“Drekker’s been raising cain with me, so I’m going to pass it on, Dave,” he said. “What the hell were you bothering Tom Deery’s wife about?”
Bannion was undisturbed by Wilks’ hard face, the stern, accusing glare. He was interested that Mrs. Deery had made some sort of complaint, and more interested that the Department was taking it so gravely. “It was just a routine matter, Lieutenant,” he said.
“Well, it struck me as a pointless piece of work,” Wilks said, snapping the words out sharply. “Where the hell’s your judgement, Dave?”
Bannion shifted slightly in his chair. “You’d better listen a bit now,” he said. He felt anger surging up in him, pounding for release. This had always been his cross, a violent, hair-trigger temper that tore the control away from his judgement and reason. He fought it down now, as he had fought it for years. Bannion permitted himself no excesses of anger; he refused to pander to his buried need for violence, for unmotivated destruction. Bannion was known as a kind man, a gentle man, but only he knew the effort it cost him to play that role.
Wilks frowned at his tone. He reacted in one of two ways to insubordination; either he blew his top, toweringly, majestically, or else he accepted the challenge as directed against the Department instead of himself, and adopted a winning, they’re-all-a-bunch-of-asses manner. He chose the latter course now.
“Hell, you know how Drekker is, Dave,” he said, relaxing slightly and smiling. “Fine House Sergeant material wasted as an Assistant Superintendent, I’ve always thought. Anyway, he’s in a stew about this matter, so let’s calm him down. Peace in the family, eh Dave? Now, what’s the story?”
Bannion told him about Lucy Carroway, of her story on Tom Deery, and the fact that she had quit her job at the Triangle. When he finished, Wilks shrugged and raised his eyebrows. “Well, I’ll be damned if I can see what the fuss is about,” he said. “You checked this Carroway girl’s story with Mrs. Deery, which was certainly your job. Now the girl has packed up and gone, and that would seem to end the matter. Right?”
“It seems that way,” Bannion said. “I do think it’s strange that she cleared out, though.”
“Why? These B-girls are a migratory crop, you know. Another thing, she might have got scared after talking to you, and lit out. Maybe she thought of causing trouble and then lost her nerve. As for her story about Deery’s health, it’s her word against the wife’s. And I’d take the wife’s word on it, particularly since there was no funny angle about the suicide.”
“Mrs. Deery must have squawked pretty loudly,” Bannion said. “What was her pitch, by the way? When I talked to her, she was very cooperative, very willing to help. I wonder what changed her mind?”
“No, Drekker said she was pleasant enough,” Wilks said. “Don’t blame her for this. It’s Drekker, that’s my guess. She was just curious about it, and called him. Well, you know how he is. Thinks all cop’s widows should be beatified on the notification of their husband’s death. And it annoyed him to think we were bothering her.” Wilks paused, and then smiled. “I’ll calm him down, don’t worry. But don’t bother her any more.”
Bannion wasn’t sure about Wilks. Most cops were honest, of course; Wilks probably was, on a form bet. The big boys didn’t have to buy up every cop in the city. A half dozen crooked cops, strategically placed, could nullify the work of a thousand honest ones. Maybe Wilks was in that unholy little group. Bannion wasn’t sure; but he disliked men who had to give certain orders obliquely, and with a smile. Wilks was still smiling at him now, and his words hung in the air. “Don’t bother her, Dave!” This was an order, of course. Was it just Drekker’s tender sensibilities at work? An insignificant little man had shot himself, but because he was a cop, his wife mustn’t be bothered by the normalities of a police investigation. That hardly made sense. To a schoolboy it might, but it didn’t to Bannion. “Don’t bother her, Dave!” That was pressure. Where was it coming from? The big boys. You heard their names, you nodded to them on the street, and they had a police department, a whole city, in their hands. When they tightened the grip you could feel it.
“Okay, I won’t bother her,” Bannion said, at last.
“Fine,” Wilks said, still smiling.
Outside he sat at his desk, ignoring the chatter in the room, staring out the dark window at the winking glare of Market Street. Finally he rolled a sheet of paper into his typewriter and wrote out a detailed description of Lucy Carroway. He read it over twice, frowning. It was okay, but he hesitated. At last he shrugged, walked over and handed it to Katz. “Take this up to Radio and tell him to put out a three-state alarm for her,” he said.
“Okay,” Katz said.
Bannion watched him leave the room, and then he sat down at his desk and stared out the window. He was sticking his neck out, of course; but so had Lucy Carroway...
He took time off the next day to make inquiries about a man with a big nose, dark complexion, black or brown hair, who might wear a camel’s hair coat. The record room was no help; the description was too general. No one in the rackets detail knew the man, and he drew a blank at the detective districts scattered about the city. A numbers writer at Broad and Market looked startled and told him it sounded like his brother, who, he seemed relieved to add, was in Korea with the army. The only lead came from a plainclothes cop on the vice squad. “Could be a guy named Burrows, Biggie Burrows,” the cop said. “Sounds like him, but your description is pretty vague. Anyway, Burrows is a Detroiter, came to work here for Stone just a few weeks ago. That’s the talk. I don’t know Burrows, just heard a few things.”
“Burrows, eh? Well, thanks,” Bannion said. He went back to the office, found things quiet, and went upstairs again to the record room. There was nothing on Biggie Burrows. Bannion told the sergeant to wire Detroit for their file on the man.
He checked Radio and drew another blank.
The three-state alarm on Lucy Carroway hadn’t turned up a thing...
It was a quiet night. Bannion smoked and let his thoughts turn slowly, idly, in any direction they chose.
Biggie Burrows, in town for Stone. Stone was one of the big boys. The biggest in West. He could put on pressure. When Stone closed his hand, you felt it.
Carmody and Burke were arguing about politics.
“You got two parties, call ’em the Ins and the Outs,” Burke was saying as he paced the floor, an unusually serious expression on his long face. “The Ins have been in ever since we can remember. Everything is going their way. They account to nobody. That’s how you get lousy government, bad schools, and hoodlums into a city. The politicians forget the city belongs to the people, and treat it like their own little cupcake.”
“You think them Outs would do any better?” Carmody said.
“You damn right I do,” Burke said. “Not that they’re better men in themselves, but a new broom does you know what. They’d come in, sweep out the drones, and chase the hoodlums under cover. In time they’d relax, of course, get just as bad as the old Ins. Then it’s time to throw them out. That way you avoid these cosy, long-term contracts between the politicians and the hoodlums.”
Bannion listened to them in spite of himself, in spite of Lucy Carroway and Biggie Burrows.
“Well, we’ll see,” Carmody said. “Elections are next month. We’ll see what the people say about those Outs of yours.”