Стивен Хантер - G-Man

“I am aware, sir. Don’t know the details.”

“Here are the details. We screwed up. No one is interested in any excuses, they just want results. Clegg screwed up, I screwed up, our people with the guns screwed up. Too much shooting, none of it to any purpose. The wrong people hurt. An agent lost. My standing with the Director is mud too. So if you can nab me Dillinger, not only are you doing your country a great favor, you’re helping Melvin Purvis of Florence, South Carolina, quite a bit too.”

“Yes sir.”

“We want you running a marksmanship-and-tactics class, maybe at the Chicago police firing range, twice a week. That’ll be a tricky sell, but our boys need to learn to shoot. They’re good fellas, smart too, but they joined to be professors of crime, not Western gunfighters. We have to get them up to the level of the men they’ll be fighting, and the truth is, these gangsters seem to be good shots and very bold in action. They should never be taken lightly. They are a formidable opponent. It is said that the one called, however improbably, Baby Face is the best marksman in the country with a Thompson gun, and Homer Van Meter and Red Hamilton aren’t far behind.”

“I will happily run a shooting-and-tactics course. The best tactic is: shoot first.”

“Excellent. Unfortunately, we fired first in Wisconsin and hit three innocent boys and alerted the gangsters.”

“Bad intelligence.”

“I’ll say. Okay, a few rules. First off, no talking to the press boys.”

“Got that.”

“Second, no glory. The Division gets the glory, not the agents, and the Director is the Division. I made a mistake early on and let myself become known. I talk too much, I can’t seem to make myself shut up. That’s why I’m in hot water. But I don’t know how to get out of it, because all the newspaper boys expect me to make a statement, and if I don’t, they’ll think something’s wrong. So the more I do my job, the worse off I am. Don’t make that mistake, Sheriff.”

“I won’t, sir.”

“Coat and tie, trimmed hair, clean-shaved, every day. I don’t need to tell you that.”

“Not a problem.”

“All communications and co-operations with other agencies, federal or local, through this office or Mr. Cowley’s.”

“Yes sir.”

“No shared intelligence with other entities, federal or local, without permission from myself or Cowley.”

“Check.”

“The Director wants his fellows to be clean livers. That means if you’re a drinking man, keep it quiet. If you need to cohabit, keep it quiet. No muss, no fuss. Got a car?”

“After I’m settled, I may bring mine up here.”

“We’ll issue you one until then. Mileage is half a cent per. No per diem unless you’re sent somewhere temporarily or it’s overtime. Incidentally, no overtime per se, not even in the form of a thank-you, and there will be plenty of twenty-four-hour days. Also, I’ll get you a list of Chicago joints where we’d not like to see you, gin joints, clubs, brothels of course, other known gang spots.”

“Yes sir.”

“Certain practices you have to get used to. This is a Mob town. We’re not interested in them, that’s for Treasury. They got Capone, not us. The Director has made Dillinger and the other bank boys our main focus. So you may have to show a blind eye to certain activities you run into that put money in the banks of fellows with Italian names, like Nitti.”

“I can handle that.”

“If you develop snitches, you have to share the intelligence with myself or Special Agent Cowley. We can’t have, and the Director will not abide, lone wolves, glory hounds, solo artists.”

“I understand.”

“Finally, I’d be delighted to see your new training ideas on paper. Can you do that?”

“If you don’t mind a misspelling or two.”

“I can live with that. I’ll have Clegg show you around. He’s tricky, very sour on his situation, but I know you can handle him.”

“Yes sir.”

“You’ll draw a weapon from the arms room. Most of the boys carry a .38 Colt revolver. There are some .45 automatics we got from Postal. Plus, of course, ten Thompson guns, five of the big Browning rifles, and five more of the Remington Model 11 riot guns. As for the handgun, you get to choose.”

“I’m a .45 fellow. The army taught me how and now I’ve got the taste.”

“Suit yourself. And this.”

He opened his drawer and took out a badge, a chunk of oval bronze, well-worked, dull, and heavy.

“This makes it official. The younger boys like a swearing-in ceremony, but I’m guessing you’re a little grown up for that.”

“I don’t need no ceremony. Pinning it on is ceremony enough.”

Purvis pushed it over, Charles took it up.

“It is a war,” Purvis said. “Young, inexperienced troops against professionals of long standing and great tactics and courage. This is a great opportunity for you, but it’s also very dangerous. You’ll be point man on all engagements, you will get shot at a lot, you will have to shoot to kill, maybe a lot. Any day can be your last, and you won’t have Frank Hamer backing you up but Dink Stover instead, fresh out of Yale.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way, Mr. Purvis,” said Charles.

Clegg would be trouble. He wore dark attitude on his face and knew, unofficially at least, that Charles was his successor as tactics boss and he didn’t like it. He was heavyset, out-of-shape, shifty-eyed, well-dressed, and was called, as Charles would soon learn, Troutmouth by the boys, for his small but prehensile and overactive set of lips, always atwitch or aflutter or puckered up in sourness. His whole performance was smile-free, charmless, condescending, and self-important. Charles wouldn’t take this from any man, normally, but first day on the job had its own rules, so he wouldn’t be bracing Troutmouth for some time. But he looked forward to it.

“I doubt you’ve ever seen a squad room so big,” said Clegg, gesturing to the pen before him that filled almost half the nineteenth floor. Actually, Charles had, as Dallas, Atlanta, and Kansas City all had big, busy detective departments, and he’d been welcomed in them all.

Charles simply gazed at the large room, filled with grim government furniture, stacks of paper on desks, the typewriters that justified such a spread, telephone lines, wanted posters on the wall, the whole cop squalor and messiness that was universal from Scotland Yard to the NKVD to the Tokyo Municipal Police. In this room, men scurried, talked on the phone, worked paper, consulted and kibitzed. None of them had caught on yet to who Charles was, so nobody paid him any attention.

“Suit coats on, that’s how the Director likes it. Ties up, no rolled-up sleeves. No feet on desk. No loud talking or laughing. Business first, last, and always. Shined shoes, trimmed, clean fingernails. You have to present well around here as well as work hard, pay attention, don’t crack off to any superior, and return all your phone calls. Suits only. No sport coats.”

“I don’t own no sport coats,” said Charles.

“Wonderful,” said Clegg. “You’re already ahead of the game.” It was doubtful he meant it as a compliment, for it carried the heavy weight of irony with each word. Clegg, also Southern, had a “high” aspect to him; coming from a fine family, he was a little too good for a fellow such as Charles, who fractured grammar, had big, strong, splayed hands and a bony, raw vitality, which he would consider red-dirt hillbilly compared to his own manner and tastes. He deserved better, he seemed to be saying.

“Now, this way, let me show you the arms room.”

“Yes sir.”

He took Charles out of the big room and down an interior corridor lined with doors to smaller rooms, ticking off their purposes languidly.