“We’re both going to talk,” Carmody said.
“Sure, we both talk,” Fanzo said, chewing away vigorously. He was a tall lanky man in his early forties, with thin, cold features and glossy black hair. Fanzo’s conception of luxury was fundamental and primitive; women, flashy cars, quantity rather than quality in food and liquor. He was a shrewd and powerful factor in the racially mixed jungle that made up Central. Unlike Beaumonte, he had no pretensions about himself; he was a slum-bred hoodlum who lusted for power and cash. Respectability wasn’t his goal; he couldn’t buy it so he didn’t want it. He put no stock in anything that didn’t have a price tag on it. But in his district he held more power than Beaumonte did in West. The district made the difference. In Central, crime stalked the gutters and alleys like a bold cat. The city didn’t care about murders in this area. They weren’t news. And this indifference gave Fanzo a green light. He could enforce his orders by gun or knife, without fear of reprisal. Everyone in Central knew this and so they tried earnestly and fearfully to stay in line.
“What happened to Beaumonte’s girl last night?” Carmody said.
Fanzo smiled briefly as he loaded his knife with food. “She’s his girl, keed. You better ask him.”
“She was brought out here by Johnny Stark. What happened after that?”
Fanzo lowered his knife and looked up at Carmody, still smiling slightly. But his flat brown eyes were irritable. “Mike, I don’t like this hard talk,” he said. “You come in here like a cop, for Christ’s sake. Put that away, keed.”
“Start talking,” Carmody said. “I’m in a hurry.”
“You know, keed, you’re making me mad,” Fanzo said, looking at Carmody with a puzzled frown. “I like you, but you’re making me mad.” He gestured with both hands, a flush of anger staining his thin face. “What’s the deal, keed? You break up my breakfast, like you’re grilling some punk.” He stood up abruptly, throwing his napkin aside furiously. The short leash on his temper had snapped. “Goddamn you,” he said angrily. “Spoil a man’s morning food on him. You beat it, Mike. You beat it, you son of—”
Carmody hit him before the word was completed on his tongue. He struck him across the face with the flat of his hand and the impact of the blow knocked Fanzo sprawling over the table. Carmody picked him up from the floor and dropped him into a chair. “Now talk,” he said.
There was blood on Fanzo’s lips and a smear of egg yolk on the white silk scarf he wore about his neck. He was breathing rapidly, his eyes flaming in his white face. In a high, whinnying voice he began to curse Carmody, spitting out the words as if they were dirt he was trying to get off his tongue.
“That’s all,” Carmody said softly. “Don’t say anything else.”
Fanzo paused as a strange fear claimed him completely; looking up at Carmody, he knew that he would die if he said another word.
They were silent for a moment, motionless in the gaudy room. Then Carmody said, “Tell me about the girl. Fast.”
“Beaumonte sent her out with the fighter,” Fanzo said, watching the detective carefully. “Before that, he called me and told me she needed a lesson. I didn’t want to mix into this thing.” Fanzo spoke slowly, never taking his eyes from Carmody’s face. “Mixing with other guys’ broads is no good. He takes her back tomorrow, next week and then he’s mad at me for mixing in it. Mad at me because I know he’s afraid to take care of her himself. But I do what Beaumonte says. I give her to three, four of the boys and they take her to a place of ours near Shoreline. Nothing real bad happens to her. You know what the boys would do with a little pink-and-white dish like that, they’d just—”
“Never mind the details.” Carmody was having trouble controlling his voice. “What happened afterward?”
“They put her in a cab. She said she wanted to go to your hotel. She was kind of wild, still pretty drunk, too, I guess. She did some crazy talking.”
“What kind of crazy talking?”
“She said she was going to put Ackerman and Beaumonte in jail.” Fanzo smiled cautiously. “That kind of crazy talking.”
“Anything else?”
“That’s all the boys told me.”
“Where are the boys now?”
“I could get them here. But it would take a few hours.”
Carmody didn’t want to wait that long. Later, if this lever wasn’t strong enough, he could come back. Turning he started for the door, but Fanzo said, “Just a minute, Mike.”
Carmody looked around. Fanzo was on his feet, holding one hand against the angry red mark on his cheek. “You shouldn’t have hit me, Mike,” he said slowly. “We were friends, but you put an end to it. I’ll come after you some day. Sleep with that from now on, keed.”
Friends? Carmody thought. Yes, he had given Fanzo the right to call him friend. They advanced the same interests, took their crumbs from the same table. They were closer than most brothers. Closer than he had been with Eddie. Why had he let this happen? he wondered. Why had he tossed away the privilege of having Fanzo as an enemy?
Walking back across the room, Carmody slipped the revolver from his holster and hefted it in his big hand. “You won’t come after me, Fanzo,” he said. His voice was soft and the strange cold smile was on his lips. “Because if you do, I’ll feed you six inches of this barrel and then I’ll put a bullet through your head. So you aren’t coming after me, because you’re smart, Fanzo.”
Fanzo sat down slowly, his eyes dilating as he stared at the cold blue barrel of the revolver. Suddenly he felt cold and weak, as if he had just discovered that this grip on life was tentative and slippery. “No, I won’t come after you, keed,” he said, and wet his dry lips.
“That’s very smart,” Carmody said.
He left the room and went quickly down the stairs. A dozen heads turned as he stopped at the door of the smoky bar, a dozen pairs of eyes watched him alertly but cautiously. Everyone knew what had happened; the word had already come downstairs. A crooked cop had gone haywire and slugged Fanzo. But no one moved. The bartender discovered a spot on the bar that needed wiping, and someone whistled aimlessly into the silence. They all knew the legend of this particular cop and none of them was eager to add to its luster. For a moment Carmody let his cold eyes touch every face in the room, and then he walked through the bar and out to the sidewalk.
When the door swung shut a heavily built young man looked anxiously up toward Fanzo’s apartment. “We should have stopped him,” he said. “Fanzo won’t like it that we just let him walk out.”
The man beside him grinned. “Why didn’t you stop him, boy? You lived a pretty full life, I guess.”
9
Ackerman replaced the phone, checked his watch, and then walked slowly down the sunlit length of Beaumonte’s living room. There was an angry glint in his glassy black eyes, but his hard tanned face was expressionless. He glanced at a man who stood at the windows, and said, “Hymie, leave us alone for a few minutes. Go wash your hands or something.”
“Sure, boss,” Hymie Schmidt said. He was a slender, neatly dressed man with a pale narrow face and thinning brown hair. There was a nervous, charged quality about him, although his body was poised and deliberate in all its movements. The tension was in his dark eyes, which flicked nervously and restlessly from side to side as if constantly on the alert for trouble. “I’ll go wash my hands,” he said.
“And don’t call me boss,” Ackerman said shortly. “I’m Mr. Ackerman. Remember that.”
“Sure, Mr. Ackerman,” Hymie said. His dark eyes flicked angrily from side to side, but avoided Ackerman’s. He didn’t like this, but he kept his mouth shut. There was no percentage in being mad at Bill Ackerman.
“Come back if you hear the doorbell ring,” Ackerman said.
“Right, Mr. Ackerman.”
When he had gone Ackerman’s mouth tightened slowly into a flat ugly line. He looked down at Beaumonte, who was slumped on the sofa in a blue silk dressing gown, and said very quietly, “That was Fanzo on the wire. Carm
ody just left after slapping him around like a two-bit punk. He’s looking for Nancy.”
Beaumonte rubbed a hand wearily over his forehead. The lack of sleep showed in his face; his eyes were bloodshot and tired, and his flabby cheeks and jowls needed the attentions of his barber and masseur. “I’m sorry,” he said heavily. “I’m sorry, Bill.”
“That doesn’t do one damn bit of good,” Ackerman said coldly. “I thought you had more brains than to spout off to a dame. Can’t you impress them any other way?”
“I don’t ever remember telling her,” Beaumonte said, still rubbing his face wearily. “I must have been drunk.”
Ackerman swore in disgust. “We’ve got enough trouble in town without worrying about where she is and who she’s talking to,” he said.
“We’ll find her,” Beaumonte said. “We got a dozen guys on her trail.”
“And how about Carmody? Anybody watching him?”
Beaumonte nodded. “Sammy Ingersoll. But he hasn’t got on him yet. Right now he’s downstairs in the lobby. There’s a chance Mike will turn up here.”
“She’s our number one job,” Ackerman said. “I know she’s been to Carmody’s hotel. A cleaning woman remembered her. But the elevator men played dumb. Carmody’s trained them not to talk about his business. It’s an example you could damn well follow.”
A touch of color appeared in Beaumonte’s cheeks. He looked at Ackerman and said, “Let’s don’t get so mad that we forget business. You think Carmody believed you? About his brother, I mean.”
“I don’t know,” Ackerman said slowly. “He’s hard and he’s smart. I’ll never underestimate him again. That’s why I told him to look for Nancy. I figured he’d reason it this way: if Ackerman wants me to find her, he isn’t worried about her. So to hell with it.” Ackerman shrugged. “I thought he’d think it was just another job and ignore it. But he didn’t. He put aside looking for his brother’s killer to look for Nancy.”
“We’ll find her first,” Beaumonte said.
“We’d better. Remember that, Dan, we’d better.”
Beaumonte got slowly to his feet and smoothed the wrinkled front of his dressing gown. “Just one thing I want clear,” he said, meeting Ackerman’s eyes directly. “She’s not going to be hurt.”
Ackerman grinned contemptuously at him. “You threw her out, remember,” he said. “You gave her to Fanzo.”
“All right, I did it,” Beaumonte said, in a thick angry voice. “But I’m getting her back, understand? And in one piece.”
“All right,” Ackerman said easily. “That’s the last thing in the world I want to do, as a matter of fact; you and I are friends, Dan. When we find her I’ll send her on a vacation to Paris or Rio or Miami. Anywhere, as long as it is far away and she keeps her mouth shut.”
“We understand each other then,” Beaumonte said. “She’ll be sensible, I’ll guarantee that.”
Five minutes later the doorbell rang. Beaumonte started to answer it but Ackerman stopped him with a gesture. “Hold it,” he said quietly.
Hymie Schmidt appeared from the study, one hand in the pocket of his coat, his dark excited eyes switching from one side of the room to the other. Ackerman nodded toward the front door and Hymie moved to a position where he could cover anyone who entered. “All right now,” Ackerman said to Beaumonte. “Go ahead.”
Beaumonte walked across the room and opened the door. Mike Carmody stood in the corridor, his big hands at his sides, a faint cold smile twisting his lips.
“Hello, Dan,” he said gently.
Beaumonte took an involuntary step backward. “We were hoping you’d show up,” he said, breathing heavily.
“Sure,” Carmody said. He walked into the room, and nodded to Ackerman and Hymie Schmidt, whom he knew to be fast and dangerous with a gun.
“You can relax, Hymie,” he said, and smiled unpleasantly at him. “We’re all friends here.”
“I never relax,” Hymie said, returning his smile. “The doc says it’s bad for my nerves.”
Beaumonte moved to Carmody’s side, keeping carefully out of the line between the detective and Hymie Schmidt. “I’m sorry as hell about your brother, Mike,” he said. “Ackerman told you that it wasn’t our job, I know. But I want you to know I’m sorry.”
“Sure,” Carmody said, nodding. Nothing showed in his face. He had come here because it was essential to convince them that he was back on the team. Only by re-establishing that relationship could he set himself free to rip them apart from the inside. But it would take a hard, careful control to play this out, he realized. More than he had maybe. A dozen hours ago he had stood here fighting for Eddie’s life. He had sworn that his brother wouldn’t die and Eddie was now laid out in some undertaker’s back room. But nothing else had changed; Beaumonte and Ackerman were still healthy and alive, making plans to perpetuate and enjoy their power and rackets. Only the poor grown-up choirboy was gone from the scene.
This went through Carmody’s mind as he stared into Beaumonte’s anxious eyes. “Well, it’s all over,” he said. “Talking won’t bring the kid back.”
“I told you we’ll find the killer,” Ackerman said. “When we do he’s all yours. That’s settled.” He lit a cigarette and glanced through the smoke at Carmody. “Now, we’ll get on to something that isn’t settled. I had a call from Fanzo. He tells me you beat hell out of him. What’s the story there?”
Carmody smiled slightly. “He called me a name I didn’t like. Also, he wasn’t being helpful. I traced Nancy to his place, and asked him about her. He got lippy so I had to calm him down.”
Beaumonte put a hand on his arm. “What did you find out about her, Mike?”
Carmody turned to him and shrugged. “Nothing at all,” he said. He was slightly surprised at the pain in Beaumonte’s face. He must have loved her, he thought. The imitation lady, the little bottle girl, Beaumonte’s true love. It was almost comical.
“Fanzo had no lead on her?” Beaumonte asked him anxiously.
“He was no help.”
“She shouldn’t have run off, damn it,” Beaumonte said, rubbing his forehead.
“She was at your hotel, Mike,” Ackerman said. His eyes were on Beaumonte, warning him to keep quiet.
“Was she?” Carmody said, turning to Ackerman. “I’m sorry I missed her.”
Ackerman studied him for a few seconds. “One of the cleaning women saw her. But the elevator boys didn’t know anything. Probably she just went through the lobby.”
“That’s odd,” Carmody said, making a mental note to take good care of the elevator boys. Then he shrugged. “What’s all the fuss about? She’s raddled from too much booze, and scared to death after the job Fanzo’s boys did on her. She’ll turn up when she’s had a night’s sleep. Can’t you wait a day or so until she comes to her senses?”
“No, we can’t,” Ackerman said. “Beaumonte wants her back right away because he thinks she’s a cute kid. I want her back for another reason. She walked out of here with a bundle of bills, Mike, sixty-two thousand bucks to be exact. I want it back, and fast.”
“Now that makes sense,” Carmody said. He tried to keep the excitement from showing in his face. When they started lying they were scared. “How’d she get her hands on that kind of money?”
“Dan left the numbers pay-off for Northeast laying around,” Ackerman said, shaking his head disgustedly. “So we’ve got to find her.”
“Sure,” Carmody said. “I’ll let you know if I hear anything. By the way, Myerdahl’s set to clamp down hard. I guess you know that.”
“Let me worry about it, Mike,” Ackerman said. “This is the seasonal slump in our racket. There’ll be raids, arrests, public displays by all the reform groups. Our boys will have it rough for a while. But these things blow over.”
“I wouldn’t mind a fight,” Beaumonte said. “We’ve made some of the biggest men in this town. If they try to unload us I’d like the chance to ruin the bastards.”
“There isn’t going to be
any fight,” Ackerman told him coldly. “I’m not tossing this city up for grabs. Remember that.”
Carmody couldn’t help marveling at their cool arrogance. The city was their private hunting ground, created and maintained for their express pleasure. They fed on it. Like protected vultures. How did they do it? he wondered. Just how in God’s name did they do it? He remembered a phrase of his father’s; in weakness there is strength. The old man had used it to spur them on in school. If you were weak at something, but worked like the devil on it, you would become strong through the weakness. Ackerman used a variation of the principle; the city’s weakness was his strength. The average citizen’s indifference, cynicism and willingness to compromise, was the weakness that Ackerman used as the foundation of his power.
“You’ll keep in touch?” Ackerman asked him as he picked up his hat. “Remember, nothing’s changed.”
“Sure, nothing’s changed,” Carmody said. Just Eddie, he thought, forcing a small smile to his lips. Yesterday he’d been alive, today he was dead. That was the only change. “I’ll keep in touch,” he said to Ackerman. “Don’t worry.”
Downstairs in the lobby Carmody put through a call to Lieutenant Wilson. “I’m just checking,” he said, when Wilson answered. “Any progress yet?”
“No. We’ve got seventy men in the street and they haven’t turned up a lead. But I’m glad you called. A guy has phoned here three times wanting to talk to you. He says he’s got some information you can use. He wouldn’t tell me anything else, except that he was phoning from a drug store and not to bother tracing the call. I gave him your hotel number, and the number of your brother’s home. He said he’d try both places till he got you.”
Rogue Cop Page 12
