A voice said, “Yes?”
“Ackerman? This is Dan.”
“I thought you’d gone. I told you the ceiling was ready to fall in,” Ackerman told him shortly.
“Carmody’s picking up Joie Langley, Bill. He’s spread the story about Dobbs. Now he’s after his brother’s killer. I thought you’d like to know.”
“Is he alone?”
“Yes.” Beaumonte put the phone down abruptly and walked to the bar. While he was making himself a strong drink the phone began to ring. Beaumonte stared at it and sipped his drink. He wasn’t crying any more; his pale face was set in a haggard expression of hate. “Go after him, Bill,” he whispered to the ringing phone. “He’ll pay you off for me, he’ll send you to hell.”
13
Broome Street stretched from the river to the heart of the city and terminated in a dead end a half-block below the Municipal Building. Its upper section was smart and prosperous, with excellent shops and department stores facing each other across a broad asphalt surface. But the street changed character as it wound through warehouses and slums to the river. Overhead lights gave way to street lamps set far apart, and the gutters were clotted with newspapers, garbage and refuse. The tall, red brick buildings had been converted into rooming houses for dock laborers, and the neon signs of cheap bars glittered at every corner.
Carmody parked in the 4800 block and when he switched off the motor a dark thick silence settled around him. The warehouses and garages were locked up at this hour, and the dawn-rising longshoremen were in bed for the night. Moving quietly, he walked down the empty sidewalk to number 4842, a narrow, four-storied brick building, identical with a dozen others in the block. He ascended the short stoop of stone stairs, hollowed by decades of use, and tried the door. It was locked, as he’d expected it would be. He rang the night bell.
A few minutes later a stockily built Irishman wearing only a pair of trousers peered out at him with sleepy, belligerent eyes.
“Now what’s your pleasure?” he said.
Carmody held out his badge and let the slanting light from the hallway fall on it. “Talk as natural as you can,” he said quietly. “Answer my questions. Have you got a spare room?”
The man cleared his throat and stared at the badge. “We’re all full up,” he said.
“Think I’d have better luck somewhere else in the block?”
“Couldn’t say for sure. You can try across the street, at 4839. They might have an extra.”
“A big blond man with a wide face,” Carmody said quietly. “If he’s here nod your head.”
The man’s eyes became round and solemn. He nodded slowly and jerked his thumb in a furtive gesture to his right. “Just beside me,” he said, breathing out the words. “Front room.”
“Thanks, anyway,” Carmody said, and moved silently past him into the small airless hallway. He closed the front door and pointed to the stairs. The man needed no urging; he took the steps two at a time, his bare feet noiseless on the faded carpet.
Carmody waited until he had turned out of sight at the second-floor landing. Then he rapped sharply on the door of the front room. His breathing was even and slow, and his hands hung straight down at his sides.
Bedsprings creaked beyond the door and footsteps moved across the floor.
“Who’s that?” a voice said quietly.
“Message from Bill Ackerman,” Carmody said.
The door opened an inch and stopped. Carmody saw one eye shining softly from the light in the hallway, and below that the cold blue glint of a gun barrel.
“Walk straight in when I open the door,” the voice said. “Stop in the middle of the room and don’t turn around. Get that straight.”
“Okay, I’ve got it.”
“Start walking.”
The door swung open. Carmody entered the dark room with the hall light shining on his back. He was a perfect target if the killer wanted to shoot. But he wasn’t worried about that. Not yet.
A switch clicked and a bare bulb above his head flooded the room with white harsh light. He heard the door swing shut, a lock click and then a gun barrel pressed hard against his spine. The man’s free hand went over him with expert speed, found his revolver and flipped it free of the holster.
“Take off your hat now,” he said. “Real slow. Raise it with both hands.”
He knows his racket, Carmody thought, lifting his hat. Occasionally even a cop might forget that a small gun could be carried on the top of a man’s head under a fedora.
“Lemme look at you now,” the man said.
Turning slowly, Carmody faced the man who had killed his brother. Look down here, Eddie, he prayed. This is for you.
“You’re Joie Langley, right?” he said quietly.
“Don’t make conversation. What’s with Ackerman?”
Langley’s youth surprised Carmody. He was twenty-four, or twenty-five at most, a big muscular kid with tousled blond hair and sullen eyes set close together in a wide brutal face. The gun he held looked like a finger of his huge hand. He was wearing loafers, slacks and an unbuttoned yellow sports shirt that exposed his solid hairy chest. About Eddie’s age, Carmody thought, but a different breed. He was a hard and savage killer; Eddie wouldn’t have had a chance with him, even from the front.
“Ackerman wants you to clear out,” Carmody said. “I’m a cop, and I work for him. I’ll set it up for you.”
“A cop?” Langley said softly, and took a step back from Carmody. He went down in a springy crouch, his sullen eyes narrowing with suspicion. “I don’t like this, buddy. The whole deal stinks. I’m the hottest guy in the country but he won’t pay off, won’t let me clear out. Where’s your badge, buddy?”
“I’ll take my wallet from my hip pocket,” Carmody said quietly. “I’ll do it nice and slow. You’re getting all excited, sonny. What’s the matter? This your first job?”
Langley swore at him impersonally. Then he said, “I’m making sure it ain’t my last, that’s all. Take out your frontpiece.”
Carmody opened his wallet and flashed the badge. “Look at the name on the identification card,” he said. “That’s important, too.”
Langley stared at him, the gun steady in his big fist. “I like this less all the time, buddy,” he said.
“You’d be spending your dough in Las Vegas right now if you hadn’t fumbled the job,” Carmody said. “Look at the name in that wallet. Then we’ll get moving.”
Langley took the wallet in his free hand and held it at eye-level. He was still watching Carmody. “You sound like you think you’re tough,” he said casually.
“Look at the name.”
Langley grinned and glanced at the identification card, keeping the gun fixed steadily on Carmody’s stomach.
“Michael T. Carmody,” he said, reading the name slowly. A puzzled line deepened above his eyes. “That’s the name of the guy I—”
Carmody had raised his hand casually — as if he were going to scratch his chin — and now he struck down at Langley’s wrist, gambling on the hoodlum’s momentary confusion and the speed and power of his own body.
He almost lost his bet.
Langley jerked back from the blow, his lips flattening in a snarl, and the rock-hard edge of Carmody’s hand missed his wrist — but it struck the top of his thumb and knocked his finger away from the trigger. For a split second the gun dangled impotently in his hand, and Carmody made another desperate bet on himself and whipped a left hook into Langley’s face. It would have been safer to try for the gun; if the hook missed he’d be dead before he could throw another punch. But it didn’t miss; Langley’s head snapped back as Carmody’s fist exploded under his jaw and the gun spun from his hand to the floor. Carmody kicked it under the bed and began to laugh. Then he hit Langley in the stomach with a right that raised him two inches off the floor. When Langley bent over, gasping for breath, Carmody brought his knee up into his face and knocked him halfway across the room.