“You admit you’ve killed?”
“I’m not going to lie to you. There’s no court stenographer sitting here. I’ve killed in self-defense and skipped hanging around for an inquest, sure. I stick in one place that long I get dead quick.”
“You don’t look like the type who’s afraid of much of anything.”
“Only idiots fear nothing. If I can fight something, then no sweat. But you can’t hold ground and fight a bomb in your room. Stay in one spot long enough and they find a way to get you.”
Mitchell leaned back and smoked slowly and thought.
Nolan reached for a cigarette and said, “Make your pitch, Mitchell. Let’s have it.”
Mitchell smiled. “You know how long I’ve lived in Chelsey, Nolan?”
“No, and do you think I give a damn?”
“I was born here. It was a nice little place for a long time, friendly, homey, very Midwest, you know? Called it the intel-lectual corner of Illinois, too, because of the university...”
“Get to the point,” Nolan said. “If there is one.”
“All right.” Mitchell’s face hardened; it was deeply lined, more deeply lined than that of the average man of thirty-five or so years. “I could make things rough for you, Nolan, if I wanted to. I could hold you long enough to find out who you are, especially since you kindly informed me of your trouble during your stay in the army. The army keeps records. Fingerprints and such. A bad conduct discharge shouldn’t be hard to trace.”
“If I was telling the truth,” Nolan shrugged.
“I don’t know what you’re after, Nolan, but I know enough about you to have a general idea. You came to Chelsey to hit the Family’s local set-up, right?”
Nolan just looked at him.
“Now, off the record, as they say... what I want is the man in charge. Give him to me. Then maybe I can start cleaning this town up a little bit.”
“And you’ll give me a free ride home, I suppose?”
“As long as I get the goods on the head man, you’ll be free to go. With anything you might relieve him of in the way of cash.”
Nolan said, “You don’t have any idea who your ‘head man’ is?”
“I’ve been trying to find that out for over a year, since I first started to realize just what kind of corruption was going on here. You don’t mean you already know who he is?”
“Found out the day I got here.”
“How?”
“Never mind that. You said your police chief, Saunders, was killed tonight?”
“One of three dead... so far.”
“Well, Saunders wasn’t in charge, but he was in up to his ass.”
“I knew it!” Mitchell slammed fist into palm. “That son- of-a-bitch has been crippling the force since the day he took office.”
“What about the next man killed?”
“Broome? We think he was involved in some kind of narcotics ring. There was heroin in his blood stream at time of death, and we found a hypo in the room and some H. Couple hits worth.”
“Broome was a junkie and a pusher and a creep. But my money says he’s outside help linking Chelsey to a drug supplier.”
“Broome?”
“That’s right. The Boys in Chicago, the mob in New York, they wouldn’t send a punk like Broome in, because he was a user. But maybe he used to work for the Chicago or New York mob before he got hooked, and still had connections to a supplier.”
Mitchell was confused. “This is beginning to go over my head.”
Nolan didn’t like explaining things, but to handle Mitchell properly, the cop had to be told what was going on. Narcotics, Nolan told Mitchell, were hard to organize; by nature they were a sprawling thing, a pusher here, a pusher there, nothing that could be controlled easily. For years the Commission hadn’t bothered even trying to control it. But the last seven, eight years, Nolan explained, had changed things: the eastern families had put on a big push to organize narcotics once and for all, and with large success.
“But it’s tough to hold rein on narcotics traffic,” Nolan said. “The difference is that now, if you’re a non-Commission sanctioned narcotics dealer and they find you out, you get leaned on.”
“Leaned on hard?”
Nolan’s look was that of a father dealing with a backward child. “The Commission of Families doesn’t know how to lean soft.”
“So this Commission has to authorize narcotics trafficking, or it’s no go. And the Chelsey operation is an extension of the Chicago Outfit, which is a Commission member. Are you suggesting the Commission doesn’t know about the narcotics trade in Chelsey?”
Nolan nodded. “And the Chicago Boys don’t know it, either.”
“Now I am lost.”
“That’s because you don’t understand what the Chelsey operation was for. George Franco, brother of one of the Boys or not, was a big nothing. The Chelsey set-up was supposed to be a minor deal, just to give worthless George something to do, make him look good, save a little face for the Francos. But this operation is obviously making money. A lot of it. Money the Commission in New York doesn’t know about. Money the Boys in Chicago don’t know about. And when they find out, both the Boys and the Commission are going to be pissed. But good.”
“Who’s behind it? Who’s getting the money?”
“Not George Franco, that’s for sure.”
“Then who?”
“Who brought your late police chief to town?”
Mitchell thought for a moment. “That real estate big shot. Supposed to be Saunder’s cousin or something. Elliot.”
Nolan nodded. “Him.”
“You can’t mean it,” Mitchell said. “Elliot’s as legit as can be...”
“No. He’s the one. Elliot. He’s your boy.”
Mitchell rose. “I’ll be damned if I don’t believe you.” His face twisted with a big grin. He shrugged and said, “Well, Nolan, since you told me all this, I guess there isn’t much left for you to do. I’ll go out and arrest Elliot...”
“Go out to Elliot’s place without hard proof, Mitchell, and you’re fucked. Wait around while you collect evidence, and you won’t see Elliot again. Except maybe in a travelogue of Brazil.”
“I can’t let you go out and...”
“You were willing to five minutes ago. How about those murders tonight? Elliot pulled ’em, you know. Any idea what those murders were for?”
Mitchell shook his head.
Nolan grinned, his first full-out grin for a long time. “He was house-cleaning,” he said. “Taking care of anyone who could spill anything that could lead Boys, Commission, cops or feds to him. And five will get you five hundred he’ll be out of the country by tomorrow morning.”
Nolan got up and called for Vicki. He asked her to get the rest of his clothes and she did. He sat on the sofa and checked his .38, which he stuffed into the shoulder holster under his arm. Then he slipped into the blue plaid parka and walked to the door. Mitchell stood there and didn’t say a word.
“Do I have to tie you up, Mitchell?”
“No.”
“Stay away from Elliot tonight.”
“You going to take him?”
“Yes.”
“Alive?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m going with you.”
“Forget it.”
Mitchell fought himself, finally accepted it, saying, “If it has to be that way, all right. I guess I suggested it myself, didn’t I?”
“That’s right. Stay here and watch Miss Trask. She’s been seen with me and could be in danger. If I need you, I’ll call.”
Mitchell nodded reluctant agreement and Nolan said goodbye to Vicki and went out the apartment, down the steps and to street level. He walked to the Lincoln and got in.