The Hour of the Cat (39 page)

“Let him talk,” McCarthy said. “Let's hear what he has to say. Go on, fill us in.”

“I've been on a case, a murder, and it's put me on the trail of a high-class doctor. I didn't like him from the minute I met him, and I liked his chauffeur even less. At one point, he tried to hire me to scare off a blackmailer, but it felt as though he had some other purpose. Anyways, it was the chauffeur I was suspicious of, at first.”

“You're getting ahead of yourself. “What's the doctor's name?” It was hard to tell from McCarthy's blank expression if he was taking seriously anything he'd heard.

“Dr. Sparks.”

Lundgren's head jerked up. “Who?”

“Dr. Joseph Sparks.”

“Of the Hermes Sanatorium?”

The instant Dunne said yes, Lundgren broke out laughing. McCarthy settled for a faint, mocking smile.

“You've no shame, have you?” Lundgren reached into the wastebasket and rescued the late city edition of the
Standard
he'd thrown away. “What do you think, we're so dull we don't read the papers?” He spread the front page open on the desk and turned the headline toward Dunne:

Beneath the headline was a photograph of a structure totally engulfed in flames. A tongue of fire protruded from the widow's walk atop the roof and jutted into the night sky. Dunne skimmed the story. What it lacked in facts it made up for in high-flown prose. “Merciless flames, cruel and insatiable, consumed the innocent lives of an undetermined number of feeble-minded inmates. . . . The same kindhearted doctor who had taken them into his care stayed with them to the end. . . . He laid down his life in a selfless but unsuccessful attempt to lead his childlike charges to safety.”

“I wonder, Gus, if you wouldn't mind letting me talk to Dunne alone? Only be a few minutes,” McCarthy said.

“Be my guest.” Lundgren got up and left.

McCarthy took Lundgren's seat. He picked up the pencil that Lundgren had left, turned it slowly between thumb and forefinger like a spit. “I owe you an apology,” he said. “I've done some digging, and it turns out Colonel Donovan isn't alone in his opinion of you. You have a number of admirers in the NYPD, especially among the ranks of the most reliable, honest men. They all say you were a good cop.”

Dunne studied the newspaper picture, trying to find some hint of a human form. The building and the soaring, all-consuming fire yielded no secrets. He read the caption to himself:
The building collapsed less than an hour after the fire was first reported. Three firemen were treated at Westchester Square Hospital for smoke inhalation.

McCarthy put down the pen, reached across the desk, and covered the picture with his hand. “Listen to me.”

“I'm listening.”

“I'm on an important case. My office is involved in an investigation of certain members of the NYPD. We're working in cooperation with the D.A.'s office. It was Dewey's office helped get you off the hook in the last matter. Donovan called his office and their investigation had already turned up your name in a favorable light. The man we're after is Borough Inspector Robert I. Brannigan.”

McCarthy sat back. He picked up the pen again and held it in the same position as before, rotating the spit. “We believe he's a top player in a prostitution racket that moves girls up and down the East Coast in a condition close to indentured servitude. Brannigan not only provides protection but shares in the proceeds.”

“Brannigan's been a rotten cop for years. It never hurt him before.”

“Times change. There are honest officials running the department now. Brannigan and his kind aren't going to be tolerated any longer.”

“Except when they help get convictions.”

“Under Brannigan, the Homicide Squad has a splendid record in terms of nabbing perpetrators. But now it's been discovered he's also been a friend to racketeers, gamblers and pimps. Unfortunately, he's got a lot of people afraid of him, including many of his colleagues in the department. I'm told, however, that you're not one of them. You have more admirers in the department than you know.”

“They're good at hiding it.”

“I want him put away, and I want your help.”

“I'm busy with a case. Ever hear of Water Grillo?”

“Grillo? Sure, ‘The West Side Ripper.'”

“He's innocent.”

“Tom Regan tried the case. He's a friend of mine and a fine prosecutor.”

“Brannigan handled the investigation.”

“He's a dishonest cop, not a stupid one. As venal as he appears to be, I know of no evidence that he's ever tampered with the truth in a murder case.”

“Maybe you forgot to look. He framed Grillo.”

“Tell you what. You help put away Brannigan, I'll see what I can turn up on Grillo.” McCarthy jammed the pen in its holder, stood, and came from behind the desk.

“You got it backwards. Grillo first. He's the one with the deadline.”

McCarthy paced back and forth, as though addressing a box full of jurors. “I'm the one who'll decide that. Grillo's chances, to be honest, are slim. Meanwhile, Brannigan and his fellow rogues are a running sore on the body politic of this city. Soon as he catches wind of an investigation, he'll pull out every stop to derail it. There's no time to waste.” He turned away from the imaginary jury. Fearless gangbuster, scourge of dishonest cops, incorruptible prosecutor, he was on the verge of shedding his boyish good looks and acquiring a more substantial and experienced presence. Add a few pounds, mix in a little gray, and he'd have the kind of face that stared with firm determination from campaign posters plastered on walls and pinned to telephone poles.

“More mileage in convicting a crooked detective than in rescuing a spic janitor from the electric chair. See, what makes you so sure that Brannigan didn't railroad half of those supposed murderers he brought in and manufactured the evidence needed for conviction? That would make for a very busy situation in the appeals courts, wouldn't it?”

“Don't get high and mighty with me, Dunne. It doesn't suit you.”

“Sorry, I'm not ready to sign on with your campaign. The way I see it, it's fine with you if Grillo goes to the chair so long as you get Brannigan's scalp. Then you ride that victory to the bench or congress or the governor's chair. But the system hasn't changed. Soon enough it'll produce a new Brannigan, somebody who makes so many arrests that stick the higher-ups turn a blind eye to his less reputable hobbies.”

“You're not crooked. You're just crude. You should learn some manners and try acting like a gentleman. You might enjoy the sheer novelty of it.”

“You should learn to hide your ambitions better, Mike. Right now they're as plain as the freckles on your nose.”

The flush in McCarthy's face turned the bright crimson of a bad sunburn. “I've had enough of you. Get out. You'll regret this. I promise you.”

Dunne found the Professor and Corrigan in the back booth at McGloin's. John Mayhew Taylor was wedged between them. Dunne sat beside Corrigan.

“Mr. Taylor is moving me toward his point of view,” the Professor said. “If the Germans move on the Czechs, surely the French and British will move on the Germans and be joined by the Soviets. The Japanese will then move against the French and British colonies in the Orient, widening their war against China. It will be an even grander conflagration than in 1914. Should it last long enough, we may well be embroiled.”

“Any president who tries to rush us into war will be impeached,” Corrigan said.

The Professor looked around for McGloin, who was nowhere to be seen. “I don't believe I solicited your views,” he said to Corrigan. McGloin appeared out of the long-unused and dust-covered kitchen, and the Professor signaled for a round of drinks.

Corrigan finished his drink almost as soon as McGloin served it. “I got quite a thirst today,” he said.

“You were born with a Niagara of a thirst,” the Professor said. “I acquired mine at Princeton. Mr. Taylor, on the other hand, has the imbibitional disposition of a dromedary. A drink a month can keep him going.”

“I'm not in the mood, that's all.” Taylor slid his glass toward Corrigan.

Corrigan pushed it back. “Go on, Taylor, it'll cheer you up.”

The Professor lifted his glass. “If last evening caused tragedy for some, it brought triumph to one. The byline of John Mayhew Taylor has appeared for the first time on the front page of the
New York Standard!
”

“Wait,” Corrigan said, “I need a drink to toast with.”

“I'm no coolie,” McGloin said. “I'll bring another round, but I ain't shuttlin' single drinks.”

“Another round it is,
propre
, if you please,” the Professor said.

Taylor pushed away his drink once more. This time Corrigan took it, raising it to toast with the Professor. “What about you Dunne?” he asked.

“I'm on the same wagon as Taylor.”

“Very well.” The Professor tapped his glass to Corrigan's. “Though only half the present company is participating, the good cheer is shared by all:

“The inmates were all hopelessly feeble-minded. They couldn't save themselves. The whole area was blanketed with the stench of their burnt flesh. It was horrific.” Taylor leaned away from the table. “There's nothing to celebrate.”

“What kind of war correspondent recoils at the sights and smells of death?” The Professor tipped the glass on his lower lip and swallowed its contents.

“Maybe you're one of 'em be happier on the society beat,” Corrigan said.

“I was up there all night after I rushed that skeleton copy to the paper last evening. The old place was a tinderbox. A huge amount of rubbing alcohol and medical supplies was beneath the stairs. The firemen think that one of the staff ducked in there for a smoke and set the whole thing off. The building became a virtual crematorium. Just because I'm not jumping up and down with joy doesn't mean I didn't do my job.”

“You submitted a fine story. Good writing done under a tight deadline,” the Professor said. “The mark of a true reporter.”

“Lord have mercy on those morons and idiots.” Corrigan consumed the whiskey he'd taken from Taylor. “And especially doctor what's-his-name.”

“Sparks,” Taylor said.

“You sure he was inside?” Dunne asked.

Taylor gave him a quizzical look. “Of course I'm sure. You can read the full story in the copy I filed for today's paper. Sparks arrived just as the fire was breaking out. He ran upstairs to help evacuate the patients and was almost instantly trapped.”

“Destiny put you in the vicinity,” the Professor said.

“Duty not destiny. I was covering a bank robbery on Tremont Avenue. I didn't get on the scene till the worst had already happened.”

“You were close enough to get the scoop. Destiny saw to that, and it's destiny that separates the great reporters from the good, and puts them where they need to be.”

“I was lucky, that's all.”

“Luck is merely a demotic appellation for destiny.”

“If nobody survived, how do you know Sparks died that way?” Dunne said.

“There was a witness. That's
how
I know. His chauffeur was waiting outside in the car. They'd just stopped off on their way back from Long Island. Dr. Sparks was a remarkable man. Built a swank East Side practice, but also operated this place out of his own pocket. He was constantly traveling up there to take care of them.”

“A true physician and, apparently, a fellow classicist. He used the name of Hermes for his institute, the Greek god whom the Romans called Mercury, he of winged foot who carried the caduceus, the entwined snakes, the symbol of the physician.” The Professor raised one of the refills that McGloin had just delivered. “He deserves a special toast.”

“Christ, it's not even noon,” Corrigan said. “It's too early for a lecture.”

“What happened to the chauffeur?”

The Professor put down his glass without taking a sip. “My, my, Dunne, you sound as though you're still a cop.”

“Curious, that's all.”

“It's okay,” Taylor said. “I'll tell you what you want to know. When the chauffeur saw the fire, he tried to get inside, but the flames beat him back.”