Garvey shrugged. “Yeah.”
“You can’t tell that to them. You can’t run with that. You’ll ruin us. You’ll ruin yourself. You’ll force our hand.”
“That’s what happened,” Garvey said carefully.
Collins looked him up and down. “I don’t even believe you.” He stood and opened the door and looked back. “I’m going to give you another hour to think. Another hour to remember. To listen. All right? I suggest you remember that you were traveling with Officer Philips from a local Midnight Mass when you saw the suspect coming from the alley entrance with what appeared to be a weapon and stolen goods in his hand, the stolen goods being three gold watches. Three run-down gold watches. Three of them. You then asked the suspect to stop, which is when he dropped the stolen goods and brandished his weapon. You then produced your revolver and told him to put his hands in the air, which is when he rushed you, which is when you popped off a round. You stayed on the scene, tried to revive him, but could not, and you waited for other police. Philips was there and he saw the whole thing, and he can testify to it, and it’ll be believable as he’s from that ratshit part of town. You certainly were not in that alley alone. You certainly didn’t see him stumbling around drunk with that weapon. You certainly didn’t accost him by yourself. It didn’t go like that. You understand me?”
“I thought you were still putting it together.”
“Do you understand?” asked Collins again.
“I understand,” Garvey said.
“All right. Now. When the representative from High Crimes comes and sits you down, will your story be more or less what we have just reviewed here, Detective?”
Garvey shook his head.
Collins took a deep breath. “You should really…”
“That’s not the way it went,” Garvey said. “That’s not the way.”
Collins studied him for a moment more, then turned and slammed the door.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Samantha struggled to help Hayes walk. He had been doing well for a bit, but now his head and nose were both bleeding freely. he had to keep his sleeve pressed to his scalp as if he were frozen in the middle of some bizarre salute. They went down empty streets at random and whenever they saw another pedestrian they shied away toward doorways and more empty alleys. Finally Hayes coughed and came to life a little more and began mumbling directions.
He directed her to the Wering Canal. They went down a stone stairway and began walking along the canal apartments. A smoky waterfall laved the stone walls at the far end. Next to it was an apartment with a small green door. Hayes leaned against it and told her to reach into his pocket and find the key with the little pearl. She did so and used it to open the door. Inside it was like a low musty attic with a tattered cot in the corner. Hayes staggered over and collapsed on it, the springs screaming beneath him. He lay there and forced breath into his lungs until it became calm.
“Whose place is this?” she asked.
“Mine,” he said.
“How many places like this do you have?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Several.”
Samantha tended to Hayes’s wounds for the next two hours. He had a mild concussion and one finger was broken. He said nothing as she moved his limbs around. She suspected he could not feel them at all. When she was done she went and sat by the door, head leaned back.
“What will happen to him?” she asked finally.
Hayes licked his lips. “I’m not sure. But it’s likely he’ll be suspended.”
“Suspended?”
“Yes. It’s procedure. He’ll be suspended while they consider how to go. There’s a board. I don’t know who’s on it or how big it is or how it works. But they have the choice to prosecute or fire him or do whatever.”
“Lord.”
Hayes nodded. Then his head tilted back and he fell asleep. Samantha slipped out the door and wandered up to the street and found a paperboy on the corner. It was so early he had not even cut open his stack yet. He watched her like she was some ghost, a ragged, filthy woman rising up out of the mist. She bought a paper from him and he handed it to her, eyes wide, and she read it as she walked back to the canal apartment. Hayes woke when she shut the door.
She said, “Be still. It’s nothing. I got a paper, that’s all.”
“You got a paper? Where?”
“From outside. On the street.”
“Were you followed?” he asked quickly.
“Who would follow me?”
“Anyone. Everyone, now. Were you followed?”
“No. No, I don’t think so.”
Hayes sighed and rolled his head away.
“He’s been arrested, like you said,” she told him. “It says so here.”
“Which paper?”
“ The Freedom.”
“Ignore most of what they say. They’re saying he should be hanged, aren’t they?”
She was silent.
“Yeah,” said Hayes. “Yes. I know.”
“They won’t hang him, will they?”
“I doubt it. The Freedom ’s written by fucking loons. It’s no good that everyone’s gotten ahold of it so fast, though. That means the reaction will be quicker, and stupider.”
“I know,” said Samantha. “I… I wonder where he’s being kept.”
“Probably at the Central’s cells. I bet he’s still being held for questioning, and they’re not dumb enough to put a police in a real prison. They’d kill him overnight.”
Samantha’s hand went to her mouth. She stumbled out the door and gripped the walkway railing, then stared into the waterfall and took some huge, deep breaths. Then when she had calmed herself she returned.
“I’m sorry,” Hayes said, blinking through his matted hair. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“I don’t care. I just let my emotions get the better of me.”
Hayes did not answer at first. Then he said, “It’s all right. I understand.”
“Understand what?”
He looked at her as though he was not sure what to say. “About you,” he said finally. “You and Garvey.”
“You don’t have to understand anything,” she said harshly.
“I know. I just thought I’d let you know.”
“It’s none of your business. It never is.” Samantha shut her eyes and ground the heels of her palms into her eye sockets. She quivered, suppressing a scream, and said, “He hasn’t said anything about us.”
“What?”
“In the paper. He hasn’t said anything about us. It makes it sound like he was just wandering through the neighborhood alone, saw someone acting suspicious, and then there was a brief struggle and he shot him. Him, all filthy and crazy-looking. With no witnesses at all. That’s what he’s telling them, it says here.”
“Oh, Christ. They’ll kill him with that story.”
“They say the man he killed was Barney Patrick. That he was a longtime administrative aid in the Dock Assembly. But he wasn’t. You said so. The man said he’d never worked in a factory.”
“Yes.”
“So they’re lying.”
“Oh, yes. A police shoots a union man all by himself in an alley, with no witnesses? If this was any other city
