Murder's Shield

by Warren Murphy

  “Nonsense,” Chiun said. “I merely forgot.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  THE TELEPHONE RANG ONCE ON the desk of Inspector William McGurk. Instinctively, his hand reached for it, but he checked himself and waited. The phone rang again. He waited. The phone rang no more.

  McGurk smiled. All the loose ends were coming into place. No more O’Toole to worry about. No more Remo Bednick to stand between him and Janet. He was glad he had gotten rid of the girl. She was on a plane now to Miami, supposedly at her father’s request. It would be better for her to be spared some of the close-up tragedy.

  Outside his office, McGurk could hear the policemen milling around and he glanced at his watch. Eight p.m. Almost time to begin. His meeting would have to be over in time for the 9:30 press conference. But that meeting was for the press and the public. This one was private. For the police who made up McGurk’s army.

  McGurk picked up the sheets of paper on his desk. Carefully typed sheets. The speech he had been working on for so long. But he would not deliver it tonight. He had important news that took precedence over any formal speech. Well, he’d get some of it in anyway.

  The thing was foolproof. He would explain to the men the terrible tragedy that had befallen the cause of law enforcement; he would let them know that they were the elite shock troops of thousands who would come after; he would announce his plans for a private investigation force against crime; he would let them know, without ever saying it, that they were entering a period when the assassination teams would lie quiet for a while. And without their ever realizing it, he would tie them to him politically, as the first step in his plan to gain political power.

  McGurk stood up and looked out into the big gym room. Christ, policemen were noisy. There was a crowd around the table with the liquor; the table with the sandwiches was deserted. The forty men in the room sounded like four hundred.

  He stepped through Janet’s empty office and paused in the doorway to the gym. He caught the eyes of two men who stood at the large steel doors leading to the hallway and nodded. They were his sergeants-at-arms. The thought made him chuckle. One was a deputy police chief from Chicago, the other an inspector from Los Angeles. Sergeants-at-arms. They had made sure that no one but Men of the Shield entered the room. Now they would turn away company until the meeting was over.

  The heavy doors swung shut behind the men who took up their positions in the outside hallway, and McGurk moved out to start greeting the policemen.

  · · ·

  Remo had hung up the telephone after two rings, jumped back in the car and began the maddening drive crosstown to McGurk’s headquarters.

  “Drive right,” Chiun said.

  “I am driving right. If you don’t drive like a kamikaze pilot, they know you’re from out of town and they terrorize you.” Remo swerved between two cars, giving one driver an attack of nerves, and clearing the other’s sinuses.

  “It is not necessary for them to terrorize me,” Chiun said. “You are perfectly equipped for the task. “

  “Dammit, Chiun, do you want to drive?”

  “No, but if I did want to drive, I would do it with a sense of responsibility to the men of Detroit who have managed to build this vehicle so well it has not yet fallen apart.”

  “Next time, walk. Who invited you anyway?”

  “I need no invitation. But are you not glad that the Master was there when you needed him?”

  “Right on, Chiun, yeah, yeah, yeah.”

  “Insolent.”

  It seemed like forever, but actually it was only minutes later when they pulled into a parking spot at a fire hydrant near the building on Twentieth Street.

  They were met at the top of the stairs by McGurk’s two doormen.

  “Sorry, men,” the taller one said. “Private meeting now. No one allowed without authorization.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Remo said. “We were invited here by McGurk.”

  “Yeah?” the police officer said suspiciously. His hand went to an inside pocket and took out a list of names.

  “What are your names?” he asked.

  “I’m S. Holmes. This is C. Chan.”

  The officer scanned the list quickly. “Where are you from?”

  “We’re with Hawaii Five-Oh.”

  “Oh.”

  “No. Five-Oh,” Remo corrected.

  “Let me see.” The policeman looked down again at the sheet. His partner looked with him.

  Remo raised his hands and brought them down fingers first into their collarbones. The two men dropped.

  “Adequate,” Chiun said.

  “Thank you. I didn’t want you to go killing them,” Remo said. “For at least a week after you have duck, you’re uncontrollable.”

  He opened the door and dragged the two unconscious men inside, into the small foyer. He checked to make sure they would be out for at least an hour, then propped them in a sitting position against the wall.

  He snapped the lock behind him and Chiun, sealing anyone else outside.

  He and Chiun paused at the glass, looking inside the room. Remo spotted McGurk immediately, moving through the small clusters of policemen, shaking a hand here, patting a shoulder there, but moving steadily toward the small stage at the front of the hall

  “That’s him,” Remo said pointing. “McGurk.”

  Chiun sipped in his breath. “He is an evil man.”

  “Now, how the hell can you say that? You don’t even know him.”

  “One can tell by the face. Man is a peaceable creature. He must be taught to kill. He must be given a reason. But this one? Look at his eyes. He likes to kill. I have seen eyes like those before.”

  The crowd was now drifting toward the folding wooden chairs that had been set up. Remo said, “Chiun, you’re a sweet guy and all but you just don’t look like a detective sergeant from Hoboken. You’d better stay out here while I go inside.”

  “Whistle if you need me.”

  “Right.”

  “You know how to whistle? Just put your lips together and blow.”

  “You’ve been watching The Late Show again.”

  “Go earn your keep,” Chiun commanded.

  Remo slipped inside the heavy door and moved easily into the flow of the crowd, drifting into a group of men headed for seats in the back. He kept his chin burrowed down into his chest and changed his gait to make identification more difficult, in case McGurk should be looking his way. Most of the men in the room were still wearing their hats. He picked one up from a folding chair and planted it on his head, pulling it down to shield his eyes, lest McGurk spot them.

  McGurk was now at the base of the stairs leading to the stage. He took the steps in a bound and then stood, without a microphone, in front of the men, signaling them by his silence that it was time to sit down and listen.

  Slowly, the forty men settled into the seventy five chairs. Assassins from all over the country, Remo thought, and then changed his mind. No. Not assassins. Just men who were fed up with the obstacles society threw in their way when they were trying to do a job. Just men who believed in law and order so much that, foolishly, they would go outside the law to secure it. McGurk’s dupes.

  McGurk raised his hands for silence. The babbling drifted off into a stillness that hung over the room.

  “Men of the Shield,” McGurk said deeply, “welcome to New York.”

  He looked slowly around the room.

  “This is a proud moment for me, but a deeply sorrowful one too. I’m proud because I am meeting with you men, the finest policemen—no, let me say cops because the word doesn’t embarrass me—the finest cops in our nation… men who have put their lives on the line many times in the never-ending struggle for law and order in our land. And men… I don’t have to remind you… who have made that extra special commitment that few others have the courage to make.

  “In a little more than an hour, the press is going to be in here and I’m going to tell the nation about the formation of the Men of t
he Shield. I’m going to tell them how we will become a national clearing house to solve the crimes that plague our cities and make our streets unsafe. Already I have information”—he paused and chuckled slightly—“on several of the more dastardly crimes that have been committed in the current wave of violence that has hit the country.”

  He chuckled again and this time several policemen joined in.

  “And let me tell you this,” McGurk said. “The criminals responsible for those crimes will be punished. And that will show that the Men of the Shield mean business. And from that moment on, our goal will be to bring every policeman and every law enforcement officer in the country under our banner; so that together we can get on with the job of stamping out crime. When the politicians won’t act, when the prosecutors turn their heads, when the bleeding hearts try to stop the law, the Men of the Shield will be there, investigating, finding the truth and forcing society to bring to bear its full weight against the evil-doers in our land.”

  Remo smiled to himself. So that’s what it was all about. Planting clues at the scene of a crime, then planting the evidence on someone they wanted to hang. A quick, easy way to get a national reputation and, in the process, get rid of a couple of baddies. Well planned, McGurk.

  “The first phase of our work is, I believe, now behind us.” McGurk paused and cleared his throat significantly. “Let’s call it our planning and preparation phase.” He grinned, showing long yellow teeth. Remo saw the policemen in the room grin and turn toward each other. There was a hum of words, and McGurk spoke over them.

  “So it is with pride that I meet with you tonight, as we embark on this long journey forward into a day when our nation will be free again from the chains of crime, when our wives and children will be safe in their beds, when every street in every city in every corner of our country will be safe to walk at any hour of the day or night. And if, to accomplish that takes more than police investigation, if it takes political power, then I say the Men of the Shield will pursue that political power and we will use it with all our united strength.”

  “Right on.”

  “You said it.”

  There were scattered shouts of approval around the room.

  McGurk let the noise continue for a moment, then began to speak softly.

  “That is why I stand here with pride. But as I said, I come in sadness too. I have been delivered a blow of such sadness that I honestly thought of canceling this meeting.

  “I have just been informed that the police commissioner of this city, Commissioner O’Toole…the man, more than any other who was responsible for the formation of the Men of the Shield…the man who has been at my side during these long hours…I have just learned that Commissioner O’Toole has been murdered in his home.”

  He paused to let his words sink in. There was a quick-lived buzz of words, and then all heads turned toward McGurk for more information.

  “But I decided to go on with the meeting anyway because I think the tragic death of the commissioner underscores the need for our organization.”

  “How’d he get it?” one man shouted.

  “He was killed in his home,” McGurk said,“by an infamous Mafia thug in this city…a paid killer for organized crime…a man who even tried to infiltrate our own police department…a sewer of evil named Remo Bednick. But fortunately, Bednick is dead from the bullets of our city’s finest.

  “As I said, I thought of shutting down this meeting because of this terrible tragedy, but then I realized that Commissioner O’Toole would have wanted it to be held, to show to you men the terrible risks we must take as an organization if you men are brave enough to accept the challenge of standing up to the forces of organized crime.”

  McGurk pulled his wallet from his pocket, and opened it, showing the badge Remo had first seen in Captain Milken’s wallet.

  “This is the badge of the Men of the Shield,” McGurk said. “It was designed personally by Commissioner O’Toole. I hope and pray that each of us will carry it with honor and pride as we set off now on our long crusade to insure that never again will a policeman die from a gangster’s gun. “

  He stood there, holding the badge up over his head. The gold glinted almost dark brown in the overhead fluorescent lights, and McGurk rotated the badge slowly, letting it flash, milking the drama of the moment, as the policemen watched him silently, and finally Remo stood up in the last row quietly, his hat still pulled down over his eyes, and he called out briskly into the silence:

  “McGurk. You’re a yellow-bellied lying bastard.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  THERE WAS A STARTLED RUMBLE in the room as Remo moved down the aisle toward McGurk.

  He still wore the hat and he walked heavily on his feet so McGurk would not recognize the smooth glide with which Remo usually moved.

  Remo stood at the bottom of the small stage, looking down, and then he raised his head slowly and met McGurk’s eyes. McGurk’s expression had been one of mystified interest, but now it turned to shock when he saw and recognized the man he knew as Remo Bednick.

  Remo stared at him coldly, then turned and faced the crowd of police officers who were still buzzing, watching the strange confrontation.

  Remo silenced them by raising a hand.

  “I want to read you something Commissioner O’Toole wrote,” he said.

  He pulled the papers from his pocket and shuffled through them, finally pulling out the sheet that O’Toole had written.

  “O’Toole was a sick man,” Remo said. “He had started something and then seen it get away from him. He had seen it turned into something designed to promote the interests, not of law and order, but of one man, and one man only.

  “He planned suicide, and this note was to be his last will and testament. He told everything in it. How he had started the Men of the Shield to fight crime, and how he had tried to stop it from being turned into a political organization. And then he failed. And so he wrote: ‘And so I am putting down these notes so that the authorities, properly alerted, can take the steps that will guarantee that our nation will continue as a nation of law, working as free men, together, under the Constitution.

  “‘And even more, I am addressing these words to the policemen of this country, that thin blue line that represents all that stands between us and the jungle. I do this secure in the knowledge that when the facts are presented to them, they will do as policemen have done since time immemorial—they will face and meet their responsibilities; they will act as free men and not as political pawns in a huckster’s evil shell game; they will stand tall as Americans.

  “‘To achieve that end, my death may give to me a worth that the last acts of my life have denied me.’”

  Remo stopped and looked into the stillness around the room, meeting the eyes of the policemen sitting there. Behind him, on the stage, McGurk began to shout: “Liar! Liar! Forgery! Don’t believe him, men.”

  Remo turned and leaped up onto the stage, tossing his hat onto the small table behind McGurk.

  He turned again toward the crowd. “No, it’s true,” he shouted, “and I’ll tell you how I know. I know because I killed O’Toole. I killed him because I was sent to kill him. And who sent me? Why, that noble friend of policemen everywhere. Inspector William McGurk. Because O’Toole wouldn’t let him use you men to become a political power.”

  “You’re a liar,” McGurk roared.

  Remo turned toward him. McGurk reached in under his jacket and pulled out a revolver.

  Remo looked at him and smiled. “Is there anything worse than a cop-killer?” he shouted. “Yes,” he answered himself. “A cop who’s a cop-killer, and that’s what McGurk is.”

  He turned toward McGurk. The revolver was leveled now at Remo’s chest. McGurk’s eyes were as cold as jagged glass.

  “Remember those men on my front porch, McGurk?” Remo asked. “If you want to try pulling that trigger, go ahead.”

  “Tell them the truth, Bednick,” McGurk said. “Tell them that you’re a Mafi
a button man who was assigned to kill our commissioner. “

  “I would,” Remo said, “but you and I know that it’s not true. I worked for you. And I killed Commissioner O’Toole for you. Come on, McGurk. You’ve made a reputation by how tough and hard you are. That’s all these men have heard about for years. Show them now. Pull that trigger.”

  He was three feet from McGurk and his eyes burned into McGurk’s with the kind of heat that could melt glass. McGurk saw in his mind the ambush he had set for Remo and the dead men in the yard; he thought now of the six dead men who must be lying in O’Toole’s yard; he thought of the smell of death that Remo seemed to carry with him.

  “Pull that trigger, McGurk,” Remo said. “And when you’re dying, very slowly, these men are going to take the badges of the Men of the Shield and drop them on your body. You made a real mistake, McGurk. You took them for fools, because they were cops. But they’re smarter than you are. Sure, one of every two slobs they catch gets off. But you’ve been selling them short. They know the rules are tough because they have to be. If the rules weren’t tough, McGurk, a slob like you might be running this country—a cop-killing slob who isn’t worth an honest cop’s spit. Go ahead, McGurk. Try to pull that trigger.”

  Through it all, Remo smiled at McGurk and McGurk finally recognized where he had seen that hard smile before, a smile that looked like a rip in a piece of silk. It had been on Remo’s face when he killed that last cop in his front yard, a cruel painful smile that spoke volumes about pain and torture.

  The gun barrel wavered momentarily, and then in a flash McGurk raised the revolver to his temple and squeezed. The report was muffled by flesh and bone and McGurk’s scream. He dropped heavily to the stage. The gun clattered loose from his fingertips as they opened. It bounced once and came to a rest a few feet from his body. As he fell, the pages of his speech slipped from his jacket pocket and slowly fluttered down onto his body.

  Remo picked up the gun, looked at it, then tossed it on the table. He turned again to the policemen who sat in their seats as if cemented there, trying to absorb the incredible events of the last few minutes.