Росс Томас - The Fools in Town Are on Our Side

“How much?” Lynch said.

“I’m getting to that.”

“You’re sure as hell in no hurry,” Loambaugh said.

“Well, after they have the film all put together, with additional facts, a big name voice — what do you think of Gregory Peck?”

“Not much,” Lynch said.

“Just an idea. So after they put it all together in a slick, professional, competent manner and give it a catchy title, something like, ‘Swankerton’s Cops: the Best that Money Can Buy,’ well, they’ll have no problem giving it — or even selling it — to one of the networks and then you’ll have about twenty or thirty million viewers instead of a mere hundred thousand or so here in Swankerton. Think of what the publicity will do for the place. You’ll have a special team down here from Life the next day plus a couple of dozen other hard-nosed reporters, all specialists in crime and corruption. The state cops will move in. They’ll have to, and they’ll be falling over the feet of the Justice Department types from Washington. That film, I’d say, can really put Swankerton on the map.”

Lynch sat through it all, puffing calmly away on his cigar. Loambaugh listened, at first with a certain amount of affected boredom that changed into interest and then deepened into fascination. By the time I was through he was chewing on his fingernails again.

Lynch sighed and ground his cigar out into an ashtray. It was only half-smoked. “I don’t know about Cal over there, Lucifer, but you don’t have to paint me any more word pictures. For an old country boy, I got a pretty good imagination. So I’m going to ask you again, how much do they want?”

“They?”

“That’s right. They. Them.”

“There is no they or them, Lynch. There are no expensive middlemen. I’m what’s called the sole source.”

“You are, huh?”

“He’s a lying sonofabitch,” Loambaugh said.

“Well, shit, Cal, we already know that.” He turned to me again. “I thought you was kind of working for us.” He tried to sound a little disappointed, even hurt, but it didn’t come out that way. Just petulant.

“Is there anyone else in town who’d have shown you the film?”

“So you’re the man?” Lynch said.

I nodded. “That’s right; I am.”

“Well, Mr. Man, what’s your price?”

I coughed once to clear my throat so that I could be sure that my voice wouldn’t crack when I named it. I kept my hands flat on the table so that they could be plainly seen, but not their fibrillary tremor. I ignored the sweat that formed in my armpits despite the air-conditioning. I looked at Lynch, but nodded my head toward Loambaugh.

“I want his resignation as chief of police. Today.”

Loambaugh hurtled across the table at me, his knees working on the polished surface in a scrambling effort to gain purchase. His hands were around my neck in less than a second and I could smell his SenSen breath and count the veins in his rolling eyes. I brought the heel of my right palm hard against his chin and I heard his teeth click shut. I shot both locked hands up and out through his arms and broke his hold on my neck. Then I hit him again as hard as I could, once with the heel of my left palm just at the base of his nose, and when that straightened him up, I hit him just below the breast bone with my right fist. He was softer than he looked and my fist seemed to sink in several inches and he whoofed and grabbed his middle with both hands, pressing hard. His nose was bleeding now and so was his tongue where he had bitten it when I had knocked his jaws shut. He knelt there on the long table, his head bent as he clutched his stomach and bled all over the polished surface. I leaned back in my chair, pressed my hands flat on the table again, and watched him without much interest. I noticed that the tremor was gone from my hands.

Lynch yelled, “Boo!” and the young man poked his head through the door. He looked at the kneeling figure of Loambaugh on the table, but it wasn’t unusual enough to make him change his expression.

“Get Chief Loambaugh a cold, wet towel,” Lynch said, “he’s had a little accident.”

After the blood was mopped from the table and Loambaugh was back in his chair with a towel pressed to his nose, Lynch gave me a genial smile and said, “Well, I reckon that’s enough excitement for one afternoon, don’t you, Lucifer?”

“Plenty,” I said.

“You were serious?”

“Completely.”

“It’s a mighty awesome thing,” he said, “asking a man to resign at the peak of his career for the good of the community. It takes a big man to do that. A real big man. You think you’re a big enough man to do that, Chief Loambaugh?”

“No resigning, Lynch. You can go fuck yourself.”

“Hear that, Lucifer? The chief doesn’t much care for your proposition.”

“I heard,” I said.

“You think this bastard’s got something on you?” Loambaugh said to Lynch, his voice muffled by the wet towel. “I got enough on you to send you down for twenty years.”

Lynch turned his head slightly and yelled for Boo again. When the young man popped his scarred head through the sliding doors, Lynch said: “Bring us some writing paper and some carbons and a ball-point pen, will you, Boo? Chief Loambaugh here wants to write up something.”

When Boo came back he offered the writing materials to Loambaugh, who ignored him. Boo glanced at Lynch, who said, “Just put them down here in front of him. He’s busy with his nose right now. He’ll get to them directly.”

“You know something, Cal?” Lynch said. “I can’t recall a day when I’ve been threatened so much. First old Lucifer here with his film and then you acting uppity and making threats just because it’d be in the best interest of the community if you was to resign. Now when you think it over, you’ll just pick up that pen and write out a real nice letter of resignation and sign the original and maybe three or four carbons. You might mention something about personal reasons and other interests. That’s always good, isn’t it, Lucifer?”

“Usually,” I said.

“You want him to say something else?”

“No.”

“See how cooperative everybody’s being, Cal?”

Loambaugh’s nose had quit bleeding and he dropped the bloody towel on the table. “I swear to God I’m not resigning. And the first thing I do when I get back to the office is open the safe and take out some stuff I’ve been saving. Then I’m going to call in the FBI — that’s right, the FBI, Lynch — and they’re going to rack you so hard you won’t know if you’re in Swankerton or Cincinnati.” He picked up the writing paper and the carbons and threw them across the table at Lynch. They fluttered in the air, caught a current from the air-conditioner, and floated back in a zig-zag pattern to the table. Lynch waited until the last one had settled to the table before he spoke, and then it was only a mild query,

“Is that a fact?”

“You goddamned right it’s a fact. This afternoon, Lynch. This very afternoon, not more than a couple of hours from now.”

Lynch got up from his chair and bent over the table. He carefully assembled the papers and the carbons in two neat stacks and slid them back across the table to Loambaugh.

“Write it out, Cal, for your sake,” he said in a soft tone.

Loambaugh shoved his chair back and rose. “You can get me fired, you sonofabitch, but you ain’t about to get me to resign. Ever. You’ll like it back in Atlanta, Lynch. And that’s where you’re headed sure as shit stinks.” He turned to leave.

“Little Timmy Thornton,” Lynch said in a low, soft voice that still managed to stop Loambaugh in midstride. “Little Timmy Thornton, five years old, with a torn up rectum where somebody cornholed him.”