Blackstone and the New World (15 page)

And as he looked across his desk at the two men standing before him, he seemed to be very, very angry indeed.

‘Who the hell is this guy, Sergeant Meade?’ Connolly demanded, pointing at Blackstone.

‘He’s Inspector Samuel Blackstone of New Scotland Yard, London, England, sir.’

‘Inspector Samuel Blackstone!’ the chief of detectives repeated contemptuously. ‘Just look at him! The man dresses like a bum. And not even an
American
bum.’

That was a bit rich, coming from a fat, balding man with chewing-tobacco stains all down the front of his shirt, Blackstone thought.

But he wisely kept his peace.

‘So what’s this
English
bum doing here?’ the chief asked.

‘Availing me of his experience in my inquiries, sir,’ Meade said. ‘As you may already know, Commissioner Comstock asked me to investigate Inspector O’Brien’s murder—’

‘Oh, I
do
know,’ Connolly interrupted him. ‘I know because he told me so himself. Not
asked
me if it would be all right, you understand.
Told me!
He thinks that because he’s a goddamn commissioner, he can ride roughshod over the chain of command in this department. Well, maybe he can – for a while. But as soon as I’ve had the chance to talk to the
other
three commissioners – the ones who know how things
should
be done – it’ll suddenly be a completely different story. You’ll be
off
the investigation and a new team of more senior – more
experienced
– detectives will be
on
it.’

‘But I’m not off it yet?’ Meade asked.

‘So this Limey’s av . . . av . . . What the hell was it you said that he was doin’?’ Connolly asked, ignoring the question.

‘Availing me of his experience in my inquires.’

‘Availing you of his experience! And that’s what Commissioner High-and-Mighty Comstock wants him to do? Avail you?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Jesus Christ, you’d have thought the War of Independence had never happened,’ the chief of detectives said in disgust. ‘You’d have thought that George Washington had never kicked the Brits’ butts right back in the Atlantic Ocean.’ He paused for a second to chew on his tobacco. ‘But we ain’t here to talk about your Limey friend.’

‘No, sir?’

‘No, sir!’ the chief echoed him. He reached into his drawer, took out one of the O’Brien posters – much the worse for wear after having been torn off a wall – and slammed it down on his desk. ‘Did you authorize this?’

‘Yes, sir, I did.’

‘Sure you did,’ Connolly agreed. ‘This is just the kind of cockamamie idea you
would
come up with!’

‘Has anyone responded to it, sir?’ Meade asked.

‘
Responded
to it!’ Connolly repeated. ‘What’s that supposed to mean? Why don’t you
ever
speak plain straightforward American, for God’s sake?’

‘Has anyone come here with information?’ Meade clarified.

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘But there’s a whole crowd o’ bums in the holding cells who
say
they’ve got information.’

‘You’ve locked them up?’ Meade asked, alarmed.

‘No, I ain’t locked them up. The cell doors are open, an’ they can walk outta here any time they want to. Only they ain’t gonna walk out, are they? ’Cos they want this
big reward
you promised them.’

‘Yes,’ Meade said. ‘I expect they do.’

‘But there ain’t gonna
be
no big reward. Any why? Because you’re personally gonna throw all these bums out on to the street again. And when you’ve done that, you’re gonna get your ass down to the Lower East Side an’ tear down all these fly-posters.’

‘If you say so, sir.’

‘I
do
say so.’

‘And when would you like me to tell Senator Plunkitt that those were your orders, sir?’ Meade asked. ‘
Before
I throw the bums out and tear down the posters, or
after
I’ve done it?’

‘And what – in the name of all that’s holy – has Senator Plunkitt got to do with it?’ Connolly asked.

‘It was all his idea,’ Meade explained. ‘He’s the one who’s posting the reward.’

Connolly looked suddenly troubled. ‘Why didn’t you tell me this before, Sergeant Meade?’

‘You never gave me the chance to, sir.’

Connolly screwed up his face, as if searching for some way to get out of the hole that he’d so readily dug himself into.

‘I still think the whole idea’s crazy,’ he said finally, ‘but Senator Plunkitt has served this city faithfully for nearly forty years, and his opinion is certainly always worth listenin’ to. So if he thinks there’s even the slightest chance you might turn up something with these posters of yours, well, I’m more than willin’ to bow to his experience.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ Meade said. ‘Where would you like me to conduct the interviews?’

‘Where will you talk to the stinking bums, you mean? Inspector O’Brien’s office is in the basement – you can use that.’

‘Do you think that’s such a good idea, sir?’

Connolly sighed in exasperation. ‘Yeah, I think it’s a good idea. Why
wouldn’t
it be a good idea?’

‘Because the office is probably still full of confidential files from Inspector O’Brien’s investigations,’ Meade said, with the same disarming innocence as Blackstone had seen him employ so effectively before.

Connolly blinked. He only did it once – but once was more than enough.

‘Inspector O’Brien’s confidential files probably
are
still there in the office,’ he agreed. ‘But we all know what a careful man the inspector was, and I’m sure all those files of his are safely under lock an’ key.’

‘No doubt you’re right, sir,’ Meade agreed.

‘Did you see the look on Connolly’s face when I mentioned Patrick’s confidential files?’ Meade asked Blackstone, once they were standing in the corridor outside the chief of the Detective Bureau’s office.

‘Yes, I did see it,’ Blackstone replied. ‘It would have been rather hard to miss it.’

‘Either Connolly’s had the files removed himself, or he knows who
did
have them removed,’ Meade said.

‘True,’ Blackstone agreed, ‘but it doesn’t do us any good to know that, because in either case, they’re probably lost and gone for ever.’

‘You may be right,’ Meade replied. ‘Not that it matters anyway – because we don’t really need them any more.’

‘Don’t we?’

‘No, we don’t! We’ll get all the information we need from the people who are waiting to talk to us in the basement.’

Meade’s spring of optimism was a perpetual source of wonder, Blackstone thought. Cover it with a large rock – the missing files, for example, or the dead end that their talk with Plunkitt had led them to – and for a while it was silent. But that did not mean that the spring had been truly dampened down. Rather that it was simply building up enough pressure to throw the rock high into the air, and so free itself again.

‘Weren’t you taking a big chance by telling Connolly that Senator Plunkitt was the one behind the reward?’ Blackstone asked.

‘Taking a chance? Not a bit of it!’ Meade said airily. ‘If the chief of detectives rings Plunkitt up – and I don’t think he will – the senator will confirm everything that I’ve said.’

‘Why?’

‘Because, by that time, my father will already have rung Plunkitt up himself, and told the senator what to say.’

‘And that’s all it will take?’ Blackstone asked, amazed.

‘That’s all it will take,’ Meade confirmed. ‘You see, guys like Plunkitt treat favours owed to them in the same way misers treat gold coins. Their greatest pleasure in life is to build up a big old chest full of them.’

‘So Plunkitt will do it because your father asks him to, and then your father will owe Plunkitt?’

‘Sure.’

‘And doesn’t putting him in debt to the senator bother you at all?’

‘Hell, no!’ Meade said. ‘It’s highly unlikely that Plunkitt will ever call the favour in.’

‘You think so?’

‘I do. See, the miser doesn’t want to
spend
his gold – he just wants to
have
it. And sometimes, late at night, he’ll open the chest and let all his gold coins trickle through his fingers. I think Plunkitt’s like that, too – he likes to let all the favours that he’s owed trickle through his fingers, then he just sits back and thinks about how rich he is.’

‘You’re forgetting one thing,’ Blackstone said.

‘And what’s that?’

‘It’s still just possible he was involved in whatever O’Brien was investigating. And if he
was
involved in it, then the last thing he’ll want to do is anything that may help us catch the inspector’s killer.’

‘Men like him are so arrogant they don’t think anything can touch them, even if they’re as guilty as sin,’ Meade said. ‘And after I allowed him to run rings round me this morning . . .’

‘What?’

Meade grinned sheepishly. ‘OK, after he ran rings round me, whether I wanted him to or not, he’s got us marked down as two guys who couldn’t find their own assholes – even if he gave them a detailed map. But we’re gonna prove him wrong on that, ain’t we?’

‘I certainly hope so,’ Blackstone said.

‘So shall we go downstairs and see what our bait’s hauled in for us?’ Meade suggested.

‘Why not?’ Blackstone agreed.

The people whom Meade hoped would make Inspector O’Brien’s files unnecessary had been herded into the three cells closest to the door.

They were a mixed bunch, Blackstone noted – men and women, young and old. Some of them were dressed more or less respectably, though a fair number wore clothes which would have been pushed to pass themselves off as rags. But there was one thing that united them all – the look of expectant greed which shone in their eyes when they saw Meade arrive.

A young patrolman stood guard over this motley crew.

‘Exactly how many of these people are there, Officer Turcotte?’ Alex Meade asked.

The patrolman shrugged. ‘Don’t know for sure,’ he admitted. ‘I kept countin’ till I reached thirty, then I kinda lost interest.’

Blackstone did his own headcount, and estimated there were around fifty of the ‘informers’.

And how many of these informers would be a complete waste of time? he asked himself.

Around
fifty
would be as good a guess as any, he decided.

‘I’ll be interviewing them in Inspector O’Brien’s office,’ Meade told the patrolman. ‘I want to see them one at a time, and I’ll leave it up to you to choose what order I see them in. Is that all right with you?’

‘Sure,’ Turcotte agreed.

But it was clearly
not
all right with some of the current residents of the cells, who had overheard the conversation.

‘Why should
he
choose?’ demanded an old woman who was wearing a thick shawl, despite the heat.

‘Yeah, it should be first come, first served,’ said a younger woman in a floral hat. ‘An’
I
was here first.’

‘The hell you were,’ called out a voice from behind her. ‘
I
was here first. Ask the cop.’

‘I got another important appointment to go to,’ said a man who, from the downtrodden look of him, had never had an appointment – important or otherwise – in his entire life.

Meade waited until the noise had died down. ‘Anyone who doesn’t like the arrangement I’ve suggested is perfectly free to leave now,’ he said, gesturing towards the stairs with his hand.

But none of the people in the cells took him up on the offer. They all had the scent of money in their nostrils, and they were determined not to leave without at least getting a chance to take a bite at it.

‘It feels strange,’ Meade said uncomfortably.

‘What does?’

‘To be sitting here in Patrick O’Brien’s office, behind Patrick O’Brien’s desk.’

‘
Somebody
always has to step into dead men’s shoes eventually,’ Blackstone pointed out.

‘I know they do,’ Meade agreed, still sounding ill at ease. ‘But that person, whoever he is, should be worthy of filling those shoes – and I don’t feel worthy of filling Patrick’s.’

‘You’ll fill them well enough, given time,’ Blackstone assured him. ‘And even if you don’t, it won’t be through lack of trying.’

‘Sometimes, you know, you’re almost like a father to me, Sam,’ Meade said emotionally.

‘Then maybe I’ll take you out on a Tammany Hall picnic,’ Blackstone countered.

Meade grinned. ‘Yeah, I was getting kinda maudlin just then, wasn’t I?’

‘Yeah, you kinda were,’ Blackstone agreed, smiling as he imitated the young detective sergeant.

Meade squared his shoulders and turned his attention to the stack of plain white paper which was on the desk in front of him. He peeled off the top sheet and wrote ‘1’ on it in pencil.

‘Send in the first of the informants,’ he called out to Officer Turcotte, who was waiting in the corridor.

Turcotte shepherded the potential informant into the room. It was a man somewhere in his late thirties. He was unshaven, had bad teeth, and emitted an essence of eau de vie de sewer, even from a distance.

‘Name?’ Meade said.

‘Dickie Thomas.’

Meade wrote it down.

‘Occupation?’

‘Well . . . you know, Sergeant.’

‘No, as a matter of fact, I don’t,’ Meade replied sharply.

‘I do a bit o’ this, an’ I do a bit o’ that.’

‘Address?’

‘I’m kinda
between
addresses at the moment.’

‘No fixed abode,’ Meade wrote down. ‘So what have you got to tell me, Mr Thomas?’

‘I seen him.’

‘Inspector O’Brien?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Where?’

‘O’Malley’s Saloon.’

‘When?’

‘Tuesday night.’

‘Give me all the details.’

‘O’Malley was standin’ behind the counter, and this cop walks up to him, bold as brass, and asks for his bribe money. Well, O’Malley says business is bad, an’ he can’t afford to pay this week, and this inspector says in that case he’ll be closing the place down.’ Thomas paused for a second. ‘I just had a thought,’ he continued unconvincingly.