The Fools in Town Are on Our Side (43 page)

“It's my job,” Henderson said. “I never thought about getting sick of it.”

“Well, maybe you're a little sick of it, but just don't know it.”

“You got a complaint?”

“I don't know if you'd call it a complaint or not,” Necessary said and turned to me. “You got those figures, Mr. Dye?”

“Right here, Chief Necessary,” I said, the way an up-and-coming special assistant should say it.

“Read off some of the highlights for Captain Henderson. These are statistics, Captain, that tell how our crime rate's going. They only deal with the past month. Go ahead, Mr. Dye.”

“Armed robbery, up seventeen percent,” I read. “Auto theft, up twenty-one percent; homicide, up sixteen percent; assault, up twenty-seven percent; extortion, up nine percent, and what's generally called vice, down four percent. These are only percentages as compared with the previous month's figures.”

“Vice down four percent,” Necessary said. “And everything else up. You seem to be keeping on top of things, Captain.”

“I do my job,” he said.

“Now I've had talks with just about every ranking officer in headquarters
except you and they've all agreed to cooperate one-hundred percent and I think these figures reflect that cooperation. Our crime rate's up about fourteen percent and I call that progress, don't you?”

“No.”

“That a fact?” Necessary said. “Well, I thought that everybody thought that getting at the truth was progress and that's just what these figures are, Captain Henderson. The truth. All except yours.”

“You calling me a liar?” Henderson demanded, his tone thick and phlegmy.

“That's right, I am. You've been lying about the number of vice violations and if you want me to prove it, I will. That's why the crime rate's gone up. The rest of the squads have quit lying, all except yours. They're reporting
actual
figures—or near actual. I expect they're still fudging a little, but that's to be expected. But Jesus Christ, mister, you're giving yours six coats of whitewash.”

“I report the figures as they're given to me,” Henderson said.

“Sure you do. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I've got some more figures down pretty good. A fag can buy himself off for fifty bucks. A whore, ten. Gambling's fifteen for each player and a hundred for the house. A pimp's not good for much more'n fifty and a disorderly house will bring a hundred. I can go on.”

“I don't know anything about it,” Henderson said.

“You're surprised?”

“Yes.”

“Shocked?”

“Sure.”

“You've heard of the Sarber Hotel?”

“I've heard of it.”

“You know it's a wide-open whorehouse?”

“No.”

“Did you know that a police private, Benjamin A. Dassinger, badge number two-four-nine-eight is regularly on duty there from seven
P.M.
till three
A.M.
to keep order and to make sure the customers pay up? You know that?”

“No,” Henderson said, “I didn't know that.”

“For a vice cop you don't know a hell of a lot, do you, Captain?”

“I do my job.”

“Well, if you do, maybe you know that the Sarber Hotel is owned by one Mary Helen Henderson and this Mary Helen Henderson is the wife of Warren Gamaliel Henderson who happens to be a captain in the Swankerton Police Department. Now, goddamn it, tell me you didn't know that?”

Henderson said nothing and sucked on the insides of his cheeks.

“There's a crap game that's been running in this town for seven years. It used to float, but it doesn't anymore. It's the oldest crap game in town and it's open every night from nine till two on the second floor of a bakery at two-forty-nine North Ninth Street. You know about that?”

“No.”

“Well, that's funny, since the guy that runs it says he pays you five hundred a week to let him alone and, God knows, that's cheap because it's a hell of a big game and it draws the high rollers from as far away as Hot Springs and Memphis, but you wouldn't know about that either, would you?”

“No,” Henderson said and sucked on his cheeks some more.

“The last count I got was that there are thirteen regular table-stakes poker games going on in town with an off-duty patrolman playing doorkeeper at each one. That's on this side of the tracks. God knows what goes on in Niggertown, but you don't know anything about those thirteen games or about the three hundred dollars-a-week payoff that each of them makes, do you?”

“No.”

“You ever heard of John Frazee, Milton Sournaugh, Joseph Minitelli, Kelly Farmer, or Jules Goreaux?”

“No,” Henderson said.

“Well, they say they all know you and that they've been shaking down fags and pimps and whores for you, some of them for as long as three years. They work on a percentage, they tell me; they get twenty-five and you get seventy-five. What you got to say about that?”

“Nothing.”

“What do you kick back to Lynch? I hear it's up around two-thirds now.”

“I don't know anything about kick backs.” Henderson said. “I just do my job.”

Necessary leaned back in his chair and stretched and yawned. “How long would it take to draw up charges against Captain Henderson here, Mr. Dye?”

“A few hours,” I said.

“What do you think?”

“Perhaps you might take into consideration his claim that he was only doing his job.”

“That's a thought,” Necessary said. He leaned over his desk toward Henderson and nodded in a confidential, you-can-tell-me manner. “How much you really knocking down a year, Henderson? Sixty? Seventy-five?”

“I don't knock down anything,” Henderson said.

“You think I should bring you up on charges?”

“That's up to you,
Chief
Necessary.”

“It sure is, isn't it? Probably get your wife, too, for running a whorehouse, come to think of it. Be a real mess, but you could probably get off with—oh, say—five years, maybe ten.”

Henderson cracked then. Not much, really; just enough. He looked down at his shoes. That was all. “What do you want?” he said dully.

“A list,” Necessary said. “Break it all down, where it comes from, who gets it, and how much. And I want your name at the bottom of it. I want it on my desk by five o'clock tonight.”

“All right,” Henderson said.

“I want your resignation, too.”

Henderson looked up quickly and his mouth opened, but no words came out. “Undated,” Necessary said, and Henderson closed his mouth.

“What do you think, Mr. Dye?”

“Well, he can't stay in vice. As you said, he seems a little sick of it.”

Necessary nodded judiciously. “He sure does, doesn't he. You got any suggestions?”

“There's always the Missing Persons' Bureau,” I said.

Henderson looked at me, and if he was afraid of Necessary, he wasn't of me. The snarl came back to his mouth. “There ain't any Missing Persons' Bureau.”

Necessary smiled. “There'll be one tomorrow and you'll be in charge of it. How much help you think he needs, Mr. Dye?”

“At least one man,” I said.

“Maybe a rookie?” Necessary said.

“A rookie could learn a lot from Captain Henderson.”

Henderson rose slowly from his chair and half-turned toward the door. “Sit down, Henderson,” Necessary snapped. “I'll tell you when you're dismissed.” Henderson sat down again.

“You don't have to make a dash for the phone,” Necessary said. “Lynch'll have a full report on this from Mr. Dye inside of an hour. And don't get any funny ideas about appealing either. You're in real bad trouble, buster, and the only thing that's keeping you out of the state pen is me, so don't forget it. Is that clear?”

“Yes,” Henderson said.

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, sir, Chief Necessary.”

“Take off.”

“Yes, sir.”

He didn't hurry to the door. He seemed too tired to hurry.

“That was the last one,” Necessary said, going down a list on his desk.

“At least he didn't get down on his knees and beg like Purcell did,” I said.

“I'm gonna transfer Purcell to head up the vice squad,” Necessary said.

“Jesus Christ.”

“We've sort of shuffled them around this last month,” Necessary
said happily. “None of them knows whether to shit or go blind. They're scared to take their payoffs. Christ, I've had some punks even call me at the hotel at night and ask me who they should pay.”

“What did you tell them?”

“Sit tight and don't worry. That the lid's off.”

“I hear that the word's getting around,” I said.

Necessary nodded. “It doesn't take long. Listen to this. It's a list of what Lieutenant Ferkaire calls ‘distinguished arrivals.' He's that young cop outside there.”

“I know who he is,” I said.

“Listen to this. These are just the ones who've flown in during the past three days. Edouardo (Sweet Eddie) Puranelli, Cleveland; Frank (Jimmy Twoshoes) Schoemeister, Chicago; Arturo (Tex) Turango, Dallas; the Onealo brothers, Roscoe and Ralph from Kansas City; Nicholas (Nick the Nigger) Jones from Miami; and a whole delegation from New Orleans. They came to see Lynch.”

“What are the rest of them doing?”

“Looking around. Taking a market survey. Sizing things up. The word's got out that Lynch has slipped. The New Orleans crowd knows goddamn well something's slipped and I hear they're unhappy about it.”

I rose and moved toward the door. “I'll go see him.”

“Lynch?”

“Yes.”

“Give him my best.”

“He'll want a meeting.”

“What do you think?”

“Let's see what happens this morning.”

“Okay,” Necessary said.

I paused at the door. “Is Lieutenant Ferkaire still keeping a check on arrivals?”

Necessary nodded.

“You might tell him to keep an eye out for one.”

“What's he look like?”

“Tall, redheaded, and wears a pipe and Phi Beta Kappa key.”

“Name?”

“Carmingler.” Necessary made a note of it.

“Hard case?”

I nodded. “About as hard as they come.”

 

 

Two unfriendly strangers met me at the door of Lynch's Victorian house. About
the only difference between them was that one was bald and the other wasn't. The bald one stood squarely in the doorway while the one with hair took up a protective flanking position. Neither of them said anything. They stood there and looked at me and their expressions made it clear that they didn't want any today, no matter what it was.

“Where's Boo?” I said.

“Who's Boo?” the baldheaded one said.

“The mayor's son.”

“We don't know any mayor.”

“Tell Lynch I'm here.”

“Tell him who's here?”

“Dye. Lucifer Dye.”

“Lucifer Dye,” the bald one said slowly, as if he couldn't decide whether he cared for its sound. “We don't know you either, do we Shorty?”

Shorty was close to five-eleven so something else must have earned him the nickname, but there was no point in dwelling on it. “I never knew nobody named Dye or Lucifer either,” Shorty said. “Where'd you get a name like Lucifer?”

“Out of a book,” I said. “A dirty one.”

“And you want to see Lynch?” the baldheaded one said.

“No,” I said. “He wants to see me.”

They thought about that for a moment until they got it sorted out. “I'll go see,” Shorty said and left. I stood there on the screened porch with the man with the bald head. We had nothing further to say to each other so I admired his dark green double-breasted suit, his squared-off black shoes, and his green-and-black polka dotted tie. A bumblebee had fought its way through the screen and buzzed about the porch. When we got tired of admiring each other, we watched the bee.

“They ain't supposed to fly,” he said. “I read somewhere that the guys who design airplanes say bumblebees ain't built right for flying.”

We pondered the mystery of it all until Shorty came back. “This way,” he said. The baldheaded man took two steps backward so that I could enter. He waved a hand in the direction of the dining room. They didn't seem to want me behind them.

Ramsey Lynch looked as if he hadn't been getting enough sleep. His eyes were bloodshot and had dark smears under them. He wore an ice cream suit that made him look fatter than he was. He didn't smile when I came in, but I hadn't expected him to. Three of them sat at the far end of a table. Lynch wasn't in the center; he was on the left side. The man on the right side wore glasses and had an open attaché case before him. The man in the center stared at me and I thought that he had the oily eyes of an unhappy lizard.

“Sit down, Dye,” Lynch said, so I sat at the opposite end of the table, near the sliding doors. Neither Shorty nor the baldheaded man had followed me into the room.

“So you're what we paid twenty-five thou for,” the man in the center said, and from his tone I could tell that he didn't think I was much of a bargain.

“Twenty-five thousand so far,” I said. “The final bill is for sixty.”

“You know me—who I am?” he said.

I knew, but he didn't wait for my answer.

“I'm Luccarella.”

“From New Orleans,” I said.

“You've heard of me, huh?” He didn't seem to care one way or another.

“Giuseppe Luccarella,” I said, “or Joe Lucky.”

“That Joe Lucky's newspaper stuff,” he said. “Nobody calls me Joe Lucky, but if they did, I wouldn't mind. I don't care about things like that anymore. You wanta call me Joe Lucky, go ahead.”