Росс Томас - The Fools in Town Are on Our Side

“Was he fired?”

“They could never nail him. There was a lot of talk about it, but he resigned four years ago to enter what he called ‘private industry,’ which turned out to be Victor Orcutt Associates. After he resigned, there was another tremendous shake up in the police force, but Necessary was completely absolved.”

“He saw to that,” I said.

“Ramsey Lynch, born Montgomery Vicker. He’s been in and out of trouble since he was sixteen. Born in Newark and at eighteen legally changed his name to Ramsey Lynch at his family’s insistence. The family was rather staid and prominent in a mild sort of way. He was on the fringes of the rackets until he took a fall for one of the higherups on a narcotics rap and spent eighteen months in Atlanta. After that, they were so grateful that they set him up in New Orleans where he was either Number Two or Number Three boy until he opened up in Swankerton where I understand he’s now Number One. The only member of his family who still admits that he’s alive is one Gerald Vicker who lives in Hong Kong. They’re supposed to be close.”

“They are,” I said.

“Now the dessert,” Smalldane said. “Your chief of police, Calvin Loambaugh. Born in Swankerton and joined the army at nineteen for a three-year hitch. He came out a first lieutenant in the MPs. Served in Germany and there’s nothing on him there. He joined the police force in Buffalo and resigned under a cloud.”

“What kind of a cloud?”

“Suspected of being a receiver of stolen goods.”

“Could they prove it?”

“They could, but they didn’t because they had him for something else which they also wanted to forget about.”

“What?”

“Two counts of child molestation.”

“And they let him off?”

“Buffalo was having a lot of trouble with its cops about that time,” Smalldane said. “They didn’t need any more.”

“What then?”

“Loambaugh joined the Birmingham police just in time for the riots there. He got a couple of commendations and suddenly resigned under yet another cloud, one that really looked like rain.”

“Child molestation?” I said.

“Right. Three counts this time. By the way, he’s married and has two children of his own.”

“Then he came back home,” I said.

“Right again, and in a rise that can only be described as meteoric, he was appointed Swankerton’s chief of police four years ago, doubtless at the behest of your friend Lynch.”

“What does he go for,” I said, “little boys or little girls?”

“Both.”

“Any concrete evidence?”

“No. All talk, but it was reliable.”

“Your service is excellent, Gorm. Send me a bill.”

“You think you’ll be around to pay it?”

“Why not?”

“Some rumors I heard.”

“What about them?”

“They claim that things might get rough in Swankerton.”

“Probably.”

“I think you need some help.”

“From whom?”

“Me.”

“This isn’t a PR campaign, Gorm. There’s no million-dollar budget and no bonus for the cutest press release. I’m not out to win the hearts and minds of men to democracy’s side. I’m not even sure that I’m out to win.”

“I won’t cost you anything,” Smalldane said.

“It’s not that.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know where to fit you in.”

“We’ll think of a slot.”

“I don’t think that we—”

“I’ll be there at three tomorrow afternoon,” he said. “You don’t even have to meet me at the airport.” Then he hung up.

Homer Necessary called me at two o’clock that morning and wanted to know if I were awake.

“I am now.”

“Soderbell’s here,” he said. “We’re leaving in half an hour.”

“Where’s here?”

“My room.”

Twenty minutes later I joined them in Necessary’s room. Soderbell was fooling with a Bolex Pro 16mm camera equipped with what looked to be a zoom lens.

“You don’t have to carry the lights after all,” Necessary said.

“Why?”

“Soderbell’s using infrared film. Says he doesn’t need lights.”

“It’s not infrared,” Soderbell said. “It’s Kodak two-four-eight-five rapid-access retrieval stuff with an ASA of twelve thousand.”

“Will it do what it’s supposed to?” Necessary said. “I hear that infrared’s the best.”

“It’s got some infrared in it,” Soderbell said, and for all I knew he could have been telling the truth. “But with special processing, the film I’m going to use is better.”

“Don’t get me wrong, but I’ve heard that the infrared stuff is better,” Necessary said.

Soderbell put on the face that he must have used to deal with the enthusiastic amateur. “It’s dammed good, Homer, but I think my stuff is just a little better for this particular job.”

“Well, you’re the expert,” Necessary said, obviously unconvinced. “Just don’t forget that if something goes wrong they’re not coming back and pose for retakes.”

Soderbell was a patient man. Perhaps most professional photographers are. He lit one of his French cigarettes and blew some of its acrid smoke around the room. “Quit worrying, Homer. The only thing that can go wrong is if we are caught, and if that happens, none of us will have to worry.”

The bars were still open at two-thirty in the morning in Swankerton and seemed to be doing a good swing-shift business. We drove down Snow Street in Necessary’s rented Impala, turned left onto Fourth, followed that for six blocks, and then turned right onto Forrest. We drove four more blocks until Necessary found a parking place that he seemed to like.

“We walk from here,” he said.

We were in Swankerton’s wholesale district. The street was lined with long, low brick buildings, most of which had loading docks at their fronts or sides. Rows of silver, red and blue semis, sometimes parked less than six inches from each other, hulking tributes to the teamsters’ skill, were backed up to the docks waiting to be unloaded.

In between something called Gulf States Distributors, Inc. and Merriman Liquors (Wholesale Only) was a narrow, frame, three-story house, which sat far back on its fifty-foot lot. We turned into its cracked sidewalk, went up four steps to a small porch with a broken plank, and waited until Necessary unlocked the door. Inside, the house was vacant and smelled as if the door hadn’t been opened in years.

By guess and by feel we followed Necessary down a long hall. There was no furniture to bump into.

“We turn right and go up the rear stairs,” Necessary said.

I reached my hand out and touched Soderbell. “You okay?” he said.

“Fine.”

“Step up and turn right again,” he said.

I followed slowly, using the bannister and placing both feet on each stair tread.

“Left here,” Necessary said from some place up above me. We were in another hall that led toward the rear. Necessary opened a door and a window in the room produced enough light to make a single vague outline of him and Soderbell. I followed them into the room.

“I got three-o-four,” Necessary said. “What have you got?

I looked at the luminous dial on my watch. “About that. Maybe three-o-five.”

“What do you think?” Necessary said to Soderbell. The cameraman went to the window and peered out. “That light in the alley will just save us,” he said. I moved over to the window and looked out. The frame house was longer than I had thought. Its rear was flush with the alley and the window I stood at had a view of the rear of a firm directly across the alley that was called Bolberg and Son, Wholesale Furriers. There were no windows in the rear of the furrier’s building but there was a sturdy-looking steel door and a corrugated-metal overhead door that was large enough for a good-sized truck to go through.