“You always were like that, Patrick. Even when you were a little kid I used to tell you to take it easy. Think you’d listen? Hell, no.”
“So I wanted to know who put the finger on me. It came down through Marcus, but I wanted to know who passed the word. I was working the stoolies when I got tagged.”
“Like how?”
“Like I was slipped a mickey and steered out to Marcus’ place.”
“And there it ends,” he said around his cigar.
I nodded.
“You were lucky,” he told me. “One thing, you just can’t always figure a jury. You talked it up enough before Marcus got killed. You know how many guys... cops yet, heard you say you’d put so many holes in him he’d look like a screen door?”
“That was talk. You know damn well how it goes.”
“Sure, but it got done. Man, six shots in the kisser that knocked him kicking into a fireplace so that he’s half cremated before they find you both.” He leaned back in his chair, blowing smoke up toward the ceiling. “Until they found the finger that was shot off him they weren’t even sure it was Marcus. Of course, the dentist they ran down made it positive, but for a while they were shook. Hell, you... if it was you... did everybody a big favor. The cops should be happy.”
“It wasn’t me.”
“Your gun. Your prints. Paraffin test. You’re there out drunk. You made threats. You had a great motive. It’s pretty strong, Patrick.”
“Was pretty strong, remember?”
He grinned and nodded. “Selkirk’s a good lawyer. So what do you want from me?”
“My five grand. It was impounded. There might be a technicality or two involved, but since I have the name, I want the game. That five G’s Argenio found is mine, right?”
George’s face got real bright. “An interesting thought, Patrick. You played the ponies, hit a goodie, now spill out the tax and it’s yours. I think it can be arranged.”
“Then arrange it. Whoever planted that loot is financing his own funeral.”
He leaned forward, the concern on his face showing in the tight lines around his mouth. “This might louse you up in the department.”
“The hell with ’em. They can’t do anything but clear me. But I want that cash.”
“Sure, Patrick, I’ll get it for you. Anything else?”
“Yeah, one thing. Represent me at the departmental trial.”
“Sure, but what about meanwhile?”
“You know me, Georgie boy. I’m nobody’s slob.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of. You packing a rod?”
“Not at the moment.”
“Later?”
“If I have to.”
“Like I said,” he repeated. “What about meanwhile?”
“I want my badge back. They’ll probably try to shuffle me off to some obscure division, so make a deal. I’ll keep nice and clean and out of everybody’s way. Otherwise I’ll really raise a stink. They’ll know what I’m talking about.”
“So do I, kid. The picture’s clear. You’re just asking for a bucketful of trouble and an early death.”
“Didn’t I always?”
“You did. That you did. You’re such a damn big target it’s a wonder you ever stayed alive this long.”
I picked my hat off his desk and slid it on. “Take care of me, Georgie boy.”
“Just like the old days,” he said.
I nodded. “So now I got a mouthpiece. Fine comedown for a cop.” I grinned at him. “Just like the old days.”
Jerry Nolan always ate Saturday lunches at Vinnie’s. The menu was wop clam chowder with all the breadsticks you could eat stacked up like cordwood in the middle of the table. Vinnie automatically dished up a plate for me and had it at the table as soon as I sat down. When I said hello he nodded, the reserve plain on his face. I was something he wasn’t used to. Ordinarily everything would be black or white, but now something was grey and he wasn’t used to it.
“You’re taking a long time,” I finally said to him.
He paused, a half a breadstick heavy with butter halfway to his mouth. “What are you getting at?”
“You. Your damn insistence upon the letter of the law all the way. By now you should figure yourself for a sanctimonious bastard in a departmental sense.”
His face tightened and he bit into the breadstick, waiting.
“The law, buddy,” I said. “It proved me innocent. Remember? You’re the one always sounding off about the sanctity of the law. Now the law has acted. I’m clean. Come off it. Like you tell everybody else, don’t figure yourself bigger than the law so that when the law acts you refuse to accept the verdict.”
His neck reddened and he bent his face toward his plate. His eyes flicked up momentarily and he nodded, trying to conceal a self-conscious smile.
“Okay.”
That’s all he said, and I knew everything was all right again. Nolan was a funny one, a hell of a tough cop, but square all the way. His hatred for hoods was a terrible passion but nothing compared to the way he felt about crooked cops. He had had a hard time swallowing the thing that had happened to me, but now it was dead and buried.
I said, “I picked up something.”
“New?”
“To me, anyway. A redhead helped me into a cab that night.”
“She wasn’t there when you got out. You took that ride alone,” he reminded me. He spooned his chowder up again, then: “You weren’t followed, either. I questioned Rivera about that myself. He was positive.”
“The redhead set up the address. Damn it, I had been mouthing off about Marcus and she had me driven there.”
With a patient gesture he put his spoon down and wiped his mouth. “I know, Regan. I heard it all. I’m not stupid. I checked out everything that night personally. I didn’t pass any of it on because there was nothing conclusive. It’s pretty typical of people who have been drinking to help another drunk into a cab. Nobody makes sense. Everybody’s at the ha ha stage. The driver gets paid and goes along with things. Any cabbie will drop a drunk off at an address. He won’t get wrapped up over it.”
“This didn’t come out at the trial.”
“I said it was inconclusive. You had enough against you. I didn’t have to make it any worse.”
“Thanks.”
“My pleasure.”
“You overlooked one thing.”
“Now I know.”
“All right, tell it to me,” I said.
“You were slipped a mickey sometime that night.”
“Thanks for realizing it. You know why?”
“Sure. So you could kill off Marcus.”
I shook my head. “You know damn well that would be a stupid trick. I was too far gone to do anything. I was set up for a conviction and you know it. Anybody that drunk would have the cops asking questions long before a jury would.”
Nolan leaned back in his seat and reached for his cigarettes. When he had one lit he said, “You know the ingredients in a mickey?”
I nodded. “Sure. Generally chloral hydrate. For the knockout kind, anyway.”
“That’s right. But the restriction on its use is that it knocks you out or doesn’t knock you out. If you went under you wouldn’t be able to act of your own volition. However, during the war the Germans came up with a new one. A simple formula change brought the desired results, but when certain initial effects had worn off, the subject had physical action without mental control and no later recollection.”
A small fire started deep in my belly. “Go on.”
“It was called Sentol. It allowed a person to come out of a stupor, perform an act, then go back into a stupor again.”
“This didn’t come out at the trial,” I said coldly.
“I realize that. Again, it was inconclusive. When you were found you were given the usual balloon test for drunks. The percentage was against you. The kind of a dosage you could possibly... and I said possibly... have been given, would have allowed you to drink enough to genuinely get drunk, at least enough to go past the critical percentage point in your blood. By all known tests, you were chemically drunk.”