That got him the laugh he wanted from the kids. I sneaked a glance at Whitey. He was laughing, too. But I kept on writing the ticket.
When I got the ticket finished, Erie made a sort of little bow and took it. “Thank you, officer. I do hope it just somehow doesn’t slip my mind to pay it.”
He got into his car. The kids watched him admiringly.
I looked at Whitey again. I was met with a grin too worldly-wise, too contemptuous for such a young face.
The day that started bad and got worse, got worse still. The story of my latest run-in with Erie moved up the street a lot faster than I could walk, and all the wise guys of all ages made cracks about parking tickets that were used to light cigars.
For the first time I really thought of quitting the force. It all seemed so hopeless, Water Street with its cheap dives, horse parlours, scruffy little bars; its hoodlums and drunks. Erie had the street in his paws and all I was doing was playing clown for him, providing the kids with some cheap laughs.
I was halfway up the street before I realized Whitey was following me. He was slouching along, hands in his pockets, about ten yards behind. I didn’t know why. Who knows what goes on inside the head of a kid like Whitey? I pretended I didn’t know he was following me.
I stopped to lecture some little kids, seven and eight, I guess. They were playing in the mouth of the alley that separated the Golden Horse Tavern and the mission, directly across the street from St. Mark’s. They were playing with peashooters, which isn’t a big deal, I’ll admit, but they were shooting those hard white beans, and the year before a little girl had lost the sight of one eye.
I tried to explain to the little kids that what they were doing was dangerous but I was wasting my breath. I could tell that from the sullen, hostile looks on their little faces, faces that I’d often seen light up with awe and admiration when they looked at Erie.
I finished lecturing and started walking again. I’d taken maybe ten steps when one of the kids behind me yelled, “Hey, flatfoot, why don’t you go give Mr. Erie another ticket?” When I wheeled about the little kids were scampering off in all directions like mice, laughing mice. I looked at Whitey. He was laughing, too.
I couldn’t get really mad at the little kids, or at Whitey. Erie showed them that laws and lawmen were a joke. Like Marg had said, even the Reform League couldn’t stop him, let alone a cop on a beat. So why wouldn’t kids follow his example?
But I plodded on. I guess a mule is a reasonable character compared to me. Whitey stopped following me. I had no more idea why he stopped than why he had started.
Erie drove by. He’d do that sometimes for hours, just drive up and down the street, car windows open, big cigar in his mouth. He tooted his horn and gave me a phoney wave, and he sure thought he was funny. I noticed he was alone now. I figured maybe he’d put his muscle guy back in his cage.
I reached Pier Seven, the end of the street, and started plodding back, following my usual pattern.
It was about three minutes later that it happened, that astonishing thing that made me stop cold and made my heart skip some beats.
I saw Erie’s car coming toward me. then suddenly, just about level with the Golden Horse Tavern, the car swerved sharply right across the street and jumped the kerb and whammed against the grey stone side of St. Mark’s with a crash you could have heard five blocks way. Just like that it happened.
I was the first person to get to the car. The front was all mashed in but I managed to get the door open on the driver’s side. Erie sat straight, his hands on the wheel. His face looked calm. There wasn’t any blood. But no living man ever held his head in the position his was. Broken neck. Stone dead.
It had all happened so fast, so unexpectedly, that I was a little dazed. It took me a couple of seconds to identify the object on the lap of Erie’s expensive suit. But when I finally realized what the thing was, I did something I’d never done before in the presence of the dead. I grinned. I knew exactly what had happened and it was a joke — on Erie. A huge joke. And I thought, “No, Marg dear, you were wrong. It didn’t take a lot more than the Reform League to stop Mart Erie, it took a lot less. One heck of a lot less.”
I picked the thing up and put it carefully in my pocket.
A big crowd gathered quick. People came running from every dive along the street. They stood around and shook their heads and muttered. They couldn’t believe Erie was really dead, that he had died in such a way and so fast.
The Homicide boys arrived; they had to fight their way through the crowd. Sergeant Grady was in charge, a guy I really admired. He was such a good cop that not even Erie’s stooges at city hall had dared kick him off the force. And he was the only cop in town who had managed to make it hot and heavy sometimes for Erie’s boys. Tough, that Grady.
“Well, well,” he said to me. “Now ain’t this a beautiful sight. Who do we pin the medal on?”
I whispered the truth to him. I whispered because I figured probably Grady would want the truth known only when he was good and ready.
“Well, well,” he said. “How do you like that!”
I saw Whitey then. He was in the front of the crowd. He looked shook-up, disbelieving. I saw him look admiringly at Grady. Kids like Whitey admire tough guys, no matter which side of the law they’re on.
Whitey spoke up. “What happened, Mr. Grady? Was it an accident, or somebody bump him off?”
I took it upon myself to do the answering. “Suicide, kid. Suicide. The inquest may put another tag on it, but that’s what it was.”
I saw both Whitey and Grady frown, and Whitey said, “No. No, Mr. Erie wouldn’t do that.”
But Grady was suddenly grinning, and he said, “Yeah. If you look at it a certain way, that’s just what it was.”
I saw that Whitey was thinking hard now. I liked that. I wanted him to do a lot of thinking.
The newspaper columnist Mike Willard forced his way through the crowd to me. “The Reform League has finally got a break,” he said. “Erie’s empire will fall to pieces now. Watch what happens in the elections next month. And watch afterwards, because then you’ll see the heads roll.”
Water Street was just one big jam of people now. But they were real quiet. They just couldn’t get it into their heads that the king was dead.
Willard said, “Speaking of heads that are going to get chopped, here come half a dozen of them.”
They were some of the big wheels from headquarters, some of Erie’s stooges. They didn’t look healthy. An hour before they would have talked to Grady like he had a raging case of Bubonic Plague. It was sure different now.
“Anything I can do to help you, Sergeant Grady, just let me know. My entire squad is at your disposal, Sergeant Grady.”
It was funny — in a disgusting way.
I listened to Whitey and a couple of his friends.
“Suicide! Mr. Erie wouldn’t do that, would he, Whitey?”
“I don’t know. I wouldn’t have believed it, but now I don’t know.”
You’re thinking, kid, I thought. Keep right in thinking.
The ambulance got through the crowd and took the body away. The boys from the police garage towed away what was left of Erie’s car.
Grady took me aside into a doorway where we could talk private. Like they were so many flies, he shooed away all the wheels from headquarters.
“Give it to me,” he said.
I did. He held it between his thumb and forefinger for a second. “My, my,” he said with a big grin on his face. “And I guess you could buy a million of ’em for twenty bucks.” He put the thing in a little white envelope, which he sealed and put in his coat pocket.