I breathed in deeply. I looked from Collins to Luxtro to his men. They watched me, their faces cold. They had respect for a cop smart enough to be in on the take, but nothing but contempt for a crooked one about to be caught.
“All right,” I said.
I walked past Collins’s chair, started toward the door.
Luxtro’s voice stopped me. “About that Walker, Ballard. You understand me? Drop it.”
I stopped, looking at him.
“That’s all, Ballard. I don’t have to explain myself to a paid cop. But I want it understood on Walker. That’s it. You’ve had it.”
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t answer him. The two men at the door stepped aside. I opened the door and walked through it, hearing the music suddenly loud from the band out front.
Chapter Fifteen
I didn’t have troubles enough; it had started to rain while I was in Luxtro’s office. I’d left the windows open in the Olds, the seats were wet and drops stood like marbles on the steering wheel.
The rain was coming down hard and slanting in on the wind. The streets were black and glistening with shafts of light from gutter to gutter.
I started the engine, put the Olds in gear. As I pulled out of the parking space, I saw the rain was going to make driving tough. I said to hell with it and let the car roll back into the parking space.
I rolled up the windows, got out of the car and looked around for a bar—any place on earth except that respectable dump known as the Ubangi.
I went along the walk to a bar in the middle of the next block. It was just what I wanted. It didn’t even have a neon outside.
I walked through the dark rain, letting it splash me. When I walked into the bar, the bartender looked at my wet suit. “You fall in the gutter?” he said.
“Just about. Give me a rye straight.”
“Mister, you’re dreaming. We got a license for beer. You want a beer?”
“Sure. That’s what I meant.” I sat dripping at the bar, liking this place. No juke, no television, just beer and a few men sitting along the bar talking quietly, not bothering anybody.
I paid for the beer, took it to a booth. I wanted to sit in the dark. The way I felt I might be talking to myself any minute.
I looked at my reflection in the beer glass. What would you do? I said to myself. You been riding a gravy train. This time there’s trouble for keeps. You’re not the first cop ever accepted graft, but every time they catch one, they yell like he’s the only guilty one. People like to believe there’s just one bad apple. They don’t like to think about the barrel. They don’t like to pay cops a decent salary, either. They want them poor and honest. Or they want them dishonest. But the main thing is, they don’t want to hear about it. It upsets them. So next to a guy that kills a cop, the crooked cop is tops on the list of bad eggs. He’s the boy with all the strikes against him.
Me.
Hell, I didn’t sit there and waste time feeling sorry for what I’d done, was doing, and intended going on doing if I beat this rap. I wasn’t sorry. It hadn’t taken me long to get the score. You’ll never be able to tell me that a gambler, a procurer, or any other admitted lawbreaker is going to approach a cop with a graft offer unless he’s already approached the cop before him, and the cop before that. One of their biggest approaches is, “Now we played ball with Lieutenant Jones. He played ball with us. We made it worth his while.” Hell, that’s a safe one, for them, and for you. Jones is retired, and sure as hell isn’t going to give his view, one way or the other. And they speak with authority. Jones was no slob; why should you be a slob?
It all works fine, until you’re caught.
And now they were breathing down my neck.
One thing glared like that neon outside the Ubangi Club. Collins and Luxtro were ready to toss my carcass to the wolves. If I squeezed by by keeping my mouth shut and my nose clean, I was still their boy. And they had their price-forget Earl Walker.
That was the easiest thing I’d ever done in my life.
I called the bartender, told him to bring me another beer. I sat there drinking it, and forgetting Earl Walker. It was funny, though, you live with something for part of a week, night and day. You let it fill your mind, and you find weak places in the investigation done ahead of you. It becomes a challenge. There are a lot of questions that need answers. They beat at you, insisting you find the answers, and find out why the cops ahead of you overlooked them. Tino Gonsmart. Ziggy. Too much sense to talk about Ruby.
And now, Luxtro. Church-goer, club member, civic leader. Who would think he knew Earl Walker? Who’d think Luxtro would care about Earl Walker? And who would think that asking questions about a poor slob up in the death house would one way or another affect a civic investigation of graft and vice?
Earl wasn’t easy to forget. Still, I knew I was going to forget him.
And forgetting Earl, that meant forgetting Peggy, didn’t it? Beautiful Peggy with the trim ankles and the swollen breasts, the scented hair.
Peggy wouldn’t do me any good if I ended up in the bottom of the Charles River.
It hurt, saying good-by to Peggy. But at the moment my loins were cold. Cold loins. Three more beers and I’d go home to bed. A man wanted a woman, but he had to live to enjoy her. Peggy was the price I was going to pay to go on riding the gravy train.
Good-by, Peggy. Say good-by to Earl for me.
My apartment door was cracked open and light spilled out. I stood in the hall, thinking it was Hilma, and hating her for getting into my apartment.
I put my foot against the door and shoved it. I walked in, trailing most of the rain for the night. I was truly sorry Hilma had picked tonight to play the huntress, the clinging female. This would very likely be the last scene between us.
I was full of hatred for everything in God’s world, and one word about Donald Gilmore would be the detonator.
It was Peggy.
I pushed my hat off the back of my head with my thumb, staring at her. I stood there and dripped all over my gray rug.
“What are you doing here?” I said. “Or rather, what in hell are you doing here?”
She gave me that frightened half-smile that had once sent me off my rocker. All right, so it still twisted at me a little. “You better get out of those wet things. You’ll catch pneumonia,” she advised me.
“Sure,” I said. I started peeling off my coat. I dropped it on the floor, pulled at my tie.
“Oh, not there,” she said. She laughed. She came close to me. “Mike—you’re drunk.”
Maybe I can’t tell you the way she said that. Maybe I’ll never be able to get it across to you. Did you ever catch your mother smoking marijuana? Did you ever get sudden evidence your father was a white slaver? That was the way Peggy sounded. The way she sounded, I wasn’t supposed to drink, much less get potted.
“That’s right,” I said. “You are correct. I am drunk a little. Quite a little. Why not? Isn’t this the privacy of my own home? Isn’t this within my own four walls? Isn’t a man’s castle his home? I got the word for you. I’m drunk. You don’t like it? Get out. Get to hell out.”
“I came to see you. I’ve got to talk to you.”
I pushed her aside, started toward the bedroom. “Talk to me? About what? About that poor slob you married? About Earl Walker? I’m sick and tired hearing about Earl Walker. Up to here is where I am with Earl Walker.”
She followed me into the bedroom.
“I know you must be, Mike. I know. You’ve done so much for me, and for Earl.”
I turned, peeling off my soaked shirt. I laughed. “That’s where you’re wrong, baby. Let’s clear up that little misapprehension right now. I never did a goddamn thing for Earl Walker. You hear that? I never even lifted my little finger for Earl Walker. Up there at the pen, he’s going to fry. I don’t give a damn. I worked pretty hard this week. I found out a lot. But don’t make any mistakes. I didn’t do it for Earl Walker. I did it for you. You hear me loud and clear, baby? I did i
t for the way your bosom stands up and points at me, the way you’re built, and the way your hair smells. Whatever I did, I did because I wanted to get you into bed.”
She stood there in front of me, her brown eyes deep in tears.
“Yes.” Her voice was even. “Yes, Mike.”
“All right, now you know.” I wadded up my shirt and threw it as hard as I could. It struck the wall with a dull plop, hung there a moment and then fell to the floor. “So now you can get out of here. I’ve told you now. I’ve told you the truth. Even you must have sense enough to know why I’d tell you the truth.”
“You—have decided—not to go on with it.”
“Right. You are so right. You are the tightest kind of right. I’m not going on with it. And I got the next word. I’m not going to lie to you. I could lie to you. I could tell you I was going to find out who really killed Ruby Venuto—”
“Who really killed her?” She caught her breath. “You do believe—at last you believe that Earl is innocent.”
I laughed at her again. “I was never more sure of anything. He’s as innocent as you and I. So that’s my word. You go out of here. Go find some honest cop, tell him what I’ve told you. Tell him to find Tino Gonsmart. Tell him that a guy named Alex Luxtro doesn’t want the case reopened. If that doesn’t scare him so bad he runs, then you got yourself the man.”
“Are you scared, Mike?”
“Whether I am or not, sweetie, just doesn’t matter. I’m out of it. All the way out. You can take all you’re saving for Earl Walker and you can get out of here. No, wait a minute. There’s one thing I’ll do for you and that poor slob up there. You tell whoever you find to come and see me. I’ll tell him everything I know to this moment. He ought to be able to pick it up from there.”
Tears ran down her cheeks. “Mike, don’t walk out on me.
“Sorry, baby. I already have.”
“Anything you want, Mike. There’s nothing I won’t do.”
“Thanks. Oh, and by the way, close the door on your way out.”
A sob broke across her lips. “Mike.”
I turned, walked to the closet, got my dressing gown. I slipped into it, belted it, loosened my trousers and walked out of them. I sat down on the bed, took off my shoes and socks. Water squished from them.
I stepped into my bedroom slippers.
“Mike.”
“I’ve said I’m sorry. I really am. Because, believe it or not, the poor bastard is innocent.”
“Mike.” She walked woodenly over to the bed. She sat down on it beside me. “That’s a man’s life, Mike.”
“Sure. Hearts and flowers. The man you love. The man you’d trade your fate-worse-than-death for.”
“He’s lost faith in everything in the world. In human decency, in justice, in other human beings. He’s losing his mind. I don’t know. Maybe he’s already lost it. He’s going to lose his life. And he’s innocent.”
“Yeah. It sort of—gets you here, doesn’t it?”
“Mike.”
“Turn in your key to the janitor. You won’t be coming back.”
“He’d begun to eat again, Mike. He’d begun to hope. I told him about you—”
“Oh, not all about me, I hope. Not about the way I looked at you, the way I wanted to get you into bed.”
Her head went up a little. “No. I didn’t tell him that. I— thought that was between us, Mike. Between you and me— when Earl was free.”
I laughed at her. I had to force it, because for a moment it slammed home hard. But I laughed. It made it easier because I laughed at both of us.
“Between us? Oh, no thanks. I set the price myself. You. I was going to have you in trade for doing all I could for Earl Walker. I didn’t even know you knew the terms. But I see you did. Well, I’m sorry, sweetie, but the price is too high.”
She knotted her hands in her lap. “I know. I’m not worth it.”
I didn’t answer that.
“If I had money, Mike, I’d give you that.”
“Never wanted your money, baby.”
She nodded. “I know.” She put her hand on my arm. “Please, Mike. What I have is not enough. But don’t leave him up there to die, hating everybody in the world, trusting nobody. Oh, God, Mike, how can I tell him?”
My mouth twisted. “Don’t tell him. Christ, it doesn’t make any difference. In a week or two he’ll be dead. If he wants to believe I’m trying to spring him, let him.”
She stared at me, her mouth parted. “I never knew anyone could be like that.”
“Yeah. Well, now you know. So why don’t you get out of here?”
She put her face in her hands. She cried silently. I felt my gut twisting, but knew as long as I felt my gut twisting, I was alive. And as soon as I gave in to her, I was dead.
It grew quiet in the room. The rain sloshed at the windows. The night was silent except for the rain and her crying. There was a sense of loss that sat like a chill over everything.
At last she looked up. Her eyes were red. “You won’t help him, Mike?”
“I can’t.”
“You won’t?”
“All right. I won’t.”
“There’s nothing I can do to make you change your mind?”
“That’s just about the picture.”
She sighed, and the way she drew the breath you could see it hurt.
She stood up. She loosened the buttons and the zipper on her dress. She reached to pull it over her head.
I kept my voice cold. “Wait. I know there’s nothing you won’t do to buy Earl Walker’s freedom. But I’ve already told you. I’ve changed my mind. You can’t buy me.”
She looked at me, her face was rigid, white.
“This has nothing to do with Earl,” she said. “You wanted me. I want you, just as terribly. Maybe I’ve—I’ve never really wanted anybody before. It won’t be like—it could have been. But at least, we—we’ll have what we want.”
“What about Earl?”
“What difference does it make? He doesn’t believe in anything else—why should he go on believing in us?” Her eyes filled with tears. “We’re going to fix him. Let’s fix him good. Let’s don’t leave him anything.”
Chapter Sixteen
‘“You think I’ll turn you down, don’t you?” I said. “You think I’ll go noble, and promise to find the killer?”
“No. I don’t think that.” She pulled at her dress. It caught, making her angry. She ripped at it and the fabric tore, loud in the room against the rain and the silence.
She cried out in her throat and I looked at her and I knew I’d been right, that first time I saw her. There weren’t any other women like her, not for me, not anywhere in the world. I wanted her so badly it hurt me to look at her, to see the sweetness and the goodness, and the depth of need. Because that was there, more than anything else that need was in her, the unawakened need, the unreached desire. It was there, and it was waiting for me. And I was the son of a bitch who was going to abandon her husband and betray and rob him all at the same time. One easy operation. This was the biggest moment of my career. Never had there been a woman I wanted the way I wanted her. Never had there been a deal as rotten as the one I was getting mixed up in this time. The rest of it was penny ante; this was the works.
I was going into heaven, the lowest, slimiest thing that ever crawled.
She had trouble with the dress. I caught it and ripped it off. She stood there and looked at me. She was the most wonderful thing that could ever happen to a man. Her eyes were wide, but she was not afraid any more.
She just stood there, waiting.
I caught at her bra and took it off. I should have felt like the only man in the world, the strongest and the biggest. It was all there waiting for me.
I shook the thought out of my mind. A million apologies raced through my brain, worked to the tip of my tongue. They’ll kill me if I go on with it. The police will turn me over to the grand jury. I’ll be indicted, sentenced, imprisoned—if Luxtro
let me live that long. I didn’t say anything.
I wanted to yell at her. I could get Earl free. I was the only man who could do it, but I could do it. I could walk among those bastards and I could break their heads and spill their guts. I could ask them questions and make them beg me to listen to their sniveling answers. I could go along the streets and into the alleys where they hid, and I could find them, and I could break their heads and make them spit out words with their blood.
“You knew I wanted you, didn’t you?”
“Yes, Mike.”
“You knew. It was you and me.”
“I knew.”
“You don’t know what this town is like,” I said. “Nobody knows what this town is like, unless they’ve walked in the alleys and looked in the back doors and met the people who go in those back doors. I’ve met them. I know them all.”
“It’s all right, Mike.”
“You think I’m drunk.”
“I don’t care.”
“No.” I ripped away her pants and she stood there naked and I stared at her standing there naked, and I knew nobody had ever really seen her like that in her nakedness, and nobody had ever really touched her. And it was all waiting there for me.
I looked at the sheer fabric in my hand, feeling it against my fingers. Then I opened my fist, splaying my fingers apart and letting it fall.
But I did not reach for her. There was something that had to be said.
I looked at her and I knew she did not want me to speak. She did not want me to say anything.
But I was going wild because I knew I could not touch her until I told her how it was. I had to apologize first. I had to tell her they’d kill me. If I tried to help Earl Walker, they’d kill me. If I did not speak that apology, I could not take the step that remained between us. I could not touch her until I had torn down that barrier between us.
“Mike.”
Sweat stood across my forehead. My hands trembled. I was in the deepest part of hell. I was already dead and in hell. She was standing there in her nakedness, waiting for me. She would go on standing there until I touched her, or told her to move. If I did not touch her, or did not speak to her, she would go on standing there.
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