“Two of ’em got killed, I understand.”
“Yeah, a cop was shot.”
“Naw, you got a bum steer. I got here right after the shooting, and it was just one cop, and he shot this guy for pulling a broad into the alley.”
“Let’s go,” Cabot said, touching Mark’s arm.
“Okay.”
They walked two blocks to an all-night drugstore where Mark gave Cabot the story of the shooting. Then he went into a phone booth and called his paper.
He talked to an editor on the city desk, told him briefly what he had, and then was switched to Paul Murchison, who was on re-write.
“This is Brewster,” he said. “I’ve got a shooting.”
“Ah, yes, the name is familiar,” Murchison said. “I must have seen it on a book jacket or in some latrine. Now who are the persons of your tawdry drama?”
“Dave Fiest is the victim. He was shot by a cop, Bernard Nolan, of the Thirteenth. Nolan. N as in nothing.”
He heard the faint rattle of Murchison’s typewriter. Then Murchison said, “N as in no-damn-good, you mean. I knew that bum when I covered Germantown. What happened?”
Mark gave him the story and Murchison whistled softly into the phone. “That’s rather raw, even for Nolan, who isn’t noted for his diplomacy. He’s got no reason to shoot a man picked up on a gambling charge. Hell, he could have sent out a call on the police radio and they’d have picked Fiest up in an hour.”
“Well, he shot him, and it didn’t seem to bother him.”
“No, it wouldn’t. He’s a very bad guy, Mark. Hell, I think he’s killed five or six people since he’s been on the force. All fine of duty, naturally. I remember one time he shot two colored kids in Germantown, killed both of them too, because they ran when he put a light on them.”
“Colored boys often die running,” Mark said, and decided that he was being sententious. “What else do you know about him?”
“Well, he shot a drunk one night on Allegheny Avenue, near A Street. Claimed the guy attacked him.” Murchison laughed shortly. “The alleged attacker was all of five feet tall, and probably weighed a sturdy ninety-five pounds, in addition to having been pickled thoroughly in some variety of bonded Sterno. Then there was a sixteen-year-old boy. Nolan claimed the kid was trying to break into a food store. He went up before the civil service commission on that one, but you know how it is. Who the hell’s going to call him a liar? The witnesses are all dead.”
“It’s a lousy shame,” Mark said, and was surprised at the heat in his voice.
“You keep out of it,” Murchison said. “Take an elderly gentleman’s advice, and leave Barny Nolan alone.”
“Hell, I won’t do anything about it, but it annoys me to see a character behaving like God Almighty because he’s got the right to use a gun.”
“Forget it,” Murchison said. “A bad cop is a rarity, despite what the stone-headed man-in-the-street thinks. But I think I’ll look up Nolan’s other cases in the library. Maybe the boss will go for a rundown on his homicidal propensities in the line of duty. Hell, the Superintendent might even see it.”
“That’s an idea,” Mark said. “Good luck.”
He left the booth and sat at the drug counter to wait for Cabot. He ordered coffee and passed the time in an unsuccessful attempt to float his cream from a spoon onto the surface of the coffee. The waitress watched him curiously. Finally she said: “You hear about the shooting down the block?”
“Yes, I did,” Mark said. He glanced up, saw that she was a blonde, nearing forty, with streaked hair and a bitter mouth.
“A cop shot a guy,” she said. “You can have cops.”
Mark thought of Lindfors and Smitty and Sergeant Odell, and, of course, Lieutenant Ramussen. They were hard-working, fairly decent men, not too-bright about many things, but extremely bright about their business; and while they weren’t as easy-going and tender-hearted, as say, hair-stylists, they weren’t mean for the sake of meanness, or cruel or bitter or without mercy.
He said, “There are some good cops, too.”
“You can have ’em all,” the waitress said. “Lemme tell you something.”
She told him a long story about a cop who had beaten up her father after shaking him down for fifty dollars. Her father, it seemed, had had an interest in a truck that ran untaxed alcohol into the state during prohibition.
Cabot joined him a little later and drank a cup of coffee gratefully. He was getting too old to cover a district, Mark realized. Cabot couldn’t handle re-write or general assignment, and that left nothing but a job in the library or the district. His paper was on his neck all the time for better coverage, and were threatening in their kindly way to send a copy boy out to take over if he didn’t shape up. And Cabot had a sick wife and a thirty-four year old son in a sanatorium.
“I’ll check the beat when we get back,” Cabot said now, putting a cigarette in his holder. “And thanks for the story, Mark. The office liked it pretty well.”
“You’ve given me plenty,” Mark said, smiling at him. “Let’s go.”
They walked the four blocks to the District. The rain was still falling gently and the center of the city was dark and quiet. At the station Mark checked the house sergeant’s room to see if anything was going on, and then went upstairs. Lindfors and Smitty were playing Casino in the middle room, and Lieutenant Ramussen’s office was dark. Cabot sat down at Odell’s desk and began a patient check of the beat, calling all the districts, the morgue, Accident Investigation, and the Fire Board.
Mark lit a cigarette and watched the Casino game. He pushed his hat back on his head, and in the strong overhead fight his face was pale and tired.
“Nolan gone?” he said.
Smitty nodded. “He put his report on the boss’s desk, and cleared out just a few minutes ago. Why? You need something?”
“No, I had it all.” He drew on his cigarette, and said, “And that’s that.”
Smitty glanced at him oddly. “Yes, Mark, that’s that.”
There was nothing overt in his voice or manner. But Mark knew a line had been drawn between him and Dave Fiest’s death. And beyond that line he wouldn’t be welcome.
3
Nolan thought about the report as he drove through the light rain to his rooming house in West Philadelphia. Ramussen would raise hell, of course; but that didn’t matter. He felt the unfamiliar bulge of money in his pocket and the windshield reflected his small smile.
There was just one annoying thing: the mythical sucker he’d invented for the reporter’s benefit. That had been a snap decision, and now he wondered if it had been a wise one. He was stuck with the story that Fiest had been taking a bet from someone at the time of the arrest. Well, so what? It was a good safe angle. The sucker would never turn up, that was certain.
Nolan didn’t like Brewster, and thinking about him brought a frown to his face. Mark Brewster was another of those goddamn superior college kids who thought they had the world by the tail.
He turned off Walnut Street into Forty-third and found a parking place a few doors down from his rooming house. It was two o’clock then, and his date with Linda was at three. He cut the motor and sat for a moment enjoying the deep unmoving silence. There wasn’t anything that could go wrong, he decided. Everything was perfect.
The rain was coming down a bit harder, so he turned up his collar and trotted across the sidewalk and up the steps of the three-story frame house in which he lived. He let himself cautiously into the dusty-smelling hallway and tip-toed up to his room.
Something was wrong with the overhead light. He snapped the switch up and down a few times, and then crossed the room and turned on his bedside lamp.