The Fools in Town Are on Our Side

by Ross Thomas

  “That belongs to Fred Merriweather,” I said. “Your pet city councilman.”

  “That’s right!” Lynch said, trying to work a little astonished recall into his tone, but not doing very well at it. “You met him yesterday.”

  “What time did they pick Necessary up?” I said to Loambaugh.

  He looked up at the ceiling for inspiration. “Midnight or thereabouts.”

  “What’s the leeway?”

  “Quarter till, quarter after.”

  I lit my first cigarette of the day. It tasted good, as only the first one did anymore. I’d be smoking my habit the rest of the day. “No buy,” I said.

  Loambaugh smiled faintly. “Now why’d you say that, Mr. Dye?” He sounded humble, almost hurt.

  “It was a roust.”

  “We don’t make it a habit of—”

  “You don’t roust drunks in this town. I know that. You take them home and pat them on the head and tuck them into bed. You never throw them in the tank unless they’re winos with no place else to sleep. When Necessary left me at eleven-fifty last night, he was sober. I’ve seen him drink and he could have gone on all night and into the morning. But you say he got drunk in twenty-five minutes and I say you’re wrong. Chloral hydrate might have worked that fast, but then you couldn’t have him on a resisting arrest charge, could you?”

  “Well, chief, Mr. Dye seems to have come up with some pretty good points,” Lynch said, smiling and bobbing.

  “He’s been booked,” Loambaugh said. “He can post bond and get out or he can sit there and await trial. That might take a week or so. Maybe more.”

  “How much is his bond?”

  “Five hundred.”

  “Has he got it?”

  “He didn’t have a dime on him,” Loambaugh said with a straight face.

  “I want him out of there in fifteen minutes,” I said.

  Despite his tan, a flush spread up the sides of Loambaugh’s neck. It hit his face and raced to his ears, which turned a dark rosy shade. He had that tight, controlled tone back in his voice, the same tone that he’d used when I’d met him the day before. “Nobody,” he said, spacing his words, “nobody tells me how to run my—”

  “Shut up and listen, Cal,” Lynch said, no longer the jolly fat man. He looked at me and there was nothing jolly in his eyes either. “I don’t know what you’re used to, Mr. Dye, but folks don’t talk to the chief of police in this town like you just did unless they got a mighty good reason. Or some mighty good friends.”

  “Like you?” I said.

  He nodded. “Like me.”

  “I was in this fine community of yours for less than eight hours before a couple of punks tried to jump me in this room. I thought you might have sent them.”

  “No.”

  “All right, you didn’t. Somebody else did and Homer Necessary was around to help keep me out of the hospital. I want him around so that he can keep an eye on me and, for that matter, so that I can keep an eye on him. I think you follow me.”

  Lynch turned to the police chief. “Tell them to get him out of there.”

  “He’s already on the blotter,” Loambaugh said.

  “Well, now, that’s just too goddamned bad, ain’t it, Cal? I don’t reckon anything can be done if he’s already on the blotter. I mean that’s just like holy writ engraved in stone. But maybe if you just picked up the phone and told them to hunt around for that old bottle of ink eradicator they just may be able to make that blotter read the way it should rightfully read, and when they’re done doing that they can just get one of those fancy, new air-conditioned Ford squad cars and carry Mr. Necessary back to his hotel with your apologies.” The phrasing was the phrasing of the South, but the accent was that of Newark. Or Jersey City.

  “While they’re hunting around for the ink eradicator,” I said, “tell them to look behind the rear seat in the squad car. That’s probably where they’ll find the money that fell out of Necessary’s pocket.”

  “Probably is,” Lynch said, nodding agreement. “Probably is at that.”

  We sat there and listened to Loambaugh call in the new instructions. He did it crisply and no one on the other end of the phone seemed to give him any argument. When he hung up, he didn’t look at either of us.

  “So, Mr. Dye, that make you any happier?” Lynch said.

  “Much,” I said.

  “About that proposition we made you yesterday. You had enough time to study over it?”

  “Quite enough.”

  “What’d you decide?”

  “I’ll take it.”

  “Just like that, huh?”

  “Just like that.”

  “That sure is good news,” Lynch said, but without much conviction.

  “I hoped you’d like it.”

  “Well, now,” Lynch said again and reached into a coat pocket and brought out a cellophane-wrapped cigar. He examined it carefully, stripped off the cellophane, wadded it into a neat ball, and flipped it at the wastebasket. He missed. He sniffed the cigar and then licked it carefully with a gray-coated tongue. He bit off one end, rose, and walked into the bathroom. I heard him spit the end out into the toilet and then flush it. Back in his chair he searched through four pockets before he found a book of matches. He lit the cigar with one of them and blew out a heady plume of inhaled smoke. I didn’t time it, but he must have taken three minutes to light his cigar. Time was cheap that morning.

  “Well, now,” he said yet again. “You sure didn’t take much time in deciding to take us up on our offer.”

  “You said you were in a hurry.”

  “I did say that, didn’t I? But you know, Mr. Dye, a deal like this is something like courting a gal. You want her to spread her legs for you all right, but if she does it too quick, you start wondering who she spread ‘em for half an hour ago. Sort of takes the bloom off the romance, if you know what I mean.”

  “I don’t,” I said.

  “Uh-huh,” he said, which could have meant yes or no or even maybe. “It merely ‘pears to me that you’re awful anxious to say yes. If you was a gal and I was asking you to marry me and you said yes like that, why I’d maybe suspect you were pregnant and looking for a daddy for your child. You ain’t pregnant, are you, Mr. Dye?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Not even a little bit?” he said and laughed his fat man’s laugh, which caused him to choke and splutter a bit on some of his cigar smoke.

  I smiled, but it was my old joke smile. “Not even a little bit,” I said.

  Lynch turned to the police chief. “What do you think, Cal?”

  “I didn’t know I was supposed to. I thought you did all the thinking.”

  “Why, Cal, you know I value your opinion most highly.”

  “Shit.”

  “What do you think?”

  Loambaugh looked at me. He took in the black shoes and socks; the new dark green cavalry twill suit; the white shirt, and the terrible tie. He examined my face with its gentle hazel eyes, firm chin, and resolute mouth. He didn’t like anything.

  “You want to know what I think, huh?” he said to Lynch while still examining me.

  “Most certainly do.”

  “I think he’s a fucking plant.”

  Lynch shook his head and chins up and down several times, not so much in agreement, it seemed, as in appreciation for a frank opinion, succinctly delivered. “That’s a real interesting observation, Cal. Real interesting. You care to comment on it, Mr. Dye?”

  “Not at all,” I said. “He’s right.”

  Lynch threw his head back and whooped. Then he cackled for a while and finally he even slapped a knee. The right one. I wondered if he and his brother, Gerald Vicker, had really shared the same parents. The physical resemblance was apparent, if somewhat bloated, but their personalities had almost nothing in common, unless avarice and malevolent drive can be considered inherited traits.

  Lynch stopped whooping and cackling, wiped his eyes for effect, if not for tears, and gave me anothe
r chance to inspect the scrambled egg remnants that were tucked away between his teeth. “So you’re a plant and you come right out and admit it before God and everybody? That right, Mr. Dye?”

  “I wouldn’t be worth a damn to you unless I were.”

  “Explain yourself, sir. Not so much for me, but for Chief Loambaugh here. I think I’m beginning to sort of get the drift of things.”

  “It’s simple,” I said. “Victor Orcutt knew I was going to meet with you yesterday. When I got back, I told him about your proposition. It took a while to convince him that I should take it, but he finally agreed,”

  “Ain’t that something, Cal?” Lynch said, again smiling hugely. “You ever hear of anything like that before? Mr. Dye here tells Orcutt about our meeting and then tells us that he told him and that Orcutt says to go ahead and join up with us. So what you’re really going to do is work for us while Orcutt thinks that you’re really working for him.”

  “That’s right,” I said.

  “Uh-huh,” Lynch said. “Brother Gerald said you were a tricky one, Mr. Dye. Mighty tricky.”

  “I learned a lot from him.”

  “Bet you did at that. Of course, I never had all of Gerald’s advantages. I was sort of the simple one in the family. But it does occur to me that you could really be working for Orcutt and just play like you’re working for us.”

  “That’s what Orcutt said, only he thought it might be just the other way around.”

  Lynch found that really funny. He chortled and snuffled deep down in his belly and nodded his head rhythmically in time with the fist that he pounded against his knee. This time the left one. When he was done he said, “How you expect us to make sure that you’re really looking after our best interests, Mr. Dye? By the way, you mind if I call you Lucifer? We’re not too much on formality down here.”

  “Lucifer’s fine,” I said. “You’ll know your best interests are being looked after by what I produce. That’ll be your only gauge. I’ll provide information and suggestions and that’s all. You can check the information out and decide for yourself whether to act on my suggestions. If you don’t like what I suggest, you can ignore it.”

  “What do you think about that, Cal?” Lynch said, turning to the chief of police, who still stared at me as if I were the newest brand of archfiend whose unspeakable speciality was yet to be codified.

  “I think he’s a fucking liar,” Loambaugh said.

  “Course he is, Cal. Man has to be that in the business he’s in. Question is, does he lie for or against us. That’s the real nut-knocker, don’t you agree, Lucifer?”

  “That’s it,” I said.

  “And I suppose it’s all based on price.”

  “You’re right again.”

  “I offered you twenty-five percent more than Orcutt’s offering you, didn’t I?”

  I only nodded.

  “I hear he’s paying fifty thousand.”

  “Twenty thousand of it this morning,” I said. “You owe me twenty five thousand.”

  “You aim to collect from both of us, of course. Can’t say I blame you for that.”

  “No, I didn’t think you would.”

  “Now if we got a little information up within the next few days, you wouldn’t mind slipping it to Orcutt, would you, as something you’d sort of wormed out of us, so to speak?”

  “That’s part of the services,” I said. “After I’m retained, of course.”

  “Wouldn’t do it on spec just so we can take a reading on how well you perform?”

  “That’s a dumb question, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

  Lynch shook his big head glumly. “I suppose it is,” he said. “Suppose it is. When can we expect some results?”

  “In a few days. Less than a week.”

  Lynch was silent for almost a minute while he inspected his half-smoked cigar. Then he looked up at me and there was an expression on his face that I’d seen often enough before, but on other faces. It was a mixture of contempt and curiosity and suspicion and a dash of grudging admiration. I’d probably worn it myself when doing a deal with a double agent. Carmingler, I recalled, had often worn it. “We got a deal, Lucifer,” Lynch finally said. “It’s not one that we have to shake hands on ‘cause I just as soon shake hands with a cottonmouth. But we got a deal.”

  “No we don’t,” I said. “Not until I count the money.”

  “You think you’re a pretty hard nosed son of a bitch, don’t you?” Loambaugh said.

  “When it comes to getting paid I am.”

  “We’ll get a check up to you this afternoon for twenty-five thousand,” Lynch said and rose from his chair. He moved easily for the weight he carried.

  I sighed. “No checks. No checks from you and no checks from Orcutt. Cash.”

  “When do you expect the rest of it?” Lynch said.

  “I’ll let you know.”

  “I bet you will,” Loambaugh said.

  “We’ll get it to you in the morning,” Lynch said, moving toward the door, hurrying a little as if the air had grown slightly foul. It probably had. Loambaugh followed him.

  At the door, Lynch turned and said, “Better bank that money, Lucifer. It’s a tempting bundle to leave around loose in a hotel room.”

  “I intend to,” I said. “Any particular bank that you recommend?”

  He grinned at me with his breakfast-decorated teeth. “So happens I’ve got a little interest in the First National across the street and we’d be proud to do business with you.”

  “Fine.”

  He paused again, ducked his head, and rubbed the knuckles of his right hand across his nose. It seemed to itch. “By the way, those two punks who tried to bounce you around.”

  “What about them?”

  “I didn’t send them.”

  “Okay.”

  “Well, if I didn’t send them and Orcutt didn’t send them, I was just wondering who might have?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Since we’re in business together so to speak, maybe we’d better find out.”

  “Their names were Frank Smith and Joe Carson, or so they said.”

  Loambaugh nodded. “I know who they are.”

  “Check ‘em out,” Lynch said. “We don’t want Mr, Dye to have any more trouble or enemies than he needs, do we?”

  Loambaugh gave me one of his bleak stares that again classified me as the town horror. “Something tells me that before he leaves Swankerton he’s going to have plenty of both.”

  I couldn’t think up much of a rebuttal to that.

  CHAPTER 23

  It was only nine o’clock in Swankerton when I placed the call to New York, which meant that it was ten o’clock there, but that was still too early for Smalldane Communications, Inc. I could hear the firm’s receptionist assuring the operator that Mr. Smalldane never arrived before eleven. I left word for him to call.

  Carol Thackerty arrived at nine-thirty, a few minutes before room service decided that it was time to send up my breakfast now that the eggs and bacon were cool enough to have congealed the grease. The toast wouldn’t burn any fingers either.

  Carol Thackerty sat in a chair across the room, her legs crossed, her large purse in her lap, and an amused smile on her lips as the waiter lifted up the lids of various silver salvers to let me inspect what the Sycamore’s menu fobbed off on the world as “Southern cuisine.”

  “You forgot the asbestos gloves,” I told the waiter.

  He said, “Sir?” so I let it pass. He was around fifty with a squeezed-up face, a bad limp, and the look of someone who’s realized that he’s gone as far as he’ll ever go and now wonders why he ever made the effort. He was also white, which the hotel management apparently felt compensated for any laxity in service.

  “Heah yo grits,” he said and displayed a cold wad of them as if he were showing off the Christmas turkey, “and heah yo aigs and bacon. Toast righchere. I got an extra cup for the lady case she wants some cawfee.” He left out a few verbs
now and then—to save time, I suppose.

  “You shouldn’t have run all the way,” I said as I signed the check and added an overly generous tip.

  “I dint run,” he said, and I apologized for accusing him of it.

  After he left I asked Carol Thackerty if she would like some coffee and she said that she would so I poured her a cup and served it to her. It was still hot by grace of its sterno burner.

  “You look quite pretty this morning,” I said as I handed her the cup.

  “Thank you,” she said, either for the cup or the compliment or both.

  “I enjoyed last night,” I said, trying to smear some cold butter on some colder toast.

  “You’re full of compliments.”

  “Simple courtesy.”

  “You’re not fishing, are you?” she said.

  “For what?”

  “I just hope you’re not leading up to the one that they all like to ask.”

  “Which one?”

  “Did I enjoy it, too?”

  “I really don’t give a damn,” I said. “All I know is that I’d like to try it again.”

  “When?”

  “You have anything against mornings?” I said.

  “Not a thing.”

  I decided that I didn’t really want the cold breakfast after all. I took a final sip of the coffee, rose, and walked over to where Carol sat. I remember thinking that I should call her Carol now. She put her coffee cup down and held out her hands to me. I pulled her slowly to her feet. I recall that she still had that faint smile on her face. It was almost quizzical. “No hurry,” she said, just before we kissed. “No hurry,” I agreed. We tried one of those long, exploratory kisses in which the tongue ventures forth, encounters token resistance that turns quickly into surrender and then into active collaboration. It was a nice girl’s kiss after she’s decided that she’s tired of being nice.

  Unlike the night before, we undressed carefully, helping each other when it might prove interesting. There was nothing frenzied about it this time and in bed we stroked and caressed each other with our hands and mouths and words which, if not endearing, were harshly erotic. It went on like that for what seemed to be a long time, her dark red, almost brown nipples taut and erect, her hips thrusting against whatever touched them, sometimes in a smooth and languorous motion, but more often frantic and demanding. And after a look or a moan or a twitch, or whatever it was, we both knew that it was time and I was inside her and she moaned about the ecstasy of it all and we tried to make it last, did make it last, until we damned well couldn’t anymore and accepted it, with no regrets, and plunged into that final frenzy of oblivion.