Read Brass Go-Between for Free Online Page B

said.
    “No, man, the temperature’s coming on.”
    We waited, not moving, until the number was nearly through and then the disk jockey’s voice came on, crackling hard over the fading dissonance: “Now it is warm out there. Man down at the weather bureau says it’s one hundred and two, that’s t-w-o, degrees right here in the nation’s Capital. That’s uh-one-uh-oh-uh-two degrees and Mr. Weatherman says that’s the all-time record for this August date. So why don’t you lean back, grab something tall and cool—to drink, I mean—and listen to—” The driver switched it off and looked at his watch.
    “If it don’t get no hotter, I won,” he said.
    “Won what?”
    “The weather pool. I had a hundred and two at 3 P.M. Twenty-five-dollar pool.”
    “Let’s hope you won. Now how about the police station?”
    He turned to look at me then, a dark brown man with his hair worn natural bush, I suppose, and the blackest pair of sun glasses over his eyes that I’d ever seen.
    “Now we’ve got a lot of police stations,” he said. “We’ve got the Park Police and the Capital Police and the Metropolitan Police and we’ve got fourteen precinct police stations plus the harbor unit down on Maine Avenue and that’s still not counting the FBI and the CIA out in Virginia. Just make your choice and I’ll be happy to take you to any one of them.”
    “Let’s try the Metropolitan Police headquarters,” I said. “If that doesn’t work out, I’ll give the rest of them a go.”
    The cab moved away from the curb with something of a racing start. “The Metropolitan Police headquarters is located at 300 Indiana Avenue,” the driver said. “A very nice neighborhood out of the high-rent district and within easy walking distance of the Capitol and a lousy sixty-five-cent ride from here.”
    It was a brief ride and the driver kept up his running commentary until we pulled up before a large, six-story granite building whose architectural style leaned toward Midwestern municipal. “How much?” I said.
    “Like I said, sixty-five cents unless you’re a big spender from out of town.”
    “You figured it out after all,” I said, and gave him a dollar.
    “Thank you, my good man, and I hope you have a pleasant visit with the friendlies.”
    “And I hope you win the pool.”
    Inside there was the usual number of people who had reason to come calling on the police at three o’clock in the afternoon. They avoided each other’s eyes as they waited before the bank of four elevators that would take them up to talk to someone with a badge about something that had turned out differently from what they had expected. About something that had turned out wrong.
    The halls of the building, which also seemed to contain the city’s tax division, were covered with brown marble that ran halfway up the wall and then turned into pale green plaster. The floors were covered with black and white speckled marble and it all seemed solid and secure and as if it were meant to last for a long time. A directory said that the robbery squad was on the third floor so I took one of the elevators up and when I emerged the first thing that I saw on the right was a brown shield about eighteen inches high with gold lettering that read ROBBERY SQUAD. The door was open and I walked into a small waiting area that was bounded by frosted glass and plywood partitions. A worn brown bench, something like a pew in an old church whose building fund suffered a deficit, was placed against one of the walls, apparently for the use of robber and victim alike. At the left was a door and a window that was very much like a bank teller’s cage without the bars. I approached the window and a man in a white shirt, blue tie, and a holstered gun under his left arm wanted to know if he could help me.
    “I’d like to see Lieutenant Demeter,” I said.
    “Your name?”
    “Philip St. Ives.”
    “How do you spell it?”
    I spelled it for him, he wrote it down, and