The D.A.'s Money

The DetectiveMidnight, and the rain was still working overtime. I had the bottle out and one glass poured when I heard the stairs complain. Cops climb stairs like they're carrying the whole department on their backs. Paddy Brogan carried two departments and a grudge older than I was.

Lt. BroganDon't get up. And put that away, I'm not here to drink with ya. Twenty years I waited to walk Pauly Marchetti through booking, and I done it. Three hours later his lawyer comes through the front door smilin', and Pauly walks out the back. Out. On a Tuesday.

The DetectiveA boss like that doesn't stay caged, Lieutenant. You knew that going in. So what brings you up my stairs at midnight, sore feet and all?

Lt. BroganBecause cuffin' Pauly's like cuttin' the head off a weed. The root's downtown, in a corner office, smilin' for the newspapers. The District Attorney's been eatin' Marchetti's money for years, and that's the man keeps the whole rotten thing standin'.

The DetectiveThen arrest him. You've got the badge. I've just got a desk and a hangover.

Lt. BroganWith what? Every warrant I sign crosses his desk first. Every honest man I got gets reassigned to the harbor patrol. This city chews up good men and spits out the rest, and I'm down to my last tooth. The badge can't touch him. But a fella with no badge, no rules, nobody to answer to? Maybe a fella like that can.

The DetectivePaddy Brogan, asking a private eye for help. I never thought I'd live to hear it.

Lt. BroganDon't make me say it twice. I been hatin' your kind since before you could shave. But I'd shake hands with the devil himself to put that man in the ground, legally speakin'. So. You in, or do I drink that whiskey after all.

The DetectiveHe stood there dripping on my floor, an honest man asking a dishonest favor, and hating every second of it. That's how I knew it was real. The witness who could have sunk the D.A. was already in the harbor, testimony and all, feeding the fish. The only proof died down there with him. Unless somewhere in this city, there's a copy of the D.A.'s ledger.

The DetectiveThe diner at the end of Harbor Street stays open all night, for the kind of people who can't go home and the kind who don't have one. She picked the booth in the back, away from the window, and she'd been watching the door since before I came through it. A woman that careful is either praying nobody finds her, or making sure somebody does. With her, I couldn't tell which.

The DameSit down, detective. Not across from me. Beside me, where you can see the door too. I keep the District Attorney's books. Two sets. One for the newspapers, one for the men who paid for him. You've been pulling at the money. I'm the thread you were looking for.

The DetectiveBookkeepers don't usually meet me at two in the morning. They send a lawyer and a smile. What's got you in the cheap seats, sweetheart?

The DameBecause I've read the names, and you haven't. There are people in that second ledger who pour concrete in this city, and not all of it goes into buildings. I copied every page. Dates, dollars, who signed for the envelope. It's the whole rotten heart of the office, in a clean secretary's hand.

The DameRelax. Just a cabbie wanting his coffee. You see how it is. I want a train ticket out of Calloway Bay and enough road behind me that the harbor can't reach. You want what's in my purse. I think we can be very good for each other, detective, if you're the kind of man who pays his debts.

The DetectiveAnd if I'm not?

The DameThen I walk out into the rain and you go home with nothing but a hunch and a bottle. The ledger has a price. You'll know it when I name it, and you won't like it. But you'll pay. Men like you always pay. It's the only honest thing about you.

The DetectiveShe let it sit there between us, soft as the steam off the coffee, and twice as scalding. I'd come looking for the money, and the money had a face now, painted and frightened and sharper than a switchblade. She had the one thing that could burn the D.A.'s office to the foundation. And she'd hand it over, for a price I wasn't sure I wanted to pay.

The DetectivePauly Marchetti made bail on a Tuesday and was back behind his own bar by Wednesday, pouring like the cell door had been a misunderstanding. The law had held him about as long as it takes to lose a hat in the wind. Now he wanted to buy me a drink. In Calloway Bay, the most dangerous words a man can hear are on the house.

Pauly MarchettiThere he is. Sit, sit, take a load off. You see this? Charges, poof, like smoke off a match. Turns out I got friends downtown who appreciate a man keeps the peace. So we're friends now too, you and me. Have a drink. I insist.

The DetectiveI'll stand. I drink better on my feet.

Pauly MarchettiSuit yourself. Now, word reaches me you been takin' the air downtown. Around the courthouse. Around a certain man's office. And that troubles me, 'cause that man and me, we got an arrangement. Costs me a pretty penny every month, and I pay it happy, like a gentleman. A friendly D.A.? In my business, that ain't a problem. That's overhead.

The DetectiveFunny. Most men complain about the overhead.

Pauly MarchettiHeh. You got jokes. I like that. But here's where it stops bein' funny. A man pays for an arrangement, he expects it stays arranged. Then some little secretary with a head fulla numbers, she starts keepin' a book she got no business keepin'. And now everybody and his brother is lookin' for that book. Me, I'm a reasonable man. The way I see it, whoever's holdin' it is holdin' a lit match in a room fulla gasoline. Be a shame, somethin' like that goin' off near a friend of mine.

The DetectiveHe never raised his voice. He never has to. He'd just told me, polite as a Sunday host, that he knew about the secretary, and he knew about the ledger. So that was the warning, served neat with a smile and a clean glass. Pauly knows about the ledger too, and he wants it buried with whoever's holding it.

The DetectiveThe Chronicle's morgue was three floors down, past the presses, where they kept the dead stories in steel drawers. Flynn lived down there like a man who'd lost a ring in the dark and never stopped looking. I brought him a ledger I shouldn't have had, and the smell of old newsprint closed over us like water.

FlynnLay it down, lay it down, right here under the lamp. Oh, this is beautiful. You see it? Two columns, same dates, different numbers. That's two sets of books, Detective. One they show the auditors, one they keep for themselves. Nobody keeps a second ledger unless the first one's a lie.

The DetectiveIt's just numbers, Flynn. Numbers don't testify.

FlynnThese do. Watch. Cash comes in dirty, splits into little pieces, two hundred here, two hundred there, every piece signed over as a campaign donation. Clean as a whistle by the time it hits the bank. I've got the clip files to match every name, every date. This isn't a story, this is the story. This is the front page that gets a man a corner office, or a slab at the morgue.

The DetectiveSo it runs to the D.A. We knew that much.

FlynnNo, no, no, that's just it, the D.A.'s in the middle of the column, not the top. The money doesn't stop at his office, it passes through it. Follow it up. Up past the D.A., up past everybody. There's a name at the top of every page, and I am already writing the headline, God help us both.

The DetectiveI leaned into the lamp and read what was written there, and the rain on the high window sounded a long way off. The name at the top of the ledger isn't the District Attorney. It's someone the whole city trusts.

The DetectiveThe courthouse steps were slick with rain and reporters. Inside, the District Attorney was getting fitted for a set of headlines, the kind that ruin a man for a week and a half. Brogan stood out in the wet with his collar up, watching the cameras flash, looking like a man who'd ordered steak and been handed the menu.

The DetectiveThat ledger put the D.A. on the front page, Brogan. The bloody campaign money, every name, every number. You got him.

Lt. BroganI got a fall guy. A man in a good suit who'll take the headline so the fella above him stays dry. The D.A. answered to somebody, and that somebody's already on a yacht in the harbor, smilin'. Twenty years I chased this, and the rot just shifted seats.

The DetectiveMarchetti got his warning. The D.A.'s finished. That's more justice than this town's seen in a decade.

Lt. BroganAye, and it tastes like ash, doesn't it. I came on this job to clean the place. Forty years on, and the dirt outlasted me. That ledger bought us one honest morning, son. The afternoon belongs to whoever's payin'. I'm just too tired now to be surprised.

The DetectiveBrogan walked off into the rain, a little smaller than when I'd met him, carrying the part of himself this case had eaten. I lit a cigarette that wouldn't stay lit and watched the gutters carry the day downhill toward the harbor, where everything in Calloway Bay eventually goes. The city doesn't change. You just pay to learn that twice. In this city you cut off one head and two grow back, and somewhere a phone is already ringing.

The DetectivePauly Marchetti ran the Blue Room like a king runs a country. Quiet, generous, and absolutely certain that everyone in it belonged to him. He'd invited me for a drink. In this business, an invitation from a man like Pauly isn't the kind of thing you turn down.

Pauly MarchettiDetective. Sit. Have a drink, on the house. You know, I like you. You got, what do you call it, persistence. Most guys, they hear my name, they find somewhere else to be. But you? You keep showin' up. That's either very brave or very stupid.

The DetectiveI've been called both. Usually in the same sentence.

Pauly MarchettiHeh. Funny. See, here's my problem. You been askin' questions about a friend of mine. A dead friend. And every question you ask, it makes my other friends nervous. You understand what I'm sayin' to you?

Lt. BroganNobody move! Marchetti, step away from the man. I've been waitin' twenty years to walk into this room with a warrant, and by God, today's the day.

The DetectiveAnd just like that, the quietest room in the city got very loud.