Уильям Макгиверн - Rogue Cop

“Okay. Call me when you learn something.”

“Where’ll you be? At the hotel?”

“No. I’m staying at the old man’s.”

Murphy glanced at him queerly. “I thought you hated that place.”

“It’s quieter out there,” Carmody said.

At ten-thirty that night a slim, dark-haired man stepped into a telephone booth, fished in the return slot out of habit then dropped a coin and dialed a number. When a voice answered, he said, “Sammy Ingersoll. I got a message for Mr. Ackerman.”

“Just a minute.”

“What’s the word?” Ackerman said, a few seconds later.

“Carmody’s bedded down for the night. At his brother’s home in the Northeast. He’s been huddling most of the evening with a guy from the Express. Murphy.”

“What about the girl?”

“Only got a guess so far. But it’s a good one, I think. She’s stashed away in the apartment of that dame who saw the shooting. Karen something-or-other.”

“You don’t get paid for guessing,” Ackerman said angrily.

“I know, Mr. Ackerman. But Carmody took some dame there. I got that from a neighbor who was up early with an earache. This neighbor saw Carmody and the girl go in about four in the morning. I can’t check it because they got police guards there. In the lobby and up at her apartment.”

“All right,” Ackerman said, after a short pause. “We’ll handle the police detail. You’ve earned a vacation. Take a couple of weeks in Miami and send us the bill. And keep what you told me to yourself.”

Sammy made a small circle with his lips. His sharp little face was completely blank. “Mr. Beaumonte asked me to let him know if I learned anything.”

“I said to keep it to yourself. You’d better not misunderstand me.”

“No chance of that. I’m on my way.”

When he left the booth, Sammy wiped his damp forehead with a handkerchief. There was no future in getting in the middle between Bill Ackerman and Dan Beaumonte. Miami seemed like a beautiful idea to him, not just for two or three weeks but maybe two or three years.

Carmody slept that night in his old room. In the morning he discovered that someone had taken care of the things he had left here years ago. His suits hung in plastic bags, and his bureau drawers were full of clean linen. Carmody looked at them for a moment, remembering his father’s finicky concern over his and Eddie’s things. Neatness wasn’t his strong point, but he had worked hard at being father and mother to them, repainting their wagons, trimming their hair, getting after them about muddy shoes and dirty fingernails. “Cleanliness is next to godliness,” he had usually intoned while herding them to the bathroom. I suppose he always expected me to come back, Carmody thought.

He had finished a breakfast of orange juice and coffee when the phone rang. It was Murphy.

“Can I pick you up in about twenty minutes?” he said. “We got some work to do.”

“What did you find out?”

“Something damned interesting. I’ll be out as soon as I can.”

Carmody lit a cigarette and walked into the living room. The early sun slanted through the windows, brightening the somber tones of the furniture and pictures. For some reason the room didn’t depress him this morning. He thought about it as he smoked and looked at his father’s piano. Ever since he had started trying to save Eddie his thoughts had been returning restlessly to the old man. He should have no time for anyone but Ackerman. His thoughts should be on what Murphy had dug up, but instead they swerved irrelevantly into the past. Back to unimportant details. Like his clothes hanging neatly and cleanly in the closet upstairs. And an image of the old man at the piano booming out something for the Offertory. Redemptor Mundi Deus. Even now the somehow frightening Latin words could send a shiver down his spine. But why? They were just words, weren’t they?

A footstep sounded on the porch and Carmody went quickly to the door. Father Ahearn smiled at him through the screen. “I just thought I’d see if you were home,” he said.

Carmody let him in and the old man sat down gratefully.

“It will be hot today.” He sighed and looked up at Carmody. “You asked for understanding from me yesterday but I left you. That wasn’t the way for a priest to behave. I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay.”

“I wish I could help you. You know, Eddie gave me his will the last time I spoke with him. He wanted you to have this house. Did he tell you that?”

“No, he didn’t,” Carmody said slowly.

“You don’t want it, do you?”

“I haven’t thought about it. But I guess not. Why should I?”

“You’re a stubborn man,” Father Ahearn said. “Just like your father. If you understood him, you might understand yourself, Mike. He was a proud man, and very set in his ways. But they were pretty good ways.” The old priest smiled slowly. “Remember how touchy he was about his singing. And the truth was he didn’t have a very good voice.”

“But big,” Carmody said.

“Oh, it was that, I grant you.” Father Ahearn got to his feet with an effort and went to the piano. “Eddie kept all the music, I see.” He picked up one of the sheets and smiled at it. “O, Blame Not the Bard ” His eyes went across the music. “Twas treason to love her, twas death to defend,” he murmured, shaking his head. Then he looked sharply at Carmody. “That’s something to remember about your father, Mike. He wasn’t allowed to love his own country. Like thousands of other Irishmen, that love was a kind of treason. Can’t you understand their bitterness when their sons went wrong over here? Instead of being grateful for a country to love and live in, some of the sons seemed bent only on spoiling the place. That hurt men like your father. It makes them angry and unreasonable, which isn’t the best tone to use on hot-headed young men. Can’t you see that, Mike?”

“Well, it’s all over, anyway,” Carmody said. “He’s dead and I’m still the rotten apple. Talking won’t change it.”

“How did you get so far away from us?” Father Ahearn said, shaking his head slowly.

“I don’t know. It wasn’t one decision.” Carmody shrugged. “Little by little, I guess.”

“Couldn’t you try coming back the same way? Little by little, I mean.”

“Admit I’ve been wrong? Ask for forgiveness.” Carmody turned away from him and pounded a fist into his palm. “It’s no good. If I did that I’d come to a dead-center stop. And I can’t stop while my brother lies dead and his murderers are living like kings.” Turning back, he stared angrily and hopelessly at the priest. “All I’ve got is a certain kind of power and drive. I can do things. The way I am, that is. But I’d be nothing if I turned into a confused sinner, begging for forgiveness.”

“You’ll be nothing until you see that Eddie’s murder was wrong,” Father Ahearn said sharply. “Not because he was your brother, or a police officer, but because he was a human being whose life belonged to God.”

A car door slammed at the curb. Through the windows Carmody saw George Murphy coming up the walk. “I’ve got to be going, Father,” he said, relieved to end this painful and pointless argument.

“Remember this,” the old priest said, and put a hand quickly on his arm. “Don’t get thinking you’re hopeless. St. Francis de Sales said, ‘Be patient with everyone, but above all with yourself.’ Keep that in mind. All sinners flatter themselves that they are hopeless. But no one is, son.”

“Okay, okay,” Carmody said shortly; he wanted to be gone, he wanted no more talk about sin and forgiveness. Turning, he left the house and met Murphy on the front porch.