Rogue Cop

4

The phone woke Carmody the next morning at nine-thirty, it was Lieutenant Wilson. “What happened to you last night?” he demanded.

Carmody raised himself on one elbow, completely alert; Wilson’s tone warned him of trouble. “I told you, I was working on that Fairmount Park murder.”

“Did you make any progress?”

“I’ve got a lead.” Carmody frowned slightly; he didn’t like lying to Wilson. They had gone through the police academy together and had been good friends for several years. Wilson was a straight, efficient cop, a family man with kids in school and a home in the new development at Spring Hill. He was everything that citizens expected their police officers to be, intelligent, fair and honest. Carmody wondered occasionally why Wilson still liked him; they were on opposite sides of the fence, and Wilson normally had no use for cops who drifted toward the easy buck.

“You got a lead, eh?” Wilson said. “Well, supposing you get in here and tell me about it. I’ll give it to someone to run down.”

“What’s the big hurry?”

“Damn it, Mike, do I have to send you an engraved invitation when I want to talk to you? Get in here.”

“Okay,” Carmody said, glancing at the alarm clock. He intended to see Eddie as soon as possible, and then, if necessary, Karen. “I’ll be in at four o’clock,” he said. “That’s when my shift goes on.”

“I want to see you now, right away,” Wilson said.

“Okay, okay,” Carmody said. He wasn’t going in so there was no point in arguing about it. “How did that Wagner Hotel job turn out?”

“You struck gold, you lucky ape,” Wilson said in an easier voice. “It was the bellhop, Ernie. Seems he brought a bottle up and found both Degget and the girl out cold. He was going through Degget’s wallet when the girl woke and began to yell copper. He tried to talk her into a split, but she was too drunk to be sensible. Anyway, he got scared and shot her. He’s put it all down on paper, so that winds that one up.”

“The poor damn fool,” Carmody said. “Why did he shoot her? You’d think a bellhop, of all people, would be smart enough to keep away from the big rap.”

“He’s not smart,” Wilson said. “He’s been in and out of trouble since he was a kid.”

“This will be his last then,” Carmody said. “How about the girl?”

“We got in touch with her mother. She’s flying in to claim the body.”

“It’s a senseless mess all around,” Carmody said. He glanced at his watch. “Well, get my name right for the papers.”

“You’re all right when you work at it,” Wilson said. “I’ll see you pretty soon, eh?”

“Sure.” Carmody ordered his breakfast sent up, then showered, shaved and dressed. Eddie had worked twelve to eight and would still be asleep. Carmody decided to give him a few hours; he might be in a better mood if he had some rest. After coffee and orange juice he left his suite and drove across the city to the Midtown Club where he played three furious games of handball with a trainer. It was a punishing workout; the trainer had once been a semifinalist in the Nationals and he gave nothing away. Carmody was satisfied to win one of the three games and make a close fight of the other two. He baked out in the steam room afterwards and took an alcohol rub. Sitting in the dressing room later, a towel across his wide shoulders, he looked critically at himself in the mirror, noting the flat tight muscles of his stomach and the deep powerful arch of his chest. In good shape, he thought. The handball hadn’t even winded him. Carmody’s own strength and stamina had always surprised him slightly; his body simply ran on and on, meeting any demand he put on it, always more than equal to the occasion.

That’s one thing I owe the old man, he thought; the indestructible constitution.

It was twelve-thirty when he left the club. He stopped at the Bervoort for cold roast beef with salad, then drank a bottle of cold beer and lit his first cigarette of the day. Relaxed and at ease, he sat for a few minutes at the table, savoring the fragrant smoke and the clean, toned-up feeling of his body.

Now he was ready for Eddie. This time he was sure of himself, charged with hard confidence.

The day was superb, clear and bright with sun. Carmody put the top of the convertible down before starting for the Northeast. He took the Parkway Drive, following the shining bend of the river, and enjoying the clean feel of the wind and sun against his face. Turning off at Summitt Road, he wound into the Northeast, driving through quiet residential streets where children played on the lawns, with their mothers coming to the porches occasionally to see that they weren’t in trouble. This was Carmody’s background; he had lived in this neighborhood until he was twenty-seven, increasingly bored by the middle-class monotony of the people, increasingly annoyed by the sharp but worried eye the old man kept on him. Our break was inevitable, he thought, turning into Eddie’s block. We just split on the big things. But why couldn’t people be reasonable about these disagreements? The old man was a fool, not because of what he believed but because he was so blindly insistent that he was right. You could argue with him up to a point; but beyond that there was no sympathy or compromise. Well, it’s all over and done with now, Carmody thought, as he went up the wooden stairs of the old frame house and banged the old-fashioned brass knocker.

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 he 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.”

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.