He said, “Your paper paying Frederick Van Lear?”
“Who knows?” Harry Weber asked. “Maybe he’s paying us. He owns a lot of stock in the paper.”
“Yeah.” Cap Martin flipped open the heavy glass door to the parking lot. His unmarked car, those of two precinct commanders, and a marked H.Q. car were all in the section reserved for the brass, their drivers out of them smoking together. Chief Jim Latson was leaning against a wall in the sun, his hands in his pockets, his feet crossed, chatting with the flattered drivers.
Jim Latson took a hand out of his pocket, waved it at them. “Hi, Marty. Who do you like in the fights tonight?”
Cap Martin said, “Who’s fighting?” in his driest voice.
The drivers were scattering back to their cars, giving the two brass a chance to talk alone if they wanted to. Jim Latson chuckled, raked a glance across Harry Weber’s face, and said idly, “Old Strictly-Business Marty. Where you off to?”
“Guild house. First chance I’ve had.”
Latson nodded. He winked in the direction of Harry Weber. “Aren’t you scared of taking the opposition along?”
Captain Martin said, “No.”
Jim Latson chuckled his easy laugh. “Brave old Marty.” He raised a hand, and his driver was there, fast. “I’m going for a ride with Captain Martin. Tell my office and give them the number of the car.”
“H-four,” Cap Martin’s driver said. He opened the door of the big sedan, and all three of his passengers got in the back seat.
Jim Latson sat down, fished out a cigar, offered the other two smokes, and settled back, sighing. Unlike Martin and Harry, he was bareheaded and without a coat, but he didn’t look cold. He said, “This is damned bad practice. I should have taken my own car, in case you and I get separate calls, Marty. But it gets plenty lonesome, being a chief.”
Martin said, “Yeah.” He leaned forward and tapped the driver’s shoulder, waved his flattened palms downward twice for “slower,” and then decided to shoot a whole lot of words, despite Latson’s presence. “Koch and Lyons are meeting us. Use their car.” He paused again, and added, “If you need it.”
Latson said, “Sure.” He seemed interested in a construction job they were passing, and suddenly said, “Mind if I stop?”
Cap Martin said, “No,” and the car came to a smooth halt. At each corner of the block, traffic patrolmen stiffened a little, but they didn’t stare directly at the car; they were under orders not to when a car was unmarked and its passengers un-uniformed.
But Jim Latson raised a hand, and one of the patrolmen trotted over. Down in a hole that had been the Lakemen’s National Bank, a steam shovel and some bulldozers were digging away, in preparation for a new Lakemen’s National Bank building that would be twenty stories taller.
The Chief, grinning, called the patrolman “Benny” and jerked a thumb at the crowd of sidewalk spectators. “Tell the super here to put a railing on the curb,” he said. “Those briefcase superintendents are crowding out in the street and cutting down traffic by a full lane.”
The uniformed man said, “Yes, sir,” and Latson dropped a friendly hand on his shoulder, then climbed back into the sedan. As the door closed and the car moved ahead, Jim Latson said, “Traffic. I never had a day of it till I got to be deputy chief. You ever bothered with it, Marty?”
“Only co-operation, when I was precinct lieutenant.”
“Yeah,” Latson said. They slowed up for a streetcar stop and he frowned again. “Those tracks ought to go… Marty, you got something more on Guild, or is this a fishing expedition?”
Cap Martin said, “Fishing.”
Latson chuckled politely, and turned to Harry Weber: “Mind telling me why your paper’s out on a limb over a dumb cluck?”
“We’re not on a limb,” Harry said, promptly. “We feel that even dumb clucks shouldn’t be railroaded for what they didn’t do.”
Latson stopped smiling. “That’s kind of rough language, young man.”
Harry said he was sorry.
The broad street turned here to follow the river. What had been a slight breeze in town became a wind here, and Latson looked with appreciation at the fluttering skirts of the office girls. There were enough of them on the street to indicate that it was lunch hour; but none of the men suggested eating.
When they had crossed the poor district that was Guild’s, and stopped at the Guild house, the detective car with Lyons and Koch in it was already there, and Lyons was standing on the porch. Koch appeared from a neighboring house, dangling a key. He and Lyons said polite hellos to their superiors; Latson returned them, Cap Martin grunted, and Harry Weber said, “Hi, John,” to Koch.
Koch unlocked the door. “What do you want us to do, Chief?”
“It’s Captain Martin’s detail. I just came along to get some fresh air.”
Cap Martin said, “Lyons and Koch. Go over the place first. I want any changes since you made the arrest.”
Jim Latson leaned just inside the front door, watching them, his hands in his pockets, his face relaxed. They had not shut the front door, and the police radio could be heard faintly, as Cap Martin’s driver kept in touch with headquarters. Harry Weber moved around, looking at things.
John Koch came out, and said, “There’s baby stuff in the bedroom that’s new. A bassinet, a rubber bathing table, a little chest to keep diapers and stuff in.”
Cap Martin said, “New to here, or new from a store?”
Koch seemed to blush slightly. He said. “I’m sorry, Captain. Secondhand, but new to this house.” He went back into the bedroom.
Jim Latson said, “What’s this all about, Marty?”
Cap Martin looked at him. There was a long silence; the noise of the car radio seemed to get louder. Finally, Cap cleared his throat. “Routine.”
Lyons and Koch stopped their bustling, and came to a sort of semi-attention in front of the homicide captain. Lyons said, “Those are about the only changes, Captain. Of course, there were dirty dishes, an unmade bed before; they’ve been cleaned up.”
Cap Martin nodded. He said, “Good. Now. Guild makes a waiter’s pay and tips. Check. See if he made any more.”
They went off, and Latson said, “I see. If you can hang one more theft on him, we’ll have a pretty good case. But what if you can’t?”
Cap Martin shrugged.
Harry Weber said, “What does the district attorney’s office think of their case, Chief Latson?”
Jim Latson smiled without charm this time. “I ought to tell you to find out for yourself. You did a good job this morning, rubbing Dave Corday the wrong way. You know a newspaper man without entree doesn’t last long. Dave Corday is an important man, and a good one.”
Harry Weber said, “I’m sorry. I was trying to needle a story out of him. I didn’t think he’d hold it against me; just doing my job.”
“I didn’t say he did, kid,” Jim Latson said. “Why, you’d have to go to him to get the district attorney’s point of view. From the angle of the police department, let’s say we feel we’re justified that we arrested Guild; and that we’re still investigating. Say that Captain B. L. Martin has taken over the investigation personally. Okay, Marty?”
Cap Martin shrugged.
Lyons and Koch were back again. They were carrying a towel, each by an end. They laid the thing down on a lumpy looking couch, and spread the ends, started pushing jewelry around with their fingertips to make a display. Stones and metal glittered in the weak sunlight that came through a white curtain.
“All the jewelry in the house,” Lyons said. “No furs. No silk underwear, anything like that.”
Cap Martin put his hands on his hips, bent over. He grunted once or twice. “He coulda bought better,” he said.
Harry Weber said, “He was saving to have a baby.”
Cap Martin grunted. “Put it back, boys. Be neat.” He looked up at the ceiling as though expecting something to be written there.
He was not a very highly paid man.
And what he did get paid, he was likely to misspend—a poker game, a symphony record, books he didn’t really need. But still his wife had earrings, perfume, silk lingerie. There was something feebly pathetic about this little pile of junk. No jewelry at all would have been better than these half dozen specimens of dime store art, filled out with two or three old-world brooches that hadn’t been worth anything a hundred years ago and had, somehow, failed to turn themselves into antiques.
Cap Martin said, “Put ’em back where you found them. Lyons, you used to be on hockshop detail. How much do you think everything in this house it worth?”
Lyons shrugged. “Nothing here would hock,” he said. “Maybe seventy-five bucks, selling it outright. Clothes and all.”
Jim Latson said, “That’s about an all-time low,” and turned toward the front door. Feet were clumping on the porch. It was Cap Martin’s driver. He was saying, “Call your office, Captain. Something they didn’t want to put on the air.”
Cap Martin nodded. He stood there a moment, looking at the floor, a blocky man, strong and bright and at home in his job. Then he stared at Harry Weber, but Weber made no move to give him privacy.
Finally Cap Martin shrugged, and walked to the phone that the hotel had probably required Guild to have. Or maybe the waiter had put it in when his wife got near the end of her term of pregnancy. Considering the sparseness of everything else in the Guild house, the telephone was sheer wanton luxury.
Cap Martin took a last look at Jim Latson who, as senior officer present, should have asked Harry to step outside. But Latson was cheerfully lighting a cigarette, a mere spectator of another man’s work. Martin dialed the number.
Then he said, “Homicide,” and then, “Martin.” No reporter would grow healthy, wealthy and wise from Cap Martin’s end of a phone conversation. What Harry heard was, “Yeah,” and “I see,” and “I’m starting right in.” There was not even a good-by.
Cap Martin put the phone down and smiled a little. He said, “Put this stuff back like it was, boys, and resume your standby.” Then he went out the front door, leaving his chief and Harry to follow him.
The driver was already back behind the wheel. When Martin said, “Office,” he picked up the handphone, said, “H-four to H-one. Coming in, over and out,” and started the car. Martin said, “Code two,” which meant the driver could use his red light and siren.
So they went back the way Lyons and Koch had come down here the other time, instead of by the more traffic-free riverfront boulevard. Occasionally, the siren moaned a short cry as they pushed through the machinery center, the produce belt.
Jim Latson smoked his cigarette. Cap Martin kept his face stolid. Harry Weber made no effort to keep his face from looking curious.
Finally Martin spoke; they were only a couple of blocks from the Civic Center now. He said, “The federals want Guild if we don’t. Illegal entry.”
Latson whistled, cranked the window down a little, and dropped the cigarette out. “I’d say we want him. This about ties up the case.”
Harry Weber said, “That’s right. Never hit a man when he’s down; wait till someone else comes along to hit him first.”
“The guy’s already a criminal,” Jim Latson said. “You can’t expect us to exactly make love to him. It’s not what the people pay policemen for.”
“Oh, lay off,” Harry Weber said. “What you’re saying is, the guy’s likely to confess to save himself getting deported.”
Jim Latson laughed. “Think again,” he said. “He’s going to get deported any way you look at it. It’s a question of whether he does time first or not.”
“Or gets electrocuted first.”
Jim Latson’s careless voice said, “Oh, Dave Corday won’t ask first degree. You never get it without a witness.”
Harry Weber stared. Cap Martin had told him, just before they started down to Guild’s house, that a man had brought Hogan DeLisle home, had been there when she was shot. It seemed funny he hadn’t told the chief.
Latson’s voice was sharp. “Or was there a witness?”
Cap Martin said, “Yeah. Man brought her home.”
The car stopped at headquarters then. The homicide captain and the newsman waited politely for the deputy chief of all the city’s policemen to get out. He did, fast.
“I won’t have time to see your federal man, Marty,” he said. But he said it over his shoulder and was gone.
Chapter 11
DAVE CORDAY sat in his nice office, and wrote careful words on a sheet of fine bond. The district attorney’s suite was high in the County Building, and, as chief deputy, he had the corner that faced north and west. The district attorney himself had chosen the south and east exposures, one for the sun and the other for its magnificent view of approaching storms.
Next year, Dave Corday could have that office. The district attorney had announced this morning that he was running for governor. He hadn’t put a hand on Dave Corday’s shoulder to tap him as successor, but the party would do that; there hadn’t been a chief deputy yet who hadn’t been offered the top job when it became vacant.
Dave Corday was writing his platform, his declaration of how he would run the office when he got it.
Once in office, he’d be the equal, the superior of the Jim Latsons. He’d get the good tables at the restaurants, the salutes of the doormen, the invitations to speak at luncheon clubs. He—
His phone rang. He frowned at it. A good secretary ought to know better than to interrupt her chief when he was thinking.
But he picked up the phone and the girl’s voice said, “Chief Latson, Mr. Corday.”
“Put Mr. Latson on.”
“He’s not on the phone. He’s out here.”
“Send him in.” Well, she’d been right not to use the box; he didn’t want Jim Latson hearing everything he had to say.
He didn’t get up as the policeman ambled in. He waved a hand at the straight chair next to his desk that he used to interview witnesses, defendants.
But Latson picked up one of the heavy side chairs that sat by the couch and carried it across the room with one hand, no easy feat. He slouched down in it and shoved his hands deep in his pants pockets, his suit coat and topcoat open over an immaculate white shirt. “We’re in the soup, Dave.”
Dave Corday split his lips in a polite smile. “You are, Jim.”
“We, boy, we. Your frame never got off the ground. If I’m in, you’re in.”
“Don’t growl at me, Latson. What’s your trouble?”
Jim Latson got up, his coat bunched over the clenched fists in his pockets. He walked to the west window, stood looking down at the river and the traffic that ran alongside it. “That Martin,” he said. “He’s got it established that a man brought Hogan home.”
Dave Corday laughed. “Of course. A man did.” The laugh faded. “But he hasn’t said anything to me. After all, I’m the one supposed to be working up a case on this.” He took the folded handkerchief out of his breast pocket and dried his hands.
Jim Latson’s grin was ghoulish. “Hot, boy? You might be… That Martin doesn’t miss much. Cap Martin. I should have put him out in the sticks years ago. He’s the best cop in the city. Maybe one of the best in the country.”
Dave Corday’s voice was a full octave higher, to his own ears. “Why did you let him take the case?”
Jim Latson shrugged. “Routine. It seemed to me that the more natural I let this thing be, the better it would look. Matter of fact, it still seems that way.” He put a foot on the window sill, continued to stare down. “What this city needs is half as many people and twice as many streets.”
Corday said, “I’ll send for Martin, talk to him.”
Jim Latson turned and faced the attorney squarely. “Do that. And right away.”
Corday shoved the swivel chair back with his thighs, jumped to his feet. He leveled a finger at the police chief in his best courtroom manner. “Don’t bark orders at me! I’m practically acting district attorney from now on; th
e boss is going to campaign for governor. You’ll mind your manners in this office.”
Latson walked over to the desk. At the last minute he swerved and went around it, came behind Corday’s symbol of office, until he was facing the district attorney. Only then did he take his hands out of his pockets. The right hand shot up with ferocious speed and caught Corday’s nose; Latson twisted it with all his force.
Then he let go, and put his hands back in his pockets. He strolled with his back to the desk to the door. Then he turned, smiling. Corday was dabbing at his nose with the white handkerchief that had formerly cut such a nice line across his left breast. “Try putting a cold key on the back of your neck,” Jim Latson said. “I’m giving a cocktail party at the Zebra House this afternoon,” he added. “Six o’clock on. If you’re swinging for the D.A.’s place on the ballot, you could pick up a little help there.”
After Latson had gone, Corday crossed the room quickly and locked the door. By lying down on the floor and stuffing paper under his lip, he managed to stop the nosebleed without any of his staff knowing he had it.
There was a little mirror in the center drawer of his big desk. He examined himself in it, and decided he looked like a man with a touch of hay fever, nothing more. After he had thrown the bloody handkerchief out the window and replaced it with another from his desk, he felt himself able to go on with the day’s business.
But he didn’t continue writing his speech. Instead, he had his secretary get Captain Martin on the line. Corday’s joviality—he was aware of it himself—was a pale imitation of Jim Latson’s habitual manner, but it would have to do. “Marty, how’s my big case coming?”
“Which one?”
“Guild, of course.”
“Was going to call you,” Cap Martin said. “Complications. Guy from the U.S. Immigration Service was just here. Guild’s an illegal entrant.”
“But he’s naturalized.”
“Illegally. He bought another Czech’s quota number and entered under the other man’s name. Makes his naturalization illegal, too.”
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