Savage Streets

Chapter Three

After dinner Barbara tidied up in the kitchen while Farrell helped the children get ready for bed. He listened to Angey’s incredibly involved account of a feud with her “three very best friends,” then listened to her prayers which sounded more like injunctions than entreaties, and finally kissed her good night and went across the hall into Jimmy’s room.

Jimmy was wide awake. “What are you going to do to them, Dad?”

“The blond boy is Jerry, eh? And the thin dark one is called Duke. Is that right?”

“He’s the boss. They all do what he says.”

“And this gang. They call themselves the Chiefs?”

“Most of them wear sweaters with Indian heads on them.”

“Well, we’ll take care of them,” Farrell said. “Don’t you worry about it any more.” He kissed Jimmy on the cheek.

“Dad, you’re not afraid of them, are you?”

The boy’s soft skin smelled of soap, and there was the tang of a minty toothpaste on his breath. Farrell said easily, “No, I’m not afraid of them, Jimmy.” He realized with surprise that he was angry enough to kill the young hoodlums who had terrorized his son. “They’ve committed a crime, and the police will see that they’re punished for it,” he said. “That’s what we’ve got a police department for. Get to sleep now.”

Barbara had brought their coffee into the study. As she was pouring his the phone rang. It was Sam Ward. “John? I was just wondering if you’re doing anything in particular right now.”

“Nothing special.”

“I’d like to stop by for a few minutes. It’s important.”

“Sure, come on over.”

Barbara sighed as Farrell replaced the receiver. “Who was that?”

“Sam. He’s got something on his mind.”

“So have we. Couldn’t you have told him we were busy?”

“Well, he said it would only be for a few minutes.”

“I’ll put on some more coffee,” Barbara said. She glanced in the mirror above the bookcase and pushed a strand of hair back from her forehead. “If this turns out to be a long-winded complaint about people dropping cigarette butts on the putting green, I’m going to cut it short. I want to talk to you about Jimmy.”

“Sure, so do I. Don’t fuss. Put the coffee on.”

The doorbell rang a few minutes later. It was Sam Ward with the Detweillers. Ward said apologetically, “Look, I asked Chicky and Bill to come along because I phoned from their house and they’re involved in this in a way, too.”

“Sure, come on in,” Farrell said. “Barbara’s just getting some coffee. Or would anyone like a drink?”

Sam Ward shook his head with something like impatience, but Bill Detweiller, bulky and collegiate in a gray ski sweater, looked cheerfully toward the bar, and said, “Just a nip against the cold, eh, John?” He looked as if he had already had a few, Farrell thought; his solidly handsome face was a ruddy pink, and his bright blue eyes were alert and sharp with excitement.

“How about you, Chicky?”

Chicky Detweiller considered the matter with raised eyebrows and slanted eyes. “It’s a fattening thought,” she said, smiling. “Would you like to make me something special?”

“If I’ve got the raw materials, sure.”

“I’d like a stinger.”

Detweiller glanced irritably at her. “Boy, you like pampering, don’t you?”

“I’m a girl actually,” Chicky said, making a little face at him. “Remember? And the answer to your question is ‘yes.’ Any desperate objections?”

The Detweillers were the kind of people, Farrell thought, who were more exciting together than apart; there was always a little challenge between them, a smiling tension that charged the atmosphere with the ever-interesting potential of trouble. Also, they harmonized nicely in a pictorial sense; Chicky was a gold-rinsed blonde, with masked and indiscreet brown eyes, and a childishly spare body. She usually wore combinations of white and beige and gold; tightly fitted and pegged suits with wide leather belts about her flat, hard waist; pale gold evening gowns to match her hair; and blond swimming suits which at a distance were hardly distinguishable from the texture and color of her skin. At the moment she was wearing cocoa-brown slacks and a yellow sweater with a soft rolling collar that emphasized her slender throat and elegant little head. The Detweillers had inherited a certain amount of money, it was generally thought, for although Bill complained vigorously about his brokerage commissions, Chicky had her own car, a part-time maid and a large and expensive wardrobe, the most discussed feature of which was an assortment of thirty-odd pairs of shoes, featherweight and nonfunctional arrangements of slender straps and extreme heels designed more to be marvelled at than worn.

Now she smiled at Farrell and said, “Could you make me that stinger?”

“Sorry, Chicky, no brandy, no mint,” Farrell said.

“Nobody stocks all that stuff,” Detweiller said. “Have a beer, Chicky, and relax.”

“Oh, I didn’t tell you, were on an economy wave,” Chicky said, still smiling. “I’m going to turn the collars of Det’s shirts, put up preserves the way his grandmother did, use up all the left-overs, drink nothing but beer — doesn’t it all sound fascinating?”

“I’m glad I married a funny one,” Detweiller said, shaking his head. “Yaks all night long.”

“Well, we didn’t come over for drinks or laughs,” Sam Ward said irritably. “Det, supposing we get down to business.”

Farrell made two whiskeys with water and handed them to Detweiller and Chicky. “Close your eyes and you won’t know the difference,” he said to Chicky.

Detweiller took a long pull from his drink and lit a cigarette. “Well, John, Bobby came home tonight all steamed up over the trouble you had with those young punks. He told me they were the same ones who had knocked Ward’s kid around yesterday. So I called Sam right away because the whole thing was beginning to smell a little bit, if you know what I mean. And Sam found out...” He stopped and glanced at Ward. “Well, you’d better take it from there, eh, Sam?”

“I had a talk with Andy,” Ward said. “First he stuck to his original story — that he’d got in a fight with a boy his own size. But when I told him I knew he was lying he broke down. And finally he blurted out the whole sorry business.” Ward suddenly swore and got to his feet. “I’m sorry, Chicky, but I haven’t been so damn mad in years. Those punks — those lousy hoodlums is more like it — have been blackmailing him, extorting money from him, to be accurate about it. Hell, he’s only nine years old. He hasn’t done anything they can blackmail him for. But they told him that unless he gave them fifteen dollars he’d get a beating. So he only had ten dollars in his piggy bank, and that wasn’t enough. They took the ten and gave him a shellacking. Can you imagine this happening right here in Faircrest practically in our own backyards?”

“They also put the bite on Norton’s boy,” Detweiller said. “Bobby blew the whistle on that, too. I called the Nortons, and of course Wayne was shocked as hell. He wanted to come over with us but the whole business upset Janey so much that he didn’t feel like leaving her.”

Ward said to Farrell, “Andy says they got to your boy, too. Is that right?”

“Yes, that’s right. They told him that he couldn’t play outside after school until he gave them fifteen dollars.”

Detweiller finished his drink in one gulp. “Damn it, I wish I’d been around tonight to help you out. But I gather you didn’t need help.” He looked frankly envious. “You gave them a real bouncing around, eh, John?”

“I was lucky, I guess.”

“They haven’t bothered Bobby, of course,” Detweiller said. “I guess they took a look at the Detweiller jaw and figured he wouldn’t scare worth a damn. I’ve taught the kid how to handle himself and I’ve given him some pretty good advice if the odds are against him — pick up a brick or ball bat and even ’em up.”

“These aren’t kids,” Farrell said. “I wouldn’t encourage Bobby to think he’s a match for them.”

“Hell, they’re just lippy punks,” Detweiller said. “You can’t reason with them because they’re too stupid and you can’t treat them decently because they’ll just laugh at you. They understand just one thing, my friends, and that’s a good solid boot in the tail.”

“Okay, but what do we do now?” Ward said, looking at Farrell. “My suggestion is to go to the cops tonight and let them know we want some action.”

“You’ll just get a runaround from the cops,” Detweiller said, pouring himself another drink. “They’ll say ‘Oh, sure, we’ll take care of this, sir’ and then they’ll make out a lot of reports and wind up not doing a damn thing. Look at the gangs you’ve got running wild in this country. Regular teen-aged gangs of hoodlums. They’ve got officers, clubrooms, guns, battle strategy — hell, you’ve read about all this, haven’t you? In some of the schools in New York they’ve practically put up toll gates — pay up before you can go in. And the police don’t do one damn thing about it. And I’ll tell you why,” Detweiller said, pointing a finger at Ward, who was listening to him with obvious impatience. “The average cop comes from the same background as these young punks, and emotionally and psychologically he’s on their side. And the average politician, well, in his case...” Chicky stifled a yawn in a manner that made it quite noticeable and said, “Please don’t make speeches, Det. This is a serious matter.”

“I’m going to finish this,” he said. “Will you just shut up? The average politician, Sam and John, is more concerned about votes in his district than he is in making an example out of these punks. Politicians count noses, they play it by the numbers, and the sad fact is that people like us are in the minority. Property owners, law-abiding people who believe in raising their kids decently — they’re outnumbered a hundred to one by people on relief, by degenerates and dope addicts, by dead beats who turn over their freedom to union goons, by all that riffraff we’re getting from Puerto Rico — okay, okay,” he said, holding up both hands. “I know there are fine Puerto Ricans. But we’re getting dregs. So to wind this up, people like us get pushed around because there aren’t enough of us to matter.”

Ward said irritably, “We aren’t going in with our hats in our hands to ask for help from the police — we’re demanding it, for Christ’s sake. What do you think I pay taxes for?” He began to pace the floor, his expression forceful and angry. “I don’t know what your homes mean to you,” he said. “That’s none of my business. But I’ll tell you something about me. I haven’t had any leg-ups in this world. I didn’t go to college. I worked after school in a poultry shop because we needed extra dough at home. I had a nickname: Feathers. Other guys made the teams and drove around in cars and had spending money in their pockets. Not me. I was working.” Ward looked at them with his hands on his hips. “Well, I’ll tell you something: I didn’t mind one damn bit. I had my chance. I went to night school. I got a job with Texoho as a messenger boy. They wanted work and loyalty for their dough, and I gave until it hurt. I’m proud of what I’ve done, so far. And the future is going to be big — just as big as I can make it. Now a pair of young hoodlums come along and think they can throw mud at what I’ve made out of my life. Well, I’ll tell you this as a simple blunt fact: they made a mistake. I’ll teach them that if I have to break their necks with these two hands of mine.”

“Now you’re talking,” Detweiller said. He looked at his empty glass and said to Farrell: “On your feet, host. I need a drink. But seriously, Sam, you made sense just then. If we gave those punks a thorough working over we wouldn’t have any more trouble with them.”

“What’s all this?” Barbara said, coming into the room with a tray of coffee. She had put on fresh lipstick and changed from slacks and loafers into a tweed skirt and high heels. “Hi, Chicky. My, you sound ferocious, Det.”

“There’s more bad news, honey,” Farrell said. He told her why Ward and the Detweillers had come over, and when he finished she sat down slowly and looked at them with a helpless expression. “What kind of creatures are they?” she said, in a bewildered voice. “They must be insane to think they can get away with this sort of thing.”

“They’re human filth,” Detweiller said. “Dregs, leavings, call it what you like. I just told John and Sam we ought to sweep them up ourselves. Hell, why waste time? We’ve got a clear-cut problem; let’s solve it in an old-fashioned, clear-cut fashion.”

“What do you mean?” Barbara said, glancing uncertainly from Detweiller to Sam Ward.

“They knock our kids around, we return the compliment. Only we play really rough. Anything wrong with that?”

She smiled at him but Farrell knew she wasn’t amused; there was a line of tension above her eyes. “I can’t believe you’d even consider such a thing. You’d be no better than these young hoodlums if you took the matter into your own hands. Don’t you see that?”

Detweiller was enjoying her reaction, Farrell guessed, savoring her alarm and disapproval. Facing the bitter facts, calling a spade a spade, was this a role Det fancied himself equipped to play? He would let the sickly and squeamish turn away from duty, Farrell thought, trying to see Detweiller as Detweiller must see himself; behind the barricades, issuing the single bullet to the women and telling them to use it when the Indians poured over the stockade walls. Was that Det’s image of himself, he wondered. The Man Who Faced Facts?

“Just listen a second,” Detweiller was saying to Barbara. “I’m not trying to shock you and I’m not just talking for effect. Nobody has bothered my son. Technically I’m an innocent bystander to all this, though I’m ready and happy to do all I can to help John and Sam. Hell, it’s a community problem, isn’t it? But I’ll tell you this: if any of these punks bother Bobby I can handle them without help from anybody.” Detweiller poured himself a short drink from the bottle Farrell had left at his elbow. “Nobody’s pushing me around, understand?”

Detweiller was heating himself up with verbal muscle-flexing, Farrell realized, intoxicating himself with these big, heady boasts. Barbara’s presence was spurring him on, he guessed; she sat with slim legs crossed, lamp glinting on her smooth brown hair, listening to him with flattering gravity, obviously disturbed by his violent talk. Chicky on the other hand looked bored. She was sipping her drink, studying a beam of light flickering on the toe of her slowly swinging loafer. Her small face was still, and her masked brown eyes were turned down and away from Detweiller’s voice and gestures.

“John, help me,” Barbara said almost angrily. “Tell him he’s wrong.”

“I’ll help you,” Chicky said with a short laugh. “Det thinks the only way to prove anything is by hitting somebody. His idea of a subtle, well-reasoned argument is to twist my arm until I agree with him.”

“Well, results count, don’t they?” Detweiller said, looking at her with a stiff smile.

“Other methods get results, too,” she said. “Happier ones, I’ve been told.”

“Look, I’m going to the police tonight,” Ward said. “Are you with me, John?”

“Sure,” Farrell said. “We’re wasting time with this talk. Det, I’m not planning to chase a bunch of teen-agers down dark alleys to settle our problems. It might be fun, but we’d probably all come down with coronaries after a block or two.”

“Well, I hope you can get the cops interested,” Det said, “but I’ll be surprised if you do.” In rising he almost tipped over his chair. “Well, what do you know? Old Det is pie-eyed. Chicky, let’s take me home.”

She watched him with a little smile crinking the comers of her eyes. “Okay, slugger,” she said. “In another round you’d have had him. Come on. Night, Barbara. Thanks the usual million.”

The offices of the Rosedale police were located on a quiet, well-lighted street a block away from the noisy confusion of Whiting Boulevard. The large, whitestone building also housed state and county administrations; a magistrate’s court; the offices and meeting rooms of the water board, Transit Authority and various tax bureaus. The graveled approaches to the building circled a neatly manicured little park, and the parking space flanking its imposing columned doorways was reserved for officials.

“It’s hell to be a civilian,” Ward said, as they went up the broad flight of steps. They had been forced to park on the street and Ward was in an irritable mood. “These civil service drones all act like they’re doing you a big favor,” he said, as they pushed their way through the heavy, plate-glass doors. “Whether you’re reporting a fire or taking out a dog license or paying your goddamned taxes — they all act like they’ve got ten thousand more important things on their minds. Christ, I’ll bet ninety-eight percent of them couldn’t hold a job in private industry.”

They told their story to a uniformed officer on duty behind a freshly varnished counter on the first floor of the building. On his right a sergeant sat at a switchboard and behind him another officer was issuing and confirming orders to squad cars by short-wave radio.

When they completed their account the officer nodded alertly but sympathetically, and told them they had come to the wrong place; the detective division in the Hayrack district would have jurisdiction in this matter, he explained, and gave them the address of the station house.

They thanked him and walked back down the graveled roadway to their cars.

“Det would say I told you so,” Ward muttered irritably. “The old runaround — it’s starting already. That’s what he told us to expect.”

“You mean Commissioner Detweiller of the Yard?” Farrell said. “You got that from him personally?”

Ward smiled. “He was in great form tonight, wasn’t he? You think he was serious about banging those kids around ourselves?”

“I don’t think he knows himself.”

“He might be right at that.”

“Sure. The odds are against him being wrong all the time.”

“He must have got under your skin, John.”

Farrell considered that for a few seconds, and then said, “It’s this whole damn business that’s got under my skin. I shouldn’t blame Det for that. He means well enough, I guess.”

The glass doors of the Hayrack police station gleamed opaquely in the bright light of the green electric globes hanging on either side of the entrance. The building was two-storied and ancient, made of soot-dulled red brick and squeezed into place in a block of depressed-looking shops and old-fashioned frame houses. There was a bar at the comer with a circular neon sign blinking above it, and a delicatessen a few doors from it with cans of beer displayed in stacks behind a dirt-streaked plate-glass window. Several of the old wooden homes had ROOMS signs in their windows, and directly opposite the station house was a junk shop with a collection of yellowing bathtubs and ice boxes and primitive washing machines displayed on the sidewalk, these secured against improbable theft by a chain that snaked through their insides and locked them all together into one immense and ludicrous package.

As he waited for Ward to park his car, Farrell wondered why he felt so out of place in this neighborhood. It occurred to him that he couldn’t quite imagine himself living here; drinking in the corner bar, shopping in the delicatessen, or coming down the sidewalk to turn into any of these ancient, paint-starved dwellings. A wind rose in the street driving flurries of dust and flaking cigarette stubs along the gutters, and he turned his back to it and pulled his coat collar up about his neck. It wasn’t that the neighborhood was poor, he thought; it was simply unreal to him, an atavism, something belonging in another time. The rust-streaked bathtubs in the junk shop, the tired old houses with the signs in their windows, the whole street, for that matter, was like a movie set of the Thirties, dingy and depressed, colored with the lifeless shades of shabby defeat; it was rather unbelievable in the present world of six-to-one martinis, charcoal-broiled steaks and country clubs, of Evinrude for Everyman and spinning traffic rotaries ablaze with the gleaming, fin-tailed cars that were too big to park in the city or squeeze into garages smaller than airplane hangars.

As Farrell went up the worn steps of the station house with Ward he recalled an idea of Weinberg’s for an automobile account the agency had submitted ideas on: concentrate on the tail-end of the car, had been Weinberg’s thesis, festoon the rear hub caps with ceramic inlay, plaster the trunk and rear bumpers with distinctive insignia, lights and gadgets because — because, Farrell mentally added Weinberg’s stress — you couldn’t close most garage doors on the new big cars, and their rear ends hit the owners’ friends in the eye when they settled down around the barbecue pit for what he called the “oral-satisfaction-cum-getting-loaded-bit.”

In the station house two uniformed patrolmen were standing at the window of the House Sergeant’s office, and a gray-haired man in blue uniform trousers and a gray work shirt was sweeping dust and cigar wrappers and cigarette stubs down the corridor. The patrolmen glanced curiously at Ward and Farrell, then moved aside to make room for them at the window. Farrell thanked them and explained the nature of their complaint to the House Sergeant, who listened with an air of impassive suspicion, and then directed them to the Detective Division on the second floor. “That’s an investigative job you got there,” he said. “They’ll take care of you upstairs.”

“I see,” Farrell said. “Thanks.”

He and Ward went up a dusty flight of stairs. “Don’t tell me what Detweiller would say,” he murmured to Ward. “I can guess.”

They came to swinging doors and a sign that read “Detective Division” and entered a large, brightly lighted room in which several men sat about at roll-top desks typing or leafing through reports. The prevailing odor was a blend of dry wood, dusty paper and stale coffee.

A detective with a cigar looked up at them, nodded impersonally and came over to the counter. He was in his middle fifties, heavy but not fat, with a dark complexion, thinning gray hair and black pouches under his brown eyes. “Well, what’s the trouble, gentlemen?” he asked them with a small smile.

They told him their story, adding all the details they were sure of, and when they finished he was no longer smiling.

His name was Cabella, they learned later, Sergeant Anthony Cabella. He took their names and addresses, then said, “Would you step around the counter, please? I’d like you to talk to the lieutenant.”

The lieutenant, whose quarters adjoined the detectives’ squad room, said, “Yes?” to Cabella’s knock, and rose when Farrell and Ward entered his small, sparely furnished office.

The lieutenant was as tall as Farrell with a slim, controlled body and short, blond hair dulled slightly at the temples with gray; he looked like a middle-weight fighter only a few years past his prime, tidy and sure of himself, with very little expression in his pale square face and watchful blue eyes. He wore a well-cut suit with a bow tie, and Farrell found him vaguely irritating; his handshake was a projection of personality, efficiently brisk and powerful, and he established what he obviously felt was their proper relationship by letting them stand while he resumed his seat behind his desk. Glancing at them with his cold careful eyes he said: “My name is Jameson. You’ve met Sergeant Cabella, I guess. What can we do for you?”

After they had repeated their story the lieutenant glanced at Sergeant Cabella and said, “Had any other complaints of this sort?”

“This is the first,” Cabella said.

“What do you know about these punks?”

Cabella rolled his cigar to a new position, and a half-inch of ash tumbled down onto his bulging vest. “The one called Duke is Tom Resnick’s son. Tom used to be a brakeman on the old IR line before he retired. His mother’s dead. They live over on Dempsey Street, other side of the golf course. This Jerry kid must be Jerry Leuth. He was a helluva athlete at Consolidated but he never did anything with it later. Football and track. His folks own a little cleaning and pressing shop. Duke and Jerry have been traveling together since they were in school. Both of them caddied over at Pine Hills. They got a kind of clubhouse in the basement of that dead-storage garage on Matt Street. You know the place? It’s right at the alley intersection in the middle of the block, next to a candy store. Their gang call themselves the Chiefs.”

“They been in any trouble before this?”

“We never caught them, if they was.”

“Pick them up in the morning, Sergeant. Can you gentlemen be here with your sons at nine o’clock?”

“Nine or earlier,” Ward said. “It’s fine with me.”

Farrell hesitated; he had an uneasy feeling that they were going too fast. “What’s the procedure tomorrow morning, Lieutenant?”

“First, I’ll talk to your sons, take a statement from them. We’ll determine the timetable of this trouble. When it started, then step-by-step until we’re up to date.” Jameson paused long enough to light a cigarette. “Then we’ll determine which of these punks made the threats. Or whether it was done by both of them. Which one asked for the money or, again, was it both of them. Who accepted the money and who actually hit your son, Mr. Ward. Then your boys will identify Duke and Jerry. After this — if their testimony holds up — I’ll slate these punks on charges for a Magistrate’s hearing. The Magistrate will bind them over to the Grand Jury. They’ll come up for trial, and I think they’ll get what’s coming to them.”

“You say if our sons’ testimony holds up? Suppose it doesn’t?” Farrell asked him.

“Well, in that case you’ll have to go to a Magistrate’s office and swear out a complaint against these boys. They’ll be served with a Magistrate’s warrant and ordered to a hearing.”

Ward looked dubious. “I don’t quite follow you, Lieutenant.”

“The distinction is this: I can make the arrest on a positive identification by your boys. But if they aren’t able to make an identification, or refuse to, all I can do is give Duke and Jerry a stiff warning and let them go. You see, I can’t arrest them on the strength of what your sons told you. You follow me?”

“Yes, I get it,” Farrell said. “But our boys are pretty upset by this business. They may not be in the best mood to make effective witnesses.”

“You mean they’re frightened,” Jameson said. “Do you think they’re too scared to identify these punks?”

“I don’t know,” Farrell said. “It would be a normal reaction, I imagine.”

“Certainly,” the lieutenant said. “We’ll take that into consideration. We’ll do our best to convince them there’s nothing to be worried about. You have your boys here at nine. We’ll handle the rest.” Lieutenant Jameson put out his cigarette with an economical twist of his wrist, and the gesture, plus his brief little smile, indicated that the interview was over.

But Farrell had one more question. He said, “You don’t seem at all surprised by this business, Lieutenant. Is it really so run-of-the-mill? I mean, are things like this popping up every hour on the hour?”

“What line of work are you in, Mr. Farrell?”

“The advertising business.”

“Well, if your boss dropped a job on your desk, I don’t imagine you’d be surprised, eh? You’d get at it, and get it done. Or am I wrong?”

“No, the analogy is pretty accurate.”

“Until tomorrow morning then.”

Outside on the sidewalk Ward lit a cigarette and said, “Damn it, there’s a cold fish for you. Maybe Detweiller was right. It might have been simpler to handle this thing ourselves.”

Farrell said, “The bow tie rather disappointed me, I must admit. Can you imagine Jack Webb in a bow tie? Or Sam Spade?”

“Seriously, I’m wondering if we shouldn’t have a lawyer with us tomorrow. Those cops seem awfully casual about this whole thing.”

“Don’t worry, they know what they’re doing.” Farrell turned up his collar. “Let’s get on home.”

As he drove into Faircrest, Farrell had the sensation of returning to another world, soft and quilted, gracious, fragrant and secure. The Sims were having a party. Lights shone in their dining and living rooms, and shadows moved against drawn drapes. A bedroom light gleamed from the second floor of the Norton home. Janey went to bed early, Farrell knew, and Wayne sat with her and read or worked on the house accounts. They had a hi-fi speaker in the bedroom, and they usually listened to records and had a late cup of cocoa or tea. Cold-creamed and snug, soothed by gentle music and something warm to drink, Janey Norton was giving her unborn child a running start at life. He saw Margie Lee, tagged by a coltish admirer, strolling up the walk to her home; light flashed on her small blonde head, and the wind brought him the high, energetic laughter of her escort.

The lights were on in the study of his own home and he knew that Barbara was waiting up to have coffee or a nightcap with him.

Everything was serene and peaceful in Faircrest, the slender branches of the trees moving gently in the wind, the homes sturdy and protective against the night.

But Farrell found no solace in the quiet peace of his neighborhood; the interview with Lieutenant Jameson had left him in a puzzled and uneasy mood.

At nine the following morning Farrell sat with Jimmy in the lieutenant’s office. The day was bright and clear, and sunlight filled the room, brightening the surfaces of desks and filing cabinets, and revealing the seams and cracks of age in the plaster walls and old wooden flooring.

Ward and his son, Andy, had arrived first, and Jameson had already heard Andy’s story. Now he was listening to Jimmy, a cigarette burning in his fingers, his careful eyes studying the boy’s face and hands. Jimmy was making a good impression, Farrell felt; he told a straightforward, believable story, and his occasional lapses of memory and errors in minor fact only strengthened its credibility. Jameson interrupted him a few times to establish or clarify certain points, but for the most part he listened in a close, serious silence, a faint frown above his careful eyes.

The lieutenant knew his job, it was obvious to Farrell; he had gained the boys’ respect by impressing them with the gravity of their accusations.

When Jimmy finished his account Jameson picked up his phone and told Sergeant Cabella to bring Duke and Jerry upstairs to the Detective Division. Then he smiled faintly at the two boys, giving the impression, it seemed to Farrell, that this was a rare indulgence. “We’ll go outside in a moment or so,” Jameson said. “Duke and Jerry will be there. With them will be three other men who look about their age. One of them is the House Sergeant’s son, the other two are young patrolmen. They won’t be in uniform, of course. Your job will be to pick out Duke and Jerry from this group. There’s nothing for you to be worried about. You do your part, then we can do ours. Do you understand?”

Both boys nodded solemnly, and Jameson said, “Very well. In we go. One thing, Mr. Ward and Mr. Farrell, I’ll have to ask you not to say anything while I’m talking to your sons. Is that clear?”

Farrell said, “Yes,” and Ward nodded and patted his son on the back. “Let’s give them hell, Andy.”

In the Detective Division’s wardroom five young men stood with their backs to the long wooden counter, flanked by Sergeant Cabella and a plainclothes detective. The metallic voice of the police radio cracked through the room and Ward, after a last worried glance at his son, sat on a windowsill and fumbled for his cigarettes.

Duke was at one end of the line beside Sergeant Cabella and Jerry was in the middle, his big powerful body dominating the group. Both wore red sweaters with black Indian heads sewn on the front, and they seemed unaffected by the businesslike tension in the room. Jerry’s blond hair was still tousled from sleep and he yawned occasionally and ran a hand over his broad, dull features. Duke leaned against the counter, his weight supported on his elbows, and his feet crossed negligently at the ankles. He was startlingly handsome, Farrell thought, with clear, fresh skin glinting like copper in the strong sunlight. He was carefully groomed, the points of a white shirt vivid against his sweater, and thick, black hair brushed smoothly back from a high, well-shaped forehead. His expression was arrogant, but his features were saved from mere toughness by the alert contempt in his dark-lidded eyes.

Jameson sat down in a straight-backed chair with the boys on either side, his arms about their shoulders. “All right, let’s get this over with,” he said in a pleasant voice, and with that a silence settled over the room. “Now, Andy,” he said, “tell me this: do you recognize any of these young men? Have you seen them before? Take your time. We’ve got plenty of that.”

Andy hesitated; he rubbed his red hair and touched the lump on his nose with a tentative finger. He stared at the line-up with a tense little frown gathering above his eyes. “What?” he asked in a high, surprised voice. “What did you say?”

“Do you recognize any of these men?”

Duke, Farrell noticed, was smiling softly, watching the two boys with what seemed to be good-humored interest. Turning his eyes toward Cabella he murmured, “Do you mind if I smoke?”

“Shut up!” Cabella said.

“Will you answer my question, Andy?” the lieutenant said.

Andy Ward frowned at the floor. “It was a long time ago,” he said.

“Now, Andy, you told me that two boys made you give them money, ten dollars, wasn’t it?”

“I guess so.”

“And because you didn’t give them an extra five dollars they beat you up. Are these boys in this room?”

“Well, it was kind of dark.” Andy nodded vigorously without lifting his eyes from the floor. “That’s why I can’t — I mean, it was real dark. Night time. It was hard to see anything.”

Farrell could almost feel the boy’s fear; it was a physical thing, as much a part of the room as the smell of cigar smoke, dry paper, as tangible as the chairs and desks and old cracked flooring. The expression on his son’s face troubled him; Jimmy was obviously as frightened as Andy Ward, but he was watching Duke with fascination, a reluctant but unmistakable admiration shining in his eyes. Duke probably seemed a heroic figure to him, Farrell thought; arrogant, contemptuous of authority, a lone and swashbuckling cavalier, a more glamorous figure than prosaic, businesslike cops, a more adventurous one than fathers concerned with the humdrum details of daily existence. The reflection disturbed Farrell. That Jimmy and Andy had lied and stolen out of fear was not the whole truth; half of it maybe, but not all of it. There was something else...

Lieutenant Jameson questioned Jimmy then, but Jimmy parroted Andy’s story, a painful flush of fear and shame riding up in his cheeks. The lieutenant went over his palpably made-up story twice, using a patience that Farrell couldn’t help admiring, but Jimmy stuck stubbornly to the one important point: it had been dark when he met the boys and he didn’t know what they looked like.

Finally Jameson got to his feet. To a plainclothes detective he said, “Take Duke and Jerry downstairs and hold them there.” He did not appear to be surprised or disappointed at the way things had turned out; his manner suggested that this was simply the daily grind, routine and typical. To Sergeant Cabella he said, “I’m going to talk to Mr. Farrell and Mr. Ward in my office. Would you find something to interest their boys for a few minutes? Let them look through the wanted file, or show them how to take fingerprints. We won’t be long.”

Duke straightened up from the counter and smiled indulgently at the lieutenant. “Look, we’ve been nice and cooperative so far, but would it be too much to ask what this is all about?”

“I think you know,” Jameson said.

“Honest, I don’t. I’ll look it up in my diary, if you’ll just give me a line on the date.”

Jerry put a hand over his mouth to smother a laugh, and Jameson said sharply, “Downstairs with them, I told you.”

Sergeant Cabella took Duke’s arm. “Move, hero,” he said.

Duke shrugged and smoothed a strand of hair from his forehead. He turned then and looked directly at Andy and Jimmy. “You’re good kids,” he said. “If they put words in your mouth, spit ’em out.”

Sergeant Cabella gave him a shove that sent him sprawling along the counter. “Didn’t you get the message?” he said.

Duke smiled faintly and smoothed his hair down again, but as he sauntered from the room, Farrell saw the cold fury in his eyes.

Lieutenant Jameson closed the door of his office and asked Ward and Farrell to sit down. “Well, they were too scared to identify them,” he said, perching on the corner of his desk and lighting a cigarette.

“Wait till I get Andy home,” Ward said. “I’ll give him something to be scared of in spades.”

“That’s up to you,” Jameson said. “But I don’t imagine it will help things much. We have this problem with adults, too, you know. Sometimes out of fear, sometimes downright laziness. Whatever the reason lots of good witnesses simply won’t help us prosecute.”

“So what do we do now?” Farrell asked him.

Jameson was silent for a moment, apparently interested in the glowing tip of his cigarette. “Well, we could get an identification from them without too much trouble, I think,” he said at last.

“How?” Ward said.

“If we separated them and told each boy that the other was telling the truth — they’d come clean then. Right now they’re stuck together — miserably, I’d guess — in a lie. Split them up and they’d tell us what we want to know.” He glanced from Ward to Farrell. “Well? Do you want me to try it?”

“Hell, yes,” Ward said, with a touch of impatience in his voice. “Let’s do what we have to.”

“How about you, Mr. Farrell?”

“I don’t know.”

Ward said irritably, “What don’t you know, John?”

“I don’t like it. I think it would be a mistake to trick these boys into telling the truth. They’ve got half a notion, I suspect, that Duke and Jerry are heroes right now, tougher than their fathers or the police. If we lie to them it may only confirm their feeling that we can’t handle this problem by legitimate means.” Farrell made an impatient gesture. “Damn it, the important thing is that our kids don’t trust us. And they don’t trust Lieutenant Jameson or those detectives outside either. I want the truth out of them, but I don’t want to badger them into it with sleight-of-hand gimmicks.”

Ward lit a cigarette and put out the match with an exasperated snap of his wrist. “You’ve got a point, John, but are we going to sit on our duffs and do nothing at all, for Christ’s sake?”

Farrell said, “What about it, Lieutenant? You think my objection makes sense?”

“Sure it does,” Jameson said, somewhat to Farrell’s surprise. “I don’t want to lie to the boys. This is their first experience with cops. First look inside a police station, I imagine. I wouldn’t want them to get the impression it was all done with mirrors. But I can’t hold Duke and Jerry without their identification.”

“So we do nothing then,” Ward said. “Our kids are forced to lie and steal, they get slugged right in broad daylight and we can’t do a damn thing about it. Isn’t that a rosy picture of the good life in the suburbs?”

There was a knock on the door. Jameson looked up and said, “Yes?” Sergeant Cabella stuck his head in and gave the lieutenant a quick wink. “Mr. Garrity is outside, Lieutenant.”

“Tell him I’m busy.” Jameson’s normally expressionless face had tightened with irritation. “Ask him to take a seat.”

“He don’t want a seat, Lieutenant.” Cabella’s eyes were masked but there was a definite significance in his gently lowered voice. “He’s walking around and he’s full of beans.”

“What’s on his mind?”

Cabella nodded toward Ward and Farrell. “This business. He wants in on it. As a friend and committeeman of the accused, he’s got...” Cabella almost smiled. “Certain rights.”

Jameson drummed his fingers on the desk. “All right, send him in.” When the door closed he said, “You’re going to have the privilege of meeting Mr. Timothy Garrity, chairman of the Hayrack Voters’ Club, Committeeman of the Seventh District, a man — in the sergeant’s phrase — with certain rights.”

A knock sounded and the door opened before Jameson looked up. A big man in a camel’s hair coat swept in with an air of good-humored importance. Jameson said, “Come in, Mr. Garrity,” a bit drily and Garrity laughed and said, “Sorry to presume on your good nature, Tom, but I’m in a bit of a rush today. Now I don’t think we need make a Federal case out of this matter. There’s been a misunderstanding, obviously. Can’t we settle things in the pleasant old-fashioned way which — I’m sorry to say — seems to have lost support and favor in these modern nervous times? You know when I was practicing law a million years ago, the magistrates tried to apply a little bit of sympathy and common sense to the unfortunates who stood before them at the bar of justice. There’s a little good in the worst of us, and a little bad in the best of us, and it ill behooves the rest of us to damn forever any of us.’ That old saw may be a bit before your time, Tommy my boy, but it’s still got good clean teeth in it. In a misunderstanding like this, handshakes are a thousand times more useful than handcuffs. Men make mistakes but only mules refuse to admit them. The law stands for justice, it doesn’t sit down to gossip and guess. Now, Tom, let’s have it straight: what are you holding those two lads for?”

Lieutenant Jameson said, “I’d like you to meet Mr. Ward and Mr. Farrell. I believe they’re as concerned with this matter as you are, Mr. Garrity.”

“It’s a pleasure, gentlemen.” Mr. Garrity shook hands with them firmly, making the gesture meaningful with a big warm grip. “Let me say in all honesty, I sympathize with you and I sympathize with the youngsters, and I’m outraged that this thing could have happened in our community, a bit of God’s green earth I perhaps value above its mere worth in wood and brick and stone.”

“We’re not pleased about it ourselves,” Farrell said. He had Garrity down as a preposterous windbag. Physically the man was tall and broad and stout, a great mass of pink and well-fed flesh stuffed snugly inside a gray flannel suit, a white silk shirt and a vast, tentlike camel’s hair coat. He had thick gray hair, the candid eyes of a baby, and smooth pink cheeks that were covered with a fine blue lace of ruptured veins.

“Now here’s the thing,” Garrity said, in a suddenly businesslike manner. “I know the Resnick family. I know the Leuth family. Honest, God-fearing folks, all of them. Humble, it is true, of modest means it may be stated without shame. This morning about eight o’clock — that’s right, isn’t it, Tom? — the police knocked on their doors. Their sons were waked, ordered to dress, escorted to jail.” Garrity breathed deeply, puffing out his cheeks; his voice rose slightly. “Here these lads were locked up as felons. No charges were preferred against them. They were not slated in the House Sergeant’s arrest book. They were not told what crimes they were suspected of committing. Later they were brought upstairs to this office, confronted by your sons. For what purpose remains a mystery: your youngsters had never seen Duke Resnick or Jerry Leuth before in their lives, and they were honest and frank enough to admit this. I may say, gentlemen, their conduct reflects credit on you, and credit on their dear mothers.” Garrity paused and turned to face Jameson, and in that instant he didn’t seem quite so preposterous to Farrell; his eyes were colder and his big pink face was set in the expression of a man accustomed to exercising his will with assurance. “A mistake’s been made, Tom,” he said. “Are you intending to compound it by holding those lads without slating them?”

It seemed to Farrell that Jameson was controlling his temper with an effort. “Just one minute,” the lieutenant said. “I am running this Detective Division, Mr. Garrity. I think we’d better get straight on that.”

“Well, of course you are, Tom,” Garrity said pleasantly. “But with reason, I trust, and the best interests of the community at heart. The families of these lads are upset, understandably so. It’s a mark on a lad to be picked up by the cops, even if he’s charged with nothing more seditious than throwing a wrapper of gum into the street. Now if you’d just tell the families — or authorize me to tell them for you — that this was a mistake for which everyone is sorry, well, it will put their minds at ease.”

“Well, goddammit,” Ward said suddenly. “You want us to apologize to those young hoodlums? Is that what you’re leading up to?”

“Mr. Ward, I referred to this matter as a misunderstanding. That’s a euphemism. In fact, a wrong has been done these lads. Now examine your heart for a moment: is it too much to ask that a word of apology be tendered?”

“You’re damn right it is,” Ward said, and Farrell felt a sudden respect and affection for him as he leaned over and pounded a fist on the lieutenant’s desk. “Those punks whose praises you’re singing beat hell out of my son, after turning him into a thief. Now you listen to me,” Ward said, as Garrity raised both hands in pained protest. “My boy is nine years old and weighs seventy or eighty pounds. Those louts who worked him over are grown men. You can’t soft-soap me into patting them on the back for that piece of work. I’ll pat them on the skull with a baseball bat first.”

“I understand your feelings, Mr. Ward. But I must ask you this: why didn’t your son identify these lads as the perpetrators of these outrages?”

“He was scared, that’s all,” Ward said. “And so was Farrell’s boy.”

“Please, Mr. Ward. Is that likely? They were under the wing of the police, detectives and patrolmen surrounding them by the score, their own fathers standing protectively at their sides — why should they be frightened under such circumstances? And of whom? Two teen-aged lads who, I must point out, were manhandled for innocently inquiring the nature of the charges against them.” He glanced sharply at Jameson. “More on that later, Tom, but I understand you made no protest when Sergeant Cabella struck Duke.”

“The sergeant acted with my full approval,” Jameson said. “As you say, more on that later.”

“Now that may be an important admission, Tom.”

“Just one minute,” Farrell said. “Mr. Garrity, I don’t understand your interest or position in this business. Are you a lawyer or bondsman or what?”

“That’s a good and fair question,” Mr. Garrity said, smiling at him. “I’ve known these lads a good time and I intend to make sure they get a fair shake. You live in Faircrest, Mr. Farrell. A lovely and luxurious community. They live in Hayrack which is neither. I wouldn’t like to see the police, or any other official agency discriminate against them simply because they’re not quite as happily blessed with material things as the youngsters in Faircrest. The poor need friends and the rich need tax counselors, Mr. Farrell. I do not happen to be a tax counselor.”

“I’ll bet you’ve got a good one,” Ward said.

“I’m truly sorry we’ve let our tempers get short,” Mr. Garrity said smilingly. “But I respect a man like yourself, Mr. Ward, who holds his beliefs firmly and speaks up for them with heat, for warmth in discussion — it may be hoped — will lead finally to warmth in the heart.” With a plump hand on his stomach, he gave them each in turn a small graceful bow. “Now I must be running along. Lieutenant, I have always trusted your judgment. I know you’ll do nothing to make me feel this trust was misplaced. Gentlemen, it’s been a pleasure. I sincerely hope we will meet again under more pleasant circumstances.”

After he had gone Jameson lit a cigarette and looked at Farrell and Ward with a faint cold smile. “We’ll give Duke and Jerry a stiff talking-to before we let them go. And we’ll keep an eye on them for a while. I’m sorry, but that’s all we can do.”

Farrell drove home in silence. It was Saturday morning, clear and sunny with late fall colors in the trees, and traffic was heavy. Supermarkets were surrounded by ranks of brilliant station wagons, and Whiting Boulevard’s miracle mile was solid with cars. Farrell was relieved to have the business of driving to occupy himself; he could think of nothing to say to Jimmy, who sat huddled beside him staring straight ahead with narrow, worried eyes. When they turned into Faircrest he saw Sam Ward on the sidewalk talking with Bill Detweiller. Detweiller wore a red sweater and jeans, and had obviously been performing the Saturday morning ritual of polishing his two-toned hardtop convertible. Farrell pulled into the driveway and cut the motor. In the silence that settled he lit a cigarette and glanced at Jimmy. “Well, it’s not the end of the world,” he said.

“I know,” Jimmy said in a distant voice. He twisted uncomfortably. “Can I go in?”

“In a second. I don’t quite know what to say to you, Jimmy. I know you didn’t tell the truth this morning. You recognized those boys, and I can’t understand why you didn’t speak up. Do you know why?”

“Well, Andy wasn’t sure, and that made me...” He paused and Farrell heard him swallow with a dry little noise. “Then I wasn’t so sure either.”

“Did you think it would be unfair to identify them? Try to be honest with me. Did you feel that it was like being, well, a tattletale or a stool pigeon?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t think about it.”

Farrell sighed and opened the door. “Hop out,” he said, and rubbed Jimmy’s thin stiff back. “Find the gang and have some fun.”

“Can’t I just go inside?”

“Well, whatever you like.”

When Farrell got out of the ear Detweiller strolled down the sidewalk, a chamois cloth trailing in one hand. “Well, it’s a temptation not to say I told you so. Ward tells me it was a complete bust.”

“It was a bust all right,” Farrell said.

“So they’ll turn these young gangsters loose with apologies.” Detweiller shook his head. “Great, isn’t it? Democracy at work. What the hell is happening to America anyway, John?”

“I don’t know what’s happening to America, Mr. Bones. I haven’t looked lately, I guess.”

“Maybe you’d better take the trouble,” Detweiller said. With big hands resting on his hips, he nodded down the block. “There it is, right under your nose.”

If that was truly America, Farrell thought, it was very pretty; the sun was splashing against thinning trees, sparkling on picture windows, painting lawns and shrubs with pale golden strokes.

“You take Wayne Norton for instance,” Detweiller said. Norton, a few houses down, was on his knees trimming the row of stocky little evergreens he had planted alongside his terrace. Other husbands, Farrell knew, would now be cleaning basements, painting bookshelves, raking leaves, cutting hedges, repairing toys. That’s what Saturday morning was for, it was generally agreed; keeping even with the obsolescence factor.

“Norton’s taking care of what’s important to him,” Detweiller went on. “Do you see what I mean? That’s America. He’s got a kid, and he’s expecting another, but those kids aren’t just accidents. They’re planned for, they’re wanted, and they’re not going to be booted out into the slums to fight for survival like wild animals. I’ll bet you Wayne has already got those kids set with college insurance. But the trouble is too many of the wrong kind of people are having kids. We’re going to wind up as a country that made it too easy for the worst kinds of people to survive and get along.”

“Det, you sound like a fool,” Farrell said.

“You think so? Just keep on looking down the block for a second. See the Sims family piling into their car? Well, five will get you ten they’re taking the kids to the zoo or a museum this morning.”

“It’s a safe bet,” Farrell said. “They don’t do much else. John Sims has a museum fetish. Queer for mummies...”

Detweiller looked pained. “Make gags if you want to, but what I’m saying is that this neighborhood, this group of people, are what’s important in my life, and it irritates the be-jesus out of me that those hoodlums from Hayrack can walk in here and kick us around like a bunch of rusty tin cans.” Detweiller took a deep breath; he seemed to have come to a conclusion. “Look, John, a guy by the name of Malleck stopped by this morning to talk to Norton and me. You don’t know him, I guess.”

“Malleck? No.”

“Well, he’s a solid joe, for my money. Funny, I met him last year when I was serving time on that membership committee at the club. He walked in out of the blue and asked if he could join the club. Said he had a couple of kids who’d enjoy the pool, and he and his wife were thinking of taking a crack at golf now that they were out in the suburbs. Well, my first thought was that he was hardly our cup of tea, if you know what I mean. He’s rough-looking and he gives the English language a real bouncy ride. Of course he wasn’t eligible to join the club because he didn’t own a home in Faircrest. I explained that to him and he took it just fine. I mean he wasn’t embarrassed, didn’t tip his hat and scrape his feet on the carpet. He’s got dignity without class, if you know what I mean.”

“One of nature’s gentlemen?” Farrell said.

“That’s it,” Detweiller said. “Well, he’s heard about the trouble we’re in because his sons go to Rosedale Consolidated. And Malleck by the way owns some trucks that operate in the garment district of New York, and I get the impression he’d shove back fast and hard if anyone tried to push him around.”

“So what was on his mind?”

“He’s willing to help out, that’s all.”

“Help out? Help out with what?”

Detweiller looked rather embarrassed. “Well, first of all, he suggested that we don’t talk too much about it. Keep it in the club, so to speak. But if we need help, Malleck is with us.”

“The mist rises,” Farrell said. “So he wants to join the Faircrest vigilante and popover society.” He sighed. “Are you still playing around with that idea?”

“Damn it, I don’t want trouble for trouble’s sake. You know me better than that. It’s only that...” Detweiller ran a hand through his hair. “Well, nobody’s going to push me around.”

“You’re not being pushed around,” Farrell said irritably. “And let me give you a piece of free, unsolicited advice: tell this character Malleck to mind his own damn business. He sounds like a fine species of genus busybody to me. He smells a brawl and he wants to get into it. I’d suggest you tie a can to him and forget this other nonsense — that’s a buzz saw you’re reaching for, Det.”

Occasionally Detweiller responded amiably to blunt criticism; it seemed to Farrell that he enjoyed playing the turbulent youngster in need of a firm hand. It probably made him feel youthful and irresponsible, he thought, a yeasty buck in a pasture of timorous jades. Now Detweiller smiled ruefully and said, “Well, maybe you’re right, John. But it’s the old Detweiller curse — we’re just not cut out to be spectators when trouble comes along. We’re the dummies who aren’t smart enough to play it cozy and look the other way when somebody yells for help.”

“Well, our family curse was liquor,” Farrell said. “So how about coming in for a beer?”

“I’ve got to finish putting a high gloss on this heap. It’s more the finance company’s than mine, so why I bother I don’t know. Anyway we’re seeing you and Barbara in the morning — brunch around noon. Chicky cued Barbara and it’s all set.”

“Fine. Many thanks.”

Farrell went into his house. He was in a disturbed, worried mood, and when Barbara called to him from the second floor he realized there was a curious, vague fear twisting through his thoughts.

“Hi there,” he called up the stairs. “I’m just about to open the first of what may be an innumerable number of beers. You want one?”

“Don’t be silly. I’m coming right down. I want to hear about...” Her voice faded away as Jimmy came out of his room. Farrell dropped his coat and hat in the study and sat down with the morning papers. He thought about the beer but decided he didn’t feel like it.