Nothing changed in McKim’s face. Not a muscle of it moved. Drew dragged a pink and polished fingernail across the front of his throat and made a tearing sound with his tongue and teeth.
«That’s no crack to be makin’ at your boss, lad.»
Delaguerra kept on looking at McKim, waited. McKim spoke slowly, sadly: «You’ve got a good record, Delaguerra. Your grandfather was one of the best sheriffs this county ever had. You’ve blown a lot of dirt on it today. You’re charged with violating game laws, interfering with a Toluca County Officer in the performance of his duty, and resisting arrest. Got anything to say to all that?»
Delaguerra said tonelessly: «Is there a tag out for me?»
McKim shook his head very slowly. «It’s a department charge. There’s no formal complaint. Lack of evidence, I guess.» He smiled dryly, without humor.
Delaguerra said quietly: «In that case I guess you’ll want my badge.»
McKim nodded, silent. Drew said: «You’re a little quick on the trigger. Just a shade fast on the snap-up.»
Delaguerra took his badge out, rubbed it on his sleeve, looked at it, pushed it across the smooth wood of the desk.
«Okey, Chief,» he said very softly. «My blood is Spanish, pure Spanish. Not nigger-Mex and not Yaqui-Mex. My grandfather would have handled a situation like this with fewer words and more powder smoke, but that doesn’t mean I think it’s funny. I’ve been deliberately framed into this spot because I was a close friend of Donegan Marr once. You know and I know that never counted for anything on the job. The Commissioner and his political backers may not feel so sure.»
Drew stood up suddenly. «By God, you’ll not talk like that to me,» he yelped.
Delaguerra smiled slowly. He said nothing, didn’t look towards Drew at all. Drew sat down again, scowling, breathing hard.
After a moment McKim scooped the badge into the middle drawer of his desk and got to his feet.
«You’re suspended for a board, Delaguerra. Keep in touch with me.» He went out of the room quickly, by the inner door, without looking back.
Delaguerra pushed his chair back and straightened his hat on his head. Drew cleared his throat, assumed a conciliatory smile and said: «Maybe I was a little hasty myself. The Irish in me. Have no hard feelings. The lesson you’re learning is something we’ve all had to learn. Might I give you a word of advice?»
Delaguerra stood up, smiled at him, a small dry smile that moved the corners of his mouth and left the rest of his face wooden.
«I know what it is, Commissioner. Lay off the Marr case.»
Drew laughed, good-humored again. «Not exactly. There isn’t any Marr case. Imlay has admitted the shooting through his attorney, claiming self-defense. He’s to surrender in the morning. No, my advice was something else. Go back to Toluca County and tell the warden you’re sorry. I think that’s all that’s needed. You might try it and see.»
Delaguerra moved quietly to the corridor and opened it. Then he looked back with a sudden flashing grin that showed all his white teeth.
«I know a crook when I see one, Commissioner. He’s been paid for his trouble already.»
He went out. Drew watched the door close shut with a faint whoosh, a dry click. His face was stiff with rage. His pink skin had turned a doughy gray. His hand shook furiously, holding the amber holder, and ash fell on the knee of his immaculate knife-edged trousers.
«By God,» he said rigidly, in the silence, «you may be a damn-smooth Spaniard. You may be smooth as plate glass — but you’re a hell of a lot easier to poke a hole through!»
He rose, awkward with anger, brushed the ashes from his trousers carefully and reached a hand out for hat and cane. The manicured fingers of the hand were trembling.
EIGHT
Newton Street, between Third and Fourth, was a block of cheap clothing stores, pawnshops, arcades of slot machines, mean hotels in front of which furtive-eyed men slid words delicately along their cigarettes, without moving their lips. Midway of the block a jutting wooden sign on a canopy said, STOLL’S BILLIARD PARLORS. Steps went down from the sidewalk edge. Delaguerra went down the steps.
It was almost dark in the front of the poolroom. The tables were sheeted, the cues racked in rigid lines. But there was light far at the back, hard white light against which clustered heads and shoulders were silhouetted. There was noise, wrangling, shouting of odds. Delaguerra went towards the light.
Suddenly, as if at a signal, the noise stopped and out of the silence came the sharp click of balls, the dull thud of cue ball against cushion after cushion, the final click of a three-bank carom. Then the noise flared up again.
Delaguerra stopped beside a sheeted table and got a ten-dollar bill from his wallet, got a small gummed label from a pocket in the wallet. He wrote on it: «Where is Joe?» pasted it to the bill, folded the bill in four. He went on to the fringe of the crowd and inched his way through until he was close to the table.
A tall, pale man with an impassive face and neatly parted brown hair was chalking a cue, studying the set-up on the table. He leaned over, bridged with strong white fingers. The betting ring noise dropped like a stone. The tall man made a smooth, effortless three-cushion shot.
A chubby-faced man on a high stool intoned: «Forty for Chill. Eight’s the break.»
The tall man chalked his cue again, looked around idly. His eyes passed over Delaguerra without sign. Delaguerra stepped closer to him, said: «Back yourself, Max? Five-spot against the next shot.»
The tall man nodded. «Take it.»
Delaguerra put the folded bill on the edge of the table. A youth in a striped shirt reached for it. Max Chill blocked him off without seeming to, tucked the bill in a pocket of his vest, said tonelessly: «Five bet,» and bent to make another shot.
It was a clean crisscross at the top of the table, a hairline shot. There was a lot of applause. The tall man handed his cue to his helper in the striped shirt, said: «Time out. I got to go a place.»
He went back through the shadows, through a door marked MEN. Delaguerra lit a cigarette, looked around at the usual Newton Street riffraff. Max Chill’s opponent, another tall, pale, impassive man, stood beside the marker and talked to him without looking at him. Near them, alone and supercilious, a very good-looking Filipino in a smart tan suit was puffing at a chocolate-colored cigarette.
Max Chill came back to the table, reached for his cue, chalked it. He reached a hand into his vest, said lazily: «Owe you five, buddy,» passed a folded bill to Delaguerra.
He made three caroms in a row, almost without stopping. The marker said: «Forty-four for Chill. Twelve’s the break.»
Two men detached themselves from the edge of the crowd, started towards the entrance. Delaguerra fell in behind them, followed them among the sheeted tables to the foot of the steps. He stopped there, unfolded the bill in his hand, read the address scribbled on the label under his question. He crumpled the bill in his hand, started it towards his pocket.
Something hard poked into his back. A twangy voice like a plucked banjo string said: «Help a guy out, huh?»
Delaguerra’s nostrils quivered, got sharp. He looked up the steps at the legs of the two men ahead, at the reflected glare of street lights.
«Okey,» the twangy voice said grimly.
Delaguerra dropped sidewise, twisting in the air. He shot a snakelike arm back. His hand grabbed an ankle as he fell. A swept gun missed his head, cracked the point of his shoulder and sent a dart of pain down his left arm. There was hard, hot breathing. Something without force slammed his straw hat. There was a thin tearing snarl close to him. He rolled, twisted the ankle, tucked a knee under him and lunged up. He was on his feet, catlike, lithe. He threw the ankle away from him, hard.