by Edson, J. T.
Without waiting to ask further questions, which Tom regarded as a point in his favor, Brad opened his door and left the vehicle. Passing swiftly around the rear of the vehicle, he strolled in a rapid, if casual-seeming manner towards the corner. He wondered who the man in the brown suit might be and what he had done to evoke such a response from the stocky deputy.
Then the man came into his view, swinging around the corner. Approaching and going by him, Brad subjected him to a careful but surreptitious scrutiny. There was nothing sinister, nor even special, about him that Brad could detect. Around six foot in height, burly, with sallow and almost nondescript features, he was dressed in the style and price range of a man in the lower-middle income bracket and he did not appear to be armed. He went by without as much as a glance at the big blond. However, Brad was too smart to turn immediately. Instead, he halted to look into the window of a clothing shop and also to keep the man under observation. Allowing him to draw a short way ahead, Brad followed.
Watching the man, Tom leaned over and opened the rear passenger door. Then, keeping his right hand out of sight, he looked back from his window.
‘Why howdy, Mr. Chalkie,’ Tom greeted, as the man came to a stop. ‘How about getting in back there and visiting for a spell?’
‘If this’s a bust—!’ the man began, standing as if poised for flight.
‘Perish the thought,’ Tom interrupted. ‘I’m just wanting to exchange salutations. Only I wouldn’t try to split. My partner’s just behind you.’
‘What—?’ Chalkie gritted, showing surprise and alarm before twisting his head to look over his shoulder. ‘Where?’
‘It’s not Harry Bidlow anymore,’ Tom warned, after the man’s gaze had returned to him. ‘Hey, Brad. Meet Mr. Chalkie. Mr. Chalkie, this’s my new partner, Deputy Sheriff Counter.’
Scowling, Chalkie swiveled around from the waist. He had noticed Brad previously, but was more concerned with locating Harry Bidlow, so had ignored him. Now the man took in the blond’s height, size and the way in which his excellently-cut sports jacket was open. Then he swung angry eyes back to the deputy in the car.
‘There’s laws against harassment—!’ Chalkie spat out.
‘Who’s harassing?’ Tom challenged. ‘All we want to do is talk. We can do it here friendly-like, or ride down to the Sheriff’s Office and see if anybody else’d like to have a word with you.’
Muttering something under his breath, Chalkie entered the car. Brad advanced until he could lean against the vehicle and listen to the conversation.
‘This here’s Mr. Chalkie, like I told you, Brad,’ Tom drawled. ‘Only I shouldn’t bother getting too friendly with him. Did you say you’d be gone by sundown, or before, Mr. Chalkie?’
‘God damn it!’ Chalkie snarled. ‘I’m clean and I’m not going to stand for any harassment—’
‘This’s not harassment,’ Tom declared. ‘It’s just pure, good-natured, friendly interest.’
‘I tell you I’m clean!’ Chalkie insisted.
‘And don’t have one lil thing to hold you in Rockabye County,’ Tom put in calmly. ‘Hey though. Did you see Cruz Socorro across the street?’
‘No.’
‘He saw you getting in the heap.’
‘So?’
‘So he pulled an 1163 [x] in Upton Heights last night,’ Tom drawled. ‘Only he doesn’t know that we’ve made him for it—or how we found out it was him.’
From his position, Brad could see Chalkie’s face. At Tom’s final sentence, the features showed realization of what was implied, then alarm, and he shot a long, searching look across the street.
‘I don’t see him!’ Chalkie stated, having brought his gaze back to Tom Cord.
‘He turned down Longley as soon as he saw you getting into the heap,’ Tom replied blandly. ‘Funny thing about Cruz’s the way he jumps to conclusions. Why I just bet he’d get all kind of wrong notions, was we to go down there and put the arm on him. What do you reckon, Brad?’
‘You’ve never been righter, Tom,’ the big blond declared. Although he had no idea of what was going on, he guessed that an answer in the affirmative was required. He also made a deduction and continued, ‘Could be Cruz’d even think he’d been snitched on.’
‘He just might at that, for shame,’ Tom drawled, delighted—without showing it—that his new partner had said exactly the right thing. ‘Just drift along Dodd there and pick him up, Brad.’
‘Yo!’ the big blond replied, giving the time-honored U.S. Cavalry response to an order.
‘Best of Brad being so new,’ Tom remarked to Chalkie. ‘He can get up close without being made as a badge. And when he’s there. Well, he shoots sixteen dollars.’
‘You want me to fetch him back here, Tom?’ the blond asked, once again intuitively doing the right thing by not just walking away.
‘Sure,’ Tom agreed. ‘I should be through talking to Mr. Chalkie before you get him here.’
Little showed on the man’s face, but he moved restlessly. That suggested to Brad how he was anything but composed. Turning, the big blond looked first one way and then the other as if seeking for a break in the traffic so that he could cross the street and carry out his orders.
Studying Brad, Chalkie concluded that he was capable of taking Cruz Socorro single-handed. The fact that Chalkie had failed to make the big blond as a peace officer gave an added strength to the supposition. Any man who was a sixteen-dollar shooter rated as a pistolero valiente second to none. On top of that, the young deputy looked as if he would be strong enough to toss Socorro over the buildings if he got close enough to use his hands.
Satisfied that Brad could carry out the assignment, Chalkie guessed what would happen next. Cord would hold him in the car until the blond returned with his prisoner. Seeing Chalkie leaving the vehicle, Cruz would draw the required conclusion. While he would not be able to handle the matter personally, he had two brothers and numerous other connections who were fully capable of doing so.
‘You bast—!’ Chalkie began, but did not finish the second word. Despite his anger and concern he had enough sense not to make such a mistake. ‘You’re setting me up for a snitch-jacket.’ [xi]
‘Us?’ Tom gasped, in mock horrified tones and certain that his bluff was working. ‘All we’ll do is put the arm on him. What he does, or figures, after that’s his affair.’
‘Cruz Socorro don’t worry me!’ Chalkie said, but his voice lacked conviction.
‘You’ve got connections in town, huh?’ Tom asked.
‘I’m not saying!’ the man snarled.
‘I hope they’re better than you usually make,’ Tom drawled. ‘Because Cruz’s got some real mean kin-folk and amigos on the streets.’
‘That won’t worry me,’ Chalkie stated, having accepted that he would be advised to leave town. He had arrived in search of employment, but decided that his chances would be better elsewhere. ‘I was figuring on taking the three o’clock Westbound.’
‘Hey, Brad!’ Tom called, gratified that the man had reached his decision before the big blond was forced to delay his departure for so long that it looked suspicious. ‘I’ll come with you after Cruz—just’s soon’s I’ve raised Cen-Con and asked them to tell the blue-noses [xii] that we’ve met Mr. Chalkie and he’d admire for some of them to come down to the railroad depot and see him off for old times’ sake.’
‘Yo!’ Brad replied, turning and hiding his relief. He had not wanted to cross the street, but his instincts had warned him that he would have to do so if he wanted to avoid spoiling whatever his partner was attempting. ‘Have a good trip, Mr. Chalkie.’
‘Enjoy your visit, too,’ Tom went on, watching the man leave the car. ‘Just so long’s it’s over and done by the time the train pulls out. Ahi te huacho.’ [xiii]
Chalkie did not reply. However, if looks could have killed, the Rockabye County Sheriff’s office would have lost two of its deputies. Throwing a hate-filled glare from Tom to Brad and back, he swung on his heel and slouch
ed away in the direction from which he had come.
Before resuming his place behind the steering wheel, Brad stood and watched the brown-suited man until he disappeared around the corner. Then, on boarding the vehicle, the blond found that Tom was returning the Smith & Wesson to its holster.
‘Is he that heavy?’ Brad asked, guessing that his partner had been nursing the weapon all through the interview.
‘He can be if you take chances,’ Tom replied ‘And letting him sit behind me’s what I’d call taking chances—Except that he knew I was holding my piece.’
‘What’s his scam?’ Brad inquired.
‘Muscle,’ Tom answered. ‘He acts as protection and does the collecting for steer joints [xiv] and bookies. He’s in on the fringes of narcotics and prostitution. Not for the big boys, but around the smaller fry and local punks.’
‘He didn’t look, nor sound, like a bad hombre.’
‘Don’t let his looks fool you. He’s not in with the big fellers, but that doesn’t mean he’s a harmless, misunderstood product of our capitalistic Western establishment. Even if he was scared of having Cruz Socorro’s kin-folks after him, he can be real dangerous under the right conditions. He’s pulled three stretches at the Walls [xv] on 1151’s [xvi] and was lucky that two of them didn’t end up as 1160’s.’ [xvii]
‘He’s not tied in with the Syndicate, then?’
‘Nope. Trouble with him is that he likes his work too much. They want a thorough work over, but one that doesn’t leave marks which show, when somebody legitimate won’t pay off. He leaves ’em looking like they’ve been tromped by a stampede.’
‘A bad hombre, huh?’
‘If he’s not, he’ll do until one comes along,’ Tom answered. ‘Happen he’d stayed on, somebody’d’ve wound up with broken bones, if nothing worse. One of these days, he’ll wash a victim for sure and I’d sooner it didn’t happen in Gusher City. Let’s get moving.’
‘What do you reckon he was doing here ?’ Brad inquired as he started the engine and set the car into motion.
‘Looking for work, likely,’ Tom guessed. ‘He’s not long out of the Walls and must have drifted in this morning.’
‘Why do you think that?’
‘If he’d had a connection, he’d have tried harder to stick around. And if he’d been here longer, I don’t reckon he’d’ve fallen for my bluff about Cruz Socorro.’
‘You mean that there wasn’t an 1163?’
‘There was one all right,’ Tom drawled. ‘It was Socorro’s M.O., and a witness gave a damned good description of him. In fact, Pat and Tommy Chu’re out looking for him now. Only Chalkie doesn’t know that. He figures we’ve just got the word from a stool pigeon and doesn’t want Socorro figuring it was him who snitched.’
‘So he’ll split and go some other town,’ Brad said quietly.
‘Just like he told us he would,’ Tom agreed. ‘Anyways, he’s on the bluenoses’ turf now. They’ll wire a warning ahead so that the other towns can keep a watch for him.’
‘And that’s all we can do,’ Brad said, a trifle bitterly.
‘That’s all we can do,’ Tom agreed. ‘I’ll call in.’
Listening to his partner making the report to Central Control over the car’s radio, Brad lost some of his resentment and his admiration for Tom grew as he considered what he had just witnessed. Seeing the affair in its true perspective, he also realized that—excellent as his training had been at the University of Southern Texas and Quantico—he still had a great deal to learn about the practical side of law enforcement.
Knowing that there was no legal way in which they could force a potentially dangerous criminal to leave Gusher City before he injured—or maybe even killed—somebody, Tom had still contrived to bring about his departure. Brad accepted that he could not have duplicated the experienced deputy’s solution to the problem.
‘It’s just passing the buck, maybe.’ Tom commented, hanging the microphone back on its hook. ‘But there’s no other way to handle Chalkie’s kind. That’s the worst of living in a democracy.’
‘Sure,’ Brad agreed. ‘We’re so concerned with protecting the rights of the innocent that we have to leave them wide open to the guilty bastards.’
‘You handled your end real good, boy,’ Tom praised. ‘I’m sorry there wasn’t time to fill you in on what I was doing before you left the car, but that’s how it happens.’
‘What worried me was that I’d say or do the wrong thing and blow it for you,’ Brad admitted.
‘Nope,’ Tom drawled, without mentioning that he had shared the big blond’s concern. ‘You did everything just like an old hand.’
‘It’s all part of the F.B.I.’s training,’ Brad declared, but he could not help letting his relief make itself evident in his voice.
‘Do tell,’ Tom grinned, ‘Say though, did you hear about the two bulls that got together after the fall round up?’
‘Something tells me I’m going to,’ Brad answered.
‘It happened this way,’ Tom went on. ‘One of them was all meated up and fat’s butter, but the other was so lean and gaunt that, if you’d thrown a hat at him, it’d’ve hung on to any of a dozen places. Anyways, this skinny one says, “You look like you’ve had one hell of a good summer.”
‘“Boy,” the fat one answers, “You’re not whistling ‘Dixie’, I did. Was down in the river bottoms, grass’s belly-deep and sweet as you’ve ever laid lip to, plenty of water, it never got too hot nor too cold and there was all the lil cows I could serve. How’d you make out?”
‘“You’d never believe the miserable summer I’ve had,” the skinny bull told him. “Got sent up in the Badlands. It was hotter’n hell with the lid off, not much water, grass was so dry I couldn’t spit, much less chew my cud, and all the company I had was a bunch of steers. And all they did was stand around talking about their operations.”’
‘Cen-Con to Unit SO 12!’ the car’s radio crackled as Tom delivered the punch line.
‘How’s that for timing?’ the stocky deputy inquired, scooping up and clicking on the microphone. ‘Unit SO 12 by.’
‘Call has come in for you from Mr. Britt,’ the Central Control’s dispatcher announced. ‘“Code One”?’
‘“Code One”,’ Tom replied and his repetition of the two words, which asked if the message was understood, confirmed that it had been. ‘Over and out.’
‘What’s up?’ Brad inquired, although he could guess at what had been implied by the message.
‘We’re going to have to pass up the E.V.O.C. for now,’ Tom replied. ‘I feel like having a cup of tea.’
~*~
‘How well do you know Gusher City, Brad ?’ Tom Cord inquired, without elaborating upon his sudden desire for liquid refreshment.
‘I’ve been driving around every free moment I’ve had since I arrived,’ Bradford Counter replied. ‘But I wouldn’t want to claim that I know every street, turning and side alley.’
‘You would if you’d been through the Academy,’ Tom declared, but his broad grin robbed the words of any sting they might have carried. ‘The trouble with going to Quantico—’
‘Is that it gives fellers with just municipal and County training an inferiority complex,’ Brad interrupted and adopted a tone of exaggerated politeness. ‘Where’d you like to go, sir? Happen I don’t know it, I can always ask a policeman.’
‘Let’s try Slade Street, down in the Bad Bit,’ Tom requested.
‘Yo!’ the big blond drawled. ‘Is it nudie books, a photographer’s parlor, a porno movie theater or a bar with topless waitresses you’re wanting?’
‘I didn’t think you’d know such a low part of town,’ Tom stated, for the street he had designated offered all the amenities mentioned by his partner. ‘You gazers [xviii] usually steer well clear of the Skid Row districts.’
Ignoring the comment, Brad kept a watch for an intersection which would allow him to turn in the required direction. As he drove, he thought about the message they had recei
ved. Unless he was mistaken, he would soon be making his first acquaintance with another facet of his law enforcement duties. However, although he sensed that his partner expected him to request information on the matter, he kept his conclusions to himself and concentrated upon his driving.
Traversing the Business Division, Brad reached Slade Street without any difficulty. As they were cruising along it, Tom decided that the blond had done well to have gained such a knowledge of the city’s geography.
Forming the boundary between Jepson and Evans Park, Slade Street frequently provided the police from each Division with the majority of their workloads. However, with the time shortly after noon, there was little evidence of its more rowdy and boisterous character. The bookstores, clothing boutiques and photographic parlors were open, but did not appear to be doing a great deal of business. Only a few people were about and none of them showed any especial interest in the black and white Oldsmobile as, on Tom’s instructions, Brad brought it to a halt in front of a movie theater which specialized in showing pornographic films.
‘Closed,’ Brad said dryly, eyeing the building. ‘Just our luck.’
‘Sure,’ Tom agreed. ‘Anyways, I bet you’ve seen the show.’ With that, he took up the microphone and went on, ‘Unit SO 12 to Cen-Con.’
‘Cen-Con by,’ the dispatcher answered.
After registering a ‘Code Seven’, which warned that he and his partner would be away from the vehicle while taking a meal, the stocky deputy left the car. Joining Tom on the sidewalk, after checking that all the doors were locked, Brad looked around in the hope that he might pick up a clue as to where they were going. He felt sure that they would soon be meeting the mysterious ‘Mr. Britt’.
However, for all Tom’s apparent desire to have a cup of tea, he did not appear to be in any rush to get it. Instead, he led Brad to the side door of the theatre. On it being opened to his knock and announcement that they were peace officers, Tom asked the surly faced man who appeared if he had seen Cruz Socorro recently. After being told that the man had not and hoped he never would, Tom thanked him and walked away. As they were strolling along the sidewalk to the bookstore next to the theater, the stocky deputy glanced at Brad as if expecting to be questioned about his behavior. Having realized what they were doing, the big blond did not speak. Instead, he was pleased to have the opportunity to puzzle his more experienced companion and felt sure that he had guessed correctly about their change in plans.