The Fools in Town Are on Our Side

by Ross Thomas

  “Your ground and your rules,” I said.

  Lynch thought that was funny, too, but not as much as before, and his chuckle was reduced to three or four sharp, deep barks.

  “Well, what do you say?”

  “All right. What time?”

  “About an hour from now. Around five.”

  “Where?” I said.

  “My place, but don’t worry about it. We’ll send someone for you. Room eight-nineteen, isn’t it?”

  I looked at the telephone to make sure. “Eight-nineteen,” I said.

  “Look forward to it,” Lynch said before he said goodbye and we hung up.

  I stood there by the phone for a few moments and then picked it up and asked the operator for Victor Orcutt. Carol Thackerty answered in what was called, for God knows what reason, the Eddie Rickenbacker suite. Maybe he had once slept there when they were still calling it the Theodore Bilbo suite.

  “Is your room all right?” Orcutt said when he came on.

  “It’s fine. The chief adversary just called.”

  “Lynch.” He didn’t make it a question. He just said Lynch to confirm a fact and to give his mind time to hop around and sort out all of the implications.

  “He wants to meet me at five this afternoon. Or maybe they call it evening down here.”

  “Evening,” Orcutt said.

  “I agreed.”

  “Good.”

  “He said he wants to lay out some ground rules.”

  “There aren’t any,” Orcutt said.

  “I know. It’s probably just a mutual sizing-up session. He said that some others will be there.”

  “What else?”

  “I think Gerald Vicker wants his brother to settle a grudge for him and the brother wants to find out how much trouble that could be.”

  “That’s one,” Orcutt said. “Two is he might try to buy you off. How much would that take?”

  “You’re forgetting my loyalty to the old firm.”

  “You’re teasing again. I do like that. We’ll wait until you get back and then we’ll all have dinner together at a simply marvelous place that I know.”

  “I’ll call when I can,” I said and hung up, reflecting that I was going to have to watch Orcutt’s perfectly marvelous places. Although my taste buds relished the rich fare, my stomach still expected rank fish and gummy rice. When it didn’t get the expected, it rebelled, just as it had done twice the night before in San Francisco.

  Eight-nineteen in the Sycamore Hotel was a corner room with a view of Marseille Boulevard and Snow Street, the latter being the principal downtown thoroughfare, which I assumed was named after somebody called Snow and not for the weather. I judged the hotel to be at least sixty or seventy years old, built in a vaguely European style so that the floors formed a high hollow square. The corridors on each floor ran around the hollow square, and nothing kept the drunks from tumbling down to the lobby other than waist-level iron railings. The hotel ceiling, nine floors above the lobby, was covered with frosted glass which during the day provided the interior with a soft, filtered light that made the profusion of potted plants look even greener than they were.

  It was a well-designed hotel with comfortably furnished, spacious rooms whose high ceilings boasted fans that supplemented the central air-conditioning. Unless you were well bundled up when they were both going full blast, the chances for catching pneumonia must have been excellent. The bath in 819 was large enough to have done for a single room in an ordinary motel, its fixtures were fairly new and even included a bidet. Someone had spent a lot of money and thought on the Sycamore’s geriatric care.

  I hung up the suits and topcoat that Carmingler had provided, regretting that I would have to buy some new clothing to go with the temperature. I unbuttoned the vest of the suit I was wearing, the blue one with the faint gray stripe, and hung it in the closet.

  After that I stood by the window, sipped a drink of cool water and Scotch, and watched the citizens of Swankerton go about their business. Across the street was the First National Bank. Next to it was Elene’s Boutique, then Osterman’s Bar & Grill which offered fine food, and then a Rexall drugstore, a Kress’s five and ten, a five-story department store called Mitchell and Farnes, and another bar and grill called The Easy Alibi, which was a little cute for the main drag.

  Down Marseille Boulevard was the Liberty National Bank, twenty-four stories tall and the city’s only skyscraper; another department store called Biendorfer’s, a pancake and waffle shop, and another drug store which seemed to be the member of a local chain called Mouton’s.

  The citizens looked just like their town. There was nothing in their dress or gait or color that would distinguish them from those who lived in Pittsburgh, or Atlanta, or Pierre, South Dakota. Some shuffled, some walked briskly, even in the heat, and some just ambled along as if they had nowhere important to go and nothing much to do when they got there. Although I was eight stories up, the citizens seemed to lack animation. There was none of Hong Kong’s squealing vibrancy and I found that I missed it. But then there weren’t many places in the States that I’d ever really liked, not the way I’d once loved Shanghai, and there was no real reason why Swankerton should prove an exception.

  I turned from the window and tried the most comfortable appearing chair in the room, which was even more restful than it looked. I sank into it and stared at the slowly spinning ceiling fan that made an oily click after every third revolution. I could have thought about what I was doing in Swankerton, but I already knew that. I was there because I had nothing better to do and I wanted to find out why someone was willing to pay me $50,000 to do it. The fee, of course, was exorbitant. Far too high for two months’ work unless I was supposed to kill a few persons, but I was no good at that. If I had liked coincidences, I could have puzzled over the one that had Gerald Vicker recommending me to do a job of sorts in a town where his brother was obviously Señor Number One Garçon, as Tante Katerine would have had it. But since this was obviously no coincidence, a phenomenon in which I had little or no faith anyhow, there was no need to puzzle over it any more than one puzzles over being dealt a pat hand. When it comes along, you don’t fret about it, you play it.

  The phone rang and a man’s voice wanted to know if I were Mr. Dye. When I said yes, he said that his name was Robineaux and that Mr. Lynch had told him to wait in the lobby. I said I would be right down and when I got there, Mr. Robineaux turned out to be a tall young man with the posture of a question mark who had some interesting scars on his face that looked as if they had been stitched there by a sewing machine. I followed him out to a Lincoln Continental and he opened the rear door for me. The car was air-conditioned and Mr. Robineaux had nothing much to say until we arrived at a house in a residential section some twenty minutes later. Then he said, “This is it,” and got out and opened the door for me.

  It was an old residential section of Swankerton where the pines grew tall and when the wind passed through them, they sighed a little, as if bored with their murmured, never-ending conversation about the weather. The house was a large, two-story frame structure with a turret at one end which poked up another story and was crowned by what looked to be a shingled dunce cap. There were screened porches running around both the first and second floors and carefully carved gingerbread scrollwork was nailed onto everything that would support it. It was a large house, perhaps three-quarters of a century old, and far too big for most of today’s families. Somehow I expected to spot a discreet sign announcing, in a hesitant manner, that there were rooms for rent providing, of course, that one could furnish proper references.

  But there was no sign and I followed Robineaux and his interesting scars up the five steps that led to the screened-in porch. There was a lot of honeysuckle climbing around and its odor competed with that of the lawn’s freshly cut Bermuda grass. There were some magnolia trees and some azaleas, too, I noticed, but they weren’t in bloom, although they must have been a pleasant enough sight when they were, if one cared f
or that sort of thing.

  Ramsey Lynch opened the door and gave me his hand to shake. He said “It’s good to see you” and I said something in reply that was equally meaningless. I knew he was Ramsey Lynch because he looked like his brother, Gerald Vicker, although Lynch was a little younger, but not much. His granite gray hair was long and thick and he wore it looped down and back over his forehead much in the same style that his brother favored. His eyes were steady and clear and somehow I knew that although they must have been in use for close to forty-five or even fifty years they still didn’t need glasses. He had Vicker’s right-triangle nose and the same thin lips but no mustache. He had three or four unremarkable chins, depending upon how high he held his head. Ramsey Lynch was a very fat man and he made no attempt to disguise it. He wore a pale blue suit of some synthetic fabric, a white shirt, and a dark blue tie. It all looked cool, loosely comfortable, and cheap.

  The house was air-conditioned, I was relieved to find, as I followed Lynch into the living room or perhaps parlor. He turned and made a vague little gesture. “This was the parlor. Still is, I suppose. We bought it from two old maid sisters who finally couldn’t keep it up and went to a rest home. Everything is just like they left it—except the air-conditioning.”

  It was a stiff room, filled with spindly chairs made out of dark wood and woven cane. There was a purple sofa, a loveseat, and a grand piano. Dead relatives or friends gazed down from the walls where they were trapped in their oval, glass-covered frames.

  “We’re meeting in the dining room,” Lynch said and opened two sliding doors. Five men sat around an ornately carved table. There was a matching sideboard at the right and a tall, glass-fronted highboy at the left which held a collection of china and colored glassware that, to me, looked Bavarian.

  The men were down to shirtsleeves. Three of them smoked cigarettes and from the looks of their ashtrays they had been there for at least two hours.

  “This is Lucifer Dye,” Lynch said to the men. “You know who he works for and why he’s here. So I’ll just make the introductions and then we can get on with it.” Lynch started at the left hand side of the table and worked his way around it clockwise.

  “Fred Merriweather,” he said. “Fred’s a city councilman and owns a lot of property over in Niggertown. Also has a restaurant on Snow Street, right across from your hotel, called the Easy Alibi. He’s up for re-election.” I nodded at Merriweather, who had a big-jawed face, stupid blue eyes, and a yellow-toothed smile.

  “Next to him is Ancel Carp, who’s city tax assessor. We elect him, too, and he’s running again. He’s also the city surveyor.” Carp was around forty-five. He looked as if he spent a lot of time outdoors. His hands were extraordinarily large and they went with the rest of him. When he looked at me, his gray eyes seemed to be calculating my net worth and I felt that he wouldn’t be much more than two cents off.

  “Now at the end of the table is his honor, the mayor. Pierre Robineaux. We call him Pete and his boy’s the one who carried you here.”

  “Glad to have you with us, Mr. Dye,” Robineaux said, bobbing his head at me. He had a high forehead and a long chin, and both of them seemed to be too far removed from his button nose, small eyes, and pursed mouth.

  “Next to the mayor is our chief of police, Cal Loambaugh. He’s appointed so he doesn’t have to worry about running. Not much.” The chief was younger than I expected, not more than thirty-five. He was dressed in a neat brown suit and had a tight, controlled look about him, like an alcoholic turning down a drink after he’s three days off the sauce. Loambaugh didn’t smile or nod. He just looked at me, and there was nothing in his gaze that I could find to like.

  “And finally, this is Alex Couturier. He’s the executive secretary for the Chamber of Commerce, and belongs to the Lions, Kiwanis, American Legion, VFW, and God knows what else. He’s sort of the city’s public relations man.”

  Couturier had one of those professionally friendly faces, loose and relaxed. His mouth seemed to be on the verge of a smile and I decided that it always looked that way. He was a big, bluff-looking man, well-dressed, but not so much that it would offend those who bought their suits at J. C. Penney’s. “Good to see you, Dye, good to see you,” he said and his voice boomed it all out and I thought it might have been nicer if his eyes had managed to join in on the chorus.

  “Well, now, I think that’s everybody,” Lynch said. “Why don’t you sit right down here on my left and we’ll get started as soon as the mayor yells at that boy of his to bring us something cool.”

  The mayor yelled “Booboo,” and the younger Robineaux popped his head through the door that must have led to the kitchen.

  He said, “What?” and his father told him to bring bourbon and water all around.

  After the drinks were served we sat there sipping them and waiting for someone to say something. Lynch was leaning back in his chair, his hands crossed over his belly, his thin lips smiling gently, at peace with himself and, for all I knew, with the world.

  “You banging that blonde yet, Dye?” It was Loambaugh, the chief of police, and he didn’t look at me when he said it.

  “Not yet,” I said.

  “You know what I’d like to do?” he said softly. I looked at him. With a better barber, he could have posed for an FBI recruiting poster, if they had any.

  “What?” I said.

  “I’d like to get my head right down there between her legs and then have somebody jump up and down on the back of it. That’s what I’d like.”

  The mayor snuffled and said something that sounded like, “Pshaw.” The other three grinned at each other and Lynch barked his fat man’s laugh. The chief had set the tone for the meeting. The preliminaries were over. The niceties were dispensed with. Nut-cutting time had arrived. I had seen it done often enough before, usually with more polish and grace, but seldom with such dispatch.

  Alex Couturier, the Chamber of Commerce lackey, was up next. “I don’t know, chief,” he said in an exaggerated drawl, “of a real warm summer evening I wouldn’t mind taking it out and letting little old Orcutt have a go at it. Not so much sweating and flopping about. He appears to me like a real tube cleaner. How about that, Mr. Dye? Is that little old boss of yours as good as he sounds like?”

  “He probably hasn’t had as much time to practice as you have,” I said and smiled my boyish grin, the one that I kept in reserve for such events as famine, flood, and afternoon sessions with professional country boys.

  There was some more tittering by the mayor, and the rest of them did some honking and har-harring, which I assumed was laughter. There was no humor in any of it and they seemed to be the kind who laughed only at someone else’s discomfort, but then that’s what a lot of laughter stems from. All except Lynch. His deep chuckle sounded as if he really thought that my remark was funny, but he seemed to always chuckle like that.

  It was Fred Merriweather’s time at the plate. He rolled his stupid blue eyes and moved his big jaw around as if it were taking a couple of practice swings. Even before he spoke, he’d already lost my vote. “You know, I was just recollecting somebody that reminds me of that Orcutt feller.” The city councilman paused and let his jaw ruminate about it for a few more moments. “Name was Sanderson and it was right after the war and he was shoe clerking at Mitchell and Fames, I think it was.”

  “It was Mitchell and Fames all right,” the mayor said. “His name was Thad Sanderson and he taught Sunday School at the First Methodist when it was still over on Jasper Street.”

  “Believe you’re right, Pete,” Councilman Merriweather said and then rolled his blue eyes at me. “Feller reminded me of your Mr. Orcutt. Way he talked and walked and all, but none of us thought anything about it.”

  “That was way before my time,” the police chief said, “but I remember hearing about it.”

  “Old man Kenbold was chief then,” the mayor said.

  “Well,” the city councilman went on, still rolling his blue eyes at me, “they caught thi
s Sanderson feller fooling around with these two youngsters. Weren’t more’n eleven or twelve. Know what happened, Mr. Dye?”

  “The chief of police went fishing,” I said.

  The stupid blue eyes popped a little at that. “How’d you know?”

  “I just guessed.”

  “You’re a pretty good guesser, aren’t you?” said the current police chief.

  “Just fair,” I said.

  “Maybe you can even guess what happened,” the city councilman said.

  “Probably. But I’ll let you tell me.”

  Councilman Merriweather moved his jaw up and down again, leaned over the table toward me, and licked his lips with a furry, yellow tongue. Bad liver, I thought. “Well,” he said, “a bunch of them caught him right in the act, so to speak, so they cut off his gonads with a dull old Barlow knife, but they didn’t want him to bleed to death, so they doctored him up.” He paused to snigger a moment. “You know what they doctored him up with? Hot tar, that’s what. Hot tar. Feller left town.”

  I nodded and waited. There was nothing to say.

  Ancel Carp, the tax assessor, cracked the knuckles on his huge hands, looked up at the ceiling, and said, “I don’t think Mr. Dye’s too much interested in our past history. He’s probably more interested in the current scene so if we’ve got anything to say, let’s say it.”

  “Well, Ancel, I suppose that sort of serves it right into my court,” Lynch said. “Reason we asked you here, Mr. Dye, is that we’re just a little upset. Now this is a fine community. A fine one. And although I’ve only lived here about seven or eight years, I kind of like to think of myself as an adopted native son.”

  “That’s the way we think of you, Ramsey,” the mayor said.

  “Thank you, your honor. But to get back to it. We don’t get upset unless the town’s upset. It’s sort of like when the town’s constipated, we fart.” He paused and took a long drink of his bourbon. I’d barely touched mine.