Уильям Макгиверн - Rogue Cop

“What is it?” she asked him sullenly.

“I want to see Fanzo.”

“He expects you?”

From the front of the apartment, Fanzo called out in a high irritable voice: “Who the hell is that? Bring him in here, Marie.”

The girl studied Carmody, her lips twisting into a smile. “Go in,” she said, moving aside a few inches. Carmody brushed past her and walked through a short hallway to the living room, which was crowded with expensive inappropriate furniture and hung with heavy red draperies.

Fanzo was sitting at a wide table, eating breakfast. When he saw Carmody he got to his feet, a smile replacing the frown on his thin, handsome face. “Well, well, long time no see, keed,” he said. “How’s the boy? Tough about your brother, hey? I just been reading about it. A cop leads a hell of a life, don’t he? No dough, nothing. And always the chance of that big boom sounding behind him.” Fanzo shook his head and picked something from a front tooth. “Real tough. You had breakfast?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“I’ll go ahead. Funny thing, but when I read about people getting killed it makes me hungry as hell. Can’t seem to get enough food.” He sat down and gestured impatiently at the girl who was leaning in the doorway, one foot crossed over the other, a small smile twisting her full red lips. “Go find something to do,” Fanzo said, waving her away with a thin nervous hand. “Go play with the television. Beat it.”

She shrugged and sauntered from the room. Fanzo stared after her, smiling at her small round hips and the backs of her bare brown legs. “Screwball,” he said, winking at Carmody. He picked up a peach from the bowl of fruit on the table and bit into it strongly, tearing a chunk free with big white teeth. “She’s a Mexican. Slipped into Texas under a load of avocados. No entrance papers, nothing. She’s crazier than hell. But she’s all right. And she does what she is told because if she don’t she knows I’ll turn her over to the immigration people.” Fanzo laughed and picked up his knife and fork and began to eat. There was a staggering assortment of food on the table; eggs, bacon, ham steaks, sausages, enchiladas, cold melon and a variety of breads and rolls. “What’s on your mind, Mike?” he said. “You go ahead and talk. I’ll eat.”

“We’re both going to talk,” Carmody said.

“Sure, we both talk,” Fanzo said, chewing away vigorously. He was a tall lanky man in his early forties, with thin, cold features and glossy black hair. Fanzo’s conception of luxury was fundamental and primitive; women, flashy cars, quantity rather than quality in food and liquor. He was a shrewd and powerful factor in the racially mixed jungle that made up Central. Unlike Beaumonte, he had no pretensions about himself; he was a slum-bred hoodlum who lusted for power and cash. Respectability wasn’t his goal; he couldn’t buy it so he didn’t want it. He put no stock in anything that didn’t have a price tag on it. But in his district he held more power than Beaumonte did in West. The district made the difference. In Central, crime stalked the gutters and alleys like a bold cat. The city didn’t care about murders in this area. They weren’t news. And this indifference gave Fanzo a green light. He could enforce his orders by gun or knife, without fear of reprisal. Everyone in Central knew this and so they tried earnestly and fearfully to stay in line.

“What happened to Beaumonte’s girl last night?” Carmody said.

Fanzo smiled briefly as he loaded his knife with food. “She’s his girl, keed. You better ask him.”

“She was brought out here by Johnny Stark. What happened after that?”

Fanzo lowered his knife and looked up at Carmody, still smiling slightly. But his flat brown eyes were irritable. “Mike, I don’t like this hard talk,” he said. “You come in here like a cop, for Christ’s sake. Put that away, keed.”

“Start talking,” Carmody said. “I’m in a hurry.”

“You know, keed, you’re making me mad,” Fanzo said, looking at Carmody with a puzzled frown. “I like you, but you’re making me mad.” He gestured with both hands, a flush of anger staining his thin face. “What’s the deal, keed? You break up my breakfast, like you’re grilling some punk.” He stood up abruptly, throwing his napkin aside furiously. The short leash on his temper had snapped. “Goddamn you,” he said angrily. “Spoil a man’s morning food on him. You beat it, Mike. You beat it, you son of—”

Carmody hit him before the word was completed on his tongue. He struck him across the face with the flat of his hand and the impact of the blow knocked Fanzo sprawling over the table. Carmody picked him up from the floor and dropped him into a chair. “Now talk,” he said.

There was blood on Fanzo’s lips and a smear of egg yolk on the white silk scarf he wore about his neck. He was breathing rapidly, his eyes flaming in his white face. In a high, whinnying voice he began to curse Carmody, spitting out the words as if they were dirt he was trying to get off his tongue.

“That’s all,” Carmody said softly. “Don’t say anything else.”

Fanzo paused as a strange fear claimed him completely; looking up at Carmody, he knew that he would die if he said another word.

They were silent for a moment, motionless in the gaudy room. Then Carmody said, “Tell me about the girl. Fast.”

“Beaumonte sent her out with the fighter,” Fanzo said, watching the detective carefully. “Before that, he called me and told me she needed a lesson. I didn’t want to mix into this thing.” Fanzo spoke slowly, never taking his eyes from Carmody’s face. “Mixing with other guys’ broads is no good. He takes her back tomorrow, next week and then he’s mad at me for mixing in it. Mad at me because I know he’s afraid to take care of her himself. But I do what Beaumonte says. I give her to three, four of the boys and they take her to a place of ours near Shoreline. Nothing real bad happens to her. You know what the boys would do with a little pink-and-white dish like that, they’d just—”

“Never mind the details.” Carmody was having trouble controlling his voice. “What happened afterward?”

“They put her in a cab. She said she wanted to go to your hotel. She was kind of wild, still pretty drunk, too, I guess. She did some crazy talking.”

“What kind of crazy talking?”

“She said she was going to put Ackerman and Beaumonte in jail.” Fanzo smiled cautiously. “That kind of crazy talking.”

“Anything else?”

“That’s all the boys told me.”

“Where are the boys now?”

“I could get them here. But it would take a few hours.”

Carmody didn’t want to wait that long. Later, if this lever wasn’t strong enough, he could come back. Turning he started for the door, but Fanzo said, “Just a minute, Mike.”

Carmody looked around. Fanzo was on his feet, holding one hand against the angry red mark on his cheek. “You shouldn’t have hit me, Mike,” he said slowly. “We were friends, but you put an end to it. I’ll come after you some day. Sleep with that from now on, keed.”

Friends? Carmody thought. Yes, he had given Fanzo the right to call him friend. They advanced the same interests, took their crumbs from the same table. They were closer than most brothers. Closer than he had been with Eddie. Why had he let this happen? he wondered. Why had he tossed away the privilege of having Fanzo as an enemy?

Walking back across the room, Carmody slipped the revolver from his holster and hefted it in his big hand. “You won’t come after me, Fanzo,” he said. His voice was soft and the strange cold smile was on his lips. “Because if you do, I’ll feed you six inches of this barrel and then I’ll put a bullet through your head. So you aren’t coming after me, because you’re smart, Fanzo.”