Blackstone and the New World (5 page)

Or nervous.

Or unsure of what to do or say next.

Or a combination of all of these.

The third thing . . .

‘It is certainly a pleasure to meet you, Inspector,’ Comstock said in a low fussy voice which pushed the third thing Blackstone had been wondering about to the back of his mind.

‘And it’s a pleasure – and an honour – to meet you, too, sir,’ Blackstone countered.

Comstock unconvincingly shuffled some papers about on his desk for a few moments, then said, ‘I take it, Inspector, that there is no doubt at all in your mind that the man who you were sent to New York to identify is the one we are actually holding in our cells.’

‘No doubt at all, sir. As per the instructions
you
gave to your desk sergeant, I spent some time talking to him – even though, for identification purposes, there was no need to.’

He was taking a shot in the dark by assuming that the man who’d rung the sergeant had been the commissioner himself, but the look on Comstock’s face quickly confirmed that the shot had found its target.

‘Yes . . . er . . . as per my instructions. Quite,’ Comstock said. He glanced down, once more, at the pieces of paper on his desk. ‘Did this man Duffy by any chance attempt to
bribe
you?’ he asked, without looking up.

‘Bribe me?’ Blackstone repeated.

‘Bribe you.’

‘Why should you ask that?’

‘Just idle curiosity,’ Comstock said, unconvincingly. ‘After all, it’s not every man who would turn down the chance of earning four thou . . .’

The commissioner clamped his mouth tightly shut, but the damage had already been done.

Duffy had been moved from one cell to another for one specific reason, Blackstone thought. And that reason had been that while there were no hidden microphones in his first cell, there undoubtedly were in his second.

But why should the commissioner have even
wanted
to listen in on the conversation?

Could it be because he had intended to skim off a portion of the bribe for himself?

Possibly.

But, thinking about it, it
did
seem highly unlikely that a police commissioner for New York City – even if he were corrupt – would wish to be become involved in such a thing. For Blackstone himself, four thousand dollars was a great deal of money, but for the commissioner it must seem like very petty graft indeed.

And even if that
were
his intention, he would now know that though a bribe had been offered by Duffy, it had certainly not been accepted by Blackstone.

While these thoughts had been running through Blackstone’s mind, Comstock had clearly been working out how to cover his gaffe.

‘You were planning to sail back to England as soon as possible, weren’t you?’ he asked, apparently having decided that his best course would be to pretend the gaffe had never happened.

Were planning?

‘I still
am
planning to sail as soon as possible, sir,’ Blackstone said emphatically. ‘I’ve got what I came here for, and the sooner my prisoner is hanging at the end of a rope, the happier I’ll be.’

‘Perhaps so,’ Comstock said. ‘Certainly so. The guilty must be punished as speedily as possible. I agree with you on that.’ He paused. ‘And, indeed, passage has been booked for you on the first available ship, which sets sail in four days’ time. But, as regards the other matter I just mentioned . . .’

‘I wasn’t aware you
had
mentioned another matter, sir.’

‘Weren’t you? Then perhaps I didn’t make myself clear. At any rate, during the course of last night, and then again this morning, I exchanged a number of telegrams with Assistant Commissioner Todd on the subject of when you will, in fact, return to England yourself.’

When you don’t know which way a conversation is going, the quickest way to find out is to shut your trap and just listen, Blackstone thought – and then followed his own advice.

‘Yes, Assistant Commissioner Todd,’ Comstock repeated. ‘Even from his telegrams, he struck me as a fine man who I am sure is a credit to his force.’

There were many things Blackstone
could have
said at that moment – but he said nothing.

‘And . . . er . . . between us we have decided that one of my men will be given the task of escorting Duffy back to England instead, and that you, for your part, will remain with us for a while.’

‘What would be the point of that?’ Blackstone asked.

‘I . . . er . . . felt – and your assistant commissioner agreed with me – that this visit of yours presented us with the ideal opportunity to give you the chance to learn how we do things over here, while one of my men would learn how you do things over there.’

It made sense in a way, Blackstone thought, but it still didn’t quite add up – particularly given Todd’s attitude to American policing methods.

‘I see,’ he said, non-committally.

‘And I further thought that the best way for you to profit from the experience would be to work on an actual case that we have pending at the moment – specifically, a murder case, in which field, I’m led to believe by Mr Todd, you yourself are something of an expert.’

‘I’m not sure—’ Blackstone began.

‘Nor is it any
ordinary
murder investigation,’ Comstock interrupted him. ‘The victim, in this case, was Inspector O’Brien, a very bright young man whose promising future was sadly curtailed by an assassin’s bullet.’

Now, finally, a few of the pieces of the puzzle were starting to click into place, Blackstone thought.

The murder of one of its own was a traumatic event for any police force to have to deal with, and that would certainly explain Comstock’s nervousness and hesitation – though it didn’t
quite
yet explain why he himself had been drawn into the process.

‘I’ll be glad to help you in any way I can, sir,’ he said, ‘but I’m sure that the team you already have investigating the case won’t need – and probably wouldn’t appreciate – any guidance from a—’

‘The investigation will be headed by Detective Sergeant Meade, who I believe you have already met,’ Comstock said, interrupting for a second time, ‘and you will serve as his assistant, though, strictly speaking, you outrank him.’

‘A detective sergeant?’ Blackstone repeated incredulously. ‘You’re going to put a mere
detective sergeant
in charge of an investigation into the murder of an inspector?’

‘That is correct.’

‘In London, we would never even consider—’

‘This isn’t London,’ Commissioner Comstock said. ‘This is New York – and we do things differently here.’

He had overstepped the mark, Blackstone realized.

‘Of course, sir,’ he said apologetically. ‘It was not my intention to criticize your procedures.’

‘I’m sure it wasn’t,’ Comstock said generously.

‘How many men are you planning to assign to Sergeant Meade’s team, sir?’ Blackstone asked.

Commissioner Comstock sniffed uneasily. ‘As I thought I’d already made clear to you, Inspector Blackstone, there will be Detective Sergeant Meade, and there will be yourself.’

‘Just the
two
of us?’ Blackstone exclaimed, convinced that he must have somehow misheard.

‘Yes, just the two of you,’ Commissioner Comstock confirmed.

‘Nobody else at all?’

‘Nobody else at all.’

Insane, Blackstone thought. Completely bloody insane!

Sergeant Meade took the astounding news that he was to be placed in charge of a serious investigation – and that Blackstone was to be his one and only assistant – in his stride.

‘The moment I heard that Commissioner Comstock wanted to see you, I knew it had to be connected with the investigation, though I rather thought that
you
would be in charge and
I
would be your assistant,’ he said.

Blackstone took a close look at the other man.

A few hours earlier, when Meade had met him off the boat, the sergeant had seemed as fresh-faced and unsure as a youth at his first dance, as overenthusiastic as a playful puppy let loose in the wool basket. Now the lines on his face had hardened considerably, and there was a crispness to both his words and his bearing which had been entirely missing before.

So what had brought about the sudden change – the virtual metamorphosis – in him, Blackstone wondered.

‘The last time we were together, I still hadn’t heard about Inspector O’Brien’s murder,’ Meade said, reading his mind again.

‘He was your friend, was he?’ Blackstone asked, sympathetically.

‘He was more than my friend – he was my hero!’

‘And you’re really not in the least surprised to have been put in charge of investigating the murder?’ Blackstone asked.

‘No, I’m not.’

‘You don’t think, perhaps, that someone with more experience in that kind of work would have a better chance of bringing your friend’s killer to justice?’ Blackstone asked tactfully.

‘I do not. And if you knew this city like I do, neither would you,’ Meade said, with bitterness in his voice.

‘In that case, I think it’s perhaps time that I
learned
a little bit more about this city,’ Blackstone said.

‘So do I,’ Meade agreed. ‘We’ll talk about it over lunch.’

FIVE

M
eade had decided to take Blackstone to lunch at Delmonico’s Restaurant on Beaver Street.

‘Delmonico’s is the oldest restaurant in New York City,’ the sergeant said, as they approached the place. ‘And some parts of it are older than others. See those marble pillars around the door?’

‘Yes.’

‘They were brought all the way from Pompeii, Italy.’

Blackstone grinned. ‘As you told me earlier, Americans just
love
neoclassical,’ he said.

‘And
real
classical – gen-u-ine classical – is even better,’ Meade said, smiling back.

They entered the restaurant, and Blackstone quickly glanced around the interior. Even from the outside, it had been plain to him that this was not the kind of restaurant he could ever afford to patronize himself, and the splendour he was now confronted with only confirmed the impression.

‘Is the police department paying for this?’ he asked, trying not to sound nervous.

‘No,’ Meade told him. ‘I am.’

They ordered two of Delmonico’s special steaks, which Meade promised were the finest steaks in the world, and when the waiter had left them, the sergeant began his lesson.

‘This city runs on two things,’ he began. ‘Power and money.’

‘That’s what all big cities run on,’ Blackstone said.

‘Maybe they do,’ Meade agreed. ‘But not like here.’ He paused to take a sip of water. ‘I have to start with Tammany Hall, because that’s where everything
does
start.’

‘All right,’ Blackstone said.

‘The Tammany Society was named after Tamanend, who was an Indian chief. It started out as a social organization, but about sixty years ago, it began getting political. The key to its power is its ability not only to get the voters out on polling day, but to get them to vote Democrat.’

‘How do they manage that?’

‘They have a political machine that would take your breath away. They started out by mobilizing the Irish vote – most of the Tammany leaders are Irish – but as there were successive waves of new immigrants – German Jews, Italians, Central Europeans, Russian Jews – they began working with them, too. You have to put yourself in the shoes of those immigrants, Inspector Blackstone . . .’

‘Call me Sam.’

‘And you call me Alex. You have to put yourself in their shoes. They’ve left their homelands behind them, and they’re in a new country where they don’t even speak the language. America is so very different, and they simply don’t understand how things work. So they go to their ward leader, who’s a Tammany man.’

‘And what does he do?’

‘He
makes
things work for them. If they need a pedlar’s licence, he gets them one. If they want to apply for citizenship, he goes through the forms with them. If they want a job, he usually finds them one. If they’re behind on their rent, he pays it. When they can’t afford fuel in winter, he sees to it that some is delivered to them. And all he asks in return is that they vote on a straight Democratic ticket.’

‘Which means that the people from Tammany Hall get elected?’ Blackstone guessed.

‘No, some of them
do
stand for public office, but more often than not, they don’t want to be elected themselves.’

‘Then what
do
they want?’

‘They want to be the people who
choose
the people who
are
elected.’

‘People who will forever be in their debt,’ Blackstone said.

‘Now you’re catching on, Sam,’ Meade said. ‘Tammany controls the people who have their hands on the purse strings of New York City, and it uses that fact to its own advantage. And both because Tammany Hall is corrupt, and because its web stretches everywhere, every public body in the city is corrupt, too.’

‘Including the police,’ Blackstone said, starting to see where Meade was going.

Meade nodded. ‘Six years back, a special committee headed by State Senator Lexow looked into municipal corruption. The report it produced was 10,500 pages long, and 9,500 of those pages were concerned with corruption in the police department. The police commissioner admitted to the committee that eighty-five per cent of the men joining the police were accepted on the recommendation of Tammany Hall, and in the previous five years, he’d only promoted two men based on merit alone.’

Blackstone whistled softly. ‘That’s bad,’ he said.

‘It gets worse,’ Meade told him. ‘What the commissioner didn’t admit – though everybody knew – was that Tammany had to be bribed to make those recommendations. It would cost a man $300 to be accepted as a patrolman. If he wanted to be promoted to sergeant, that would cost him $2,500. A captaincy was anything between $10,000 and $15,000, even though captains only earned $2,750 a year, and if you wanted to be an inspector, that could be anything up to $20,000. And there were always plenty of men willing to pay those bribes – because they knew just how much
they
could make through bribery and extortion once they were in their new positions.’