Death of the Extremophile

by Stuart Parker

  *

  The handcuffs were being clapped on tightly behind Livingston Fitch’s back, but he remained impassive. He spat at the ground at Longworry’s feet and murmured, ‘So, you’ve really got nothing on me?’

  Longworry shrugged nonchalantly. ‘Right at the moment we’ve got a pair of handcuffs on you.’

  The arrest was being made at the front door of the Fitch’s homestead. Lunch time aromas were permeating out from the kitchen: sauerkraut and sausages. Fitch’s bodyguard was also his cook and the problem with that particular arrangement was that when the cooking started the chef was not much good at guarding bodies. Fitch could shout out on the off chance he would be heard above sizzling sausages but then it would take more than a kitchen knife to take on the weaponry the three hard-nut cops had brought to the porch. Chances are the fool would not realise his absence until the lunch was served to table and starting to get cold.

  Fitch was unceremoniously yanked in the direction of the black Ford coupe by Stevens, who, to Fitch, was just another thuggish looking deputy. Fitch did not resist, however, for fear of whiplash. With his eyes remaining fixed on Longworry, he said, ‘I’ve seen your mug in the papers. You’re the hotshot cop who’s been on an arrest spree through New York.’

  ‘Not just New York,’ spat Longworry. ‘And if you call me hotshot again, I’ll flatten your face. Even if it’s meant as some kind of compliment, I don’t want you saying it.’

  A firm nudge in the back from Stevens sent Fitch staggering down the porch steps. It was all Fitch could do just to stay upright. Another nudge put him on course for the Ford that had only just moments before torn up his driveway.

  ‘You want to know something,’ murmured Fitch over his shoulder at Longworry. ‘Plenty of times I’ve been arrested after one meal only for my lawyers to have me walking away clean in time for the next. Getting me just before lunch is served, however, is something that will not be easily forgotten. My bodyguard won’t forget it. He does the cooking and he takes it as an affront if someone is late to table.’

  ‘That might explain that bulging gut of yours,’ snapped Longworry. ‘You’re so shit scared of him, right. Now shut the hell up. And you can give it a rest about the charges. Once we’re on the road to New York there’ll be plenty of time for me to decide what I’m going to fry you for.’

  A silver Chevrolet came tearing up the driveway, prompting a simultaneous training of guns from Longworry, Stevens and Linde on the front windscreen. The dust around the wheels was like an ominous churning storm cloud. Randi jumped recklessly in amongst it before the car had even stopped moving. He tripped over onto his hands and knees.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ cried Longworry, not yet lowering his firearm.

  Randi coughed on the dust and called out, ‘He’s robbed another bank.’

  The shock bucked up into Longworry’s stomach. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘An hour ago. The Sacksville Farmers Bank. And he was boasting and talking about you.’

  ‘Talking about what?’

  Randi was starting to get up off his knees only to hesitate with the thought he had better not make himself too large a target. ‘The suit you bought for him got a mention. He told everyone how you had been intending to dress him up in it for the press conference - with all that caviar and champagne. He was wearing it to humiliate you.’

  Longworry’s lips quivered with a rage. ‘Is that so?’ The words were constricted by his throat and mashed by his teeth. He dazedly turned and pointed his gun at Livingston Fitch’s head - this seemed to help him gather his thoughts. ‘Are there people out there looking for him?’ he said back at Randi. ‘The local constabulary and the National Guard must still be in the vicinity, packing up from the manhunt they thought just finished. Tell me you’ve put them back to work. This is a madman we’re talking about.’

  Randi had had enough cowering and slowly got to his feet. He slapped a hand at his suit, trying to recover the black from the powdery brown dust. Then he exhaled sharply, as though undertaking a similarly cleansing process of his lungs.

  ‘I tried,’ he said. ‘They are upset that you kept Hope to yourself last time. And they don’t see any incentive in going after him again now. Hope was captured and then escaped and as far as they are concerned it’s on your head. And besides, I get the feeling your head would suit them just as well as any bank robber’s.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Longworry in a voice so taut it was almost undecipherable.

  Randi folded his arms self-consciously. ‘I’ve seen such occasions before, boss. It’s always a bad sign when the press is asking more questions than the cops.’

  Longworry’s gun hand clenched into a fist until the knuckles were white. ‘How many witnesses were there?’

  ‘Too many to shoot.’

  ‘And you couldn’t find another way to shut them up? You could have at least shot the press. There wouldn’t have been so many of them.’

  Stevens stepped out from behind Fitch, his brow gravely furrowed, his voice soft. ‘It’s too late, boss. The story will be out in the evening editions and we’ll be a laughing stock. I’m afraid that’s what you get for being a little too good.’ He sighed. ‘It’s the anxious fool that laughs hardest.’

  Longworry snarled. ‘We need Hope.’

  ‘We won’t get him without a dragnet,’ said Stevens grimly. ‘We should have let the generals take their damned pictures. Kept them appeased. All those resources they invested in the manhunt and we wouldn’t even give them a name. Now they simply won’t believe us.’ He pointed a thumb at Fitch. ‘I mean, it won’t matter if we give them Hope’s name or this name. They won’t care what we say. They won’t have an arrest but they’ll get a head. And I daresay they’ll relish that result even more. Bank robbers knocking off the local bank are a dime a dozen. Taking down an over-rated, stuck up New York cop, on the other hand, would be the sweetest peach on the tree.’ He held out a placating hand. ‘I’m just telling you the way they’ll see it, sir.’ He reached into a trouser pocket and slowly came out with the handcuff keys. ‘Fitch has got to walk. He’s a big fish and our rod just got real brittle.’

  Fitch was wise enough to keep his mouth closed throughout. Stevens went to work unlocking the handcuffs and they promptly fell to the ground. He pushed Fitch perfunctorily back in the direction of the farmhouse, as though he were a fish being thrown back into the sea, or perhaps a rat too big for the python to swallow.

  ‘You’d better make sure we forget you,’ snapped Linde in parting.

  Blank faced, Longworry started to again raise his revolver at Fitch; the movement, however, was without conviction and he was quickly disarmed by Randi.

  ‘When you lose this big, boss,’ Randi muttered into his ear, ‘no matter what you do, you’ll just lose some more.’ He slipped the revolver into his jacket pocket. ‘We’ve still got our families. Don’t forget that. It hurts that we will no longer be able to impress them with this, but perhaps they don’t need to be impressed.’

  Longworry silently stepped away and drifted over to the Ford they had commandeered out on the highway and climbed into the back seat. He proceeded to vacantly stare out the window - out across the paddocks of tall wheat.

  ‘What are we going to do with him?’ murmured Randi, finding it painful to watch.

  ‘We’d better take him back to New York,’ replied Linde.

  ‘Damned shame. It’s as though he has been beaten without a fight.’

  ‘Maybe that’s why Hope calls himself gentleman,’ said Stevens. ‘You get beaten and you don’t even know you’ve been fighting. Against the likes of Longworry, it’s a handy knack to have.’

  The slamming of door that marked Fitch’s return into the house momentarily caught their attention.

  ‘I’ve got to admit that lunch smells pretty good,’ said Randi, hungrily.

  ‘A bodyguard that cooks better than he fights,’ murmured Linde, ‘no wonder Fitch ha
s retired to the country.’

  The eyes of the three members of the Buster and the Treatment gradually returned to the Ford. Davenas was looking at them from the driver seat, obviously uncomfortable with the situation and impatient to get moving. Longworry was still gazing blankly out the back window.

  ‘I can’t say I’ve ever seen him like this before,’ murmured Stevens. ‘Is that what he was like during those lost years at his desk?’

  ‘This is worse.’ Linde sighed. ‘There must be something we can do.’

  ‘When a man’s spirit leaves his body,’ said Stevens, ‘there’s only one thing to do: take him home.’

  34. ‘I am not done raising that flag of mine just yet.’

  Assistant District Attorney Errol Jones had taken to reading the bloody events of Europe with a different kind of sadness. A whole generation of up and coming cops would be lost to the armed services. It was an inescapable reality that wartime stripped the policing fraternity of all its prestige, for an occupation in which a firearm might well remain holstered for years on end seemed all but redundant: certainly, it would take more than a badge and handcuffs to halt a Hitler with his tail up. And nous wouldn’t have too much to do with it either. Not the kind of nous a good cop would employ to solve a crime. In this case, the crime was already obvious for all but the most dim-witted. The crime was murder and it would take whole armies and seas of blood to clap the handcuffs on. The one bright spot was that New York’s violent crazies would be signing up into it, and they would be hard pressed to be considered crazy then.

  Jones enjoyed the melancholia he felt at the Underhill Cigar Club, especially in the Reading Room, with its walls inundated by stuffy leather bound first editions - it seemed to sharpen the flavours of the cigars and whiskey. Not that he ever read much beyond the evening edition newspapers. He was not actually sure if he drank to read the papers or read the papers to drink. Suffice to say they complemented each other well. On this particular evening he had been caught up in articles about Germany and Italy’s signing of the “Pact of Steel” in Berlin and the plight of the S. S. St. Louis’s and its Jewish refugees in Havana Harbor and drinking had certainly been required such that by the time he finally made it to the financial pages he was already up to his fifth whiskey of the evening.

  That was the moment when the club’s background noise of low-pitched chatter was broken into by the long serving maitre de, Kenneth Connolly, making a rare appearance beyond the foyer, his voice sounding like an ashtray smelt.

  ‘There is a surprise for you, sir.’

  Jones looked up from the stock listings to see Çonnolly’s bony, arthritic fingers pointing back towards the arched entrance of the Reading Room. George Hope passed through it at that very moment and headed their way. He walked with a pronounced swagger and a relaxed, carefree wisp of a smile on his lips. He was immaculately groomed in stylishly tailored double breasted black silk - as black as fine silk could get. There was also a black bandana handkerchief neatly folded in the breast pocket. Jones saw it and wondered if it was the one and only featured in so many unsolved crime reports and if he snatched it up would it bear the smells of criminality and violence. No matter, it seemed that despite the recent tumultuous events nothing had changed about Hope; or, perhaps, even the recent events had agreed with him.

  ‘Mr Hope, welcome back to the Underhill,’ said Connolly enthusiastically as Hope came to a stop on the plush opal blue carpet in front of them. ‘Your absence has been all too frequently noticed. I presume you will be wanting to sit with Mr Jones. Shall I arrange for a chair to be brought over?’

  ‘Yes, please, Kenneth,’ voiced Hope.

  ‘And your usual whiskey?’

  ‘It wasn’t my usual till I turned fourteen. Before then, I really had to earn it.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  Connolly hurried eagerly away, leaving Hope standing over Jones. Hope’s smile turned formal. ‘Good evening.’

  Jones sat up straight in his sofa chair to a groan of fine leather and folded in half his newspaper to reveal a carefully guarded secret: the paper he was reading was the Brooklyn Chronicle. He slapped at it and frowned. ‘For weeks I have been trawling through the columns of your friend Donovan Black for any hint of your continued existence. Bringing a paper of such dubious quality into the club is of some risk, but I wonder what risks are associated with the presence of the man himself.’

  A dark green velvet lounge chair was moved into place by two young stewards with white kit gloves; they promptly added to it a polished black wood side-table and departed with bows. A waitress came forward then with a silver tray bearing a whiskey on the rocks and all the paraphernalia required for cigar smoking. She unpacked the tray’s contents onto the side-table. She smelt nicely of a well-judged spray of perfume. As she departed, Hope pulled out a couple of cigars in hessian wrappings and offered one to Jones. ‘Handmade in the West Indies.’

  Jones grinned and took one. He curled it approvingly under his nose with a shallow sniff. He placed it on his own side-table. ‘A fine cigar. You’ve still got taste. Does the poison you have to slip in my glass bear such flavour?’

  Hope smirked and shrugged. ‘I’m not sure. I haven’t tasted it myself. But tell me, were those bodyguards in your rather nice Series 61 out front? I must say, I don’t think they saw me over their Tommy guns.’

  ‘Minders,’ Jones corrected darkly. ‘I didn’t invite them in because I didn’t want to hear them slurping champagne like it were tomato soup.’ He added dourly, ‘But I have to admit I thought they might come in handy. I thought that around about the time I stopped looking for you in the obituaries.’

  Hope sat in his chair. He snipped off the end of his cigar and employed the club’s nickel plated lighter in puffing it to life. Then he settled back luxuriously, crossing legs at the ankles. ‘The obituaries you say?’

  Jones idly tickled the underbelly of his own cigar. ‘Pitting the two toughest men in the city up against each other, with a little dash of hate blended into the mix, I was convinced the obituaries was the only place it could end.’

  ‘Well, people did die,’ gnarled Hope.

  ‘Did they? I’m sorry, I didn’t notice. A few on the margins, perhaps. The odd body in an alleyway. And a gun battle between two rival gangs, which from what I can gather, would have occurred regardless of our presence. Still, I will concede there were a few bodies involved. Surprisingly few, all the same, considering the grandness of the venture. And your own personal survival is only as remarkable as your ability to thwart my efforts to confirm it.’

  ‘You mean to curtail it?’

  Jones frowned. ‘I’m not sure of that myself. You may have noted the efforts I made to warn you of your peril. Not that you paid any heed at the time.’

  ‘Yes, I did notice as a matter of fact. Twisted though they were. Was it having a bet both ways?’

  Jones set about smoking his cigar rather than tickling it and complemented it with a gulp of whiskey. ‘I was not entirely ready to accept on face value the accusation you were a serial bank robber. Despite Warren Longworry being so adamant. After all, cops are not always right. Of course, now there can be no doubt.’

  ‘No doubt?’

  ‘The way you handled Longworry and his squad resembled a matador allowing a mad bull’s razor sharp horn to brush his heart without letting it break the skin. Such a feat could only be accomplished by someone well versed in the dark arts of crime.’ Jones held out a placating hand to indicate he was not prosecuting a case. ‘Charlie Porter and his rather impressive niece, Leslie, spent an evening here last week. And your name naturally enough came up in conversation. Charlie Porter is keen to put you back to work to sell some more cans of paint in a lavish fall campaign. He informed me that Frederick Bulkhead is also keen to revisit our scheme - no doubt to create a few more bylines for his, dare I say it, rather less impressive nephew.’ He chuckled callously. ‘They still only think of you in terms of how high you c
an reach, not how low you can stoop. But if you were willing to make assurances, here in a gentleman’s club, that you would no longer do anything to raise the ire of a desk bound Longworry, then I too would happily agree to another campaign.’

  ‘You would?’

  ‘Certainly. I would be duty bound. After all, this episode has confirmed a long held hypothesis that only events so dramatic could prove.’

  ‘What hypothesis is that?’

  ‘That police make the best criminals and criminals make the best police.’

  ‘Interesting. And the innocent the best victims?’

  Jones smirked. ‘Possibly. Or possibly the victims become the best innocents. Detective Longworry, you might be pleased to know, has fallen into that category. My experiment required a clash of wills and his has been broken. Fortunately for him he has a wife strong enough to fill the void left behind. She sees that he attends his desk every morning and that he passes each and every drinking establishment on his way home again. And most importantly, she has created a space in their home where he is not the laughing stock of the New York Police Department. Which is a far cry from HQ, I’m afraid to say. Apparently, there is barely a day in which an empty champagne flute or a dollop of caviar doesn’t mysteriously appear on his desk. To his credit he takes it. Not that he has much choice. One more strike and he’s out of the force for good, and his old lady has made it clear she isn’t coming along for the ride. I tell you this because any minders you may have employed would not be funded by the taxpayer like mine are. I would hate to see you needlessly flitter away money you’ve gone to such pains to earn.’

  ‘No minders,’ replied Hope. ‘Just acquaintances.’

  ‘Acquaintances? Is that how you refer to the mysterious Annabel McLeary? You must have been the person she was seducing the Mayor’s office to protect. And I daresay her services don’t come cheap.’

  ‘I don’t know any Annabel McLearly. And it all sends quite farfetched, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Does it? The case with Carter Nelson might suggest otherwise.’

  ‘That woman was no prostitute,’ snapped Hope pointedly.

  ‘Naturally. I apologise for any insinuation in that regard. However, there might have been someone else.’ Jones grinned and shook his head pointedly. ‘You really don’t know who your friends or enemies are, do you? And for that matter you don’t even seem to care.’

  ‘I know you, don’t I? That seems to cover both very neatly.’

  Jones pulled a face. ‘Maybe you bring that out in people. No matter. I’m willing to call a truce. And I trust you are not here to attempt another of those rather nasty right hooks. It kept me away from the Underhill a good few weeks waiting for the bruising to heal.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I’m glad to see you have fully healed too.’

  ‘A month in a hotel saw to that.’

  ‘I’d hate to imagine the state of the hotel room after that time. Especially if you were banging your head on the walls as seems to be your way. But here we are, ready to start afresh. If we can agree to be civil, there would be no one else I would rather discuss all things war with than you.’

  ‘Sounds pleasant enough.’ They reached across and firmly shook hands. ‘Another campaign in the fall would be a possibility,’ Hope said. ‘Certainly, I am not done raising that flag of mine just yet. But when the war starts in earnest, it might be time for it to leave New York Bay once again.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘And you’d better tell Porter and Bulkhead it is liable to cost a lot more this time to lure Bobby Carpets away from his work in the Alps. He’s been doing very well for himself out of his increased notoriety: out in the fresh air with high society and usually not doing anything more than tying their shoelaces. But he’s the only one I’ll trust with knotting my ropes.’

  ‘I’ll let them know,’ replied Jones in good humour.

  ‘Good. Now let’s talk about you.’

  ‘Me? If you’d like.’

  ‘Is it really true you intended to destroy Charles Porter due to a high school sweetheart having the good sense to jilt you?’

  Jones looked sharply away. ‘Next time I think I will invite my bodyguards in.’

  Hope downed the last of his whiskey and stood up. ‘We’ll have to leave it for next time.’

  ‘You’re not leaving already, are you?’ Jones betrayed a note of disappointment, apparently having been enjoying himself, after all.

  ‘I’m afraid I must. One of my aforementioned acquaintances is waiting out in the car and he made it quite clear if I did not return within twenty minutes, he would come in all guns blazing. I’m not entirely sure it would be for my benefit either. He’s a restless sort.’

  ‘Invite him in.’

  Hope shook his head ruefully. ‘He expressed no interest in joining us in a conversation polite or otherwise. He’s the sort that I have learnt are not to be trifled with. They live fast and die young, no matter how many years they manage to accrue, and for better or worse they are the pointy end of the human race.’

  ‘I see. I would venture to say it is no coincidence such people would be acquaintances of yours.’ Jones nodded in acceptance. ‘Anyway, feel free to return home. I give you my word as a gentleman you will not be disturbed.’

  ‘That’s kind of you, Errol. But I’m actually going away awhile. On my honeymoon.’

  Jones raised his eyebrows. ‘You’re married?’

  Hope smirked. ‘Not yet. The honeymoon should always come first.’ He stabbed out his cigar in Jones’s ashtray, saying as he did so, ‘It was quite a plan you put together with Longworry. I was by no means a bullfighter in getting out the way of it. By no means at all.’ He left the flattened cigar behind and departed the Reading Room, straightening out the lapels of his evening jacket as he went.

  Jones gazed thoughtfully after him. He was promptly attended to by Kenneth Connolly.

  ‘It was good to see Mr. Hope here again, sir,’ said Connolly chirpily. ‘A true American hero.’

  Jones swallowed his whiskey like a pill. ‘Isn’t he just?’

  ‘A shame he had to leave so soon.’ Connolly collected up Jones’s empty glass as soon as it was left to the table. ‘Another, sir?’

  ‘Yes, please, Kenneth. And make it a double. The kind of double that gives other doubles an inferiority complex.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Jones pushed the Brooklyn Chronicle at him. ‘And for God’s sake bring me something else to read.’

  ***