James Cain: Love's Lovely Counterfeit

"What kind of a job?"

"With a law firm, Wiener, Jacks, and Myers. They pay me a salary, about as good a salary as young lawyers get, more than you might think from this." She waved her hand at the apartment. "I only keep part of my salary for myself. And-I've got to have still more money. I simply must have it."

"Why you more than somebody else?"

"I told you it's a long story."

"More family history?"

"It's been going on a long time, and I'd rather not go into it. Anyway, Jansen came along. I'd done a little work for him, settling claims. And he was thinking about running for Mayor. And I was thinking about a job, one of those heavenly city hall jobs where you come down once a week to sign papers, and hold your regular job just the same. And-I guess I egged him on."

"For the dough?"

"Not entirely. I think he's a fine man, fit to be Mayor, a hundred times better than Maddux. Just the same-"

"The dough is the main thing?"

"Now I feel like a heel."

"No need to feel that way. Listen, if it was just idealism, I might give you tips, but I'd be plenty worried. I don't believe in that stuff, and I don't believe in people that do believe in it. Now I know it's the old do-re-mi, that's different. O.K., June. We can do business."

"I'm afraid it is idealism, just the same."

"You said it was dough."

"Yes, but not to have it, or spend it, or whatever people do with it. Money, just as money, doesn't mean much to me. But as a means to an end, as something that will permit me to deal with-a certain situation-"

"Back home?"

"It might be. Well, money for that purpose is important to me. Then it will mean something to me."

"Are you out to get it or not?"

"Indeed I am."

"That's all I want to know."

She got the solemn frown on her face again, as though she wanted to make clear that it was no ordinary greed that prompted her present activities, but he ran his finger up the crease between her brows. She laughed. "I want to be an idealist."

"O.K., so I'm a chiseler."

"Oh, say crook."

"A chiseler, he's not a crook."

"He certainly isn't honest."

"He's just in between."

Two days before, when Lefty had said it, Ben had obviously been annoyed. Now, just as obviously, he was beginning to be proud of it. She laughed. "Anyway, we're both walloping Caspar.

"I hope we are."

"But look how we're walloping him."

She got a paper from the alcove, and came back with it. It was a midnight edition, and all over the front page was the story of how the Castleton detectives had raided the Globe Hotel and grabbed three of the bandits without bothering to get in touch with the Lake City police. Ben seemed surprised that only three bandits were bagged, and she explained: "The other one, the one that was shot, had been taken away before the Castleton police got there."

"Alive?"

"We think so."

He was already reading the news story, but she pointed to the editorial, also on Page 1, and he read it with her, their heads nearly touching. It attacked Castleton savagely, but went on to say that the charges made by Miss June Lyons, a speaker at the Jansen meeting, were too serious to be ignored. An investigation of the Lake City police department should be made, and if Mayor Maddux wouldn't act, the Governor ought to. "It's the first time, Mr. Grace-"

"Call me Ben."

"It's the first time, Ben, that either of the big papers has taken us seriously. The little News-Times does what it can, but this is the Post! If I just had a little more dirt…"

"You are waking up, aren't you?"

"I'll say I am."

She was breathless, tense, eager. For a second their eyes met, and it seemed queer that he suddenly got up, instead of taking her in his arms, which he certainly could have done. He stood uncertainly for a moment, then picked up his hat. "One thing."

"Yes?"

"Tell Jansen to put a private guard on here. Outside, at least two men, day and night. I'd do it, but they'd know me. Ring him soon as I go, and have him attend to it tonight. Tonight, see? That's necessary, after what you did, and a Lake City police guard is the same as no guard at all. You hear me?"

"All right, I'll call him."

"I'll ring you tomorrow. With maybe more dirt."

"I'll see you soon, Ben."

"That's right. Soon."

Lefty sat down with Ben next morning as he was having breakfast in the Savoy Grill. A toothpick indicated he himself had already eaten, and he began without preliminaries: "Well, it's war."

"Blitz or site?"

"Blitz, I'd say. Sol and Delany."

"What's Delany done?"

"You heard what happened last night?"

"I'm reading about it."

"If it was just tipping that girl, O.K. It wasn't friendly, but after them sharpshooters you seen with Jansen, Solly knew what to expect. But about an hour before the Castleton bulls got there, a Delany guy shows up, a guy that takes care of his horses, over at the Jardine stables. And he takes Arch Rossi out. He takes him out of the Globe and over to the Columbus. Sol, he don't like that. If the kid has to die, he could die just as good in Castleton, couldn't he? In a hospital, with good doctors taking care of him? Dumping him in the Columbus, right in Solly's own hotel, Solly takes that personal."

"So?"

"He's taking steps."

"Where is Delany?"

"He's in Chicago, but he'll come back."

"If coaxed?"

"On proper inducements, he'll come."

"Where's Rossi?"

"I don't exactly know."

Lefty stared vacantly at the hat stand across the room, laid the toothpick in an ashtray. "So it'll be an O.K. war, if that's getting us anywheres, and Solly, of course, he'll be nice and happy. Just the same, it's not Delany."

"Then who is it?"

"I figured it might be you."

As Lefty turned his cold, vacant stare full on Ben's face, Ben lit a cigarette. He let the match burn for a moment, and from the interested way he looked at it, one might wonder if he was testing, to know if his hand was trembling. When there was not the slightest flicker, he blew the match out, and asked languidly: "You tell Sol that?"

"Yeah."

"What'd he say?"

"He didn't believe it."

"But you, my old pal, you believe it, don't you?"

"Listen, Ben, I'm your pal, but this ain't the candy business. In this racket you can't take chances, and if you're crossing us, the pal stuff is out. Couple of things look pretty funny to me. If there was a couple of sharpshooters with Jansen the other night, both pals of Delany, why didn't you know it? Seemed a little off the groove that Solly had to find that out. And why would Delany start something? He's sitting pretty. On the bookies he gets his cut and it's not hay. He's got a nice daily double and he don't even have to stay here and watch it. Why would he bust it up?"

"And that leaves me, hey?"

"It could."

"Nuts."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Lefty, you're playing it safe, you got to do that. You got to feed me a lead and watch my face, just like I'd do for you, just like all pals got to do to each other in this swell business we're in. But you don't really think it's me. If you did you'd just rub me out and that would be that. Even if you halfway thought it was me, you'd have fed me a phoney just now, on where you're keeping Arch Rossi, and then if I ran to her with it you'd have me. When you didn't do at least that much I know you're not really bearing down."

"O.K., Ben. But it's somebody, and I'm worried."

"I'm a little worried myself."

"Then we're both worried."

"Pals?"

"Two beers, and they're on you."

Around nine, when Ben went back to his hotel, the day clerk said a lady had called, twice. He went to his room and dialed June, getting no answer. In five minutes his house phone rang, and when June spoke he gave her the number of his outside phone. Only when she had called him on this did he let her go ahead. "Something's happened, Ben."