Rogue Cop

8

Carmody walked through the double doors leading to Headquarters at five-thirty that morning. Abrams and Dirksen were there, along with a couple of men from Klipperman’s shift. It was their day-off but they had come in when they’d heard the news. The same thing would happen in every station and district in the city, Carmody knew. Off-duty detectives and patrolmen would check in with their sergeants, grimly eager to join the hunt for a cop’s killer.

The men stood when Carmody walked in and Abrams made an awkward little speech. “Rotten shame... we’ll get the son, don’t worry... He was clumsy about it because the situation was marred by a make-believe quality; everyone in the room knew who had ordered Eddie Carmody’s execution. And why. And they knew Carmody’s relationship with Ackerman. But their sympathy was genuine, untouched by these considerations.

“Thanks,” Carmody said, his hard face revealing nothing of what he was feeling.

Myers came out of the card room, a solemn expression about his small cautious mouth. “I’m sorry about it, Mike,” he said simply. “I staked out at his home last night like you asked me to. But he never showed.”

Carmody saw that the detectives were taking in every word. Well, so what? he thought. Should I be ashamed because I tried to save Eddie’s life?

“Thanks, Myers,” he said, “you did all you could.” Then he turned into Lieutenant Wilson’s office. Wilson was sitting at his desk with two empty containers of coffee at his elbow. His square pugnacious face was irritable from lack of sleep. He stood and patted Carmody on the shoulder. For a moment the two men looked at each other in silence, and then Wilson turned away and sat on the edge of his desk. The bright overhead light slanted through the smoky air and drew shadows along the lines of fatigue in his face. “Well, they killed a good boy, Mike,” he said at last. “Just like they’d step on a bug.”

“You made a proposition to me yesterday,” Carmody said. “I’m taking it.”

“Turning over a new leaf, eh?”

“I don’t know. I can’t make any pious speech. I’m a grown man, and I know the world isn’t run the way some nun told me it was. But I’m going to get the guys that killed Eddie. That’s what counts, isn’t it?”

Wilson was silent, studying Carmody with a little frown. “You didn’t hear the news, I guess?”

“What news?”

“We’ve got a new Superintendent of Police. They moved Captain Myerdahl up. Every paper in town is raising hell about your brother’s murder. So the Mayor couldn’t put a hack for the top job. Myerdahl’s first order came in an hour ago. It was one sentence to every captain and lieutenant in the department: get rid of your rotten apples.”

That was pure Myerdahl, Carmody thought. The old German was notorious for his shrewdness, his toughness and his defiant, uncompromising honesty. He knew the city as he knew the lines in leathery old hands, and he hated the men who were squeezing the heart out of it for their own profit. Until he retired, or was eased out, Ackerman’s gambling operations would be shot to hell. Carmody saw a sharp significance in this; Ackerman must have known what would happen after Eddie’s murder. And that meant he was more concerned about taking the heat off Delaney, than he was for the health of his rackets. What Delaney had on him was big!

“You see what that means?” Wilson asked him.

Carmody brought his thoughts back to the point. “I’m your rotten apple, eh?”

“It’s a tough time for it to happen,” Wilson said, rubbing his tired face. “I know you want to work on your brother’s murder. But you’re not going to, Mike.” He picked up a sheaf of papers from his desk and held them limply in one hand. “This is an unfitness report on you.”

“Now wait a minute,” Carmody said sharply. “You can’t boot me out now.”

“If you are going straight for good I might put in a word for you,” Wilson said. “But I don’t want men who pick and choose their spots to be honest.”

“Damn it, are you worried about my soul, or do you want Eddie’s killer?” Carmody said.

“I’ve got an interest in both those deals,” Wilson said quietly.

Carmody was silent for a moment or so, staring down at his big hands. “Okay,” he said at last. “You aren’t stopping me, Jim, you’re just making it tougher. I want to work with you, but not at the expense of putting on sackcloth and ashes for Myerdahl’s benefit. I’m a crooked cop. Those are dirty words but they fit. They’re stuck to me with glue. I can’t get rid of them by crossing myself and saying three Hail Marys.”

“So you’re going to free lance on this case?”

“He was my brother,” Carmody said.

“That doesn’t give you any exclusive rights. Eddie had five thousand brothers in this city.”

“Brother cops, eh?”

“Don’t sneer about it, Goddamnit. That’s your trouble, Mike. Too much sneering.”

“I wasn’t sneering,” Carmody said impatiently. He got to his feet. “Five thousand or fifty thousand cops won’t break this case,” he said, staring evenly at Wilson. “If you think so, I’ll give you the killer’s names as a head start. Ackerman, Beaumonte, Fanzo in Central, Shiller in Meadowstrip. There your murderers are, Jim. Along with assorted goons, bagmen, killers, judges and politicians. They killed Eddie, but you and your five thousand brother cops try to prove it. You won’t in a million years. But I will. I know that crowd from the inside and I know the spots to hit.” He gave Wilson a short, sardonic salute. “Take it easy, chief,” he said, and started for the door.

“Hold on,” Wilson said sharply. He got to his feet, his blunt face troubled and undecided. “Working together we can do it, Mike. With the department outside and you inside we could smash them for good.”

“Make up your mind,” Carmody said. “Am I on the team or off?”

Wilson tossed the unfitness report back on his desk. “I’ll hold Myerdahl off somehow,” he muttered. Then he looked at Carmody, his eyes sharp and unfriendly. “You get your way always, don’t you? Do just what you want and to hell with everybody else.”

“Why the analysis?” Carmody asked him. “Let’s forget my personality and go to work. What’s been going on?”

“We’ve got a detail of twenty men working out where your brother was shot,” Wilson told him. “And when the shops and bars open we’re putting out fifty more. Every section is throwing us men. The Vice Squad, Accident Investigation, even the Park guards. They’ll fan out from the spot he was killed, making a street by street check of everybody who might have seen the killer. That girl’s description will go on the air every fifteen minutes, night and day, to every squad in the city; an eight-state alarm has been out for hours.” Wilson rubbed his face. “We’ll get him if he’s in the city. But that’s what I’m worried about. That he may already be gone.”

“He’s still here,” Carmody said. “Don’t worry about that.”

“How do you know?”

“Listen,” Carmody said. The police speaker in the outer room had broken the silence. “To all cars,” the announcer said in a flat, unemotional voice. “Be on the alert for murder suspect. Description following. Male, white, age twenty-five to thirty, tall muscular build, blond hair, wide face. Last seen in vicinity of Bering Street and Wilmer Avenue. Last seen wearing sports jacket, gray or tan, and sports shirt open at collar. This man is armed. Approach with caution.”

The speaker clicked twice and was silent.

“That’s going out every fifteen minutes,” Carmody said. “The killer knows it. Would you move around if you were in his spot?”

“He might have caught a plane twenty minutes after the shooting.”

“That might have been the original plan, but I doubt like hell that he followed it,” Carmody said. “He flubbed the job. He shot Eddie in front of a witness.”

“All the more reason for him to clear out fast.”

“Reason for him perhaps, but not for Ackerman. The killer put Ackerman on the spot. And Ackerman won’t let him go until it’s safe. And it won’t be safe until the witness is dead. Or the killer is dead. One or the other. That’s why he’s still in town. I’ll bet on that.”

“Then we’ll find him,” Wilson said sharply.

“Sure you will,” Carmody said. “I’m going to work now.”

“You’ve got another lead?”

“I don’t know. When I find out I’ll check in.” Carmody hesitated at the door and looked back at Wilson with a small frown. “Thanks for the break, Jim,” he said.

“Never mind that. I wouldn’t use you if I didn’t have to.”

“You’re honest at least,” Carmody said, smiling crookedly.

He was walking through the bright early morning light to his car when Myers caught up with him and put a hand on his arm.

“Hold it just a second,” he said. “I got something to tell you.”

“What is it?” Carmody faced the small detective and tried to keep the impatience out of his voice. The city was coming awake; trolleys jangled on Market Street and the sidewalks were filling up with people. He wanted to be on the move.

“Well, look,” Myers said. “Out at the sanitarium where my old lady stays, there’s an attendant named Joe Venuti. A long time ago he worked for Capone in Chicago, and he knows the racket crowd pretty well.”

“I’ve heard of him,” Carmody said. “He’s still wanted on some old charges, I think.”

“Yeah, I guess he is,” Myers said shrugging. “But he’s been going straight for years and he’s always been a big help with the old lady. You know how Italians are. They’re the best people in the world with sick people and babies.”

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

“Sure. That’s why I never bothered him I mean. Well, this morning I drove out there and woke him up. I gave him the girl’s description of the killer. And he’s going to call Las Vegas and Chicago tonight and gossip with some of his old friends.”

“How come he’s willing to help?”

“He’s got to,” Myers said, a grim little line going around his mouth. “I put it that way.”

Carmody looked at him, slightly surprised. “He might turn something up, at that. But you watch yourself, Myers. Don’t get hurt.”

“You don’t think I’m much of a cop, do you?” Myers said, smiling slowly at him. “Well, never mind that. Maybe I’m just a little dummy. But I can come up a notch or two for cop killers. I don’t like them, Mike.”

Brother cops, Carmody thought, studying the little man with a puzzled frown. Sighing he said, “You’re okay, Myers. Don’t worry about it.”

“I’ll find you when I hear from Venuti,” Myers said, and Carmody saw that his tribute meant nothing to the little detective.

“Do that,” he said slightly puzzled and angry. “And thanks.”

Forty-five minutes later Carmody walked into the small lobby of the Milford Hotel, a quiet commercial establishment off Market Street. He had stopped at his hotel to shower and change. The loss of a night’s sleep hadn’t marked him; his eyes were clear and cold, and the muscles of his body were poised like powerful springs.

Showing the clerk his badge, he asked if Johnny Stark was in his room. “Yes, sir. Shall I ring him?”

“No, I’ll go up.”

“Yes, sir. Of course.”

Carmody rode up in the elevator and rapped twice on Stark’s door, shaking the panels with his big knuckles.

Bedsprings creaked after a moment, and Stark said, “Who’s that?”

“This is Mike Carmody. Open up.”

There was a short silence. Then: “Sure, Mike. Right away.”

The door opened and Stark blinked at Carmody, an uneasy smile touching his bruised lips. He wore a bathrobe and his face was thickened and dazed with sleep. “Come in,” he said, still smiling uneasily. “I was asleep, out for the count.”

“Where did you take Nancy Drake last night?” Carmody asked, walking into the small stuffy room. Stark cocked his good ear at him, frowning with the effort to hear. “Nancy Drake? What about her?”

“Where did you take her?”

Stark rubbed his big hands together, frightened and uncertain. “How’d you know that?”

“If they needed a delivery boy, you’d do. So where did you take her?”

“To Fanzo’s bar in Central. I left her there and came home. That’s all I did.”

“Did you talk to her about anything on the way?”

“No.” Stark wet his battered lips and looked away from Carmody’s eyes. “She just did a lot of crying.”

“What happened when you got there?”

“A guy I never saw before took her away. They were expecting us, I guess. Then I came home.”

Carmody turned toward the door but Stark grabbed his arm. “Don’t go, Mike. I want to tell you something.”

“Take your Goddamn hand off me.”

“All right, all right,” Stark said quickly. “But listen to me. Ackerman fired me, Mike.”

“That figures, doesn’t it?”

“Sure; I’m supposed to be a fighter, not a clown. But that’s not what’s worrying me.” Stark took a deep breath and rubbed a hand over his lumpy, unintelligent face. “I shouldn’t have taken her to Fanzo’s. That’s what I’m trying to say. She was crying like hell and she begged me not to. It was a lousy thing to do.”

“Well, why tell me about it? If you’ve got troubles go find a bartender or a priest.”

“I just wanted to say it,” Stark said. “I shouldn’t have done it. Can I square it some way? Could I go out to Fanzo’s and knock some heads together?”

“Stay away from there. They’d use you for a pin cushion.”

“I’m a bum, I guess,” Stark said, a little flush of anger coming up under his eyes. “Say it a thousand times. Go ahead. But are you any better? You work for ’em, too, don’t you?”

“We aren’t in a moral beauty contest,” Carmody said, walking out of the room.

Stark followed him to the elevator in his bare feet, twisting his hands together anxiously. The anger was gone from his face; he looked scared and nervous. “One thing, Mike. Just one thing,” he said. “You said Ackerman fixed all my fights? Was that straight?”

“No, the fix wasn’t in,” Carmody said, jabbing the elevator button impatiently. “What difference does it make?”

“It makes a difference to me,” Stark said. “Don’t you understand that?”

“Okay, I understand,” Carmody said. “Go back to sleep.”

“You don’t believe I’m sorry about taking her out there, do you?” Stark said. “People can be sorry about things, can’t they?”

“Sure they can,” Carmody said shortly. “And they always are. But it doesn’t do one damn bit of good.”

“It makes you feel like less of a heel,” Stark said. “It does that much.”

Carmody didn’t bother answering. The elevator door opened and he stepped in, glad to be leaving Stark and his big soggy burden of guilt.

Fanzo’s bar had the name REALE lettered in gilt across a wide plate-glass window. This was his home and headquarters; he lived above the taproom in a large gaudy apartment. Carmody parked his car and locked the doors. Central was that kind of neighborhood. Pool rooms, bars, pizza joints, littered streets, dismal alleys. The city’s cesspool. Carmody walked into the tavern and nodded to the bartender, a tall, solemn Negro who wore a white apron pulled tightly across his big stomach. There were a dozen odd men lounging at the bar and in the wooden booths along the wall, bookies, minor hoodlums, all conspicuous and identifiable by their sharp clothes and casually insolent manner. They lived off the honest sweat of fools, and the knowledge of their cleverness had stamped arrogant little sneers on their faces.

“Is Fanzo around?” Carmody asked the bartender.

“Yes, sir, Mr. Carmody. He’s upstairs. Want me to tell him you’re here?”

“Never mind.”

The bartender smiled, his teeth flashing in his solemn face. “You know he don’t like being disturbed, Mr. Carmody.”

“I’ll remember to knock,” Carmody said.

He walked through the bar, followed by a dozen pairs of alert eyes, and went up two flights of wooden stairs. The air was close and smelled of heavily spiced foods. Carmody knocked and the door was opened by a slim, dark-haired girl in a red silk robe and pink mules. She was eighteen or twenty, and very beautiful. Her skin was flawlessly smooth, the color of thickly creamed coffee, and her eyes were wide and clear.

“What is it?” she asked him sullenly.

“I want to see Fanzo.”

“He expects you?”

From the front of the apartment, Fanzo called out in a high irritable voice: “Who the hell is that? Bring him in here, Marie.”

The girl studied Carmody, her lips twisting into a smile. “Go in,” she said, moving aside a few inches. Carmody brushed past her and walked through a short hallway to the living room, which was crowded with expensive inappropriate furniture and hung with heavy red draperies.

Fanzo was sitting at a wide table, eating breakfast. When he saw Carmody he got to his feet, a smile replacing the frown on his thin, handsome face. “Well, well, long time no see, keed,” he said. “How’s the boy? Tough about your brother, hey? I just been reading about it. A cop leads a hell of a life, don’t he? No dough, nothing. And always the chance of that big boom sounding behind him.” Fanzo shook his head and picked something from a front tooth. “Real tough. You had breakfast?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“I’ll go ahead. Funny thing, but when I read about people getting killed it makes me hungry as hell. Can’t seem to get enough food.” He sat down and gestured impatiently at the girl who was leaning in the doorway, one foot crossed over the other, a small smile twisting her full red lips. “Go find something to do,” Fanzo said, waving her away with a thin nervous hand. “Go play with the television. Beat it.”

She shrugged and sauntered from the room. Fanzo stared after her, smiling at her small round hips and the backs of her bare brown legs. “Screwball,” he said, winking at Carmody. He picked up a peach from the bowl of fruit on the table and bit into it strongly, tearing a chunk free with big white teeth. “She’s a Mexican. Slipped into Texas under a load of avocados. No entrance papers, nothing. She’s crazier than hell. But she’s all right. And she does what she is told because if she don’t she knows I’ll turn her over to the immigration people.” Fanzo laughed and picked up his knife and fork and began to eat. There was a staggering assortment of food on the table; eggs, bacon, ham steaks, sausages, enchiladas, cold melon and a variety of breads and rolls. “What’s on your mind, Mike?” he said. “You go ahead and talk. I’ll eat.”

“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.”