Our story opens with Officer Gunnarson pounding the beat with his partner, a quiet Thursday morning on a cold March day. As he strolls along, Officer Gunnarson sees a man running and skipping down the street across the road from him, a man who is as naked as a jaybird!
Not wasting any time, Officer Gunnarson engages in pursuit, as the man flees crying “I’m free, I’m free”, but his freedom is a short lived thing as Officer Gunnarson tackles the miscreant and brings him down to Earth, with a bump. The man complains about the force used, points out his knees are bruised and notes that other officers are not normally so harsh, but fellow patrolman and partner John Franklin informs Gunnarson that this fellow is named Tom McCready and is known for this behaviour from time to time, and is best stopped as he sometimes progresses to acts of lewd indecency. Officer Gunnarson takes McCready downtown, where he is plainly known to the desk sergeant and is dismayed to learn that due to court sittings he is facing a weekend in the cells.
Meanwhile, Lila Malone is spending the day in Court 2 taking notes on a society divorce, ordered their by her editor “in case something interesting gets said”. Nothing interesting gets said, but it gets said for many hours. Malone then works into the evening researching her Manson family case, and decides to head over to their offices to see if she can find any clues in their trash.
Blake spends his evening at Harrigan’s, nursing cheap whisky and watching the floorshow. Councilman Haines doesn’t show up, so Blake just gets an evening’s entertainment courtesy of his client’s expenses.
Agent Poliakowski spends long hours thinking how to bust up the syndicates, how to prove corruption and how to make his first bust. Gunnarson continues to put the fear into Heiny Franz, pointing his finger at him and saying portentously “I know” until Heiny gets good and rattled.
Over at the Manson family’s office, a low-rent office in a bad part of town, Malone goes into a pitch dark and malodorous alley in the hopes of searching through their trash. She is part way through the unpleasant task, cursing the cheap Italian restaurant which shares the same dumpster, when two figures she can smell even when she’s waist deep in garbage materialise out of the gloom and inform her she’s on their patch and they already paid for the right to work these bins. Malone thinks fast, and offers them 50 cents between them to search the dumpster in her place and give her any documents she finds. She then offers them another 50 cents a day to keep searching, but rejects their request for additional danger pay of 25 cents.
Friday, and Blake is still at Harrigan’s, with Haines still a no-show. The back end of the week is proving a bust for all concerned, and it’s with a weary air our heroes find the welcoming weekend stretched before them. Saturday night sees Blake at Harrigan’s again, Officer Gunnarson uses his private time to stake out the speakeasy, hoping to see some of the trucks his informant told him delivered supplies around 11pm, Malone pays off the tramps and spends most of the evening ferrying trash bags back to her apartment for investigation, and Poliakowski is told by District Commissioner Antonelli that Harrigan wants to see him that evening at his speakeasy, and that Poliakowski should play along and play ball so as to “lull Harrigan into complacency”.
Poliakowski makes his way to Harrigan’s, and arrives at about the same time Councilman Haines finally makes an appearance. Harrigan greets them both, has Blake thrown off his table to make room for the Councilman and installs Poliakowski in the other booth. Blake is given free whisky to make up for his troubles, a girl is sent over to give him company and Harrigan personally says hello to ensure no hurt feelings. Minutes later Kate Hopkins, the pretty redhead stepping out with the Councilman, shows up too and is shown to his table.
Harrigan speaks to Poliakowski, explains that he helps keep things ordered, that there are dives where criminals hang out and which are dangerous to the public. He asks what Poliakowski is looking for, and when Poliakowski says a bust indicates he’ll see what he can do. He wraps up the interview by tucking a fifty dollar bill into Poliakowski’s breast pocket, and telling him there’ll be more like it every week Poliakowski plays ball.
Meanwhile, Haines and Hopkins head out, her a few minutes after him. Blake follows, and sees them go a few yards down the street and enter the Lexington Hotel. He heads in and starts heading up the stairs to see which room they’re going to, but for once his fabled shadowing skills desert him and he is spotted. A guy in a cheap suit wanders up and takes Blake by the elbow, escorting him to the back of the lobby and away from the front entrance and wholly ignoring Blake’s protestations and story explaining his actions. A second guy heads over, and when Blake tries to get away the fellow holding his arm clocks him right in the gut and the second guy gives him a nasty punch from behind in the kidneys, leaving Blake gasping on the floor and dry retching. Things look bad, but Officer Gunnarson who had been scoping out the speakeasy has kept an eye out and runs in tackling one man to the floor, laying one on him so hard he’ll be seeing stars for a week. Gunnarson flashes his badge, the hotel security (as that’s what they turn out to be) backs off and Gunnarson and the badly bruised Blake make for the door.
Back at her apartment, Malone has discovered evidence of paid invoices being thrown into the trash by the Mansons, possibly indicating tax fraud. She also sees a complaint letter and gets details of several of their clients. She considers breaking into the Malone’s office, the tramps showed her where a back door key was hidden, but the knowledge that a dog is on the premises and the Manson family sleeps upstairs deters her. Still, for a foul night’s work she has several solid leads.
Sunday folk rest, as God intended them to do. Come the new week events start moving apace. Malone gives her editor a list of patients Dr Sheppard is treating, and her editor tells her to get dirt on one Priscilla Hamilton – a socialite and possible dope fiend. Poliakowski pays a tenth of his income to his church and later gets a tip off from new informant Carl Broman that a shipment of booze for Harrigan’s is due to arrive at pier 15 on the docks 4pm this Thursday, Blake makes arrangements to set up a sting operation for Councilman Haines and books a weekend lodge cabin for the coming weekend in an isolated country spot.
Poliakowski meets with a young lawyer from a reputable firm, and deposits the $50 with him asking for it to be kept safe as it is evidence in an ongoing federal investigation and has fingerprint evidence on it. The young lawyer cooperates, on the hush-hush, and Poliakowski lays the first brick in the wall that one day he will bring crashing down on Harrigan’s head. Poliakowski sets up a wire on District Commissioner Antonelli's phone, but the wire doesn’t take and he gets nothing.
Malone spends the next couple of days interviewing some of the Manson’s past clients, and an ugly pattern starts to emerge. Each customer tells the same story, of a job botched and a demand with menaces for another payment at half rate to fix it. She takes photos of a landlord pointing to the dangerous work they did on his building, and to her editor’s delight files a story on the Mansons accusing them of shoddy workmanship and shady practices. Blake establishes that Haines is free that weekend, and checks out the cabin making sure there are good vantage points for photography nearby, he also speaks to Melinda Haines and makes sure she’ll make Councilman Haines not want to be at home that weekend. Poliakowski tells Gunnarson of the dockyard delivery tip off, and the two start to lay their plans.
Poliakowski meets with Burns and Beck, who remain suspicious of them. He persuades them to accompany him on the dockyard bust, and persuades them to act as if it’s their tip off with him along against his will. He does this so that District Commissioner Antonelli and Mike Harrigan will continue to trust him, but the price is the evident continued mistrust of Burns and Beck. Still, they cooperate and come the Thursday they head down to the docks with Poliakowksi and a brace of shotguns. Gunnarson gets an afternoon free by telling his partner he needs to track down a domestic in the docks area, and loiters near Pier 15 pretending to be looking for Blake’s old client Warhawski.
Poliakowski and his two fellow agents stay in their car, parked near the pier. They see with some surprise that Johnny Harrigan, young son of ward boss Mike Harrigan, is there in person with two obvious thugs clearly waiting for a delivery. Harrigan junior sees Gunnarson, comes over to him and tells him to get lost. He seems wholly indifferent to the presence of the federal agents, though he clearly spots them. Gunnarson hides in a nearby office, and shortly thereafter a tramp freighter pulls in and dock hands start unloading cargo into two trucks that Harrigan has brought with him. The prohis leap out of their car, Gunnarson emerges from hiding, and the assembled law enforcement officers declare that all present are under arrest. Poliakowski has been given an axe to wield by Burns, and uses it to crack open a case revealing liquor inside. Harrigan and his men are caught red handed, and Gunnarson starts to arrest them all as Poliakowski impounds the ship and lorries. One dockworker makes a run for it, and despite a warning shot from Gunnarson escapes with a tale to tell. Harrigan’s men cooperate, but Harrigan himself is not so sanguine and rants at Gunnarson, at one point ordering Poliakowski to shoot Gunnarson on the spot, causing Burns and Beck to again look suspiciously at the young agent. Harrigan starts to threaten Gunnarson and Gunnarson’s family, in increasingly profane terms, and Gunnarson clocks him one right in the kisser, even that doesn’t shut Harrigan’s yap so Gunnarson helps him into a summoned police van (the police car which arrived first contained officers who called Harrigan sir, Gunnarson decided to wait on the van). Down the station, the desk sergeant calls Harrigan sir too, and it’s clear he won’t be held for long. Still, Poliakowski has a shipload of booze, two gunsels are in custody and Harrigan was arrested and shown that all the power in the state can’t beat an honest cop. It’s a good day’s work for all concerned. Burns and Beck lecture Poliakowski on the benefits of honesty, telling him he better pick sides soon, causing Poliakowski to despair at their seeming inability to see he is already squarely on their side and playing the smart game for the same reasons they are.
Next morning Harrigan junior is taken out the back of the station to a waiting van to be taken to court for his bail hearing, Gunnarson has tipped off Malone, who takes a photo of the battered and dishevelled Harrigan and has it before her editor in time for the afternoon edition and a front page splash, her first, about how Mike Harrigan’s son was arrested by police for smuggling and resisted arrest with threats and violence. Malone’s editor reads her the riot act for not prioritising the Priscilla Hamilton story, but then praises her to the heavens for getting an honest-to-god scoop on the opposition. Malone has her first front page and her first scoop, and with Gunnarson has a new and potentially powerful enemy in Johnny Harrigan, who is released on bail later that day.
Later that week, Blake phones Haines and convinces him that the cabin is a freebie from the Mansons, and Haines happily accepts like the politician he is. That Saturday, Blake, Malone and Gunnarson lie in wait in the Tin Lizzie they borrowed from Foster, shivering in the cold and the rain. Haines arrives with Hopkirk, they head in and make a nice and quiet dinner. The curtains are eventually drawn, and Blake sneaks up and listens at the window for indications that matters have gotten personal. Hearing what he needs to, he opens the front door with the spare key he had made earlier and springs in with Malone to find Haines and Hopkirk indecently posed on the rug in front of the roaring fireplace, Hopkirk standing wearing just a fur coat and stockings and Haines on his knees wearing nothing but a smile. Malone snaps the scene, and takes another of Hopkirk with fur coat wrapped around her and Haines pulling his swiftly grabbed trousers to his waist. Haines starts to pursue, but Blake is already out of the door and starting the car and the large frame of Gunnarson looming out of the darkness makes Haines think again. Back at the office, Malone finds that the first photo develops fine, but the one of the two dressed doesn’t come out meaning she hasn’t got a photo suitable for printing in the newspaper. Blake takes the photo she does have, the one that he needs for Melinda Haines, and goes to speak to the wealthy heiress who in most unbecoming language indicates she intends to use it to control Haines in future and has changed her mind about publication. Blake strikes a deal to prevent publication, but Malone won’t play ball and the papers run with an account of Haines’ philandering, though sadly no story fit to print to accompany it.
Later that same day, Poliakowski checks his wire on the chemist and finds references to a poker game that the chemist and Heimy Franz attend on a regular basis… He also learns that he is to have a new partner, Gino Manzini, and ominously recalls Burns and Beck mentioning that they had heard on the grapevine that Antonelli was getting in a new agent who he could rely on to be completely crooked.
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