Росс Томас - The Fools in Town Are on Our Side

The TV stations picked it up, of course, and showed pictures of the virtually completed luxury development that Mrs. Sobour was in hock for. They also ran some old film clips of her which showed a still attractive, dark-haired woman with a broad smile and a cheery wave. Some of the Sisters of Solace were also interviewed. They said that they were praying for Mrs. Sobour.

At nine o’clock that night, Mayor Robineaux bought a half hour of political time on all three television stations and used it to attack the Clean Government Association as “the spoiler of Swankerton.” He wasn’t a very good speaker and since he had preempted two of the top ten TV programs, he probably lost himself a few thousand votes.

It had taken me the entire week to get the information on the Sobour woman to Ramsey Lynch. I gave it to him piecemeal, an item at a time. Some of it was Xeroxed on different machines, some of it I had copied in my own scrawled handwriting on the backs of envelopes, and some of it was verbal stuff that Lynch could check out himself. Orcutt and I spent hours deciding what particular document or scrap of evidence Lynch should get on a particular day and what form it should take. Carol Thackerty had suggested that I use my almost indecipherable handwriting.

Lynch had been like a man who is given a jigsaw puzzle one piece at a time. He had a vague, general idea of its outline, but until I handed him the final damning piece of documentation, the picture had been of interesting composition, but inadequate impact. The final piece brought it all into focus and Lynch said, “Well, I’ll be goddamned go to hell, so that’s how she did it!”

“She’s good,” I said.

“Good, my ass, she’s damn near perfect. The thing is, she could’ve paid it all back in three months and nobody’d ever known the difference.”

“That’s right.”

Lynch looked at me carefully. “How’d you get tipped off?”

“I listen a lot,” I said. “And I remember what I hear.”

“You must have done some sneaking around late at night.”

I shook my head. “Early in the morning. Before cock crow.”

Lynch grinned and nodded his four or five chins. “That’s a good time all right.” He tapped the pile of Xeroxed material and scribbled notes with a forefinger. “You know what I’m gonna do with all this?”

“What?”

“I’m gonna get it all typed up neat with extra Xeroxed copies of everything and then I’m gonna wrap it up in a pink ribbon and send it over to old Phetwick at the Calliope with a note that says ‘for your information.’ ”

“He’ll print it.”

“He might sit on it till it’s hatched,” Lynch said with a dubious look. “He’s one of the high muckety-mucks in the Clean Government crowd.”

“That’s why he’ll print it,” I said. “That and because he’s in the business of selling newspapers. Christ, The News-Calliope will be more outraged and hurt than the nuns themselves.” I didn’t mention that a reporter on the Calliope had dug up most of the material on Mrs. Sobour nearly two months before and that Phetwick had locked it away in a safe.

We were in my hotel room at the Sycamore, alone except for Boo Robineaux, the mayor’s disenchanted heir, who was reading a copy of Evergreen , or at least admiring the pictures.

“Boo,” Lynch said, “bring me my bag over here.”

Boo rose, not taking his eyes from the magazine, picked up the briefcase, brought it over to Lynch, handed it to him, and went back to his chair without skipping a word. He seemed totally disinterested.

“Got a little something for you,” Lynch said, unlocking the briefcase.

“Like money?”

“Like money. Sorry I’m a week late with it, but we wanted a look at the merchandise.”

He started taking it out of the briefcase and stacking it on the coffee table. Then he was done and there were ten stacks of brand new fifty-dollar bills.

“Twenty-five grand,” he said. “Want to count it?”

I shook my head. “I don’t even want to touch it.”

“What’s the matter? You said cash.”

“Tell you what you do,” I said. “You put the money back in the briefcase, give it to Boo, and tell him to go across the street to the First National and ask that nice vice-president over there, the one who’s so friendly, to change it into used tens, twenties, and just a few old fifties. You wouldn’t mind doing that, would you, Lynch?”

Lynch chuckled. “By God, I bet you think it’s queer.”

“No,” I said. “I just think it’s new and so are the serial numbers.”

Lynch tried to look gravely offended, but it was ruined by the twinkle in his eyes. “There’s not much Christian trust in that heart of yours, Brother Dye.”

“None at all, Brother Lynch.”

We had a drink while Boo Robineaux went across street to switch the new money for old bills. “What else do you think you might dig up?” Lynch said.

“You just named it,” I said. “Something else.”

“Just as good.”

“Better, I think.”

“You’re not sure yet?”

“No.”

“Well, I’m gonna have something for you to slip your friend Orcutt.”

“When?”

“You anxious?”

“I’m supposed to be working for him.”

“That’s right, I keep getting confused about who you really work for.”

“So do I.”

“I hope it’s nothing you can’t straighten out.”

“It’s not.”

“Orcutt pressing you?”

“He keeps asking.”

“Next time he does, tell him a couple of days.”

“It had better be good.”

Lynch smiled comfortably, as if well pleased with life and his place in the scheme of things. “It’ll be just dandy,” he said.

After I put the $25,000 in old bills in my safe-deposit box, I called an airline just for the hell of it, I told myself, and asked what flights there were from Swankerton to San Francisco and if there was a connecting polar flight from there to Geneva. When she said that there wasn’t, I thanked her and lied about how I would make other arrangements out of New York.

I’m still not sure what I would have done if I could have made connections. For a few moments I had been on my way, gone from Swankerton and heading west, the only way to go when flight turns into the final solution. It had happened too quickly, of course. That was most of it, if not all. The body went through its normal functions. It ate and bathed and talked and made love, but the mind still wandered around and waited for the key to turn in the lock and for the thud of the bolt as the guard slid it back. I went over to the mirror and took a good look at the man with the too pale face who only four or five weeks before had been dining on fish and rice and amusing himself by counting the number of lice he killed each day. It wasn’t exactly a stranger’s face, it was just the face of someone whom I no longer knew very well and whose renewed acquaintance would require too much effort. I waved at him and he of course waved back. It was not a wave of greeting but rather of vague acknowledgement, one that admitted existence, but nothing else.

Gloomy persons like gloomy weather. They like foggy days and rain and sleet. They can understand those and cope with them. But it’s on those shiny, bird-singing days that they order up the two-fifths of vodka and take the sleeping pills down from the medicine cabinet, or crawl out on the ledge of the building, or go out to the garage with a length of hose and tape it to the exhaust. I went over to the window and stared down at the girls in their sunglasses and short summer dresses and wished it would rain. I waited five minutes for a bolt of lightning or a thunderclap or at least for a cloud to hide the sun, but when nothing happened I went over to the phone and called Carol Thackerty.