Wakeful in the dark, he thought bitterly about that other time, remembering that he’d been dumb then, a kid, telling them the truth over and over, stupid enough to think they were going to believe it. He admitted he was in the car; he admitted he was driving it. But he didn’t know it was stolen, and he didn’t know Jack Bohannon was pulling any holdup.
That night, he said, he was just hanging around the corner when Jack Bohannon pulled up and asked him if he’d like to try the new bus out. So they rode around for a while, Mickey Gavegan driving, and then they stopped on the avenue because Bohannon said he wanted to get some cigarettes. And Bohannon went into the store, and after a while came out again, running, with; a guy after him, yelling, and a cop coming out from somewhere. He just sat there, Mickey Gavegan said; he didn’t know what it was all about. And then Bohannon ducked into a subway entrance because the cop was between him and the car, and Mickey Gavegan got out from behind the wheel kind of nervous, thinking maybe he’d better beat it too. He was just beginning to walk away when somebody pointed at him, and the cop grabbed him. And then he was hooked; then, no matter how many times he told his story, nobody would believe him.
The prosecutor didn’t; the jury didn’t; the judge didn’t — he gave young Michael Gavegan two and a half years.
So he went up the river and served his time. His mother was dead then, and only Luke Daly came up once a month to see him. Bohannon had been smart; Bohannon had skipped out. No one around the neighborhood saw him or heard of him. After a while Mickey Gavegan didn’t even bother to ask Luke Daly about him...
In the yard, at exercise time, Mickey Gavegan heard a lot of stories about cops — how yellow they were, how crooked, how cruel. Everyone had his own story about them, and Mickey Gavegan never got tired listening to them. Cops! Mickey Gavegan got to spitting out of the corner of his mouth whenever anybody mentioned one.
Then, after he got out and went to live with Luke Daly while he hunted a job, Luke made the list — and became a cop.
In the morning papers the next day, after Luke Daly had gone off to duty, he read that a man named Dingbat Green had been shot dead in a tenement doorway at half-past eleven last night. His wife had heard the shot and found him in the entry; she had heard some people running through the yard but she had not seen them, and she had not seen Mickey Gavegan. He read all the papers, and all said the same thing. No one had seen him; he was safe.
That night, smoking in the armchair with his eyes wrinkled up thoughtfully in his lean homely face, Luke Daly gave him his idea of it.
“It ties in with those four guys who got away with a hundred thousand in that payroll job,” he said. “We found that out. This Dingbat was talking about it in O’Brien’s place last night, an hour before he was killed — saying he’d get his cut out of that or something was going to break. Joe Glennon got a tip on what was going on and went down there to pick Dingbat up, but missed him by five minutes. He was on his way over to the house when Dingbat got it.”
“Dingbat liked his liquor,” Mickey Gavegan said. “I guess it made him talk too much.”
Luke Daly said slowly, “This is how I figure it, Mike. Whoever bossed that payroll job was smart enough to know what anybody like Dingbat Green would do with twenty grand or so in his pocket. He knew he’d tear the town wide open and put the finger right on himself — and on the others too. So I think he didn’t split the money right away — he gave them maybe a couple of hundred each and held back the rest until things got quieter. But Dingbat gets drunk and begins to bellyache, and this other bird hears what he’s saying, or somebody passes him the word. So he rubs out Dingbat right away, to save himself — and maybe to split what’s left just three ways instead of four.”
“I guess that’s it,” Mickey Gavegan agreed, trying not to seem too interested. He looked at a bracelet Luke Daly had bought that day for his girl; and afterward, when Luke Daly, all decked out, had started out to see her, he sat around for a while reading the papers again.
His face looked dull and tired when he raised it at the knock on the door. He said, “Huh? Come in,” and a thin man in a brown topcoat and a soft hat turned down all around opened the door, closed it after him, and leaned against it with his hands in his pockets.
“Hello, Gavegan,” he said, his small mouth smiling in his long, pale face. “How’re tricks?”
Mickey Gavegan looked at him across the room; he knew him right away. “Bohannon,” he said. “Jack Bohannon. What—” His throat got kind of dry; he swallowed to clear it.
“Yeah,” Bohannon said, jerking his head backward. “I seen Daly go out a couple of minutes ago. When’s he due back?”
“Late,” Mickey Gavegan said automatically. Up there where they’d sent him he used to think that he’d meet Jack Bohannon again; and when he did— Something tingled in his fingers, as if a charged wire had touched him, and he got out of his chair slowly.
“Wait a minute,” Bohannon said. He didn’t move; his voice was casual. “Listen to what I got to tell you before you act up. I never knew you took the rap for that holdup until I got back in town last month; I figured you scrammed out of there the way I did. Why in hell didn’t you?”
“Maybe,” Mickey Gavegan said huskily, “because I didn’t know what it was.”
In the pale face across from him the brows arched outward in a shallow V.
“No,” Bohannon said, watching him curiously. “I guess you didn’t. You were always slow on the uptake.” His voice was soft but his dark eyes were cold and serious. “As soon as I heard about it I figured I owed you something. Not that I’m scared of you— Don’t get ideas. I’m no corner punk any more, Gavegan. I been around. I got connections, good connections. In Chi—” He raised his brows again. “That ain’t here or there. I got a grand in my pocket, Gavegan — it don’t square everything but it’ll help.”
“A grand?” Mickey Gavegan repeated. His mind did not take in the words; he spoke only because Bohannon paused.
“That’s it.” Bohannon nodded, watching him directly. “For what I owe you, and for something I want you to do. There’s a guy I want to get in touch with, Gavegan, only he’s ducked out of sight and I don’t know where to find him. He’s got a sister on the west side who could locate him — but she’s never gonna do it for me. Just tonight, when I heard you were living with Daly, I got an idea how maybe you could work it out of her.”
Raising his head so that his chin was tilted up, he nodded to the bedroom. “All you have to do is to put on the uniform Luke Daly’s got in there. Then you’re a cop, see? You’re pretty near his size and it would fit you all right; she won’t know any different. You tell her you’re from the D.A.’s office and they want to get in touch with her brother. You say they want to protect him because they heard he’s in trouble and somebody’s plannin’ to knock him off. That’ll scare her all right; she’ll tell you where he is then. Ain’t you a cop? So you pick him up and take him to where I tell you—”
His hands spread wide on the table, his head lowered between his shoulders, Mickey Gavegan stared at him with glittering eyes.
For a moment Bohannon considered him. Then he said in an edged voice, “Or maybe I got to get tough with you. You want that, Gavegan? After that guy was shot last night I saw you running away, scared as hell. Say the cops got that tip phoned in to them tonight. You think they’d want to know why?”
“What?” Mickey Gavegan asked thickly. “You can’t pull that. I never—”
“The cops might believe you,” Bohannon said. He showed his teeth delicately, like a cat smiling. “And maybe they won’t.”
His voice stopped carelessly there. Cold inside, not scared, but upset and uneasy, Mickey Gavegan tried to think this out. But it was confused in his head, offering no place from which to start.