The Stakeout
Inspector Biff Higgins stuck both hands in his coat pockets as he and a smaller man scurried down the long stairway between Waterman Place and St. Broderick’s Cathedral.
“Frightfully cold tonight,” Higgins said, glancing down at his companion. A chill wind from the foggy bay below blew across their faces.
The other man was M. Dundas, the City Superintendent of Police, and Higgins didn’t know why he was even here, on what was undoubtedly a routine search for criminal legal activity. Dundas had only been in his position for a month, having been promoted after commanding one of the precinct stations. He was a strange man, a man of few words and no explanations. Mostly, he just gave brusque orders.
Higgins felt the wind cut through his skin, and in the yellow glow of a streetlight he saw the Superintendent’s lips move, but the words were drowned out in a howl of wind. Dressed like Higgins in a black trench coat with the collar drawn tightly about the neck, Dundas seemed distant and mysterious. Short and solidly heavy, he was around fifty—perhaps four or five years older than the weathered Inspector.
Higgins wiped moisture off his nose with the back of one gloved hand. Odd that we still don’t know the Super’s first name, he thought.
In the short time that Dundas had been in his position, his background had been the object of considerable interest around the city. Some of the officers had attempted to learn more about him through hushed inquiries, but very little had turned up. Superintendent Dundas’ past was locked away from the common troops. He kept his privacy more than any commander for whom Higgins had ever worked.
Why has he come along tonight? Higgins wondered as they reached the street and made their way along a narrow alley behind the cathedral. Supers don’t go on stakeouts. So far, though, Higgins didn’t know the subject of this particular stakeout; Dundas had only told him they were going to watch a place in the west end for unusual activity. Nothing more than the name of a bookstore and an address. No other details.
“I need to get more personally involved in this particular investigation,” Dundas said, as if in answer to the other man’s unspoken thought. The wind made a throbbing whine against the cathedral spires far above. “I’ve never been one for desk work.”
“Yes, Superintendent.” They continued on, and rounded a corner. “The bookstore is just ahead, sir.” Higgins wondered why they were staking out a bookstore.
Just past a telleybooth they turned onto a dingy commercial street. People in tattered coats and sweaters moved hurriedly along the sidewalks outside the shops and taverns, or huddled shivering on trolley stop benches.
As they passed one trolley stop, Dundas whirled suddenly and faced three men who were seated on the bench, talking with one another. “I heard that!” he raged. “Who said it?”
“What do you mean, Inspector?” one of them asked. He had a deeply creased face with gray, wispy eyebrows. A black cigarette hung from one corner of his mouth.
“It’s Superintendent,” Dundas snapped. “Those foul words! Who uttered them?” He stepped close to the man and glared down at him.
“None of us said anything, sir.” The man puffed his cigarette, glanced nervously at his friends.
“You’re lying!” Dundas roared. “I know what I heard!”
Higgins had not heard anything himself, and he said, touching Dundas’ shoulder, “Superintendent, shouldn’t we keep going?” He leaned close to Dundas’ ear: “The stakeout, sir.”
“What?” Dundas said. “Oh yes, Higgins. I suppose we should. I suppose we should.” They resumed walking, and Dundas spoke in a low, hostile, tone: “They’re all around. I can smell ’em!”
“What do you mean, Superintendent?” Higgins wondered if his boss was a little daft.
“We’ll get ’em, Higgins! We’ll ferret out every last one of ’em!” He didn’t explain anything, picked up the pace.
They had to stop at a crosswalk, to await a break in traffic.
Dundas spoke, his voice crisp and angry in the cool night air. “There’s power in words, Higgins. It’s no innocent thing, you know. A word can be full of ideas! Evil ideas!”
“Uh, the bookstore is just over there, sir,” Higgins said, pointing to a dimly lit little shop across the street and several doors down. A shabby sign over the store read: Books – Secondhand. “Can you tell me why we’re staking this place out tonight?”
As they crossed the street, the Superintendent answered, “I think criminals might be meeting in there. If I’m right, we’ll call for backup officers who are waiting nearby. They can be on the scene in a less than three minutes.”
“Criminals, sir? What sort of criminals are we looking for?”
“I didn’t tell you? Why, lawyers, of course.” He paused, looked at Higgins in the low light. “That’s why I was angry at the men back there. I heard one of them use a Latin phrase.”
“Oh, I see.”
Higgins’ thoughts raced. So it was lawyers they were after tonight. It was a facet of criminal activity that he had studied, as part of his training program. But he’d only arrested a few lawyers. Other officers specialized in tracking them down and bringing them to justice. It had been illegal to be a lawyer for more than half a century now, and there was good reason for this. In the past, they’d caused incredible damage to society, with all of their tricks and activities that stirred up trouble.
“Res ipsa loquitur,” Dundas said. “Filthy Latin words. That’s what I heard the son-of-a-bitch say.”
“What do the words mean, sir?”
“I don’t know, nor do I want to know. It’s just Latin, that’s all that matters to me. Anything that sounds strange is probably Latin.”
This did not make any sense to Higgins, but he didn’t want to argue the point with a man who was obviously disturbed. Higgins could not wait for the stakeout to be over, and wanted to go home right now. He took a deep breath to calm himself.
“Here’s a phrase in English that I do understand,” Superintendent Dundas said. “‘Malice aforethought.’ Now, who’s to say what’s malicious?” His voice grew feverish. “How does anyone prove what a person was thinking when he committed a particular act? That sort of argument clogged the courts with testimony, expert witnesses, etc. … all orchestrated by fee-grabbing lawyers to trick impressionable juries.”
“Non-lawyer arbitration saved us, sir—committees run by laymen.” Higgins’ nose felt cold and runny-wet.
“And the imposition of plain English, man!” Dundas said in the tone of a dissatisfied schoolmarm. “Our laws are written so clearly now that we don’t need any bloody lawyers to interpret them for us! You know, those sneaky bastards used to make laws intentionally confusing.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And why do you suppose they did that, Higgins?”
Higgins shuffled around on his feet to keep warm. “I studied that in the police academy, sir. Lawyers did it so that more of their kind would be needed to interpret the words and their meanings. Lawyers wanted matters to end up in court, and they stirred up general confusion to make sure they did.”
“Precisely! They created problems that only members of their own kind could solve. Lawyers supporting lawyers, perpetuation of their own parasitic breed. Now it’s all illegal.”
“Since the Great Purge, sir.”
“It’s nearly eight o’clock,” Dundas said, glancing at his wristwatch and then up at Inspector Higgins in a way that made the subordinate man feel uneasy.
Higgins wiped his wet nose, knew it must be red.
As Higgins continued to move around in an attempt to warm himself, Dundas said, “You should change where you keep your gun, so that it doesn’t make your chest bulge out on one side.”
“Yes, I’ll do that, and I need a new holster. This one isn’t comfortable, even after I tried to adjust it.”
“Report says you’re a good man despite a tendency to drink too much,” Dundas said, “but I’m keeping my eye on you myself. I intend to make my own judgments.”
It seemed odd to Higgins that he was sharing these things with him out here on the street. The Inspector nodded, stared in the direction of the bookstore. Location info said it only had one entrance, at the front. Two customers could be seen inside, milling around. Two more entered the front door, a young couple. A light flashed across the sidewalk as the door opened and closed.
“Lawyers,” Dundas muttered. “All of them going inside. Identifying them was my specialty at the other precincts where I worked. I arrested more of those snakes than any other officer. That’s how I got my promotions.”
The people under observation went into the back of the bookstore, out of sight. Moments later, another man entered the store, followed by two women. All disappeared into the back.
“Things are starting to happen,” Higgins said.
Superintendent Dundas had fallen silent, and just stared ahead. He had a hand under his jacket in a way that indicated he had it on the handle of his weapon. This seemed odd, as lawyers were not generally considered to be violent. At least not physically so.
They watched a young woman in a thick coat approach the bookstore. Not very tall, she wore a white scarf over her head, glanced around nervously. A car flashed its headlights on Dundas and Higgins as it turned, but the men stepped quickly into the shadows.
“Did she see us?” Dundas rasped.
“I don’t think so.”
The woman entered the store, and vanished into the rear.
Dundas led the way, a little closer. They slipped into a shadowy doorway just south of the bookstore. The Superintendent mumbled something angrily, then snapped, “Nothing, nothing,” when Higgins asked what he’d just said.
An elderly woman went to the front door and locked it, then turned off the lights in the main part of the store.
Higgins and Dundas exchanged glances. “They’re up to something in the back room,” the Superintendent said. He called for backup officers.
In a matter of minutes, a dozen cops showed up, in cars and a large paddy wagon, parking the vehicles beyond Dundas and Higgins, down the street from the bookstore. Just then, a light flashed across the sidewalk in front of the store as the door was flung open, and people began streaming out. They ran down the street, away from the police.
But Dundas had already accounted for this possibility, and had stationed additional officers in that direction. “We’ll wait at the store,” he said to Higgins. The two of them stood out in front, while other officers made arrests and brought the prisoners back to the Superintendent, as instructed. He looked closely at each of the prisoners, told the officers to put them under arrest. One by one, they were led into the paddy wagon.
“Bring me the rest of them,” Dundas said. “This is not all of them.”
The officers hurried to do as they were told.
“Should I search inside the store?” Higgins asked.
Dundas nodded, but looked startled when he saw a young woman emerge from the store, carrying a parcel. Small in stature, she was a brunette with large eyes, and quite pretty. She wore dark slacks, and a jacket that was open at the front, revealing a blue sweater. She made no effort to get away.
“Is this what you’re looking for, Daddy?” she said in an irritated voice, extending the parcel to Dundas.
Daddy? Higgins thought. He wasn’t sure if he’d heard her correctly.
Scowling, the Superintendent accepted the package and began to unwrap it.
“We all saw you from the store,” she said. “It wasn’t exactly a smooth stakeout, was it? I might have gotten away, if I’d tried. There are alleys and passages between buildings, ways to escape. But when I saw you out here, Daddy, I knew you must have learned that I would be here.”
It is his daughter, Higgins thought. So that’s why Dundas wanted to go on this stakeout! The young woman had a narrow nose like that of Dundas, the same chin, and a widow’s peak.
“I saw you go in the store,” Dundas said. He tore open the wrapping and tossed it aside, glared down at a thick book in his hands. The volume had a brown cover, edged in red.
“It’s a law book,” she said. “One that escaped your police burn piles.”
“I’m ashamed of you, Molly,” he said.
She stared at him. Her eyes were filled with defiance and sadness.
“Your daughter, Superintendent?” Higgins asked.
Dundas did not respond. The answer was obvious, anyway. “What are you doing with this filth?” he demanded of her. His voice was high-pitched, cracking with emotion.
Higgins stared at the book as Dundas held it.
“A law book!” Dundas said. “How dare you disgrace me like this?” He had the volume open, was flipping through the pages.
“Daddy! You don’t understand!” Her eyes caught the inquisitive gaze of Higgins. Then she looked away, into the gloom of the street.
“You’re coming with me, Molly,” Dundas snapped, slamming the volume shut. “Just look at this, Higgins. It’s full of filthy Latin!”
“Am I to be deprogrammed, Daddy?” she asked. “Like all the other alleged law-criminals you’ve arrested? I won’t cooperate; I intend to be a lawyer, even if I have to practice in the shadows. You’re not going to stop me.”
“Molly, listen to me. Please. We tried to raise you properly.” His tone was plaintive, remorseful. “But there were signs your mother and I couldn’t fail to notice. Defiant things you said at the dinner table when you were a teenager.” He sighed. “But after you moved out we hoped you would change, that your thinking would mature.”
“All lawyers aren’t evil, Daddy. Sure, they did a lot of wicked, scheming things when they ran the country, and we understand why the people became angry and demanded the Great Purge.”
“We understand?” Dundas handed the heavy volume to Higgins.
“Yes, Daddy. We. A lot of us believe that the law can be an honorable profession again.”
“It never was, girl. Can’t you see that? I know a bit about history myself, and your schools taught you the sordid chronicle of legal abuses. Lawyers have always been crooks, since before the time of Shakespeare. He hated them so much that he said all of them should be killed. This is a big issue, Daughter. A huge social issue. Lawyers have done so much harm that they can never be allowed to practice again.”
“They’ve always been crooks, Daddy? All of them? You’re generalizing.”
“And you’re thinking like a tricky lawyer, twisting what I said. Where did you learn to do that? From your friends?” He nodded in the direction of the paddy wagon, which had not departed yet.
Higgins saw Dundas’ glare meet that of his daughter, noticed the passion of differing, uncompromising views. For several agonizing moments, they said nothing, probably realizing it was pointless to argue the matter any more.
Then the Superintendent stepped forward and put electronic handcuffs on her.
“Take her away,” he said to Higgins. “I don’t ever want to see her again.”