Crooked by Camilla Nelson Read Free Book Online Page B

threw himself down into the nearest chair like he’d just been invited. ‘I guess it must’ve been a little after three. I’m down at the Latin Quarter with my eyes on McPherson and that lot, when the club starts to close and people are blowing out the door and blocking my sight. Then I hear a shout, “Look out, he’s got a gun,” so I jump to my feet and draw my revolver. I’m pushing my way across the room, hurling furniture and so forth, and then I see this bloke lying under the table. McPherson says, “Ducky O’Connor, Mr Tanner. The cunt tried to knock me.” So I say, “Sit down, you lot, and put your hands on the table.” Then I turn to Pigeye and say, “Lock the doors, Pigeye” and I bend down and see that O’Connor’s still breathing, so I say, “Ring for an ambulance and get the others here.”’
    â€˜And then?’ said Allan, pacing the room between the desk and the window.
    â€˜Well, about twelve inches to the right I see a small automatic pistol, a Colt .25, so I pick up the gun and put it down on a napkin. Then I see a much larger weapon, a Dreyse .32, which I put on the table alongside the Colt. Then the others arrive, so I bag up the guns and sign them over to Scientific Investigations for dusting.’
    â€˜Who wiped the guns?’
    â€˜I reckon I dunno.’
    Allan came to a halt at the edge of his desk. For a moment he didn’t speak. Then he said, ‘I don’t like this, Tanner. I reckon it smells.’
    Tanner eyed him soberly. ‘The last thing any of us needs is accusations of hankery-pankery flying around, what with them Labor blokes clamouring up and down Macquarie Street and the press banging on.’
    Allan walked round the side of his desk and sat down in his chair. He took off his glasses, cleaned the lenses, and put them back on. ‘Can’t you get me a witness?’
    â€˜We spoke to them already.’
    â€˜Well, speak to them again,’ said Allan. ‘Then report back to me personally, understand?’
    â€˜Sure,’ said Tanner and, when it seemed Allan wasn’t going to say anything more, picked up his hat and got ready to leave.
    Allan glanced after him. ‘How’s young Finlay coming along?’
    â€˜Fine,’ said Tanner. ‘Why?’
    â€˜Knew his father once. Nice bloke, but soft for a copper. Got into a muddle. Sent him out the back o’ Bourke. Three weeks later, and he topped himself. Know that?’
    â€˜No,’ said Tanner, turning around with his hand on the doorknob. ‘I reckon I didn’t.’

    Allan sank a little deeper into his chair and reflected. His crook leg hurt him. He’d done the thing in by falling down the station steps one morning, landing splat on his back and mangling the cartilage. The damn thing had folded underneath him again shortly thereafter, boarding a plane out at Kingsford Smith Airport. That put him hip-down in plaster. Then there was the bit of asparagus on the floor at that politician’s kid’s bar mitzvah that cost him seven months and a kneecap …
    Scrambling to his feet, Allan strode angrily to a window that gave out on a glum courtyard filled with bits of broken brick and uncollected garbage. A thick fug of pollution drifted about the lintels of the building. He was head of the police force and in charge of everything, but down at the Criminal Investigation Branch he was in charge of nothing – there, only Tanner was in charge. Allan sent out orders. They were constantly countermanded. He requested information and got nothing back. The battle was denting his ego and sapping his strength. Pitiful as it was, he was compelled to go on or watch everything he cherished go up in a puff of black smoke.
    Allan knew there were plenty of coppers who had unusual arrangements with the criminal class and that money was involved all along the line in such transactions. Previously,