Росс Томас - The Fools in Town Are on Our Side

“Well, it’s not quite that bad,” Lynch said.

“I say it’s gone to hell and when receipts are down sixty-five percent I don’t know what it’s done if it hasn’t gone to hell.”

“Sixty-eight percent, Mr. Luccarella,” the lawyer said.

“It’ll be even worse next week,” I said.

Luccarella frowned. “What do you mean worse?”

“Necessary busted Henderson down to the Missing Persons’ Bureau.”

“There isn’t any Missing Persons’ Bureau,” Lynch said.

I smiled. “There is now.”

“What was Henderson?” Luccarella said.

“Vice squad.”

Luccarella threw up his hands and flopped back into his chair. “That’s the fucking end!” he yelled. He turned on Lynch and the fat man seemed to cower in his chair as if afraid of being struck. “You can’t even keep a line on a goddamned vice-squad cop! What are you doing to me, Lynch? I hand you the sweetest setup in ten states and you just sit around and piss it away. What are you doing it to me for?”

Before Lynch could answer, I said, “You might have some competition, too, but I suppose Lynch has already told you about that.”

Luccarella pulled himself together with a visible effort. “I shouldn’t do that,” he said in an apologetic tone. “I shouldn’t fly off the handle like that. My analyst tells me that it’s inner-directed rage that should be channeled into something constructive. So that’s what I’m gonna do. No, Mr. Dye, Lynch hasn’t told me about any competition. Lynch doesn’t seem to know what’s going on anymore. He seems to have let things sort of slide. Ever since that tame police chief of his shot hisself, Lynch seems to be sort of out of it, you know what I mean?”

“I’ve tried to keep him informed,” I said.

Lynch glared at me, but said nothing. “Sure you have,” Luccarella said. “I bet you’ve kept him right up to date, but maybe you can sort of bring me up to date, if you don’t mind too much?” He was trying to be very polite and constructive and perhaps the tight grip that he had on his end of the table helped.

“By competition I mean that Swankerton’s got some visitors. Chief Necessary says that they’re making a market survey and he seems to think that they might move in. Or try to.”

Luccarella squeezed his eyes shut. “Who?” he said. Then he said it again without opening his eyes.

“I think I remember most of them,” I said. “Jimmy Twoshoes of Chicago is one. The Onealo brothers, Roscoe and Ralph out of Kansas City. Nick the Nigger from Miami. Tex Turango, Dallas, A guy named Puranelli from Cleveland.”

“Sweet Eddie,” Luccarella said, his eyes still tightly closed.

“You didn’t tell me none of this,” Lynch said.

“I just found out.”

Luccarella opened his eyes and looked at me. “I want things back the way they were, Mr. Dye. I want things nice and calm and peaceful. I want to know how much that will cost me.” He gripped his end of the table so hard that his knuckles turned white. “You notice I’m being constructive.”

“Your analyst would like it,” I said.

“He’s an interesting guy. I had a lot of the worries and that’s why I went to him. I still have the worries, but I don’t mind them so much now. He said that most people have got the worries, but when they find out that they got them, then they can live with them. He said worrying about having the worries is what really gets you down. So you see why I don’t want to have any of the worries over here in Swankerton.”

“I understand,” I said.

“That’s good. That’s real good. So how much is it gonna cost me?”

I leaned back in my chair and smiled at Luccarella. I hoped it was a friendly one, the kind that wouldn’t worry him. “Chief Necessary said he would be willing to meet Friday to discuss things.”

Luccarella shook his head. “I have to be at my analyst Friday. What about today?”

“No chance today. Tomorrow’s a possibility.”

“Set it up with Lynch.”

I shook my head. “As you said earlier, Lynch has sort of lost touch.”

Luccarella smiled for the first time, a big, buck-toothed smile. He even chuckled. Then he looked at Lynch and chuckled some more. It was turning into his kind of a meeting after all.

“You agree with him, Lynch?” he said. “You agree that you’ve sort of lost touch?”

Lynch looked at me and moved his head slowly from side to side as if he could see seven chess moves ahead to the end of a game that he couldn’t possibly win. The lawyer looked a little embarrassed and busied himself with some papers. Luccarella chuckled some more. I smiled at Lynch. Everyone knew what was coming, but only Luccarella seemed to have any relish for it. Perhaps I did too, but I’m still not sure.

“I asked you something,” Luccarella said.

“You asked me if I thought I’ve lost touch,” Lynch said, still looking at me.

“That’s what I asked you.”

“I’ve only made one mistake, Joe, and you’re about to make the same one. I haven’t lost touch. I just made that one mistake.”

“Sometimes one mistake’s one too many,” Luccarella said, looked around for confirmation, and got it from Samuels, the lawyer, who nodded automatically.

“The only mistake I made,” Lynch said, “was to believe one word that lying sonofabitch down there at the other end of the table ever said.”

“I told you I was a liar,” I said.

“Yeah,” Lynch said. “You did. And I believed that, too.”

“So your price is gonna cost me Lynch, huh?” Luccarella said to me.

“That’s right.”

“What else?”

“I name his successor.”

“What about this new chief of police, what’s his name — Necessary?”

“What about him?”

“What’s he gonna cost me?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “He sets his own price.”

“He’ll probably come high.”

“Probably.”

“But all you want to do is name Lynch’s successor?”

“That’s right.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow.”

Luccarella nodded. “What time?”

“Ten o’clock. My room in the Sycamore.”

Luccarella shook his head. “My room. It’s six twenty-two.”

“Your room,” I said.

“You’ll bring Necessary?”

“I won’t bring him; he’ll come with me.”

Luccarella turned to Lynch. “There’s a plane out of here this afternoon for New Orleans. Be on it. Just make sure you hand all the records over to Samuels.”

Lynch didn’t argue. He nodded his understanding and then in a mild tone said, “You’re making a goddamned bad mistake, Joe.”

“At least I’m making it and not letting somebody do it for me.”

“I’m not fixing to dispute that,” Lynch said. “I’m just saying that if you try to make a deal with him, you’re gonna regret it to your dying day.”

“You don’t think I’m smart enough to do a deal with him?”

“I’m wasting my breath,” Lynch said.

“No. I want to know. You don’t think I’m smart enough, do you?”

“Being smart don’t have anything to do with it. I’ve skinned lots of guys smarter than Dye is, twice as smart, and so have you, but like I said, smart has got nothing to do with it.”

“What’s got to do with it?” Luccarella said.

Lynch stared at me some more. “I’ll tell you what it is. He’s a loser who doesn’t expect to win. You don’t have to worry about losers who think they’ll win because that always gives you the edge. But you haven’t got any edge on the loser who’ll play by your rules and not give a damn if he wins or loses or breaks even. He doesn’t really give a damn if he even plays, so that means that you never hold the edge on him and it means that you never really win. And that matters to you, but it don’t to him, so that puts you in the hole, I don’t care what happens.”