Dave Corday said, “Well, there’ll have to be a postponement. Mr. Van Lear had put himself down as associate counsel of record, and—this is confidential, but you’ve probably heard of it—Mr. Van Lear will not be available as a defense counsel. So, you see, there will be a postponement, as is inevitable when—”
He babbled on. There was no other word for it. Harry Weber didn’t have to be a trained newsman; any copy boy on a country weekly would have known something had happened. He very carefully did not stare at Dave Corday; he had the idea that somewhere in the course of the D.A.’s rambling a hint might be dropped.
It didn’t come out that way. Corday cut himself off as fast as he had started; he suddenly reverted to his yellow-cheeked state of collapse.
Harry Weber watched. Corday’s eyes went everywhere but one place; Harry looked at the place.
A good third of an airmail envelope stuck out from under the crisp blotter provided by the county to its good and able servant.
The girl outside, Alice, had said that Corday had written only one letter that day, had written that one himself, and then she had added that the letter was going to Italy. Now—a sick politician is a scared one.
Jumping the country?
Dave Corday’s fingers were creeping toward the envelope under the blotter. They touched it; they started pushing it out of sight.
Harry Weber quietly leaned forward, grabbed the envelope, and said, “I’ll mail that for you.”
Corday’s voice was an anguished scream: “Give me that!”
Harry Weber said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was important.” But he hung onto the letter.
Dave Corday said, “No, no, nothing important, just a personal note.”
“Then I’ll mail it for you.”
Corday tried to get some discipline into his babble. “Well, all right. I’m quite jumpy today. And now, busy, you know.”
“Sure,” Harry Weber said, and started out, carrying the letter.
The busy D.A. suddenly had plenty of time. He walked with Harry Weber to the door, through Alice’s office, to the corridor. He even walked with him part way down the hall, past the wardheelers. Then he stood, watching, until Harry got to the elevator and the mail chute.
So, Harry had to mail the letter right away. But he did by the greatest dexterity manage to see to whom it went. Mrs. James Latson, at a hotel in Rome—
When he turned around, Corday had gone back to his office.
There was a coffee shop in the lobby of the County Building, but it would be full of people Harry Weber knew, and he didn’t want to talk. So he drove his car till he saw a greasy spoon, parked, bought a cup of coffee and two doughnuts, and took them to a little hard-topped table.
What did he have?
A politico crushed by the world, who revived at once when he heard that a new head of Homicide was coming in.
A big shot in the D.A.’s office writing to the wife of the big shot in the police department, and doing it with great stealth.
Harry Weber paused to savor that word stealth. It was a word you don’t often get to use, he thought. In most cases secrecy, privacy, fitted a lot better. But stealth was what Dave Corday had betrayed, and stealth it would be called, if only in Harry Weber’s mind.
So you had homicide and you had extramarital relations, and what more do you need for the top story of the year?
Well, according to the old gag, you also needed religion. Rome, Italy, Mrs. James Latson, Hotel some-thing-or-other, Rome, Italy. Seat of the Pope. Yeah. Harry, like all other newsmen in town, had heard that Jim Latson and his wife only stayed married because of their religion, Catholic.
So you had that, too.
Put it together this way: Dave Corday and Mrs. J. Latson were having an affair. She had gone to Rome to get permission for a divorce.
Nice, but it left out one piece: Homicide.
Corday had made an attempt on Jim Latson’s life, and Captain Martin knew about it. Charge: attempted homicide. Disposal: removal of investigating officer, i.e., Captain B. Martin, the honest cop.
Harry Weber took a swallow of his cooling coffee, chewed a doughnut, and told himself it stank: the story, not the food, which was no worse than mediocre.
Dave Corday was merely shaken, not bloody. If he had attempted to injure Jim Latson, he would have had two black eyes and a broken nose, not to mention a few missing teeth.
Harry tried a little more doughnut. It didn’t seem to be brain food.
Hell, this thing was simple. It just took a little falling into place… Jim Latson’s wife, Captain Martin, Dave Corday. A triangle, but not a very conventional one. Say Cap Martin was chasing Mrs. Latson and—
Harry Weber got up and left. He didn’t have enough facts, was his trouble.
The folders he got from the morgue at the paper were thick. Even Mrs. James Latson’s. The lady did not spare herself when it came to charities, both her church’s and the city’s.
But a look at her frequently halftoned picture was enough to tell Harry Weber—or a congenital idiot—that she was not the hypotenuse of any love triangle. No man would throw over a political career for that buxom figure—
Captain Martin’s folder was strictly business. The only clipping that referred to his private life at all was yellow and cracking. Benjamin Martin, sergeant in the detective bureau, had gotten married.
His bride had been a trained nurse. Period.
Corday’s private life was a little better publicized. After all, the machine might want to run him for office sometime. He had made speeches before veterans’ groups, he was a veteran himself. He had spoken to G.I. students’ classes. He was married, and a very nice looking dish she was, to be sure.
He was also divorced, and this was the tiniest of clippings. He had been the plaintiff, and the divorce had been granted and that was about all. Mrs. Corday was a resident of Kansas City, and had not come home to contest the divorce.
It was not local newspaper policy to make much capital out of the marital troubles of people like Corday…
Not very long ago, either, about four months.
Harry Weber went to the employees’ lunchroom for his coffee this time.
Eliminating Mrs. Latson as a love interest, what did he have?
Harry Weber slowly came to the conclusion that he had nothing at all except three unrelated facts: (1) Dave Corday was glad Captain Martin was going to the sticks; (2) Dave Corday had not felt well that morning; (3) Dave Corday had written a letter to the wife of a political associate.
It was all Dave Corday. He needed something more.
There was no use going after Jim Latson. He was too smart; and anyway, he scared Harry Weber. No use sticking the only nose you have into a highly efficient food chopper; the results are predictable.
That left Captain Martin.
Police Headquarters looked much as usual. Chief Latson was lounging on the stairs, cutting up touches with some uniformed sergeants from Traffic; plainclothesmen were coming and going; the usual hangers-on looked their usual genial selves.
Outside the head of Homicide’s office, the patrolman, Jake, was cleaning out his desk.
Harry said, “Oh? Going with the captain?”
“It’s a break for me,” Jake said. “I live out in the Gardens. For the skipper, it’s a long trip from home.”
“I should think he could have any precinct he wanted.”
“Y’know, he don’t always take me into his confidence,” Jake said. “G’wan in.”
But Captain Martin wasn’t alone. A small man was kneeling at his feet, chalk in one hand, tape measure in the other, pins in his mouth. Captain Martin was wearing blue serge trousers, unfinished at the bottom, and a blue serge coat, pinned together where the brass buttons would go.
Harry said, “Back into harness.”
Captain Martin said, “Sure.”
The little man stood up, took the pins out of his mouth, and started putting them in his lapel, one at a time. “That will do it
,” he said. “Like the paper on the wall, Benjy.”
Harry Weber was startled. He had never heard anyone call Captain Martin Ben, much less Benjy. He wondered if anybody had ever called ex-President Hoover Herby. It seemed as probable.
The little man turned to Harry. “You are in the police, too?”
“No. Newspaperman. News-Journal.”
“My concern dresses your publisher. Of course, that I don’t do myself. I have young men for those fittings. But this young man, here; I made his wedding garment.”
Harry had a wild vision of Captain Martin in white lace and tulle. But actually the captain was now in shorts and shirt, changing back to his own trousers. “I’ve known Mr. Coffman here since I was a patrolman.”
Mr. Coffman said, “More than twenty-five years ago. I had a little shop. Alterations, and French weaving. My wife did that, God rest her soul. That nobody should have to do French weaving: what it does to the eyes. You want to hear a story, young man? Such a story as you do not read in the newspapers?”
Captain Martin zipped up his pants, reached for his suit coat, “Now, Mr. Coffman.”
“It doesn’t hurt. Young men should know such things, in these times; it is good for them. We were trying hard to get ahead, my wife and I. Till nine o’clock at the store, ten o’clock, who counts when there is money to be made? Now I have the most expensive tailoring establishment in the city, but the price was my wife’s eyes, they were never good after we got rich; and my stomach, I wouldn’t wish it on anybody.”
Captain Martin said, “Mr. Coffman, Harry Weber here’s a busy man. He hasn’t time for all this.”
“Time,” Mr. Coffman said. “Who has time in these times? Your publisher, now, he buys maybe one suit a year from us, three hundred dollars; the rest of the time he is happy in something ready made. So I was telling you, we worked hard, and we had a son. You know—mama’s got an English flannel to mend, papa must cut this suit down two sizes, go home, a glass of milk from the icebox, a peanut butter sandwich. You understand?”
Harry Weber said, “I think so.”
“And is it any surprise a boy gets into trouble, both old people at the store till all hours? And this young man, this Benjy-Martin was the cop on the beat. So one night we come home from the store, and there is Jules, our Jules.”
Jules Coffman, Harry thought. Jules Coffman? He was the president of the municipal chamber of commerce. He was honorary chairman of half the charity funds in town. He was this little man’s son.
“He had a black eye,” Mr. Coffman said. “Such a black eye you never saw. And such screaming as his mama let out, that you never heard, either.” He chuckled. “A mama with one chick, she can yell. So finally he tells us who does this awful thing. The cop of the beat, Patrolman Martin.”
Captain Martin was suddenly laughing. He sounded like he wasn’t used to it. “She wanted Mr. Coffman to beat me up.”
Mr. Coffman laughed, too, an elflike figure against Captain Martin’s bulk. He was folding the blue uniform, putting it away in an imported leather valise. “That would have hurt you, Benjy. That would really have caused you pain… And then Jules tells us. He and another boy, they tried to hold up a cigar store. They were caught; they were in jail. And this Benjy, the big bum, he paid some damages out of his own pocket, he talked to the cigar store man, got him to drop charges, he talked to the district attorney—”
“The tenth assistant,” Captain Martin said. “Even so, that was big talking for a uniformed patrolman.”
“—and he got our Jules out of that place, took him up an alley, and such a beating he gave him, Jules’s nose isn’t too straight now.” He snapped the valise shut, stood up, carrying it; one of the smallest men Harry had ever talked to. “So I said, Benjy, I said, so long as you are a cop, no one else will make your uniforms.”
He shifted the valise to his left hand, held out the right to Harry Weber. “A pleasure, Mr. Weber. Such stories your paper should print, but I should live so long.”
He went out and Harry heard Jake offering to carry the valise for him.
Harry Weber said, “Been a long time since you needed a uniform.”
“Eight years,” Captain Martin said. “Mr. Coffman looked it up. Eight years.”
“With a friend like Jules Coffman, you don’t have to take a precinct in the sticks. He draws water in this town.”
“It’s my own idea. No decent home life in this job. No decent meals.”
“It’s an idea,” Harry Weber said, “that you got awful sudden.”
“When a tire blows, it doesn’t talk about it in advance. All of a sudden, my health was not so good. I’ve given this department enough; I’m not going to be one of these retired cops who has to walk slowly around the block once a day, and sit in the sun the rest of the time.”
Harry Weber nodded as though Captain Martin had said a profound and weighty thing. “You look fine,” Harry Weber said. “And I’ll tell you who else looks fine, too. Dave Corday. He started looking fine as soon as he heard you were being transferred.”
Captain Martin said, “Good.”
“What did you have on him?” Harry asked. “Before that, he looked like he was about to take the fatal hemlock.”
Captain Martin said, “Come out and see me at the Gardens. I’ll get you a pass at the Zoo.”
“Admission’s free,” Harry said.
Captain Martin said, “Not on Tuesdays. Tuesdays it’s two bits to get in.”
Harry Weber said, “Do we have to talk like this? We sound like two Noel Coward characters from the wrong side of the tracks.”
“You came to see me,” Captain Martin said. “I didn’t send for you.”
“What was wrong with Corday that got better when he heard you were out of Homicide?”
“Ask his doctor,” Captain Martin said. “Or his dentist. Or his psychiatrist. You might even try asking him.”
Harry Weber let his voice out a notch. “You’re mighty cute today. I never saw that in you before.”
“I’m a lovable old man. Come out to the Eleventh Precinct and watch me be lovable. I’ll give you an interview every groundhog day.”
“It’s a long time since I’ve been groundhog editor,” Harry said. “And your man Jake out there seems to think the move’ll be hard on you. Other end of town from your house.”
Captain Martin smiled at him.
Harry Weber said, “You can’t push the News-Journal around this way.”
The Captain’s smile got a little broader.
“Cute,” Harry said. “I never thought I’d see the day. Well, let me guess: you had something on Corday, and when you tried to use it, they threw you out of Headquarters, put you out to grass. Right?”
The smile got wider.
“At least you haven’t said it was wrong. Let’s see. You’re Homicide, or were, but Dave Corday hasn’t got guts enough to commit a homicide, so it isn’t that. Whom did he take a bribe from?”
“Don’t end sentences with prepositions,” the Captain told him.
Jake looked startled when Harry Weber slammed the office door.
Chapter 21
IT WAS A QUIET WEEKEND. There was a downtown fire just as the big movie houses let out, and Traffic Two had a little trouble keeping a boulevard open for the fire department.
Homicide had a gas call, which Captain Martin let one of his sergeants handle; it turned out to be unmistakable suicide.
Captain Martin and his pleasant brother-in-law, their wives in the back seat, drove around the Garden Precinct. They visited both the Zoo and Botanical Gardens, and Captain Martin began to think that he might enjoy his new life.
Ralph Guild worked as a counterman in a downtown cafeteria. The union had gotten him another job as a waiter, but he was deep in the hole from the loss of time in jail, and planned to work two shifts to get out of it. He had had to borrow to pay a bailsman, too.
Dave Corday tried one of the new tranquilizing pills, and found it more of a help than a cure. But,
he assured himself, they weren’t habit-forming. If he wanted to go in for barbiturates, he could be as steady-nerved as—He broke the thought and washed down another tranquilizer with a highball.
He fell into a shallow sleep from which terrifying nightmares woke him several times during the night. But he never could remember what the dream had been about…
Jim Latson had a social obligation to perform Saturday night. The capital city chief of police was visiting him; and if there was one thing Jim understood, it was what a visiting chief of police expected in the way of entertainment.
He rented an apartment on the roof of the Belmont, filled it with snitzels and liquor and food, and he and the visiting chief and a few choice and durable cronies had at it.
Everybody had a wonderful time—except the host. Suddenly, at two in the morning, Jim Latson lost his taste for endless highballs, and for the inevitable flattery of any of the call girls he deigned to notice. He had never before wondered what they really thought of him. It didn’t matter; they were paid, weren’t they?
But now—I’m over fifty, he told himself. I’m still thin to my friends, but I’m probably just scrawny to these chicks, these snitzels, these whores.
His mind twisted down into a mood of black, furious despair. Silently he called the girls he had hired all the synonyms for prostitute he had ever heard; called the men every variety of mug he knew.
It didn’t do any good.
He had never kidded himself; there was no percentage in starting now. It was himself he hated, not his associates. He was not acting his age, and he despised himself for it.
He could hardly leave a party where he was host, but tomorrow night, he’d stay in his apartment, read a book, look at television.
Jim Latson remembered that he had to write to the Hotel Plaza in New York for his bank books. He’d do that tomorrow night.
One of the girls settled on his bony knees, and, absent-mindedly, he began removing her clothes, hardly hearing her giggles. Too bad he had had to remove Marty. Fink could be handled, but he would need help if anything very complicated came up in Homicide. Unsolved murders did nobody any good.
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