Jaeger was shaking all over. His fat hand rose to his lips, his eyes bulged as he stared down at Sullivan.
MacBride went backstage, where half a dozen girls and as many men were sitting around under the uncompromising eye of a policeman.
“Where’s the fan dancer?” the skipper asked.
“She musta breezed,” the policeman said. He pointed. “That there is her room. The door was locked and I busted it down but she wasn’t in there.”
MacBride entered the room. A rear window was open and he stuck his head out and saw an alleyway. He returned to the group outside the door.
“Who is this fan dancer?”
One of the girls said, “Ask Mr. Sullivan. He’s the only one who knows.”
MacBride chuckled ironically, bit the end off a three-cent cigar, lit up.
The repercussion was greater than anyone expected. The opposition press, egged on by the Liberal League and insurgent political cliques, exploded; and the backwash was pretty devastating. The Mayor came in for a drubbing for having appointed Dan Osborne to the post of Special Prosecutor in the Chief Executive’s vice drive. Osborne himself came in for a merciless hammering. The police were roundly criticized, from the Commissioner down. It came out in the newspapers that Marty Sullivan had been beaten and strangled to death by brutal policemen...
MacBride himself issued a statement denying this charge. He stated that his men had endured all kinds of insults and been at the mercy of the mob for ten minutes before a nightstick was wielded or tear gas unleashed. The opposition press was full of statements of persons who had been in the Carioca when the police raided it. Every statement was a hot indictment of the police and of the way the raid was handled. Some threatened court action. No one had actually seen a policeman choke Marty Sullivan to death but since all the statements enumerated acts of brutality on the part of the officers the opposition press felt free to assume that Sullivan had died as a result of an act of police brutality.
City Hall was in an uproar. Committee after committee called on the Mayor. Naturally there had to be lambs for this slaughter. The buck had to be passed. Some palliative had to be given to the outraged opposition press, to the Liberal League, to the political insurgents.
MacBride was suspended for thirty days without pay. The order stated that when he returned to duty it would be as acting captain in some outlying precinct. Moriarity and Cohen were removed from Headquarters to the Ninth Precinct. Every policeman who had taken part in the raid was farmed out to various precincts. The shake-up jarred the whole Department. Captain George Danno, formerly of the Alien Squad, moved into MacBride’s office.
“I’m not going to like this job, Steve,” he said.
MacBride was bitter, hard-jawed. “I’ve been taken for a ride, George! I’m the goat! There’s an awful boner somewhere and Marty Sullivan was murdered and those crackpots are so anxious to fry me that they forget all about that — they forget that Marty Sullivan was murdered! Okey, I’m suspended. I’ve been a cop almost thirty years and I’m suspended. I ought to’ve been kicked in the head the first day I ever put on a uniform. I’m suspended. Okey, I’m suspended. Almost thirty years a cop and because a lot of lousy drunks in a honkytonk start throwing things so fast that a cop has to defend himself—” He threw up his arms and glared at George Danno. “What the hell are cops supposed to be anyhow — part of a daisy chain? This city reeks to high heaven, George!”
Danno looked gloomy. “I know just how you feel, Steve. I only hope I can do half as well here as you’ve done.”
MacBride punched him in the ribs. “Hell, George, you’re the tops.”
Flannery of the Free Press said, “This is funny, it’s really screwy. Here a guy is ostensibly murdered and all the yelling seems to be about something else. About City Hall and the Special Prosecutor and Steve MacBride, with a generous history, not complimentary, of City Hall and the Police Department thrown in. If it makes sense, if it even makes news — then I’m a punk editor.”
“I would never argue with you,” Kennedy said dreamily.
“I wasn’t talking to you. I was thinking out loud. I told you years ago that one day MacBride would go a step too far and get himself a Bronx cheer, with trimmings.”
Kennedy yawned. “The skipper is a big bull-headed mutt. He’s got a one-track mind and he thinks that shield he wears is another kind of bible. It never occurs to him to walk around a tree, he’s got to batter his head against it. To him the law, my friend, is the law: good, bad, or indifferent; it’s the law. He carries it out as strictly on himself as on any heel that he picks up. Sometimes I think he’s goofy. I don’t approve of his outlook on life, his foolhardy honesty, his blind loyalty to his shield. But I like him. He’s probably the best friend I’ve got. That being the case” — he rose wearily, a spare shadow of a man, frail, emaciated — “something’s got to be done about conditions in Denmark. They seem to be particularly dirty. Would you have a drink in that desk of yours?”
“I would not.”
“You would not, of course. If I ever saw a bottle come out of that desk I’d swear it was a mirage. Toodle-oo.”
“Where you going?”
“To investigate conditions in Denmark.”
Flannery barked, “Be sure to keep your name and address on you, in case you pass out drunk somewhere, so they’ll know where to take you.”
Kennedy shivered as he stepped into the bitter wind that slammed down Hill Street. The threadbare light topcoat he wore was hardly adequate for midwinter weather. His shoes were low, thin; his socks silk. His suit had been intended for spring. It wasn’t that he didn’t have the money; he just never got around to buying things for himself.
When he reached Dan Osborne’s office, in the Municipal Building, he was jittery with the cold and his skinny hands were almost blue. The office was warm. Dan Osborne looked warm and comfortable in a gray herringbone suit. He was leaning on his elbows on the desk — a neat, well-groomed, healthy-looking man, amiable as always, even when he was worried. He puffed a triangular cigar.
Kennedy sat down on a radiator. Osborne had not spoken; he had evidently been following a line of thought, and though his eyes greeted Kennedy familiarly, he did not utter a word for several minutes. Finally he sat back, shrugged, smiled ruefully.
“I got Steve MacBride in a nice jam, didn’t I, Kennedy?”
“I don’t think he figures you did.”
Osborne’s large, well-packed face looked grave. He said, “I did all I could, Kennedy. I talked with the Mayor, with the Commissioner. I offered to resign if they’d keep the ax off Steve’s head.” He shook his head. “They wouldn’t hear of it.”
Kennedy smiled. “The Mayor couldn’t afford to do that. He appointed you. He couldn’t lose face by kicking you out. He didn’t appoint MacBride. Hence... MacBride.”
“I suppose so,” Osborne sighed. “You don’t think Sullivan was accidentally killed by a cop, do you?”
Kennedy said, “Sullivan wasn’t accidentally killed and he wasn’t killed by Steve’s flying squad. I was there about a minute before the cops cut loose. I didn’t see Marty anywhere. If Marty was alive then he’d have been on his feet. He wasn’t alive. He was dead then. Up till then, up until the time Steve turned the bright lights on, the place was practically in darkness, except for the stage. Everybody’s eyes were glued on the fan dancer.
“We know now that Marty Sullivan was alone at the table. The table was against the wall, the chair he was sitting on was next to that door that leads back to his office and the men’s lavatory. Somebody could have stepped through the door. The drums and the gourds were pretty loud. Somebody could have stepped through that door and throttled him then, while the music was loud, while everybody was watching the fan dancer.”