Rogue Cop

1

They had been playing poker for several hours now, not with any particular enthusiasm but simply to kill this quiet stretch of Saturday evening. Later, as the night wore on, the city’s tempo would rise to a harder, sharper beat; then murders, knifings and shootings would bring the game to an end. But now the police speaker was silent and the detectives played cards on a cigarette-scarred table in a smoky, unventilated office. Outside, in the large, brightly lighted file room, a clerk was typing up reports, working with severe concentration, stopping only to sip cold black coffee from a cardboard container at his elbow. The glazed-glass door that led to Lieutenant Wilson’s office was dark; the lieutenant was out in the districts now, but would be back at Headquarters by ten or eleven. There would be work then for him and his men.

Standing at the brown wooden counter that ran the length of the room was a reporter named Murphy, a bulky, untidily dressed man with a round florid face and thoughtful gray eyes. He was applying himself to the evening paper’s crossword puzzle, frowning intently, apparently immune to everything but this immediate preoccupation.

At the card table Sergeant Mike Carmody was dealing now, his big clean hands spraying the cards about with expert speed. He was an arrestingly handsome man in his middle thirties, with a silvering of gray in his thick blond hair. Everything about him looked hard and expensive; his gray flannel suit had cost two hundred dollars and was superbly fitted to his tall, wide-shouldered frame; the planes of his lean tanned face were flat and sharply defined, and his eyes were the cold gray color of winter seas. Even when he smiled there was no softness in it; his smile was a small, direct challenge, a projection of his sure confidence in his own strength and brains.

“Okay, make up your mind,” he said to the man on his right. “The spots won’t change, Myers.”

Myers, a small man with thinning brown hair and a cautious mouth, studied his cards and shook his head slowly. “It’s by me, Mike,” he said.

The other two players — Abrams, a solemn grandfather and Dirksen, a bean-pole with a thin freckled face — both passed.

Carmody held two queens. He flipped in a half-a-dollar and said, “It’s off then.” He was bored with the game and made no attempt to conceal it.

Myers and Abrams called the half-dollar bet, but Dirksen threw his cards in. “I haven’t seen anything higher than a ten for the last hour,” he said, yawning. Then he glanced at Mike Carmody and said conversationally, “Say, Mike, that was a nice pinch your kid brother made the other day. How about that, eh?”

There was a sudden small silence around the table.

Carmody studied his cards, ignoring it. “He didn’t make the pinch,” he said, glancing at Abrams. “How many, Abe?”

“Sure, but he made the identification,” Dirksen said. “He caught Delaney with the gun in his hand, but Delaney got away.” Dirksen’s voice was patient and explicit, as if this were a difficult matter to explain. “Then Delaney got picked up later and your brother made the identification. That’s what I meant by saying—”

“I read the story in the paper,” Carmody said, catching Dirksen directly with his hard cold eyes. He smiled then, the bright quick smile in which there was no warmth or humor. “But we’re playing cards now, remember?”

“Well, I’m not stopping you,” Dirksen said, shrugging and looking away from Carmody’s eyes.

“That’s fine,” Carmody said, still smiling. He wondered fleetingly if Dirksen had been needling him; Dirksen was dumb enough to try it, after all.

Myers took one card, Abrams three. Carmody drew three to his pair of queens and without looking at them pushed in a dollar. He wasn’t interested in Myers’ one-card draw. If Myers caught a flush or straight he’d raise, but the amount involved wasn’t enough to buy a decent steak. Myers caught. Carmody guessed that from the way his eyes flicked from his cards to his little heap of money.

“I’ll bump it five,” Myers said.

“You can’t,” Abrams said. “The limit is two.”

“Who said anything about a limit?” Myers demanded.

“Well, it’s always been a limit,” Abrams said, shrugging his big shoulders. “But it don’t make any difference to me. I’m out.”

“We didn’t establish a limit tonight,” Myers said, wetting his lips and glancing at Carmody.

“Make it five if you want,” Carmody said, only slightly irritated. Myers had hooked and now he wanted to get rich on one hand. Let him, he thought. Glancing at his cards he found that he had drawn another queen to go with his openers, and a pair of tens. He grinned at the fantastic luck and tossed in ten dollars. “Once again, my friend,” he said.

“You’re bluffing,” Myers said. He stared into Carmody’s hard quick smile, trying to keep a weary premonition of defeat from showing in his face.

“Raise then,” Carmody said.

“I’ll just call,” Myers said, pushing in his last five dollars. He had to use silver to make up the amount, and then he put down a king-high straight and looked hopefully at Carmody.

Carmody stared at his cinch hand. He knew all about Myers, as he knew about all the detectives on his shift. The damn fool had two young daughters, and a wife in a sanitarium, but here he was throwing away fifteen dollars in one hand of poker.

Carmody hesitated, annoyed with himself, and Myers watched him with mounting confidence.

“Come on,” Myers said. “What’ve you got?”

“It’s your money,” Carmody said shortly, and tossed his cards in, face down. The gesture would be wasted, he thought, as he leaned back and lit a cigarette. Myers, pulling in his money triumphantly now, was like most cops, brave, honest and dumb. Carmody felt no sympathy for him. only a blend of exasperation and anger. He’d never have a cent more than his salary and not even that unless he learned to stop drawing to inside straights. That’s what bothered him, Carmody thought, his face expressionless. Myers was a fool and he didn’t like fools.

“Caught you bluffing, didn’t I?” Myers said, arranging his money happily. “Thought you could run me out with a five-dollar bet, eh? Well, my luck’s changing. I’m starting back now, remember that.”

“You’d better start by remembering the limit,” Carmody said, his irritation sharpened by Myers’ yapping. “You won’t get rich by changing the rules in the middle of a deal.”

“Is that how you got rich?” Myers said, stung by Carmody’s tone. “By following the rules?”

There was tense silence then, as if everyone at the table had suddenly held his breath. Myers had skated onto thin ice; he was on an area that had mile-high danger signs posted on it. The unnatural silence lasted until Carmody said very quietly, “Let’s play cards, Myers. It’s your deal, I think.”

“Sure, that’s right,” Myers said, and began quickly to shuffle the cards. There was a white line showing around his small cautious mouth.

Murphy, the reporter, drifted and leaned against the doorway, hat pushed back on his head, a little smile on his big florid face. “I should have been a cop,” he said sighing. “Nothing to worry about but filling straights.”

No one answered him.

“Say, when’s Delaney’s trial?” he asked of no one in particular.

Dirksen looked up at him, his freckled face blank and innocent. “Next month sometime, I guess. That right, Mike?”

Carmody nodded slowly, studying his cards. “That’s right. The thirteenth.”

“The unlucky thirteenth for Delaney,” Murphy said, watching Carmody’s sharp handsome profile. “That should be a big day for your brother, Mike. Any cop would be happy to finger a hoodlum like Delaney.”

“I’d be glad of the chance,” Myers said, risking a quick glance at Carmody.

They were needling him cautiously, a dangerous pastime, cautiously or any other way. He knew they were watching him over their cards, ready to drop their eyes swiftly if he raised his head.

Without looking up he said quietly, “Murph, we just got through talking about my brother’s case. We kind of exhausted the subject, too. So why don’t you run off and find a good exciting accident to cover? Let us play our little game in peace.”

Murphy smiled and raised his hat to Carmody. “I depart, O Sergeant,” he said, his thoughtful eyes contradicting the smile on his lips. “The city calls me. Full of heartbreak and tragedy, but laced with dark laughter withall, it beckons and whispers that its secrets are mine.”

Carmody smiled slightly. “Why don’t you try that to music?”

“Good idea. Music is getting popular in town,” Murphy said in a changed voice. “Singing particularly. Maybe even Delaney will take it up. Well, adios, chums.”

He strolled out and Dirksen shook his head. “Odd ball,” he murmured.

Carmody swallowed a dryness in his throat and said, “Okay, let’s play cards.”

Ten minutes later the phone in the file room rang. The clerk answered it, listened for a few seconds, then said, “Yes, sir. Right away.” Covering the receiver with the palm of his hand, he called out, “Sarge, a call for you.”

“Who is it?” Carmody said.

“Dan Beaumonte.”

There was another little silence at the card table. Carmody stared at his cards for a few seconds, then tossed them in. “Deal me out,” he said, and walked into the file room, moving with an easy controlled grace that was somehow menacing in a man of his size.

Abrams began to whistle softly through his teeth. The three detectives avoided one another’s eyes, but their ears were turned to the open door of the file room.

Carmody lifted the phone and said, “Hello, Dan. How’re things?”

“It was a bad day,” Beaumonte said. His voice was deep and rich, stirred gently by an undercurrent of humor. “I had three tips at Jamaica but they all ran out. Do you know of any glue factory that’s looking for three good specimens?”

“It’s a good thing to get a day like that behind you,” Carmody said. He knew what Beaumonte wanted and he wished he’d get to it; but you didn’t hurry Beaumonte.

Then it came. “I want to see you tonight, Mike. You’re working four-to-twelve?”

“That’s right.”

“Twelve is too late. How about making it now? I’m at my apartment.”

Carmody knew the clerk and the detectives at the card table were listening. “Well, I’ll see you around,” he said.

“Right away, Mike. He’s your brother.”

“Sure.”

He put the phone down and walked back to the smoke-filled card room. Dirksen began talking loudly. “The thing is, you can’t figure the odds in Hi-Lo poker. You never know, for instance, whether—”

“I’m going out,” Carmody said to Abrams. “Take over till I get back.”

“Okay, Sarge.”

“Tell the lieutenant when he comes in that I’ll be about an hour.”

Dirksen smiled as Carmody buttoned his shirt collar and pulled up his tie. “I wish I got calls from big men like Beaumonte,” he said. “That’d make me feel like a real operator.”

Carmody guessed that Dirksen was trying to be funny but he was in no mood for it He put his big fists on the table and leaned forward, fixing Dirksen with his hard, bright smile. “Now listen to me,” he said gently. “If you want to talk about telephone calls talk about your own. Get your wife to call you and talk about that. But stop talking about mine. Okay?”

Dirksen’s freckled face got red. “Hell, there’s nothing to be touchy about,” he said. “I just passed a remark. It’s still a free country, ain’t it?”

Carmody smiled and let the tension dissolve. “Free country? Try that on your landlord and grocer and see what happens.”

A relieved laugh went around the table. Carmody straightened up and said, “Take it easy, I’ll see you later.”

He went downstairs, walked past the House Sergeant’s office and through the silent roll call room, where the Magistrate’s bench loomed up like an altar in the darkness.

Outside on the sidewalk he paused, savoring the welcome freshness of the spring air against his face. From here, at the north entrance of City Hall, he looked down the glittering length of Market Street, blazing with light against the black sky. The Saturday night crowd jammed the sidewalks, and the traffic was flowing in thick, noisy streams. Somewhere off to his right a police siren was screaming faintly. West, he thought, the Tenth district. He nodded to three patrolmen who went by him on the way to work, and then lit a cigarette and walked down the block to his long gray convertible.

The traffic made his trip across town slow and difficult; but he was grateful for the time it gave him to think. He had done a lot of thinking in the past week, but now he was meeting Beaumonte and the chips would be down. Thinking wouldn’t be enough; there had to be a solution. He stared through the windshield, turning the problem around slowly in his clear, alert mind. Waiting at a stop light, he suddenly pounded his big fist on the rim of the steering wheel. If only his brother hadn’t identified Delaney. Anyone but Eddie. And if only Delaney weren’t threatening to sing. If only a hundred things.

The trouble stemmed from the fact that Delaney worked for a gambler and racketeer named Dan Beaumonte.

And so did Mike Carmody.

There was a girl standing at the terrace window when Carmody walked into Beaumonte’s long, elegantly appointed living room. She turned slowly, smiling at him, her figure slim and graceful against the backdrop of the lighted city.

“Hello, Mike. Come over and look at our little village. It’s like being high up in a castle.”

Carmody joined her and they inspected the view for a few seconds in silence. The city was beautiful now, the lights spreading over it like an immense sparkling carpet. Beaumonte’s apartment was on the twenty-fifth floor of a massive building which overlooked the park and a long curving stretch of the river. Like a castle, Carmody thought. With a safe view of the slaves.

“Where’s Beaumonte?” he asked her.

“Changing. Would you like a drink?”

“No, thanks.”

She patted his arm and he saw that she was a little tight. “I hate to drink alone. Dan says that’s my trouble. But what’s a girl to do when she’s alone?”

“Have a drink, I guess,” Carmody said.

“Absolutely right,” she said, and poked him in the chest with her finger. “You don’t mind if I go ahead?”

“Not a bit.” Carmody felt vaguely irritated as he watched her stroll to the bar. Not with her or Beaumonte, but with himself for some curious reason. The girl’s name was Nancy Drake, and she had been Beaumonte’s mistress for years. She was a slender blonde with piquant, good-natured features and fine gray eyes. Everything about her blended neatly with the perfection of the room; the oil paintings, the balanced groups of furniture, the nice integration of form and color, were all an appropriate backdrop for her pale, well-cared-for beauty. It made a pretty picture, Carmody thought. Well-organized luxury without time payments or mortgages. The room and the girl had been bought and paid for by Beaumonte with good hard cash.

This was what irritated him, Carmody decided. The room looked like an art gallery and Nancy looked like the daughter of a duke. It was the big lie that disgusted him; they should do their business in the back of a saloon, and if women were present they should be the kind who hung around saloons. But it was Beaumonte’s lie so that made it all right.

Carmody realized his thoughts were running in illogical circles. Why should he object to Beaumonte’s pretenses? Weren’t his own just as bad? But he was a little sick of Beaumonte at the moment and he didn’t bother applying logic to his judgments. When I’m fed up I’ll walk out, he told himself, frowning slightly, disturbed by his thoughts. I’m not in so deep that I can’t take a walk.

A door opened and Beaumonte came into the room. He held a slim cigar in one hand and wore a dinner jacket cut of black raw silk.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Mike,” he said, in his deep rich voice. “I’m glad you could get right over.”

Carmody said something appropriate and watched Beaumonte as he put an arm around Nancy’s waist and kissed her bare shoulder. Sometimes Beaumonte’s expression gave him away; but there was nothing to learn from it now. He seemed in good spirits but his mood could change drastically and without warning, Carmody knew.

Physically, Beaumonte was impressive, with a big well-padded body, thick gray hair and a complexion like that of a well-cared-for baby. His lips were full and red, his brown eyes clear and untroubled. He spent about a third of each day taking steam baths, sun-lamp treatments and suffering the ministrations of his barber, masseur and trainer. His manner was sensuous and complacent; he could bear nothing but silk against his skin, and fussed pretentiously with his chef on the subjects of sauces and wines. There were times when Carmody half expected him to start stroking himself or purring.

“Mike won’t drink,” Nancy said.

“Not a bad habit,” Beaumonte said, glancing at her appraisingly.

“I’m okay,” she said.

“Yeah, so far. Won’t change your mind, Mike?”

“All right, make it a mild Scotch,” Carmody said.

“I’ll have sherry, the Spanish with the crowns on the label,” Beaumonte told Nancy. He glanced at Carmody. “It’s a fine one. I have it imported especially. You have to watch sherry, Mike. It’s splendid when it’s right. But when it isn’t, I mean if it’s off even a shade, well it’s not worth drinking.”

“Sure,” Carmody said, managing to keep his annoyance from showing in his face. Beaumonte had grown up on bootleg whiskey; he had been a small-time hoodlum in the Thirties, a skinny punk in pin-striped suits and a gray fedora, which he wore pulled down all around in the style favored by Capone’s bums in Chicago. Money, carloads of it, had brought out the art lover and wine bibber.

Nancy brought their drinks on a round silver tray, and Beaumonte’s expression changed as he noticed that she had made herself another highball. “You’ve had enough,” he said. “Leave that here and go lie down.”

“Dan, don’t be dull,” she said, trying to soften his face with an impudent, gamin smile. “You’ll spoil the party.”

“You’ve had your ration for today,” he said, and now he meant business. His face and manner were unpleasant. “It’s sloshing in the scuppers. Beat it. Sleep it off.”

“All right, Dan,” she said quickly, her little pose melting under the hard anger in his eyes. “So long, Mike.”

Here was the art patron and wine sipper, Carmody thought, and the irony of it was enough to check his irritation. For some reason Beaumonte enjoyed humiliating her; and by a freak of timing the scenes always seemed to occur when he was playing the grand gentleman to the hilt. Maybe she planned it that way, Carmody thought. Beaumonte had picked her out of a chorus line six years ago, and since that time had transformed her into a lady. She had been trained to walk and talk, to manage a dinner party for thirty and to dress herself with quiet taste. Beaumonte had hired trainers and coaches for her, he had schooled her like an intelligent dog until she could perform any social trick with ease. And somewhere on the way she had started hitting the bottle. She would probably be dead in five years, Carmody knew, and he wondered if that was why Beaumonte was so rough on her. Because the investment wasn’t paying off; the bought-and-paid-for little lady had crossed him by turning into a lush. But there was something else, Carmody guessed. Beaumonte would have enjoyed humiliating a real lady, but no genuine article would take it; so he had created Nancy as a stand-in for the real thing. By hurting her he took a small revenge against a class which had always intimidated him; people whose English was correct and whose manners were casual and right.

Beaumonte sat down in a deep chair, the glass of sherry in one hand, the slim cigar in the other. He looked up at Carmody, a small frown gathering on his pampered features. “Let’s get right to it, Mike. Sit down and get comfortable.” He sipped some of the sherry and wet his full lips. Then he turned his clear brown eyes directly to Carmody. “It’s this, Mike. If your brother fingers Delaney it can cause us trouble. Because Delaney has told our lawyer that he’s going to talk, unless we take him off the hook. So your brother’s got to be sensible. You understand?” Carmody shrugged his wide shoulders and said nothing. The silence stretched out awkwardly until Beaumonte, still frowning, said, “Well, do you see it?”

“Part of it,” Carmody said. “What’s the rest of it?”

“All right, let’s start at the start,” Beaumonte said, settling in the chair and crossing his fat legs. “Delaney, who’s worked for us off and on for years, shot and killed a man named Ettonberg. That was last month. It was a stupid murder, and not tied up with us in any way. Ettonberg and Delaney had a fight about a woman and Delaney killed him after he’d been drinking so much that he couldn’t hit the ground with his hat. As you know, this happened in a boardinghouse on your brother’s beat. He went in and found Delaney standing over Ettonberg with a gun in his hand. If he’d killed the bastard right then, he’d have done us a favor. But Delaney slugged your brother and got away without being seen by anyone else. So he went to Martin’s joint where there was a poker game and fixed himself up an alibi.”

“I guess we both know the story pretty well,” Carmody said. “The cops picked up Delaney on my brother’s description. Eddie testified at the Grand Jury hearing and the D.A. got a true bill.”

“Okay, now we’re up to the present,” Beaumonte said. “When Delaney goes to trial your brother can finger him right into the chair. And that can’t happen. If it does, Delaney talks.”

What did Delaney know? Carmody wondered. “Can he hurt you by talking?” he asked.

Beaumonte looked annoyed. “Don’t talk about me being hurt. I don’t like that kind of talk.”

Carmody shrugged. “No point in not being realistic. I talk pretty damn much.”

“We’re going to save Delaney,” Beaumonte said. Carmody’s remark had brought spots of color into his cheeks, but he didn’t let his anger get him away from the subject. “So you talk to your brother, Mike?”

“What do I tell him?”

“You tell him he don’t identify Delaney at the trial.”

“Will that do any good?” Carmody said. “My brother has already testified against Delaney at the Grand Jury hearing.”

“Don’t you worry about the legal end of it,” Beaumonte said. “That’s what we pay lawyers for. And here’s the way they’ve figured it. Delaney’s attorney waived a hearing before the Magistrate the night of the murder. So your brother didn’t have to identify him then. Naturally, Delaney was held for the Grand Jury without bail. In this state defendants don’t appear at the Grand Jury hearings, so your brother didn’t confront Delaney and make an identification. He just testified that to the best of his knowledge a man named Delaney was standing over Ettonberg’s dead body when he came on the scene. That gave the D.A. his true bill. Your brother won’t confront Delaney until the trial. And that’s when he blows the case up by refusing to finger him.”

“It will look raw as hell,” Carmody said.

“To hell with how it looks,” Beaumonte said angrily. “They’ll know he’s lying but they won’t be able to prove it. The jury is what counts. And our attorneys will make them believe that your brother’s an honest cop who won’t send an innocent man to the chair just to fatten up some D.A.’s score of convictions. Delaney will beat the rap. And, by God, Mike, he’s got to beat this rap. You understand?”

“They’ll boot my brother off the force.”

“So is that bad? We’ll take care of him. Offer him ten thousand to start with, and see what he thinks of it. And we can go higher. A lot higher.”

Carmody hesitated a moment. Then he said, “Why do you want me to handle it, Dan?” A phrase came into his mind from his forgotten religion and forgotten values: “Let this chalice pass from me!" He didn’t want this job, and in some intuitive manner he was afraid of it. But there was no one he could ask for help. Not Beaumonte, that was certain. And there was no one else. Let this chalice... Why had those words occurred to him?

Beaumonte was rolling the cigar between his full red lips, watching him carefully. “I want you to handle it because it’s a big job,” he said at last. “I’ll tell you this: Ackerman is watching it personally.”

Carmody nodded slowly. It was important then, no doubt of it. Ackerman was number one. He controlled the city’s gambling and numbers racket. Beaumonte ran the west side personally, and acted as a link between Ackerman and the other districts; he supervised the operations of Fanzo in Central, Nick Boyle in Meadowstrip, and Lockwood in the Northeast. But all of it was under Ackerman’s thumb. He juggled the judges and magistrates and cops, he put the collar on the politicians he needed and he fought the reform movement on the high inside levels. Thinking about it, Carmody felt a brush of anxiety; there was a lot of muscle stacked up against his brother.

“Why is Ackerman so interested?” Carmody asked.

Beaumonte was silent a moment. Then he said quietly, “Don’t start guessing about him. You know that’s stupid. Just remember he’s interested. That’s enough. Now there’s one other point. I don’t want any hard feelings between you and me.”

“I don’t get that,” Carmody said.

Beaumonte got to his feet and glanced at his gold wrist watch. “Hell, it’s later than I thought,” he said. Carmody had risen also and Beaumonte put a hand on his arm, turning him toward the door. “This thing has got to be handled, one way or the other,” he said. “I want it peaceful. I hope your brother is smart and winds up with a nice little bundle in his pocket.” They stopped at the door, facing each other, and something had changed in Beaumonte’s smooth plump face. He was still smiling but the smile meant nothing now. “We’re not kids, Mike,” he said. “I’m putting it on the line. If your brother don’t play ball we’ll have to handle it our way. That’s why you’re making the first pitch. If you don’t sell him the deal, you can’t blame us for doing what we got to do. Is that clear enough?”

“I’ll talk to my brother,” Carmody said evenly.

“How do you get along with him?”

“So-so.”

“What’s the matter? He’s your kid brother, he should do what you tell him.”

“We don’t see much of each other,” Carmody said.

“That’s too bad.” Beaumonte looked at him, his head tilted slightly. “Don’t he like your friends?”

“Lots of people don’t,” Carmody said, holding his irritation in check.

“Not smart people,” Beaumonte said, smiling. “When’ll you see him?”

“As soon as I can.”

“Make it tonight He doesn’t go to work until twelve.”

“How do you know?”

Beaumonte shrugged. “I told you this was important. We’re keeping tabs on him. You see him now, then come back. I’ll be here all night. Got that?”

Carmody hesitated. “Okay, Dan,” he said finally.

Beaumonte smiled. “We want this peaceful. Good luck.”