Shake a Crooked Town (10 page)

“Not many do.” The tone was acid.

“But they loved Carl Thompson’s?” Johnny moved to the door in the ensuing silence. “For a politician, Richard, you just don’t think fast enough on your feet.” There had still been no reply when he closed the office door from the outside.

At Western Union he picked up two thousand dollars and an accompanying telegram: CHECK TO THE ONE-CARD DRAWS YOU DUMMY. He grinned and started to crumple the yellow sheet. The New York dateline reminded him of some unfinished business. He found a phone booth in a drugstore, changed two dollars into silver, and called Sally at the apartment in New York.

“Johnny!” she exclaimed at the sound of his voice. “Where are you?”

“If anyone else is askin’ that question, ma, it might be better if you didn’t know. Joe Dameron been hauntin’ you?”

“Not Dameron. That man Cuneo.”

“Uh-huh. They set a date for the inquest yet?”

“I haven’t heard.”

“Find out, but don’t ask the direct question. They’d know where it came from. Did they identify the guy?”

“Marty said it was some small-time hood.”

“Local?”

“I guess. Marty didn’t say.”

“Find that out, too. I’ll call you in a day or two. If they spring an early date on the inquest an’ you need to get me in a hurry call the Mick. I’d tell you but you never could lie, ma.”

“Please stay out of trouble, Johnny. And come on home.”

He sat in the booth after he had deposited the amount the operator asked for and tried to figure it out. Something didn’t add up. Daddario had had his own muscle with him in New York that day, but a stranger had been hired for the payoff. Check that, Killain. The stranger had been hired for Killain but do you
know
he had been hired for Thompson, too? You’re damn right you don’t. Kratz or Savino could easily have done the job. Except that after the beating Thompson had taken in Jefferson how had either one of them been able to get that close to him in the hotel room?

Johnny sighed, fished a dime out of the remaining change, and called Jessamyn Burger.

• • •

The drawn drapes darkened the motel room despite the hint of late-afternoon sunlight behind them. On the bed beside him the woman spoke drowsily. “It’s been lovely, Johnny, but I’ve got to get back to town.”

He ran a questing palm over her sleek nudity. “The town’ll still be there if you get back an hour later, won’t it, Jess?”

She shivered at his touch and sat up. “No more. I want to shower.”

“We’ll shower together.” He slid from the bed and scooped her up in his arms.

“What—?” Her voice was startled. “Stop it,” she protested as he carried her into the bathroom. He turned on a single light over the dressing table outside and set her down in the shower stall. “Stop it, Johnny! It’s not—decent!”

His bulk effectively blocked the shower entrance when she tried to push past him. From a shelf he took down a wax-papered bathing cap and handed it to her. “Water’s goin’ on in ten seconds. Get that on your noggin if you want to keep your hair dry.”

“I want you to get out of here!” Her hands and arms were plastered about herself. The indirect light reflected softly from the white-tiled walls upon her full curves, warm ivory by contrast.

“Five seconds,” he said, and stepped inside and closed the glass door. His hand dropped on the shower faucet.

“No!” she exclaimed, but her hands were already hastily fitting the cap over her dark hair. “Johnny, no!” She gasped at the hissing rush of the chilly needle spray. “Oooh, it’s cold!”

It warmed at once. He let her soak a moment and picked up the soap from the dish. He took her firmly by a plump shoulder and soaped her competely from neck to ankles, his big hand gliding over her glistening flesh. She stood on first one foot and then the other and her protests died to murmured little half-sounds. He rinsed her off and soaped her again, slowly. This time her body gave itself up to the soaping hand like a flower turning up to the sun.

He rinsed her again and handed her the soap. She soaped him gravely, the hiss of the water the only sound. She kneaded his back and shoulders for a long time. The silence was electric by the time she finished. He turned off the shower, picked her up by the elbows and lifted her out onto the bath mat. “Dimples everywhere, by God,” he said huskily, enveloping her in a towel. She said nothing, made no sound. He could hear her breathing.

He patted her dry first, then scrubbed with the towel till the white skin turned rosy. She twisted and turned under the scouring towel but her feet never moved from the mat. Her eyes were so dark they seemed black.

He dried himself hurriedly as she exited like a sleepwalker. He found her in the bedroom beside her neatly laid out clothing on a chair. She had on panties and one stocking. She made a small sound deep in her throat as he drew her gently back against himself, spoon-fashion. He bent his head to breathe lightly upon the velvety junction of her neck and shoulder.

He removed the panties. He didn’t bother with the stocking.

It was well over an hour before they rose again and began to dress.

• • •

On the ride back to town she sat primly in her half of the hired car’s front seat. Her eyes rested on the road straight ahead. Five miles out from town she sighed and turned to look at him. “I suppose it’s time to return to reality,” she said wistfully. “Thanks for the trip to another planet.”

“Many happy returns,” Johnny said.

She smiled. “You know if you’d stop the yakking about Jim Dadderio having horns and hooves I could get kind of used to you.”

“Why’d you suggest a little trip to the country when I called you today, Jess?”

Her smile faded. “I couldn’t have you parading up to my door in broad daylight and staying, now could I?” she asked lightly. “Wasn’t this cozy?”

“Very. I’m just wonderin’ where I got the idea you’re afraid to be seen with me in town.”

“That’s not true.” She said it angrily.

His hands lay relaxed on the wheel as the car rolled along between level green fields. “Kratz and Savino haven’t told you to stop seein’ me?”

“Who pays any attention to Kratz and Savino?” she asked defiantly. She refused to meet his eyes when he turned his head.

“Jess, you’re the victim of a misplaced sense of loyalty.”

“No, I’m not. Really I’m not. You make me sound like a virtuous nitwit. I know what I’m doing. I’m not naive enough to think that a city like Jefferson is run under the articles of incorporation. On the other hand, the
extent
of the corruption you’re attributing to Jim simply isn’t true.”

“You’d like to believe that.” Johnny pulled a little further off the center of the road as the rear-view mirrow showed a big sedan moving up rapidly behind them. He turned to look at her. “Do you? Are you sellin’ yourself a bill of goods, Jess?”

“I’m—” Her eyes flashed over his shoulder. “Look out!” she screamed.

His eyes darted back to the road. The sedan loomed up on his left, inches away and cornering him to the side of the road. He couldn’t take his eyes from the too-close fenders but he had the impression there were two people in it. He bore down on the horn and gripped the wheel. There was a long drawn out grinding of metal, twice repeated. The car shivered but Johnny held it straight. Clouds of dust boiled up from his right wheels on the shoulder. Instead of going for the brake he gave it more gas. The car leaped ahead, metal squealing as it freed itself. The sedan tried again but Johnny angled out into the center of the road. On a long curve he really gave it the gas and watched the sedan drop behind.

Coming out of the curve he saw a straight stretch ahead and no immediate traffic. Braking quickly, he slewed the car across the road. “Lock the doors behind me an’ don’t open ‘em no matter what happens!” he said urgently. He jumped out and slammed the door.

The sedan had already squealed to a halt and started to turn as Johnny ran up the road toward it. With a screech of burning rubber it roared away before he could reach it.

He walked back slowly to his own car and a white-faced Jessamyn. He shook his head at the raw scrapes along the entire left side. “Boy, the man who rented me this is sure goin’ to have a few unkind words for me.” He climbed back in under the wheel and tried to meet her eyes. “Still feel the same way about your friends?”

She tried desperately to screw herself together under his regard. “You probably staged the whole thing yourself!”

“You don’t really think that, Jess. The boys were just givin’ you a warnin’.”

“Warning!” She shuddered. “We might have been killed!”

“No.” He shook his head. “It was just a warnin’. Look at the spot they picked. Perfectly flat. I probably could’ve run out through the field except you never know what you’ll sink a wheel in. A few miles back there was a two an’ a half foot ditch. If they’d meant business that’s where they’d have tried it. An’ if they’d meant business they wouldn’t have taken off when I stopped.”

“Take me home,” she said in a small voice. “I—take me home.”

The balance of the trip was completed in silence.

• • •

Jingle Peterson stepped out of the living-room doorway as Johnny passed through the lower hallway on his way to the stairs. “Val says I’ve got to apologize to you,” she said. She sounded subdued.

“Forget it,” Johnny said breezily. “Do me a favor, though.” He waited for her inquiring look. “Come around in a couple of years.”

Her smile was wan. “I must have seemed like a perfect fool.” Dark blood rushed into the round features.

“You were just rushin’ your fences a little.”

Her face screwed up until he was afraid she was going to cry. “I th-thought you’d despise m-me.”

“For what, for God’s sake? We both knew you were just kiddin’ around. It was kind of bad taste, though. That’s why your mother got hot.” He held out his hand. “No hard feelin’s?”

Her small one gripped his hard. “Oh, no.” She drew a long breath. “I’m so ashamed. And I was so afraid you’d come in and laugh and crack wise about Val spanking me.”

“Look—it never happened, see?”

“Oh, yes it did!” she said with more of her usual pertness. “Well, thanks.” She retreated inside.

At the top of the stairs Johnny found Valerie Peterson waiting for him. She came directly to the point. “If you haven’t found another place to stay yet, don’t bother.” She started down the stairs.

“Well, thanks,” Johnny said in unconscious imitation of Jingle.

“Thank yourself,” Valerie Peterson said over her shoulder.

Johnny stood staring down after her until she disappeared into the living room.

J
OHNNY RAISED
his eyes from the green baize tabletop at a touch on the shoulder. He turned his head to find Rudy at his right. The competent-looking gambler bent down until his lips nearly brushed Johnny’s ear. “Fella to see you outside,” he muttered.

“Yeah. Sure. In a minute,” Johnny said absently, his eyes on the flow of the cards from the dealer’s hands. He had been in high-level, concentrated combat for six hours. He picked up his hand, looked at an ill-assorted trey, six, eight, ten, and jack, and pitched them into the discards when the pot was opened in front of him.

He leaned back in his chair, rubbing the base of his neck. Successful poker is a game of very little chance in which stamina, patience, intuition, and the ability to concentrate to the exclusion of everything except the card table kept a man consistently on the right side of the ledger. Johnny had learned at an early age that in no other card game does luck play as small a part.

He looked down at a satisfying accumulation of chips in front of him. He had weathered an early dry spell by conservative tactics until the cards began to run his way. He was well aware that poor cards carry nowhere near the penalty in such a game as good cards that are not good enough. It had been a night of small hands, few raises, and air-tight, grinding poker in which he had managed to win a bit more than his share of the skimpy pots. It was a night in which running second two or three times on big pots could wipe out the profits of hours of concentrated effort. It was not a bad time to be called out of the game, he decided.

Johnny pushed back his chair. “Cash me in for now,” he said to the banker, and rose and stretched his cramped muscles. He remembered times when he had sat in a game from Friday to Monday and wound up with his feet in a pail of water to keep awake, but six or eight hours now left him tightened up physically and mentally. He counted his stacked chips, checked the banker’s count on the stack of crisp green bills and stuffed the folded wad in his pocket.

Rudy held him for a moment at the door. “I like the way you float with the current when you haven’t got ‘em,” he said. “Also the way you make ‘em pay to see ‘em when you do. I thought maybe a little stronger bankroll would let you dig in the spurs a little deeper. How about it?”

Johnny raised an eyebrow. “You’d bankroll me?”

“I like to keep a man of my own in the game,” Rudy explained. “I can’t be everywhere at once in here. You’d keep the game moving, watch out for sharpies, hold down the arguments, that kind of thing. I’ll pay you a flat two fifty a week or if you like your own game you can have twenty-five per cent of what you win. I stand the losses regardless.”

Johnny shook his head. “It’s a good offer, Rudy, but I like to pay my own.”

“Okay, okay,” Rudy shrugged, opening the door. “It’s open if you change your mind. Your man’s up the block around the corner. To the right.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Johnny had nearly forgotten why he had left the game. He stepped out on the street, shivering in the chill wind that had risen during his hours inside. He walked up the block, his trousers wind-whipped against his legs. He wondered what had brought Dick Lowell out on such a night. He turned the corner and lowered his head against the full force of the wind. Damn, winter surely came early in this country.

“Over here, Killain.”

Johnny came to a dead stop in the middle of the sidewalk. He looked at the parked car from which the voice had come and then hastily checked the store doorways behind him. It had not been Dick Lowell’s voice.

A car door slammed on the street side and a bulky figure emerged from behind it. “This is on the level, Killain,” Chief Riley said. “I know you won’t get in the car. Where can we talk?”

Johnny looked up and down the deserted street. He noticed that the chief was out of uniform. “What’s the matter with right here?” he asked warily.

“Fine with me,” Riley agreed. “Let’s just step into this doorway out of the damn wind.”

“Let’s just let me set up the housekeeping arrangements,” Johnny countered. In the doorway they stood so that Jack Riley’s broad back shielded Johnny from anyone passing by. “Did you just stop in yourself at the game and ask for me?”

“Yes.”

“No flies on that Rudy,” Johnny said. He explained about the job offer. “Lowell walks in an’ asks for me, you walk in an’ ask for me, so Rudy figures right away to hire himself someone close to the crown to add a little depth to his defenses.”

“What did Dick Lowell come to see you about?” Chief Riley demanded at once.

Johnny looked at him. “You came over here to ask me what Lowell wanted to see me about?”

“All right,” the chief said resignedly. His heavy features looked serious. “I’ve got a little proposition, Killain. I don’t have to like you to work with you. I’ve got a job for you.”

“Runnin’ a poker game?”

Riley ignored the interruption. “I don’t know what you’re doing here but I take back what I said earlier about your umbrella being no good. You’ve got Lowell leaning on me from one direction and Daddario from another, although I’ll be damned if I can see why. I’ll cut it short. I’ll pay you a thousand dollars to find someone for me.”

“In Madagascar?”

“Right in this town. I think.”

“The chief of police offers me a thousand bucks to find someone in his own home town,” Johnny murmured. “Forgive me if I sound a little confused. Who is it?” He anticipated the answer and was already prepared to disbelieve it.

“Micheline Thompson.” Johnny drew a breath but the chief held up a placating palm. “Wait a minute before you start in, Killain. It’s simpler than you think. I want to know where she is, but I can’t look for her and I can’t send anyone to look for her because I can’t trust anyone.”

“You’re just overflowin’ with trust in me, though.”

“If you run to Daddario with this I’ll deny it. He knows we don’t like each other, on top of which he don’t like you.” Riley gestured impatiently. “I need action. In my book you’re a sonofabitch on wheels, but you get action.”

“Thanks for the double-edged testimonial. What are you tryin’ to do, submarine Daddario?”

“I’m taking care of Riley,” the chief said stolidly.

“How do I get paid if I take it on?” Johnny asked.

“C.O.D. with the accent on the O.D.”

“Put it up with Rudy,” Johnny told him. “To be released by a phone call from you.”

“That sounds all right,” Riley decided. “It will be there by nine in the morning.” He glanced around at the windswept street. “Remember, if you find her, tell me. No one else. And don’t come to headquarters. Call me. I’ll meet you somewhere.” He strode out to his car.

Johnny watched him drive off. Well, Killain? Daddario evidently tells his business to no one. It was a little incredible Riley wouldn’t know where Micheline Thompson was, but if it
was
true it wasn’t incredible that he couldn’t make a move to find her himself without Daddario finding out. If Rudy said the thousand was there in the morning it would be a pretty good indication that Riley was leveling.

He stepped out of the doorway and bucked the wind again on the way to Mrs. Peterson’s. Very shortly he was going to have to ask himself a question he’d been avoiding. He’d done a lot of talking about Micheline Thompson but he’d made no real effort to find her. And he knew why.

He was afraid of what he would find.

Jim Daddario might have a violent temper and have everyone in Jefferson tiptoeing around him, but Johnny didn’t see how Daddario could control an unacquiescent Micheline for this length of time. The girl he’d known years ago would have reduced Jim Daddario to one-inch strips and knitted a shawl with the pieces. Since she showed no sign of doing it, she almost had to be a part of the whole scheme. The whole dirty scheme.

Face to face with the idea, Johnny found he didn’t like it. If what he suspected were true, Micheline Thompson had almost as much to do with the violent death of her husband as though she’d used the knife on him herself. How could the girl he’d known wind up doublecrossing her own husband? But she’d said it herself: people change.

Let it go for tonight, he decided, grimacing in the stinging wind. Start fresh in the morning. It might look better.

He reached Mrs. Peterson’s, went upstairs quietly in the darkened house and went to bed and to sleep.

• • •

It looked no better in the morning. Dressing, he recalled the timing of the calls that got him out of the Duarte and the police in. It had been no accident. He had been suspicious then. If she weren’t a part of the whole thing only a gun in her back should have been able to persuade Micheline to make the call to Johnny.

He looked at his watch. Ten after eight. First breakfast and then he’d decide what to do. He slipped into Mickey Tallant’s jacket and clattered down the stairs. Jingle stepped out of the living-room doorway and looked at him appealingly. “Won’t you have breakfast with us?” she asked. “I’ll make you some eggs.” She had on an oversized apron and carried a spatula in her hand.

Johnny had his mouth open to refuse when he saw Mrs. Peterson nodding yes over the girl’s shoulder. He hesitated. He supposed this was part of the rehabilitation project, but he was in no mood to be held up by it. Every refusal that came to his mind sounded so ungracious that he finally nodded reluctantly. “Just bounce ‘em once or twice off the stove, Jingle. I’m in a little bit of a rush.”

“How many?” she demanded eagerly. “Sunnyside up?”

“I’m ashamed to tell you how many.”

“Four,” Mrs. Peterson ruled, and the girl darted into the kitchen. Johnny removed the leather jacket. He caught Valerie Peterson’s eye as they moved together into the kitchen.

“You said somethin’ one time about the president of the city council runnin’ after the ex-police chief’s wife,” he said to her in a low tone with one eye on Jingle out of earshot at the stove. “Is it a fact or just some of the citizenry runnin’ off at the mouth?”

“It’s been freely spoken of,” Valerie Peterson said slowly, “but do you ever know?” She was silent as Jingle, in triumph, set down a mug of steaming black coffee and a plate of slightly scorched toast before Johnny.

“Eggs coming up,” the girl said brightly, and returned to the stove.

“Up to a year ago I never would have believed it,” Mrs. Peterson continued. “I’m not sure that I do now. The little I saw of her she seemed pleasant enough, if not a ready mixer. And her little girl was darling.”

Johnny stared. “Little girl?”

“Surely.” Mrs. Peterson looked her surprise. “You didn’t know? She has a daughter in Jingle’s school, but a few grades back.”

Jingle placed a platter of eggs before Johnny. “Who has a daughter in my school, Val?”

“Mrs. Thompson, dear.”

“Oh, Genevieve Thompson.” Jingle looked at Johnny’s mug. “More coffee, Johnny?” She was already on her way to the stove and returned with the percolator. “Genevieve must be sick, Val,” she said as she poured. “She hasn’t been in school all week.”

Johnny strangled on a mouthful of toast and blew out a spray of crumbs. “Sorry,” he mumbled when he could speak. He grabbed up a fork and shoveled eggs and toast down indiscriminately. He burned his mouth on the coffee, winced, and pushed back his chair. “Thanks a million, Jingle. I’m good for a reference anytime. See you later.”

Valerie Peterson followed him out into the hall as he struggled back into the leather jacket. “What is it?” she asked quietly. “What upset you?”

“I been tryin’ to think of a reason Micheline would hold still for Daddario’s game,” Johnny said grimly. “If Daddario had his thumb on her kid wouldn’t that be a damn fine reason?”

“Oh, he wouldn’t,” she said immediately. She shook her head as Johnny’s eyes bored into hers. “I can’t say it with conviction, though. He might.”

“He did,” Johnny said flatly. “Nothin’ else makes sense. Listen, don’t breathe a word of this to anyone. Can I bring the kid back here? No, wait, that might not be such a good idea.” He snapped his fingers impatiently. “I’ll think of something.”

“You can’t do anything alone!” she protested as he started for the door. “You’d never reach Daddario. Kratz—”

“Kratz’ll have to take his chances. Here.” He stopped to take out his wallet and removed a slip of paper with Toby Lowell’s Washington phone number on it. “Call this guy an’ tell him Killain said to haul his ass up here while there’s still somethin’ left of this town. Stay on the line till you get him.”

He was out the door while she was still studying the number. On the street he headed for the real-estate office. He was so sure of this thing it was sticking in his throat like the dry toast. Why in the hell hadn’t he seen it before? There
had
to be a reason Daddario could bull Micheline around.

At the real-estate office Johnny found the shades still drawn but the door open. “Where’s Daddario?” he demanded of the single woman occupant. The glass door panel had been replaced.

“Mr. Daddario seldom arrives before nine-thirty,” she said stiffly. From her expression, she all too obviously remembered him as the wild man of two days before.

Johnny wasted no further time on her. He looked up Jim Daddario’s address in the phone-booth directory. Then he walked into the street and waved his arms in circles. A block away, a cab in rank in front of a hotel responded to his semaphoring and rolled toward him. “212 Golden Hill Lane,” Johnny grunted, sliding into the back seat. He sat hunkered forward, his big hands knitting and unknitting. If his hunch was right, when he got his hands on Daddario—

The neighborhood of Golden Hill Lane upheld the name, he decided. On high ground, new apartment buildings flanked a park whose entrance was barred by a chain and a metal sign: PRIVATE—KEEP OUT. Johnny was reminded of Jessie Burger’s apartment. Reminded because the two neighborhoods were differentiated by more than twenty years in age and a million or two in money. It was the atmosphere, and Jim Daddario had decided his long-time girl friend couldn’t “grow” into his new style of living. The decision told nearly all he needed to know about the city council president.

The cab turned into an impressively deep horseshoe driveway in front of the largest apartment and stopped at a canopied entrance. Johnny got out and paid the driver, looking around at the evidences of comfortable living. If no bank presidents lived here it was probably because they couldn’t satisfy the rental agent as to their financial standing.