Davo saw what was happening. All copies of the papers were being gathered in to be burned. Chief of Police Lanker was one of Farner’s men. The police were studiously taking no interest in the newspapers still standing on the shallow platform as they had fallen from the press. Of course they wouldn’t look at the newspapers. They had their instructions. They were concerned about the murder of Vincens. Motive unknown. Murderer unknown. Unexplained tragedy.
All the copies of the paper were taken away while he watched. Davo felt a deep amazement at the speed and efficiency with which the group had moved. They knew it was hot. And they sewed everything up. No opening.
He suddenly thought of Jane, and turned toward the stairs. Two of the policemen were walking toward him, angling in from two directions. When he turned away, they came toward him quickly.
“William Davo?”
“That’s right.”
“Come on along. There’s a warrant out for you. Assault. Sworn out by a fellow named Vittano.”
One of them slapped the side pocket of his trench coat and said, “My! My! You got a permit for this thing?”
“No.”
“Sort of unlucky this morning, aren’t you, Davo? Did you see Vincens shot? One of those guys over there pointed you out to me and said you saw it, that you and a girl came in here with Vincens just before he got it.”
“I saw him shot, by Farner’s man.”
“Farner’s man! Are you taking the stuff in the leg or sniffing it.”
“Don’t argue with him, Al,” the other one said.
“Okay, Junior. The county can for you. Material witness for now, and they’ll talk to you about the other stuff later.”
Davo sat in the back of the sedan beside the fatter of the two cops, who whistled tunelessly between his teeth all the way down to the county prison. Davo knew Marion Kelz, the sheriff.
“Got me out of bed for a welcoming committee, Bill,” Marion said.
He was a lean, pulpy man who looked as if he had been roughly constructed of rotting leather. Dave knew that Kelz cleared about thirty thousand a year on his percentage of upkeep of the prisoners. Of that thirty he turned back about ten to Farner, who kept some and split up the balance. The county allowed seventy cents a day per prisoner for food, and Kelz fed them on less than thirty cents.
“So I’m a guest,” Dave said bitterly.
“Don’t fuss about it, Bill. We’ll take this dough you got here and keep books on it. The boys’ll be glad to buy your food down the block.”
“At double cost to me.”
“They got to make a living, Bill. Take him down to number eight, Jud.”
Number eight was a two-man cell, about eight by eight, lighted by one small, high window. The dampness was peeling the cheap white paint off the wall. There were sheets on the bunks, black from the previous occupants. The flat felt mattress stank.
Davo sat on the edge of the bunk and lit a cigarette. He was directly across the corridor from the women’s tank. There were eight or nine of them in there, ranging from about thirteen to fifty. They were dirty, noisy and, somehow, strangely alike. White brittle faces, ragged dyed hair. He noticed that they had access to lipstick, caked thick and red on their mouths.
They called across to him, thinking it a great joke.
He grinned wearily at them and said nothing.
“Toss over some butts, mister,” one of them yelled.
He took three cigarettes from his pack and threw the rest of the package across, through the bars of their large cell. One of the young ones grabbed it, and as she stooped she got a knee in her face that smashed her nose. She screamed and dropped back out of his sight. One of the older women shoved the pack down the front of her dress.
Davo sat on the edge of his bunk and thought how hopeless his position was. He had tried, but they had been too quick, too efficient, too merciless. He knew that he could look ahead to possibly two years in prison. They’d never call him as a witness in the death of Vincens. They’d let him rot on the basis of minor charges, and not take a chance on his bringing Farner’s name into the Vincens case.
He doubted that the editor’s murder would ever come to trial. It would be an unexplained death; and without a newspaper to whip up public interest, the citizens of Amberton would accept the mystery with the same dull, unthinking lethargy that they accepted everything else.
The proof was gone. He had no chance. All the papers destroyed. Vincens dead. Jane running. Running fast and far, he hoped.
He wondered that he felt so little anger, so little fear. His mind and his body felt numb, dead, unresisting. What was there to do? Sit and take it. The chance to fight was gone. He should have run while he had the chance.
Sure, there were people who would feel sorry for him, who would know that he had been framed—but they wouldn’t dare buck the system. It wasn’t healthy. It was better to smile when you met Stobe on the street and say, “Good morning, Mr. Farner,” accept his grunt graciously. Never mention that Davo guy. Never ask what happened to him. Davo might get a small paragraph on page eight of the paper, and he might get nothing.
He stood up and stretched, his fingertips touching the damp ceiling. Just relax and take it easy. Let the time go by—wait for the day when you can walk out of the cell and go away. Far away. Hell, they aren’t going to kill you, Davo. They’re just going to keep you a little while. Teach you a lesson. Teach you not to try to be a reformer. Teach you that when you see fraud, try to cut yourself a slice instead of ripping the lid off it.
Suddenly he heard steps in the corridor, heard a familiar voice. Marion Kelz came into sight. He held Jane Fay by the upper arm. There was a bruise across the left side of her face. Her expression was stiff, tight; her lips thin and straight. Her eyes were enormous and Davo felt the fear in her.
Kelz said, “Here’s your playmate, Bill.”
Davo jumped up off the bunk, held to the bars on the door, looked into Jane’s eyes. “She hasn’t done anything, Kelz. Nothing! What’s she here for?”
“Material witness in the death of Vincens, Bill.”
The one known as Jud came along with the keys and unlocked the door of the women’s tank. Davo said, “You can’t put her in there!”
Jud swung the door open. Kelz shoved Jane inside and the door clamped shut, the lock clicked. Kelz grinned at Davo and said, “She’s nice and close to you, Bill. You ought to like that.”
They went back up the hall. Jane stood looking across at Bill, her lips parted. Then, as she felt the women gather around her, she turned quickly, her back against the bars.
The big woman who had grabbed the cigarettes said, “You got ten bucks, angel?”
“What for?” Jane asked.
“Sort of an entrance fee, angel.”
“I haven’t got it.”
“Now that’s too bad, angel, because that means you got to work out the ten bucks. This place is filthy. You’ll clean it twice a day and get a dime a day until you’re paid up. Get to work, angel.”
The woman reached out, grabbed Jane’s wrist and yanked her back into the cell.
Kelz had left a few small bills in Davo’s pocket. Davo called across, “Hey, you with my cigarettes. I’ll pay her shot.”
He wadded up a five and five ones and threw them across. They disappeared into the same place the cigarettes had.
The big one said, “Now I’d call this a real sweet situation. We got a case of love here. Now you look close, mister, because we got a treat for you.” She turned her head. “Bring her up here.”
Somebody shoved Jane up close to the bars.
“What’s your name, angel?”
“Jane.”
“There’s a lot of wear and tear on clothes in this tank, angel, and they get sort of dirty. Seeing as how you’re fresh meat, you got to turn your clothes over to the ones who have been here longer. You’ll get clothes in exchange.
“Now, I wouldn’t fit into anything except maybe your stockings, so I’ll take those and
you can have mine. Let me see now, you’re about the same size as Mabel. Get over next to her, Mabel. Let me see. Yeah. They’ll fit. Peel down, sister.”
Jane didn’t move.
The big one took a step closer to her and lowered her voice. “I’m the boss here, angel, and I told you to peel. Do it nice or we’ll give you a treatment that’ll make you wish you had that pretty face back in one piece.”
Jane gave Davo one despairing look, and slipped out of her suit coat, fumbling with the snaps on her blouse. She took the blouse off as Davo turned away, stood looking at the wall under the window.
The big one called over, “What’s the matter, mister? Don’t you want a good look?”
Davo neither answered nor turned. His ears burned with shame and he knotted his fists. He heard them giggling and making coarse comments about her. He tried not to listen, tried not to think of what they were doing to her.
At last Jane was dressed in the clothes Mabel had taken off—a sleazy crimson dress with a torn sleeve and food spots on the front of it. On her feet were broken, run-over black shoes, white cracks showing the cheap cardboard underneath the shiny surface. Her legs were bare.
The big one said, almost softly, “You did fine, angel. Here’s a cigarette. Light it for her, Penny. Now just don’t try to buck the system. Keep your mouth shut. You’ll sleep on the top deck there in the corner. Don’t yell, grab for food or argue with anybody. I got a hunch you’ll be here for a long time. The next girl comes in, maybe you’ll get some of her stuff. Now climb up into your bunk and stay there until I tell you that you can come down.”
Jane walked off without looking over at Davo. When she was out of sight, he climbed into his own bunk. He found that he was sweating heavily and there was a sour taste in his mouth. His hands trembled as he lit a cigarette. A cockroach scuttled across the floor. The morning traffic began to be heavy in the street outside. The rumble of trucks shook the ancient building. The women were quiet. He could hear the deadly sobbing of the young girl with the smashed nose.
Jud came in to see Davo just before noon. He stood laughing against the bars, grinning cheerfully at his prisoner. “Get you something to eat, Davo?” he asked finally.
“Sure. Not much. And get a lunch for Miss Fay over across the way.”
Jud grinned. “She won’t get any of it, chump, unless you buy for all of them, and she may not get any even then. Those dames can eat like horses.”
“I want to talk with Miss Fay, Jud. Suppose you bring her over into this cell when you come back with the food.”
“That’s against the rules, Davo. No can do.”
“Just a few minutes. Just—say, twenty bucks’ worth of time for us to talk.”
“With twenty bucks, mister, you can make your own rules. We run this place honest. We got your dough out front, and when I take twenty, I’ll make the debit on your sheet. You don’t have to worry about me taking more than the twenty.”
“Sure. You don’t want the place to get a bad name.”
He was back in forty minutes with the watery soup and hash for the women’s tank, and with two hamburgs and coffee for a dollar for Davo. He said, “Now?”
“Yes, as soon as she eats.”
Jane had been listening. “I couldn’t eat, Bill.”
Davo said, “Now, then. Bring her over.”
Jud leered at Davo, shut her in with Davo. The whole front of the little cell wasn’t a door. There was a small part of it cement, forming a corner where Davo and the girl could get out of sight. She came quickly and quietly into his arms and her body was trembling. The women across the way made such a howling, jeering racket that he couldn’t talk to her. He stepped to the doorway, looked across at the big woman and said loudly, “How about a break?”
The woman shut them up and Davo went back to Jane. The dress they had given her smelled soiled. The bruise on her face was purple.
“Who hit you, darling?”
“It was my fault. They caught me in a phone booth in an all-night drugstore. I tried to get away.”
“I can’t tell you that everything is okay. Things couldn’t be worse.”
She looked up at him quietly. “I know that, Bill. I’ve always tried to talk a good game. The hard little gal in the politics business. I don’t feel hard now. I feel all soft inside.”
“Don’t let it lick you, Jane.”
“It won’t lick me.” Her arms tightened around him, and she leaned her unbruised cheek against his chest.
He said, “I should have told you before that I love you. This is going to be a long engagement. That is—if you want an engagement.” He tried to say it in a joking manner but his voice was too hoarse.
“I want it, Bill,” she said.
“You’ll get out before I do. You’ll probably be here for at least six months.”
“When I get out, I’ll get you out,” she said fiercely.
“Take it easy. We’ve got to do this time like the boys tell us to do it. After it’s over we’ll go away.”
“Bill, maybe we’ll—” She stopped.
“We’ll what?”
“Forget it.”
“What were you going to say?”
“I was going to dream out loud.” She tried to laugh. “This isn’t a good place for dreams, is it, Bill?”
“As good as any,” he said bitterly.
Jud looked in. “Okay, kids. Back home for you, girlie.”
She was gone and he was alone again. He ate the cold hamburgs, forcing the food down, drank the chilled coffee.
They came in at five o’clock, Kelz and Jud. They were grim and silent. They took Davo out of his cell. Kelz turned to the big woman. “Where’s the girl’s clothes, Annie?”
“She give ’em away.”
“Get them back on her, quick!”
“Who says?”
“I say it. Unless she’s got her own clothes on in three minutes, I’ll take you downstairs myself and work you over with a hunk of pipe.”
Jane changed in a dark corner of the big cell. One of the girls tripped her as she walked to the door.
They were steered to Kelz’s office, a big room with golden oak furniture and brilliant maps on the walls.
A pimply girl sat by the window, chewing gum, her waiting fingers resting on the keys of a stenotype. A dark, sullen man in immaculate tweeds sat behind Kelz’s desk. Davo recognized him as John Kroydon, the district attorney. The chief of police, Walter Lanker, was there. He sat with a fat hip on the corner of the desk, his thumbs in his lower vest pockets, a damp cigar butt clenched in his teeth.
A stranger, a meek little man with silvered hair and rimless glasses, stood by the windows, looking at one of the maps on the wall. A muscular young man in a sloppy sports jacket and gabardine slacks leaned against the far wall, a small smile on his lips, his hands shoved deeply in his pockets.
Jud took two of the chairs from the far wall and placed them squarely in front of the oak desk. He motioned Davo and Jane to sit down.
Kroydon turned to the pimply girl. “Get all this, Miss Arkle.” He looked at Davo. “You first, Davo. Tell this whole thing from the beginning.”
The keys of the stenotype began to click as Davo started to talk, the ribbon unwinding from the machine. In a flat voice, Davo told it from the beginning, told of Western Boulevard, Arthur Wescott, Danerra, Vittano, Benet Brothers Construction, being beaten up, the newspaper, the death of Vincens—every detail of the whole affair. He limited himself to facts.
He finished. Kroydon said, “Thank you. And now you, Miss Fay.”
She told it rapidly and well. Davo knew all of it right up to the death of Vincens. Then as she went on, he turned in amazement and looked at her.
Jane said, “I was sick when I went back upstairs. I know that somehow they had caught on and the paper wouldn’t be printed. I knew they would destroy every copy. I wanted to run away. Then I saw the copy Mr. Vincens had brought upstairs. It still had a mark on it where he had touched the wet ink, smearin
g it.
“I took the paper, folded it and got it into a large envelope I found in Vincens’ office. I found stamps, and after I looked in the phone book, I addressed it to the local office of the Collector of Internal Revenue. I marked it special delivery. I sneaked out the side door to the office and mailed it in the corner box. Then I went to an all-night drugstore and called the state capital.
“I got the number of Mr. Berman’s home, called him and told him what had happened. I told him he had better get down here fast with help. Then I phoned Mr. Lord at his home. He’s in charge of the local office of the Internal Revenue Service. He said he would contact the FBI. The police found me in the phone booth and cut off the call when they yanked me out of the booth. I tried to twist away and fell. They brought me here.”
“Why didn’t you tell me all this?” Davo demanded.
“I didn’t want to get your hopes up. I thought that nothing might come of it. They brought me here and put me in a dirty cell where the women took ten dollars and my clothes and—”
Kelz said angrily, “He don’t want to hear about that.”
District Attorney Kroydon said, “Shut up, Kelz. We’ll make this jail and the conditions here part of the record.”
Dave and Jane added statements about the county prison. Just as they had finished, the office door opened so violently that it banged against the wall. Farner strode in, followed by two men. His wide, beefy face was sullen and dangerous.
He snapped at Kroydon, “What the hell goes on here, John?”
“I’m getting statements from these people,” Kroydon said quietly.
“Why? You’ve had your orders.”
“Orders? Orders? What do you mean, Mr. Farner?… There are two men here in the room you haven’t met, Mr. Farner. That man by the window is Mr. Berman of the State Comptroller’s office. And the young man over there, Mr. Feldman, is with the FBI.
“For your information, Mr. Farner, I am asking Chief Lanker to pick you up along with Arthur Wescott, Stanley Hoe, the officials of Benet Brothers Construction, Vittano, Danerra and as many of your personal strong-arm men as we can find.”
More Good Old Stuff Page 17