“You’d better listen when I press a button,” Ackerman said. “We’ve got a file on you a foot high. When it goes to the Superintendent you go to jail. Keep that in mind, bellhop.”
It’s a bluff, Carmody thought, watching Ackerman. But he knew he was kidding himself. Ackerman never bluffed; he had a leash on every man who worked for him. It was the fundamental rule of his operations.
“I don’t trust anybody,” Ackerman said, as if reading his thoughts. “And least of all the cops who work for me. You’ve already sold yourself once when you start using your badges as collection plates. And you’ll sell me out if I give you the chance.”
“Let’s go, Mike,” Johnny Stark said, moving toward him with his slow, flat-footed walk. “You heard Mr. Ackerman.”
“Okay,” Carmody said, looking about the room, letting his eyes touch Ackerman and Beaumonte. “I’ll run along.” He picked up his hat from the chair and walked to the door, feeling the silence behind him and aware of their looks on his back. With his hand on the knob he paused a second. He was alone now, cut off from everyone. There would be no help from any quarter; Karen, Ackerman, Father Ahearn, even Eddie himself, they were all ranged against him, watching his futile efforts with contempt. But I’ve always been alone, he thought, as a gentle, pleasurable anger began to stir in him; he had thrown away the hollow props of faith and family because he had to stand alone. Turning his head slightly he caught Ackerman with his cold gray eyes. “What about my brother?” he said.
“We’ll take care of that,” Ackerman said.
Carmody let his hand fall from the knob. For an instant he stood perfectly still, his big body relaxed and at ease. Then he turned and walked slowly back into the room. “What does that mean, Ackerman?” he said quietly.
“Don’t make a big mistake now,” Ackerman said. “Just beat it. I’m tired of talk.”
They can’t push me this last step, Carmody thought. I’m a crooked cop with thieves’ money in my pocket, but I won’t look the other way while they murder Eddie. Drawing a deep breath, he felt nothing but relief at reaching a line he wouldn’t cross.
“There’ll be just a little more talk,” he said coldly to Ackerman. “And you’d better listen good. Nothing happens to my brother. Get that straight.”
Ackerman looked at Johnny Stark and said irritably, “Take him out of here.”
“What?” Johnny asked him anxiously.
“Get him out, you deaf ape,” Ackerman yelled. “You think I want lip from a stupid flatfoot.”
“I told you to listen good,” Carmody said, and the hard bright anger in his face brought a nervous slack to Beaumonte’s lips. Johnny was moving in on him, his massive chin pulled down into his neck, but Carmody kept his eyes on Ackerman. “Nothing happens to my brother. Figure out some other way to get off the hook.”
“I heard you,” Ackerman said. “I’ve listened to loud mouths like you before.”
“Not like me, you haven’t,” Carmody said gently. “Remember that.” Then he laughed and swung around to face Johnny Stark, his eyes alive with fury. “Now throw me out, sonny boy,” he said. “Earn your dough.”
“Mike, you and me don’t want to fight,” Johnny said.
“Why not? That’s what you’re paid for.”
Johnny hesitated, a sheepish smile touching his wide pale face. Without taking his eyes from Carmody, he said, “Mr. Ackerman, Mike carries a gun.”
“Don’t let that worry you,” Carmody said. He took the gun from his shoulder holster and flipped it suddenly to Johnny. “Now you’ve got one.” While Johnny was turning it around gingerly in his massive hands, Carmody stepped in and hit him with a right that knocked him sprawling across the coffee table and into the fireplace.
Ackerman and Beaumonte scrambled aside, and at the bar Nancy screamed softly and put her hands to her mouth.
Johnny wiped his bleeding lips with the coat sleeve as he got slowly and purposefully to his feet. His little eyes were mean and hot. “You shouldn’t have done that, Mike,” he said, mumbling the words through split lips. “Now I’m going to hurt you.”
“Come on, sonny,” Carmody said, waiting for him with his hands on his hips. “You’re no street fighter. I’ll give you a lesson for free.”
Johnny didn’t answer. He came in fast, hooked a left into Carmody’s side and tried for his jaw with an explosive right. It missed by half an inch but he recovered instantly and crowded Carmody back toward the wall with a flurry of punches that came out like pistons from his heavy shoulders. Carmody took a blow in the stomach and another that loosened a front tooth and sent a spurt of blood down his chin. Then he erupted; he could have handled it from a distance, cutting Johnny to pieces with his left, but that wouldn’t have appeased his wild, destructive rage. He battered his way back to the middle of the room, trading punches with savage joy; he didn’t want to do this the smart way, he wanted to be hurt, he wanted to be punished.
They stood toe-to-toe for half a minute, slugging desperately, and then Johnny broke it off and backed away, his breath coming in sharp whistles through his flat nose. He was cut badly around the mouth and there was a look of cautious respect in his narrowed eyes.
“Ackerman fixed your fights,” Carmody said, grinning. “Didn’t they ever tell you that.”
Johnny leaped at him, swearing, and Carmody stepped back and let a punch sail past his head. Moving in fast he speared Johnny with a left and caught him off balance with a tremendous right that drove him across the room. Johnny bore back recklessly, but the right had weakened him; his breath was coming hard and he was down flat on his feet. Carmody hit him with another right and when it landed he knew the fight was over; the blow smashed into Johnny’s throat and spun him around and down to the floor. Johnny screamed once in a desperate choking voice and his legs threshed as he fought to squeeze air into his lungs. He got enough down to quell his panic and then lay perfectly still, concentrating his strength on the painful work of breathing.
Carmody picked up his revolver, put it away in his holster and looked at Ackerman, his big chest rising and falling rapidly. “Remember what I told you,” he said. “Nothing happens to my brother.”
Ackerman smiled very carefully. The ingredients of death were in the room, he knew, and another jar might explode them in his face. “Maybe we can figure out something else,” he said.
Beaumonte cried suddenly, “We don’t want to hurt him, but the crazy sonofabitch hasn’t got the brains of a two-year-old.”
He had used the wrong word and he knew it instantly. Carmody walked toward him and Beaumonte said, “Now look,” but that was all he got out; Carmody snapped a left up into his big padded stomach and Beaumonte’s mouth closed on a sharp, disbelieving cry of pain. He sank to the floor slowly, settling like a punctured balloon, his face flushed with anguish and fear.
“It was just a manner of speaking,” Ackerman said, still smiling carefully.
“It’s a manner I don’t like,” Carmody said.
Nancy laughed suddenly, like a happy, delighted child, and skipped over to sit beside Beaumonte. She crossed her legs, spread her skirt out prettily then leaned forward and smiled into his crimson face.
“Daddy got a tummy ache?” she asked him merrily. “Or is Daddy over his ration?” Beaumonte stared furiously at her, his face squeezed with pain, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly. “Look, it’s sloshing in the scuppers,” she cried, and raised her glass ceremoniously and poured the contents over his head. “See it slosh, Daddy? And what the hell are scuppers, anyway? I’ve always meant to ask.”
The liquor darkened the shoulders and lapels of his white silk suit and dripped down onto his lap, but he paid no attention to it. He sat awkwardly, hunched over like a Buddha, staring at her with murderous eyes.