The Devil's Own Rag Doll (37 page)

“I guess.”

“This is all a little lucky for you, Caudill. The riot took away all the attention you might have been drawing to yourself.”

“I don't worry. I'm not sorry for it.”

“Have you been up on Hastings Street?”

I nodded. “Just forty-three dead, is that right? I heard four hundred where I was.”

“You heard wrong, then,” said Mitchell. “That's how things are, rumors all around.”

“Sherrill?”

“Dead, we guess. We have a body, but we couldn't find anybody to identify him. Wasn't much left of him. He's still on ice at the morgue if you want to have a look.”

“That's all right,” I said. “Rix?”

Mitchell shook his head.

“Where could a big redhead like that go and hide?”

“It doesn't matter. It's all over now. Think of it as a little steam letting off. Just forty-three people lost in a city that will have close to two million when the boys come back. Nothing comes for free, Caudill. You know that.”

“Steam,” I muttered. “That's all.” I kept my hands still on the arms of the chair.

Mitchell leaned over and opened the bottom drawer of his desk. He drew out my gun and slid it over the desktop. It made no sound on the polished surface, and the tip of the barrel turned silently toward me when the forward motion stopped.

“Johnson fished it out and cleaned it up for you. I can get you a new badge if you need one.”

“That's all right,” I said. I thought it over for a moment, squeezing the arms of the chair. “What's all this going to mean for you, Captain?”

Mitchell turned to face me squarely. “In a situation like this,” he said, “if you're left standing, and if you've done well under the pressure, there are rewards. If the mayor, say, has had to lean on you and your expertise in a time of crisis, he won't forget about it. This is the way of all politics. If the mayor or the governor has in mind a higher position for me, then I'll take it if I can. I won't deny it.”

I looked at him. My breath felt heavy and deep, like I was asleep. I said simply, “Walker's a good man.”

Mitchell thought it over for a moment. “I can see what you're saying.”

“He's a good enough man to have a break fall his way,” I said.

“After the dust settles, I'll see what—”

“You'll put him back on the force and clear his record or we'll see what an embarrassment I can be.”

Mitchell sat back and let his posture droop a little. “I never thought that Swope would get—”

“Just cut Walker the break,” I said.

“All right,” said Mitchell. “You've read the papers?”

I nodded. “You can't trust the papers.”

“We're lucky Johnson made it to Lloyd's yacht before anyone else.”

I knew that the papers had explained the deaths on the yacht away. For a moment, I wondered when the public had ever been able to deal with the truth of things. When I was a boy, my mother kept a few chickens about the yard. I remembered stepping out with no thought and twisting the head off a plump one whenever she needed it for supper. We had to eat. But now you could just go down to the Kroger's and pick up whatever you wanted, already cleaned and plucked. The good wives of the city had grown away from dirtying their hands in that fashion. I felt regret that something vital seemed to be passing, and wished I could find the words to make it clear to myself how it was wrong. I guessed that Tommy probably could have.

I stood up and pulled my charred badge case from my pocket. I opened it and rubbed my thumb over the silver shield, rubbed until it felt warm. Then I flipped it through the air toward Mitchell, turned abruptly, and left him to catch it or let it smack him in the chest. As I hit the door, I realized I had forgotten my new hat on the chair, but I kept going, kept walking past the secretaries, who stared openly at me. I went down the steps with my hand sliding over the cool handrail.

When I got to the street, I stood for a moment with my thumbs in my pockets and waited. I felt like standing up straight, felt like sucking in a chest full of air and tasting the exhaust from all the cars in my mouth. I couldn't say how long the money would last or exactly what I'd do next or where I'd be tomorrow, but at least I'd found a way to be simple again.
It's easy,
I thought,
it's easy enough.
Funny how the world is so big that almost nobody will miss you if you drop off the face of it. Things keep going, they always do.

There was only one more stop to make before I could get on with living, and I didn't know how it would turn out. Eileen had not heard anything from me since it all had happened, and I could imagine that she had been cut up pretty bad with worry. There was always the chance, I thought, that Alex might have found his way home after seeing what a place the world can be. But I was not optimistic, even though I now found myself alive and almost rid of all the dirty connections. If I could not return her boy to her, at least I could show her that I was still alive and that I was not afraid to give things a try—if she could still bear to have me.

There was no worry. It was as if I had indeed become someone else. I could have hailed a cab or jumped onto the streetcar running up Macomb, but I just started walking, stepping lightly where my feet wanted me to go, through the only city I knew.

THE DEVIL'S OWN RAG DOLL.
Copyright © 2005 by Mitchell Bartoy. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Bartoy, Mitchell.

The devil's own rag doll / Mitchell Bartoy.—1st ed.

p. cm.

ISBN 0-312-34088-5

EAN 978-0-312-34088-9

1. Young women—Crimes against—Fiction. 2. Police—Michigan—Detroit—Fiction. 3. Inheritance and succession—Fiction. 4. Interracial dating—Fiction. 5. Detroit (Mich.)—Fiction. 6. Race relations—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3602.A843D48 2005

813'.6—dc22

2005046076

First Edition: October 2005

eISBN 9781466839564

First eBook edition: February 2013