The Sunlight Dialogues Read Online Free PDF Page B

the one track remaining from the days when the New York Central depot used to be here in the center of town. Clumly pointed to the square brick house on the left. “Know that place? It used to be Edna’s. House of ill repute.”
    “I’ve heard that,” Kozlowski said.
    “That’s it,” Clumly said. “We run her out of business a dozen times. Maybe two dozen times. Sent her up the river and I don’t know what all. But she always came back, just as regular as tomorrow. It was a kind of joke around town for a good long while. Lot of people used to think it was a good thing to have a place like that, and I know cops that would turn their heads and not notice when she was set up again till sooner or later a complaint come in. They weren’t crooks, you know. They weren’t taking bribes, nothing like that. They just had a theory, that was all. Well, takes all kinds.”
    They came to the end of South Jackson and began the loop back in. Kozlowski said, “What kind were you, Chief?”
    “Eh?”
    “You close her down?”
    Clumly inspected his cigar. “Son, I closed her out.”
    Kozlowski smiled ruefully.
    “Wouldn’t you done the same thing in my place?” Clumly said.
    “Sure,” Kozlowski said seriously. “That’s my job.”
    “Correct,” Clumly said. But he smiled ironically. He looked at the radio speaker, paying no attention. After a moment he said, “I don’t know if you’d close her or not, Kozlowski. But I’ll tell you this. Lot of times when things are pushing the way they are, more work to get done than an ordinary human can do in the hours he’s got, a man can slide into thinking there’s nothing to watch for but what he sees posted on the board. I don’t mean the board’s not important. What you see on that board is unusually important, that’s why it’s posted there. It’s like—” He paused, half-closing his eyes, crafty. “It’s like a farmer,” he said. “When a man’s got wheat to get in before the rain, he gets his wheat. But it don’t mean he forgets about his milking for a while.”
    “Yes sir,” Kozlowski said.
    Clumly studied him. “Put it this way,” he said. “How come you don’t close down that house on Harvester?”
    The blush was unmistakable and, in spite of himself, Clumly smiled again. Kozlowski waited, maybe thinking he hadn’t heard right. Clumly threw the cigar out the window and folded his hands. “Turn right,” he said. Kozlowski turned.
    “I guess it surprises you,” Clumly said happily. (There’s a dance or two in the old dame yet, he thought.) “Maybe scares you a little. I imagine I’d feel the same way, if I was in your place. I imagine you wonder how the old bastard knows. You see all those papers piled up on my desk, you hear how I have to get around to the schools and make speeches to the kids about crossing the street, you see I’ve got worries coming out of my ears—that damned trouble with the dogs, and this plague of stealing this past two months, and now these fires, and the Force in need of men so bad it’s a wonder we don’t every one of us throw up our hands. Well I’ll tell you something. My job is Law and Order. That’s my first job, and if I can’t get that one done, the rest will just have to wait. You get my meaning? If there’s a law on the books, it’s my job to see it’s enforced. I’m personally responsible for every cop in my Department, and for every crook in the City of Batavia. That’s my job. I’m aware as you are there are differences of opinion about some of the laws we’re paid to enforce, but a cop hasn’t got opinions. Don’t you forget it. Some fool makes a law against planting trees and you and me will be out there, like it or not, and we’ll shut down Arbor Day.”
    Still Kozlowski said nothing. He was passing the ice plant, closed for over a year now. There were a couple of bicycles leaning against the fence. He glanced at Clumly, and Clumly pretended not to see. “Two more blocks,” Clumly