn’t that a new role for you, Mike?”
Carmody felt embarrassed and irritated. “Look, there’s no point talking about it,” he said. “What’s between me and Eddie doesn’t concern you or the church.”
“Now you listen to me, boy. I don’t—”
But Carmody cut him off. “It’s no use, I’ve got to be going, Father.” He didn’t like doing this to the old man and he hated the hurt look his words brought into his eyes; Father Ahearn had been a family friend for years, and had done them a thousand favors. He had got him summer jobs, had sent him to college on an athletic scholarship and had seen that Eddie stuck out his last year of school after the old man died. But that was long, long ago, in time and in values; it belonged to another world.
“All right, I’ll not keep you,” Father Ahearn said.
“I’ll get you a cab.”
“Never mind, you go on about your important affairs. But don’t interfere with Eddie and his girl.”
“You’ve met her, I guess?”
“What have you got against her?”
She’s fooled him, Carmody thought. Probably had a cup of tea with him and smiled at his Irish stories. “There’s no point going into it,” he said.
“Very well. Good-by, Mike.” The old man walked away, threading through the group of expensively dressed men and women. C
armody watched him until he disappeared, and there was a small, unhappy frown on his hard face...
He got to Beaumonte’s at ten of four and found Nancy alone in the long elegant drawing-room. She wore a black dress with a full flaring skirt and junk bracelets on her wrists.
“Where’s everybody?” Carmody asked her.
“Everybody? Don’t I count?”
“I mean Ackerman and Beaumonte.”
“Are they everybody?” she asked, smiling at him, her eyes wide and thoughtful.
“No, you count, too,” he said.
“Sometimes it seems like they’re everybody,” she said, sighing sadly. There was a comic quality to her gravity; with her swept-up blonde hair, jingling bracelets, she was hard to take seriously.
“Don’t get deep now,” he said.
“You’re like them, in a way.”
“That’s a compliment, I hope.”
“You wouldn’t care whether it was or not.” A frown gathered on her smooth childishly round forehead. “That’s what frightens me about all of you. You just don’t care. Not like other people do. Everything in the world is just to use. A girl, a car, a drink, they’re all the same.”
“What got you into this mood?” he asked her.
“Too many drinks, I guess. That’s Dan’s analysis for all my problems.” She put an expression of mock sternness on her face and pointed a finger accusingly at Carmody. “ ‘You’re a lush, you lush.’ ” Relaxing and sighing, she said, “That’s his daily sermon. It’s supposed to fix everything up dandy.”
Carmody was touched by the unhappiness in her face. “You shouldn’t worry so much,” he said. He wondered why she stuck with Beaumonte. The same reason I do, he thought. The money, the excitement of being on intimate terms with power and privilege. Weren’t those good reasons?
“The trouble is I don’t feel like a girl any more,” she said, making a studied pirouette on one small foot.
Rogue Cop Page 7
