True Detective

of his cop's time. One of his ex-cops, at that.

'I want you to take this back.' he said, and he reached a hand out behind him and Miller came over and reached in an inside jacket pocket and withdrew something and filled Cermak's hand with it. Cermak showed me what it was. My badge.

'I can't do that' I said.

Cermak didn't hear that, apparently.

'What I have in mind.' he said, putting the badge on the marble-top. 'is you joining one of my hoodlum squads. We've got the world's fair coming up. you know, and I've got some promises to keep. And I keep my promises. Nate. Can I call you Nate?'

'Sure.' I shrugged.

Cermak took a swig of the beer and said. 'I'll have no truck with lawlessness. Nate. I promised Chicago I'd run these gangsters out of town, and by damn I'm going to do it. I won't have 'em working their shady sanies at the fair.'

I nodded.

'Yesterday is an example of what we need to do, where these hoodlums are concerned. You- like Sergeants Miller and Lang, and some of my other top people- will be sworn in as a deputy coroner so you can go all over Cook County picking up these gangsters.'

'Your Honor,' I said, 'I killed somebody yesterday. That isn't my idea of how to do anything'

He rose; his face got very red. And then he exploded.

'It's a war! It's a goddamn war! Don't you know that? I'm giving you an opportunity that any cop in town, every cop in town, would give his left ball for, and you- you'

He touched his stomach with the flat of one hand; he squinted.

'Excuse me,' he said, and left the room.

I could hear Paul Whiteman again, faintly. Over by the window, Miller, looking out at Grant Park, said, 'You better listen to the mayor.'

I didn't say anything.

There was another flush, and Cermak came back in; he didn't roll in this time. He seemed old. He was only in his late fifties, but he seemed old.

He sat. 'I made some campaign promises. I said I'd salvage Chicago's reputation. I said I'd drive the gangsters out. I told important people in this town that the town would be safe for a world's fair. A fair that could restore Chicago's dignity. Her reputation.'

'Do you really think Chicago's reputation was enhanced by what happened yesterday?' I said.

He seemed to think about that. 'We were shown to be courageous.'

'Some people say it was real police behind the guns at the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, too. you know.'

He glared at me; it was like an oven door opening and the heat hitting you in the face. 'What the hell is that supposed to mean?'

'It simply means,' I said, trying to drain all the smart-ass out of me, 'that headline-making violence adds to the city's bloody reputation no matter who is pulling the triggers.'

He touched his hands together lightly, prayerlike. 'Suppose yesterday had gone differently. Suppose that young man had not been in the window. Suppose the only person to die in that room had been Frank Nitti. A message would've been sent. To the gangsters. To the public. That this administration is not fooling around.'

'Somebody did die. and it wasn't Frank Nitti. That's the bad part, isn't it. Your Honor. The public sees a shoot- out involving police, and several people are shot but the big fish gets away. Oh. Nitti took a fall, all right- only he's going to set up again. Nitti's going to live.'

Cermak nodded, suddenly lost in thought. 'Yes.' he said. 'I believe you're right…' There was a pause the word 'unfortunately' might have filled.'… and while the world would be a better place without Mr. Nitti. we're not murderers, after all. He did shoot Sergeant Lang, and Sergeant Lang returned fire, and that's the end of it.'

I glanced over at Miller. He didn't seem to be listening; he was still looking out at the park.

'Could we speak in private, Your Honor?' I asked.

Without turning, Cermak said, 'Sergeant Miller… you and Mulaney go and have a smoke in the hall.'

Miller shambled by, without looking at me; Mulaney followed him out, or anyway the oversize suit he was wearing did, taking him along.

When the door had closed behind them, I said, 'Are you really aware of what happened at the Wacker-LaSalle Building yesterday?'

'Suppose you tell me, Nate.'

I did.

He listened with a rather glassy, frozen smile, and when I finished, he said. 'It's a funny tiling. Nate. You can have a dozen witnesses to an event, to an accident, a crime, and you can end up with a dozen damn versions of it. It's human nature. Take the Lingle case.' And here he paused and broadened his smile momentarily, as if to say. You remember the Lingle case, don't you, Nate? Then he picked my badge up from the marble-top. looked at it, tossed it on the sofa next to me. 'You'll be a sergeant for a while, and a lieutenant by next year this time. Sergeant's pay is twenty-nine hundred dollars, but you'll get deputy coroner's pay. which is three thousand sixty. Lieutenant's is thirty-two hundred. That's a thousand-dollar raise for you. isn't it, Nate?'