Any Woman He Wanted Read online

  “Want to come into my study, Mike?”

  Tom Flynn turned and crossed the room, moving carefully on the gray carpeting, almost as though he hated to disturb the deep pile.

  I followed him, still expecting to see Carolyn, still feeling that constriction in my stomach. Seven years was a long time ago—only sometimes time doesn’t mean a thing.

  We crossed a wide, sunlit foyer. Tom Flynn held open a thick oak door. Carolyn was nowhere. I felt my mouth pull into a mirthless, involuntary grin. Was she out of sight because she didn’t know I was coming out here today? Or was it because she did know?

  I entered Flynn’s study and he closed the door behind us. I turned, saw him lock the door.

  He straightened, ignoring my smile.

  He stood a moment as if undecided about what to do now that we were here, behind locked doors. The study was lined with richly bound reference books—it held leather chairs, a hunting trophy, a golf cup. Country Club Pro-Am, 3rd Place. His flat-topped, oak desk was polished to a fine patina. A briefcase stood on its blotter. Homework. Flynn was honest conscientious, hard working. I looked around again. Not a laugh in the room.

  “Sit down, Mike.”

  His voice revealed nervousness. I sat down, staring at him. He had changed in the four years since I had last seen him.

  He moved toward the leather upholstered chair behind his desk, but paused before he reached it. He stood against his desk, his hand nervously caressing the briefcase. I had never seen him like this.

  He was as tall as I, barely under six-feet, but he looked as if he’d lost weight recently, the hard, slow way. When a man’s insides turn to crud, the process shows first in his face—Flynn’s cheeks were haggard and there were thumb-sized shadows under his eyes.

  You had to know Tom Flynn to be hit as hard by what had happened to him as I was. He had been born into five or six generations of wealth, a family no longer as impressed by money as by social position—its status had almost become a social responsibility. Tom had always stood up well under the burden. He had been a leader in prep school. In college he joined the correct fraternity, made the honor society, won a Phi Beta Kappa key. At Harvard Law School he was high in his class, but not as high as he felt he ought to be—that king-sized Flynn sense of social responsibility again.

  “I guess you wonder why I asked you out here, Mike.”

  I shrugged. “I’m waiting for you to tell me.”

  “I asked you out here, because it would be unfair to burden any of the office staff with something as confidential as the matter I want to discuss with you.”

  I slumped deeper into my chair.

  Flynn finally sat down, too, bracing his arms on the desk.

  He tried to smile. “By the way, we want you to stay for dinner, Mike.”

  “Thanks. But I’m sorry—I can’t I’ve already got a date.” Maybe I’d drop by the Greek’s and drink a late dinner with Doc Yerrgsted.

  “Really?” Flynn drew a plastic letter opener between his fingers, looking troubled, as though my refusal were a big matter. “I hope you can break the date, Mike.” He shot his cuff, glanced at his wrist watch. “It’s early. You’ve plenty of time to let them know. You see—” he winced as if speaking reluctandy—”Carolyn has insisted you stay.”

  I exhaled slowly. “How, then, can I refuse?”

  He tried to smile again, tried to forget, I suppose, that seven years ago he had married a girl who almost eloped with a cop the night before the biggest local wedding in ten years. Carolyn had wept when her mother and her father and her brother had stopped us, and they had had to confess the whole business to Tom Flynn because it had required all the Flynn influence to keep the story hushed up and out of the papers. I had not seen Carolyn again except briefly on a street, in passing. I had not spoken to her. What could I have said? Ah, love, they’re playing our song. The hell with it.

  My voice was sharper than I intended. “You didn’t ask me out here to have dinner.”

  He almost smiled, grayly. “No, Mike, I didn’t. I haven’t seen you in some time.”

  I met his gaze. “Not since you tried to have me fired and imprisoned after the Luxtro deal.”

  He sighed. “We all try to do what we believe is right, Mike. In the best public interest. I’m still not convinced that you weren’t guilty of felonies during your years as lieutenant in the vice squad. You took money from Luxtro. A lot of money.”

  I shrugged.

  He got up, came around the desk, rubbing his face with both hands. “When Fred Carmichael interposed in your behalf, Mike, I was shocked. And surprised. He had more influence than I did, and so you kept your job, despite everything I could do.”

  I smiled evenly at him. “You did pretty well. You broke me to the rank of detective, third grade, assigned to homicide. Except for busting me back in uniform on a night beat, or firing me, there wasn’t much more you could do.”

  His voice was hard. “I felt defeated when you stayed out of jail.”

  I grinned at him again. “Well, we can’t win ‘em all, can we?”

  “In the past four years, Mike, I’ve heard nothing about you. I inquired of Captain Neal Burgess, Chief Waylin and Police Commissioner Stewart Mitchell. For four years now, you’ve walked through a daily eight-hour tour of duty. You’ve had no promotions, no commendations—”

  “And no headlines, either.”

  “No. You’ve kept quiet. Four years ago, you were the subject of editorials, you were on the front pages. I wasn’t the only decent citizen out to get you—and now suddenly—quiet.”

  “Is this bad?”

  “I don’t know. You’re a strong man, Mike. You could have been anything you wanted to be. As Carmichael pointed out at your hearing, when you decided to wipe out Luxtro’s crime machine, you didn’t leave a cog unsmashed and you did it alone, with a bullet in you. I had to admire you, Mike, even when I had to fight you. I knew I was fighting a big man. And now you’re all but forgotten.”

  I shifted slightly in the leather chair. “But not entirely, it seems.” When he failed to comment, I said, “Hell, you don’t even know why everybody was after me four years ago.”

  He leaned against his desk. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Hell, it’s easy. I had a new Olds, two apartments and a kept woman in one of them. I had a good bank account. That was a hell of a way for a cop to live. But then as soon as it was all stripped away from me, nobody gave a damn about me any more.”

  Flynn was scowling, his eyes deeply troubled. “Don’t you think a man in a public job ought to be honest, Mike?”

  I got up, walked across the deep carpeting to the window. I looked out across the velvety lawn, the thick hedge, the rich view. How could I talk to a man like Tom Flynn, a man who could live extravagantly and idly on the interest of the trust fund his father had set up for him the day he was born? I couldn’t remember a day when I didn’t have to fight my way home on the block where I’d lived as a kid. If you won a fight it was worse, because then all the bigger guys had to make their reps by whaling hell out of you. Tom had been born with everything he could ever want, and I was born wanting every nice shiny new thing I saw. I grew up seeing people as they were, while he was in college studying what people ought to be. We could stand together in the same room, but we couldn’t speak the same language.

  He took a couple of steps after me. “Doesn’t a man have a responsibility to be honest, Mike?” There was a lot more feeling in his voice than he intended.

  I turned away from the window, from the platinum-cast sunlight beyond it. I don’t know. I never discuss virtue in the abstract. “How did you earn your first buck?”

  His voice hardened. “Every dollar I’ve earned has been honest. I’ve given the people good service.”

  I shrugged. “Me, too. Can you swear that you’ve never been influenced by the fortune you inherited—never accepted a favor from your society contacts? Can you swear that when you tried to steamroller me you had not
hing but clean government on your mind—that you felt nothing personal between us? Wait—” I said when he would have spoken. “I’ve got one more question. Do you think I could have wiped out Luxtro’s crime combo if I’d never let them do me a favor?”

  He suddenly looked even more tired than before. “I’ve thought of the answer to that last question a number of times. Maybe I’m smarter than I was four years ago.” He took a deep breath, studying me. “Ever since you walked into this room, Mike, I’ve been waiting for you to say something.”

  I stared up at him, waiting.

  “You know what it is, Mike. We both know. This town was one hell of a lot cleaner four years ago than it is now Four years ago, you did accept bribes from the crime bosses. You’ve never denied it.”

  I massaged my thumb across my knuckles.

  “I realize something now I didn’t know then, Mike. You kept those people in line. Perhaps even with their knowing it. And eventually you smashed them. Maybe it was dirty fighting and you made a buck out of it, but it was effective.”

  I glanced up. “Was it?”

  “Stop being tough and bitter, Mike. You know damned well it was. Our crime rate is up. The FBI has called our city one of the dirtiest in the country.”

  “I haven’t paid much attention.”

  “Haven’t you? Don’t you read the newspapers? Isn’t the homicide squad bigger than it ever was, and still inadequate and undermanned? For one Luxtro, there are now five of him in this city. Juvenile delinquency is up over two hundred per cent. This whole city is in hell.”

  His hands were trembling. He shoved them into the pockets of his tailored summer cashmere jacket.

  He laughed in a self-deprecating way. “Four years ago, as you know, I was an ambitious man. I was riding toward the governor’s chair—on my record against rackets and vice in this town.”

  “You’ll make a fine governor,” I said.

  He paused, staring at me, flushing, seeking irony in my voice. There wasn’t any—I had meant what I said. The realization made him more uncomfortable than ever.

  “Thanks, Mike,” he said at last “But I’ll never be governor. Right now, today, I’m dead as far as state politics are concerned. This town is dirty and I’m the D.A. I haven’t cleaned it up, and I haven’t resigned. I don’t give a damn about my personal failure. But this is my town, Ballard, and nobody knows how rotten dirty it is better than I.”

  “You do what you can.”

  “It hasn’t been enough. I’ve got to do more.”

  “I wish you luck.”

  He strode back and stood before my chair, staring down at me.

  “I’ve got that coming, Mike.”

  “Make no mistake. You’re a good man, Flynn. I’ve got no hard feelings.”

  Flynn turned away, wincing. He swallowed hard, went back to his desk and sat down.

  “The hell with that, Mike, I called you here to offer you a job.”

  “I’ve got a job.”

  “Only your heart’s not in it.”

  “I can’t help that.”

  He leaned forward, “I’ve given this a lot of thought. I can give you a job you can put your heart in. Special vice investigator for my office.”

  I had to laugh. “Me? Working for you?”

  “With me, Mike. It’s no eight-hour job. I work twenty-four hours a day— and you would, too. The danger would be all at your end. You could put your heart in a job like that, Mike.”

  “No.”

  He jumped up. “You can’t mean that.”

  “I don’t want it. I wouldn’t touch it.”

  He leaned against his desk, the corners of his mouth sagging. Whatever else he had considered, it hadn’t occurred to him that I would refuse to work with him.

  “I don’t know where to turn if you won’t help me, Mike.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You think I gave you a raw deal, is that it? You’ll let this town go to hell to hit back at me?”

  I stood up “Why talk about it? I admire you, Counselor—everything you’ve done, or tried to do. Maybe I just want to stay alive. I could walk among those racket bosses, as long as they thought I was one of them. I’d be dead in an alley—if one of them could stop laughing long enough to knock me off—if they ever heard I came out of your office. No. I’m sorry, Counselor, I’m not ready to die the quick, painful way.”

  His lips worked, but at last he got himself under control. His eyes still raged at me but he was Thomas Elliot Flynn. School tie. Code. Ethics. He spoke, his voice low and even. ‘All right, Ballard. I hope you never regret this.”

  I stood up “You’ll tell Mrs. Flynn I’m sorry I couldn’t stay to dinner?” I straightened my jacket. “When she sees your face, I’m sure she’ll understand why.”

  4

  I sat at my desk and listened to this doll rage from half across the office. Our detective bureau is no different from any other in the country—women, when they come in or are brought in, are usually ready for hysterics.

  I glanced at the dock, glad that Ernie Gault had to deal with her. The clock must have stopped; it hadn’t moved five minutes in the past hour. The hands stood at almost five and there was only one thing I wanted— a drink in the peace and quiet of the Greek’s.

  I shoved a report pad in the top drawer of the cheap pine desk. I had hardly slept last night. On the way home from Flynn’s, I had stopped by the Greek’s for a bourbon and some gab with Doc Yerrgsted. I sometimes failed to follow what the old guy was saying, especially when he began to picture in intimate and technical detail a delicate operation he’d performed in some distant place and some other existence, but he always loved to talk and nothing he said irritated me. But after I got home and hit the sack, Flynn’s proposition began to bother me. It must have cost him a lot to make—it was costing me a lot to turn down. The hell with Flynn.

  “I’m sorry, miss.” Ernie Gault’s voice filtered through to my conscious mind. “There’s nothing the police can do. I’m sorry.” That was Ernie Gault, he really was sorry. But he was helpless trying to get rid of her.

  The girl’s voice rose. “Somebody has to help me.”

  I watched Ernie pat her shoulder. Some of the other men were watching him, grinning.

  “Look. Why don’t you go back home, honey?”

  The girl burst into a liquid Spanish that blistered the walls. Finally she got tired of yakking and stopped, her full breasts heaving. She was winded but she wasn’t about to give up whatever it was she expected from the police department. “You got to help me!” she cried out, and Ernie looked around again.

  His eyes found me. I shook my head at him, looked back at the clock.

  Next I knew, Ernie was guiding her toward my desk, assuring her repeatedly that everything was going to be all right

  I pushed back my , let my eyes rake Ernie before I looked at her. Ernie’s face was red. He wouldn’t meet my gaze. He half pushed the babe into the straight chair at the side of my desk.

  “Miss Valdez, this is Detective Ballard.”

  “Homicide,” I said.

  This meant nothing to her. It seemed to mean nothing to Ernie Gault either. His voice gushed on.

  “Detective Mike Ballard is a fine man, Miss Valdez. Mike, this is Lupe Valdez, 2310 Hermano... that’s right in the neighborhood where Detective Ballard was born, Miss Valdez. He grew up right there on Twenty-third. Isn’t that right, Mike? You tell him what you told me, Miss Valdez. Detective Ballard speaks real good Twenty-third Street Spanish.”

  She nodded, snuffling, and looked me over, her mouth swollen with her crying. She was a chubby girl, with olive complexion, black hair, black eyes. I had seen girls like her all my life. Gault hadn’t lied to her. I grew up on the edge of the Spanish section on Twenty-third Street. I remembered many like her, right down to those shapely ankles in crepe-sole white shoes, and plenty had been in trouble.

  Her shoulders, in a cheap dress that she must have worn because it would look nice when she came do
wntown, were drooping. She could not have been more than seventeen, but she looked ready to die of despair.

  She tried to smile. I looked her over, wondering why Gault brought her to me. Ernie patted her shoulders, walked away.

  I leaned back in the chair, told her in Spanish to relax.

  “Oh, God,” she said. “Oh, my God.”

  “You should have prayed,” I said, still in Spanish, “while you still had your pants on.”

  She pressed her hand against her mouth, sobbing.

  “All right,” I said in English. “Relax. Take it easy.” She nodded, wiping at her eyes with a brightly colored scarf. She had worn it over her thick black hair when she came in, but now she blew her nose in it.

  “You’re a nurse?” I asked.

  She nodded, still trying to get herself under control. “Yes. I’m in training. General Hospital—how did you know?”

  I could have given her a hundred clues. The way she stood in her white shoes the way she walked, the way her nails were cut. But the main thing was that I knew her neighborhood. Not many things could happen to girls there. If they were lucky they got married early. If not, they went in the factories, or the hospital. They made damned good nurses. It was as if they grew up bursting with love and desire and had to spread it around among

  “I’ll bet you’re a fine nurse.”

  She shrugged and repeated, “How did you know I’m a nurse?”

  “Those white shoes.”

  She smiled wanly. “I guess—well, I did think of changing them.”

  “Then you said the hell with it. That right Lupe?”

  “You really were born up there—up on Twenty-third, weren’t you’“

  I nodded.

  “And you know all about me, don’t you? I don’t have to tell you, do I? It’s all pretty cheap—and ugly—and you’ve heard it too many times, haven’t you?”