“I do! And that’s why I can’t and won’t touch her!”
“This is all in your mind,” Ruddy said soothingly. “If you see her, then the image of the real Marie that you love will come back and—”
“I said no!”
Ruddy’s mind protested against the boy’s reaction, but his own feelings agreed, for he had had the same reactions when in Marie’s presence. Yet he sensed that it was what he thought of Marie rather than Marie herself that had bothered him. Goddamn, why had this happened to his son? And couldn’t he fi nd some way to rid his son of this wild and driving sense of repulsion? He could think of nothing.
“What’re you going to do, Tommy?” he asked, and was su-prised that he could pose the question so frankly, for it implicitly confessed his inability, his powerlessness to control the situation in which his son found himself, and he was admitting that he no longer felt any moral right to make demands in the name and in the fact of his being a father. Then there flitted through his mind the notion that he, too, like Tommy, was bowing to the force of another law more powerful than the one he administered and enforced each day. What he could not put into words, he put into his eyes as he lifted them and stared pleadingly at Tommy.
“I’ll be all right.” Tommy repeated his chorus of false courage.
“You keep telling me that and—”
“You can’t help me,” Tommy desperately cried out in a tone of accusation.
Ruddy knew that he had to keep track of what Tommy did from now on, but he did not wish to use the complicated and
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tainting forces of his office to do so. Then what could he do?
Aw, Agnes could take the boy to the mass meeting tonight. That might not be a bad idea. Let the kid see and hear how others were worried about crime; let him feel how strong was the force of society that was pitted against the lawbreaker. That would surely make him know that stunts of a crazy nature like the one he had pulled this morning could never work.
“Say, your Mama wants to go to that mass meeting tonight,” Ruddy said. “But she can’t go without you. She doesn’t want to be alone.”
“What mass meeting?”
“Haven’t you heard?”
“They’re holding a meeting about the Janet Wilder murder, and other stuff that’s happened here during the past year,”
Ruddy explained.
“Tonight?”
“Yeah. At the old masonic temple,” Ruddy said. Then he was sorry, for the terror that came into the boy’s eyes was truly terrible. “You don’t have to go.”
“I guess I ought to go,” Tommy said slowly, as though thinking of many imponderables.
“You don’t have to.”
“I-I’ll go,” Tommy said.
“With your mother,” Ruddy stipulated.
“Oh. All right.”
“Then you’re going directly home?”
“Yeah. But you’ll not tell—”
“I won’t say a word, son,” Ruddy swore.
“Thanks, Dad. I don’t know what got into me to make me—”
“Keep away from crime,” Ruddy said sternly. “You know nothing about it. You can’t fake a holdup or try to get yourself arrested for a stickup man. We know about that stuff.”
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“Yeah, Dad. It was silly, hunh?” He tried to laugh.
“This is nothing to laugh about,” Ruddy reminded him.
“Don’t worry, don’t worry. I’ll be all right.”
“I hope so.”
He went with Tommy to the door and let him out, watching his retreating back as he shuffled down the marble hallway.
Aw, Christ, he sighed and turned back to his desk.
In a manner that he could not have explained, Ruddy felt that he had lost control not only of his son but of his relation to him as a father. What was really bothering him at bottom were those disturbing but beckoning ideas of Ed’s regarding the overriding power of the notions of guilt. But what was guilt?
Regret and remorse about something that one had done? Or the sensation of being crushed for something that one had not done? And then there was that outlandish notion of Ed’s that said that guilt spurred people to commit crimes. How on earth could that be? Though his conscious mind could not answer that question, there lingered deep in him a dim notion that somehow things like that really happened.
He had a son who was reacting to life in terms that Ed had vaguely outlined, and if that were true, then he had to confess that he knew little or nothing of what was happening to that son and knew less about what to try to do about it. That being the case, and since Ed had helped him only this morning, ought he not take Ed into his confi dence? Ed was a friend; he had the faculty of understanding what went on in the heart.
But could he tell a friend anything that shameful? Could he talk about Marie to Ed? No. Marie’s secret, her shame, her taint sprang from darkness, a darkness that seemed to draw him into its conspiring net, seemed to set a seal upon his lips, a seal as tight as the one that had kept his son so silent for so long.
Had he been Ed’s assistant instead of his chief, then he would
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have felt no qualms or hesitation in enlisting Ed’s sympathy and wisdom. But he was Ed’s chief, and how could he place his authority—even in a private manner—and his private life with all its dark aspects of shame, under Ed’s moral direction?
No, he could not. No, not unless he really had to, and if it ever really came to that, he would resign forthwith. And could he dare take Bill, the commissioner, into his confidence? God, no, not after having had Bill thrust this immense job and honor upon him. Why, Bill might well ask himself how could Ruddy handle the city of Brentwood Park if he could not manage the much simpler and nearer problems in his own home? And just as Tommy had quailed at the idea of talking to Father Joyce, so did he too now.
It had been bad enough to let Ed salvage Tommy from that stupid and pretended holdup this morning. To say that Ed’s revelations had astounded him would have been stating it in terms far below their reality; he had sat in mute awe at what Ed’s skilled questions had elicited and laid bare. He, Ruddy, had been much too subjective, too angry and ashamed to have so neatly plucked the truth out of Tommy’s tangled web of make-believe. The truth of the matter was that he had believed the boy was guilty!
He had believed him guilty even though he loved him deeply! In the end, to cover his own embarrassed shortcoming he had had to pretend—as Tommy had been trying to pretend!—that he had seen or guessed at Tommy’s game all along. And now he felt a double sense of shame at having tried to fool Ed, for he sensed that Ed had not been fooled at all. And he knew that if another wild stunt like that ever came from Tommy again, he would not be able to pull off a make-believe knowing again. And in spite of himself, and in spite of Tommy’s sullen assurances, he felt that soon still another and maybe other crises would surely erupt from out of the hot cauldron of Tommy’s emotions.
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What could he do? He had, and quickly, to get down to the bare bedrock of what was happening with his son. First, was Tommy really in any way linked with, say, the Janet Wilder murder? If so, had that anything to do with the other murders?
And if that were ever proved to be true, then did that account for Tommy’s wanting to be sent to jail for what he had tried to make-believe was a holdup in which he had had a part? Had he been, as Ruddy knew too well, trying to seek a haven of safety in jail for a lesser crime than the ones he had really committed? Or was he blunderingly and stumblingly trying to plead guilty—as that crazy Andrew Gordon had done—and as Ed claimed more people than one believed would like to do—plead guilty in a more general sense for something that had become displaced wrongly in his life?
And that gun that loomed just out of the reach of the police? That .38? Some instinct told
him that Tommy had been too eager to unearth a .38 in this case. And how odd that he had found a missing .38 in the home of the detective whose son had been killed? By God, he had issued orders for Jock to investigate that angle. Just as Ruddy reached out to take up the phone, it tingled.
“Chief Turner speaking,” he sighed into the instrument.
“Chief, Jock Wiedman speaking.”
“Yeah, Jock. What’s keeping you? Was just about to phone you.”
“Well, I’m late, Chief,” Jock reported. “I can’t make head or tail out of that .38 story at the Heard home.”
“Why? What’s the matter?”
“Well, Mrs. Heard says she saw one. So what? Nobody knows when they saw it or when it was missed. Or its serial number. It seems that that gun fell into Detective Heard’s hand from some killer and he was keeping it as a memento. Against
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regulations, yeah. But, so what? All we got is a missing gun. But we have no way of telling if that is the gun we want. Say, who got wind of this missing gun, anyhow?”
“Well, Jock, it was my son. He was a friend, you see, of Charlie.”
“You want me to follow it anymore, Chief?”
“No. Drop it,” Ruddy said. “Say, get over here. I want you to help supervise breaking up some concrete.”
“Oh, that stuff from that building site?”
“That’s it.”
“Okay, Chief.”
Ruddy hung up. Now, what did that mean? It meant, if his hunches were working right about Tommy, that for some reason Tommy wanted another .38 injected into the case. Why?
What was Tommy trying to do? Draw a veil of mystery across the path of their investigation? To create confusing circumstances? Ruddy knew that at times even fairly dumb criminals could baffle the police, because their reasoning was so horribly childlike, so out of the ordinary, so downright obvious. Was Tommy’s hand showing in all this?
“Goddamnit, if I had one-tenth of the suspicion about anybody else that I have in my heart about that boy, I’d have arrested ’im long ago,” Ruddy growled.
No. Surely Tommy, if Ruddy pressed him, had some explanation to give not only for that pretended holdup but also for all his wild ideas, all this crazy talk, some excuse that had nothing even to do with Marie. But what on earth could that be?
No. That was not true. He knew that boy’s life. Maybe he had underestimated the Marie business, but surely there could be no other reality that was rousing him to dangerous pitches. But that wad of cement Ruddy had pinched off those tennis shoes?
Could that be just a coincidence? Even in the face of a bit of gun handle having been found in a cement mixer?
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Ruddy doubled his fist and softly but tensely pounded the top of his desk. He knew that, in spite of himself, he was deep down in his heart trying to make a case to exonerate his son. No. The world he defended could not make people feel like Tommy said he felt, even if there had been a mishap about Marie. What happened to Marie happened once in a thousand million times. And you could not go around acting as though your hair was on fire about it.
A Sergeant Grisby brought him a stack of reports—from stool pigeons, detectives, patrolmen, et cetera—which he looked over, finding out nothing new. Still another dun-colored folder brought him another deluge of anonymous phone calls at which he refused to glance. During the afternoon, Lieutenant Parrish told him over the phone, no fewer than eight derelicts had come in to confess to the Janet Wilder killing. “Mother of Mary,” he sighed wearily. He could do with a drink, yet he dared not—no telling when some very important break would come and he would have to receive somebody of distinction.
Then he realized an omitted act; he phoned Lieutenant Parrish to take a bit off the new slabs of cement that were steadily coming into the police courtyard in city trucks and take it over to the laboratory.
“I want the same kind of analysis,” he ordered.
He wouldn’t go home for dinner. He would let Tommy meet Agnes alone, and tomorrow he would have yet another talking session with Tommy. By God, this time I’ll make ’im puke up everything that’s in ’im. . . .
And that .38? A teasing memory was stirring in him, had been trying to force its way into his consciousness. Why did he keep thinking of it? He stretched out on a sofa and closed his eyes. Tonight there would spew up a tirade against the police, but he could tell the reporters in the morning that he had been
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on the job for only thirty-six hours and already had accom-plished something. Yeah, it was like that time that the hunt had been on for escaped parolee Edgar Kean. The wires had hummed; people had not slept; and it had been he who had gone into a movie and, even though off-duty, had kept his eyes peeled and had spotted Edgar Kean in the audience. He had followed the gangster to the door as he left and had grabbed him by both arms, and a .38 had clattered to the fl oor amid the gasps of passersby. Ruddy leaped to his feet. My God . . .
the mystery of the .38 had been partially solved. The chief of police had given him that .38 as a memento, for he had nearly been killed by it. Now, where was it? He had kept it in the bottom of the desk drawer at home. Was it there now? Realization that Tommy might have taken it made his breath come and go quickly. Was that why Tommy had worked up that wobbly tale of Detective Heard’s .38 being missing? Had Tommy un-intentionally called his notice to his own .38, which could be missing? Yeah, that’s the way people think, try to fool others.
He ought to rush home right now and see if that gun was still there? No, that would tip Tommy off. Oh, yes—he would wait until Agnes and Tommy had gone to the mass meeting, and then he would make a swift trip to the house and investigate.
That would tell the tale.
He sat at his desk again, his fingers trembling. Had he solved it? Yet he needed more evidence than that. But he was now willing to bet a million dollars that the .38 that was to be assembled out of the concrete was his gun, the gun he had kept for so long. But could it not have been stolen from him? That was possible but, in the light of the way things were developing, not terribly probable. The next move would be to make Tommy account for all of his moves on the nights when those murders had taken place . . . for if that old .38 was missing,
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then there was only one person in the world who could have taken it, and that was Tommy.
A distant melodious voice, like that of a movie soundtrack or like a fading calliope, made Ruddy lift his head, then he heard, after a pause, a voice coming as from a loudspeaker, growing nearer and increasing in volume. He went to the window and opened it wide and peered down into the traffic-clogged street. A sound truck decorated in bright yellow stood directly under his eyes; it had stopped for a red light and the words pouring from the loudspeaker crashed upward from eight stories below:
“Tonight at nine o’clock a public mass meeting is being held for the benefit of Brentwood Park citizens at the old masonic temple on Madison Avenue. Come one, come all. It’s your city. Help to build and protect it. Members of the city council and other prominent citizens will be heard. Come and participate in plans to protect and defend Brentwood Park from lawlessness. The crime waves must be broken.
Do your part!”
As soon as the voice stopped, a nostalgic and martial blare of music poured out; the red light winked to green, and Ruddy heard faint, scattered hand clapping. He shut the window, feeling that invisible coils were slowly drawing closer and tighter about him. Then his eyes caught sight of another city truck pulling through the gate of the police courtyard, and he saw Captain Snell and Ed Seigel flag it down. About twelve men, clad in prison gray denim, moved forward at once and began un-loading the chunks of cement, piling them into wheelbarrows that were carted out of sight toward the police sheds. Ruddy now heard the faint sounds of whacking, and he knew that the prisoners w
ere pounding to bits the slabs of concrete, searching for bits of gun metal. The clock on the wall of the offi ce showed 6:17. He knew that he ought to eat, but he had no hunger. He was of half a mind to go down and watch the pounding of the
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concrete but desisted; it would make him seem too eager, too anxious, too lacking in confidence—a state of mind that did not lend itself to inspiring the best morale in his men. He had to be patient and wait. Yet his nerves tingled. He clicked the switch on the intercom and called: “Mary Jane?”
“She’s off-duty, sir. This is Lieutenant Longhorn at the switchboard.”
“Chief Turner speaking. Connect me with my home
please.”
“Yes, sir. Just a second, sir.”
A few moments later the voice of Agnes sounded: “That you, Ruddy, darling?”
“Yeah. How are you, Agnes?”
“Okay. And you?”
“Fine. How’s Tommy?”
“Tommy? He’s not here. I was going to ask you—”
“Didn’t he come in yet?”
“No. Did you see him?”
“Yes. He was here a while ago. He left, heading for home.”
“Well, he hasn’t come. Ruddy, what’s he doing? For the past three days I’ve scarcely seen ’im. And don’t tell me that it’s his studies. He didn’t come in last night at all and—”
“He was with the Heards, he told me. Look, he’s all right. I talked to ’im. He did get in last night,” he said, knowing that, above all, he had to sooth Agnes’s worries. “But he went right back out. Something about a car radio . . . remember? That’s the way boys are, Agnes. They get bees in their bonnets and can’t keep still. Look, I’ll be out in a quarter of an hour.”
“Can you spare the time?”
“Sure thing. I can always spare the time for my wife and home. Ha, ha.” He tried to make her feel that he was jocular.
“See you, then, darling.”
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Yeah, there was no getting out of it; he had to tell Agnes about Tommy. He had to prepare her for whatever shock was coming. And his going home would give him the chance to check about the .38 in his desk drawer. He was certain that it was gone, but being a policeman, he wanted to see its absence with his own eyes before mapping concrete plans of action.