Уильям Макгиверн - Rogue Cop

No, finding Delaney’s source of pressure wouldn’t be impossible, he thought.

Carmody went into the bathroom to shower and when he came out the phone was ringing. He picked it up and said, “Yes?”

“This is Beaumonte, Mike. Can you get over here around four? Ackerman wants to see you.”

“Four? Sure, that’s okay,” Carmody said easily. He stood with his feet wide apart, a towel around his middle feeling the drops of water drying on his big hard shoulders. “What’s on his mind?” he asked. “My brother?” It was a stupid, dangerous question, but he had to know.

“Some friend of his wants to open a handbook in West,” Beaumonte said. “Ackerman wants you to take good care of him.”

“Sure, sure,” Carmody said, releasing his breath slowly. “Four o’clock then.”

“Right, Mike.”

Carmody went out to lunch and got back to his hotel at three o’clock. He washed his hands and face, changed into a dark-gray flannel suit and was on his way to the door when the phone stopped him. A high-pitched irritable voice blasted into his ear when he raised the receiver. “Mike Carmody? Is that you, boy?”

“That’s right. Who’s this?”

“Father Ahearn. I want to see you.”

“I’m just on my way out, Father,” he said.

“I’m down in the lobby. This won’t take long.”

Carmody checked his watch and frowned. “Okay, I’ll be down. But I’m in a hurry.”

“I’ll be waiting at the elevator so don’t try sneaking past me.”

Carmody hung up, finding a grim humor in the situation. The old priest acted as if he were talking to one of his altar boys.

When the elevator doors opened Carmody saw that the last eight years had been hard on the old priest. At his father’s funeral, which was the last time Carmody had seen him, Father Ahearn had been lively and vigorous, a tall man with gray hair and alert flashing eyes. But now he was slightly stooped and the tremors of age were noticeable in his heavily-knuckled hands. His hair had turned almost white but his eyes hadn’t changed at all; they still flashed fiercely above the bold strong nose. He looked incongruous in the smart glitter of the lobby, a tired, bent old man in a black suit which had turned a grayish-green with age.

Carmody shook hands with him and suggested they take a seat at the side of the lobby.

“You want to go off and hide, eh?” Father Ahearn said.

You never manage him, Carmody remembered. “What’s on your mind?” he said, edging him tactfully out of the traffic flowing toward the elevators.

“What’s the trouble with you and Eddie?”

“That’s a personal matter, Father.”

“None of my business, eh? Well, when one brother strikes another in my parish I make it my business.”

“Eddie told you I hit him?”

“Yes. I could see he’d been hurt. But that’s all he would tell me.” The old priest tilted his head and studied Carmody with his fierce eyes. “What was it? The girl?”

“I suppose you could say that.”

“And what makes it any of your business?”

“I’m his brother.”

“Ah,” the old priest said softly. “His brother, is it? His keeper, you are. Isn’t that a new role for you, Mike?”

Carmody felt embarrassed and irritated. “Look, there’s no point talking about it,” he said. “What’s between me and Eddie doesn’t concern you or the church.”

“Now you listen to me, boy. I don’t—”

But Carmody cut him off. “It’s no use, I’ve got to be going, Father.” He didn’t like doing this to the old man and he hated the hurt look his words brought into his eyes; Father Ahearn had been a family friend for years, and had done them a thousand favors. He had got him summer jobs, had sent him to college on an athletic scholarship and had seen that Eddie stuck out his last year of school after the old man died. But that was long, long ago, in time and in values; it belonged to another world.

“All right, I’ll not keep you,” Father Ahearn said.

“I’ll get you a cab.”

“Never mind, you go on about your important affairs. But don’t interfere with Eddie and his girl.”

“You’ve met her, I guess?”

“What have you got against her?”

She’s fooled him, Carmody thought. Probably had a cup of tea with him and smiled at his Irish stories. “There’s no point going into it,” he said.

“Very well. Good-by, Mike.” The old man walked away, threading through the group of expensively dressed men and women. Carmody watched him until he disappeared, and there was a small, unhappy frown on his hard face...

He got to Beaumonte’s at ten of four and found Nancy alone in the long elegant drawing-room. She wore a black dress with a full flaring skirt and junk bracelets on her wrists.

“Where’s everybody?” Carmody asked her.

“Everybody? Don’t I count?”

“I mean Ackerman and Beaumonte.”

“Are they everybody?” she asked, smiling at him, her eyes wide and thoughtful.

“No, you count, too,” he said.

“Sometimes it seems like they’re everybody,” she said, sighing sadly. There was a comic quality to her gravity; with her swept-up blonde hair, jingling bracelets, she was hard to take seriously.

“Don’t get deep now,” he said.

“You’re like them, in a way.”

“That’s a compliment, I hope.”

“You wouldn’t care whether it was or not.” A frown gathered on her smooth childishly round forehead. “That’s what frightens me about all of you. You just don’t care. Not like other people do. Everything in the world is just to use. A girl, a car, a drink, they’re all the same.”

“What got you into this mood?” he asked her.

“Too many drinks, I guess. That’s Dan’s analysis for all my problems.” She put an expression of mock sternness on her face and pointed a finger accusingly at Carmody. “ ‘You’re a lush, you lush.’ ” Relaxing and sighing, she said, “That’s his daily sermon. It’s supposed to fix everything up dandy.”

Carmody was touched by the unhappiness in her face. “You shouldn’t worry so much,” he said. He wondered why she stuck with Beaumonte. The same reason I do, he thought. The money, the excitement of being on intimate terms with power and privilege. Weren’t those good reasons?

“The trouble is I don’t feel like a girl any more,” she said, making a studied pirouette on one small foot.

“Well, what do you feel like?”

“Like a faucet,” she said, making a faster turn on her other foot. Her skirt flared out from her beautifully shaped, silken legs. “Look, I can dance. I’m a faucet,” she said again, continuing the pirouettes. “Something Dan turns on and off, on and off. Whenever he wants to. Don’t I dance gorgeously?”

“Just great.”

She stopped spinning and looked at him, her eyes bright and excited. “I love to dance. Even when it was my work I loved it. Mike, how about taking me on a picnic some day?”

Carmody laughed. “Sure. We could stage it on the roof and have it catered by the Park Club. What gave you that idea?”

“No, the Park Club won’t do,” she said, sighing. “They’d send over ants in little tiny cellophane packages to give it a realistic touch. Excuse me. We need ice. Then I’ll make us a couple of unwise drinks.”

“Never mind me.”

She looked at him thoughtfully. “How come you don’t drink. I mean, get blind and drunk like the rest of us.”

“I guess I don’t want to be anyone else,” Carmody said. “That’s why people get drunk, I imagine. To forget what they are.”

“That’s a gloomy idea,” she said. “It kind of hurts, too. Well, to hell with it. I’ll get the ice and be somebody else. Maybe an ant at a picnic, who knows?”