Росс Томас - The Fools in Town Are on Our Side

“The mayor’s son was a college buddy,” Necessary said. “That’s how he got his in.”

“Well, what are friends for, Homer?” Orcutt said. “Incidentally, Homer was chief of police there, and my first recommendation was that he be fired. You’ve never seen such graft — or perhaps you have, in China.”

“Perhaps.”

“Well, I immediately hired Homer as a consultant. I did it quietly, of course, but I thought to myself, now who would know more about foxes than another fox?”

“Maybe a chicken,” I said.

“Mr. Dye, you’ve just ruined my favorite allegory.”

“Sorry.”

“At any rate,” Orcutt said, “that city was absolutely corrupt. Rotten to the core. To the very core. The police sold protection along with football betting cards. They had a burglary ring going. The numbers’ racket flourished. The tax assessors could be had for as little as five dollars per five thousand dollar evaluation. Gambling was nearly wide open. Not quite, but nearly. Dope was peddled in the junior high schools. The city itself was bankrupt. The city manager was a drunk, pathetically inept, and hadn’t been paid in nearly three months. Neither had the police, but they didn’t seem to mind. Prostitution. Well, it was simply awful. Anything the perverted taste wanted, from thirteen-year-old girls — or boys — on up. Shocking. Really shocking. And, of course, Miss Thackerty here, then a senior in the local college, was part of the vice ring. She’d even bought a very large motel out on the edge of town.”

“Just working her way through college,” Necessary said.

Carol Thackerty shifted her gaze from the window to Necessary. She smiled shyly, even sweetly, and in a quiet tone told Necessary to fuck off.

“Swell kid, huh?” Necessary said to me. “Nice, I mean.”

“To continue,” Orcutt said, ignoring the exchange as if it happened often enough, “we first — Homer and I, that is — turned our attention to the police. Homer had collected enough evidence to fascinate a grand jury, but unfortunately most of it was self-incriminating. We decided we needed something else. Homer came up with the idea. My word, he should , I was paying him enough.”

“I made more as a chief of police,” Necessary said.

“But not honestly, Homer.”

“Who cares about how?”

Orcutt shook his head sadly. “Totally amoral. But he did have a splendid idea, one that would bring the city’s police immediately into line. Of course, we had to enlist Carol’s aid, and that took some persuasion, but she finally agreed that cooperating with us would be better than spending a number of months behind bars. I must say she cooperated so nicely that I asked her to become my executive assistant. That was four years ago, wasn’t it, Carol?”

“Four,” she said, still staring out the window. I noticed that her teacup was empty.

“Through her cooperation we were able to obtain some rather provocative photographs of most of the police force as they lay, deshabille, shall we say, in the arms of a series of very young ladies.”

“What he’s saying is that we got pictures of most of the cops shacking up with some of her high school whores,” Necessary said. “That’s what he means. We mailed prints to them at headquarters. They shaped up real good after that.”

“So for a modest fee you brought in honest government, morality, and reform?” I said.

Orcutt smiled that meaningless smile of his, rose and walked over to the ice, put another cube into his glass, and filled it with the remains of the Dr Pepper. “No, Mr. Dye, we didn’t. You see, although the city was in bad condition, it really wasn’t bad enough. The majority of the citizens weren’t yet ready. They liked paying off fifteen-dollar traffic tickets with a dollar bill. They liked the close-by gambling and the teenage prostitutes. They liked paying less real estate taxes, if all it took was a small bribe. I’m afraid I misjudged that town. Six months later it was worse than it was when I came. But by then some people from Chicago had moved in. They run the city now. Formerly, its vice and corruption were home-grown products. Now they come from outside and the people are frightened. I can’t say that I blame them.”

“Did they ask you to give it another go?” I said.

“Yes, they did, as a matter of fact. But I wasn’t interested in dying.”

“I can understand that.”

“But I did gain two things from that experience,” Orcutt said slowly, apparently speaking to the Dr Pepper in his glass. “I acquired the services of Miss Thackerty and Homer. That’s one. Secondly, I was able to formulate what I’m vain enough to call Orcutt’s First Law. I haven’t come up with a second one yet.”

“What’s the first one?”

“To get better, it must get much worse.”

“I’m afraid it’s a little familiar.”

“Not really. Not when applied to my particular field. And that, I think, brings us to the crux of this meeting, which is how I hope to involve you with Victor Orcutt Associates.”

“All right,” I said. “How?”

“You first of all should understand, Mr. Dye, that I’ve spent a considerable amount of money investigating your background, experience, capabilities, and even your philosophical leanings.”

“I wasn’t aware that I had any.”

“Oh, but you do ! You do, indeed. A little existentialistic perhaps, but admirably suited for the task at hand. As are your experience and training and educational achievements. With just a few exceptions, you’re almost perfect. Now I’ll bet no one has ever called you almost perfect before.”

“You’re right,” I said. “They haven’t.” Not even you, Carmingler, I thought. “Just what do you have in mind?”

“You remember that I asked whether you were Jewish?”

“Yes.”

“It would be better if you were. Or Negro or Polish or even Italian. You see, Mr. Dye, I need a scapegoat — a whipping boy, if you prefer. Someone whom the citizens of a particular town can chase to the city limits. A kind of a ‘don’t let the sun set on your head in this town, boy’ thing, if you follow me, but I’m speaking figuratively, of course. They wouldn’t actually do that; it would just be the tone of their attitude. A member of a minority group is so suited for such a role.”

“Maybe they could just dislike me for myself,” I said.

“Oh, my, that’s very good,” Orcutt said, and to prove that he meant it he let me see that empty smile of his again. The smile went as quickly as it came and he paused to take a sip of his Dr Pepper. After that he produced a white handkerchief, Irish linen, I assumed, and patted his lips dry. “Now then,” he said, “in return for your services I’m prepared to offer the usual incentive: money.”

“What kind of money?” I said.

“The fifty thousand dollar kind.”

“That is a nice kind. What do I do to earn it?”

“You perform certain tasks — under my direction, of course.”

“What tasks?”

“They revolve around Orcutt’s First Law, Mr. Dye. What I want you to do is to corrupt me a city.”

I was born December 5, 1933, the day they repealed prohibition. Although the information surrounding my birth is largely hearsay, most of it came from my father’s diaries and I have no reason to suspect that it isn’t true. He didn’t have enough imagination to make a good liar.

I was the only child of Dr. and Mrs. Clarence Dye, a couple of Texans from Beaumont, who bought a medical practice in Moncrief, Montana, in 1932. Moncrief is the county seat and its population was then around 360. I understand it’s dropped some since. The first year in practice, my father earned $986 cash, sixty-two chickens, two sides of beef, several bushels of vegetables in the late spring and summer, and about two hundred quart Mason jars filled with something called chow-chow, pickled beets, string beans, corn and tomatoes. “We’ve always eaten well,” my father wrote.