* * * * *
I was in my office at nine the next morning, after seven and a half
hours of sleep on one of the bunks in the ready room. The business
with Hammerlock Smith had taken more time than I had thought it would.
The big, stupid ape had been in a vicious mood, reeking of whisky and
roaring insults at everyone. His cursing was neither inventive nor
colorful, consisting of only four unlovely words used over and over
again in various combinations with ordinary ones, a total vocabulary
of maybe a dozen words.
It had taken four cops, using night-sticks, to get him into the paddy
wagon, and Dr. Brownlee had finally had to give him a blast of
super-tranquilizer with a hypogun.
"Boy, Inspector," one of the officers had said, "don't let anyone ever
tell you some of these guys aren't tough!"
I was looking over the written report. "What about this kid he
accosted in the bar? Hurt bad?"
"Cracked rib, sprained wrist, and a bloody nose, sir. The doc said
he'd be O.K."
"According to the report here, the kid was twenty-two years old. Smith
usually picks 'em younger."
The cop grinned. "Smith had to get his eventually, sir. This guy looks
pretty young, but he was a boxer in college. He probably couldn't've
whipped Smith, but he had guts enough to try."
"Think he'll testify?"
"Said he would, sir. We already got his signature on the complaint
while he was at the hospital. He's pretty mad."
Smith's record was long and ugly. Of the eight complaints made by
young boys who had managed to brush off or evade Hammerlock's
advances, six hadn't come to trial because there were no corroborating
witnesses, and the charges had been dismissed. Two of the cases had
come before a jury--and had resulted in acquittals. Cold sober, Smith
presented a fairly decent picture. It was hard to convince a jury of
ordinary citizens that so masculine-looking a specimen was homosexual.
The odd thing was that the psychopathic twist which got Hammerlock
Smith into trouble had been able to get him out of it again. Both
times, Smith's avowal that he had done no such disgusting thing had
been corroborated by a lie detector test. Smith--when he was
sober--had no recollection of his acts when drunk, and apparently
honestly believed that he was incapable of doing what we knew he _had_
done.
This time, though, we had him dead to rights. He had never made his play
in a bar before, and we had three witnesses, plus an assault and battery
charge. As Inspector Kleek had said, we get 'em eventually....
... _But at what cost? How many teenage boys had been frightened or
whipped into doing as he told them and then been too ashamed and sick
with themselves to say anything? How many young lives had been
befouled by Smith's abnormal lust?_
And if Smith spent a year or two in Sing Sing, how many more would
there be between the time he was released and the time he was caught
again? And how long would it be before he obligingly hammered the life
out of his young victim so that we could put him away permanently?
That was the "system" that Kleek--and a lot of other men on the Force
swore by. That was the "system" that the boys in Homicide and in the
Vice Squad thought I was trying to foul up by "babying" the zanies.
It's a hell of a great system, isn't it?
* * * * *
I called the hospital and talked to the doctor who had taken care of
Smith's victim. Then I called Kleek to see if there had been any break
in the Donahue case. There hadn't.
Finally, I called my son, Steve, at the apartment we shared, told him
I wouldn't be home that night, and sacked out in the ready room.
By nine o'clock, I was ready to go back to work.
At nine thirty, Kleek called. His saggy face looked sleepier and more
bored than ever. "No rest for the weary, Roy. I got a call on a
killing on the Upper East Side. Some rich gal with too much time on
her hands was having an all-night party, and she got herself shot to
death. It looks like her husband did it, but there's plenty of money
involved, and the Deputy Commissioner wants me to handle it
personally, all the way through. I'm putting Lieutenant Shultz in
charge of the Homicide end of the Donahue case, but I told him you
were the man to listen to. He'll report directly to you if there's any
new leads. O.K.?"
"O.K. with me, Sam." As I said, Kleek is a good cop in spite of his
"system."
"The boys are out making the rounds," he went on, "bringing in all the
men with conviction records and questioning the others. And we're
combing the neighborhood for the kid's clothes. They might still be
around somewhere. Shultz'll keep you posted."
"Fine, Sam. Happy hunting in High Society."
"Thanks, Roy. Take it easy."
At fifteen of eleven, the Police Commissioner called. He spent ten
minutes telling me that I was going to be visited by a VIP and giving
me exact instructions on how to handle the man. "I'm depending on you
to take care of him, Roy," he said finally. "If we can get this
program operating in other places, it will help us a lot. And if you
need help from my office, grab the nearest phone."
"I'll do my best," I promised him. "And thanks, sir."
The Commissioner was a lawyer, not a cop, so he wasn't as tied to the
system as Kleek and the others were. He was backing me all the way.
I punched Sergeant Vanney's number on the intercom. "Inspector Royall
here, Sergeant. Do me a favor."
"Yes, sir."
"Go down to the library and get me a copy of Burke's 'Peerage.'"
"Burke's which, sir?"
I repeated it and spelled it for him. He didn't waste any time; he had
it on my desk in less than twenty minutes. When the VIP arrived, I had
already read up on Chief Inspector, The Duke of Acrington.
Here's how he was listed:
_ACRINGTON, Seventh Duke of (Robert St. James Acrington) Baron
Bennevis of Scotland, K. C. B.: Born 7 November 1950, B.S., M.S.,
Oxon.,_ cum laude. _Married (1977) Lady Susan Burley, 2nd dau.
Viscount Burley. 2 sons, Richard St. James, Philip William._
[Illustration]
_Joined Metropolitan Police (1975); C. I. D. (1976); dep. Insp.
(1980); Insp. (1984); Ch. Insp. (1990). Awarded George Medal for
extraordinary heroism during the False War (1981)._
_Author_ Criminal Law and the United Nations, The Use of Forensic
Psychology (_police textbook_), _and_ The Night People (_fiction;
under nom de plume R. A. James_).
_Clubs: Royal Astronomical, Oxonian, Baker Street Irregulars._
_Motto: Amicus Curiae._
I had to admit that I was impressed, but I decided to withhold any
judgment until I had met the man.
* * * * *
He was right on time for his appointment. The car pulled up to the
parking lot with a sergeant at the wheel, and I got a bird's eye view
of him from my window as he got out of the car and headed for the
door. I had to grin a little; the Commissioner had obviously wanted to
take the visitor around personally--roll out the rug for royalty, so
to speak--but he had had a conference scheduled with the Mayor and
some Federal officials, and, after all, the duke was only here on
police business, not as Ambassador from the Court of St. James. So he
ended up being treated just as any visitor from Scotland Yard would be
treated.
He was shown directly to my office, and I gave him a quick once-over
as he came in the door. Tall, about six feet even; weight about 175,
none of it surplus fat; light brown hair smoothed neatly back, almost
no gray; eyes, blue-gray, with finely-etched lines around them that
indicated they'd been formed by both smiles and frowns: face, rather
long and bony, with thin, firm lips and a longish, thin, slightly
curved nose. He wore good clothes, and he wore them well. His age, I
knew; it was the same as mine. It was the first time I had ever seen
a man who looked like a real aristocrat and a good cop rolled into
one.
He had an easy smile on his face, and his eyes were taking me in, too.
I stand an inch under six feet, but I'm a little broader across the
shoulders than he, so the ten more pounds I carry doesn't make me look
fat. My face is definitely not aristocratic--wide and square, with a
nose that shows a slight bend where it was broken when I was a rookie,
heavy, dark eyebrows, and hair that is receding a little on top and
graying perceptibly at the sides. The eyes are a dark gray, and I'm
well aware that the men under me call me "Old Flint-eye" when I put
the pressure on them.
"I'm Chief Inspector Acrington," he said pleasantly, giving me a firm
handshake.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Your Grace," I said. "I'm Inspector
Royall. Sit down, won't you?" I gestured toward one of the upholstered
guest chairs, and sat down in the other one myself, so we wouldn't
have the desk between us. "Have a good trip across?" I asked.
"Fine. Except, of course, for the noise."
"Noise?" I knew he'd come over in one of the Transatlantic Airways'
new inertia-drive ships, and they're supposed to be fairly quiet.
His smile broadened a trifle. "Exactly. There wasn't any. I'm rather
used to the vibration of jets, and these new jobs float along at a
hundred thousand feet in the deadest silence you ever heard--if
you'll pardon the oxymoron. Everybody chattered like a flight of
starlings, just to keep the air full of sound."
I chuckled. "Maybe they'll put vibrators on them, just to make the
people feel comfortable. I read that the men in the moon ships
complain about the same thing."
"So I've heard. But, actually, the silence is a minor thing when one
realizes the time one saves. When one is looking forward to something
interesting, traveling can be deadly dull."
It was beautiful, the way he did it. He had told me plainly that he
wanted to get down to business and cut the small talk, but he'd done
it in such a way that the transition was frictionlessly smooth.
"Not much scenery up there," I said. "I hope you'll find what we're
trying to do here has a few more points of interest."
"I'm quite sure it will, from what I've heard of your pilot project
here. That's why I want to, well, sort of be a hanger-on for a few
days, if that's all right with you."
* * * * *
Before I could answer, the phone blinked. I excused myself to the Duke
and cut in. The image that came on the screen was almost myself,
except that he had his mother's mouth and was twenty-odd years
younger.
"Hi, Dad," he said, with that apologetic smile of his. "Sorry to
bother you during office hours, but could I borrow fifty? Pay you
back next week."
I threw a phony scowl at him. "Running short, eh? Have you been
betting on the stickball teams again?"
He cast his eyes skyward, and raised the three fingers of his right
hand. "Scout's Honor, Dad, I spent it on a new turbine for my
ElectroFord." Then he lowered his hand and looked down from the upper
regions. "I really did. I forgot that I was supposed to take Mary
Ellen out this evening. Car-happy, I guess. Can you advance the
fifty?"
I threw away my phony scowl and gave him a smile. "Sure, Stevie. How's
Mary Ellen?"
"Swell. She's all excited about going to the Art Ball tonight--that's
why I didn't want to disappoint her."
"Slow up, son," I told him, "you've already made your pitch and been
accepted. You'll get your fifty, so don't push it. Want to come down
here and pick it up?"
"Can do. And have I told you that you'll be invited to the wedding?"
"Thanks, pal. Can I give the groom away?" It was a family joke that
we'd kicked back and forth ever since he had met Mary Ellen, two years
before.
"Sure thing. See you in a couple of hours. Bye, Dad." He cut off, and
I looked at the Duke.
"Sorry. Now, you were saying?"
"Perfectly all right." He smiled. "I have two of my own at home.
"At any rate, I was saying that the Criminal Investigation Department
of New Scotland Yard has become interested in this experiment of
yours, so I was sent over to get all the first-hand information I can.
Frankly, I volunteered for the job; I was eager to come. There are
plenty of skeptics at the Yard, I'll admit, but I'm not one of them.
If the thing's workable, I want to see it used in England."