Farrell stared around the room, breathing slowly and deeply. The anger was flowing out of him, and in its place was an emotion he couldn’t quite define: it was close to peace, but still closer to resignation.
“You might ask yourselves just what kind of a life you’re protecting tonight,” he said quietly. “Is it simply a pleasant home, a freezer full of food and the bills all paid up? We’ve got that, sure. But isn’t there anything else? Something we might defend and feel grateful for even if we were cold and hungry and broke? It seems to me there is, must be. And when a showdown comes along you’ve got to put that above the comfort and pleasures, all the trimmings and extras, the icing on the cake.”
Farrell was turning to the door when Detweiller got heavily to his feet and said, “Hold it, will you, John? We can take my car, it’s faster than that heap of yours.”
Farrell stared at him, struck with a giddy fear that he hadn’t heard correctly. “What’s that?”
“I’m going with you.” Detweiller was very pale. Chicky reached up and took his hand and he gripped it tightly. “I saw you leave the clubhouse before Norton. Maybe I’ve got enough guts to say so.”
“Have you gone crazy?” Malleck said, staring from Farrell to Detweiller. “Are you both nuts? You go down there together and you’ll blow this thing sky high. We had it all fixed up. It was all safe.” There was a strange fear and confusion cracking the hard flat planes of his face. “Sit down, sit down, both of you. We got to talk this over.”
“What does this mean, Det?” Ward asked. It was the voice of an old man, slow and heavy and tired.
“It may mean he’s learned something,” Chicky said.
“What has he learned?”
Chicky smiled at him but her brown eyes were very cold. “Maybe that you can’t prove you’re a man by acting like an animal.”
“Now listen to me,” Malleck said. “Everybody listen. We’re all getting excited. There’s no point acting crazy.” His voice was rising nervously. “Look, I work my trucks down in the garment district. My customers are Hungarians, Polacks, Jews, people like that. You know what I mean? They’re immigrants. They’re always talking up tolerance and treating people equally and stuff like that. They had it bad in the old country and this place looks like paradise to them. What they don’t understand...” He took Detweiller by the arm and said, “Look, don’t go with him, he’s crazy. I butter up these old guys because it’s my work, my living. I yes ’em to death. Don’t go off and jam everything up. They’d think I was lying if I got mixed up in something like this. I couldn’t kid ’em out of it, you know what I mean?”
Ward was sitting heavily beside his wife. She was crying. She said, “They want to ruin us out of spite. That’s all it is, spite.”
“She doesn’t mean that,” Ward said. “We didn’t mean...” He gave Farrell a thin smile. “I was simply making a point, you know, showing you how the story might appear to the police. I didn’t for a moment believe that you...”
“Let’s go, Det,” Farrell said.
“Please!” Malleck cried. “Look, we can pile all of it on Norton. It can’t hurt him now. We can fix it up. If you’ll sit down and talk it over we can fix it up.”
Farrell opened the door and Detweiller pulled his arm away from Malleck’s grip. They went down to the sidewalk together and crossed the street.
The homes of Faircrest were closed snugly against the night, and the occasional warm lights along the block were like little beacons of security and peace. Tomorrow it would be different, Farrell thought; the quiet little street was set for an explosion. And then they could start the laborious and possibly therapeutic job of picking up the pieces. Everyone reshaping his life according to his own values and conscience. And those with foundations still intact should make it all right...
Detweiller said, “I meant it about taking my car. It’s faster.”
“You want to get this over with in a hurry?”
“Not exactly.” They turned into Detweiller s driveway and climbed into his convertible. “That’s not it exactly,” Detweiller said, hunching his big shoulders forward as he swung the car into the street. “I’m in a hurry because of what I’ll feel like when it’s over. Damn, I can’t explain it. But I know what it will be like. And I’m in a hurry to get there.”
“I know what you mean,” Farrell said. “Let’s go.”
“Okay,” Detweiller said. He smiled nervously but hopefully and pushed down hard on the gas.
Savage Streets Page 24