In the Midst of Death
Page 22

"You paid me enough."
"The hell I did. What's a man's life worth?"
I had asked myself the same question often enough, but not in quite the same way. I said, "I made something like five hundred dollars a day. That'll do me, Broadfield."
"Jerry."
"Sure."
"And I say you got a bonus coming. You met my lawyer? Seldon Wolk?"
"We've spoken," I said. Wolk and I shook hands and made polite sounds at each other.
"Well, it's about that time," Broadfield said. "I guess any reporters who're gonna show up are already waiting out there, don't you think? If any of 'em miss out, it'll teach 'em to be on time next shot. Is Diana out there with the car?"
"She's waiting where you wanted her to wait," the lawyer told him.
"Perfect. You met my wife, didn't you, Matt? Of course you did, I gave you that note to take out there. What we gotta do, you get a woman, and the four of us'll have dinner one of these nights. We ought to get to know each other better, all of us."
"We'll have to do that," I agreed.
"Well," he said. He tore open a manila envelope and shook out its contents on the top of the desk. He put his wallet into his pocket, slipped his watch onto his wrist, scooped up and pocketed a handful of coins. Then he put his tie around his neck and under his shirt collar and made an elaborate performance of tying it. "Did I tell you, Matt? Thought I might have to tie it twice. But I think the knot looks just about right, don't you?"
"It looks fine."
He nodded. "Yeah," he said. "I think it looks pretty good, all right. I'll tell you something. Matt, I feel good. How do I look, Seldon?"
"You look fine."
"I feel like a million dollars," he said.
HE handled the reporters pretty nicely. He answered questions, striking a nice balance between sincere and cocky, and while they still had questions to ask him he flashed the number-one grin, gave a victorious wave, and pushed through them and got into his car. Diana stepped on the gas, and they drove down to the end of the block and turned the corner. I stood there watching until they were out of sight.
Of course she'd had to come to pick him up. And she would take it easy for a day or two, and then she'd let him know how things stood. She'd said she didn't expect much trouble from him. She was certain he didn't love her and that she had long since ceased to be important in his life. But I was to give her a couple of days, and then she would call.
"Well, that was pretty exciting," a voice behind me said. "I figured maybe we were supposed to throw rice at the happy couple, something like that."
Without turning I said, "Hello, Eddie."
"Hello, Matt. Beautiful morning, isn't it?"
"Not bad."
"I suppose you're feeling pretty good."
"Not too bad."
"Cigar?" Lieutenant Eddie Koehler didn't wait for an answer, put the cigar in his own mouth and lit it. It took him three matches because the wind blew out the first two. "I oughta get a lighter," he said. "You check out that lighter Broadfield was using before? Looked expensive."
"I think it probably is."
"Looked like gold to me."
"Probably. Though gold and gold plate look pretty much the same."
"They don't cost the same, though. Do they?"
"Not as a general rule."
He smiled, swung out a hand, and gripped my upper arm. "Aw, you son of a bitch," he said. "Lemme buy you a drink, you old son of a bitch."
"It's a little early for me, Eddie. Maybe a cup of coffee."
"Even better. Since when is it ever too early to buy you a drink?"
"Oh, I don't know. Maybe I'll take it a little easier on the booze, see if it makes a difference."
"Yeah?"
"Well, for a while, anyway."
He eyed me appraisingly. "You sound like your old self a little, you know that? I can't remember the last time you sounded like this."
"Don't make too much out of it, Eddie. All I'm doing is passing up a drink."
"No, there's something else. I can't put my finger on it, but something's different."
We went over to a little place on Reade Street and ordered coffee and Danish. He said, "Well, you sprung the bastard. I hate to see him off the hook, but I can't hardly hold it against you. You got him off."
"He shouldn't have been on in the first place."
"Yeah, well, that's something else, isn't it?"
"Uh-huh. You ought to be glad the way things worked out. He's not going to be a tremendous amount of use to Abner Prejanian because Prejanian's going to have to keep a low profile for the next little while. He doesn't look too good himself now. His assistant just got nailed for killing two people and framing Abner's star witness. You were complaining that he loved to see his name in the papers. I think he's going to try to keep his name out of the papers for a couple of months, don't you?"
"Could be."
"And Knox Hardesty doesn't look too good, either. He's all right as far as the public is concerned, but the word's going to get around that he's not very good at protecting his witnesses. He had Carr, and Carr gave him Manch, and they're both dead, and that's not a good track record to have when you're trying to get people to cooperate with you."
"Of course he hasn't been bothering the department, anyway, Matt."
"Not yet. But with Prejanian quiet he might have wanted to come on in. You know how it goes, Eddie. Whenever they want headlines they take a shot at the cops."
"Yeah, that's the fucking truth."
"So I didn't do so badly by you, did I? The department doesn't wind up looking bad."
"No, you did all right, Matt."
"Yeah."
He picked up his cigar, puffed on it. It had gone out. He lit it again with a match and watched the match burn almost to his fingertips before shaking it out and dropping it into the ashtray. I chewed a bite of Danish and chased it with a gulp of coffee.
I could cut down on the drinking. There would be times when it got difficult. When I thought about Fuhrmann and how I could have taken that call from him. Or when I thought about Manch and his plunge to the ground. My phone call couldn't have done it all by itself. Hardesty had been pressuring him all along, and he'd been carrying a load of guilt for years. But I hadn't helped him, and maybe if I hadn't called-
Except you can't let yourself think that way. What you have to do is remind yourself that you caught one murderer and kept one innocent man out of prison. You never win them all, and you can't blame yourself whenever you drop one.
"Matt?" I looked at him. "That conversation we had the other night. At that bar where you hang out?"
"Armstrong's."
"Right, Armstrong's. I said some things I didn't have to say."
"Oh, the hell with that, Eddie."
"No hard feelings?"
"Of course not."
Pause. "Well, a few guys who knew I was gonna drop down today, which I was doing, figuring you'd be here, they asked me to let you know there's no hard feelings toward you. Not that there ever was in a general sense, just that they wished you weren't hooked up with Broadfield at the time, if you get my meaning."
"I think I do."
"And they hope you got no bad feelings toward the department, is all."
"None."
"Well, that's what I figured, but I thought I'd get it out in the open and be sure." He ran a hand over his forehead, ruffled his hair. "You're really figuring to take it easier on the booze?"
"Might as well give it a try. Why?"
"I don't know. You think maybe you're ready to rejoin the human race?"
"I never resigned, did I?"
"You know what I'm talking about."
I didn't say anything.
"You proved something, you know. You're still a good cop, Matt. It's what you're really good at."
"So?"
"It's easier to be a good cop when you're carrying a badge."
"Sometimes it's harder. If I'd had a badge this past week, I would have been told to lay off."
"Yeah, and you were told that, anyway, and you didn't listen, and you wouldn't have listened, badge or no badge. Am I right?"
"Maybe. I don't know."
"The best way to get a good police department is to keep good policemen in it. I'd like it a hell of a lot to see you back on the force."
"I don't think so, Eddie."
"I wasn't asking you to make a decision. I was saying you could think about it. And you can think it over for the next little while, can't you? Maybe it'll be something that starts to make sense when you don't have a skinful of booze in you twenty-four hours a day."
"It's possible."
"You'll think about it?"
"I'll think about it."
"Uh-huh." He stirred his coffee. "You hear from your kids lately?"
"They're fine."
"Well, that's good."
"I'm taking them this Saturday. There's some kind of father-son thing with their Scout troop, a rubber-chicken dinner and then seats for the Nets game."
"I could never get interested in the Nets."
"They're supposed to have a good team."
"Yeah, that's what they tell me. Well, it's great that you're seeing them."
"Uh-huh."
"Maybe you and Anita- "
"Drop it, Eddie."
"Yeah, I talk too much."
"She's got somebody else, anyway."
"You can't expect her to sit around."
"I don't, and I don't care. I've got somebody else myself."
"Oh. For serious?"
"I don't know."
"Something to take it slow and see what happens, I guess."
"Something like that."
THAT was Monday. For the next couple of days I took a lot of long walks and spent time at a lot of churches. I would have a couple of drinks in the evening to make it easier to get to sleep, but to all intents and purposes I wasn't doing any serious drinking at all. I walked around, I enjoyed the weather, I kept checking my telephone messages, I read the Times in the morning and the Post at night. I began wondering after a while why I wasn't getting the phone message I was waiting for, but I wasn't upset enough to pick up the phone and place a call myself.
Then Thursday around two in the afternoon I was walking along, not going anywhere in particular, and as I passed a newsstand at the corner of Fifty-seventh and Eighth, I happened to glance at the headline of the Post. I normally waited and bought the late edition, but the headline caught me and I bought the paper.
Jerry Broadfield was dead.
Chapter 17
When he sat down across from me, I knew who it was without raising my eyes. I said, "Hi, Eddie."
"Figured I'd find you here."
"Not hard to guess, was it?" I waved a hand to signal Trina. "What is it, Seagram's? Bring my friend here a Seagram's and water. I'll have another of these." To him I said, "It didn't take you long. I've only been here about an hour myself. Of course the news must have hit the street with the noon edition. I just didn't happen to see a paper until an hour ago. It says here that he got it around eight this morning. Is that right?"