"You've got a visitor—outside," he announced. "Trench. And I don't like the stench of that kind of cop in my place. Get him away, cobber, get him away!"
Gordon found Trench pacing up and down in front of the house, scowling up at it. But the ex-Marine smiled as he saw Bruce Gordon in uniform. "Good. At least some men are loyal. Had breakfast, Gordon?"
Gordon shook his head, and realized suddenly that the decision seemed to have been taken out of his hands. They crossed the street and went down half a block. "All right," he said, when the coffee began waking him. "What's the angle?"
Trench dropped the eyes that had been boring into him. "I'll have to trust you, Gordon. I've never been sure. But either you're loyal now or I can't depend on anyone being loyal."
During the night, it seemed, the Legal Force had been recruiting. Wayne, Arliss, and the rest of the administration had counted on self-interest holding most of the cops loyal to them. They'd been wrong. Legal forces already controlled about half the city.
"So?" Gordon asked. He could have told Trench that the fund was good-enough reason for most police deserting.
Trench put his coffee down and yelled for more. It was obvious he'd spent the night without sleep. "So we're going to need men with guts. Gordon, you had training under Murdoch—who knew his business. And you aren't a coward, as most of these fat fools are. I've got a proposition, straight from Wayne."
"I'm listening."
"Here." Trench threw across a platinum badge. "Take that—captain at large—and conscript any of the Municipal Force you want, up to a hundred. Pick out any place you want, train them to handle those damned Legals the way Murdoch handled the Stonewall boys. In return, the sky's the limit. Name your own salary, once you've done the job. And no kickbacks, either!"
Gordon picked up the badge slowly and buckled it on, while a grim, satisfied smile spread over Trench's features. The problem seemed to have been solved. Gordon should have been satisfied, but he felt like Judas picking up the thirty pieces of silver. He tried to swallow them with the dregs of his coffee, and they stuck in his throat.