Росс Томас - The Fools in Town Are on Our Side

“While they’re hunting around for the ink eradicator,” I said, “tell them to look behind the rear seat in the squad car. That’s probably where they’ll find the money that fell out of Necessary’s pocket.”

“Probably is,” Lynch said, nodding agreement. “Probably is at that.”

We sat there and listened to Loambaugh call in the new instructions. He did it crisply and no one on the other end of the phone seemed to give him any argument. When he hung up, he didn’t look at either of us.

“So, Mr. Dye, that make you any happier?” Lynch said.

“Much,” I said.

“About that proposition we made you yesterday. You had enough time to study over it?”

“Quite enough.”

“What’d you decide?”

“I’ll take it.”

“Just like that, huh?”

“Just like that.”

“That sure is good news,” Lynch said, but without much conviction.

“I hoped you’d like it.”

“Well, now,” Lynch said again and reached into a coat pocket and brought out a cellophane-wrapped cigar. He examined it carefully, stripped off the cellophane, wadded it into a neat ball, and flipped it at the wastebasket. He missed. He sniffed the cigar and then licked it carefully with a gray-coated tongue. He bit off one end, rose, and walked into the bathroom. I heard him spit the end out into the toilet and then flush it. Back in his chair he searched through four pockets before he found a book of matches. He lit the cigar with one of them and blew out a heady plume of inhaled smoke. I didn’t time it, but he must have taken three minutes to light his cigar. Time was cheap that morning.

“Well, now,” he said yet again. “You sure didn’t take much time in deciding to take us up on our offer.”

“You said you were in a hurry.”

“I did say that, didn’t I? But you know, Mr. Dye, a deal like this is something like courting a gal. You want her to spread her legs for you all right, but if she does it too quick, you start wondering who she spread ‘em for half an hour ago. Sort of takes the bloom off the romance, if you know what I mean.”

“I don’t,” I said.

“Uh-huh,” he said, which could have meant yes or no or even maybe. “It merely ‘pears to me that you’re awful anxious to say yes. If you was a gal and I was asking you to marry me and you said yes like that, why I’d maybe suspect you were pregnant and looking for a daddy for your child. You ain’t pregnant, are you, Mr. Dye?”

“No,” I said.

“Not even a little bit?” he said and laughed his fat man’s laugh, which caused him to choke and splutter a bit on some of his cigar smoke.

I smiled, but it was my old joke smile. “Not even a little bit,” I said.

Lynch turned to the police chief. “What do you think, Cal?”

“I didn’t know I was supposed to. I thought you did all the thinking.”

“Why, Cal, you know I value your opinion most highly.”

“Shit.”

“What do you think?”

Loambaugh looked at me. He took in the black shoes and socks; the new dark green cavalry twill suit; the white shirt, and the terrible tie. He examined my face with its gentle hazel eyes, firm chin, and resolute mouth. He didn’t like anything.

“You want to know what I think, huh?” he said to Lynch while still examining me.

“Most certainly do.”

“I think he’s a fucking plant.”

Lynch shook his head and chins up and down several times, not so much in agreement, it seemed, as in appreciation for a frank opinion, succinctly delivered. “That’s a real interesting observation, Cal. Real interesting. You care to comment on it, Mr. Dye?”

“Not at all,” I said. “He’s right.”

Lynch threw his head back and whooped. Then he cackled for a while and finally he even slapped a knee. The right one. I wondered if he and his brother, Gerald Vicker, had really shared the same parents. The physical resemblance was apparent, if somewhat bloated, but their personalities had almost nothing in common, unless avarice and malevolent drive can be considered inherited traits.

Lynch stopped whooping and cackling, wiped his eyes for effect, if not for tears, and gave me another chance to inspect the scrambled egg remnants that were tucked away between his teeth. “So you’re a plant and you come right out and admit it before God and everybody? That right, Mr. Dye?”

“I wouldn’t be worth a damn to you unless I were.”

“Explain yourself, sir. Not so much for me, but for Chief Loambaugh here. I think I’m beginning to sort of get the drift of things.”

“It’s simple,” I said. “Victor Orcutt knew I was going to meet with you yesterday. When I got back, I told him about your proposition. It took a while to convince him that I should take it, but he finally agreed,”

“Ain’t that something, Cal?” Lynch said, again smiling hugely. “You ever hear of anything like that before? Mr. Dye here tells Orcutt about our meeting and then tells us that he told him and that Orcutt says to go ahead and join up with us. So what you’re really going to do is work for us while Orcutt thinks that you’re really working for him.”

“That’s right,” I said.

“Uh-huh,” Lynch said. “Brother Gerald said you were a tricky one, Mr. Dye. Mighty tricky.”

“I learned a lot from him.”

“Bet you did at that. Of course, I never had all of Gerald’s advantages. I was sort of the simple one in the family. But it does occur to me that you could really be working for Orcutt and just play like you’re working for us.”

“That’s what Orcutt said, only he thought it might be just the other way around.”

Lynch found that really funny. He chortled and snuffled deep down in his belly and nodded his head rhythmically in time with the fist that he pounded against his knee. This time the left one. When he was done he said, “How you expect us to make sure that you’re really looking after our best interests, Mr. Dye? By the way, you mind if I call you Lucifer? We’re not too much on formality down here.”

“Lucifer’s fine,” I said. “You’ll know your best interests are being looked after by what I produce. That’ll be your only gauge. I’ll provide information and suggestions and that’s all. You can check the information out and decide for yourself whether to act on my suggestions. If you don’t like what I suggest, you can ignore it.”

“What do you think about that, Cal?” Lynch said, turning to the chief of police, who still stared at me as if I were the newest brand of archfiend whose unspeakable speciality was yet to be codified.

“I think he’s a fucking liar,” Loambaugh said.

“Course he is, Cal. Man has to be that in the business he’s in. Question is, does he lie for or against us. That’s the real nut-knocker, don’t you agree, Lucifer?”

“That’s it,” I said.

“And I suppose it’s all based on price.”

“You’re right again.”

“I offered you twenty-five percent more than Orcutt’s offering you, didn’t I?”

I only nodded.

“I hear he’s paying fifty thousand.”

“Twenty thousand of it this morning,” I said. “You owe me twenty five thousand.”

“You aim to collect from both of us, of course. Can’t say I blame you for that.”

“No, I didn’t think you would.”

“Now if we got a little information up within the next few days, you wouldn’t mind slipping it to Orcutt, would you, as something you’d sort of wormed out of us, so to speak?”

“That’s part of the services,” I said. “After I’m retained, of course.”

“Wouldn’t do it on spec just so we can take a reading on how well you perform?”

“That’s a dumb question, if you don’t mind my saying so.”