If he was listening to anything in those moments, however, it was to his own conscience. The vague white blur of faces pressed against those distant bars — they were there because he had put them in durance vile to wait trial for their crimes, or because they had been picked up by police and were waiting disposition of their cases by the Grand Jury at which he would make presentments against them. Yet, save for the capricious spin of the wheel of fortune, there, but for the grace of God, would he be prisoner, too — instead of public prosecutor.
That curious concentration an incongruous fixity of expression on features changeable enough to be described by one reporter for the Enterprise as that of a scholar, a professor, perhaps or a doctor — and, on the same day, by a cameraman for the Record as the rocky-hard face of a commando, the grim-lipped mask of the relentless fighter, came from Tony Quinn’s fierce fixity of purpose. “Get tough with the top shots of the underworld, go easy on the minor criminals.” Sometimes, for public consumption, he put it another way — “Bear down on the big boys and you won’t have so many of the little crooks to worry about.”
In effect, he’d been elected on that platform, and he meant to carry it out, no matter how rugged the going. It was bad enough already after three months in office, and there were plenty of signs it was going to get rougher.
The upper layer of criminal scum — the men he’d promised to drive out of town or into jail — were still doing business. They still had the main wheels in the Police Department running their way. And the judges of the lower courts. Behind them, looming ominously, the powers who ruled his own political party.
They had wanted him in office, oh yes. They’d worked to elect him, certainly. They’d had to — or lose control of the town, after the mucky disclosures about his predecessor as district attorney. Now he was in, and since he’d had to help their man land in the mayor’s chair, they hoped he’d be reasonable enough to forget the promises he’d made to the voters. Tall talk was all right, before election. But nobody seriously expected a candidate to live up to what he’d said.
The shadowy figures behind the throne had intimated as much, gently at first, but now pouring on the pressure. Tony had been obstinate. He meant to keep his word to the letter. They had told him in no uncertain terms that he’d better not try it, if he wanted to keep Mrs. Quinn’s youngest son above ground.
So now it was war, without an official declaration, of course. They’d get something on him, something sufficient to discredit him completely, so he’d be a good boy. That failing, they’d just plain get him. And make it look as if it was the work of one of those upper-bracket racketeers he meant to clean out.
The wise heads in the horse parlors and the poolrooms where the numbers runners took in the slips were already giving six, two and even he wouldn’t last out the month. Except for one thing. Tony Quinn would have been inclined to agree with them.
Quinn swung his chair around, glancing with sardonic amusement at the ceiling-high bookshelves where his regiments of fat brown law books were marshaled in such impressive dignity. Time had been — and not too long ago — when he had been accused of breaking half the laws in those pudgy tomes. Not all the accusations had been accurate or honestly inspired, to be sure. Some had originated in the desire of certain criminals to foist off their own misdeeds on a will-o’-the-wisp character the sensational press had liked to refer to as The Black Bat.
Yet there had been some justification for the claim that this night-flitting creature had gone well beyond the limits of legality on numerous occasions. His infractions of the statutes had — so the legend went — always been to the disadvantage of the criminal element. The thefts, burglaries, assaults, even kidnapings, might have been engineered by a man who believed that sometimes the Crirninal-Higher-Up, secure in his own certainty he is beyond the reach of the law, can only be reached by going outside the law.
He smiled, a hard, wry smile. The legendary character was dead now. Dead and buried, except in the memory of a few who suspected the creature had been Tony Quinn’s alter ego. No one had ever proved that. Three there were who knew it, but those three would as soon have their eyes gouged out as admit it, now that Tony was in such a position of authority.
A ruby bead glowed on a small mahogany panel. He touched a button. “Yes?”
Silk Kirby’s voice said, “May I see you a moment, Mr. Quinn?”
“Sure.”
The heavy walnut door swung open quietly. The tall, thin, pale man who padded in softly on the thick carpet was egg-bald, deprecating in manner as a movie butler, sharp-eyed as a fox. He was one of the three who knew Tony’s past. A former suave confidence man, with occasional fliers as a pickpocket, he was now Tony’s official chauffeur and unofficial secretary. He came toward the desk holding out a buff-colored memorandum slip.
Tony didn’t look at it. “Young and pretty, isn’t she?” His voice was low.
Silk wheeled to glance at the open door behind him. No one was visible in the outer office. He craned his neck to peer at Quinn.
“I guess she must’ve been walking around on that linoleum out there. High-heeled shoes, huh? I know that spell of doing without your eyes made your ears sensitive as hell. Hut damned if I heard her.”
“She wasn’t walking around,” Tony said softly. “But the catch of a girl’s handbag makes quite a click when it opens. And one of those powder compacts has a fairly distinctive ‘snap’, too. I just heard both in the proper sequence to indicate some female was opening her bag to look in her mirror. If she were sixty — or homely — she probably wouldn’t care enough about the impression she might make, to do that.”
Silk stared in something approaching awe. “I bet you could tell which card a guy drew out of a deck by the noise the spots made rubbing against the card below it!”
“I’ve known gamblers who could.” Tony grinned. “Who is she?”
Silk put the slip on the desk. “A Mrs. Mona Prosser. From Buffalo. She’s got plenty of that old pizzazz, since you ask me.”
“What’s her trouble?”
“She wants to speak to you about that body they fished out of Saylor’s Creek yesterday. At the morgue they told her she’d have to see you.”
“Oh?” The look of intentness came into Tony’s eyes once more. “She thinks it might be someone she could identify?”
“Yes, sir. Her husband. You know.”
“Coley Prosser? The dog track duke? Well?”
Silk bent closer. “She doesn’t seem to be very unhappy about it, sir.”
“Bring her in,” Quinn said.
He bowed her to the chair beside his desk.
Pretty wasn’t an adequate description for her, he realized. The heart-shaped face; the wide, dark eyes beneath slightly slanting brows; the glossy chestnut hair; the pertly uptilted nose; the generous mouth — these added up to genuine beauty. Yet he was puzzled, as Silk had been. She should have been “Beauty in Distress,” but clearly she wasn’t. She was simply angry.
He went straight to the point. “You think the remains recovered here yesterday might be those of your husband, Mrs. Prosser?”
She surprised him by retorting, “No, I don’t. But I want to make sure. Because there are people who’d like to think that was Coley’s body.”
“The inference is that your husband is one of those people. You have some reason to believe he might want to — temporarily disappear?”