The Hour of the Cat Read Online Free Page B

with efficiency; public opinion served, not outraged. Lawyers and accountants occupied the Syndicate’s front offices. Police and politicians joined the payroll. Reporters, too.
    The day finally came when a cadre of incorruptible prosecutors and investigators busted up the rackets. The Syndicate found itself under the scrutiny of the government and was punished for its success in replacing chaos with order. But while the Syndicate had the tide of history on its side, there were plenty of those with the right mix of ambition and greed to make sure they were aboard for the ride. Among the cops, Brannigan was anointed the fair-haired boy.
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    A small bell tinkled. An altar boy emerged from the sacristy. Behind him, the priest in white vestments carried the veiled chalice. The clatter of rosaries against the wooden pews subsided. The server knelt beside the priest at the bottom of the three steps before the altar.
    They began the ancient exchange.
    Introibo ad altare Dei.
    Ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam.
    Dunne walked back to where he’d been sitting, lay his forearm on the pew in front, and rested his head on it. His knees were stiff from kneeling. Out of practice. “Offer it up for the poor souls in purgatory,” had been his mother’s response to every emotional or physical complaint. The Church’s cure-all for everything from colds to cancer. He decided to offer up the ache in his joints for himself, as penance for wasting the whole morning staking out Roberta Dee’s place in Brooklyn.
    Babcock visited Roberta Dee with such regularity it made shadowing him about as complicated as a shoeshine. She must have had the whole performance choreographed , one, two, clothes off, three, four, once more, five, six, we’ve had our kicks. The woman was a pro, the kind who apparently had Babcock running back and forth according to her clock, which made it seem unlikely he’d be bothering with a teenage stenographer. Mrs. Babcock was right about that much: her husband couldn’t keep his fly buttoned. She made sure the SOB was DOA. Too bad it had to be today.
    That morning, after leaving the BMT at Grand Army Plaza, Dunne had gone directly to Roberta Dee’s and sat across the street. Babcock’s routine never seemed to change. He always looked both ways as he left the taxi and entered her building, as though he might see someone he knew. In Newport or Palm Beach, maybe. In Brooklyn, not likely.
    Fifteen minutes passed, still no Babcock. A nattily dressed gent hurried out of the building. Late for something. An appointment. A client. Maybe a girl of his own. The doorman stepped into the street and blew his whistle. The flummoxed pigeons loitering near Dunne’s bench rose into the sky. The gent stood under the canopy that stretched from the building to the curb. Dunne had seen him before. A garden-variety specimen of the type that had taken root in the buildings this side of Prospect Park, a doctor maybe or a lawyer in the service of the Brooklyn Democratic machine. Two bull markets that never went away: pain and politics. The perennials.
    The doorman blew again, emptying his lungs into the whistle. A cab appeared and screeched to a halt. Dunne half-expected Babcock to pop out. But when the doorman swung the door open, it was empty. The gent slipped him a coin, entered the cab and sped away. Dunne tossed the newspapers he was carrying into a trashcan and crossed the street. Was it possible Babcock had caught on to being tailed? More probable that he was just delayed or forced to change his plans.
    Dunne unfolded the wrapper from a stick of chewing gum and stuck the gum in his mouth. He took a bill from his pocket that he’d already folded into a square, put the wrapper around it, and handed it to the doorman. “Can you get rid of this for me?”
    â€œSure bet,” the doorman said.
    â€œMind if I take a look around.”
    â€œBe my guest.”
    The lobby was