"You mean you think you are going to go straight," Barlow remarked slowly and meaningly.
"I know I am going to go straight," Larry returned evenly, meeting squarely the gaze of the Chief of Detectives.
"Do you realize, young man," Barlow continued in the same measured, significant tone, "that whether you go straight, and how you go straight, depends pretty much on me?"
"Mind making that a little clearer, Chief?"
"I'll show you part of my hand--just remember that I'm holding back my high cards. I don't believe you're going to go straight, so we'll start with the proposition that you're not going to run straight and work on from there. You're clever, Brainard--I hand you that; and all the classy crooks trust you. That's why I had picked you out for what I wanted long before you left stir. Brainard, you're wise enough to know that some of our best pinches come from tips handed us from the inside. Brainard"--the slow voice had now become incisive, mandatory--"you're not going to go straight. You're going to string along with Barney and Old Jimmie and the rest of the bunch--we'll protect you--and you're going to slip us tips when something big is about to be pulled off."
Larry, experienced with police methods though he was, could hardly believe this thing which was being proposed to him, Larry Brainard.
But he controlled himself.
"If I get you, Chief, you are suggesting that I become a police stool?"
"Exactly. We'll never tip your hand. And any little thing you pull off on your own we'll not bother you about. And, besides, we'll slip you a little dough regular on the quiet."
"And all you want me to do in exchange," Larry asked quietly, "is to hand up my pals?"
"That's all."
Larry found it required his all of strength to control himself; but he did.
"There are only three small objections to your proposition, Chief."
"Yes?"
"The first is, I shall not be a stool."
"What's that?"
"And the second is, I wouldn't squeal on a pal to you even if I were a crook. And the third is what I said in the beginning: I'm not going to be a crook."
Barlow's squat, powerful figure arose menacingly. Casey also stood up.
"I tell you you ARE going to be a crook!" Barlow's big fist crashed down on his desk in a tremendous exclamation point. "And you're going to work for me exactly as I tell you!"
"I have already given you my final word," said Larry.
"You--you--" Barlow almost choked at this quiet defiance. His face turned red, his breath came in a fluttering snarl, his powerful shoulders hunched up as if he were about to strike. But he held back his physical blows.
"That's your ultimatum?"
"If you care to call it so--yes."
"Then here's mine! I told you I was holding back my high cards. Either you do as I say, and work with Gavegan and Casey, or you'll not be able to hold a job in New York! My men will see to that. And here's another high card. You do as I've said, or I'll hang some charge on you, one that'll stick, and back up the river you'll go for another stretch! There's an ultimatum for you to think about!"
It certainly was. Larry gazed into the harsh, glaring face, set in fierce determination. He knew that Barlow, as part of his policy, loved to break down the spirit of criminals; and he knew that nothing so roused Barlow as opposition from a man he considered in his power.
Close beside the Chief he saw the gloating, malignant face of Gavegan; Casey, who had been restless since the beginning of the scene, had moved to the window and was gazing down into Center Street.
For a moment Larry did not reply. Barlow mistook Larry's silence for wavering, or the beginning of an inclination to yield.
"You turn that over in your noodle," Barlow drove on. "You're going to go crooked, anyhow, so you might as well go crooked in the only way that's safe for you. I'm going to have Gavegan and Casey watch you, and if in the next few days you don't begin to string along with Barney and Old Jimmie and that bunch, and if you don't get me word that your answer to my proposition is 'yes,' hell's going to fall on you! Now get out of here!"
Larry got out. He was liquid lava of rage inside; but he had had enough to do with police power to know that it would help him not at all to permit an eruption against a police official while he was in the very heart of the police stronghold.
He walked back toward his own street in a fury, beneath which was subconsciously an element of uneasiness: an uneasiness which would have been instantly roused to caution had he known that Barney Palmer had this hour and more been following him in a taxicab, and that across the street from the car's window Barney's sharp face had watched him enter Police Headquarters and had watched him emerge.
Home reached, Larry briefly recounted his experience at Headquarters to Hunt and the Duchess. The painter whistled; the Duchess blinked and said nothing at all.
"Maggie was more right than she knew when she first said you were facing a tough proposition!" exclaimed Hunt. "Believe me, young fellow, you're certainly up against it!"
"Can you beat it for irony!" said Larry, pacing the floor. "A man wants to go straight. His pals ask him to be a crook, and are sore because he won't be a crook. The police ask him to be a crook, and threaten him because he doesn't want to be a crook. Some situation!"
"Some situation!" repeated Hunt. "What're you going to do?"
"Do?" Larry halted, his face set with defiant determination. "I'm going to keep on doing exactly what I've been doing! And they can all go to hell!"
