by Ross Thomas
“I wouldn’t bet against it,” I said.
“No,” Orcutt said, “I didn’t think you would. Next, here is a driver’s license issued by the Commonwealth of Virginia just before they began to require a photograph to be attached to each license. We would have secured a District of Columbia license for you, but there they require color photographs on their licenses, which presented an almost insurmountable problem.”
He handed me the license and I read the information on it. It would expire in six months, but everything was accurate except that it had me living in Alexandria.
“Now here,” Orcutt said, “are three credit cards, American Express, Gulf Oil, and Carte Blanche. They’re legitimate, so use them wisely.” He smiled after he said it to show that it was a joke, but with that smile of his, I couldn’t believe him.
“This,” he said, handing me another card, “is your Blue Cross and Blue Shield identification card. Also legitimate. We’ve already paid the premiums. And this is a card from Sibley Hospital in Washington which notes that your blood type is AB. Quite rare, really.”
“I know,” I said.
“We had the devil’s own time getting that one because it was so difficult to learn what your blood type is. We—or I should say Homer—finally got it from the State Department’s medical division. He’s quite good at things such as that. A real ferret.”
“How did State have it?” I said.
“You took a physical there eleven years ago,” Necessary said. “Remember it?”
“I do now,” I said.
Orcutt poked around in the envelope some more. “And here,” he said, “is an Alexandria library card, your voter’s registration, and a membership card in the Gaslight Club in Washington. That takes care of your identification problem.”
“Why Washington?” I said.
“Because the man who supplies us with several of these items of identification operates from there. If you’d like a totally new identity, complete with an honorable discharge from the Army, he’ll sell you a package that contains a Social Security number, a driver’s license, the aforementioned discharge, a library card, and a voter’s registration certificate for one hundred and fifty dollars. Credit cards cost fifty dollars each, but he strongly advises against them. They’re too much of a temptation. By the way, your credit cards are issued in the name of Victor Orcutt Associates.”
“Very thorough,” I said.
“Yes, it is, isn’t it?” Orcutt said. “Now here is a cashier’s check for five thousand dollars with which you’ll open a personal checking account at the First National Bank in Swankerton. And this is a letter of credit from my St. Louis bank. I believe it’s for—yes—twenty thousand. I hope you don’t have to use all of it, but you may. And since you have nothing to carry these various items in, here’s a wallet that should contain five hundred dollars cash.” He looked inside and counted rapidly. “Yes, it does.” Then he turned to Carol Thackerty and frowned. “I specified pin seal,” he said.
“They didn’t have any,” she said.
Orcutt looked at the wallet with distaste. “I suppose this will do, but it’s certainly not what I had in mind, Mr. Dye.”
“It’s fine,” I said and started to put all the cards into their proper compartments.
“I’ve saved the most important until last,” Orcutt said. “It’s the culmination of more than a month of intensive work on the part of myself, Miss Thackerty, and Homer.” He handed me five folded sheets of what seemed to be ordinary typing paper. When I unfolded them I saw that it was a long list of typewritten names that were divided into two sections and labeled “Advocates” and “Adversaries,” which I thought to be a little fancy. The adversaries ran four pages; the advocates only one. After each name were four or five single-spaced lines of biographical data which included such personal information as sexual inclinations and preferences; drinking habits; financial peccadilloes; emotional hang-ups; social and political position; chronic illnesses; mental aberrations; family background; educational attainments; current and past professions or businesses; estimated net worth; outstanding loans and debts; youthful indiscretions; and previous arrests, if any.
It was condensed and abbreviated enough to make Who’s Who seem garrulous. But it was all perfectly readable and I skimmed through it quickly, then folded it and stuffed it away in an inside coat pocket.
“It was a two-man job,” I said.
“Why two? Why not six or nine or even twenty?” Orcutt said and permitted me another inspection of his nothing smile.
“First, the information is useful for only two things: coercion or blackmail. A committee doesn’t do that. Second, one of them is a doctor; the medical terms give that away. So do the personal physical details. The other one is a trained researcher, probably a newspaperman, but somebody who knows where to look and who has a keen sense of the relevant.”
Homer Necessary put his empty brandy glass down and squirmed in his chair. When he couldn’t keep quiet any longer, he leaned toward me, his arms resting on his knees. “Maybe we dug it all up by ourselves, Dye. Maybe we just looked here and there, asked around, and then put it down on paper.”
“Maybe,” I said, “if you had a couple of years, instead of a couple of months. But you didn’t.”
“You’re quite right, Mr. Dye,” Orcutt said. “7wo persons did compile the information. One is Dr. Warner Colfax. He owns a rather large clinic—the Colfax Clinic, to be precise. In addition to the regular medical services that its sixty-bed hospital provides, it’s also a drying-out haven for drunks and narcotics addicts—those who can afford it, at any rate. Then, too, it’s a place that the aged can comfortably spend their remaining golden years, providing that they, or their children, can come up with fifteen hundred dollars a month; and it’s also a place of comfort and care for those who suffer minor mental aberrations.”
“He didn’t miss much,” I said. “The drunks and the addicts will spill anything for a bottle or a fix and the old folks will reminisce and ramble as long as somebody’ll listen. God knows what the psychotics would babble. No doubt Dr. Colfax has access to all records.”
“No doubt,” Orcutt said. “The newspaperman deserves a more fitting appellation, however He’s actually the editor and publisher of The Swankerton Advocate and its evening sister, The Swankerton News-Calliope. Odd name for a paper, don’t you think?”
“Very,” I said. “What’s his name?”
“Channing d’Arcy Phetwick, the third. Phetwick is spelled with a p-h, not an f. There’s a Channing d’Arcy Phetwick the fourth around, too, but he’s turned out to be something of a wastrel. The senior Phetwick also owns a television station which is the local NBC affiliate; a fifty-thousand-watt radio station, also NBC affiliated; a tremendous amount of timberland on the Coosa River in Alabama (pulp for newsprint, of course), a statewide trucking service in which he ships his papers, thus boosting his circulation considerably; numerous valuable downtown and suburban real-estate properties, plus a couple of profitable plantations, I suppose one should call them.”
“I assume that Phetwick and Colfax are paying your fee?” I said.
“You assume correctly.”
“That list of thumbnail biographies is divided into two parts, the advocates and the adversaries.”
“Isn’t that precious?” Carol Thackerty said.
“Merely convenient, Carol,” Orcutt said.
“Maybe you’d better tell me some more about the town,” I said.
“Swankerton has changed tremendously in the past ten years,” Orcutt said. “A number of manufacturing concerns, formerly located in the North, have moved here for the usual reasons—tax concessions, cheap, unorganized labor, adequate housing, what have you. About six years ago the Defense Department built an Air Force supply depot there which is, I think, the second or third largest in the country and employs about fifteen thousand persons. Swankerton was formerly a nice quiet town of around one hundred thousand. There was an established order, and
one would be hard put to cite the sociological difference between the Swankerton of 1915 and the Swankerton of 1960. It grew a little, of course, during those forty-five years, but there was that established order. Certain people ran certain things. This one had the gambling and that one had the Chamber of Commerce. Another one had the prostitution franchise, if you will, and yet another one might have the city council in his hip pocket. It was really quite cozy. Homer has made a thorough study of it and I think we may consider him to be our authority.”
Orcutt nodded at Necessary benignly, like a piano teacher encouraging a good but bashful pupil at the annual parents’ day recital.
“Like Victor says,” Necessary said, “it was all very, very sweet. Everybody had everything staked out—from Coca-Cola to moonshine. One guy had the ABC—you know, the bar and liquor licensing office. It cost you anywhere from two to five thousand to get a bar license. Liquor stores came cheaper—about fifteen hundred. The gambling was mostly wide-open blackjack and the county sheriff and the Swankerton police chief split that. They got a ten percent rakeoff and they had guys spotted around who could tell what the nightly take was down to the last nickel. They had a sweet little burglary ring going with the buttons working the lookout for the thieves. That was a sixty-forty split. The cops got the sixty naturally. The whores were all local talent, mostly broads from the sticks. Nothing fancy.”
He paused and looked at Orcutt. “If you want me to tell him the rest, I need something to gargle with.”
Orcutt looked at Carol Thackerty. “There’s a rather good bottle of Scotch in my bedroom, Carol—would you mind?”
She rose, got halfway across the room, and then turned to me. “You, too?” she said.
“No, thanks,” I said.
“Do go on, Homer,” Orcutt said.
“Well, these new plants and factories start moving in about 1964 and 1965 and they bring a hell of a lot of their top-and-middle-echelon people with them. They all had families and they were used to the kind of schools and stuff that they’d had in Jersey and Connecticut and New York and Pennsylvania. A lot of them were real bright kikes, if you know what I mean.”
“Could you possibly avoid the anti-Semitic slurs, Homer?” Orcutt said it as if he didn’t really think there was much hope.
“I haven’t got anything against Jews,” Necessary said. “I just call them kikes. I always have and I probably always will.”
“Go on,” Orcutt said and sighed.
“Well, they start agitating and about that time the niggers start getting riled up and they start agitating. You know, all that desegregation stuff. There’s a reform movement and about 1965 the reformers put up a slate. Well, hell, they win a few offices—they get the school board for instance. Maybe the county coroner, but not much else. But it scares the shit out of the old guard.
“In the meantime, some of the boys over in New Orleans hear about the action in Swankerton, so they start scouting around. And when the government announced that they’re going to build an air depot in Swankerton, the New Orleans bunch moves in fast.”
“How?” I said.
“Look at it this way,” Necessary said. “The town’s going to have a floating population for a while—about five thousand skilled construction workers, all spenders. After that there’ll be the soldier boys plus the civilian employees. That creates a market—a demand. The New Orleans outfit decides to be the sole supplier.”
Carol Thackerty came back in the room with a glass of Scotch and water and handed it to Necessary. “There’s no ice,” she said.
“That’s okay,” Necessary said and took a gulp of the drink, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Do continue, Homer,” Orcutt said, “and try to be as concise as possible.”
“What the hell you think I been doing?” Necessary said. “You told me to tell him so I’m telling him and if you think I’m too long-winded, then tell him yourself.”
“You’re doing fine,” I said.
“Okay,” he said. “Okay. I’ll just tell it the way it happened. Well, the New Orleans crowd comes in and they land hard. First, they move in on the numbers in Niggertown and take that over. Then they run all the white whores out of town and bring in their own and jack up the prices from fifteen and twenty bucks a lay to thirty-five and forty. They don’t bother the nigger whores any. Then they knock over a few blackjack games and the next day drop around selling protection. They spread a lot of juice around—the city council, the mayor, the chief of police, and a few of his buddies all get well, if you know what I mean.”
I said that I did and went on listening to Homer Necessary’s tale, which for him would now and forever remain in the present tense.
“Finally, they move in on the nightclubs and bars. They bust up a few and then work the protection slam. If the guy hasn’t got enough money, they loan it to him at twenty percent a week—or ten percent, if they like him real well. If he can’t pay, they buy him out for maybe forty cents on the dollar. I mean they really make it legal and everything. Next they get the city council to pass a new ordinance allowing the bars to stay open twenty-four hours a day. They do this because they got three shifts working to build that new air depot and when it’s finished the civilians are going to be working three shifts, too.”
Necessary stopped for a large gulp of his warm Scotch and water. “Now then,” he said, “they finally get the air depot built and then they start hiring the civilian help. Well, the niggers get all upset because not enough of them are being hired. At least that’s what they say. So some of their fire-eaters move down from up North and start stirring up the colored people. Then the unions get mad because they still aren’t able to organize the runaway plants from up North, although they do all right with the air depot because that’s all Federal money. So they finally call a strike at six of the biggest textile plants and then the union guys at the depot walk out in sympathy. I hear it’s against the law, but what the hell, they do it anyway.”
After that, Necessary said, the city officials turned to the New Orleans crowd to break the strike and also put an end to the mounting pressure from the black population.
“It takes them a week,” Necessary said with something akin to admiration. “Just a week. The niggers and the laborskates are getting together, you know—starting to cooperate—so the New Orleans people import a few hard cases from somewhere, up North probably. Well, they knock off a couple of the chief niggers and make it look like it’s done by a couple of local rednecks from the union. They leave evidence all around, like a rifle that belongs to one of the rednecks. Well, the chief of police can’t do anything but bring the two white guys in. Or have ‘em brought in. But on the way four niggers stop the car, take the two white boys out, and blast them deader’n hell. Well, that tears it.”
“I would imagine,” I said.
“The town gets real ugly,” Necessary said, after another swallow. “The whites are scared of the niggers and the niggers are scared of the whites. The strike just peters out and a carload of new nigger agitators from up North can’t even round up a crowd big enough to fill an outhouse. So everything settles back to just like it was before with the New Orleans crowd running things nice and smooth.”
“At this point, Mr. Dye,” Orcutt said, “I suppose you do have some questions.”
“Lots of them,” I said, “but only a few that won’t keep for a while. First of all, the deadline of the first Tuesday in November means an election is coming up, right?”
“Right,” Orcutt said.
“Since it’s an off-year, that means a local election.”
“Yes.”
“Those who’re paying your fee,” I said. “Doctor Colfax and Phet wick the third. I assume that they want to throw the rascals out so that theirs will get in?”
“Precisely.”
“And what you want me to do in the next two months is to make this town so corrupt that even the pimps will vote for reform?” I said.
“Most graphic,
Mr. Dye,” Orcutt said. “Most graphic indeed.”
“You’re not taking this on a contingency basis are you?”
Orcutt smiled. “I may be young, Mr. Dye, but I am not naive.”
“No, I don’t think you are. But I’m quite sure that you haven’t collected your fee in advance.”
“No.”
“I’ve heard of deals like this,” I said. “One that comes to mind happened in Germany.”
“In Hamelin?” Orcutt said.
“That’s right.”
“They didn’t want to pay off after the man got rid of the rats,” he said.
“No. They didn’t.”
“So he piped their children out of town, I recall,” he said.
“Everybody does. You may need something like a pipe.”
“What do you suggest?”
I tapped my breast pocket that contained the Xeroxed list. “This list is missing a couple of names,” I said.
There was always that about Orcutt. He never needed the simple diagram that came with the do-it yourself kit. He just smiled again and even managed to put something into it other than nothing.
“You mean the names of Doctor Colfax and Mr. Phetwick?” he said.
“Yes.”
“I’m glad you mentioned it,” he said. “I really am. It demonstrates your level of awareness. However, while we were negotiating our contract, we also investigated the personal background and history of the two gentlemen in question. We secured some most interesting information,”
“Okay,” I said. “You’ve answered my first question. The advocates, I take it, are Dr. Colfax and Phetwick the third and the people they can control through sympathy or blackmail or coercion. Right?”
“Right,” Orcutt said.