Уильям Макгиверн - The Big Heat

“I’d like an hour alone with the sonofabitch,” one of the men said.

Bannion sighed. “Take it easy, I’ll see you around,” he said to the room in general, and walked.

When he reached home it was a quarter of three. He was very tired, but he knew he wouldn’t sleep if he went to bed. The business of the night, the bitter, meaningless heartbreak of it, rested on his spirit like a pall. He sat down without removing his overcoat and snapped on the light beside his chair. For a minute or so he sat there, head resting against the back of the chair, and then he took a slim, leather-bound volume from his bookcase and let it fall open in his big hands. He began reading at random, forcing himself at first, but gradually slipping completely into the world of the well-remembered words, a world that seemed a great and gentle distance from the bitter one in which he lived and worked. It was the A scent of Mount Carmel, he was reading, the dark, beautiful record of St. John’s idealistic assumption with his God. The words as much as the sense of it got through to Bannion. “—Oh happy chance! — In darkness and concealment, My house being now at rest... Oh night that guided me... Oh night that joined Beloved with lover...

Bannion put the book aside fifteen or twenty minutes later, and got to his feet. He stretched tremendously, feeling relaxed and at peace with himself now, and then snapped off the reading light and walked quietly through the dark hallway to the bedroom.

Kate was asleep but she woke and switched on the night light as he got into bed a few minutes later. “It was a long day, wasn’t it?” she said, and her voice was soft and warm with sleep.

“Yes, pretty long,” he said, resting his head on her shoulder. “Put out the light, baby.”

“Dave, you had a call. From a girl.”

“Any name?”

“No, it was a gal I think. She said she’d leave the twenty dollars she owed you with the bartender at the Triangle. That was all. Are you in the small loan business, darling?”

Bannion got up on one elbow. “This isn’t exactly funny,” he said. He stared into the darkness, aware of the beat of his heart, of Kate’s soft nearness, the warm, comfortable silence.

“I’m sorry, I just took the message,” Kate said.

“Well, I’ll check it tomorrow,” Bannion said, and put his head down again on her shoulder. They were silent a moment. He said, “Would you lend me twenty bucks, baby, if I were cold and hungry?”

“Sure.”

There was work waiting for him the next afternoon and it wasn’t until six o’clock that he was able to check into the phone call.

The girl who’d called had mentioned the Triangle — the only part of the message which made any sense. It was probably Lucy trying, for some reason, to get in touch with him without leaving her name. He signalled for an outside line and dialled the number of the bar.

A man’s voice answered: “Yeah?”

“This is Sergeant Bannion, Homicide Bureau. I want to talk to Lucy Carroway.”

“Lucy? She ain’t here any more.”

“When did she leave?”

“Damned if I know, Sergeant. She was gone when I came on at three this afternoon. Maybe the boss could tell you, but he ain’t around now, either.”

“Okay, I’ll stop by your place,” Bannion said. “If your boss comes in, tell him to wait for me. Got that?”

“Yeah, sure thing. Say, what’s up? Is she in some kind of trouble?”

Bannion put the phone down without answering and picked up his coat. The bartender’s question echoed his own: Is she in some kind of trouble? That’s what he planned to find out. She might have simply drifted on to another job, another city, but for some reason that didn’t strike him as likely.

“I’m taking a ride,” he said to Neely. “I’ll be back in an hour or so.”

“The lieutenant wants to see you,” Neely said. “He’s got someone with him now but said he’d see you in about fifteen minutes.”

Bannion paced up and down the dusty, cigarette-littered floor, a faint frown on his normally good-humored face. “What’s on his mind?” he said.

Neely shrugged, his reddened, terrier’s face impassive.

Bannion walked to the window and looked down Market Street, dark now and jammed with hurrying pedestrians, hearing the faint, angry tooting of police whistles, the muted roars of traffic, looking at but hardly seeing the clean, beautiful height of the PSFS building, the huge Adam’s clothes sign, the bright rows of store fronts flanking the dark river of the street. He finally glanced at his watch. “Neely, tell him I’d already gone out.”

“But I told him you were here. He called while you were on the outside line,” Neely said.

“Okay, tell him I was on something that wouldn’t wait. I’ll see him when I get back.”

Neely shrugged, removing himself from the matter. “Okay,” he said.

Bannion didn’t bother with his car; in this traffic it would be quicker to walk. He reached the Triangle in ten minutes. The bar was almost empty now, the bandstand deserted, and only a few men sitting over beers. A show was going on next door; he could hear the sound of faint, emphatically syncopated music through the walls.

The bartender was the one he’d seen the night before. He came down to Bannion smiling. “Mr. Lewis ain’t back yet, Sergeant, but he might be next door at the show,” he said.

“Is there anyone here who can go over there with me and pick him out?”

“Yeah, sure.” The man turned his head and shouted: “Jimmy! Hey, Jimmy! Come out here.”

A thin, young Negro wearing a white apron pushed through a swinging door at the end of the bar, and glanced uncertainly from the bartender to Bannion. “Jimmy can show you,” the bartender said. “Take the sergeant next door and pick out Mr. Lewis for him, Jimmy.”

“Sure, just come along with me, please.”

Bannion followed him into the street and into the lobby of the burlesque house. He showed his badge to the ticket-taker, and went into the dark, smokey theater. It was not a pleasant place; the carpets were worn and dusty, and the acrid tang of a urinal disinfectant seeped under the smell of stale tobacco and perspiration. The audience was a small one, fifty or sixty men crowded down in the first half dozen rows, but they were having a good time, laughing gustily at the pair of comics and the big, half-naked blonde on the stage.

The Negro, with Bannion following him, went down the side aisle on the left side of the theater, and called softly to a man sitting in the second row. “Gentleman here to see you, Mr. Lewis.”

Mr. Lewis was slumped down so far that his head was almost out of sight. He was enjoying the show immensely; there were tears of laughter in the corners of his eyes as he looked over his shoulder. “What is it?” he said in an impatient whisper.

“Police business, let’s step outside,” Bannion said.

Mr. Lewis, a small, slender man, came to his feet as if a spring had been released underneath him. He rubbed both hands over his thinning black hair. “Sure thing, sure thing,” he said, taking Bannion’s arm. “You with the Liquor Control Board?”

“No, it’s not that,” Bannion said.

“Well, that’s good news,” Mr. Lewis said, laughing, following Bannion at a half-trot into the lobby. Bannion thanked the boy who smiled and left. Mr. Lewis was a sharply dressed little man, twitching with energy; standing still he gave the impression that he might break into a fast-jig-step. “Well, what is it, officer?” he said, slapping Bannion on both arms with open hands. “Damn, you’re a big one, aren’t you? Nothing wrong with the joint, is there, officer?”

“No, I’m here about a girl named Lucy Carroway. I understand she’s gone. I want you to tell me about it.”