Savage Streets

by William P. McGivern

“Well, they’ve asked Dick Baldwin, and Chicky obviously wants everyone to live up to him.”

  “We can only try,” Farrell said, as he got into his robe. “I’ll read Walter Lippmann after I shave.”

  Dick Baldwin was a special friend of the Detweillers, a reporter on a news magazine, and they wore him like a decoration. He was thin and intelligent, and cared little for anything but his work, a preference he made abundantly clear to most people he met; with all the inside dope at his fingertips, Baldwin ostentatiously refrained from discussing news stories with anyone whose information came only from the press, radio and television. Occasionally, if his audience were properly humble, he would draw aside the curtains of propaganda and official double talk and show them what really went on behind the scenes. But this did not happen too often, and for that much Farrell was grateful.

  The Detweillers quoted him frequently, apparently as proof that they were more sophisticated than the Faircrest crowd.

  Baldwin found Faircrest preposterously dull; he was of the city, alert and knowledgeable, and it was his view that suburban mores and problems were a trifle absurd, freshly minted country-squire elegances and arbitrary inconveniences created simply to give empty-headed commuters something to talk about.

  Farrell realized that his dislike of Baldwin was not very reasonable. Baldwin was always pleasant to him, and as for the barbs at life in Faircrest, they were probably sharpened up by Chicky before she let them fly at her friends. The thing that irritated Farrell, he decided as he got under the shower, was that Chicky’s friends seemed to take such a bubbling pride in being patronized by Baldwin.

  “I decided to compromise,” Barbara said, when he came out of the bathroom. “Worthy glamor.” She was wearing a blue wool jersey and a full tweed skirt that matched her dark brown pumps. “The exciting look of good health — that’s what I’ve managed, don’t you think?”

  He smiled at her. “Better than that. Perfect health anyway.”

  The Farrells were not the first to arrive at the party. Dick Baldwin was there, severely neat in black flannels, chatting with Sam and Grace Ward before the fireplace. John and Nadine Sims, a heavy and hearty couple who had been blessed with three children after twenty years of marriage, stood in the small, enclosed terrace admiring and sampling Chicky’s display of cheese dips, cocktail sausages, and mushrooms jacketed in crisp bacon.

  Wayne and Janey Norton came in as Farrell was giving his coat and hat to the maid. Janey was wearing a blue maternity frock with a big black grosgrain bow tied at her throat. They talked for a moment. She was a gentle, smiling woman with curly dark hair and softly happy eyes. She was the sort of woman other women kept saying they adored: she belittled her own efforts and was seemingly awed by the skills of all her friends. As they talked about children, Farrell decided that this was why no one ever had an unkind word for her; she simply cut herself down to size before anyone else had a chance. He drifted away when Wayne led her to a chair and asked her about drafts.

  There was something wrong with the room, Farrell thought, and he looked around trying to figure out what it could be. The green leaves and fresh flowers, the wedding-gift trays and lighters, the correctly imaginative colors — orange and green to match the Picasso print above the mantelpiece — it was all lovingly done, but it struck him as slightly absurd. It had a parody look about it, as if some cruel and clever person had designed the room to spoof a certain kind of gracious living.

  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 De
tweiller 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.”

  Farrell realized that certain of Detweiller’s points hadn’t been established; there was no evidence that Bobby had been made to steal the gun, no evidence that the theft was connected in any way with Duke Resnick and Jerry Leuth.

  Mrs. Sims gave a little cry of astonishment and fright as Detweiller finished speaking, but he silenced her with an impatient shake of his head. “First thing we do is a don’t,” he said. “We don’t fly off the handle.”

  Detweiller paused to light a cigarette; this was an effective bit of theater. The silence deepened significantly as they waited for him to continue. Detweiller, Farrell realized, sensed his control of the group. In the deliberate voice of a man certain of not being interrupted, he said: “Now I don’t know exactly what kind of pressures were brought to bear on our sons. I can guess at them, though — a nine-year-old kid has a lot of fears and worries that a vicious older person could work on.” This brought a gasp from Janey Norton, and Detweiller said, “I’m not trying to shock anybody, I’m just putting the facts out where we can look at them. To go on: I don’t know how many other youngsters in Faircrest have been put through this same sort of wringer, but I intend to find out. But there’s one thing I do know — we’ve got to put a stop to this thing.”

  Mr. Sims cleared his throat. “Naturally, Det, the police...”

  “I didn’t say anything about the police. I said we’ve got to put a stop to this thing.” Detweiller nodded sharply at Sam Ward. “Sam went to the police. So did John Farrell. So did I. We got precisely nowhere. Sam, maybe you’d better tell them what happened to you.”

  “Well, perhaps it wasn’t the cops’ fault,” Ward said, scratching his balding head. “Our kids were too scared to make an identification. But you know, John,” he said, turning to Farrell, “the lieutenant didn’t do very much to make our kids feel safe. I thought about it later. He just pushes them out of his office and says, ‘Well, what about it? Are these the guys or not?’ ”

  Detweiller said, “Tell them about the politician, Sam. Go on! There’s the pay-off.”

  “Well, after our boys refused to identify these hoodlums some ward-heeler came bursting into the lieutenant’s office demanding that we apologize for the horrible humiliation we had inflicted on these goddamn degenerates. But the most frightening thing to me was that it was obvious who was running that Detective Division — and it wasn’t the men sitting around there with badges and guns. It was the politicians.”

  “Well, what are you suggesting?” Wayne Norton asked. “I don’t honestly know what you think we ought to do.”

  “I’m suggesting we do the job ourselves.” Detweiller walked across the room and made himself a drink, and his gesture said in effect that he was through talking, that he was relinquishing the floor. The room began to buzz. Cigarettes were lighted, glasses refilled. Farrell sat on the arm of a chair and listened; he was disturbed by the excitement, the giddiness in the air. That Detweillers proposal was being discussed did not bother him, but that it was being discussed with such pleasurable tension did; the talk was dangerous and humorless, it seemed to him, shot through with intemperance and bitterness, egos casting themselves in molds of mutinous swagger.

  Wayne Norton was comforting Janey. She had said, “I just can’t believe a thing like this could happen to us,” and he was explaining rather grimly that most decent people felt that way about the evil in the world. “It’s the nice guys, funny-face, who take a beating, because they’re just not expecting it.” She looked as if she might cry and he patted her shoulder and said, “Look, you don’t know your old man very well. I’m a nice guy up to a point. But if anybody insists, well, I can play it the other way, don’t you worry.”

  Grace Ward nodded approvingly at him, black eyes snapping. “If what you’ve worked for in life means anything to you you’ll find that you can fight for it by any rules that anybody wants to make up. But I don’t see that Det’s idea is practical.”

  Ward said irritably, “It’s practical if we use our common sense. I mean we can do it, don’t ever think we can’t. Hell, set
it up like a business problem. We handle tougher things every day in our jobs. The only tiling is, I don’t see how we can establish who’s guilty and who’s responsible. You know what I mean? One of these punks might have planned the whole thing, and the others just trailed along. And there might be some boys in this gang who aren’t involved at all.”

  John Sims gave him a wink of elephantine subtlety and said, “Well, you could be reasonably sure they were being punished for something. The odds are against finding any dewey-eyed innocents in that crowd, I should say.”

  Detweiller listened to the discussion with an expression very close to complacence. He said: “I didn’t mean to turn this party into a business conference. There’s a man named Malleck I want you all to meet, you men at any rate. That will be the time to talk business. Meanwhile, let’s drink up, everybody.”

  Dick Baldwin began to laugh and Detweiller turned on him sharply. “Well, what’s funny?”

  “Det, you’ve exceeded all my expectations today. I look to be amused in hallowed old Faircrest, of course. Epigrams, the latest gags and so forth.” Baldwin’s thin smile was as sarcastic as his comment. “But you’ve topped yourself today. You’re not just amusing, you’re hilarious.”

  “Now just a second,” Detweiller said in a careful voice. “I’d lay off the needle if I were you. This isn’t any of your business.”

  “The man is serious!” Baldwin said, raising his eyes. “I imagine that’s the heart of the joke. All humor is touched with tragedy and vice versa, a cab driver told me yesterday. You’re really going to put on bed sheets and ride out to protect the sanctity of your homes and womenfolk.” Baldwin was still grinning. “Pardon me, Det, I just think it’s funny. I can’t help it.”

  “You don’t have a home and you don’t have kids,” Detweiller said, quite obviously trying to control his temper. “You live in a furnished apartment and you probably don’t know the names of your next-door neighbors. If the schools in your area are lousy it doesn’t mean anything to you. If there are no decent playgrounds or parks it couldn’t matter less to you. Do you see what I mean?”