Уильям Макгиверн - Rogue Cop

“I’m in kind of a hurry, Mike,” he said, not moving aside. “What’s on your mind?”

The long room behind was empty and Carmody saw three pigskin bags in the middle of the floor. “You’re taking a trip?” he said.

“That’s right.” Beaumonte’s smile was a grudging concession which didn’t relieve the annoyance in his face. “I’m catching a plane in half an hour.”

“You asked me to find Nancy,” Carmody said. He walked into the room, forcing Beaumonte to step aside, and tossed his hat in a chair.

“Well, where is she?” Beaumonte asked him anxiously.

Carmody faced him with his hands on his hips. “She’s under a blanket, Dan. They pulled her out of a wreck on the Turnpike about an hour ago. She’s dead.”

“Dead?” Beaumonte stared at him incredulously. “No, you’re kidding,” he whispered. His face had turned white and his lips were beginning to tremble. “She can’t be dead,” he said, shaking his head quickly.

“I saw her. She burned to death.”

Beaumonte put both hands over his face and lurched blindly toward the sofa. He sat down, his body sprawling slackly on the cushions, and began to cry in a soft, anguished voice.

Carmody lit a cigarette and flipped the match toward the ashtray. He watched Beaumonte’s efforts to get himself under control with no expression at all on his face.

“I loved that girl,” Beaumonte said, in a choking voice. His eyes were closed but tears welled under the lids and coursed slowly down his white cheeks. “I loved her and she never looked at another guy. She was all mine. Where did it happen? Who was with her?”

“She was alone,” Carmody said.

It took several seconds for this to register. When it did, Beaumonte opened his eyes and struggled up to a sitting position. “She never drove, she couldn’t,” he said hoarsely. “What are you saying, Mike?”

“She was murdered,” Carmody said.

Beaumonte shook his head so quickly that tears were shaken from his fat cheeks. “Ackerman said he wouldn’t hurt her,” he cried in a rising voice. “He said he wouldn’t touch her.”

“And you believed him. Like I believed you when you said you’d give Eddie forty-eight hours.”

“Why did he kill her?” Beaumonte said, mumbling the words through his trembling lips. “He didn’t have to do that. I could have kept her quiet.”

“She was killed because she told me about Dobbs,” Carmody said coldly. “That’s going to hang Ackerman. And it may hang you, too, Dan.”

Beaumonte began to weep. “Mike, please. I been through enough.”

“You’ve put hundreds of people on the same rack,” Carmody said bitterly. “I could laugh at you if you were lying in hell with your back broken. Now get this: you and Ackerman are going down the drain and I helped pull the plug. I’m going with you, but that seems a fair price. You can sweat out the next six months in jail, or you can die right now. The choice is yours.”

“What do you mean?”

Carmody took out his revolver and shoved the barrel deep into Beaumonte’s wide stomach. “I want the name of the guy who killed my brother,” he said gently. “And his address.”

“Ackerman made the plans,” Beaumonte said, his voice going up in a squeal. “He got a guy named Joie Langley from Chicago.”

“Is he still in town?”

Beaumonte wet his lips as he stared into Carmody’s cold gray eyes. “Don’t shoot, Mike,” he whispered. “I’m talking. Langley’s staying in a rooming house on Broome Street. The address is 4842. Ackerman didn’t want him to leave while there was a witness who could finger him. If he couldn’t get rid of the witness, then he planned to get rid of Langley. Langley’s got no money at all, and he can’t move. He’s a bad kid, Mike.”

“I’ll make an angel out of him,” Carmody said, putting away his gun. “Now don’t move until I’m gone.”

When the door closed Beaumonte struggled to his feet, breathing heavily, his eyes glistening with tears. Sweat was streaming down his body, plastering his silk shirt to the slabs of flesh that armored his ribs. He walked around the room, wandering in a circle, occasionally moaning like a man goaded by an intense, recurring pain. Finally, he went to the telephone, lifted the receiver and dialed a number. Staring at the wall, he wet his lips and attempted desperately to get himself under control.

A voice said, “Yes?”

“Ackerman? This is Dan.”

“I thought you’d gone. I told you the ceiling was ready to fall in,” Ackerman told him shortly.

“Carmody’s picking up Joie Langley, Bill. He’s spread the story about Dobbs. Now he’s after his brother’s killer. I thought you’d like to know.”

“Is he alone?”

“Yes.” Beaumonte put the phone down abruptly and walked to the bar. While he was making himself a strong drink the phone began to ring. Beaumonte stared at it and sipped his drink. He wasn’t crying any more; his pale face was set in a haggard expression of hate. “Go after him, Bill,” he whispered to the ringing phone. “He’ll pay you off for me, he’ll send you to hell.”

Broome Street stretched from the river to the heart of the city and terminated in a dead end a half-block below the Municipal Building. Its upper section was smart and prosperous, with excellent shops and department stores facing each other across a broad asphalt surface. But the street changed character as it wound through warehouses and slums to the river. Overhead lights gave way to street lamps set far apart, and the gutters were clotted with newspapers, garbage and refuse. The tall, red brick buildings had been converted into rooming houses for dock laborers, and the neon signs of cheap bars glittered at every corner.

Carmody parked in the 4800 block and when he switched off the motor a dark thick silence settled around him. The warehouses and garages were locked up at this hour, and the dawn-rising longshoremen were in bed for the night. Moving quietly, he walked down the empty sidewalk to number 4842, a narrow, four-storied brick building, identical with a dozen others in the block. He ascended the short stoop of stone stairs, hollowed by decades of use, and tried the door. It was locked, as he’d expected it would be. He rang the night bell.

A few minutes later a stockily built Irishman wearing only a pair of trousers peered out at him with sleepy, belligerent eyes.

“Now what’s your pleasure?” he said.

Carmody held out his badge and let the slanting light from the hallway fall on it. “Talk as natural as you can,” he said quietly. “Answer my questions. Have you got a spare room?”

The man cleared his throat and stared at the badge. “We’re all full up,” he said.

“Think I’d have better luck somewhere else in the block?”

“Couldn’t say for sure. You can try across the street, at 4839. They might have an extra.”

“A big blond man with a wide face,” Carmody said quietly. “If he’s here nod your head.”

The man’s eyes became round and solemn. He nodded slowly and jerked his thumb in a furtive gesture to his right. “Just beside me,” he said, breathing out the words. “Front room.”

“Thanks, anyway,” Carmody said, and moved silently past him into the small airless hallway. He closed the front door and pointed to the stairs. The man needed no urging; he took the steps two at a time, his bare feet noiseless on the faded carpet.

Carmody waited until he had turned out of sight at the second-floor landing. Then he rapped sharply on the door of the front room. His breathing was even and slow, and his hands hung straight down at his sides.

Bedsprings creaked beyond the door and footsteps moved across the floor.