River City by John Farrow Page A

might be trouble in the streets was the Sun Life, not because he favoured the place, but because it stood out as a likely flashpoint for French rage.
    He accosted the first officer he came across guarding an entrance.
    “I said to keep people out of here!”
    “I did, sir.”
    “Crooks got in!”
    “Not through my door.”
    “Young man, I bought a new stove recently. Electric. Turn it on, and like magic, the rings on the burner heat up. They get so hot they go red. You can boil water so fast you can turn your kitchen into a sauna in the wintertime. If I find out somebody got through your door, I’ll make you sit on that burner.”
    “My door was locked, sir, and it’s still locked. I don’t have a key. You have to go down to the middle to get in.”
    Touton tested the officer’s locked door, and confided, “That’s good news for your ass.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    Only a few cop cars were parked up and down the block, and across the street a number of officers had gathered around a statue to the Scottish poet, Robbie Burns. Touton didn’t have a spare minute to investigate how they got to goof off amid the uproar. Across the night sky he heard the sirens of emergency vehicles, marauders roaring and the flagrant honk of car horns in support of the riot.
    Smoke from fires and tear gas fumes drifted across the square.
    Touton also berated the cop on duty at the middle door, but again received no admission of guilt. “They didn’t come in this way, sir.”
    “If I ask every cop on duty, will I get the same response?”
    “I don’t know, sir. Maybe.”
    “I suppose the crooks landed by helicopter.” He intended the remark to be both rhetorical and facetious.
    “Something like that,” the young patrolman said. “I heard it was something like that, anyway.”
    Touton shook his head as the officer unlocked the door for him. Sometimes young cops could be just so damned stupid they took his breath away.
    Downstairs, another cop was waiting to guide him up. The elevator, smooth with a comforting guttural purr, possessed an elegance the policemen rarely experienced. The walls were mahogany and the fittings a gleaming, polished brass.
    “Detective Sloan upstairs?”
    “I don’t know, sir,” the patrolman said.
    “What do you mean, you don’t know?” He doubted that young cops werebecoming more stupid year by year, but on this particular night he seemed to be running into the dullest minds in the department.
    “He’s gone back and forth so often, it’s hard to keep track. Sir, I think he’s upstairs, but I could be wrong.”
    “Back and forth between where and where?”
    “Between here and the park, sir.”
    Touton guessed the cop was probably intimidated by his rank and reputation, as well as by his tone, so offered nothing more than rudimentary responses.
    “You mean across the street? What’s in the park?”
    “The dead man, sir.”
    “What dead man?”
    “The one in the park, sir.”
    “What’s your name, Officer?”
    The lad took a deep breath and wondered what he’d done to deserve this. “Miron, sir.”
    “Miron, why is there a dead man in the park?”
    “I don’t know, sir. I mean, he was murdered, I know that, but I don’t know why, sir.”
    The elevator had reached their floor and the two men clambered out, Touton first. “You’re telling me there’s been a murder in the park? Detective Sloan is covering both cases?” Actually, when he thought about it for a moment, given that every cop was being stretched beyond the breaking point on this night, that seemed reasonable.
    “I think it’s the same case, sir.”
    “What?”
    “Just what I heard.”
    “The burglary in here—”
    “—and the murder in the park, sir. Same case.”
    They’d reached the door to the league offices. “All right, Miron. I want you to stick around and take care of my shotgun. Can you do that?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Don’t shoot your foot off.”
    “I’ll take the shells out, sir, if that’s all