Johnson's mouth twitched. He said, "Scalise did this. With Lombardi's blessin'."
"Why?"
"To cause you trouble. Dead white cop in a colored section is goin' to fire up the frictions 'tween the police and the colored citizenry."
Ness nodded gravely. "We're just a couple blocks from where that riot happened, and that kid was killed."
"Right," Johnson said. "But we also are just a few blocks south of the white district. Easy to kill him there, dump him here."
Wild, who was saying nothing, was lighting up a Lucky Strike; he wasn't taking notes, Curry noticed, but he wasn't missing a word.
"This does sound like Lombardi and Scalise," Ness said, grinning like a skull. "We're gathering witnesses, trying to build confidence in our ability to safeguard those witnesses-and the Mayfield boys bump off a cop and dump him here. Here we are assuring witnesses of protection, and one of our own gets it, and is tossed in their literal front yard." He laughed bitterly.
"Hell," said Johnson, "we just two and a half blocks from where one of our prime witnesses lives."
Ness looked at him sharply. "Who's that?"
"John C. Washington," Curry said. "One of the former policy kings. You've talked to him."
"He's a key witness, all right," Ness said, thinking that over. He checked his watch. "It's not even ten. Let's go over there and talk to him. Curry, Johnson, you ride with me. Sam, you want to come?"
Wild grinned, pitched his Lucky into the night, trailing sparks. "Sure. No more dead bodies gonna turn up here."
As they drove the two blocks, Ness kept going over it. "Okay, we know why they dumped the body in this district- to embarrass us, to generally…"
"Fuck up our investigation," Johnson said.
"Yes. That's exactly right. But it doesn't explain why this man.. what was his name, Clifford Willis? Why this officer was killed."
"Like we said," Johnson said. "To cause trouble and embarrassment."
"No. That's why they dumped him here. Not why they killed him. Johnson, you knew Willis?"
"To speak to. Worked outa the same precinct."
"Was he Scalise's man? Was he dirty?"
"Not that I know of."
"Jesus!" Wild said, as they rounded the corner of 46th. "What the hell is goin' on up there?"
Three red-and-blue squad cars were parked in the street at askew angles in front of the yellow frame Victorian. All the lights were on in the house, and blue shapes were moving in the windows; cops were swarming all over the front porch. There was yelling, male; there was the sound of breaking glass; there was a scream, female.
"What the hell is this?" Ness said, under his breath.
Curry glanced over at his chief, and saw the glazed, hollow look that spoke great anger on the part of this quiet man.
Ness pulled up next to the squad cars and jumped out of the sedan, leaving it running. Curry, Wild, and Johnson followed as the safety director ran up the sidewalk onto the front porch. The cops there, who seemed to be in the process of dismantling a porch swing, froze with surprise at seeing the safety director standing before them, obviously not pleased.
"What in hell are you men doing?" he demanded.
Their arms fell to their sides, swinging limply; they were like school kids caught being naughty.
He didn't wait for an answer; he moved on inside, and Curry followed. Johnson and Wild waited outside.
The inside of the house was a shambles. The beautiful little home's furniture was upended and in many cases splintered into scrap wood; the banister on the second-floor staircase had been kicked apart and its posts stuck out at odd angles, and some were gone, like a smile missing many of its teeth.
Ness wasn't smiling. This damage was being perpetrated by uniformed police officers, who were roaming the small house, trashing it, busting out windows with nightsticks, ripping drapes apart like rapists tearing the clothes off a virginal victim.
John C. Washington, dressed in silk pajamas, and his pretty, plumpish wife, who was in a silk dressing gown, were standing beside the fireplace. He had his arm around her shoulder and she was burying her face in his chest; the woman was crying, the man was standing tall, coldly furious, as his house, his possessions, were turned into rubble before his eyes, by representatives of the city government.
Ness grabbed one of the cops by the arm, a heavy-set red-haired fellow of perhaps thirty, who turned with a snarling expression, until he saw who he was snarling at, and melted like wax.
"Who's in charge?" Ness demanded, shaking him. "Who the hell's in charge!"
"No… nobody. We just got the call…"
" What call?"
From upstairs came the cracking of furniture getting busted up, the sound of shattering glass.
The red-haired officer gestured helplessly with both hands. "A white cop was killed, Air. Ness. A white cop!"
"What does that have to do with this?"
"Johnny C. is a policy racketeer, Mr. Ness. Surely you know that."
Ness threw the man against the stairs.
He stalked back outside. Curry followed him, close as a shadow.
Ness stood in the street. Curry was at his side. Johnson and Wild were across the street on the sidewalk, just taking it all in.
"Give me your gun," Ness said to Curry.
"What are you going to do?"
"Give me your goddamn gun."
Curry swallowed. Ness swore only rarely, and hardly ever used a gun. From under his shoulder Curry withdrew the. 38 revolver and handed it to Ness.
Who fired it into the air.
Once.
Twice.
Six times.
Gun still held upward, smoke twirling out the barrel, Ness stood in the middle of the street and waited.
Cops emptied out of the house like Johns in a whorehouse fire. They had guns in hand and wore expressions of rage.
And they were stopped short, all of them, when they saw who was standing in the street before them.
"You men," Ness said, evenly, through teeth gritted so tight they ought to have broken, "are going to give your names and badge numbers to my assistant, Detective Curry, here. Then you're going to get the hell out of my sight. And when you're drifting off to sleep tonight, ponder this question: Why am I a police officer? And when you've searched your soul on that one, ponder this: Will I still be a police officer tomorrow morning?"
Glumly, sheepishly, they gathered around Curry, who took their names. Fifteen of them. The men muttered excuses. The word "nigger" turned up frequently, the phrase "cop killers" equally often. Within ten minutes, they were gone, their squad cars sliding slowly away, sirens off, red-and-blue tails tucked 'tween their legs.
Curry went inside, where Ness was talking to Washington and his wife. A place on a couch that was more or less intact had been cleared of rubble and glass. Washington sat with his arm around the shoulder of his trembling wife.
Ness stood before him, hat in hand. "We can put you up in a hotel, Mr. Washington."
"No, sir. I have friends in my own community."
"I can't excuse what happened tonight. But I can assure you I will have a crew from the city here tomorrow to help clean your place up. And I'll get funds to help cover the damage done."
Washington said nothing; his eyes were cold.
"There was a cop killing tonight," Ness said. "I have reason to believe your old friends Lombardi and Scalise were responsible-but they left the body on your doorstep, in effect."
Standing across the room by the fireplace, contemplating a picture in a broken frame of a fat uniformed colored soldier, Johnson said, "Cops go bughouse, Johnny, when one of their own gets it."
Washington said nothing.
Ness said, "We need your testimony, Mr. Washington. We can't let Lombardi and Scalise get away with, this ruse."
Washington sighed heavily. " 'Ruse'? Does this look like a ruse to you, Mr. Ness? My home, is it a ruse? Or does it look more like a shambles?"