The rat on fire

4

“Well, Terry, my friend,” Roscommon said to Mooney, “the reason we did not arrest anybody is because we haven’t got nobody that did anything yet, you know? And this can cause a few problems, you go around arresting people who haven’t done anything except talk, because I believe there is something in the Constitution, the United States, about how you can talk all you want. But you would of course know more about that’n I would, on account of you are the lawyer and all.”

Mooney wore a three-piece brown suit and a stern expression. He got up from behind the desk. He put his hands in his back pockets. He said, “John, John, there’s a difference between free speech and conspiracy to commit a life-endangering felony.”

“There certainly is,” Roscommon said. “I didn’t say these guys’re having a nice little conversation about how the Sox’re doing and where’re we gonna get some pitching. I said from what my guts tell me, it sounds like Proctor is hurtin’ for money and he owns a building or three and he knows another guy who owns some property and it sounds like Malatesta is also in the hole for a buck or three. But so far that is pretty much all we know.

“Now, Terry, my friend,” Roscommon said, “you being an officer of the court and all, what with your obligations about bringing cases that you can only win…”

“I’ve lost a couple,” Mooney said.

“Your modesty’s becoming,” Roscommon said, “although I must say it probably wouldn’t be necessary if you followed some good advice I understand you got in the course of them cases being considered before they got indicted and you had to take them in because of course they wouldn’t plead. I wouldn’t’ve pleaded either, to those dogs.

“Anyway,” Roscommon said, “would you really like to charge a couple of guys with discussing their money problems in a coffee shop? Did they make that a felony too? Because if they didn’t, you’re gonna have some trouble, I think, on account of that is all we’ve got right now.”

“Lieutenant,” Mooney said, “we know damned right well what they’re talking about. They’re talking about how one guy is going to set a fire in a dwelling place and the other guy is gonna screw up the investigation on purpose, and if we don’t do something, somebody may be killed.”

“We know it,” Roscommon said. “The trouble is, we don’t know which dwelling place, so we can’t prove that. They haven’t set any fire, so we can’t prove that.”

“There’s always conspiracy,” Mooney said.

“There’ll always be an Ireland, too,” Roscommon said, “and if we bring a conspiracy on what we’ve got, that’s where we both better head. Only I’ll have my pension and you’re still young yet. You’ll have to go to actual work, out catchin’ the fish in the dories and cuttin’ the peat in the bogs with your teeth all turnin’ black and the wife wearin’ her shawl by the fireside, croonin’ lullabies to the babes, bless ‘em, and offerin’ the good Father a nice cuppa tay. We haven’t got an overt act, Terrence me boyo. They haven’t bought a can of gas and they haven’t struck a match. They haven’t even got close to the place where they got in mind to do the dirty deed. They may be snakes and dirty lizards, but they ain’t bit anybody yet, and we got to let them at least get close enough to reach somebody with their teeth before there’s a goddamned thing we can do.”

“Are these guys any good?” Mooney said.

“Any good?” Roscommon said. “Of course they’re no good. Proctor I put in jail myself, when I was about your age. And Malatesta’s a disgrace to the badge. No question about that.”

“No, no,” Mooney said, “not them. The guys on the case. What’s-their-names.”

“Sweeney and Carbone, you mean,” Roscornmon said. “Well, I’ll let you judge for yourself.

“Sweeney,” Roscommon said, “you remember that little pisspot named Leonard James that they called Jesse and some starry-eyed liberal jerk let him out of Walpole on three armed robbery charges because he had reformed himself and he was ready to be transferred to Norfolk for pre-release, and he got out of there one fine dark night and went off on a spree that four guys got killed in? Run a cruiser off the road in Braintree one night when he was drivin’ a stolen car and then shot a cop in Plymouth that was blocking the road and he went into the swamp? Well, Sweeney got him out the swamp, and he was armed, too.”

“We haven’t anybody in a swamp in this case,” Mooney said. “I don’t doubt he’s brave. What I want to know is if he’s smart.”

“Lemme finish,” Roscommon said. “Carbone. Carbone, when we started havin’ all that trouble down the North End there with the young guineas leaping around and shootin’ everybody every so often – I tell you, I keep hearin’ there’s no crime in the North End and there’re times when it just about makes me sick to my stomach – and we sent him down there undercover and he brought in four of them.”

“That sounds a little better,” Mooney said.

“You’re a real expert on this stuff, aren’t you, Terrence,” Roscommon said. “Lemme tell you something else – it takes more’n a pair of balls to get a man out of a swamp in the dark when he’s armed and you don’t know where he is and you’re pretty much alone, all right? You haven’t got any brains, that guy is liable, jump out a tree on your head, you know.”

“They’re all right then, you think,” Mooney said.

“They will be,” Roscommon said, “you can just keep your dick in your pants until we get these guys set up for you to fuck them. You come jumpin’ in now with your bowels in an uproar, the case is blown and the day is not far off that you’ll regret it.”