The Sunlight Dialogues (37 page)

Yet Figlow, too, had good in him as well as evil. He wanted no trouble in the world and generally made none himself if he could help it. He was a stubby little man with bushy eyebrows and coal-black hair and very little chin. The men called him “Shorty,” and though he hated the name he accepted it with no overt complaint, exactly as he accepted, day after day, the salami sandwich in his lunchpail, neither fighting the thing nor submitting to it. He wanted peace not because, given peace, there were things he would like to do. He took it for its own sake, on the grounds (Clumly guessed) that the easiest way of life is the best. He was not brave, especially, yet not cowardly either: his awareness that the gun was there on his hip made up for the shortness of stature which, before he’d joined the Police Force, had inclined him to leave trouble alone whenever possible. He’d had plenty of that swallowing of pride, in his former life. He had a slight heart murmur, which had kept him out of the Korean War, and so he’d worked as a cook in a tavern-diner. He’d suffered the usual brainless complaints of diner patrons, no two of whom meant the same thing by “rare” or “medium” when they ordered a T-bone steak, and along with that the eternal nagging of the owner’s wife, a short-tempered middle-aged Irish lady who blamed her flare-ups, afterward, on the fact that she was a redhead, which she was not. But even with the gun adding inches to his stature, he was not out-and-out vicious, merely impatient. What made an offender behave as he did was a matter of indifference to Figlow. Breaking laws was moronic, whatever the motive; and, what was more, law-breaking meant more dull, petty work on Figlow’s desk. He accepted the work without comment, nevertheless, just as he accepted his daughter’s whoring around, if it was that. In the back of his mind, only Clumly knew, he carried, like a secret treasure in a small boy’s trouser pocket, the idea of someday throwing the whole thing over and going to Mexico, alone.

Not much of a figure, another Police Chief might have said of him. But not all men are fit to be heroes, any more than all men have the face and stride to carry off the role of the moustached villain. Clumly could say for Figlow, at least, that he was the first after Miller to see with perfect clarity that the Chief of Police had—as Figlow put it directly to Clumly an hour after the pistol-whipping of the Indian boy—a screw loose. It was no mere manner of speaking; it was a judgment. And, to his credit, whether his motives, ultimately, were right or wrong, Figlow could be trusted to make no trouble; he would simply watch him and wait patiently, skeptical of the future, as always, but hoping for the best.

Clumly wadded up the hamburger papers and threw them in the basket. Was it possible, he wondered, for a man to lose his grip and know it, recognize every step of it? But he knew, all right.

Then Will Hodge’s call came in, reporting the murder.

2

“Hooligans,” said Clumly. “That’s what it’ll be. There’s been a lot of that lately. Miller, put every man you’ve got on these teen-ager devils. I want this town cleaned up.” He clenched his fist.

“Hah!” Will Hodge said. “Hooligans my hat!”

Clumly looked flustered—head tipped down, eyes like little beads. You might have thought he’d shot her himself. Miller was expressionless, reserving judgment. “It’s sweeping the country, this hooliganism,” Clumly said. “Juvenile crime’s up sixteen per cent over August of last year. I was reading about it.”

Hodge snorted again, angry now. “Why, hang it all, Clumly, they took nothing but clothes. What the devil do these teen-age burglars want with clothes—and clothes of a man my size?”

They moved back, getting out of the way of the police photographer. The officer at the door shouted at the people in the livingroom, moving them back to let the ambulance men in. A man from the
News
took a picture over the policeman’s shoulder.

The ambulance people were soaked to the skin, for the rain had come now. It was pouring down like Niagara Falls, and the wind howled like a pack of dogs out of Hades. Something was slamming out in the back yard, a loose garage window, a fence slat. Inside the room it was hot and smoky.

“Keep those people out of here,” Clumly said. He jerked his head toward Hodge. “I got no time to stand here and argue with you, Hodge. We got sixteen burglaries this past three weeks. One of them the boy beat a woman half to death with a mop.”

“He take
clothes?”
Hodge said.

Miller scowled, concentrating on Hodge. There was something out of whack.

“Damn good market for clothes,” Clumly said fiercely. “Also television sets, typewriters, electric toothbrushes. They take what they can sell.”

The ambulance men put the stretcher down and hunkered a moment, waiting for Rideout to finish. At last the doctor got up and closed his medical bag. He said, “She’s been dead for hours, six or seven, I’d say. I can give you a definite estimate after the autopsy.”

“That’s fine,” Clumly said. “Send in your report in the morning.”

Miller looked at him.

“Or whenever you get it,” Clumly corrected himself. “The sooner the better.” He wiped sweat from his neck, then he crossed to the door, bent-backed, rubbing his hands. “This is what I think,” he said to the room in general, turning to face them all. “They were going through the drawers there”—he pointed at the drawers—“and she walked in on them. Heard them from downstairs, where she was watching TV.” He squinted. “First she thought it was Hodge, you know, but she hadn’t heard him come in: that was funny. She thought about it, went on listening, and after a minute she went over to the foot of the stairs.” He took a few steps to suggest to them how it was, reached out for an imaginary door, opened it, and tipped his head up. “She called to them. They couldn’t hear, because of the television—or, no, she’d turned down the sound on that. They heard, and they tried to work faster. She came up to the apartment. She opened the door with her key and called again. They dropped everything. Kept still. Waited. They heard her coming toward the bedroom, and the one who had the gun took it out from his belt and wrapped it in the blanket and pointed it. Then suddenly there she was in the doorway.” He showed how she’d looked.
“Blam!”
He clutched his heart. “Then they beat it, out down the stairs and through the back door and away through the gardens and neighbors’ back yards.” Clumly stopped, reflecting, and looked from one to another of them for reactions. At last he said, “That how you see it, Miller?”

Miller rubbed his jaw. “It could be,” he said doubtfully. “With a ballistics test—” He stopped. It was impossible that Clumly hadn’t leaped to the same conclusion he had, whatever he might say to Hodge and the papers.

“Check,” Clumly said. He glanced down at the ambulance men. “Take it away.”

The two men lifted the body onto the stretcher and carried it out.

Miller said, speaking before he’d thought: “Except for the phone. That doesn’t fit. I never heard of a burglar cutting a telephone wire.”

“I’m cognizant of that,” Clumly snapped. He shot a glance of what seemed pure malice at Hodge and said no more. Miller said nothing. Clumly turned to the man at the door. “Tell the paper ‘No comment at this time.’” Then, turning back again: “Hodge, that agreeable with you?”

“Why?” Hodge said. “What’s the reason for it?”

“Because I advise it. You can do what you want, you know. It’s mere advice.”

Hodge looked at the corner of the room and reached no decision. He had something booming in his mind, you could see. He knew something. Miller saw Clumly’s mind filing it for thinking over later.

“Ok,” Clumly said, “let’s get out of here.” To the policeman at the door: “Don’t let anybody in. And nobody out there in the back yard, either.” He turned his iron mask of a face to Miller. “Miller, get Hodge’s description of the clothes and anything else that’s missing. Check the bathroom, especially the razor. And check—” He turned again to Hodge. “What would you do if you came in here and you wanted to get rid of some clothes?”

“There’s a furnace,” Hodge said. “Old coal-type.”

“Check the furnace. Keep every ash. The Troopers’ll run it through the lab for us. They’re likely to end up in on this thing with us anyway. Maybe the F.B.I. One thing more.” His eyes grew crafty. “That new man, Kozlowski. I’m assigning him to you to help with this thing. Good head on him.” He pointed at his forehead. “Ok. Keep in touch.” Clumly saluted, official. Miller half-heartedly returned it. Starting for the door he said over his shoulder, “I want these hooligans nailed, men. Society has a right to be protected from these lawless little hoodlums.”

“Is he crazy?” Hodge said.

Miller said softly, not meaning Clumly to hear it, “You never know, with him. Might be something up his sleeve.”

Clumly’s pinpoint eyes burned more brightly.
Up his sleeve.
He was reminded of the cracked magician. So was Hodge. Both men kept it to themselves, for their separate reasons.

At the station only the light in the front room was on, and the light in the hallway. Figlow was at the desk, reading a paperback. He straightened up as Chief Clumly came in, but it was too late to hide the book. He saluted and Clumly made a vague pass at the visor of his cap. “Any business?” Clumly said.

“Somebody slashed some tires,” Figlow said.

Clumly dismissed it with a wave.

“It was at the fire house,” Figlow said. “Firetruck tires. Right across the damn street from us. Uphill’s ready to hang us.”

Clumly dragged his hat off wearily. “Anybody see them?”

Figlow shook his head. “Clarence Pieman was closest, Car 26. I sent him over to see what he could do.” He was looking at the top of the door, not meeting Clumly’s eyes, and his mouth showed more than the usual measure of disgust.

“And?”

“They slashed his tires.”

Clumly closed his fists. Pure hell was what he put up with. Nobody knew. A god damn comedy. When he had himself in control he got out a cigar and banged the end of it on the top of the rail, then licked the tip.

“Anything else?”

“Man from the Dairyman’s League called, said to remind you of a speech there, week from the thirteenth of this month. I put a note on your desk. And let’s see. D.A.’s been on the phone. Wants to talk to you.”

“It’ll keep,” Clumly said.

“I do’ know. It was pretty near ten when he called. He wouldn’t call that late if it wasn’t important. Been after you all day.”

“Love of Christ, can’t he see we’re busy? Nobody tell him about the break?”

“Yessir, I told him, and the day man had told him already.” He lit a cigarette.

“Well what’d he say to it?”

Figlow looked down at his book, then answered without taking the cigarette from his mouth. “He sent his congratulations. Still wants to talk to you.”

Clumly lit the cigar.

Figlow said, “Salvador’s mother called. Wants to talk to you too. And then the Mayor called. Real het up. He says you should call him right away.”

Clumly pointed his cigar at him. “You tell the Mayor—”

“Yessir. But he says you should call him.”

“Ok, that’s enough. Put a note on the board for Kozlowski. Tell him come see me first thing in the morning.”

“Yessir.”

“And call my wife. Tell her I’ll be home in an hour.”

“Yessir.”

He turned toward the door of his office, but Figlow said, “Sir?” Clumly waited, bent over and scowling. “Any luck?” Figlow asked. “You know who did it?”

Clumly considered, his molish face squeezed shut. “I’ll tell you one thing,” he said. He considered further and changed his mind. He shook his head once, with a jerk, then went into his office and snapped on the light.

He had plenty to do, but he stood at the window and smoked, bent over like a beetle on its hind legs. “It’s a funny business,” he said aloud. What should he talk about to the Dairymen? Thank God he hadn’t missed it!
Crime and Automation. The Minimum Wage and the Juvenile Delinquent.
He’d done those already. Change a word here and there, talk of automated farming. … The light was on in the Mayor’s office. Time was running out on him. The Sunlight Man’s phrase. There was a new bundle of letters on the desk. He knew all right what the D.A.’s call would be about. Walter Boyle was due for trial in the morning, and as things stood now it was a blowout. Miller was right, they could convict him if they wanted, since the Sunlight Man had given them something to go on. And if by magic, well, according to a piece he’d seen in the
Reader’s Digest
once, there were police departments in big cities like New York that used people like the Sunlight Man all the time. Why not? No different from tricking a man into confessing things you had never found out he’d done.

But all that was beside the point.

It was not so much that it smelled of voodoo, for him, at least. It didn’t. The Sunlight Man knew Boyle because there was some kind of connection. It was the connection, not just the convictions, you had to get hold of. A man had to
know,
understand the whole thing. No short-cuts. He had to get to the truth, the
whole
truth. … Or was he fooling himself? Suppose it was impossible to get to the truth.

He felt uneasy, exactly the way he’d felt when he was standing with Kozlowski, talking with the whore they’d cajoled into letting them in. “Too old for this work,” he said aloud. “Old head’s giving out.” It was true, but it wasn’t the point. He was responsible for every man, woman, and child in the city of Batavia—
that
was it. But he shook his head. It was not. All had something to do with Mayor Mullen’s Time-Product-Factor. Boyle’s case didn’t
warrant
throwing out the larger possibilities. That was the thing. (Is that true? he wondered. He went on testing it.) You might throw away concern for the whole picture when you went after someone like the Sunlight Man, someone dangerous. But a man like Boyle … “The Truth-Product-Factor,” he said aloud. His brain felt wider for an instant, and his heart jumped.
The Time and Truth Factors.
Name of a speech. He covered his eyes with one hand. “Yes, fine,” he said. “Hell.”

Sure as day, his days were numbered. Let Boyle go, let the teen-age hoods keep on beating up women in their beds, let that damned pile of mail on his desk keep building, and he was finished—no big testimonial dinner, no parade, no pension, no gold watch. A jailbreak in a town like Batavia! The love of God! And a jailbreak he’d almost expected right from the beginning. Suddenly, reaching his decision, he crossed to his desk and picked up the phone. The number was on the card Scotch-taped to the desktop, beneath the papers. He pushed the papers away to see it, then dialed.