William McGivern - Savage Streets

Grace Ward, a severely articulate woman in a dark dress that looked like a uniform, interrupted his reverie by telling him that the Rosedale police department was criminally inefficient. She told him that she and Sam had talked it all over after he had brought Andy home from the police station. They had thought of moving to Edgebrook, in spite of the higher taxes, but Sam was expecting a transfer to the firm’s London office and it was an impossible time to be selling one house and buying another in a more expensive area. “But you should think about it, John,” she enjoined him in her insistent, lecturing voice. “The schools out there are marvelous, and with Barbara’s good head for finances you could probably make it without any trouble. There’s no riffraff out there either, if you know what I mean. Sam was ready to make the move today and damn the expense — you know what he’s like when he gets mad — but it’s simply an impossible step at this time in his career. But you’re not in his spot, John.”

“Well, we’ll see,” Farrell said. Glancing around he saw no sign of Bill or Chicky. The maid was coming in with a tray of drinks.

“This is Sam’s big year, we feel,” Grace Ward said. “The move to London will put a stamp on him. That’s why this trouble is so irritating. To put it bluntly, we just don’t have time for it.”

“Yes, it’s a hell of a note, isn’t it?” Farrell said. He decided he would make a greater effort to like Grace; she was a good person, and she handled Sam like a trainer, doing his expense accounts and paper work, leaving him free as the wind, free to concentrate solely on making money. You shouldn’t sneer and jibe at that kind of a wifely leg-up, he thought. He was beginning to be irritable with too many people. Start with Grace, he told himself; value her. But it was a very difficult business, and when she turned away for a second he excused himself and went over to say hello to Dick Baldwin.

Baldwin told him he had come out on the ten o’clock and that Chicky had met him at the station.

“I can use this,” he said, smiling gratefully at his drink. “I was at the shop until midnight waiting for a yes or no on a story.”

“Well, which was it?”

“It was yes, rather fortunately.” Baldwin hesitated, as if debating whether it would be wise to go on. Then he said, “It’s a business story, a piece I’m doing on foreign currencies. You’ll see it next week if you’re one of the quote ‘alert and informed people’ unquote who read our magazine.”

“I see it twice a year,” Farrell said. “My dentist takes it.”

Baldwin smiled. “I’m not in circulation so the needle is without point. How’s the ad game?”

“Like any other game,” Farrell said. “You know, first team, second team, tensions, coaches and uniforms, the usual stuff. Where’s Chicky and Det by the way?”

“There’s a little domestic hassle in the works, I’m afraid.”

“They picked a good time for it,” Farrell said.

“They didn’t pick it, I gather. It’s something to do with young Robert. He’s been banished to his room, and Det is up there chewing him out with great authority, and Chicky is up there apparently acting as referee.” Baldwin shrugged his neat, well-tailored shoulders. “Children are one inevitable result of our carelessly organized biology. If I were running things I think I’d have made women oviparous — then one could have a child or an omelet depending on need, convenience, and that sort of thing.”

“Maybe it’s not funny,” Farrell said shortly. “What’s Bobby been up to?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sound flip about it. I don’t know what the trouble is, but Det is taking it very big — I know that much.”

Farrell lit a cigarette. The sunny room and chattering, well-groomed guests seemed an incongruous background to the ugly little fears starting up in his mind.

Chicky appeared on the second floor landing and came swiftly down the stairs, slim and shining as a sheaf of wheat in bright sunshine. “This is terrible, ” she said with a quick smile around the room. “I’d no idea you’d all be on time. ”

Farrell watched her small blonde head as she moved from group to group, hugging her friends, exclaiming over their clothes, urging them to refill their glasses and take something to eat. It was a good act, he thought; except for the faintest hint of strain about her mouth, she looked as if she didn’t have a care in the world.

Detweiller came downstairs a few moments later, and at first sight of him Farrell thought he was drunk; his collar was open, his tie was pulled down an inch or so, and there was a high tide of color in his beefy, handsome face. But Detweiller wasn’t drunk, he was simply boiling mad. He took Farrell by the arm and led him to a comer of the room.

“Get this — get this for a king-sized mess,” he said, in a low, trembling voice. His big hand was almost painfully tight on Farrell’s arm. “This morning I found my German Luger missing. It was just a fluke I noticed it. I was poking around in my closet for a shoe-tree and happened to look up where I keep the gun. I asked Chicky about it, then the maid, and finally I got hold of Bobby.” Detweiller swore violently and Farrell saw that the Sims were watching them with owlishly solemn expressions.

“Take it nice and slow, Det,” he said.

“That’s easy advice to give,” Detweiller said, but he lowered his voice slightly and moved closer to Farrell. “Well, he played dumb at first. Didn’t know anything about the gun, hadn’t touched it, hadn’t seen it and so forth. But he was lying to me, John. I could see it in his face...” Detweiller’s voice shook. “That freckled face I wouldn’t have believed could look dirty and guilty and ashamed — but that’s how it looked this morning, like the face of a dirty liar. Finally he broke down and told me he’d sold the gun to a boy for five dollars. But he was still lying, so I bundled him into the car and we went down to the police station in Hayrack. We talked to that cop you and Ward saw — what’s his name?”

“Lieutenant Jameson. But back up a bit. How did you know Bobby was lying about selling the gun?”

“Because his story was stupid from start to finish. He said he didn’t know who he’d sold the gun to — that it was too dark. Would you buy that?”

“Did he stick to that story at the station?”

“Sure. Crying like a baby, and lying like an old pro. Then this lieutenant, this jerk whose salary we pay, had the God Almighty nerve to suggest that I might be to blame for this. Why did I have a gun in the first place, he wanted to know. Why didn’t I register it with the police? Why didn’t I have a record of the serial number? Why didn’t I keep it locked up?” Detweiller swore again. “Can you imagine it? Instead of climbing off his tail and doing something he lectures me like I’m an irresponsible teen-ager. Brother, I told him off in spades.”

“How do tilings stand now?”

“Bobby’s going to stay in his room until I get the truth out of him. If not, I’ll beat it out of him. Then I’ll find the guy who scared him into stealing that gun and I’ll make him wish to God he’d picked on someone else.”

Detweiller’s voice had been rising angrily, and everyone in the room was trying not to stare at him. Barbara chattered into the silence about a play she’d seen recently, and Chicky was passing drinks and laughing with an almost hysterical energy, the strain about her mouth very evident now.

“If it matters,” Farrell said, “we’re kind of spoiling your party. Shall we talk it over later?”

“To hell with the party,” Detweiller said. He turned from Farrell and stared around the room, a helpless anger flushing his face. “I guess I owe you all an apology, but this thing is more important than having a few drinks and a few laughs. We’ve come up smack against a threat to our way of life in this community. Our sons — so far, thank God, they haven’t got to our daughters — are being systematically terrorized by a pack of hoodlums in Hayrack. Now just listen to this.” Detweiller held up a big blunt finger. “They made Andy Ward steal ten dollars. They wanted five more, and beat hell out of him because he couldn’t get it.” Detweiller held up two fingers. “They made Jimmy Farrell steal twelve dollars, and they want three more before they’ll let him play in the streets after school.” He held up three fingers. “They waylaid Norton’s boy and demanded fifteen dollars from him, and gave him one week to get it.” Detweiller glared around the room as he put up four fingers. “Now they’ve got to my boy. They’ve frightened him into stealing a gun of mine, a German Luger that fires nine rounds on automatic, any one of which will go completely through a man’s skull at fifty yards.”