Still staring at the river, he lit a cigarette and sipped his drink. The music wrapped itself around him, filtering into his mind with stories of love — love lost, love found, love dying, love growing. Every kind of love there is, he thought irritably. The songs were as bad as the movie he had walked out of tonight. All promise, hope, and sickly enchantment. Did anyone know love as it was defined by these groaning singers? Where was this nostalgia, this grandeur, this thing that could enrich a man even as he lost or destroyed it?
Well, where was it? he asked himself. Not in this world, that was certain. It was like Santa Claus, and the big kind man with whiskers who looked down from the clouds with a sad smile on his face. Fairy tales for dopes who would fall on their faces if it weren’t for these crutches.
To get his mind off it, he emptied an ashtray and straightened the pile of magazines on the coffee table. The room pleased him with its look of expensive comfort. It needed pictures, but he hadn’t enough confidence in his own judgment to buy the modern paintings he thought he liked, and he balked at the hunting prints which a dealer had told him would go with just about anything. Glancing about, Carmody remembered the way his father had hung holy pictures around the house with a bland disregard for anything but his own taste. St. Michael with his foot on Lucifer’s neck, the good and bad angels, St. Peter dressed like a Roman senator and St. Anthony looking like a tragic young poet. All over the place, staring at you solemnly when you snapped on the lights. Carmody hadn’t minded the pictures as much as his father’s stubborn insistence on sticking them in the most conspicuous spot in every room. It was like living in a church. Carmody hardly remembered his mother; she had died two months after having Eddie, when he himself was just eight years old. The old man had raised his sons alone; getting married again had never crossed his mind.
The stubborn old fool, Carmody was thinking, as he got ready to leave. He’d been sure he had a strangle hold on happiness and eternal bliss. Everything was settled, all problems were solved in advance by his trust in God.
I’d like to see him handle this problem, he thought bitterly. The old man would tell Eddie not to worry, to make a novena and do what he thought was right. That would be great except for the fact that Ackerman and Beaumonte didn’t believe in novenas. Prayers were a waste of breath in their league. The old man couldn’t save Eddie with a lifetime on his knees. But I’ll save him, Carmody thought. Without prayers. That’s my kind of work.
The Empire was a quiet, respectable apartment hotel in the Northeast section of the city. Carmody got there at two-thirty, parked on the dark, tree-lined street and walked into the tiled lobby. He found her name printed in ink on a white card and rang the bell. There was a speaking tube beside the row of cards. She answered the third ring.
“Yes? Who is it?”
“This is Mike Carmody. I want to see you.”
She hesitated a moment, then said coldly, “It’s a bit late, don’t you think?”
“Wait a minute. What’s wrong with a friendly chat?”
“You don’t see anything wrong with coming up here at two-thirty in the morning?”
“People will talk, eh?” he said dryly. “Well, that’s okay. I don’t mind.”
“Please, Mike, you’re dead wrong about me,” she said, her voice changing.
“Save all that,” he said. “This concerns Eddie. Now press the buzzer before I get mad.”
“Is this how you get what you want?” she said. “By kicking people around?”
“Press that buzzer,” Carmody said. “I’m not kidding, bright eyes. Your virtue, such as it is, won’t get a workout Open up, damn it.”
There was a short pause. Then the lock clicked sharply. Smiling slightly, he opened the door and walked down a short carpeted hallway to the elevator.
She was waiting for him at the doorway of her apartment, her small head lifted defiantly. She wore a blue silk robe and a ribbon held her hair back from the slim line of her throat. Without make-up her face was pale, but her steady blue eyes were bright and unafraid.
Carmody walked toward her, still smiling slightly. She would play this on a very high level, he guessed. All poise and dignity. She created an illusion of strength and dignity, but Carmody wasn’t impressed. He had worked too long as a cop to be impressed by externals. Underneath that thin crust of confidence he knew there was nothing but guilt. What else could there be?
Smiling down at her, he said, “Thanks for letting me come up.”
“I had no choice,” she said shortly.
“That’s a dull way to look at it.”
She turned into her apartment and he followed her and tossed his hat into a chair. The living room was impersonal but comfortable; a TV set stood in one corner and a studio couch, made up now with sheets and blankets, was pulled out a few inches from the opposite wall. There were chairs, lamps, a coffee table with copies of Variety and Billboard on it, and a tall breakfront in which he saw shelves of dishes.
“Cosy,” he said, nodding.
“You said you wanted to talk about Eddie.”
“We’ll get to him in a minute.”
She shrugged lightly. “We’ll do it your way, of course.”
“That’s right,” he said.
“It’s been a long day,” she said. Her expression changed then, relieved by a tentative little smile. “Don’t you have any soft spots? I’d be grateful if you’d make this brief and let me go to bed.” She tilted her small head to one side. “How about it, Mike?”
“I’m covered with soft spots,” Carmody said. “Sit down and be comfortable. This won’t take long.”
She moved to a chair and sat down slowly. The limp wasn’t obvious; it was only suggested by the careful way she held her body — as if she were crossing a floor on which she had once taken a bad fall.
“What do you want?” she asked him.
Carmody sat down on a footstool in front of her, his big hands only a few inches from the folds of her robe. “Don’t you want to guess?” he said.
“I expected you to be subtle about it,” she said evenly, but a touch of color had come into her cheeks. “Flowers maybe, and a few kind words. But you’ve made this pretty cheap. Was that what you wanted?” Then she shook her head quickly and tried to soften his eyes with a smile. “You’re wrong about me, Mike. What do I have to do to prove it?”
“Relax,” Carmody said. “I’m here about Eddie. Listen now: he had the bad luck to identify a murderer last month, and the guy is important. Has he told you anything about this?”
“No.”
“Well, Eddie stumbled on a shooting. The murderer got away, but was picked up on his description. At the trial next month Eddie can send him to the chair. But that can’t happen. Eddie’s got to refuse to make the identification. Unless he agrees to that he’s in bad trouble. Do you understand this?”
“Yes, I think so,” she said slowly. The color had receded from her cheeks. “It’s always the same, isn’t it? Important people can’t be bothered going to jail.” She studied him with a fresh awareness. “And you’re a friend of the important people?”
“One of their best friends,” Carmody said. “But Eddie’s my brother and I don’t want him hurt. That’s why I need your help.”
“What can I do?”
“To start with, answer my questions. I know he’s crazy about you. But how do you feel about him?”
“I like him a lot. He’s good-natured, gentle, he’s straight and dependable, and—”
“Okay, okay,” Carmody said, cutting across her words impatiently. “I don’t want a litany. Do you love the guy?”
“Not yet.”
Carmody looked at her in silence, trying to keep a check on his temper. Who in hell was she to dilly-dally with his brother? To play the shy maiden with an honest guy like Eddie?