Росс Томас - The Fools in Town Are on Our Side

“Call Benson at Homicide and tell him to get his crew over here.” Krone hurried to a phone.

Necessary turned to Carol. “Well?” he said.

“I have my own key,” she said. “You know I have my own key.”

“I know,” Necessary said in a patient, reassuring voice.

“I was in the hall when I heard the shots. I was still in the hall and I heard three shots.”

“Take it easy, Carol,” I said.

“Let her tell it,” Necessary said.

“When I heard the shots I hurried and I got so frantic that I couldn’t find the keys in my purse and then I found them and finally got the door open and he was kneeling over Orcutt and praying and pouring this stuff on his face.” She stopped and took a deep breath. “So I called you and then got a towel and put it over his face.” She turned and stared through the window at the Gulf.

Mouton must have been close to sixty. His hair was gray and sparse on top of his long slab of a head. He had closely set, dark eyes. They looked out of focus behind his rimless glasses that were cocked a little to one side about halfway down a long, thin nose that seemed to have too many veins in it. His red, wet mouth was open now, crooning something else. He rocked back and forth and then started on the Twenty-third Psalm again. He wore a tan raincoat that was buttoned up to his neck.

Homer Necessary walked around him, got down on his hands and knees and smelled the empty pint jar. He rose and stared at Mouton. “Some kind of acid,” Necessary said. He walked over to the kneeling man and nudged him with his foot. “Hey, Mouton,” he said.

Mouton looked up at him. “Amen,” he said.

“What d’you kill him for?”

“He was a son of Satan,” Mouton said. “Father, forgive them for they know not what—”

“Get up,” Necessary snapped.

“I am the resurrection and the life—”

“Get your ass up,” Necessary said again in a hard voice and grabbed Mouton by an elbow and jerked him to his feet.

“Whosoever believeth—”

“He’s a deacon in his church,” I said.

“I remember,” Necessary said. “Take off your raincoat, Deacon.”

Mouton looked coy and suddenly went into a pose that resembled September Morn. “Not in front of you,” he said.

“Jesus,” Necessary said.

Mouton looked wildly around the room. He saw Carol Thackerty and smiled and I couldn’t find much sanity in that smile. “I’ll show her!” he said.

“All right,” Necessary said, “show her.”

Carol turned from the window as Mouton moved over to her. “You’re very pretty,” he said, unbuttoning his raincoat. “I like pretty girls. I’m going to show you something nice.” He held his raincoat open.

Carol looked at him and then turned back to the window. “He’s naked underneath the coat,” she said in a dull tone. “He’s got the legs of his trousers belted to his thighs somehow, but the rest of him’s naked.” She paused. “He’s ugly.”

Mouton spun around and held his raincoat wide open so that we could all take a look. He was ugly all right. “Button that up, mister!” Sergeant Krone snapped, and Mouton pouted before he rebuttoned the coat up to his neck.

Mouton looked down at Orcutt’s body. “It’s all so confusing. First, I was Judas and he was the Savior and then he was Judas and I was... I was—” He stopped, looked at me, and then in a calm, rational voice said, “I’m a professional man, you know.”

“I know.”

“I’m a pharmacist,” he said, a little desperately this time.

“I know,” I said again.

“Why d’you kill him, Mouton?” Necessary asked.

“Why?”

“That’s right. Why?”

“Because, you miserable fuckhead, God told me to!” With that, he walked over to a chair and sat down. He closed his eyes and refused to say anything else. The homicide cops finally took him away not long after Orcutt’s body was carted off to the morgue where they found three bullets in it.

Carol Thackerty answered the phone when it rang in Orcutt’s bedroom-office where the three of us sat. The homicide crew was still busy in the living room. Forty minutes had passed since they had taken Mouton away.

“It’s Channing d’Arcy Phetwick the third,” Carol said. “He wants to talk to whoever’s in charge of Victor Orcutt Associates.”

I made no move toward the phone and neither did Necessary. Finally, he said, “Take it, Dye.”

I took the phone and said, “Lucifer Dye.”

Old man Phetwick’s voice was dry and gritty as emery dust. “I am grieved to learn of Mr. Orcutt’s death,” he said.

“Yes. All of us are.”

“So is Doctor Colfax, who is on the line with me.”

“I was sorry to hear about it,” Colfax said.

“Yes,” I said.

“Poor Mouton, too,” Phetwick said. “Is he really mad?”

“I’m no doctor,” I said, “but he looked crazy to me.”

“Orcutt’s death changes things,” Colfax said, all business now that condolence time was over.

“Especially for Orcutt,” I said.

“With the Lynch person gone and with the police department reorganized by Mr. Necessary, I think our main objectives have been accomplished,” Phetwick said. “In view of Mr. Orcutt’s death, we have decided that we can dispense with the services of his firm. This is no reflection on you, Mr. Dye, and we expect to offer a generous cancellation settlement.”

“You want us to pack up and leave then?” I said, more for the benefit of Necessary and Carol than for my own clarification. I understood what he wanted.

“Well, yes, if you insist on putting it that way,” Phetwick said.

Dr. Colfax chimed in. “You did your job, Dye, and a damned good one. Now we don’t need you anymore, so we’ll pay you off and everybody’s happy.”

I decided to go formal. “Would you hold on please while I confer with my colleagues for a moment?”

“Sure,” Colfax said.

I turned to Necessary and Carol. “They want us to bug out,” I said. “They’ll make a cash settlement.”

Necessary frowned and carefully removed a piece of lint from the sleeve of his blue uniform. He looked at Carol. “Had Orcutt told them about what Dye and I have got set up with Luccarella and the out-of-town guys?” he said.

“No,” she said. “He was going to tell them today.”

“He tell them about the senator and the magazine?”

She nodded. “He told them about that. Phetwick’s already got the counter-attack written.”

“They’re trying to cool it off,” Necessary said.

“So it seems,” I said and took my hand from the mouthpiece of the phone. “It’ll only be a few seconds,” I said.

“Take your time,” Colfax said and chuckled to demonstrate that he understood how people might scurry about when they suddenly found themselves out of their jobs.

“Well?” I said.

Necessary looked down at his blue left sleeve again, stroked it gently with his right hand, smiled to himself, and then looked up at me. “I think,” he said softly, “I think they’re going to have to fire themselves a chief of police.”

I nodded. “Carol?”

“I’d like to see if he gets the girl in the last reel.”

I took my hand from the phone. I looked at the mouthpiece rather than at Carol and Necessary. I felt their eyes on me. I took a deep breath. “I explained things to them,” I said.

Phetwick’s voice was dry and remote. “I knew that they would be reason—”

“Our answer is no,” I said and hung up.

I wasn’t asleep when Necessary called at six-thirty Friday morning. I was lying in Carol’s bed, staring at the ceiling, and thinking about Victor Orcutt. He seemed far more attractive in death than he had in life, but there must be a great many persons who seem that way.