When Professor Montagne shook hands his glasses gleamed even more brightly. “I knew it was you,” he said. “At first I told myself it was just because I had read about you lately.”
“Next,” said the woman charging out books. Ryan handed her the book and Eleanor’s card, then waited in the corridor for the teacher.
“This is amazing,” said Mr. Montagne, and took Ryan’s arm. “Do you realize I was going to telephone you within a few days?—here, this way, eh? I know a room.”
Ryan permitted himself to be led down a corridor and finally into a small reading room containing a single absorbed girl, student.
Mr. Montagne whispered. “We can talk as long as we keep our voices down.” He beamed. “Well, O’Neill, how have you been, as though I needed to ask?”
“Fine, Professor,” said Ryan. He still had an undergraduate’s respect for a member of the faculty.
“You look well,” said Montagne. “And I know you are doing well. You cannot imagine how good it is to learn that a boy from Philosophy 508 is putting into everyday practice some of the Socratic definitions that I—” His laugh deprecated the idea. “But that is not why I intended calling you, O’Neill. Frankly, I have a problem.
“For two years I’ve been director of the Men Students’ Forum. You appreciate what that means—a meeting and a speaker once a month. You are—well, as the students say, let’s face it. You are a celebrity. And you certainly must have much to say about the application of your education to the problems of life. If you could come up some Sunday evening and give us a plain, heart-to-heart talk, say thirty to forty minutes, about—”
“Okay,” said Ryan. He was suddenly oppressed by time’s brevity. He knew what Montagne wanted. But he wanted something, too.
“You’ll do it? O’Neill? Really? I can’t tell you how happy I—that I—that we ran into each other.”
“So am I,” said Ryan. He spoke aloud and the girl student looked up.
“Of course,” Montagne smiled slyly, “if you were to work in a few references about how Phil 508 helped in your career—in case it did. What I mean is, you are an officer of the law and I hope you remember the time we spent on the Platonic concept of the well-ordered state.”
“Yes,” said Ryan. “Sure. And that’s something I’d like to ask you about. You see, since becoming a cop I’ve thought about that philosophy course. Occasionally in my work you run into problems that—that make you think about justice and virtue.”
“I’m sure you do.” Professor Montagne’s head bobbed happily.
Dared he? Hell!—why not?
“I guess you’ve been reading about this guy Derby who was sentenced today.”
“I certainly have, O’Neill, and how it was you who arrested him.”
“Well, I’ve been wondering, just as a sort of problem, like one of those abstract problems in ethics you used to give us.” He watched anxiously for suspicion in the smiling face. “Supposing I happened to find out now, after helping to convict him, that this guy Derby, this hoodlum, was not guilty of the murder he’s charged with?”
It was out. Only in the abstract, of course, but even that had frightened him to say. Yet it obviously had not aroused Professor Montagne. Then he recognized that as a teacher he had dealt for years with the caprices of students. What was one more hypothetical question?
Montagne looked down his nose at Ryan. “Do? There is only one thing you could do. As a virtuous man you know what that is. For a moment I thought you had a poser.”
“Well, what? Tell the truth?”
“What else? Can a just man see another punished unjustly—for a crime he never committed—and remain silent?”
“But think of the crimes he did commit,” Ryan argued, “and never was punished for. Derby himself is certainly no just man.”
“That has nothing to do with the case. The just deal justly even with the unjust. It is implicit in the common law—”
“Common law nothing!” said Ryan. “Would you turn loose a known rapist and robber, a no-good—”
The girl student made a meaningful rustle with her book. Montagne bowed apologetically.
“We must be quieter,” he said. “Remember, you presented a hypothetical case. I gave you the only possible answer.”
“The only hypothetical answer.”
“Quite. Quite.”
“But—if you were a cop as I am, and this was a real problem—” He smiled to show he knew the absurdity of it.
Montagne raised a restraining hand. “My dear O’Neill, I will not let you lure me into arguing theory versus practice—real-life practice—on an empty stomach. I have no doubt that as a policeman I might have to—to compromise. If this fellow is the scoundrel you say, I might not be able to turn him loose quite so readily as I can hypothetically. But I give you the answer of a philosopher. Well! Sorry, I must get on. My wife—”
He rose, still talking. “How about the second Sunday in February? We still meet in the music room. I’ll ring you in advance, of course. We could discuss this further then, with the students. Eh?”
“Sure,” said Ryan. “We’ll do that. In February.”
Ryan walked head down, a purposeless night voyager, past murmurous blocks to Central Park and then along a winding park path. When he raised his eyes he saw neat rectangles of lights rimming the park’s black quiet; they were not human habitations but remote glitters against eternal darkness.
Why didn’t he just forget Derby? He did not have to be concerned about such animals, did he? Of course he didn’t. Then why… For a moment Ryan saw himself objectively, as though he were outside himself, skirting the path he was walking; he saw a tired, anxious, hollow-eyed man of twenty-eight who just wanted this to be over with. Even Professor Montagne had said…
He came to Fifth Avenue. Home was not far away.
No. Not that, now. Keep walking.
At the genteel curbs women in bright evening dress and furs stood with men in sober black, waiting for limousines to take them to theater or opera. Ryan strode on, numbly aware he was walking toward a decision and meanwhile numbly ignoring it.
After a time he found he wanted a drink.
CHAPTER 17
Rosemary
Ryan stopped in a corner bar at Lexington Avenue and drank a whisky, fast and straight. The dinner hour had grown into evening and the men at the bar were beer-drinking philosophers. Ryan walked on to the next bar and again ordered straight rye and put it down fast. He did not consciously desire to get drunk; he had never desired that in his life. Yet as he worked gradually east and south he made repeated stops, to feel raw liquor fire his throat and explode gently in his stomach, barely tasting the water chaser. After a time the alcohol reduced the urgency of his flight and enabled his slowing brain to engage the problem again.
He must not let himself be confused by Jablonski’s threats. This was an issue to be decided on its merits. But what were they? By what practical criterion could he justify going to his superiors and revealing that Derby had been framed? What kind of a reception would that get—and what kind should it get? The police department’s function was safeguarding the city, not debating the subtlest shades of justice.
Yet all the time Ryan knew he was only torturing himself. He could never accept the practical, easy way out. He could never let Derby die, even if Derby himself desired that. Why was rooted deeply in him, below the level of understanding. It was not noble; it was automatic and terribly uncomfortable. Right now whisky made it a little easier.
He was standing looking at a drink he had just ordered when he spoke without knowing that he was going to speak. “This is getting deep.”
The bartender, arranging glasses in pyramids, looked around. “How’s that?”
“I can’t touch,” said Ryan, trying to explain what he had just heard himself say. “Bottom. Can’t touch bottom.” He picke
d up the small heavy glass, spilled a part, and drank the rest.
“You better take it easy, Mac.”
Ryan re-buttoned his coat. He did not like criticism at a time like this, but he must not get into arguments at a time like this, either. He went out, and looked up at the corner street sign. He was on First Avenue in the seventies. He had almost walked home.
In the next block was a small pizza restaurant where he ate often when he was late. That was it. One more drink, then a big pie and coffee, because he did not want to arrive home feeling unsteady.
It was a tiny place, with a counter and white tile pizza oven in the back. There were only four booths and a couple of tables in the middle of the floor; one of the booths was occupied by a wrangling couple. The oven man came from behind the counter to serve him with brawny, floured arms.
“Rye,” said Ryan.
“No liquor here, mister. Wine and beer.”
He’d forgotten. Heck with it. “Gimme a pie. Fish.”
The oven man went back behind the counter and began to spin out the cap of dough. When Ryan thought to take off his overcoat, he found Eleanor’s book bulging the pocket. He opened it at random, read a few lines, decided it was dull and closed it. He felt the warmth and breathed the fragrance of baking dough. Finally the great, wide pie was slid in front of him, littered with anchovies.
“Coffee?”
“Coffee.”
He ate in silence, and the conversational mutter continued from the booth ahead. He could not make out all the words, although the man sounded indignant. Then the woman said with impatient clarity, “Oh, finish your beer and come on home. We can’t go back there tonight. It’s almost ten.”
“Sure, finish your beer and go home.” The man welcomed the excuse for new indignation. “Your own brother gets framed by the cops and double-crossed by his own stinking lawyer and on the day he’s sentenced all you’re supposed to do’s drink your beer and go home.”
Ryan’s sodden mind began pulling itself into awareness.
“Oh, come on,” said the woman. She was tired and querulous. “He’s out and there’s no telling when he’ll get back. Detectives don’t work regular hours.”
Ryan could not believe his ears. Was he right?
“You wanna go home? You go on home.”
“Not alone with this pay in my purse. Not in this neighborhood.”
“I’ll say not in this neighborhood. Cops don’t much get around neighborhoods like this, where the ordinary people live. They’re too busy.”
Where do cops live, buster?
“They’re too busy out framing guys. They—” He spilled loud, obscene hatred of cops.
Ryan sipped his coffee and held in his feelings, thinking slowly because of the whisky. This must be Ken Derby and his wife; they had visited his home.
“Come on, Ken,” the woman said.
They got up. Ken Derby wore the black whipcord of a deliveryman; he looked thin and fit in it. The woman was a girl of indeterminate age and in a slighter, feminine way she somewhat resembled him. She had dark-blond hair and a slender face with a wide, patient mouth and dark, observant eyes that seemed not to want to see as much as they did. Rising, she dropped a scarf and when she stooped to pick it up and the neckline of her dress opened, Ryan saw small, immature breasts only half-held by a ribbon of bra. Her eyes met his impersonally and she shrugged into her coat without her escort’s help.
“How about a beer on the house?” Ken Derby called to the oven man, and turned.
And looked squarely at Ryan.
They looked at each other a long time. “Come on, Ken,” the girl said. “Please.”
Derby exhaled a long breath.
“There he is now,” he said, and threw off the visored cap he had just put on.
Ryan pushed the table away and got up. His legs felt shaky. It wasn’t fear; he always felt that way when a fight threatened. He was glad the overcoat was off.
The girl, without understanding what was causing this, said, “Oh, for the love of God—” and pressed her angular thinness against Derby restrainingly.
Derby pushed her away and came forward, extending a long right arm, holding his left curled against his chest. That was a disadvantage, for Ryan was accustomed to right-handed fighters.
“Hey, what goes on?” came from the counter.
“Oh, stop it!” the girl cried despairingly and for a perilous second Ryan looked at her, and saw large, fear-widened brown eyes, and a mouth quirked to cry.
Derby feinted twice with the right, not even coming close, and then swung his left with heavy certainty. But Ryan stepped inside it, crouched and dug both fists twice into Derby’s thin, muscled belly. Derby grunted and clinched awkwardly, and moved sideways. His thigh lifted the table and Ryan’s pizza and coffee cascaded to the floor. Ryan wrestled his way up inside the other man’s guard, knowing what he was going to do when the clinch broke.
His head was clear; the whisky’s lingering effect only made him confident and strong. Over Derby’s shoulder he saw the girl shrink desolately against the booth.
Derby heaved at him to get out of the clinch, and he felt a hand grab him from behind but it did nothing. He took a half step, starting the punch from near his ribs, pivoting his body as he brought it up and it caught Derby’s jaw, but on the side instead of the jaw-point. Still, he slumped. Ryan straightened him with a quick left and started another hook, pivoting…
As he did he again saw the hopeless girl against the booth. He pulled the punch just enough so that it thumped harmlessly against Derby’s slow left hand. The oven man, who had a toy baseball bat out, grabbed Derby from behind—and found he had to hold him up. The fight was over.
“What the hell?” the oven man demanded.
“Sit him down on the bench,” said Ryan. He sucked a knuckle and looked at the girl. She had turned away from them.
“Sit him down,” said the oven man sarcastically. “For Chrissake, Mac. He won’t sit. He’s out.”
Ryan considered several things, then brought out his badge. “This is a police matter,” he told the man with floured arms, and the baseball bat went into a hip pocket.
“Oh. You pinching him?”
The girl turned around. “No,” Ryan told the oven man, but he was speaking to the girl. “I’m not pinching him.”
“Well, what do we do with him?”
“I said sit him down,” said Ryan, and when Derby had been eased into a corner of one of the booths he felt the slackened pulse and lifted an eyelid. “He’ll be all right. Give him a few minutes. And bring us some coffee. Or maybe some wine for you, ma’am?”
She shook her head no.
“You look like you could use it.”
“No.”
“Two coffees.”
He sat down at a table, but the girl continued to stand, rebellious and helpless. He said, “I’m sorry about this. Why don’t you sit down?”
“You don’t have to be sorry. You couldn’t help it. He—he gets like that when he’s been drinking.”
“Sure.” He pulled a chair around for her, a tacit invitation, and she finally accepted. She was tired and worn and respectable, cheaply dressed—like a million other women in New York that night. Derby sighed and settled in the booth’s corner.
“I gather you’re a policeman.”
“And you’re Mrs. Derby.”
“I’m Ken’s sister.”
That explained the resemblance. “I’m sorry I hit him so hard.” Saying that surprised him because he was not accustomed to apologizing under such circumstances.
The oven man brought two cups of coffee, picked up the spilled food and locked the front door. “We close at ten,” he said.
Ryan did not like using his authority for personal advantage but there were times when it was justified. The oven man caught his look. “Oh,
take all the time you want, loo-tenant,” he said hastily.
Ryan said, “That makes you Harry Derby’s sister too.”
The brown eyes trained a steady sadness on him, and he knew she was refusing to say anything of what she had to say. “I’m Harry Derby’s sister.”
Ryan burned his mouth with a long sip of coffee. It did not occur to him that there was no necessity for him to make explanations to the sister of Harry Derby. That would occur long after, when he thought about her thin body and patience and gentle eyes. And lack of the obvious prettinesses.
He said, “I’m Neill Ryan, one of the officers who arrested your brother and helped send him up. You were over at my house tonight?”
“Ken wanted to talk to you. We stopped by twice. But—” She looked over her shoulder, and Derby breathed deeply as though in reply to her glance. “But perhaps you can understand how Ken feels.”
Ryan said, “Sure.”
“Not that we have any illusions about Harry. But Ken—well, don’t misjudge him. He doesn’t drink often. And he was fond of Harry.”
“He sure was.” Ryan could not keep the sarcasm out of his voice.
“What do you mean?”
“Your brother came to my home some time back to alibi Harry. He claimed Harry was with him on the day of the Connors murder.”
“Ken told you that?”
“He said they delivered some big appliances together that day.”
When he saw how it made her look he wished he had not said it.
“He’s sort of crazy sometimes,” she said slowly, “and impulsive. But he should not have done that. That’s—that’s obstructing justice or something, isn’t it?”
“It doesn’t matter. I proved to my own satisfaction that he had lied.”
“Yes?” She eyed him oddly and for the first time she sipped her coffee. “Tell me something…ah…look here, Mr. Ryan. Ken was telling me tonight that the word has been out along the docks for quite a while that the cops finally got Harry. Is that true?”
“Got him?”
Dead Sure Page 14