Badge of Evil (22 page)

“Now hold on,” said Adair. He took Holt by the elbow and guided him to a nook across the hall. “I hope you don’t think that I’m being motivated by any personal grudge. I’m going to have to announce your dismissal, Mitch, but it’s for the good of the office. You must see that, especially after this new development.”

“Oh, I see a lot of things.”

“I must say that this” — Adair nodded at the newspaper — ”comes as a great shock to me. I know Connie, and like her immensely. It’s the last thing in the world that I would have pictured happening. I’m truly sorry.”

“Why should you be sorry?” Holt asked sardonically. “It’s a perfect frame — pardon me, a perfect case. Connie makes frequent trips across the border, that’s easily proved. And her folks’ ranch down at Ensenada — that’s where the marijuana is raised, of course. Connie has undoubtedly been a narcotics runner for some time and made the mistake of getting hooked on her own product. On top of everything else, she’s of Mexican descent. You can make a lot out of that because, as every American jury knows, it’s the foreign-born that cause all our crime and vice. Why, it’s open and shut, Adair, any clown in the office can win this one for you.”

His cold sarcasm made Adair writhe. “Mitch, I know you’re upset, but get hold of yourself, son. I’ve never heard you talk like this — ”

“You don’t know how upset I am. And I’m going to do a lot more than talk from now on. Pass the word, if you care to.” He turned without a farewell and went down the stairs, not waiting for the elevator. At the bend of the staircase, he saw Adair still standing in the hall, staring after him.

“Big talk,” Holt muttered to himself scornfully. “But what are you going to do, bright boy?” He didn’t have any answer to that. Van Dusen had been his one small hope and the investigator had apparently decided not to stick his neck out for Mitchell Holt.

Yet when he returned to the parking lot to reclaim his car, there was a piece of paper stuck under the windshield wiper. Holt read the note and felt a small glow kindle inside him.

The note was short. It read : “Look in your trunk.” It was signed, A Sucker.

Holt looked. The portable transmitter with its tape recorder was there.

H
OLT
drove fast. He had a fancy that he could blow the doubts out of his head if he kept moving fast enough. His doubts were not about his case but about his ability to see it through. He was up against an unknown quantity and he knew he was running a terrible risk.

Take the big chance, he kept advising himself. It doesn’t matter how big the chance is when it’s your only one.

The woman clerk at police headquarters thought he had come about the pistol permit and she was full of excuses why it was not ready. Holt scarcely heard them. Since he no longer possessed the gun, the permit was of little consequence now. He had come to see Quinlan. But the sergeant had phoned in earlier to say that he was sick and would not come to work today.

“It might be the flu,” the woman said. “There’s a lot of it going around.”

Holt agreed and kept his doubts to himself. He imagined that Quinlan’s illness was of a diplomatic nature. He secured Quinlan’s home address and drove there, willing to risk infection if necessary.

Quinlan lived in a court bungalow. The cottages, six of them clustered together on a lot that would ordinarily hold one normal-sized dwelling, were middle-aged and of a stucco-and-tile architecture that had been popular in Southern California thirty years before. There was an air of middle-class gentility about them, worn like an armour to withstand the ravages of time.

The cottage Holt sought was at the rear, backed up against the alley. There was a faded card tacked above the metal mailbox that read, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Quinlan. It was out of date now, since Holt knew that Quinlan was a widower. But Quinlan had not bothered to change it, or he had preferred not to. Holt rang the bell. At first he heard no answer but when he rang again, Quinlan’s voice bade him enter. Holt did so.

The living room was comfortably but not expensively furnished, and untidy in the manner one might expect from a man living alone. It was separated from the sleeping quarters by an archway which had once held French doors but these had been removed. Quinlan sat on the edge of the double-bed, still wearing pyjamas. His injured leg stuck out stiffly at a forty-five degree angle to the carpet and his cane leaned against the night-stand. It was a new cane, Holt noticed.

The two men regarded each other for a moment in silence and then Quinlan growled, “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Looking for you. I was told you’re sick.”

“It’s my leg. It acts up sometimes.” Quinlan didn’t invite him to sit down. “Well, you’ve found me. So speak your piece and get out.”

“I wanted to make sure you’d seen the morning paper,” said Holt. He walked forward to the foot of the bed and cast the
Sentinel
, face up, on to the covers.

Quinlan gave the front page the briefest of glances. “I already saw it,” he said, nodding at the wastebasket. Another copy of the
Sentinel
lay there, badly crumpled. “So what?”

“Nice work,” said Holt. “Very professional. The master’s touch.”

“What am I supposed to do? Cry?”

Holt didn’t reply. Instead, he walked over to the dresser. Three framed photographs stood on top of it, amid a welter of Quinlan’s personal effects. One was of a pleasant-faced middle-aged woman, apparently the dead wife. The other two pictures were newer, a youth in a navy uniform and a young woman holding a small child. “This your family, Quinlan?”

“What about it?”

“My wife’s about the same age as this girl here, your daughter. They’re probably alike a lot. I’ve got a picture of my wife, too, Quinlan. Everybody in town has now. It shows her being taken to jail, undressed.”

Quinlan shrugged uncomfortably. “Too bad.”

“That’s where she is now, in jail. Connie’s never been in jail before, Quinlan. It’s quite a shock for her. But you met her the other night. You know a little of what she’s like.” Quinlan said angrily, “What do you come crying to me for, anyway?”

“I just want to ask you one question.” Holt held up the newspaper. “Do you believe this story?”

“I don’t know a damn thing about it,” Quinlan said.

“You ought to recognize McCoy’s work when you see it. You’ve been his partner for thirty years.”

“Now, look here,” snapped Quinlan. “I’m not sitting here and listening to a bunch of lies about Mac.” He half rose from the bed, his hand reaching out automatically for his cane.

“This is the lie,” said Holt evenly, tapping the newspaper. “And you’ve got to face it, Quinlan. You can throw away your paper and you can stay in bed for the rest of your life, but the lie is still there and you know it.”

“I don’t know any such thing. Now beat it.”

“How long are you going to keep on playing McCoy’s stooge? Isn’t thirty years long enough?”

“I didn’t have anything to do with what happened to your wife!” Quinlan was nearly shouting.

“I know you didn’t — just like you didn’t have anything to do with planting the dynamite at Shayon’s apartment and all the other phoney deals McCoy has pulled. You’ve been too dumb to know what was going on, Quinlan, and that’s the truth of it.”

“Where do you get off, coming in here accusing me?” Quinlan yelled. “If this leg wasn’t bothering me, I’d — ”

“Is it really your leg that’s bothering you — or something else?” Holt countered, meeting Quinlan’s furious eyes. “Isn’t what’s bothering you that you’ve finally tumbled to what’s been going on all these years?”

Quinlan’s gaze was the first to waver. He muttered, “You’re out of your head. Why should I believe anything you’ve got to say?”

“Yeah, why should you? McCoy’s been your little tin god and it’s easier for you to leave it that way. I admire your loyalty. It’s just too bad that McCoy doesn’t feel the same way about you.”

Quinlan’s head snapped up. “What are you talking about?”

“Let me ask you something. On the week end that Farnum changed his story about the dynamite, both you and McCoy talked to him. Separately. That seems strange to me, you being such close partners and all.”

“We were going to see him together, only — ” Quinlan stopped.

“Only McCoy didn’t show up.”

“He got delayed, that’s all.”

“Sure, he did. So you saw Farnum alone and McCoy came in later. That way McCoy could brainwash Farnum without any witnesses — and just in case anything went wrong you were set up to be the patsy.”

“You can’t prove that.”

“I can’t prove that Connie was framed, either. But I know she was. And you know she was. Wake up, Quinlan. McCoy’s carried you around for years like a spare tyre in case he needed an out. That’s all you’ve ever been to McCoy.”

Quinlan’s gaze dropped slowly to his bullet-shattered leg. “I don’t believe it,” he said huskily. “Mac’s my friend.”

“Where was your friend last night? With you, telling you that there was nothing to worry about?” Holt saw by Quinlan’s expression that he had struck home. “You don’t need to tell me because I know where McCoy was. He was at the Frontier Hotel on Fathom Street, setting up the frame. He didn’t need you for that or anything else now, except maybe to take the bumps if nothing else’ll save his skin.”

“I called the ranch,” Quinlan murmured, almost to himself. “He wasn’t there. It doesn’t prove anything, though.”

“You still want proof?” Holt demanded. “All right, I know where the proof is. It’s my gun. You saw it yourself. Connie took it with her last night but it wasn’t among her things when the cops found her. That means McCoy took it. I don’t know what he intends to do with it. He probably figures it as his ace in the hole in case another frame is needed. But it works the other way, too. That gun is also my ace in the hole.”

“I don’t follow you,” Quinlan said slowly.

“If McCoy has my gun, it’s concrete proof that he staged last night’s frameup. If he did that, then he’s also guilty of everything else. What are you going to do about it, Quinlan?”

“Why should I do anything about it?”

“You’re a cop,” said Holt. “I think you’re an honest cop. You took an oath and you wear a badge. I know you hate my guts but that doesn’t matter — if the badge means anything to you. I challenge you, as a cop, to investigate what I’ve told you.”

“Don’t give me that crap about duty,” Quinlan sneered “I was doing my job when you were still in diapers. You’re just trying to save your neck, Holt.”

“And you’re just trying to duck the issue. Why, Quinlan? What are you afraid of — that I might be right?”

“I’m not afraid of anything,” Quinlan said hoarsely. “I just don’t believe you. You hear me? I just don’t believe you.”

“Yell as loud as you like,” Holt told him, his voice equally intense. “It doesn’t convince me because it doesn’t convince you. That’s why you’re hiding here in bed. You’d rather pretend to yourself that it’s your leg that’s crippled when all the time it’s your guts instead.”

Quinlan made an inarticulate growling sound, but whether it signified despair or only rage Holt couldn’t be sure. They stared at each other across the rumpled blankets and each of them was panting slightly, as if they had been engaged in violent physical exertion. Finally, Quinlan whispered, “Shut up,” although it had been several moments since Holt had spoken. “I got to think.”

Holt turned and went into the tiny living room. He sat down in an easy chair and didn’t look at Quinlan. He felt drained of emotion, his mind entertaining neither hope nor hopelessness. He had said it all, everything he had come to say, and now there was nothing more he could do. The decision was no longer his. It belonged to Quinlan.

He sat there a long time, hardly thinking of anything except how tired he was. On the boulevard outside, buses rumbled past and somewhere close by a power lawn mower whirred. But inside the bungalow there was only silence. Once he thought he heard Quinlan mutter, “Thirty years,” like a requiem, but that was all.

Perhaps he dozed because he didn’t hear Quinlan leave his bed. But he suddenly became aware that the sergeant was standing beside his chair. Quinlan had put aside his pyjamas; he wore his working clothes. Quinlan wasn’t looking at him. Instead, he was staring out the window where the afternoon shadows were lengthening across the grass.

“Getting late,” Quinlan murmured. “But maybe not too late. What do you want me to do, Holt?”

Holt rose slowly to face him. “I think you know.”

“Yeah.” Quinlan sighed. “I guess I do.”

“You’ve got to ask McCoy for the truth. You’re the only man in the world he might tell it to.”

“I
FEEL
like Dick Tracy,” grumbled Quinlan. “Never had a bit of use for all this crummy machinery, anyhow.”

“You can put down your arms now,” Holt told him. Despite the sergeant’s complaints, the short-range broadcasting equipment he carried was surprisingly compact. There was a microphone the size of a half-dollar pinned behind his necktie, and tiny wires under his shirt that were connected to a pair of batteries in his hip pocket. Nothing more, but he was a walking transmitter. Holt surveyed him critically. “Well, the batteries bulge a little but your coat-tail should hide that. Be sure to keep your coat buttoned and don’t fold your arms or you’ll deaden the mike.”

Quinlan grunted agreement and got back into his car. Holt got in, too, but into the rear seat where the bulkier receiving set and tape recorder were set up. He doubled his long legs under him and tried to find a comfortable sitting position on the car floor while Quinlan started the engine. They had halted less than a mile from McCoy’s turkey ranch to make final preparations. It had been a long drive from the city to Whiteside, neither man talking very much, conscious that tonight marked some sort of a turning point in each of their lives, for better or for worse.

Night had fallen, a dark moonless night that in the country achieved a blackness that was unknown in the city. Holt, sitting in the small cavern between the two car seats, thought it fittingly funereal. Someone’s aspirations, reputation and career were going to be buried tonight. A strange kind of funeral, he thought, when you don’t know whether you’re going to be the corpse or the mortician.