Tell that to the birds
, Corey said to himself. He glanced at McDermott, then looked away and murmured, “You do this all the time, Sergeant?”
“Do what?”
“Come checking.”
McDermott's eyebrows went up just a little. “Is that what I'm doing?”
“That's how I read it.”
The detective-sergeant leaned back on the bed, resting on his elbows. He squinted up at the ceiling, looked around at the walls, focusing on the places where the wallpaper was ripped and the plaster showed through. He murmured, “Whaddya pay for this room?”
“Four-fifty.”
“That's a dollar too much.”
“It don't bother me,” Corey said. “I'm a spender.”
McDermott chuckled softly. And then, cutting it off, “Well, I don't know. Maybe you are, at that.”
What the hell is he saying? Corey wondered. What's it signify? Could be he's been drinking. He's got that hazy look, as if he's high on something. But it don't hafta be liquor; it don't hafta be weed or pills or anything like that. It could very well be that he's high on just plain oxygen. There's some who can do that, you know. They set their minds to it, and all they gotta do is breathe air, and in no time at all they're high. I'll give you fifty-to-one that's the way it is with him. And that makes it a problem for you. I mean, he can climb up there and float around and bomb away from any angle.
The detective-sergeant said, “You sure you got nothing to tell me?”
“All I got is a question.”
“Let's have it.”
“How'd you like to go to hell?”
McDermott chuckled again. “Now you're really annoyed.”
“Now I'm plenty annoyed.” Corey spoke more tightly, exaggerating the annoyance, faking a scowl. “You sign me in, you gimme a badge, and the very next day you come snooping.”
“It ain't that.”
“Then what is it?”
“It's just that you're new on the squad and I wanna get to know you better.”
Corey thought about that for a moment. He smiled inside himself. He said, “Let's try that again.”
“I wanna get to know you. This is just a social call.”
“Then why the grilling?”
“Don't pay that no mind,” McDermott said, and he smiled gently. “That's just a habit I got. Like some of them dentists when they're away from the office. They wait for you to open your mouth and right away they're looking at your teeth.”
There was another lapse of silence.
Then the detective-sergeant said, “You got a girlfriend?”
“No.”
“How come?”
“There's nothing around.”
“Maybe you ain't looking.”
Corey scowled again. This time he wasn't faking. He said, “What about yourself, Sergeant? What do you do for relief?”
“I buy it,” McDermott said.
“You ain't married?”
“Yes, I'm married,” McDermott said. “I been married twenty-seven years.”
“And?”
“She can't do it. She won't let me come near her.”
Corey looked at the detective-sergeant, then quickly looked away.
“It ain't that we don't get along,” McDermott said. “We get along fine. It's one of them situations, and we make the best of it. At first it wasn't easy; she wanted to leave me. One time she tried to knock herself off. Then gradually I sold her on the idea we could get adjusted, learn to live with it.”
“Live with what?”
“Her condition.”
“She crippled?”
“In her head,” the detective-sergeant said. “Not all the way. It's just that one mental block. She's incapable, that's all.”
Why is he telling me this?
Corey wondered, and heard himself asking, “What happened to her?”
“She was jumped. A bunch of thugs jumped her and took her into an empty house. There were nine of them. They had her there for a little less than forty-eight hours. Some people found her in an alley. She didn't have no clothes on. There was blood running down her legs and later in the hospital they said it was fifty-fifty, she'd lost an awful lot of blood.”
“She talk?”
“She couldn't talk. That is, she couldn't talk at all. For over a year she wouldn't say a word. She wouldn't eat, neither. They hadda feed her through a tube. And then when she was able to talk, she wouldn't say anything about it, and the doctors told me not to ask her. They let me have it straight. They said she was on the borderline and only time would tell. They said I'd hafta be very careful not to bring it up again. Another thing, they sat me down and counseled me. Said I'd better call it off—”
“Call what off?”
“The engagement.”
Corey blinked a few times.
McDermott said, “You thought all this happened recently?”
“Well, I figured—”
“It happened six years before we were married,” McDermott said. “It happened thirty-three years ago.”
Corey blinked again. He grimaced slightly, then sensed that more was coming and braced himself. And for some unaccountable reason, he wasn't able to look at the detective-sergeant. He just stood there stiffly and stared off to one side and waited.
He heard McDermott saying, “You wanna know where it happened?”
He nodded slowly, not knowing why he was nodding.
“It happened here in the Swamp,” McDermott said.
Corey turned his head slowly. He looked at the detective-sergeant.
“I'll tell you something else,” McDermott said. He was still relaxed on the bed, leaning back on his elbows. He spoke softly. “I'll tell you why they did it to her. Not because they were hopped up, or juiced, or anything like that. It was a carefully planned maneuver. They did it to get back at me.”
In Corey's brain a screen showed Henry McDermott at the age of twenty-two. McDermott was wearing a policeman's uniform. There was no action on the screen, just the image of the young McDermott, the rookie policeman.
“Here's how it was,” McDermott said. “I was attached to the Nineteenth Precinct; the city was smaller then. Now it's the Thirty-Seventh. All right, they had me on the night shift; the beat was Addison to Munroe, Second Street to Seventh. Every time I walked the beat I passed the house where I lived. I was born and raised in that house; so don't tell me I don't know this neighborhood. I know this neighborhood like I know the taste inside my mouth.”
“I lived on Fifth. On Third there was this bunch of thugs. They called themselves the Third Street Dragons. Late teens, early twenties. The worst. I mean the very worst. They had every store owner on Addison pissing in his pants. The Third Street Dragons. They wore baseball caps; the emblem was a dragon's head. You asked them what the angle was, they said it was just an athletic club. You tried to get anything on them, it was nothing doing. They were slick and tightly organized, and there was nothing to go on. And people were getting robbed, getting slugged, getting butchered.”
“Finally I made up my mind. Comes a night I sneak up on one of them, and just on general principles I use the club. He goes to the hospital and damn near dies and nobody knows who did it. So all right, that's fine. That's just how I want it, hitting them in the dark so they can't see who the hitter is. A week later another one goes to the hospital, then a third and a fourth. And that was all. It wasn't dark enough that night and that fourth Dragon musta seen who'd hit him just before he passed out. A few nights after that they slip a note under my door. It's black crayon and it reads 'You ask for it you get it,' and that's all it reads.”
“And what they did, they made me wait. It was a week and then another week and I was sweating every minute. One time I passed an alley and a voice says, just loud enough for me to hear, 'We ain't in no hurry, McDermott,' and I rush the alley. But there ain't nobody there. He musta crawled through some cellar window.”
“So they made me wait for it to happen. And after three weeks I'm just about ready to call for help, to tell the precinct captain exactly how it is. But I do that, I lose the badge, and then face trial for aggravated assault and battery, four counts. I'm thinking what I should do. I'm eating away at myself with the thinking. And then, before I can decide, the Dragons decide it for me. But it ain't McDermott they get. It's McDermott's girl.”
There was a long pause. Then Corey said “D'ja hit back?”
McDermott smiled dimly, somewhat contently.
“How many?” Corey asked.
“Five,” McDermott said. “One at a time. Over a period of years.”
“Dead?”
McDermott nodded.
“Slow?” Corey asked.
“Very slow,” McDermott said. “And they were gagged. I used pliers. When they fainted I brought them to with smelling salts. It was very, very slow.”
Again in Corey's brain the screen was lit and it showed McDermott with his shirt collar open and his sleeves rolled up. He was holding the pliers. The pliers were bloody. Nearby a man was sitting in a chair, his wrists and ankles tied and a gag across his mouth. On the floor, between the man's naked legs, there was a pool of blood, and more blood was dripping down. The man's eyes were closed and his head sagged to one side. McDermott used the little bottle of smelling salts and the man regained consciousness and then McDermott smiled softly and resumed the business with the pliers.
“All right, I got five,” the detective-sergeant said. “I was out to get all nine, but two of them died a natural death and one fell in the river and drowned.”
“That's only eight accounted for.”
“There's one still alive,” the detective-sergeant said. The dim smile was fading. He gazed at the wall across from the bed. “The leader,” he murmured. “The leader of the Third Street Dragons.”
And then he turned his head and looked at Corey. His eyes said, only now it ain't the baseball caps. And the meeting place ain't Third Street, it's been shifted to Second. It's the corner of Second and Addison. Specifically it's the back room at the Hangout.
The detective-sergeant looked away from Corey Bradford. He sat up on the edge of the bed. Then he stood up, moving toward the door, opened it and started to walk out. Then stopped. He turned slowly and gazed at Corey for a few moments. There was a certain sadness in his eyes. After that the door was closed and Corey was alone in the room. He shivered. A blade of ice was stabbing him, going deep, very high on his thigh, near his groin.
8
Several minutes passed and Corey Bradford didn't move from where he stood, staring at the closed door. There was a baffled look in his eyes, as though he was confronted with the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, not one of which fit the other.
Come off it , he urged himself. You keep standing here trying to figure it out, you'll wind up giggling with your brains all outta joint.
The jigsaw puzzle wouldn't go away.
Thirty-three years , Corey muttered without sound. For thirty-three years a policeman named McDermott has been out to get the leader of the Third Street Dragons. And then outta nowhere a hook makes a grab, and you're pulled into the deal. You're handed the card. You're handed the badge. You're given the assignment.
The hook was aimed at you. At you alone. There's gotta be a reason—
You're nowhere near the reason, the only thing you got here is a certain creepy notion regarding McDermott. You got the feeling there's some special connection between you and him, a connection that has you standing here like some goddam statue—
Now listen, for Christ's sake. You're just gonna hafta come off it. Only way to look at it is don't look at all. It don't mean nothing, and chances are this cat McDermott is way out there on Track 73 with all them other mixed-up, shook-up, messed-up cats who got hit on the head just once too often.
All them sad-faced cats on the Night Squad.
That's where they are, all right, way out there on 73, that dismal track that aims straight at the booby hatch. And the only stops along the line are the graves.
That's it, that's how it is with the Squad, with McDermott. And jim that lets you out, absolutely. Lets you out and takes you clean off the hook. Or to see it another way, to see it like it really is, there ain't no hook at all. You're a loner and you can't be hooked.
Yet in that same moment he had the wallet out and he was looking at the badge.
You make me laugh
, he said to himself, and managed to force a chuckle. Then quickly, almost spasmodically, he closed the wallet and put it back in his pocket.
Come on , he prodded the cagey manipulator who was out for gold and nothing else. Come on, let's haul this freight. It goes west on Addison and south on Sixth to Ingersoll.
Six-seventeen Ingersoll.
Ingersoll Street was little more than an alley, much too narrow for cars to pass through. It was located at the edge of the neighborhood, the six-hundred block gave way to the swamplands. Greenish water from the swamplands was always seeping into the cellars of Ingersoll houses; and in the Street there were weeds growing between the loose cobblestones. Fumes from the swamplands formed ribbons of green-gray vapor that floated in circles above Ingersoll roofs, at times gliding down to drift past the first-floor windows. There was little or no paint remaining on the two story wooden dwellings; the fumes had eaten it away. The dominant color along Ingersoll was the green-gray of the swamplands.
As Corey came onto Ingersoll it was getting dark. It shouldn't be getting dark this early, he thought. It's just a few minutes past seven, and this time of year it don't get dark until around eight-thirty.
Then he looked up and saw what was happening in the sky. There was no sun, just a thick blanket of rain clouds. The clouds were getting ready to burst, and he heard the rumblings of thunder.
It's gonna come down in buckets
, he decided, but didn't bother to quicken his pace. When the first drops fell, he was moving slowly along the narrow alley adjacent to the house numbered six-seventeen.
The backyard had no fence. It was muddy and only some weeds were growing; but somehow it looked cleaner and neater than the other backyards.
That's to be expected
, he thought.
That's how it is with her; that's how it always was. You remember when you were married to her, she knocked herself out with all the scrubbing and the mopping and dusting. You remember she used to say, “All right, if you're poor you're poor, but that's no excuse to be dirty.”
He stood in the backyard, thinking about her and how it was when they were married. The rain came down faster, but he didn't feel it. Then it was really coming down and he was drenched. He went to the back door and hit his knuckles against it. There were footsteps coming toward the door and he waited for it to open.
It didn't open. He heard her calling, “Who's out there?”
“Police.”
She hadn't recognized his voice. She said loudly, firmly, “You got the wrong address.”
“This six-seventeen?”
“That's right.”
“You Mrs. Kingsley? Mrs. Delbert Kingsley?”
“That's right. So what?”
“So open the door. This is the police.”
“If it ain't, you'll be sorry.”
He pictured her standing there behind the door with something heavy in her hand, ready for any Swampcat who had nothing better to do than go around knocking on doors, pretending to be the police.
The door opened slightly. She stared at him. The shock was too much for her, and for a moment she couldn't say anything. And then, to let him know that it meant nothing, that he was just another Swampcat pulling a caper, she displayed an iron frying pan and gritted, “You wanna get your head caved in?”
“Calm down,” he murmured, then made a move to walk in; but she put her weight against the door. He stepped back and shrugged. For an instant she was off guard, and he moved very fast, pushing the door wide open, and went through and took the frying pan away from her. As she ran toward the stove to reach for another, he took the wallet out and when she pivoted with her hand gripping a larger, heavier frying pan, he showed her the badge.
Lillian gaped at the badge. She reached backward slowly, putting the frying pan on the stove. She stood rigidly, her eyes bolted to the badge. Corey walked toward her, to let her get a closer look at the badge. She continued to gape at it, then slumped into a chair and looked at the floor.
Corey went to the door and closed it. The rainwater was dripping from his head and shoulders. He wiped his brow and murmured, “It's kinda damp out there.”
She sat still, gazing dully at the floor. She can't believe it, Corey thought. She can't believe they reinstated the shakedown artist. And aside from the seeing the badge, another item she gandered in the wallet was the card that reads “Night Squad.” Maybe that accounts for something else you see in her eyes, a certain uneasiness.
He glanced around the tiny kitchen, seeing the neat arrangement of glasses and jars and pots and pans. On the stove there was something cooking. The aroma was appetizing, and he remembered how it was when they were married. She liked to cook. She was really a wonderful cook.
And then he looked at her and saw the dark brown hair, the medium brown eyes, the pink-and-olive complexion that never needed rouge or powder, and he remembered she never used lipstick, either.
Never put her hair up in curlers, never spent a thin dime on face creams or cologne or any perfume at all, not even them deodorant sticks. Just soap and water, and she took a bath every day, and that was it. When you got near her, that flower scent was Lillian herself, and not some fancy junk from a fancy bottle.
Another thing, she liked to sew. She made her own dresses and never from them paper patterns, never copying anything she saw in a store window.
It was always her own inventions and you remember that time we went to the Policemen's Benefit Ball and she wore that evening gown she made. Them other dames wanted to kill her.
Yes that's how it was, that's what you had. You had yourself a woman. I mean a real woman, not some phonograph record or sappy sweet chippy or one of them glamour broads who, when you add it up, comes to nothing more than a pain in the ass. With this one you had something on the plus side, and I swear you start to think about it, you get upset, remembering—
Like in bed. The way it was them nights when you weren't drunk or let's say too drunk. You check back, it amounts to very few nights when you were sober enough to really know her, to realize what you had. It was more than just her face and body. It was so much more than that. I mean the feeling deeper than the fire.
Five years ago.
Five goddam years you been without this woman. Five years of nothing. And not caring. That is, until last night when you saw her in the Hangout sitting alone at that table, drinking beer. This woman who'd never gone for any kind of alcohol; she sat there filling the glass again and again, and you knew the kind of drinking it was. The weary drinking, the dreary drinking, the drinking that says, there's trouble here.
All right, let's find out why.
What I mean, goddamit, it ain't that you're gettin' detoured. You didn't come to this address to offer assistance. In the first place, she don't want your assistance. In the second place, her personal problems got nothing to do with your money problems. You're out to score for a stack of G-notes and that's all.
He couldn't look at her. He mumbled, “I got some questions—”
“Like what?” and she stiffened slightly, defensive.
“Your husband—”
“What about him?”
“Does he work?”
“Whaddya mean, does he work? Sure he works.”
“Where?”
She didn't answer.
“Where?” Corey repeated. Then he looked at her and said softly, his expression solemn and official, “Now look, you know you gotta tell me. This is police business.”
“Maybe.”
“No maybes about it. You saw the badge—”
“I didn't see the warrant.”
“There ain't no warrant,” he said. “I'm not here to make an arrest. Or search the rooms. All I want is some information.”
“Get it someplace else. I'm not talking to you.”
“All right,” he shrugged. And then, “Better bring an umbrella.”
“What for?”
“So you won't get wet.”
She took a deep breath. Her mouth tightened.
He shrugged again. “That's how it is,” he said. “You won't talk here; you'll talk at city hall.”
Lillian shifted her position in the chair. “Just tell me one thing,” with her voice dull, the glint gone out of her eyes. “Why do they want him?”
“I didn't say they wanted him. They're just investigating, that's all.”
“Investigating what?”
“This neighborhood,” he said. “Some goings-on in this neighborhood.”
She blinked several times. Corey picked up a chair and brought it close to where she was sitting. He sat down, leaned back and said, “Where does he work?”
“Chatworth Leather.”
“What's he do there?”
“He's a shipper.”
“Nine-to-five?”
She nodded.
“What's he make a week?”
“Why?”
“Look, it's a question. Answer it. What's he make?”
“Fifty—fifty-five. Some weeks it's sixty.”
“For overtime?”
“He don't get much overtime. Most weeks it's fifty.”
“Fifty a week,” Corey murmured, looking around at the tiny kitchen, then past the kitchen at the combination parlor-bedroom with a sagging ceiling and cracks showing in the walls. He leaned back further in the chair and said, “What's the rent here?”
“Twenty-nine fifty.”
“A year?”
“That ain't clever,” she said. “It ain't even funny.”
“Sorry.”
“No you're not. You hadda get that in.”
“Let it ride.”
She stood up. “I'll tell you why we live in this trap. On fifty-sixty a week we could live in a better place, except it ain't just him and me. He's got his mother in a convalescent home. He helps to support two sisters—”
“All right, all right.”
“—and never spends a dime on himself. Walks to work every day to save carfare. And—”
“All right,” he cut in. “Let it ride already—”
“No,” she said. “You wanna know about him, I'll tell you. He's a clean-living, hardworking man. He's got a load to carry and he carries it. Last week he had a cold, and he shoulda been in bed, and he went to work anyway. Wouldn't even let me buy cough medicine. Said it cost too much. It's less than a dollar in the cut-rate store, and he said it cost too much. Then the very next day he gives me this,” and she indicated a bracelet she was wearing.
It was a cheap bracelet, about a dollar-fifty. Corey glanced at it and saw it was on the conservative side, just a plain metal band with a simple design.
“Went out that day and bought it for me,” she said. “For my birthday. You hear what I'm saying? He had that bad cold, coughing his head off. So instead of medicine for himself he remembers it's my birthday and goes out and buys me this bracelet.”
“Like in them shows,” Corey murmured.
“What shows?”