The rat on fire

30

Detective Lieutenant Inspector John Roscommon entered the green-painted interrogation room and closed the door – deliberately behind him. Carbone and Sweeney watched the back of his blue blazer, and Dannaher stared at the floor. Roscommon shut the door so that the latch did not click. The fluorescent lights in the ceiling, under the textured Plexiglas, hissed every so often.

When the door was closed, Roscommon turned around and leaned his back against it. He rocked back upon his heels and clasped his hands at his crotch.

Sweeney got up. “You can have my chair, Loot,” he said.

Roscommon did not look at him. He looked at Dannaher, who had two days’ grizzle of beard and wore a dirty shirt and continued to gaze at the grey metal table and the floor. “Don’t want it, Mike, thanks.”

“Well, Jimma,” Roscommon said. “Good tah see ya again.”

Dannaher did not say anything.

“Your old pal, Jimma, Roscommon. Remember me?”

Dannaher continued to study the table and the floor.

“Sure you do,” Roscommon said. “You remember your old pal, John Roscommon. We known each other for years. Aren’t you gonna say hello to your old pal, John Roscommon?”

Dannaher shook his head. Roscommon rocked on his heels twice. “Jimma, Jimma,” he said, “this is no way to greet an old friend that you met long ago when he put you in jail for the first time. Wasn’t I decent to you, Jimma? Didn’t I tell you, when I collared you, your next step was going to be the place where they’re so concerned about whether you get nightmares that they keep guards around all night, make sure the bears don’t get you? Didn’t I tell you that, Jimma?

And wasn’t I right? Didn’t you get a nice room and all that protection from the bears because of me? Tell the truth now, Jimma. Isn’t that so?”

Dannaher mumbled, “I know my rights. I don’t have to say nothin’.”

“Ahh, Jimma, Jimma,” Roscommon said. “See what happens when you get out someplace where there’s nobody to protect you from the bears and you start in to drinking with Clinker Carroll again? See what happens when you’re left on your own? You’ve been down to Danny’s all day, I bet, drinking a ball and a beer with Clinker and talkin’ about the old times. You’re half in the bag, Jimma. You need somebody to take care of you, protect you from the bears.”

“Isn’t,” Dannaher said, “isn’t no crime, I can have a few drinks.”

“’Course it isn’t,” Roscommon said. “You can have a few drinks with the Clinker and you can drink some coffee with Leo. No crime in that.”

“I don’t have to say nothin’,” Dannaher said. “I want my lawyer. I wanna see Tiger Mike Fogarty.”

“Sure,” Roscommon said, “and I bet you want to see him in private, too. With nobody listening.”

Dannaher nodded.

“And you’re gonna,” Roscommon said. “You are gonna see a lot of Tiger Mike in private, for a while. Then you are probably gonna see him in public for a week or two. See him while he’s tryin’, get you off on murder one.”

Dannaher looked up, fast. “I didn’t kill nobody,” he said.

Roscommon said, “Jimma, Jimma, you know the law. Accessory before the fact? Charged as a principal? You helped Leo Proctor burn down Fein’s apartment house. Charged as a principal. Kid died as a result of that fire. You’re going, Jimma. You’re going away, and you’re going away a long time.”

“I didn’t have nothing to do with that fire,” Dannaher said. “Leo did that. I stayed completely away from Leo. I dunno what Leo did.”

“You know some of the things Leo did,” Roscommon said. “You know a lot of the things Leo did. You had some long conversations with him.”

“I did not,” Dannaher said.

“You want some Danish down at the Scandinavian, Jimma?” Roscommon said. “These guys can get it for you. They know right where it is, from tailing you and Leo so many nights and listening to what you had to say. Ask Sweeney and Carbone, they don’t know about the Danish.”

“I got a right to remain silent,” Dannaher said.

“You bet you have,” Roscommon said. “You also got a right to remain out of circulation for fifteen or sixteen years of a life sentence for murder. But that comes after Tiger Mike goes through his regular performance of trying to win a hopeless case, and that won’t be for a while yet. So right now we’ll just give you your right to remain silent, and alone, and you can go down to the holding room and call Fogarty and tell his secretary you got to see him right off, and she will tell you that she’ll have him come over here as soon as he finishes in Middlesex today, and that all will give you some time to think. About Murder One. Sweeney, cart him down. Carbone, come with me.”