Росс Томас - The Fools in Town Are on Our Side

Necessary stopped for a large gulp of his warm Scotch and water. “Now then,” he said, “they finally get the air depot built and then they start hiring the civilian help. Well, the niggers get all upset because not enough of them are being hired. At least that’s what they say. So some of their fire-eaters move down from up North and start stirring up the colored people. Then the unions get mad because they still aren’t able to organize the runaway plants from up North, although they do all right with the air depot because that’s all Federal money. So they finally call a strike at six of the biggest textile plants and then the union guys at the depot walk out in sympathy. I hear it’s against the law, but what the hell, they do it anyway.”

After that, Necessary said, the city officials turned to the New Orleans crowd to break the strike and also put an end to the mounting pressure from the black population.

“It takes them a week,” Necessary said with something akin to admiration. “Just a week. The niggers and the laborskates are getting together, you know — starting to cooperate — so the New Orleans people import a few hard cases from somewhere, up North probably. Well, they knock off a couple of the chief niggers and make it look like it’s done by a couple of local rednecks from the union. They leave evidence all around, like a rifle that belongs to one of the rednecks. Well, the chief of police can’t do anything but bring the two white guys in. Or have ‘em brought in. But on the way four niggers stop the car, take the two white boys out, and blast them deader’n hell. Well, that tears it.”

“I would imagine,” I said.

“The town gets real ugly,” Necessary said, after another swallow. “The whites are scared of the niggers and the niggers are scared of the whites. The strike just peters out and a carload of new nigger agitators from up North can’t even round up a crowd big enough to fill an outhouse. So everything settles back to just like it was before with the New Orleans crowd running things nice and smooth.”

“At this point, Mr. Dye,” Orcutt said, “I suppose you do have some questions.”

“Lots of them,” I said, “but only a few that won’t keep for a while. First of all, the deadline of the first Tuesday in November means an election is coming up, right?”

“Right,” Orcutt said.

“Since it’s an off-year, that means a local election.”

“Yes.”

“Those who’re paying your fee,” I said. “Doctor Colfax and Phet wick the third. I assume that they want to throw the rascals out so that theirs will get in?”

“Precisely.”

“And what you want me to do in the next two months is to make this town so corrupt that even the pimps will vote for reform?” I said.

“Most graphic, Mr. Dye,” Orcutt said. “Most graphic indeed.”

“You’re not taking this on a contingency basis are you?”

Orcutt smiled. “I may be young, Mr. Dye, but I am not naive.”

“No, I don’t think you are. But I’m quite sure that you haven’t collected your fee in advance.”

“No.”

“I’ve heard of deals like this,” I said. “One that comes to mind happened in Germany.”

“In Hamelin?” Orcutt said.

“That’s right.”

“They didn’t want to pay off after the man got rid of the rats,” he said.

“No. They didn’t.”

“So he piped their children out of town, I recall,” he said.

“Everybody does. You may need something like a pipe.”

“What do you suggest?”

I tapped my breast pocket that contained the Xeroxed list. “This list is missing a couple of names,” I said.

There was always that about Orcutt. He never needed the simple diagram that came with the do-it yourself kit. He just smiled again and even managed to put something into it other than nothing.

“You mean the names of Doctor Colfax and Mr. Phetwick?” he said.

“Yes.”

“I’m glad you mentioned it,” he said. “I really am. It demonstrates your level of awareness. However, while we were negotiating our contract, we also investigated the personal background and history of the two gentlemen in question. We secured some most interesting information,”

“Okay,” I said. “You’ve answered my first question. The advocates, I take it, are Dr. Colfax and Phetwick the third and the people they can control through sympathy or blackmail or coercion. Right?”

“Right,” Orcutt said.

“My last question — for tonight, at least. The New Orleans adversaries or bunch or crowd. Who runs it?”

“He’s on the list under adversaries,” Orcutt said.

“I only skimmed it.”

“His name is Ramsey Lynch.”

I leaned back into the couch and rested my head against its rich green upholstery. For several moments, long ones, I inspected the ceiling, which was painted the color of vanilla ice cream. Finally, I said, “Middle name Montgomery?”

“Lynch’s?” Orcutt said.

“Yes.”

“I really couldn’t say. Homer dug up most of the information on him.”

“Then he didn’t dig far enough,” I said.

“I beg your pardon.”

“You should. Ramsey Lynch. That isn’t his real name.”

Necessary snorted. “He did eighteen months in Atlanta under it and that was a Federal rap.”

“I know,” I said. “But that still doesn’t make it his real name.”

“Mr. Dye,” Orcutt said, “I’m really not overly fond of melodrama. If you have something to say...” He let the sentence die as if it had bored itself to death.

I looked at him. His dark blue eyes were chillier than usual. So was his expression. I examined him carefully for a few moments and could find nothing that I really liked.

“Well?” he said in his own private brand of frozen italics.

“Well,” I said, mimicking him for no special reason other than I felt he was being a little pompous for twenty-six. “His name isn’t Ramsey Lynch. His name is Montgomery Vicker. He’s the brother of Gerald Vicker. You remember Gerald. He’s the one you retained in Hong Kong who recommended me. He’s the one I got fired because he killed the wrong man.”

I inherited Gerald Vicker. He came with the desk and the filing cabinets and the stationery and the thirty-six-year-old Memphis secretary (my first one) who finally found romance in the Far East and married a pink ginfaced Volkswagen dealer from Malaysia. He was a widower who, after a few drinks, had once confided that my former secretary was a terrific old girl in the sack. She was the one who taught me how to write up an insurance policy.

It was Carmingler, of course, who finally told me about Vicker only three or four hours before I was to catch a plane to San Francisco and there make a connecting flight to Hong Kong. Carmingler brought up Vicker’s name casually, as if he were mentioning a mutual friend who had just changed jobs, got married, or gone to jail. We were sitting in one of those bare offices that Carmingler always seemed to prefer. This one was in the Kansas City Post Office and although I’ve tried often enough, I still can’t remember why we met in Kansas City.

The room was small, with only one window. It held a Federal-green desk and two matching chairs, a black telephone, and a picture of the President. It was during the last days of Eisenhower’s administration and the photograph was the one that made him look as if he had actually enjoyed the job.

“You’ll be in full control, of course,” Carmingler said.

“Vicker was number two under Grimes, wasn’t he?”

“Yes, he was. Did a good job of it, too.”

“And he’ll be number two under me, the new boy?”

“I can see what you’re driving at, but there’s no need to worry. None at all.”