Rogue Cop

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They had been playing poker for several hours now, not with any particular enthusiasm but simply to kill this quiet stretch of Saturday evening. Later, as the night wore on, the city’s tempo would rise to a harder, sharper beat; then murders, knifings and shootings would bring the game to an end. But now the police speaker was silent and the detectives played cards on a cigarette-scarred table in a smoky, unventilated office. Outside, in the large, brightly lighted file room, a clerk was typing up reports, working with severe concentration, stopping only to sip cold black coffee from a cardboard container at his elbow. The glazed-glass door that led to Lieutenant Wilson’s office was dark; the lieutenant was out in the districts now, but would be back at Headquarters by ten or eleven. There would be work then for him and his men.

Standing at the brown wooden counter that ran the length of the room was a reporter named Murphy, a bulky, untidily dressed man with a round florid face and thoughtful gray eyes. He was applying himself to the evening paper’s crossword puzzle, frowning intently, apparently immune to everything but this immediate preoccupation.

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