Nor Iron Bars a Cage.... Part 2

Smith's record was long and ugly. Of the eight complaints made by young boys who had managed to brush off or evade Hammerlock's advances, six hadn't come to trial because there were no corroborating witnesses, and the charges had been dismissed. Two of the cases had come before a jury--and had resulted in acquittals. Cold sober, Smith presented a fairly decent picture. It was hard to convince a jury of ordinary citizens that so masculine-looking a specimen was h.o.m.os.e.xual.

The odd thing was that the psychopathic twist which got Hammerlock Smith into trouble had been able to get him out of it again. Both times, Smith's avowal that he had done no such disgusting thing had been corroborated by a lie detector test. Smith--when he was sober--had no recollection of his acts when drunk, and apparently honestly believed that he was incapable of doing what we knew he _had_ done.

This time, though, we had him dead to rights. He had never made his play in a bar before, and we had three witnesses, plus an a.s.sault and battery charge. As Inspector Kleek had said, we get 'em eventually....

... _But at what cost? How many teenage boys had been frightened or whipped into doing as he told them and then been too ashamed and sick with themselves to say anything? How many young lives had been befouled by Smith's abnormal l.u.s.t?_

And if Smith spent a year or two in Sing Sing, how many more would there be between the time he was released and the time he was caught again? And how long would it be before he obligingly hammered the life out of his young victim so that we could put him away permanently?

That was the "system" that Kleek--and a lot of other men on the Force swore by. That was the "system" that the boys in Homicide and in the Vice Squad thought I was trying to foul up by "babying" the zanies.

It's a h.e.l.l of a great system, isn't it?

I called the hospital and talked to the doctor who had taken care of Smith's victim. Then I called Kleek to see if there had been any break in the Donahue case. There hadn't.

Finally, I called my son, Steve, at the apartment we shared, told him I wouldn't be home that night, and sacked out in the ready room.

By nine o'clock, I was ready to go back to work.

At nine thirty, Kleek called. His saggy face looked sleepier and more bored than ever. "No rest for the weary, Roy. I got a call on a killing on the Upper East Side. Some rich gal with too much time on her hands was having an all-night party, and she got herself shot to death. It looks like her husband did it, but there's plenty of money involved, and the Deputy Commissioner wants me to handle it personally, all the way through. I'm putting Lieutenant Shultz in charge of the Homicide end of the Donahue case, but I told him you were the man to listen to. He'll report directly to you if there's any new leads. O.K.?"

"O.K. with me, Sam." As I said, Kleek is a good cop in spite of his "system."

"The boys are out making the rounds," he went on, "bringing in all the men with conviction records and questioning the others. And we're combing the neighborhood for the kid's clothes. They might still be around somewhere. Shultz'll keep you posted."

"Fine, Sam. Happy hunting in High Society."

"Thanks, Roy. Take it easy."

At fifteen of eleven, the Police Commissioner called. He spent ten minutes telling me that I was going to be visited by a VIP and giving me exact instructions on how to handle the man. "I'm depending on you to take care of him, Roy," he said finally. "If we can get this program operating in other places, it will help us a lot. And if you need help from my office, grab the nearest phone."

"I'll do my best," I promised him. "And thanks, sir."

The Commissioner was a lawyer, not a cop, so he wasn't as tied to the system as Kleek and the others were. He was backing me all the way.

I punched Sergeant Vanney's number on the intercom. "Inspector Royall here, Sergeant. Do me a favor."

"Yes, sir."

"Go down to the library and get me a copy of Burke's 'Peerage.'"

"Burke's which, sir?"

I repeated it and spelled it for him. He didn't waste any time; he had it on my desk in less than twenty minutes. When the VIP arrived, I had already read up on Chief Inspector, The Duke of Acrington.

Here's how he was listed:

_ACRINGTON, Seventh Duke of (Robert St. James Acrington) Baron Bennevis of Scotland, K. C. B.: Born 7 November 1950, B.S., M.S., Oxon.,_ c.u.m laude. _Married (1977) Lady Susan Burley, 2nd dau.

Viscount Burley. 2 sons, Richard St. James, Philip William._

[Ill.u.s.tration]

_Joined Metropolitan Police (1975); C. I. D. (1976); dep. Insp.

(1980); Insp. (1984); Ch. Insp. (1990). Awarded George Medal for extraordinary heroism during the False War (1981)._

_Author_ Criminal Law and the United Nations, The Use of Forensic Psychology (_police textbook_), _and_ The Night People (_fiction; under nom de plume R. A. James_).

_Clubs: Royal Astronomical, Oxonian, Baker Street Irregulars._

_Motto: Amicus Curiae._

I had to admit that I was impressed, but I decided to withhold any judgment until I had met the man.

He was right on time for his appointment. The car pulled up to the parking lot with a sergeant at the wheel, and I got a bird's eye view of him from my window as he got out of the car and headed for the door. I had to grin a little; the Commissioner had obviously wanted to take the visitor around personally--roll out the rug for royalty, so to speak--but he had had a conference scheduled with the Mayor and some Federal officials, and, after all, the duke was only here on police business, not as Amba.s.sador from the Court of St. James. So he ended up being treated just as any visitor from Scotland Yard would be treated.

He was shown directly to my office, and I gave him a quick once-over as he came in the door. Tall, about six feet even; weight about 175, none of it surplus fat; light brown hair smoothed neatly back, almost no gray; eyes, blue-gray, with finely-etched lines around them that indicated they'd been formed by both smiles and frowns: face, rather long and bony, with thin, firm lips and a longish, thin, slightly curved nose. He wore good clothes, and he wore them well. His age, I knew; it was the same as mine. It was the first time I had ever seen a man who looked like a real aristocrat and a good cop rolled into one.

He had an easy smile on his face, and his eyes were taking me in, too.

I stand an inch under six feet, but I'm a little broader across the shoulders than he, so the ten more pounds I carry doesn't make me look fat. My face is definitely not aristocratic--wide and square, with a nose that shows a slight bend where it was broken when I was a rookie, heavy, dark eyebrows, and hair that is receding a little on top and graying perceptibly at the sides. The eyes are a dark gray, and I'm well aware that the men under me call me "Old Flint-eye" when I put the pressure on them.

"I'm Chief Inspector Acrington," he said pleasantly, giving me a firm handshake.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Your Grace," I said. "I'm Inspector Royall. Sit down, won't you?" I gestured toward one of the upholstered guest chairs, and sat down in the other one myself, so we wouldn't have the desk between us. "Have a good trip across?" I asked.

"Fine. Except, of course, for the noise."

"Noise?" I knew he'd come over in one of the Transatlantic Airways'

new inertia-drive s.h.i.+ps, and they're supposed to be fairly quiet.

His smile broadened a trifle. "Exactly. There wasn't any. I'm rather used to the vibration of jets, and these new jobs float along at a hundred thousand feet in the deadest silence you ever heard--if you'll pardon the oxymoron. Everybody chattered like a flight of starlings, just to keep the air full of sound."

I chuckled. "Maybe they'll put vibrators on them, just to make the people feel comfortable. I read that the men in the moon s.h.i.+ps complain about the same thing."

"So I've heard. But, actually, the silence is a minor thing when one realizes the time one saves. When one is looking forward to something interesting, traveling can be deadly dull."

It was beautiful, the way he did it. He had told me plainly that he wanted to get down to business and cut the small talk, but he'd done it in such a way that the transition was frictionlessly smooth.

"Not much scenery up there," I said. "I hope you'll find what we're trying to do here has a few more points of interest."

"I'm quite sure it will, from what I've heard of your pilot project here. That's why I want to, well, sort of be a hanger-on for a few days, if that's all right with you."

Before I could answer, the phone blinked. I excused myself to the Duke and cut in. The image that came on the screen was almost myself, except that he had his mother's mouth and was twenty-odd years younger.