Dan Marlowe - Shake a Crooked Town

Without a word the mayor turned and strode to the door through which Chief Riley had exited. He went right on in without bothering to knock. He closed the door behind him. Johnny returned his attention to the desk. McDonough sat down, his blue eyes glaring down malevolently at Johnny, but he said nothing.

The silence lasted until the mayor rushed out of the chief's office, banging the door behind him. Storm signals darkened his face. “We can talk upstairs,” he said curtly to Johnny.

Behind the desk McDonough rose to his feet again. He looked torn the closed door to the mayor. “Hold up a minute,” he protested. “Nobody's told me what to do with the charge against-”

“The second thing you can do with it,” Richard Lowell interrupted him with a vicious clarity in the mellow voice, “is tear it up.” Without a backward glance he led the way to the stairs and Johnny followed him.

On the upper level they walked to the front of the building and a door marked OFFICE OF THE MAYOR. Inside, Lowell hurried past a brunette secretary who paused in her typing to look up at Johnny with interest. She was an extremely good-looking girl. Johnny wondered if it were she with whom the mayor was shacking up as charged by Mrs. Peterson. If so, Richard Lowell went up a couple of notches in Johnny's estimation. The girl was a knockout.

In his private office, the mayor closed the door. It was elaborately furnished with heavy, old-fashioned pieces. “Sit down,” he said. His tone made it a command. He softened it at once. “Now for God's sake catch me up on what's going on around here. First of all, did Toby send you?”

“No.” Johnny could see the mayor's disappointment in the blunt negative.

Disappointment was followed by renewed suspicion. “Then who are you? What are you doing here?”

“I'm tryin' to retrieve a bankroll heisted from me.”

Richard Lowell sat down behind a wide oak desk. His expression was puzzled. “Isn't that a matter for the police? I mean, why come to me?”

“You're Toby's brother. The corn hasn't stopped poppin' since I talked to Thompson. Somebody-”

“You talked to Carl Thompson?” The mayor had moved forward on the edge of his chair. “When?”

“Yesterday afternoon at my place.”

“Your-?” Richard Lowell slapped his forehead dramatically with an open palm. “Of course,” he exclaimed. “You're Killain. Toby called me about you. I didn't make the connection because he didn't say you were coming.”

“He didn't know it. After Thompson was killed-”

“How did it happen?” the mayor broke in eagerly. “I've had no details at all.”

“Knifed,” Johnny told him. “An' twice last night someone tried to add me to the score.”

“You? Why?”

“Because Thompson talked to me?” Johnny asked his own question.

“I see,” Lowell said slowly. “Yes, I do see.”

“Why'd Toby call you?” Johnny asked casually.

“About Thompson, of course.” The mayor looked defensive. He folded his hands in his lap. “I suppose Carl damned me to you up, down, and sideways?”

“He never even mentioned your name,” Johnny said truthfully.

“Then he had a damn sight more forbearance than I'd have had in his place,” Lowell said grimly. “I'm the man who fired him. Under pressure,” he added hastily.

“An' Toby didn't like it?”

Richard Lowell smiled bleakly. “My brother has an unrealistic approach at times to the problems of municipal government in a city like Jefferson.”

“What's your problem?”

“It's a long story.” Lowell ran a hand nervously through his hair. He couldn't have been more than fifty, Johnny thought, but the hair was snow white. “First I'd rather go into why you're here.”

“I'm here because I'm a thousand dollar loser to the action in New York an' because somebody tried twice to scrag me. It didn't look to me like I was goin' to get any answers I wanted at that end of the line.” He moved onto the offensive. “Why are you standin' me off here, now? What are you afraid of?” He rose to his feet. “Tell your police department they'll need more'n a wagon to bring me in the next time they take the notion.”

“It's not my police department!”

“You sprung me from down there,” Johnny pointed out.

“A quid pro quo. Jack Riley-”

“It was your police department when Thompson was chief?” Johnny pressed him when Lowell hesitated. The mayor nodded reluctantly.

“Who submarined him?”

“I think you'd better come out to the house tonight,” Lowell decided. “I don't like to talk here. I'm never sure-” His hand again made the sweeping gesture through his hair.

“You mean you think your own office could be bugged?”

“I've invited you to my home,” Lowell said stiffly.

“I've accepted,” Johnny said promptly. “Late, though. Say around ten. I'm havin' dinner at eight. With Jessamyn Burger.” Richard Lowell's mouth opened but no sound came forth. Johnny smiled at him. “Give my regards to Toby when you call him to report I hit the deck here.”

“I'm not-who said-” The mayor groped for a reply.

“See you at ten,” Johnny said. “And for Christ's sake try to make a little more sense than you're makin' now, will you?”

He closed the door to the private office from the outside. The brunette secretary again looked up from her typing. Johnny walked over to her desk and looked down at her. “I hear your boss is shackin' up with an unmarried female,” he said solemnly. “Is it you?”

Her mouth curved humorously. “No, it's not.”

“Shame on him, then. Would it do me any good to put my name on the list?”

“I'm afraid not.” She raised her hand from the typewriter keys to show him an engagement ring. She was smiling openly.

“That's the toughest decision I dropped today,” he told her. “Ten thousand thousand good wishes.”

Her eyes followed him all the way to the door.

Back at Mrs. Peterson's his key let him into the front hallway and he started for the stairs. “Well! Whom have we here?” a fresh young voice inquired from behind him.

Johnny turned. A chubby teenager with schoolbooks under her arm was examining him from the living-room doorway. She had flaming red hair done up in a pony tail, a pert face, and a mouth heavily lipsticked in the latest version of a femme fatale. “I'm the new roomer,” Johnny said.

“Val just never tells me these things,” the girl announced dramatically. “I'm Jingle Peterson.” She put down the books and moved out into the hall to get a better look at him. All her movements were exaggerated. She eyed the silver-studded jacket with frank approval. “Cool, man. That skin's really got the beat.” She ran a hand lightly over the jacket, her head tilted up to watch his face, her expression saucy.

“Pleased to meet you, Jingle,” Johnny acknowledged. “I'm Johnny. Who's Val?”

“Val?” Her thinly plucked eyebrows rose. “My sainted mama. Mrs. Valerie Peterson. We won't have any trouble with her.” She tapped a finger lightly on his chest. “Pleased to meet you, Johnny. Aren't you going to offer me a drink?”

“What the hell would you do if I did?” he asked in amusement.

“Why, drink it, of course!” She fluttered her eyelashes at him. “What else does one do with a drink?”

“How old are you, Jingle?”

“Don't you agree that chronological age has nothing at all to do with one's maturity?” she asked rapidly in the manner of a well-rehearsed lesson.

“Fourteen?”

“Mercy! Do I look like a child?'

“Fifteen an'a half?”

She pouted at him. “I think you're horrid. I'm ages older than that. If you can't see — ”

“Must've been sixteen last week,” he decided aloud. “It's not that I don't appreciate the vote of confidence, Jingle, but don't you think you deserve somethin' better'n an old crock like me?”