Страница 49 из 107
“Niles, shitcan it!”
Da
Jack Shortell was still scribbling; Mike Breuning was looking up at him strangely, eyes narrowed to slits. Da
Niles had another cigarette going; he was scorching his desk with the tip. “You’re really in tight with the Jews, huh, Upshaw? What’s Mickey Kike paying you?”
“More than Brenda paid you.”
Shortell laughed; Breuning’s strange look broke into a smile. Niles threw his cigarette on the floor and stamped it out. “Why didn’t you report your lead on Marty Goines’ pad, hotshot? What the fuck was happening there?”
Da
Considine and Smith were waiting for him in Ellis Loew’s office; big Dudley was hanging up a phone with the words, “Thank you, lad.” Da
Considine was busy writing on a yellow legal pad; Smith came over and gave him the glad hand. “How was your first morning as Homicide brass, lad?”
Da
“Call me Dudley. You’ll be outranking me in a few years, and you should get used to patronizing men much your senior.”
“Okay, Dudley.”
Smith laughed. “Lad, you’re a heartbreaker. Isn’t he a heartbreaker, Malcolm?”
Considine slid his chair next to Da
Da
“Good. The briefing went well, then?”
“Yes.”
“Have you read that paperwork we gave you?”
“I’ve got it practically memorized.”
Considine tapped his pad. “Excellent. We’ll start now, then.”
Dudley Smith sat at the far end of the table; Da
“One, you drive your civilian car everywhere, on your decoy job and your homicide job. We’re building an identity for you, and we’ll have a script ready by late tonight. You’re going to be a lefty who’s been living in New York for years, so we’ve got New York plates for your car, and we’ve got a whole personal background for you to memorize. When you go by your various station houses to check reports or whatever, park on the street at least two blocks away, and when you leave here, go downstairs to the barbershop. Al, Mayor Bowron’s barber, is going to get rid of that crew cut of yours and cut your hair so that you look less like a cop. I need your trouser, shirt, jacket, sweater and shoe sizes, and I want you to meet me at midnight at West Hollywood Station. I’ll have your new Commie wardrobe and script ready, and we’ll finalize your approach. Got it?”
Da
Considine spoke directly to Da
Da
“But some people call us Communists. Doesn’t that bother you?”
“That old scarlet letter routine doesn’t wash with me.”
“Good. Let’s follow up on that. Oh, really? Fascist politicians have ruined many politically enlightened people by slandering us as subversives.”
Da
Considine laughed. “Good, but don’t call De Haven ‘baby,’ she’d consider it patronizing. Here’s a good one. ‘I find it hard to believe that you’d leave the Teamsters for us.’”
Easy. “Mickey Cohen’s comedy routines would drive anybody out.”
“Good, Deputy, but in your decoy role you’d never get close to Cohen, so you wouldn’t know that about him.”
Da
Considine flipped to the next note page. “But I’m thirteen years older than you.”
Da
Dudley Smith howled; Considine chuckled and said, “You just walk into my life when I’m engaged to be married. I don’t know that I trust you.”
“Claire, there’s only one reason to trust me. And that’s that around you I don’t trust myself.”
“Great delivery, Deputy. Here’s a curveball: ‘Are you here for me or the cause?’”
Extra easy: the hero of a paperback he’d read working night watch. “I want it all. That’s all I know, that’s all I want to know.”
Considine slid the notebook away. “Let’s improvise on that. ‘How can you look at things so simplistically?’”
His mental gears were click-click-clicking now; Da
Considine, coming on like a femme fatale. “You know I’m capable of eating you whole.”
“I love your teeth.”
“‘I love your eyes.’”
“Claire, are we fighting the fascists or auditing Physiology 101?”
“‘When you’re forty, I’ll be fifty-three. Will you still want me then?’”
Da
“Not so satirical on the political stuff, I’m not sure I trust her sense of humor on that. Let’s get dirty. ‘It’s so good with you.’”
“The others were just girls, Claire. You’re my first woman.”
“How many times have you used that line?”
Aw-shucks laughter—a la a pussy hound deputy he knew. “Every time I sleep with a woman over thirty-five.”
“Have there been many?’”
“Just a few thousand.”
“The cause needs men like you.”
“If there were more women like you around, there’d be millions of us.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That I really like you, Claire.”
“Why?”
“You drink like one of the boys, you know Marx chapter and verse, and you’ve got great legs.”
Dudley Smith started clapping; Da