6
Carmody drove directly to his hotel, recklessly ignoring lights and traffic. It wasn’t quite six yet, but he knew that Ackerman would plan and act swiftly. The order might already be out, and that meant he had to find Eddie fast. But a dozen phone calls to his home, his district and his favorite bars, failed to turn up a lead.
Carmody rang Karen’s apartment and drummed his fingers on the table as the phone buzzed in his ear. Then the connection was made, and she said, “Hello?”
“Karen, this is Mike. Have you seen Eddie today?”
“No... What’s the matter?”
“If you see him, tell him to call me at my hotel. Will you do that? I couldn’t stall the big boys any longer. Tell him that, too.”
“Does that mean trouble?”
“Not for you, bright eyes. But it does for Eddie. If he calls you—”
The phone clicked dead. For a moment Carmody sat perfectly still and then he swept the receiver off the table. She was staying in the clear. There was trouble coming and Danny Nimo’s girl would take a warm bath, do her nails and keep nicely out of it. Well, what had he expected?
But underneath his anger there was a growing fear. He shouldn’t have tipped his hand to Ackerman; that spotted them a big advantage. Where in hell were his brains?
He needed help in finding his brother but he didn’t know where to turn. Anyone who knew this was Ackerman’s business would want no part of it. The men on his shift were his only bet, but it wouldn’t be easy to find them; his shift had started its three-day relief that morning and they might be out of town or visiting relatives. Some damn thing. Carmody tried Dirksen first, because he was the dumbest, but got no answer. Abrams’ daughter talked to him and said that her daddy had gone to the shore to do some fishing. Carmody thanked her and hung up. That left Myers. He put through the call.
Myers sounded as if he had been sleeping. “Hi, Mike. What’s up?” he said.
“I need some help. My brother’s in a little trouble and I’ve got to locate him. But I need a hand. How about it?”
“In a little trouble, eh?” Myers said cautiously.
“That’s right. Look, he lives on Sycamore in the Northeast. Number two-eighty. Would you stake yourself out there and grab him if he shows up? Tell him to call me right away at my hotel?”
Myers hesitated. “I was just going to take the girls to a movie. It’d be a shame to disappoint them.”
“Sure, I know,” Carmody said, rubbing his forehead. “But how about this? Make it tomorrow night and I’ll get all three of you tickets to the new musical. And dinner at the Park Club first. My treat.”
“A night on the town, eh? Sounds pretty fancy,” Myers said dryly.
“Well?”
“By the way, I got an envelope from Degget. Thanks.”
“Degget?”
“Yeah, the little character we had in that Wagner Hotel murder. He sent me fifty bucks. And a note. Did you read the note?”
“No,” Carmody said impatiently.
“Well, he said the smart detective told him I could use the fifty bucks.” Myers laughed shortly. “That’s you he meant. The smart detective.”
“What’re you getting at?”
“Yeah, you’re the smart detective,” Myers said, the words tumbling angrily from him. “And your brother’s in trouble with Ackerman’s bums and you want me to help you pull him out. Why don’t you go to the hoodlums? They’re your buddies, aren’t they?”
“Forget it,” Carmody said slowly. “I didn’t know you felt this way.”
“You wouldn’t know how I feel,” Myers said. “That would mean noticing me, asking me. But you’re too much a big shot for that. What the hell was that address?”
“I said forget it.”
“Give me that address. I’ll get it from the book if you don’t. I’m doing this for your brother. Because he’s a cop, a dumb honest slob like me. Not for you, Mike.”
“It’s two-eighty.” Carmody wet his lips. “Thanks, Myers.”
“Go to hell.”
The phone clicked. Carmody got to his feet, rubbing his forehead. What the devil had got into Myers? Had he been keeping this bottled up all these years? And what about the other men on his shift, and in the department? Did they feel the same way?
So what if they do, he thought, frowning and disturbed. It’s there to take. If they had the brains they’d take it, too.
There was nothing to do but wait. He tried all the bars, and Eddie’s home and district half-an-hour later but drew blanks. He left messages for Eddie everywhere to call him but that was all he could do.
The night deepened beyond his windows, moving slowly in wide black columns to the pink-gray streaks on the horizon. Lights came on in the tall buildings in the business district and the city spread out before him, a powerful exciting mass, cut through and through with white lines of traffic. Eddie was out there somewhere. Standing on a dark corner lighting a cigarette, swinging down a black alley on a short-cut to the district, stopping before a movie to look at the posters. And somewhere out there Ackerman’s killer might be starting slowly and carefully to work, asking questions, making calls, closing in on his brother’s trail. And all I can do is wait, Carmody thought.
When the phone rang the sound of it went through him like an electric shock. He crossed the room in three strides and jerked the receiver to his ear. “Yes? Hello?”
“Hello, slugger,” Beaumonte said with a laugh. “You pack quite a punch, or didn’t anyone ever tell you?”
Carmody was caught off balance by Beaumonte’s obvious good-humor. “Is that what you called to tell me?”
“No, this is business, Mike. I don’t like being knocked around but I’m going to forget it. There’s more at stake just now than a row between friends.”
“Tell me about it,” Carmody said.
“Ackerman and I had a talk after you left. He wants you to keep working on your brother. You said you could make him listen to reason. Does that still go?”
“Sure I can,” Carmody said. The tension dissolved in him and he let out his breath slowly. With time he could work something out. “I’ll need a few days,” he said.
“Two days is the limit. That’s Ackerman’s final word.”
“Okay, two days then,” Carmody said. He was trembling with relief; Eddie wouldn’t die tonight. “I can handle it in two days, I think.”
“Good. And if you want to pound somebody, well, pound some sense into your brother.”
“I’m sorry about tonight, Dan,” Carmody said slowly.
“Don’t worry about that. Let me know when you’ve made progress.”
“Okay, Dan.”
Carmody put the phone down and saw that his hands were trembling. Relief did that to you, just like fear. Eddie was safe for two days. Would it narrow down to hours? And then minutes?
Carmody turned on the record player and walked deliberately to the liquor cabinet. He took out a fresh bottle and put it on the table beside his chair. What had he told Nancy? That he didn’t drink because he didn’t want to be anyone else. Did that still hold? He sat down slowly, heavily, and let his big hands fall limply on either side of the chair. Not any more. I’d love to be someone else right now, he thought.
Carmody reached for the bottle the way a desperate man would turn on the gas...
He was awakened by a sound that seemed to be pounding at the inside of his head. Pushing himself to a sitting position, he stared blankly around the dark room. He checked his watch; the illuminated hands stood at one-forty-five. He had been out for hours. His coat lay beside him on the floor and his collar was open. There was a dull pain stretching across his forehead, and his stomach was cold and hollow.
The knocking sounded again, more insistently this time. Carmody snapped on a lamp, pushed the hair back from his forehead and went to the door.
Nancy stood in the corridor, swaying slightly; the night elevator man held her arms to keep her from falling. “She insisted I bring her
up, Mr. Carmody,” the man said. “I rang you but didn’t get no answer.”
“It’s alright,” Carmody said. “Come in, Nancy. What’s the matter?”
She swayed toward him and he caught her shoulders. “Take it easy,” he said.
“Beaumonte kicked me out,” she said, grinning brightly at him; the smile was all wrong, it was as meaningless as an idiot’s. “Got a drink for a cast-off basket case?”
“We can find one.” Carmody led her to the sofa, put a pillow behind her head and stretched out her legs. Turning on the lights, he made a drink and pulled a footstool over beside the couch.
“Take this,” he said. She looked ghastly in the overhead light; her face was like a crushed flower, lipstick smeared, make-up streaked with tears. “What happened?”
“He kicked me out, Mike. He gave me to some friends of his first. People he owed a favor to. Or maybe I’m flattering myself. Maybe they’re people he doesn’t like. They took me to a private house near Shoreline.” She shook her head quickly. “They were real gents, Mike. They gave me cab fare home.”
Carmody squeezed her hand tightly. “Take the drink,” he said.
“I don’t know why I came here. I shouldn’t have. I guess it was seeing you in the fight. You’re the only thing they’re afraid of.”
“Did you hear any talk about me after I left? From Ackerman, I mean? About me or my brother?”
She stared at him, her mouth opening, and then she shook her head from side to side. “Oh God, oh God,” she whispered. “You don’t know?”
“What?” Carmody said, as the shock that anticipates fear went through him coldly.
Clinging to his hands, she began to weep hysterically. “It’s all over town. I heard it from Fanzo’s men, and on the radio in the cab. Your brother was shot and killed a couple of hours ago.”
7
She was crying so hard that it took Carmody several minutes to get any details. When he learned where it had happened he stood up, his breathing loud and harsh in the silence. “You stay here,” he said in a soft, thick voice. He picked up his coat and left the room.
The shooting had occurred a block from Karen’s hotel. Carmody got there in twenty minutes by pushing his car at seventy through the quiet streets. The scene was one he knew by heart; squad cars with red beacon lights swinging in the darkness, groups of excited people on the sidewalks whispering to each other and women and children peering out from lighted windows on either side of the street. He parked and walked toward the place his brother had died, a cold frozen expression on his face. A cop in the police line recognized him and stepped quickly out of his way, giving him a small jerky salute.
Lieutenant Wilson was standing in a group of lab men and detectives from Klipperman’s shift. One of them saw Carmody coming and tapped his arm. Wilson turned, his tough, belligerent features shadowed by the flashing red lights. He said quietly, “We’ve been trying to get you for a couple of hours, Mike. I’m sorry about this, sorry as hell.”
Carmody stopped and nodded slowly. “Where’s Eddie?” he said.
“They’ve taken him away.”
“He’s dead then,” Carmody said. Nothing showed on his face. “I was hoping I’d got a bum tip. What happened?”
“He was shot twice in the back. Right here.”
Carmody stared at the sidewalk beyond the group of detectives and saw bloodstains shining blackly in the uncertain light. In the back, he thought.
“We’ll break this one fast, don’t worry,” Wilson said. “We’ve got a witness who saw the shooting. She was a friend of Eddie’s. Karen Stephanson. You know her?”
“She saw it, heh? Where is she now?”
“At Headquarters, looking at pictures.”
Carmody turned and walked away, his heels making a sharp, ringing sound. Wilson called after him but Carmody kept going, shouldering people aside as he headed for his car.
It took him twenty minutes to get back to center-city. He parked at Oak and Sixteenth, a few doors from the morgue, and walked into the rubber-tiled foyer. The elderly cop on duty got to his feet, a solemn, awkward expression on his face. “He’s down the hall. In B,” he said. “You know the way, I guess, Sarge.”
Carmody pushed through swinging doors and turned into the second room off the wide, brick-walled corridor. Three men were present, a pathologist from Memorial Hospital, a uniformed cop and an attendant in blue denim overalls. The square clean room was powerfully illuminated by overhead lights and water trickled in a trough around the edge of the concrete floor. The air smelled suspiciously clean, as if soap and brushes had been used with tireless efficiency to smother something else in the room.
Eddie lay on a metal table with a sheet covering the lower half of his body. The brilliant white light struck his bare chest and glinted sharply on the smears and streaks of blood. His shirt, which had been cut away from him, lay beside the table on the floor.
Carmody stared at his brother’s body for a few moments, his features cold and expressionless. A lock of hair was curled down on Eddie’s ivory-pale forehead and his face was white and empty and still. The choirboy who stole the show at St. Pat’s, Carmody thought. Who wanted to play it straight, get married and have kids. That was all over, as dead as any other dream. One of the men said something to him hesitantly and awkwardly. “Damn shame, sorry...” Carmody couldn’t speak; a pain was pressing against his throat like a knife blade. He nodded slowly, avoiding their eyes.
Someone came into the room behind him, and Carmody turned and saw old Father Ahearn standing in the doorway.
“I came as quickly as I could, Mike,” he said.
Carmody turned and looked down at his brother. “We were all too late,” he said, holding his voice even and cold. “Too late, Father.” He put out a big hand and pushed the lock of hair back from Eddie’s forehead. For another moment he stood there, staring at the pale quiet face, and then, moving deliberately and powerfully, he walked past the priest and out to the sidewalk. The night was cool and soft; a faint wind moved over the city and a diffused light was spreading thinly along the horizon.
The door behind him opened and Father Ahearn came to his side. “Why can’t you face me, Mike?” he cried softly. “Who did this thing to your brother?”
“I warned him,” Carmody said, swallowing hard against the pain in his throat. “I warned him, but he wouldn’t listen to me.”
“You warned him!” Father Ahearn took Carmody’s big hard arm and tried to pull him around; but the detective’s body was like a post set in stone. “What do you mean by that, Mike?”
“He wouldn’t listen to me,” Carmody said again. “They meant business but he wouldn’t believe it.”
“You knew this was going to happen?” the old priest said in a soft, horrified voice. “Is that what you are saying?”
“Sure, I knew it would happen...” Carmody said.
The old priest took a step backward, quickly and involuntarily, as if the face of evil had appeared before him without warning. “God have mercy on your soul,” he said, breathing the words softly.
“Save the mercy for the men who killed him, Father.” Without looking at the old priest, Carmody turned quickly and strode toward his car.
Half an hour later he pulled up before Karen’s hotel. The street was quiet now, the squad cars had gone back to their regular duty. Only a few groups of people remained on the sidewalk, smoking a last cigarette and exchanging their final words on the shooting. Everyone prefaced his recapitulation with an “I was just—” “Just getting into bed.” “Just locking up.” “Just opening the ice-box — when it happened.” For some reason, Carmody thought, listening to the eddies of talk in the silent street, they all felt these commonplace activities had assumed a shape and significance through their temporal relationship to tragedy. And maybe they did. I was just getting drunk, he remembered. Just passing out after accepting Beaumonte’s word that Eddie would be spared for two more days.
A middle-aged patrolman was post
ed in the small foyer of Karen’s hotel.
“Is the witness back yet?” Carmody asked him.
“Got in about fifteen minutes ago, Sarge.”
“You’ll be here all night?”
“That’s right. And there’s a man in back and one just outside her room. You going up?”
“Yes.” The cop unlocked the inner door and Carmody walked by him and took the elevator up to her floor. He nodded to the alert-looking young cop who was on guard there and then rapped on her door.
“You’d better start asking everybody for identification,” he said.
The young man flushed slightly. “I’ve seen your pictures in the paper lots of times, Sarge.”
“Okay. But be on your toes when anyone gets off that elevator. If the guy she spotted comes up here he won’t give you a chance. Remember that.”
“I’m ready for him,” the cop said, putting a hand on the butt of his revolver.
Carmody glanced at his youthful, clean-cut face, and swallowed hard against a sudden constriction in his throat. Another Eddie, confident and hard, willing to take on all the trouble in the city. How did they get guys like this for sixty bucks a week? Where did they find these brave dumb kids?
The door opened and Karen looked up at him. She had been crying but her face was now pale and composed. For a moment they stared at each other in silence. Then she said, “What do you want here?”
“The whole story, everything,” he said, moving into the room and closing the door. She sat down slowly and locked her hands together in her lap. “Eddie was killed, that’s what happened,” she said, struggling to control her voice. “Just the way you said it would.”
Rogue Cop Page 9
