Уильям Макгиверн - Rogue Cop

Carmody frowned. He knew the local hoodlums who might have done this night’s work: Sheen in West, Morgan or Schmidt in Northeast, Youngdahl who ran a bowling alley in Meadowstrip. But Karen’s description fitted none of them. That meant an imported killer. And you couldn’t get a man like that in ten minutes. It required arrangements, discussions, planning. So the double-cross hadn’t been a spur-of-the-moment decision. It had been in the works all the time.

He began to smile slowly. “I’ll get that man, Karen. Don’t worry about it.”

“What good will that do? Eddie’s dead. You can’t bring him back.”

“I’m not doing this for Eddie,” he said, still smiling coldly. “This is for me. They promised me time to work on him, and I believed them. They lied to get me out of the way. And it worked. Then they shot him down like a dog. Do you think I’ll let them get away with that?”

“I might have guessed this,” she said, staring at him with something like wonder in her eyes. “It’s not for Eddie. It’s not because the men who killed him are savage and cruel and evil. It’s because your pride is hurt. Their great crime was to make a fool of Mike Carmody. Even your own brother’s death can’t penetrate your thick-headed arrogance.”

“I told you to skip the sermons,” he said, getting to his feet.

“I know you don’t want to hear sermons,” she said bitterly. “You don’t want to hear a word about right and wrong or good and evil. Those things hurt you. You can’t stand them, Mike.”

“Shut up!” he said thickly. “Damn it, will you shut up?”

“No, you don’t want anyone to tell you what kind of a man you are. You sneer and laugh at the whole world but you’re too damn sensitive to listen to its judgment on you. Well, some day you’ll have to listen, Mike. You helped fire the bullet that killed Eddie, and you’ll never be able to run away from that fact.”

“I did what I could,” Carmody said, catching her thin shoulders in his big powerful hands and lifting her to her feet. “Don’t ever say I killed him. Don’t ever say that to me again.”

“You did nothing but advise him to become a thief like you,” she said, staring into the pain and fury in his eyes. “When that didn’t work you walked away from him. That’s what you did, Mike.”

The words framed the dark thoughts which he had been fighting to drive into the safe hidden depths of his mind. I didn’t kill him, I didn’t kill him, he thought, hurling the words like weapons at his growing sense of guilt. Then he released her arms so abruptly that she staggered to keep her balance. “You don’t know anything about it,” he said hoarsely.

“You’re feeling it now,” she said, watching his face. “It’s something you’ll never get away from. If I’ve done that, I’m glad.”

“I’m tougher than you think,” he said, forcing a smile onto his lips. “Listen to me; Eddie didn’t die because of me. Eddie died because he was a fool.”

She sat down slowly, watching him with a frown, and then shook her head sadly. “If you can say that, you’re tough all right. You’re not a man, you’re just a slab of concrete. But some day you’ll crack up anyway. And the crash will be that much louder.”

“Don’t bet on it,” he said.

It was four in the morning when Carmody entered his own living room. The lights were on and Nancy Drake lay on the sofa, an empty whiskey bottle within inches of her trailing hand. Strands of her fine blonde hair fell across her damp cheek and there was a little smile on her lips. But it was a stiff, unnatural smile, the kind Carmody had seen on the lips of women who needed to scream. The line of her body was rigid and the smooth muscles in the backs of her calves were drawn up into small knots.

He shook her gently. “How do you feel, Nancy?”

“Feel?” The grin grew wider. “Hotsy-totsy.” A spasm shook her body and she pounded her feet up and down on the cushions of the sofa. “Say something nice to me, Mike. Don’t let me start crying.”

“Let’s have a drink. That’s something nice, isn’t it?”

“Real peachy,” she said. “Let’s just do that, Mike.”

The phone rang suddenly, shrill and ominous in the silence. Nancy cried out softly and Carmody patted her shoulder. “Keep quiet while I’m talking,” he said. “Okay?”

“Sure, Mike.”

Carmody crossed the room and picked up the phone. “Hello.”

“Mike, this is Bill Ackerman.”

Carmody stared at the receiver. Then he said softly, “You made a mistake tonight, Bill. I’m going to prove it to you.”

“Now get this!” Ackerman’s voice was sharp and controlled. “We didn’t kill your brother. I promised you forty-eight hours and I meant it. Whoever shot him was working on his own. We’ll find the killer and when we do he’s all yours. Do you understand me, Mike?”

Carmody smiled coldly. Was this the opening lead in another double-cross? Was he next on the list? “I thought you’d killed him, Bill. I thought you’d crossed me,” he said.

“I don’t work that way. I don’t need to. I gave you forty-eight hours and I stuck to my word. My guess is that some hophead learned that your brother was causing us trouble, and decided to get in good with us by doing the job on him. He’ll be in for a handout one of these days and you can take over from here. Is that clear?”

“That’s your guess, eh?”

“I can’t think of anything else.”

The unpleasant little smile was still on Carmody’s lips. Ackerman’s confidence was almost funny, he thought. But where was this leading? Ackerman hadn’t called to explain himself or apologize. There was no reason for that.

“I’m glad you weren’t involved in it,” Carmody said. “I’m going after the guy who did the job.”

“We’ll help you, Mike. Is there anything you need right now?”

“I’m okay. I don’t need help.”

“If you need it, it’s here. Now here’s why I called. Did you see Nancy Drake last night or this morning?”

Carmody frowned. What was Ackerman’s interest in Nancy? “No, I haven’t,” he said, glancing at the slim figure on the sofa.

“That’s funny. She was out with some of Beaumonte’s friends last night. The last thing she told them was that she was going to your place.”

“My place? She must have been drunker than usual.”

“I imagine so. Anyway, Beaumonte wants to find her.”

Now it’s Beaumonte, Carmody thought. Why should Ackerman give a damn about Beaumonte’s troubles? There had to be an answer to that one. Ackerman operated solely in the light of self-interest; nothing mattered to him unless it directly concerned his safety and money. “Did Beaumonte and Nancy have a row?” he asked casually.

“Yeah. He didn’t like that baptismal job she did on him.”

“Well, I’ll check the elevator men here at the hotel,” Carmody said. “You want me to go any farther?”

“Sure. Find her if she’s still in town.”

“Okay.” Carmody hesitated, then: “I’ll give Beaumonte a call if I get a line on her.”

“No, let me know first,” Ackerman said. Normally he never explained or discussed his orders, but now he said, “I’ll hand her over to Dan as a little surprise.”

“Sure.”

“And, Mike, I’m sorry about your brother.”

Carmody couldn’t say thanks to that, the words would have stuck in his throat. “It was a rough deal,” he said slowly.

When he put the phone down he walked over and sat down beside Nancy on the sofa. There was a pale morning light coming in the windows now and it glinted on her tumbled blonde hair and the backs of her slim silken legs.

“Can you talk to me a minute?” he asked her quietly.