Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (21 page)

‘All right, then. I’ll keep it for you temporarily. I don’t want to be carrying a gun that’s killed somebody. This is no goddamn hick town. We got a ballistics department here.’

‘Screw the ballistics department here,’ I said.

He glared at me and went out.

In the corridor, he stopped just beyond the glass door marked: MEN, and said softly, ‘You’re through with that strong-arm stuff. I’ll get you a permit to carry this thing and then you’ll be in no danger.’

‘That’ll be a novelty,’ I said.

He eyed me flatly. ‘You know what Holiday said about you last night?’

‘I can imagine …’

‘She said you were crazy. And I’m beginning to believe it. Bringing a gun to a place like this …’

‘You forget one thing, Cherokee. When I started out I didn’t know where I was going.’

‘Would it have made any difference?’

‘No.’

‘I thought not,’ he said, and resumed walking.

The entire corridor now, where we were walking, was used for police-department offices:
Administration
,
Traffic
,
Division Motorcycle Detail
,
Department of Personnel
,
Division of Robberies
,
Bureau of Homicides.
Mandon slowed up here, near this door. ‘Is this another test?’ I asked. ‘No. Why? Shaky?’ ‘Not as long’s Inspector Webber’s on the force,’ I said. Without stopping, he opened the door and we went in.

This was a small office, but it was bright and airy and from the ceiling hung a brass chandelier so enormous that its edges almost touched the walls. It didn’t fit in here; it had been left over from some auditorium. There were two clerks, one a civilian, the other in uniform, sitting at desks, facing each other, and there were two desks temporarily vacated. At the counter was a paunchy cop wearing a sergeant’s chevrons on his sleeves. ‘Jesus, me beads! Cherokee Mandon!’ he said.

‘Hi, Truck…’ Mandon said, moving to the counter and shaking hands. ‘I thought you’d be out of that uniform by now, doing gumshoe work.’

‘I thought so too. Every month I ask for a transfer outside and every month I wind up right here. They think us old-timers ain’t up on the new technique.’

‘There’s no technique like a piece of rubber hose and a high colonic,’ Mandon said.

‘Yeah. What brings you out in the heat of the day?’

‘Just passing by. Webber in?’

‘He’s at lunch. Some little something I could do?’

‘Nothing important I’ll drop back.’

The sergeant leaned across the counter. He seemed disappointed that Mandon wouldn’t confide in him.

‘Like you to meet Paul Murphy,’ Mandon said. ‘He’s in my office now. Sergeant Satterfield …’

I took the sergeant’s paw and shook it and he looked me over briefly. Then he said to Mandon: ‘You figgering on retiring?’

‘Eventually, eventually,’ Mandon replied.

‘How do you do, Sergeant Satterfield,’ I said.

The sergeant’s a good man to know,’ Mandon said. ‘He practically runs the bureau. …’

‘I wish to hell I did,’ the sergeant said wistfully. ‘Where you been hiding yourself?’

‘Well, you know…’

‘All your clients turned respectable?’

‘I guess that’s it.’ He turned for the door. ‘I’ll drop back later, Truck. …’

‘Good. Pleased to make your acquaintance, Paul. …’

‘Thank you, Sergeant,’ I said going out with Mandon.

‘Nice old guy,’ Mandon said to me in the hall. ‘Been on the force for forty years. Used to be a bicycle cop …’ We walked on down the corridor towards the entrance. Augie waved to us as we passed the cigar stand, and we waved back … We started down the broad steps to the street and Mandon suddenly touched my arm and stopped. Inspector Webber and Reece were coming up the steps. We moved near the stone balustrade, waiting. Both of them wore blue suits and I noticed that Reece had changed shirts, but that he still used a toothpick; and that there was a neat bandage on the Inspector’s left hand, the one where the palm had been laid open by the phonograph needle.

‘Charlie … Oliver…’ Mandon said in a restrained voice.

They stopped. Reece glanced surreptitiously at the Inspector, who was looking, not at Mandon, but at me. His face was hard and his eyes were narrow.

‘See you a minute, Charlie?’ Mandon asked.

‘Go ahead.’

I smiled, telling myself that right now was the time to take over. I hadn’t forgotten what had happened in the apartment the first time I’d ever seen him, that red twisting tremor in the pit of my stomach, the fear that he was going to kill me; I would never forget I would never let him forget, either. From now on, I’d give the orders. ‘In your office,’ I said.

His jaw squared and he pushed his lower lip out truculently, but he went, by God, he went, without a word, on up the steps, Reece beside him, Mandon and I behind him, with Mandon trying to signal me with his eyes to go slow and I pretending not to see; down the corridor beyond the Homicide Bureau where he stopped at a plain glass door. He unlocked it with a key and stepped aside, letting Mandon and me go in first. ‘Thank you, Inspector,’ I said.

This was his private office. It contained a small kneehole desk, four chairs and a brightly varnished bench. There was a carpet on the floor and four gaudy calendars on the wall, the near-pornographic kind that you find in some garages. The Inspector took off his coat and dropped it on a chair without folding it or hanging it, and put his hat on top of it and went behind the desk. He picked up some papers and looked at them hurriedly, playing the part of a big executive. He put the papers down and pressed the key of his dictograph.

‘Yes, Inspector?’ the dictograph said, and I recognized the voice of Sergeant Satterfield.

‘Anything for me?’

‘You’re wife called. Cherokee Mandon was in. Said he’d be back. That’s all. …’

What? I thought No Commissioner raising hell about the unsolved murder of the old milk-truck driver. No newspapers putting the heat on about a crime wave? No big-wigs yelling for a clean-up? This couldn’t be right. …

The Inspector let the dictograph key close and Reece moved in to stand beside him at the desk. Then the Great Man finally condescended to look at me.

‘I haven’t had a chance to thank you for that envelope you gave Cherokee this morning,’ I said. ‘I appreciate that very much. …’

‘Don’t mention it,’ he said curtly.

‘How’s your hand?’ I asked. ‘I hope you got it treated in time to head off the infection. Those phonograph needles pick up a lot of dirt you know. …’

‘My hand’s all right. What’ve you got on your mind?’

I nodded for Mandon to tell him. ‘I want a gun permit made out in the name of Paul Murphy,’ he said.

‘Who’s Paul Murphy?’

‘He is,’ Mandon said, nodding at me. ‘I thought it’d help if we changed the name.’

‘Damned co-operative of you,’ Webber said. ‘But you know I can’t issue a gun permit. …’

‘Only the Chief of Police can issue a gun permit,’ Reece said.

‘We were hoping that the Inspector would speak to the Chief on our behalf,’ Mandon said.

‘The name is Paul Murphy,’ I said.

‘Well… I’ll speak to him.’ He opened the middle drawer of his desk and took out a printed form. ‘Fill out this application and send it back to me and I’ll see what I can do.’

‘As long as I’m here,’ I said, ‘why don’t I just wait?’

He looked at Reece, who started shredding the toothpick, with his incisors. This was a fascinating trick. I picked up the application blank, swinging the chair around and sitting down at the desk. I lifted the pen from its desk-stand and filled out the blank, using the name, Paul Murphy, and writing the address as Monticello Hotel, but making the personal description part very accurate. When I got to the bottom paragraph with its three blank lines, I stopped. ‘Right here where it asks, “Reason for Requestion Permit,” what do I put?’ I asked.

‘Put the reason you’re requesting a permit,’ Reece said.

‘That’s what I mean,’ I said. ‘There must be all sorts of reasons. Pick one for me.’ Nobody said anything. ‘How about ‘always carry large sums of money?’

‘That ought to do,’ Mandon said.

‘Yes …’ Webber said.

I filled that in and signed the application and handed it to him. ‘I should have made that, Always carry
very
large sums of money. But, then, I suppose that’s understood, isn’t it?’

‘When do you think you’ll begin carrying very large sums of money?’ Webber asked.

‘Soon. I’ll give you plenty of warning,’ I said. ‘Did you say I could wait while you speak to the Chief?’

He grimaced and opened the middle desk drawer again, taking out a long book of blanks and an official City seal, not the big desk kind, but a small one, one you could carry in your pocket. He tore out one of the permits and sat down and started copying on it from the application. Then he stamped it with the seal and handed it to me. I saw that it had previously been signed by the Chief of Police, S. E. Tollgate.

‘Thank the Chief for me,’ I said, folding the permit and putting it in my pocket. ‘I’m sorry to have taken up his time. …’

Mandon had been none to comfortable all through this, and now that it was finished, he made a move to go. ‘I’ll be in touch with you, Charlie,’ he said.

‘Just a minute, Cherokee,’ Webber said. Mandon turned back to him. Webber said to me, ‘You mind waiting outside for him?’

‘Not at all,’ I said.

Reece moved to the door to let me out, standing there, chewing on the splintered toothpick.

‘I see that you still prefer a toothpick to dental floss,’ I said. He glared at me but did not say anything. I went out into the corridor, wandering down to the big window at the end. Looking out the window, I saw police cars coming and going down the ramp, and the traffic in the street and then Mandon called me. I went to him and we started out. As we neared the door marked: MEN, I jerked my head and said, ‘In here …’

Mandon unlocked the door and we went in, all the way in. The place was empty.

‘What’d he want?’ I asked.

‘Nothing …’ Mandon said.

‘Tell me.’

‘It was about another matter entirely. …’

I got sore. ‘I’ve had enough double-talk for one day. First him, now you. What’d he say?’

‘He said you were crazy to come here.’

‘I didn’t come here. You brought me. Did you tell him that?’

‘He said I was crazy to stand for it. He also said for me to be goddamn sure you didn’t fool with anything Federal, banks and things like that that would bring in government agents. ….’

‘That, of course, is ridiculous. We’ll not make the mistakes the others have made.’

‘Not as long as I have anything to say. He insists that the minute we pick something out we tell him all about it before we make a move. That was all.’

‘That was enough,’ I said. ‘Now, give me my gun.’

He gave me the pistol and I put it in my pocket and we went out.

When we got back to Mandon’s office, walking back the same way we had come, those few ugly dirty blocks, Highness, the handsome colored boy, was waiting. He was sitting in a chair in the outer office, outside the railing, reading a sports page, or looking at it. He was neatly dressed, certainly better dressed than anyone else I’d seen for some time, and had his hat in his lap. Mandon saw him as we went in, but neither of them offered any sign of recognition. One of the blondes was absent, the younger one, but the other rose and handed Mandon a slip of note paper. ‘This was all, Mister Mandon,’ she said.

Mandon stopped and looked at the slip of paper and raised his big eyebrows. ‘When did he call?’ he asked.

‘Shortly after you had left. A little before twelve …’

‘Did he leave a message?’

‘Only his name, sir.’

‘Try to get him on the phone. …’

He handed her the note paper and we went into his private office. He was suddenly worried about something. You couldn’t tell this from the way he acted or the way he looked, but I knew he was suddenly worried. I sensed it. I could feel it.

‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.

‘Nothing,’ he said.

‘Was that call from Webber?’

‘No…’

A buzzer sounded and he went to the long slanting desk and took the receiver of an old upright telephone. ‘Hello, Roamer…’ he said. He listened for a moment and said: ‘It’s no bother,’ he said. He listened for a moment and said: ‘No, I haven’t forgotten. Are you going out there today?’ He listened and said: ‘I’ll see you then. Right. At the bar? Right.’ He listened some more and said: ‘That won’t be necessary. I got my boy here. He’ll drive me.’ He hung up and lifted the lid of the desk, taking out a big check book from which he tore two blank checks. He folded them and put them in his money-clip. ‘How’d you like to go to the races?’ he asked.

‘What kind of races?’ I asked, still wondering what he was worried about.

‘Horse races.’

‘I’m told they’re not much fun when you’re broke,’ I said.

‘I’ll stake you to a few bets. …’

‘Thanks just the same. I think I’ll wander around and see what I can scare up.’

He suddenly lowered his eyebrows, gazing at me in severe thought, and then he smiled and his whole face lighted up and he wasn’t worried any more. The process of getting rid of his worry was very visible. I hadn’t any idea what had caused this, but I felt better too. He came to me and put his arm around my shoulders. ‘You scare up nothing until tomorrow,’ he said. ‘You come here first thing in the morning.’

‘But I’m broke,’ I said. ‘I need a few dollars for tonight. I’ll pick a small place where there’s only one guy. I’ll be careful. …’

‘You’ll be careful!’ he said with heavy sarcasm. ‘Christ, with a set-up like this, that’s perfect, you want to jeopardize it for a few lousy dollars! What’re you doing tonight that needs money?’

‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘You just don’t let Holiday trap you on the phone any more. I’m supposed to be with you’

‘So that’s it,’ he said. ‘Didn’t you get enough last night?’

‘I could never get enough of that,’ I said.

‘All right. I’ll stay away from the telephone if you don’t pull anything.’

‘I won’t pull anything. Just don’t talk to Holiday, that’s all.’

He took the money clip out of his pocket and handed me all the currency. ‘Here’s forty dollars. That ought to hold you until tomorrow. Things’ll be different tomorrow.’