"Did you hear the tape of the Tagliani chill?" I said.
He nodded.
"Did you catch that, about a fix at the track?"
He gave me one of those "what do you think I am, stupid?" looks.
"So?" he said.
"So, if Tagliani knew about it, maybe the track's dirty too."
Cisco's dark brown eyes bored into me. "It's an illegal tape," he said. "Anyway, it's probably just some owner building up odds on one of his ponies. On the other hand . . . " He paused for a few moments and stared off into space.
"On the other hand what?" I asked.
"On the other hand, this commissioner, Harry Raines? He might be worth looking into. He's got more muscle than anyone else in the town."
Bingo, there it was. I felt a twinge of vindication.
"He controls gambling in the whole state," Cisco went on. "The racetrack commission is also the state gaming commission. It's the way the law was written."
"Interesting," I said.
"Yeah. If they want anything, Harry Raines is the man they need to deal with—or bypass."
"Maybe they bought him," I suggested.
"From what I hear, not likely, although always a possibility," said Cisco. "I'll give you some logic. Whether they bought him or not, the last thing anybody wants right now is a gang war. If Raines is in their pocket, it puts him on the dime and destroys his effectiveness. If they haven't bought him, this melee still hurts everybody, the Triad included. The bottom line is that Raines needs this kind of trouble like he needs a foot growing out of his forehead. He and his partner, Sam Donleavy, are both up the proverbial creek right now."
"Donleavy was in here last night," I said. "I saw Titan talking to him, and the old man didn't look like he was giving away any merit badges."
"They're all edgy," he said, sliding the bill across the table to me. "Here, put this on your tab. I've got to catch a plane."
He stood up and threw his napkin on the table. "It's time somebody put a turd in the Dunetown punch bowl," he said. "Glad you're here—I can't think of a better person to do it. Finish your breakfast and get to work. See you in about a week."
And with that he left.
I didn't have to leave the restaurant to get to work. Babs Thomas walked in as Cisco walked out. I decided it was time to find out whose shoes were under whose bed in Doomstown.
18
CHEAP TALK, RICH PEOPLE
The Thomas woman was tallish, honey blond, coiffured and manicured, dressed in printed silk, with a single strand of black pearls draped around a neck that looked like it had been made for them. Her sunglasses were rimmed in twenty-four-karat gold. An elegant lady, as chic as a pink poodle in a diamond collar.
I scratched out a note on my menu: "A gangster from Toronto would love to buy you breakfast," and sent it to her table by waiter. She read it, said something to the waiter, who pointed across the room at me; she lowered her glasses an inch or two, and peered over them. I gave her my fifty-dollar, Toronto-gangster smile. The waiter returned.
"Ms. Thomas said she'd be delighted if you'd join her," he said. I gave him a fin, dug through my wallet and found a card that identified me as a reporter for a fictional West Coast newspaper, and went to her table.
She looked me up and down. I was wearing unpressed corduroy jeans, a blue Oxford shirt, open at the collar, and an old, scarred Windbreaker. Definitely not the latest mobster look.
"If you're a gangster from Toronto, I'm Lady Di," she said, in a crisp voice laced with magnolias, "and I've got a good ten years on her."
Closer to fifteen, I thought, but a very well-disguised fifteen.
"You don't look a day over twenty-six," I lied.
"Oh, I think we're going to get along," she said, pointing to a chair. "Sit."
I sat and slid the card across the table to her. It identified me as Wilbur Rasmussen from the Las Andreas Gazette in San Francisco. She looked at it, snorted, looked at the back, and slid it back across the table.
"Phooey, a visiting fireman," she said. "And here I thought I was going to be wooed by some dashing mafioso."
"Do I look like a dashing mafioso?"
"You look like an English professor with a hangover."
"You're half right."
"Try a screwdriver. At least the orange juice makes you feel like you're doing something decent for your body."
"I couldn't stand the vodka."
"It'll get your heart beating again. What can I do for you? I'll bet you're here about that mess last night." She leaned over the table and said quietly, "Everybody in town's talking about it," flagging down a waiter as she spoke and ordering me a screwdriver.
"No kidding?" I said, trying to act surprised.
"It was ghastly. I had calls before the maid even opened my drapes this morning. I hardly knew this Turner man, but he seemed like a charming old gentleman."
"Charming?" I said. Uncle Franco was probably smiling in his grave.
"Well, you know. He contributed to the ballet and the symphony. He was on the board of the children's hospital. And he was quite modest about it all."
"No pictures, no publicity, that sort of thing?"
"Mm-hmm. Why?"
"Just wondering. I always suspect modesty. It's unnatural."
"You're a cynic."
"Very possibly."
"I always suspect cynics," she said.
"Why's that?" I asked.
"There's security in cynicism," she said. "Usually it covers up a lot of loneliness."
"You the town philosopher?" I asked, although I had to agree with her thesis.
"Nope," she said rather sadly. "I'm the town cynic, so I know one when I see one."
"So what's the pipeline saying about all this?" I asked, changing the subject.
She lowered the glasses again, peering over them at me. "That he's a gangster from Toronto," she said with a smirk.
"Couldn't be, I never heard of him," I said.
"Just what is your angle?"
"I do travel pieces."
"Really."
"Yeah."
"And lie a lot?"
"That too."
"To gossip columnists?" she said.
"I don't discriminate."
"Thanks."
"Maybe I ought to try and get a job on the Ledger," I said, changing the subject.
"Why, for God's sake?"
"I don't know much about women's clothes but I can tell a silk designer dress when I see one. They must pay well over there."
She threw back her head and laughed hard. "Now that is a joke," she said. "Did you ever know any newspaper that paid well?"
The waiter brought my screwdriver. I took a swallow or two and it definitely got the blood flowing again.
"Actually my husband died young, the poor dear, and left me wonderfully provided for," Babs said.
"You don't sound real upset over losing him."
"He was a delight, but he drank himself to death."
"What did he do?" I asked, sipping at the screwdriver.
"Owned the hotel," she said casually, but with a glint in her eyes.
"What hotel?"
"This hotel."
"You own the Ponce?" I said.
"Every creaky inch of it. Actually I hired a very good man from California to run it before Logan died. I love owning it but I dread the thought of having to run it."
"You live here?"
She nodded and pointed toward the ceiling. "Six flights up. The penthouse, darling. Owning the joint does have its perks. I have a beach place out on the Isle of Sighs but I don't go out there much anymore. It's a bit too solitary."
"I'm on the third floor," I said. "I don't have any perks."
"Is there something wrong with your accommodations?" she asked. "If there's a problem, I have a lot of pull with the management."
"The room's fine, thank you." I ordered coffee to chase the taste of vodka out of my mouth.
"What's your room number? I'll have them send up
a basket of fruit."
"Three sixteen. I love fresh pineapple."
"I'll remember that. You were telling me what you're doing here. "
"I was?"
"Mm-hmm."
"Actually I'm interested in doing a piece on the social order in Dunetown. Movers and shakers, that kind of thing."
"For the Los Aghast Gazette or whatever it was?"
I would have bet my underwear that she remembered the name of the paper and everything else I had said since joining her.
"Yeah, kind of a background piece."
She said "Mm-hmm" again and didn't mean a syllable of it. She lit a pink Sherman cigarette, leaned back in her chair, and blew smoke toward the ceiling. "Well, it was founded in 1733 by- "
"Not that far back."
"Just what do you want, Wilbur whatever-your-name-is, and I don't believe that for a minute, either."
"Who would make up a name like Wilbur Rasmussen?" I said.
She dipped her dark glasses at me again but made no comment.
"I hear it's an old town run by old money," I said.
"You're looking at some of it, darling."
"Accurate?"
"Fairly accurate."
"They making any money off the track?"
"Honey, everybody's making money off the track. If you own a bicycle concession in this town you can get rich." She sighed. "I suppose we are going to have to talk about this, aren't we?"
"Sooner or later."
The waiter brought my coffee and as I was diluting it with cream and sugar she made an imperceptible little move with a finger toward the hostess, a pretty, trim young black woman, no more than nineteen or twenty, who, a second or two later, appeared at the table.
"'Scuse me," she said. "You have a phone call, Ms. Babs."
"My public is after me," she said with mock irritation. "Excuse me for a moment, would you, darling?"
I watched her in the row of mirrors at the entrance to the restaurant. She picked up the phone at the hostess desk and punched out a number. That would be the desk she was calling, checking me out. She said a few words, waited, then hung up and came back to the table, still smiling, but a little colder than when I first sat down.
I smiled back.
"Jake Kilmer," she said.
"Nice trick with the hostess. I could see you calling the desk in the mirrors."
"That obvious, huh? Hmm. I wonder how many other people have caught me at it."
"Lots. The others were just too nice to mention it."
"Why do I know your name?"
"It's fairly common."
"Hmm. And you're a cop," she said.
"Kind of."
"How can you be kind of a cop?"
"Well, you know, I do statistical profiles, demographic studies, that kind of thing."
"You're much too cute to be that dull."
"Thanks. You're pretty nifty too."
"You're also an outrageous flirt."
"I am?" I said. "Nobody's ever complained about that before."
"Who's complaining?" she said, dipping her head again and staring at me with eyes as gray as a rainy day. I passed.
"So tell me who makes Dunetown click," I said.
"Persistent too," she said, then shrugged. "Why not, but it'll cost you a drink at the end of the day."
"Done."
She knew it all. Every pedigree, every scalawag, every bad leaf on every family tree in town. She talked about great-grandfathers and great-great-grandfathers who came over in the early 1800s and made a fortune in privateering, cotton, land, and shipping; who rose to become robber barons and worse, what Babs called "varmints," a word that seemed harmless somehow, the way she used it, but which I took to mean tough men who destroyed each other in power brawls. She talked about a onetime Irish highwayman named Larkin who escaped the noose by becoming an indentured servant to a Virginia tobacco man and then ran off, arriving in Dunetown, where, fifteen years later, he became its first banker; about Tim Clarke, the stevedore from Dublin who stowed away to Dunetown and ended up owning the shipyard; and an Irish collier named Findley who once killed a man in a duel over a runaway pig, and who went on to make a fortune in cotton and converted his millions to land before the bottom dropped out, and was the man who talked Sherman out of burning Dunetown because he owned most of the town and didn't want to see it torched like Atlanta. Doe's great-grandfather.
Hooligans, the bunch of them, the Findleys, Larkins, Clarkes, and the second generation, with names like Colonel and Chief, the ones who said yes, no, and maybe to every decision that affected the city for two centuries. And finally the third generation, the Bubbas and Chips and Juniors, so intimidated by their fathers that they were reduced to panderers, more interested in golf than empires.
Once she started, it was like turning on a tape recorder with no stop button. A twenty-minute dialogue, at the end of which I knew about every inbred mongoloid child, every lady of color who had married across the line, all the bastard and aborted children, the adulterers and adulteresses, the covered-up suicides, the drunks, gays, and feuding families, the banker's daughter who was a prostitute in L.A., and the two Junior Leaguers who ran off together and left two confused husbands and five children behind.
Routine for any small money town.
Three names stood out: Findley, Clarke, and Larkin.
The Findleys and the Larkins had been cautious partners through the years.
The Clarkes were their adversaries—in politics, business, even in love affairs.
"Jimmy Clarke would have died to marry Doe Findley," Babs said, "but Chief wouldn't hear of it. He picked an outsider for her. Not old money but respectable. His father was a lawyer and later a judge."
"Harry Raines?" I said. Funny, I couldn't remember Jimmy Clarke, although the name rang a bell.
"You do get around," Babs said.
"What about Raines?"
"What about him?"
"The way I get it, he married rich and got richer."
"My, my," she said caustically, "aren't we being a little catty?"
"No, I've been doing a lot of listening, that's all."
"Did they tell you Harry's going to be governor one of these days soon?"
"I keep hearing that. Has he been nominated yet?"
"Cute," she said.
"Well?"
"As well as, darling."
"Why?"
"Because he's Dunetown's golden boy. He's handsome, he's rich, he's young. He's a lawyer, married to a beautiful woman, and an ex-football star. His politics are moderate. His family's acceptable. And he's the state racing commissioner. Isn't that enough?"
"Sounds like he was born for the job."
"Besides, Dunetown's long overdue for a governor, particularly with the city growing so, and Harry's just perfect."
"Couldn't that be a hot spot?"
"Governor?" she said.
"Racing commissioner."
"Anything but, dear boy. Harry's brought a lot of money to the state. And a lot of tax money for the schools."
"I never trust a politician who was born with his mouth full of silver," I said.
"Ah, but he wasn't."
"So he married the money, that it?"
"Do you know Harry?" she asked. Her tone was turning cautious. I had the feeling I had stretched my luck a little thin.
"Nope," I said. "Just trying to get the feel of things. Obviously he's a man with a lot of drive. A lot of ambition."
"Is there something wrong with that?" she asked.
"Not necessarily. Depends on how much ambition and how big a drive. What you're willing to trade for success."
"He didn't have to trade anything for it, darling. He got all the prizes. The town's richest and most desirable young woman, her father's political clout. But he didn't sit on his little A-frame and drink it up the way a lot of them have. He made a name for himself. "
"What's he like personally?"
She leaned back in her chair and eyed me suspi
ciously. I was beginning to sound a little too much like a man with an axe to grind and Babs Thomas was nobody's fool.
"Just what the hell is your game, Kilmer?" she said.
"Told you, I'm trying to get a line on the town."
"No, you're trying to get a line on Harry Raines."
"Well, he's part of the big picture," I said, trying to sound as casual as I could.
She leaned forward and said flippantly, "You don't have to like a man to vote for him. Personally I find him a bit cold, but he gets things done. The rest of the state is in a depression and Dunetown is in the middle of a boom. You can't have everything. If he was any better he'd probably be in the movies."
I laughed at her rationale. I'm sure most of the voters in the state would look at Harry Raines in the same way. Babs Thomas had a bit of Everywoman in her, although I'm sure she would have killed anyone who accused her of that.
"Anyway," she said, tossing her head, "the sheriff's on his side. That's reason enough to get elected."
"That would be this Titan fellow?"
"No, darling, not 'this Titan fellow.' Mister Stoney. God owes him favors."
"And he and Raines are buddies?"
I was coaxing information now.
"When Chief's son, Teddy, was killed in Vietnam," she said, "Chief almost died with him. Doe married Harry less than a year later. Chief faded out of the picture right after that."
"As soon as he was sure the keys to the kingdom were in the right pocket," I said. It was not a question. "And now Sam Donleavy's running the store for Raines, isn't that it?"
"Yes. They're inseparable friends."
Listening to her was like déjà vu.
"Is Donleavy one of the landed aristocracy?"
"No, he's just plain people. He's from New Joisey," she said playfully. "Nouveau riche. You'd like him."
I grimaced at her. "Thanks a lot."
"Just joking. Actually Sam's quite a charmer. His wife left him about a year ago. Ran off with her karate instructor. Sam took it quite hard at first, but he's over it now. In fact, right now I'd say he's the town's most eligible bachelor—and enjoying every minute of it."
"Is this Raines clean?" I asked.
"Clean? You mean does he bathe?" She wasn't joking; it was obvious she didn't understand me.
"No, you know—does he cheat on his wife, that sort of thing?"
"Harry, cheat? He wouldn't dare." She stared over my shoulder as she spoke and her eyes grew wide. "Speak of the devil," she said. "There's Doe Findley now."
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