Leslie Charteris - The Saint in New York

The Saint smiled.

"I was eavesdropping — it's one of my bad habits."

"At Nather's?"

"Draw your own conclusions."

Fernack turned in his seat, his massive body cramped by the wheel; and the grey eyes under his down-drawn shaggy brows reflected the reddish light of his cigar end.

"Get this," he said harshly. "Everything you say about me and the rest of the force may be true. I'm not arguing. That's the way this town's run, and it's been like that ever since I was pounding a beat. But I'm telling you that some day I'm gonna pin a rap on that mug, judge or no judge — an' make it stick! If that line you shot at me was said to Nather, it means there's something dirty brewing around here tonight; and if there's any way of tying Nather in with it, I'll nail him. And I'll see that he gets the works all the way up the line!"

"Why should it mean that?"

"Because Nather is just another stooge of the Big Fellow's, the same as Irboll was. Listen: If that bunch is going out tonight, there's always the chance something may go blooey. One or two of 'em may get taken in by the cops. That means they'll get beaten up. Don't kid yourself. When we get those guys in the station house we don't pat them with paper streamers. Mostly the only punishment they ever get is what we give them in the back room. An' they don't like it. You can be as tough as you like and never let out a peep, but a strong-arm dick with a yard of rubber hose can still hurt you. So when a bunch is smart, they have a lawyer ready to dash in with writs of habeas corpus before we can even get started on 'em — and those writs have to be signed by a judge. One day a law will be passed to allow racketeers to make out the writs themselves an' save everyone a lot of expense, but at present you still gotta find a judge at home."

"I see," said the Saint gently.

Fernack grunted, and his fingers hardened on the cigar.

"Who gave that order?" he grated.

"I haven't the faintest idea," said the Saint untruthfully. He sympathized with Fernack, but it was too late in his career to overcome an ingrained objection to letting any detective get ahead of him. "The speech came over the phone, and that's all there was."

"What did you go to Nather's for?"

"I asked you the same question, but I don't have to repeat it. I stayed right under the window and listened."

Fernack's cigar fell out of his mouth and struck his knee with a fountain of sparks.

"You what?"

"Just in case you'd decided to follow me," explained the Saint blandly. "This business of haring for the tall timber in front of squads of infuriated policemen is all right for Charlie Chaplin, but it's a bit undignified for me." He grinned reminiscently. "I admired your vocabulary," he said.

The detective groped elaborately for his fallen weed.

"I had to do it," he growled. "That son of a — pulled just one too many when he acquitted Irboll. I may be transferred for it, but I couldn't of stayed away if I'd been told beforehand that I was going to wake up tomorrow pounding a two-mile beat out on Staten Island."

Simon put his head back and gazed up at the low roof of the sedan. "What's the line-up?"

Fernack leaned on the wheel and smoked, staring straight ahead again. Taxis and cars thrummed past them in conflicting streams, and up in a tree over their heads a night bird bragged about what he was going to do to his wife when she came home.

The traffic lights changed twice before he answered.

"Up at the top of this city," he said slowly, "there's a political organization called Tammany Hall. They're the boys who fill all the public offices, and before you were born they'd made electioneering into such an exact science that they just don't even think about it any more. They turn out their voters like an army parade, their hired hoodlums guard the polls, and their employees count the votes. The boss of Tammany Hall is a man called Robert Orcread, and the nickname he gave himself is Honest Bob. Outside the City Hall there's a fine bit of a statue called Civic Virtue, and inside there's the biggest collection of crooks and grafters that ever ran a city.

"There's a district attorney named Marcus Yeald who's so crooked you could use him to pull corks with; and his cases come up before a row of judges like Nather. Things are different here from what they are in your country. Over here our judges get elected; and every time a case comes up before them they have to sit down and figure out what the guy's political pull is, or maybe somebody higher up just tells 'em so they won't make any mistake, because if a judge sends a guy up the river who's got a big political drag there's going to be somebody else sittin' in his chair when the next election comes round.

"The politicians appoint the police commissioner, and he does what they say and lays off when they say lay off. The first mistake they ever made was when they put Quistrom in. He takes orders from nobody; and somehow he's gotten himself so well liked and respected by the decent element in this city that even the politicians daren't try and chisel him out now — it'd make too much noise. But it all comes to the same thing in the end. If we send a guy up for trial, he's still got to be prosecuted by Marcus Yeald or one of Yeald's assistants, and a judge like Nather sits on the case an' sees that everything is nice and friendly.

"There's a bunch of rats an' killers in this town that stops nowhere, and they play ball with the politicians, and the politicians play ball with them. We've had kidnapping and murder and extortion, and we're goin' to have more. That's the Big Fellow's game, and it's the perfect racket. There's more money in it than there ever was in liquor — and there's less of an answer to it. Look at it yourself. If it was your son, or your wife, or your brother, or your sister, that was bein' held for ransom, and you knew that the rats who were holding 'em were as soft-hearted as a lot of rattlesnakes — wouldn't you pay?"

The Saint nodded silently. Fernack's slow, dispassionate summary added little enough to what he already knew, but it filled in and coloured the picture for him. He had some new names to think about; and that realization brought him back to the question in his mind that he had tactfully postponed.

"Who is Papulos?" he asked; and Fernack grinned wryly.

"You've been getting around. He's pay-off man for Morrie Ualino."

"Pay-off man for Ualino, eh?" Simon might have guessed the answer, but he gave no sign. "And what do you know about Morrie?"

"He's one of the big shots I mentioned just now. One of these black-haired, shiny guys, as good-lookin' as Rudolf Valentino if you happen to like those kind of looks — lives like a swell, acts an' talks like a gent, rides around in an armoured sedan, and has two trigger men always walking in his shadow."

"What's he do for a living?"

"Runs one of the biggest travelling poker games on Broadway. He's slick — and poison. I've taken him to Ossining once, an' Dannemora once, myself, but he never stayed there long enough to wear through a pair of socks." Fernack's cigar spun through the darkness in a glowing parabola and hit the road with a splutter of fire. "Go get him, son, if you want him. I've told you all I can."

"Where do I find him?"

Fernack jerked his head round and stared. The question had been put as casually as if the Saint had been asking for the address of a candy shop; but Simon's face was quite serious.

Fernack turned his eyes back to the road; and after a while he said: "Down on 49th Street, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, there's a joint called Charley's Place. It might be worth paying a visit — if you can get in. There's a girl called Fay Edwards who might—"

The inspector broke off short. A third voice had cut eerily into the conversation — an impersonal metallic voice that came from the radio under the dashboard: