They were needling him cautiously, a dangerous pastime, cautiously or any other way. He knew they were watching him over their cards, ready to drop their eyes swiftly if he raised his head.
Without looking up he said quietly, “Murph, we just got through talking about my brother’s case. We kind of exhausted the subject, too. So why don’t you run off and find a good exciting accident to cover? Let us play our little game in peace.”
Murphy smiled and raised his hat to Carmody. “I depart, O Sergeant,” he said, his thoughtful eyes contradicting the smile on his lips. “The city calls me. Full of heartbreak and tragedy, but laced with dark laughter withall, it beckons and whispers that its secrets are mine.”
Carmody smiled slightly. “Why don’t you try that to music?”
“Good idea. Music is getting popular in town,” Murphy said in a changed voice. “Singing particularly. Maybe even Delaney will take it up. Well, adios, chums.”
He strolled out and Dirksen shook his head. “Odd ball,” he murmured.
Carmody swallowed a dryness in his throat and said, “Okay, let’s play cards.”
Ten minutes later the phone in the file room rang. The clerk answered it, listened for a few seconds, then said, “Yes, sir. Right away.” Covering the receiver with the palm of his hand, he called out, “Sarge, a call for you.”
“Who is it?” Carmody said.
“Dan Beaumonte.”
There was another little silence at the card table. Carmody stared at his cards for a few seconds, then tossed them in. “Deal me out,” he said, and walked into the file room, moving with an easy controlled grace that was somehow menacing in a man of his size.
Abrams began to whistle softly through his teeth. The three detectives avoided one another’s eyes, but their ears were turned to the open door of the file room.
Carmody lifted the phone and said, “Hello, Dan. How’re things?”
“It was a bad day,” Beaumonte said. His voice was deep and rich, stirred gently by an undercurrent of humor. “I had three tips at Jamaica but they all ran out. Do you know of any glue factory that’s looking for three good specimens?”
“It’s a good thing to get a day like that behind you,” Carmody said. He knew what Beaumonte wanted and he wished he’d get to it; but you didn’t hurry Beaumonte.
Then it came. “I want to see you tonight, Mike. You’re working four-to-twelve?”
“That’s right.”
“Twelve is too late. How about making it now? I’m at my apartment.”
Carmody knew the clerk and the detectives at the card table were listening. “Well, I’ll see you around,” he said.
“Right away, Mike. He’s your brother.”
“Sure.”
He put the phone down and walked back to the smoke-filled card room. Dirksen began talking loudly. “The thing is, you can’t figure the odds in Hi-Lo poker. You never know, for instance, whether—”
“I’m going out,” Carmody said to Abrams. “Take over till I get back.”
“Okay, Sarge.”
“Tell the lieutenant when he comes in that I’ll be about an hour.”
Dirksen smiled as Carmody buttoned his shirt collar and pulled up his tie. “I wish I got calls from big men like Beaumonte,” he said. “That’d make me feel like a real operator.”
Carmody guessed that Dirksen was trying to be funny but he was in no mood for it He put his big fists on the table and leaned forward, fixing Dirksen with his hard, bright smile. “Now listen to me,” he said gently. “If you want to talk about telephone calls talk about your own. Get your wife to call you and talk about that. But stop talking about mine. Okay?”
Dirksen’s freckled face got red. “Hell, there’s nothing to be touchy about,” he said. “I just passed a remark. It’s still a free country, ain’t it?”
Carmody smiled and let the tension dissolve. “Free country? Try that on your landlord and grocer and see what happens.”
A relieved laugh went around the table. Carmody straightened up and said, “Take it easy, I’ll see you later.”
He went downstairs, walked past the House Sergeant’s office and through the silent roll call room, where the Magistrate’s bench loomed up like an altar in the darkness.
Outside on the sidewalk he paused, savoring the welcome freshness of the spring air against his face. From here, at the north entrance of City Hall, he looked down the glittering length of Market Street, blazing with light against the black sky. The Saturday night crowd jammed the sidewalks, and the traffic was flowing in thick, noisy streams. Somewhere off to his right a police siren was screaming faintly. West, he thought, the Tenth district. He nodded to three patrolmen who went by him on the way to work, and then lit a cigarette and walked down the block to his long gray convertible.
The traffic made his trip across town slow and difficult; but he was grateful for the time it gave him to think. He had done a lot of thinking in the past week, but now he was meeting Beaumonte and the chips would be down. Thinking wouldn’t be enough; there had to be a solution. He stared through the windshield, turning the problem around slowly in his clear, alert mind. Waiting at a stop light, he suddenly pounded his big fist on the rim of the steering wheel. If only his brother hadn’t identified Delaney. Anyone but Eddie. And if only Delaney weren’t threatening to sing. If only a hundred things.
The trouble stemmed from the fact that Delaney worked for a gambler and racketeer named Dan Beaumonte.
And so did Mike Carmody.
There was a girl standing at the terrace window when Carmody walked into Beaumonte’s long, elegantly appointed living room. She turned slowly, smiling at him, her figure slim and graceful against the backdrop of the lighted city.
“Hello, Mike. Come over and look at our little village. It’s like being high up in a castle.”
Carmody joined her and they inspected the view for a few seconds in silence. The city was beautiful now, the lights spreading over it like an immense sparkling carpet. Beaumonte’s apartment was on the twenty-fifth floor of a massive building which overlooked the park and a long curving stretch of the river. Like a castle, Carmody thought. With a safe view of the slaves.
“Where’s Beaumonte?” he asked her.
“Changing. Would you like a drink?”
“No, thanks.”
She patted his arm and he saw that she was a little tight. “I hate to drink alone. Dan says that’s my trouble. But what’s a girl to do when she’s alone?”
“Have a drink, I guess,” Carmody said.
“Absolutely right,” she said, and poked him in the chest with her finger. “You don’t mind if I go ahead?”
“Not a bit.” Carmody felt vaguely irritated as he watched her stroll to the bar. Not with her or Beaumonte, but with himself for some curious reason. The girl’s name was Nancy Drake, and she had been Beaumonte’s mistress for years. She was a slender blonde with piquant, good-natured features and fine gray eyes. Everything about her blended neatly with the perfection of the room; the oil paintings, the balanced groups of furniture, the nice integration of form and color, were all an appropriate backdrop for her pale, well-cared-for beauty. It made a pretty picture, Carmody thought. Well-organized luxury without time payments or mortgages. The room and the girl had been bought and paid for by Beaumonte with good hard cash.
This was what irritated him, Carmody decided. The room looked like an art gallery and Nancy looked like the daughter of a duke. It was the big lie that disgusted him; they should do their business in the back of a saloon, and if women were present they should be the kind who hung around saloons. But it was Beaumonte’s lie so that made it all right.
Carmody realized his thoughts were running in illogical circles. Why should he object to Beaumonte’s pretenses? Weren’t his own just as bad? But he was a little sick of Beaumonte at the moment and he didn’t bother applying logic to his judgments. When I’m fed up I’ll walk out, he told himself, frowning slightly, disturbed by his thoughts. I’m not in so deep that I can’t take a walk.