They were all gone, but the memory of the alley was vivid in Keefler’s mind. It had not changed. The six were gone, but it seemed there were always others to take their places.
Keefler, healthy, and with no dependents and with no friends in the department, was picked up by one of the World War II drafts that took men in their thirties. Because of his police background he was made an M.P. As a sergeant in London in 1944 he was broken for a brutal beating administered to three enlisted men of the Eighth Air Force on leave, and was reassigned to a stockade where men convicted of minor offenses were held for punishment and retraining. Keefler and three other members of the station complement were implicated in the death of two enlisted men serving time for theft, and all four of them were cleared.
In 1947 Patrolman John Keefler was given an indefinite suspension for the beating of a man apprehended in a car reported stolen. Keefler and his partner, Corporal Richard Benedict, had spotted the license and forced the car to the curb. Through an error on the part of the dispatcher, the car had not been taken off the hot list when it had been recovered and returned to the rightful owner. The rightful owner, a Mr. Paul Keller, an engineer at a local radio station, had attempted to explain to Keefler when he was pulled out of his car. Keefler misinterpreted Keller’s agitation as resistance and, while subduing him, had broken three ribs and his jaw.
Keefler was reinstated after a five-month suspension.
Nine years later the amputation of his left hand as the result of a gunshot wound rendered him unfit for further duty. He was retired from the Hancock Police Force on a pension and appointed a parole officer.
He stood on the corner four blocks from the Bronson house and waited for a city bus. The stump ached where it fitted into the socket of the artificial hand, and the skin under the strap itched. He saw the white-faced kid standing, trembling, eyes wide, hands raised, the big .45 on the floor at his feet. Again he felt the numbness in his left arm, from fingertips to elbow, and again he brought the sight pattern into slow clear focus, felt the jump of the .38 in his right hand, saw the perfect blackness of the round hole in the kid’s white forehead in the same instant the impact knocked the kid back against the wall to rebound and fall boneless across the big automatic.
He could feel the weight of the Detective Special in the side pocket of his jacket. He thought of Lee Bronson and wanted to see him on his knees with his face split and the big words forgotten, begging in the remembered language of the Sink. Begging like they all begged. Like Kowalsik had begged.
He saw the bus in the distance, coming through the heat-waver over the asphalt of Sherman Boulevard. He could feel the city around him, sweating and sighing and settling toward the dusk and the night. This was better than being a cop. This could be much better. They let them out too fast, too soon. But they would come out and they would find that it was just a slightly larger cage. They would meet Johnny Keefler and then they would know about the bars around the bigger cage.
The bus, on its way downtown, was nearly empty. He stepped up, showed his pass, and went back to one of the red plastic seats. Danny Bronson would find out just how strong were the bars of his new cage. Until he showed up it would be nice to call on the kid brother once in a while. Keep him in line. It was a little disappointing the way Bronson had knuckled under so easily. Scared of his job. A big bastard, but soft all the way through. Even after Danny was picked up and sent back to Alton, it might be okay to stop around. Do a little checking. If the professor wanted to get his back up and knew how to go about it, he might make trouble. But it was a reasonable chance to take. It would be nice to stop around and talk to that Lucille, too.
He half shut his eyes and remembered just how her legs had looked. They were very vivid in his memory, the rounded tender way her tanned thighs had been pressed together, the cherub face on her knee, the little bones of the slender ankles.
He wondered how bad the professor wanted to keep his job. And how bad she wanted him to keep his job. No Bronson should have exclusive rights to a piece like Lucille. The way she looked, maybe he thought he had, but the odds said he didn’t. He was too solemn and dignified for a Lucille. Big sad-faced bastard. Full of the long words. Just another punk from the Sink who ought to get a good shove right back into the Sink. Apparently that Brookton Junior College wasn’t too careful about who they hired.
At least the vividness of the image of the lovely legs solved one problem of scheduling. He decided that after he checked in the office he would go drop in on Talliaferro at the hotel where he worked and lean on him a little and watch him sweat. Sooner or later Talliaferro would slip. Maybe the way Judson had slipped. God, how Rich had stood up for Judson! You would have thought Judson was his son or something. He remembered the scene in Rich’s office, with Rich wringing his narrow hands and steaming his own glasses.
“But, Keefler! You must use discretion! You have to exercise judgment. Terry Judson has stayed out of trouble for over eighteen months. He’ll be off parole in another four months. He’s got a wife.”
And Keefler had stared at him, registering shock. “Rich, you asking me to goof off on my new job? I can show it to you right in the book. It says if a guy goes into a public place and drinks in public, it’s a violation of parole. I saw him myself. I got here a statement from the bartender that served him and a statement from one of the guys on the team.”
“But Terry is on that bowling team. So he had a beer.”
“It’s a public place with a liquor license and he could have had a coke, couldn’t he?”
“I’m going to have to ask you to drop it, Keefler. Your job isn’t to hound these men.”
And then it had been time for him to show his hand. “Richardson, I didn’t come here for you to try to tell me how I should do or what I should do. I come here to tell you I turned Judson in. I got him picked up. I appear against him in the morning. I’m covering my list. You cover yours.”
“I’ll appear, too.”
“Suit yourself,” he said and walked out. The law was the law. He had the proof. He presented it. Terry Judson went back to finish out his term. Richardson nearly found himself in contempt of court.
So tonight, after squeezing some sweat out of Talliaferro, he decided he would drop in on Connie Judson again. She was a hefty healthy redhead, and the rearrest of Judson had taken all the steam out of her. It wasn’t his fault she got the idea he could get Terry sprung again. She was willing to put out. There wasn’t much life in her, but how much choice did a one-handed guy have? Her heavy freckled legs didn’t compare with the professor’s piece, but it was a very nice thing to lie there and have a cigarette and think about Terry Judson back in the box, and think how you put him there. When she cried she didn’t make much noise.
How much choice would you have if you didn’t lean on them a little? And Judson was just another punk. He had a habit of writing worthless checks when he got tight. And after he got out he’d get the habit again.
His hand ached — the hand that was gone. Sometimes he felt like they’d buried it under a heavy stone, a cold stone. He often wondered what they’d done with it.
God damn that kid!
All the bad ones deserved was a sudden death and a dirty one. As dirty as Kowalsik’s.
He bit the inside of his cheek. “I’ll get them all, Mose,” he said to himself. “I’ll get them all for you.”
He could still feel the rough affection of the hand that had rumpled his no-color hair, had patted the shy head of a scared kid in the waiting room of the Home.
And he felt something weep inside when he saw again Mose’s ashy face and helpless clutching hands.