Chapter 16 chapter Ten

A uniformed police officer sits at a typewriter desk and speaks into a tape recorder.After a while he looked at Mallory, pointed to a glass door, and said, "The Detective Captain wants you for a private conversation." Mallory rose stiffly from the hard chair, crossed the room, leaned against the glass door, pushed it open, and walked in. The room he entered had a brown linoleum filth as dirty as only the authorities could match.Detective Captain Cathcart sat in the middle of the room, on one side of him was a messy folding table that looked more than twenty years old, and on the other was a flat oak table almost big enough to play ping-pong.

Cathcart was a tall, well-worn Irishman, with a sweaty face and a lopsided mouth that kept smiling.There was a trace of nicotine in the middle of his white beard.There is a lot of fat on the hands. Mallory walked slowly towards him, leaning on a heavy cane with a rubber tip.His right foot felt hot and swollen, and his left hand was wrapped in a sling made of black silk scarf.He had just shaved, his face was clean and pale, and his eyes were black as slate. He sat across the table with the detective captain, put his cane on the table, took out a cigarette and lit it, and asked casually: "What does it say in the verdict, sir?"

Cathcart grinned. "How are you feeling, lad? You look a little weak." "It's not bad. The body feels a little stiff." Cathcart nodded, cleared his throat, flipped through some documents in front of him, and said: "Acquitted. Kind of an accident, but you're not guilty. Chicago cleared you--damn innocent. Your Luger shot Mike Colliss, a twice-felonious man. I Want to keep this Luger as a keepsake, would you?" Mallory nodded. "Okay. I'm planning to switch to a .25" gun with copper bullets, a sniper's gun, the kind that doesn't shoot, but it's more suitable for wearing night clothes."

Cathcart looked at him carefully for a while, then continued, "Mike's fingerprints were on the shotgun. That shot hit Maldone. There is no dispute about that. The blond boy was not seriously injured. The automatic we found on the ground There were his fingerprints on the pistol, and that got him in a bit of trouble." Mallory rubbed his chin wearily: "What about the others?" The captain raised his unkempt eyebrows, and his eyes seemed a little dazed.He said, "I don't know anything else about you, do you?" "It's not about me," Mallory explained, "I'm just curious."

The captain said in a firm tone: "Don't be curious. If someone asks you, don't guess... Listen to Baldwin Hill. We think so. MacDonald died in the line of duty while tracking down the old slippery Morgan, a drug dealer. Dead. Old slick's wife is charged too, but I don't think we're going to get her. Mike's not on Narcotics, he was off that night, he's a great cop, and he's doing his job while off. Mike loves his job." Mallory smiled and said politely, "Is that so?" "Yes," said the captain, "on the other hand, this Landry, the well-known gambler, was Maldone's partner. What an interesting coincidence—he went to Westwood that night to find a man named Costalo's men collect money, Costalo's at the Eastern Railroad to help them take bets. One of our cops, Jim Ralston, followed him. He didn't have to go, but he knew Landry well. They were in There was some conflict over the money, Jim got knocked out with a baton, Landry and one of the guys shot at each other. There was another guy we didn't track down. We got Costalo, but he didn't say anything , and we don't want to beat the old man either. He's been charged with assaulting people with a short stick, and I expect he'll appeal."

Mallory slumped over in the chair, leaning his neck over the back of the chair, and let out a puff of smoke that rose to the stained ceiling.he asked: "What about the night before yesterday? Did the odds turn the tables, or did the prankster cigar blow a hole in the garage floor?" The detective captain quickly wiped his sweaty face with his hands, and took out a large handkerchief to blow his nose. "Oh, that," he said lightly, "that's nothing. That blond boy, Henry Anson or something, said it was all his fault. He's Maldone's bodyguard, but that doesn't mean he You can shoot whoever you want. It would get him in trouble. But because he was honest about it, we didn't make it hard for him."

The captain stopped talking abruptly and stared at Mallory.Mallory was grinning. "Of course, if you don't like his story..." the captain said coldly. "I haven't heard this one yet. I think I'm going to like it," Mallory said. "Well," he murmured, softening his tone, "well. This Anson said Maldone rang the bell to let him in when you were talking to his boss. You were talking about something, maybe Talk about the gambling table downstairs where they rigged. There was some money on the table, and Anson thought you were blackmailing his boss. You really looked like someone who would do that to him, and he didn't know you were a Detective, so it got a bit tense. He fired and you didn't shoot back right away, but the poor guy fired again and shot you. So you shot him in the shoulder, who wouldn't in that situation Would you do that? If it were me, I'd just shoot him. Then the man with the shotgun came to talk about money, don't ask why, he just shot Maldorne, shot him again shot you. We thought at first he shot Maldone on purpose, but he said no, he tripped over the door... God, we don't want you at all, you There is no hatred against them, but a person has the right to protect himself when he is threatened with illegal weapons."

Mallory said gently, "And the district attorney and coroner, what did they say? I hope I leave as clean as I came." Cathcart frowned and looked at the dirty linoleum, biting his thumb, as if he enjoyed self-torture. "The coroner doesn't give a damn about this kind of shit. If the D.A. wanted something, I'd tell him a few cases they didn't close." Mallory picked up the cane from the table, pushed back the chair, and stood up leaning on the cane. "You have a first-rate police department," he said. "I shouldn't think there's any crime here."

He moved slowly towards the door.The captain asked behind him: "Going back to Chicago?" Mallory shrugged his right shoulder, the uninjured shoulder, slightly. "I might stay here," he said. "I've got an offer from a movie company. About private blackmail details, blackmail and stuff like that." The captain smiled even more meaningfully. "Nice," he said. "Ikoris Films is a nice company. They've been taking good care of me too... Nice easy job, blackmail. No more trouble." Mallory nodded solemnly. "Just simple work, sir. Almost sissy, if you know what I mean."

He went out, went down the corridor, into the elevator, out onto the street, and got into a taxi.It was stuffy in the taxi.On the way back to the hotel, he felt dizzy.