Уильям Макгиверн - Rogue Cop

That’s one thing I owe the old man, he thought; the indestructible constitution.

It was twelve-thirty when he left the club. He stopped at the Bervoort for cold roast beef with salad, then drank a bottle of cold beer and lit his first cigarette of the day. Relaxed and at ease, he sat for a few minutes at the table, savoring the fragrant smoke and the clean, toned-up feeling of his body.

Now he was ready for Eddie. This time he was sure of himself, charged with hard confidence.

The day was superb, clear and bright with sun. Carmody put the top of the convertible down before starting for the Northeast. He took the Parkway Drive, following the shining bend of the river, and enjoying the clean feel of the wind and sun against his face. Turning off at Summitt Road, he wound into the Northeast, driving through quiet residential streets where children played on the lawns, with their mothers coming to the porches occasionally to see that they weren’t in trouble. This was Carmody’s background; he had lived in this neighborhood until he was twenty-seven, increasingly bored by the middle-class monotony of the people, increasingly annoyed by the sharp but worried eye the old man kept on him. Our break was inevitable, he thought, turning into Eddie’s block. We just split on the big things. But why couldn’t people be reasonable about these disagreements? The old man was a fool, not because of what he believed but because he was so blindly insistent that he was right. You could argue with him up to a point; but beyond that there was no sympathy or compromise. Well, it’s all over and done with now, Carmody thought, as he went up the wooden stairs of the old frame house and banged the old-fashioned brass knocker.

He waited, rapped again, then tried the door. It was open as usual. Carmody walked into the hallway, hung his hat automatically on the halltree and turned into the familiar shabby living room. Nothing much had changed in the seven years that he had been gone; the old man’s outsized leather chair stood with its back to the windows, his piano was still stacked with Irish songs and church music and the dark, shadowy copy of Rafael’s Madonna hung over the mantel, slightly crooked as always. The room was clean and he wondered if Eddie did the work himself. Very probably, he thought.

“Eddie?” he called. “You up yet?”

Eddie’s voice sounded from the basement. “Hey, who’s that?”

“Mike. Come on up.”

“I’ve got to wash my hands. Sit down and make yourself at home.”

Make yourself at home! Carmody glanced around with a wry little smile. There was no place in the world where that would be less possible. He couldn’t be comfortable here; he felt smaller and less certain of himself in the old man’s home. The memories of his father crowded around him, evoking all the past pain and friction. That was why he hadn’t come back even after the old man died; he hated the uncertainty and guilt this shabby, middle-class room could produce in him. But it wasn’t just the room, it was his father, Carmody knew. His feeling about the old man had started long before he had gone to work for Beaumonte, before he had learned that his job could be made to pay off like a rigged slot machine. It had begun with those arguments about right and wrong. To his father those words defined immutable categories of conduct, but to Carmody they were just words applied by men to suit their convenience. It was an emotional clash between a man of faith and a man of reason, in Carmody’s mind. His father was a big, gentle, good-natured person, who believed like a trusting baby in the fables of his childhood. Like Eddie, for that matter. But you couldn’t tell them different. It only hurt and angered them. Maybe that’s why I feel guilty, he thought. It’s the reaction to destroying anyone’s dream, even if you’re only showing up Santa Claus as the neighbor across the street with a pillow under his shirt and a dime-store beard on his chin.

Turning to the mantel, he picked up a dried-out baseball from a wooden saucer. He was remembering the game in which it had been used, as he tossed it up and down in his hand. The police department against the Phillies’ bench. A big charity blowout. Carmody had tripled home the winning run in the bottom of the tenth inning. This was the ball he hit off a pitcher who was good enough to win thirteen games in the majors that season. Eight years ago! He was working for Beaumonte then, taking the easy money casually and without much reflection; it seemed like just another tribute to his superior brains and strength. But he couldn’t fool his father about the source of the money. The old man saw the new convertible, the good clothes, the expensive vacations, and that was when the sharp, worried look had come into his eyes. The blowup came the night after the game in which Carmody had tripled home the winning run.

He had picked up a set of silverware by way of celebration, the kind they’d never been able to own, and when he walked in with it trouble had started. Carmody tossed the baseball up and down in his hand, frowning at his father’s piano. The old man had been singing something from the Mass the choir was doing the coming Sunday. It had got on Carmody’s nerves. He had said something about it as he unwrapped the silver, and that touched off their last row.

Somewhere in the middle of the argument the old man had picked up the crate of silverware, walked to the door and had thrown it out into the street.

“And you can follow it, laddy me boy,” he’d yelled in his big formidable voice. “No thief is going to sleep in my house.”

That had done it. Carmody walked out and didn’t see the old man until his funeral, a year later.

He heard Eddie on the basement stairs and quickly put the baseball back in the little wooden saucer. Eddie came in wearing a white T shirt and faded army suntan slacks. A lock of his hair was plastered damply against his forehead and his big forearms were streaked with sweat and dust. “Well, this is a surprise,” he said, smiling slowly.

“You’re up early.”

“I had some work to do in the basement. How about a beer or something?”

“Sounds good.”

“Sure, one won’t hurt us,” Eddie said. He went to the kitchen and returned in a few moments with two uncapped, frosted bottles of beer. Handing one to Carmody he tilted the other to his mouth and took a long swallow.

“That hits the spot,” he said, shaking his head. “You working out this way today?”

“No, I’m here to see you,” Carmody said, and watched the little frown that came on Eddie’s face. “I told Ackerman and Beaumonte that you’d be sensible. They want to see you tonight at ten o’clock.”

“You had no right to do that,” Eddie said.

“Would you rather I sat back and let them blow your brains out?”

“Let me worry about that.” Eddie looked badgered and harassed; a mixture of sadness and anger was nakedly apparent in his eyes. “I hate having you mixed up with those creeps,” he said, almost shouting at Carmody. “I always have. You know that. But I don’t want any part of them. Can you get that?”

“You should be grateful I work for them,” Carmody said, holding onto his temper. “Do you think you’d get this break if you were some ordinary beat-tramping clown?”

“Grateful you work for them?” Eddie said slowly. “That’s almost funny, Mike. Listen to me now. I always thought you were a great guy. Next to the old man, I suppose, you were the biggest thing in my life. I carried your bat home from games, I hung around Fourteenth Street when you were on traffic, watching you blow the whistle and wave your arms as if it was the most important thing anyone in the world could do.”

“All kid brothers are that way,” Carmody said.