Читать книгу Call in the Feds - Gordon Landsborough - Страница 7

CHAPTER THREE

CALL IN THE FEDS!

As they sirened their way out of town. Lanny saw an ambulance pull on to the road just ahead. It beat them to the river road by a hundred yards.

There was a traffic jam just round the bend, with cars being examined by harassed cops and then going awkwardly over rough ground to get around the shattered police car. There was someone wrapped in some coats on the ground by the rear wheel of the wrecked car, and as Lanny got out he saw stretcher-bearers and white-coated interns run across to the fallen patrolman.

Lanny put his men on to clearing the road, to help the two squad men, and went across to speak to the sergeant of the squad car. It was Alec Pedersen, a blond athlete and a pretty square guy in a town of crooked cops.

Lanny said, “Well, sergeant, how is he?”

Pedersen didn’t look happy. He said, “There was a doctor in one of those cars. He says he hasn’t a hope in hell. Don’t reckon he’ll survive the ride back to hospital.”

They watched while the stretcher was skilfully slid under the injured patrolman; then he was lifted and carried gently across to the ambulance. They were having to hurry. There wasn’t much life left.

They got him in and started to shut the doors. The ambulance didn’t move.

Lanny said, “It was Kippax, Ronnie Kippax, wasn’t it?”

Pedersen nodded. “He was quite a good guy,” he epitaphed. Lanny didn’t say anything because he wasn’t so sure. Most of these cops were grafters, he had found; perhaps even Pedersen, on the quiet.

One of the interns came down the ambulance steps. He slipped off his rubber gloves slowly. He wasn’t hurrying at all now. Lanny strode across to him.

The intern said, casually, “You got a murder case on your hands, captain.”

“He died?”

“Just now.”

Lanny wheeled on Pedersen. “Your radio’s still okay?” Pedersen nodded. “Then get through to HQ. Tell them that Patrolman Kippax just died. They’ll know what to do.” Pedersen lingered. “The F.B.I.?”

“Sure. It’s a Federal offence to kill a cop in the United States. It’s now a job for G-men. We can get back to our job of tracking Pretty Boy.”

When Pedersen came back from radioing HQ, Lanny said. “Now, tell me what happened.”

Pedersen took off his hat and wiped the band. Lanny noticed how thin the sergeant was getting on top, though he was still in his early twenties. He said, “We got a radio call from HQ saying Pretty Boy was in town and for us to block the New York road. We were outside Marty’s Tavern, so it only took us half a minute to get here and pull across the road.

“Well, first car that comes along is some old boy who might have been pretty a long time back. Next, a black Pontiac came tooling round the bend. We weren’t ready for what happened. Suddenly it accelerated and drove straight into our car, then went back in reverse. We tried to stop it with a bullet in the tyres, but I guess we weren’t aiming too steady and it just went on. Then someone fired a gun from the back of the car and Kippax went down, screaming his guts out. The car turned, out of range, and went on back into Freshwater.”

He looked at the wrecked car. “We couldn’t do a thing. That wing’s crushed against the tyre and so we couldn’t use the car. And it was a couple of minutes before anyone else drove up. So I got through to HQ and reported the matter.”

“That’s one good thing,” said Lanny. “It didn’t wreck the radio. They’re pretty well trapped, now.”

The police maintenance wagon came screaming up just then, and Lanny went back to his car. Pedersen followed. He seemed to want to talk.

He said, “They won’t get away?”

Lanny shrugged. “I don’t see how. Thanks to Pretty Boy, every road out of town is watched, and so’s the pier, railroad, and airport. And Freshwater’s not such a big place.”

Pedersen stood with one foot on the front tyre. He was still wanting to talk. Lanny didn’t get in yet.

“Any idea who they might be?”

Lanny exploded, “Jesus Christ, what a question! They operate like New York gunnies, but we don’t have them around Freshwater that I know of.” Except Myrtle’s mob, he could have added, but didn’t.

“Maybe they’ve pulled some job in town and were on their way out?”

“Maybe. But we haven’t had word of any big job being pulled in the last hour or so,” returned Lanny. Then he said, exasperated again, “This is a day! Pretty Boy is seen in town, and within minutes someone goes and shoots a cop—a gang of gunnies!”

“You don’t think they’re connected?”

“I don’t. Pretty Boy’s no professional criminal. He’s got the killer lust, and he doesn’t kill prettily, at that. But you don’t get that kind running around with a bunch of hoods. No, this is coincidence, sergeant.”

And then he said, abruptly, “Now tell me what’s on your mind, Pedersen.”

Pedersen took his foot off the tyre, startled by the directness of the order. He was flustered, spoke defensively. “I don’t get you, captain—”

Lanny shoved his face close up to the sergeant’s. He was bigger than Pedersen, broader, dark-haired where the sergeant was blond; more aggressive in his manner...a more intelligent, more dangerous man.

He said, “You’ve been trying to say something for the last five minutes, Pedersen. Why don’t you come out with it? Think you might he talking out of turn?” There was a rasp of unpleasantness in his voice.

Pedersen suddenly looked him squarely in the eyes. “That’s it, captain. I’m goin’ to talk out of turn. Look, when I first started on patrol I used to get things given me. You know, parcels of fruit and meat and groceries, and lifts out to the races. We all get them, don’t we?”

Lanny nodded, his face hard. Pedersen squinted after the departing ambulance and said, “Of course the idea’s to soften us up in case there’s something a little bit wrong at times—if they park their cars where they shouldn’t, you know.”

Lanny got impatient. “Sure, sure, I know all that. And I know that after a time the presents get a bit bigger and you’ve to earn them. Like money from a bookie, or a softener from a ladies’ house, huh?”

Pedersen kept his eyes down the road. He said, “Sure, you know how it is. You don’t know how far you’ve gone until it’s got a bit late to do anything.”

Lanny said, “Now tell me what all this adds up to?” And then he knew he was speaking to an honest cop, even though he had taken softeners.

For Pedersen said, impatiently, “I know what I’ve done, and I’m prepared to take what comes for it. Not that I’ve got in deep. But I keep thinking, and I don’t reckon to a lot of no-goods and politicians running a police force. I’d like to see the place cleaned up. And I reckon you’re the man that can do it, and wants to do it after that Alastair Myrtle business.”

He looked round. No one was near. “I’ll give you a tip, captain. Watch your step. They know you’re dangerous, because you can’t be bought. But these grafters are making too much dough out of Freshwater, and they won’t let a police captain stand in the way. You’ll have to go, captain, and the grape vine says they’ve started moving in on you already.”

Lanny kept watching that fresh, pink face, and Pedersen all the time kept his eyes up the road.

He asked, “How do you know all this? And what do they intend to do?”

Pedersen shrugged. “There are whispers, that’s all. Nothing you can pin anyone down to, but they add up, all the same. Just things some of our no-good cops let fall when someone mentions your name. I guess a whole parcel of Freshwater cops is in Boss Myrtle’s pocket.”

“Yeah,” Lanny growled. “And don’t I know it.”

He was thinking of Alastair Myrtle, Boss Myrtle’s brother. Thinking of what happened less than a week ago.

He’d been cruising in a squad car with Sergeant Aubie Gillis and a couple of patrolmen down town. They’d seen a couple of big cars parked down the Waterway, and Lanny recognized the licence plate of one of them. Boss Myrtle’s own car.

The cars were so big, there was no room to pass, and Lanny had got out to find the drivers. They were in back of Jules Stedmann’s ramshackle old shop—Stedmann the gunsmith who had offered to supply arms to the newly-formed Freshwater Vigilance Committee. And they were beating the daylights out of him.

Jules wasn’t pretty, with his face bruised and puffy and leaking blood out of his nose and corners of his mouth. A couple of Boss Myrtle’s over-fed apes were holding him, while Alastair Myrtle worked on him with a piece of rubber.

He was beating old Jules across the face, and he wore his usual expression of grim good humour. He was a fine-built man, erect and military, with a big, handsome brown face, and a neatly waxed moustache; his clothes were sporty and the best that a New York tailor could supply.

Lanny came out with his gun, and Aubie Gillis and a patrolman who had followed in case someone had to be booked, came out with theirs, too.

Alastair Myrtle looked across with amusement and casually gave old Jules another blow across the ear. Jules sagged as if that last blow had been too much for his powers of resistance.

Lanny rapped, “Do that again. Myrtle, and you won’t use your arm for a month.”

Myrtle for answer threw the hose on to the floor and said, “And you’re not kidding! Okay, I won’t take you up on it. We’ll go now, boys. C’mon.”

He found Lanny behind a gun blocking his way. Jules found strength in his legs again and stood up. He looked a wreck. Alastair looked down at the gun as though there was a joke attached to it. He said, “Now, captain, that doesn’t look friendly.”

Lanny’s voice clipped, “Who says I feel friendly, seeing you beating up an old guy like that? I’m gonna book you, so get moving out to the car.”

Two more apes came in from the workroom that overhung the creek. One was carrying a shotgun with a splintered stock. Lanny thought: So that’s it. They’re wrecking the place. They don’t want an armed Vigilance Committee here in Freshwater.

But Alastair Myrtle didn’t turn a hair. He said, “My lawyer will want to know the charge, so let’s be knowing it now.”

Lanny’s eyes glinted. He’d had truck with Boss Myrtle’s brother before. “I’m booking you on a charge of assault.”

Alastair Myrtle turned with infinite leisure, surveyed old Jules and then looked at his companions. He said, with an air of surprise, “Now, that beats everything. Nobody’s been assaulted here, has there?”

His apes relaxed into confident grins and shuffled with awkward good-humour while they shook their heads. Jules didn’t say anything. Alastair Myrtle spoke to him directly.

“You don’t say anything, Stedmann. But you don’t remember seeing anyone assaulted, do you? Better think carefully before you answer.” The voice was pleasant, but there was a leavening of significance in the tone, and Jules got it first time.

He lifted his head tiredly. “No,” he said. “Nobody ain’t bin beat up that I remember. Ain’t bin no assault, captain....”

He said it even though he could hardly get the words through his bruised mouth, and then he sagged again and passed out.

Lanny said. “Intimidation of a witness, huh? Well, you’re still going through on a charge of assault, Myrtle. Three witnesses saw you beating up this old man—me and my men. We don’t need Stedmann’s corroboration. Now, get moving!”

Alastair Myrtle shrugged resignedly, and without any apparent loss of equanimity he went out to the police car.

An hour later Lanny was summoned to the police chief’s office. The chief, an old man brought up in the school of crooked Tammany politics, announced abruptly, “You’d better withdraw your charge against Alastair Myrtle, captain.”

“Why?” Lanny’s narrowed eyes were hostile.

The chief leaned forward heavily. “Because you might as well. You’ll never make it stick. There’s only your word against half a dozen witnesses who’re saying you’ve been imagining things.”

“Myrtle and his apes?” Then softly, because he knew the answer—“But what about Sergeant Gillis and the patrolmen? They saw as much as I did.”

The chief looked at a lot of things around the room and then suddenly his eyes came back and met his subordinate’s. Harshly he said, “They tell me they never saw a thing. Stedmann says he fell down the stairs and some customers were giving him treatment when you came in. Gillis says all they saw was Stedmann being supported by Myrtle’s men. So your charge wouldn’t stick, captain.”

“I get it.” Lanny rose slowly. He looked very big silhouetted against the wide window that overlooked the bay. He said, “Myrtle—or his brother—have got at my men.”

The chief said, unpleasantly, “Better be careful what you say, captain.”

Lanny put his hands on the desk, and leaned forward so that his hard grey eyes were within inches of his chief’s. His voice had the bite of a hand saw. “Chief, you know it as well as I do. They’ve been got at. And it isn’t the first time Boss Myrtle’s racketeers have twisted the law as they wanted it. This town’s sick of graft and corruption and they won’t stand for much more. They think so little of Freshwater police that they’ve revived the old Vigilance Committee—and those old-timers mean business. Well, I’m with them, and by God, if it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to run the whole stinking mob in!”

He strode across to the door, then paused. When he turned his face was hard. “Maybe you’ll pass that message on to Boss Myrtle,” he said bitingly.

It stung. The chief came leaping out of his chair, glaring.

“By God, captain, I won’t stand for that sort of talk. Are you saying I’m in Myrtle’s pocket?”

It was bluster, and both knew it. Lanny just growled a contemptuous, “You should know,” and went out.

And now Sergeant Pedersen was telling him that the Myrtle Machine was after him—out to remove him because of that threat he had made to his chief.

He got into his car. Pedersen lingered even then. And then, just as he was about to be driven away, Pedersen stooped and said, softly, “Captain, if there’s a jam, count on me. I’m sick to hell of this graft. And there’s a few boys I know you can depend on.”

Lanny’s hard face relaxed into a grim smile. “Thanks, sergeant. That’s something to remember, I guess.”

The radio was talking. They listened. “Captain Just to report immediately back to HQ. Captain Just to withdraw the Vigilance pickets right away.” The message was repeated.

Pedersen gave a tight grin and said, “This is it, captain. Betcha that’s the squeeze starting right away.”

He saluted and walked quickly away. Lanny nodded for the car to start. The radio was talking again.

A Pontiac with shattered windows and a crumpled front had been found down by the pier head. A patrolman had found witnesses who had seen five men get out and walk quickly away. They gave pretty good descriptions, and these came over the air in a general broadcast to all cars.

They were driving back to town as the news came over the air. Lanny at once started giving orders.

All roadblocks should move in on the town, tightening the net. Vigilantes would also move up with the police, he ordered.

His men looked quickly at him when he gave this latter order, but it went out all the same. The driver said, “HQ?”

Lanny said. “No, we’re going into the old town, round the seafront. We’re gonna comb through the dives and doss-houses and see if we can drive these gunnies into the open.” Then he grinned. “I never heard that order, and maybe you’d like to forget you heard it, too.”

The men just looked ahead and said nothing. Lanny thought: It’s hell, not being able to trust your own men.