Уильям Макгиверн - Summitt

“I ordered for both of us,” he said, as Selby settled into the booth. “What’re you drinking, Harry?”

Selby declined but Mooney finished his whiskey sour in one long gulp and signaled their waitress for another. “Slocum’s a mean sonofabitch,” he said, and leaned closer to Selby. “If I was a real friend, Harry, I’d tell you to fuck off. That would be smart for both of us.”

“Did Slocum get rich fixing parking tickets?”

The waitress brought Mooney’s drink and their lunch, soft-shelled crabs, french fries and coleslaw, and returned later with a pitcher of beer and tall frosted glasses.

“Shit no, it’s not parking tickets.” Mooney glanced at the crowded tables near them. “Slocum has a part-time job, you could say, with Harlequin Chemicals. He reports to a man name of Dom Lorso. Lorso’s close to the president of Harlequin, George Thomson, a.k.a. Giorgio Tomaso, so close in fact that when Thomson unzips his fly Lorso pisses. A big company like Harlequin needs a friendly face at the local lock-up. A cop with a white cane, that’s what they’re called. Someone who doesn’t see certain things, or if he does, he looks at them with — let’s say — a charitable eye. A hit-run becomes a speeding ticket, an executive in a motel room with a Moroccan sailor off a tanker, that’s part of some company exchange-training. You name it. Things have to be taken care of, Harry, that’s the way it is. You understand what I’m telling you?”

“I understand,” Selby said. “And a rape could be viewed with, what was your phrase — ‘a charitable eye’ — and a sports car could disappear into the blue with an assist from a cop with a white cane. That’s what you’re telling me, Jay. But I want to know why . What’s the connection between the psycho who raped Shana and Harlequin Chemicals?”

Mooney pushed his coleslaw around his plate and finished off his drink. He looked around for the waitress, holding up his empty glass. There were dark, wrinkled pouches under his eyes. “I’m not sure, Harry.” With obvious difficulty he looked at Selby. “How’s Shana? How is she, Harry? That’s why I called the other day.”

“About as you’d expect, but you didn’t answer my question.”

Mooney drummed his fingers on the table. “I’m afraid of those people, I’ll admit it.” He laughed nervously. “Big deal, I admit it. What the hell else can I do? Deny it?”

“Did Slocum give you the speech about buying the ballet outfit for his kid, the flounced pink dress, and the cute little slippers? It figures,” he went on, “he enjoys that number. Before Miranda, Slocum used to tell that story to suspects in the basement of the division and when they were blinking back their tears at how sweet it was, Slocum would slip behind them and bust their heads wide open with a nightstick.”

The waitress put his fresh drink on the table, and Mooney took a long pull from it. “Don’t bother counseling moderation, Harry. Stouter hearts than yours have never prevailed.”

His speech was becoming drunkenly straitjacketed, overly controlled and precise. “Of course you got to realize the captain has come a long way. He talks about coddling criminals to Rotary and Kiwanis, he’s a big draw at police conventions and” — Mooney drank and smacked his lips — “and wouldn’t be offended if the party offered him a run at the State Assembly in a year or two.”

“The voters are lucky,” Selby said. “They’re to be congratulated.” He took out his wallet and dropped a bill on the table.

“Harry, I’d like to help, but there’s not a goddamn thing I can do.”

“I understand, jay.”

“The hell you do. You think I’m a gutless lush. Which isn’t too wide of the mark, my boy.”

“Don’t put yourself down. You kept this lunch date, you told me Slocum’s a thief, and Lorso pisses when Thomson runs his zipper down. And you made the courtesy call to ask about Shana.”

“Ah, shit.” Mooney rubbed his mouth. “There is something else, Harry, but it’s just gossip, might not mean a thing. A good while back, six maybe seven years ago, Thomson’s son got his ass in a crack over in Jersey. It was near his school, and a girl was mixed up in it. She was hurt bad. It took some heavy pressure to clean it up. According to the talk, Slocum was involved.”

“What was the name of the school?”

“It’s a military college, Rockland Military. Near Jefferson.”

“You know who the girl was?”

“I never heard her name, as God is my witness and my judge. Now will you sit there a minute and finish that beer with me?”

“All right, Jay.” Selby picked up his glass. “To better days.”

When Selby got home Mrs. Cranston told him that there was no call from his brother, Jarrell, and that Shana had gone out for a ride with Normie Bride.

“He came by about an hour ago in that funny truck of his, and I said it was all right. She’s been moping around and I thought it would do her good. She wore that sweater she likes, the gray one with the red trim at the wrists. She even asked me to press a hair ribbon for her. It was good seeing her looking pretty again.”

Selby turned on the early news. A live interview was in progress with Senator Dixon Lester from his Washington office. The senator faced a group of reporters and TV cameramen. Middle-aged and of medium height, the senator’s face was long and narrow with eyes set back in shadowed hollows beneath thick eyebrows. A wave of black hair fell in a practiced manner over his forehead, adding a mildly raffish touch to his conservative dark-suited-and-vested appearance.

Flat midwestern accents... “Our responsibility is to the American people, period. No one else, within our borders or outside them, commands my loyalty. We are investigating the Harlequin Chemical Corporation and certain divisions of the Correll Group, along with diverse suppliers to our military forces — not, not, I repeat, because we are attacking conglomerates per se, but only that aspect of conglomerate philosophy which holds that they can’t be restrained by national interest or anything at all like old-fashioned patriotism.”

“Senator Lester,” a reporter asked, “would you say that Senator Rowan and his committee have been protecting the Correll Group?”

Senator Lester replied, “To that I can only say de mortui nil nisi bonum .”

Standing beside the senator was a tall Oriental woman with black hair and wide, startlingly made-up eyes. The network director cued back to the local anchorman, who looked into the camera and said solemnly, “Senator Mark Rowan, dead today at sixty-eight.”

Selby turned off the set. The interview raised the same kind of questions he had put to Jay Mooney, and which Mooney wouldn’t or couldn’t answer. There was no help anywhere, especially not from a cop who wore shining loafers and owned high-rises on the Jersey shore.

Coming to a decision, Selby called Casper Gideen. His wife, Lori, told him Casper was out back but to hold on, she’d get him. Lori Gideen reminded Selby of dust bowls and crop failures, faded photographs from Depression days. Actually Casper’s wife was just a few years into her thirties, although she had teenaged sons. Too gaunt to be considered pretty, Lori usually had a smile for everyone, and managed a dogged sort of serenity in spite of money worries and the emotional upset stirred by Casper’s tempers.

When Gideen answered, Selby told him he’d like to come by as soon as possible. Whenever you want, Gideen said...

The rain had eased off, but drops still fell in sudden, noisy rattles from the trees whenever a wind came up. Gideen was seated in the shelter of an open shed he had built alongside his kennel run.