Дональд Уэстлейк: Collected Stories

Winthrop nodded.

The man took out his wallet, flipped it open to show a badge. “Police,” he said.

“I know,” said Winthrop. He got to his feet. “Anything I say can be used against me. I demand my right to make one phone call.”

“To your lawyer,” said the detective. It wasn’t a question.

“Of course,” said Winthrop. He crossed to the phone. “Care for a drink? The makings are over there, in the corner.”

“No thanks,” said the detective. He motioned and the other one walked into the bedroom.

“Don’t mind the mess in there,” called Winthrop. “I tried to commit suicide.”

The detective raised his eyebrows and walked over to the bedroom door to take a look. He whistled. “What happened to the mirror?”

“I threw the gun at it.”

“Oh.” The detective came back. “At least you’re sane. A lot of guys try to cash in. Only the nuts do.”

“That’s a relief,” said Winthrop. He dialed.

The detective grunted and sat down. The other one came back from his inspection, shook his head, and sat down near the door.

Winthrop heard the click as a receiver was lifted, and a man’s voice said, “Arthur Moresby, attorney.”

“Hello, Art? This is Bill.”

There was a pause, then “Who?”

“Bill. Bill Winthrop.”

“I’m afraid I don’t recognize the name. Are you sure you have the right number?”

“Oh,” said Winthrop. “Like that. It’s in the papers already, eh?”

“On the radio.”

“You don’t know me, is that right?”

“That’s right,” said Arthur Moresby, attorney. “Goodbye.”

Winthrop heard the click but continued to hold the phone against his ear.

“What’s the matter?” asked the detective.

Winthrop shook his head and returned the phone to its cradle. He grinned crookedly at the detective. “Wrong number,” he said.

“How a wrong number?”

“I’m a sinking ship.”

“And your lawyer?”

“He’s a rat. He doesn’t know me. He never heard the name.”

“Oh,” said the detective. He stood up. “I guess we can go then, huh?”

Winthrop shrugged. “I guess so.”

He followed them out of the apartment. They walked to the elevator, Winthrop pushed the button, and they waited without speaking. When the elevator came, they stepped in and the detective pushed the button marked ‘1’.

On the way down, the detective said, “Mind if I ask you a question?”

“For the insurance,” said Winthrop. “I was in debt. Either I paid or chhhhk.” He ran a finger across his neck.

“That isn’t the question. I want to know why you waited for us to come before you called the lawyer. You had a lot of time before we got there. Why did you wait?”

Winthrop stared at the door. Why had he waited? He thought a minute, then said, “I don’t know. Bravado or something.”

“Okay,” said the detective. The door slid open and they walked across the vestibule to the street. A few passersby watched curiously as Winthrop got into the back seat of the police car.

“I’m twenty four,” said Winthrop, as they drove through the streets to Police Headquarters.

“So?” said the detective.

“Seems like a hell of an age to stop at.”

“How old was your mother?” asked the cop.

Winthrop closed his eyes. “Do you hate me?”

“No,” said the cop.

Winthrop turned and looked at the cop. “I do,” he said.

“I hate my guts.”

What happened to the Smith Wrecking and Salvage Company when it tried to tear down the all fluoryl plastic City Hall is enough to make a man with a heart of stone laugh.

“Lewiston, Massachusetts. Population, 6,023, census of 1960. Main industry, the production of fluoryl plastics. Founded 1798 by Emmanuel Lewis, American farmer of English stock. Opportunities for new businesses, especially in the service trades. Main tourist attraction, City Hall constructed in 1958 completely of fluoryl plastics, as advertisement of town’s main industry.” (“Guide to American Cities”, 1963, Wolkin, Ehrmbach and Company, New York, 1963.)

The City Council of Lewiston decided, after long deliberation, to build a new City Hall. The present one, while drawing tourists, was also drawing trouble. There were constant traffic jams in front of the building; broken penknives littered the lawn, left behind by souvenir hunters who had made unsuccessful attempts at chipping off a piece of wall. Besides, the conservative element in the town was loudly in opposition to, “the City Fathers meeting in a three-story publicity stunt.”

Replacing a City Hall isn’t, normally, too impossibly difficult a task. All it involves is the contracting of an architect (who listens to everything you want and then goes ahead and does what he wants), the opening of bids for the construction of the new City Hall (with Cousin Jamie assured of the job, of course, but that isn’t admitted publicly), and the tearing down of the old City Hall to make way for the new one.

Tear down the old City Hall. In the words of the Bard, there’s the rub, and quite a rub it is.

Perhaps you haven’t heard of the new fluoryl plastics. They are compounded of fluorocarbons, a combination of fluorine and carbon. The process involved is a simple, if puzzling, one. A hydrogen-fluorine compound is placed in a vat with a hydrocarbon; a few volts of electricity are sent through the vat, and what’s left is fluorocarbon and free hydrogen. To date, no one’s been able to explain the whys and wherefores. The only thing sure is that it happens.

In the early fifties, non-burnable paints were made of these fluorocarbons, among other things, and experimentation was begun on a plastic made of the substance. The result: fluoryl plastic.

Fluoryl plastic is indestructible, in the only sense of the word. It won’t burn, won’t crumble, won’t decay, can’t be broken into fragments, and will not leave the original shape it was molded in, no matter what is done to it. It is, in the language of the wondering scientists, completely stable.

The City Hall in question was constructed entirely of this plastic. The outside walls were gleaming white outdoor fluoryl plastic, impervious to the elements; the inside walls were plastics of quieter colors, but no less resistant. The floors and ceilings were formed by sturdy lengths of fluoryl plastic painted with fluoryl paint to look like wood. The roof of the building, the foundation, all were fluoryl. Even the seams of the building were sealed by a fluoryl cement.

This, then, is the building the City Council planned so nonchalantly to tear down.

A wrecking crew — the Smith Wrecking and Salvage Company — was called in and put to work. The first weapon they brought to bear was a heavy iron ball, attached by a cable to a derrick, with which the Smith Wrecking and Salvage Company demolished walls. The first time they swung this outsize eight-ball at one of the walls of the City Hall, there was a terrible noise; the ball came ricocheting back from the unmarred wall and crunched into the arm of the derrick, doing to it what had been heretofore been done only to walls.

When the foreman of the crew found out, as he did shortly, he fired the operator for negligence, reported the damage to the office, and led his men indoors for some hand-to-hand demolition.

The office sent somebody out to remove the dilapidated derrick and replace it with a fresh contender; but the foreman and his men just didn’t have any success at all with the City Hall.

Not that they didn’t try hard enough. They stomped into the place, up the three flights of wide ebony fluoryl plastic stairs to the top floor, and attacked a wall.