“Tell me about the town,” Dan said.
“Well—” the girl started uncertainly. “I’m not sure how much Mr. Robinson told you. If I knew that—”
“Nothing about the town, except it’s as crooked as a Scotch walking stick. Just that his son was in the death house on a fake murder rap and I’m supposed to get him out. Also that you’re the kid’s fiancée, so presumably are trustworthy, and can give me the whole story.”
“I see.” She paused, frowning over her thoughts, then asked, “What was that you said to those detectives about being a special investigator for the governor? Mr. Robinson’s wire said you were a private detective.”
“The old man had an afterthought subsequent to wiring you. Seems another private dick he sent down here was arrested for vagrancy, beat up and kicked out of town two hours after he arrived. The governor is a personal pal of old man Robinson, so he armed me with enough authority to hit back in case any local cops start swinging. Makes it tough for the locals to work a vagrancy charge. Get on with your story.”
“It’s a rather long story,” she said doubtfully, looking at the back of the taxi driver’s head and then giving Dan a warning glance.
“Even the walls have ears, eh?” he said amusedly. “Look, Adele, there’s nothing subtle about me. All I know how to do is wade in slugging with both hands. I’ve got no secrets from anybody, so talk up.”
She glanced again at the driver, then said reluctantly, “The town is about fifty thousand population and it’s ruled completely by Big Jim Calhoun. He owns a good part of it. Literally, I mean. Property deeds and mortgages. Not any of the better part, or much of the main business district, but most of the property over east of the tracks is his. Saloons, amusement places, gambling houses. That sort of thing. He also owns the mayor, the city council, the police commissioner, the sheriff — this is the county seat, you know — the district attorney, the coroner and both city judges.”
“How about newspapers?”
“There are two. The Star and the Post. Big Jim owns controlling interest in both, and since the Star owns our only local radio station, he controls that, too.”
“In short, he’s got the town sewed up tight,” Dan said. “How does he use all this power?”
“To suck the lifeblood out of Lake City,” Adele said savagely. “To protect his crooked gambling houses, to allow everything to run wide open. To peddle dope to school children, to extort money from merchants. And to kill anyone who gets in his way.”
“H’m-m—” Dan remarked. “This is all general knowledge?”
“Everybody in Lake City knows the town is rotten to the core and that Big Jim Calhoun makes it that way.”
Dan said thoughtfully, “You mentioned the population is fifty thousand. That’s a lot of people to take a kicking around. Just figuring the adult males, you’d have the equivalent of at least one full infantry division, if somebody organized them. How come no honest citizen has tried?”
“Gene Robinson tried,” the girl said dully. “And so did George Saunders, the man he was convicted of murdering. Others have tried and have ended up dead, or in the penitentiary on framed evidence. The civic leaders in the community are paralyzed with fear.”
The taxi pulled up before the marquee of a large white-stone hotel. Without getting out, the driver reached over the seat to unlatch the door. Helping the girl to the sidewalk, Dan opened the front door, swung his suitcase out and slammed the door again. Then the driver slipped- the car into low.
“Aren’t you going to wait for your fare?” Dan asked huskily.
Throwing him a startled glance, the cabbie wet his lips and mumbled, “One-fifty.”
Dan gave him the exact change. “Your tip is the fifty bucks you’ll get for phoning Big Jim our conversation.”
“Huh?” the driver said.
“Tell him your passenger was Dan Fancy and he may make it seventy-five.”
He picked up his suitcase and escorted Adele Hudson into the hotel.
“Why do you keep doing things like that?” she asked.
“Like what?”
“Sending Big Jim messages. Letting him know every move you make.”
Dan stopped and looked down at the girl. “Look,” he said gently. “Apparently both Mr. Robinson and you expected me to come down here and quietly nose around until I uncovered evidence that Gene Robinson is innocent. But in a setup like this there won’t be any evidence. And we’ve got just seventeen days to get the kid out of death row. Our only possible chance is to stir up Big Jim to the point where he sticks his neck out, and then try to step on it. I intend to start a war that will tear this town apart. Want to back out, or come along for the ride?”
The girl looked up at him with slightly frightened eyes. “I’ll come along,” she said in a small voice. “But you underestimate Big Jim. You don’t know him.”
“What makes you think I don’t?”
“Do you?” she asked in surprise.
“He was raised in Pittsburgh. As kids, we beat each other up and as teen-agers we worked in the same steel mill. Being a year and a half older than me, he could always lick me. I’m anxious to see if I’ve caught up to him yet.”
After registering, Dan said to the girl, “I’m going to catch a shower before I do anything else. Want to wait in the cocktail lounge or come up and wait?”
“I’ll come up,” she decided.
As they entered the elevator, the little sad-faced man carried his grip through the front door. From the desk he watched the elevator indicator until it stopped at five. Then he turned his attention to the clerk, noted he was copying data from a registration card into a ledger, and read the room number of the card upside down. It was 512.
“I’d like a room with bath facing the lake on the fifth floor,” he said. “I had five hundred and fourteen once before.”
The clerk consulted a chart. “Five-fourteen is occupied, and so are the two rooms either side of it.”
“How about five-ten?”
Superciliously, the clerk examined the little man’s shabby seersucker suit. “That’s vacant, sir, but it’s a suite.”
“I’ll take it,” the little man said.
As the bellhop, a slim, towheaded boy with a pug nose and a cocky grin, laid the big suitcase on its stand, Dan asked, “What’s your name?”
“Billie.”
Dan slipped him a five dollar bill. “When I ask for room service, I want you, Billie. Take care of me right and you may get an extra dime when I leave. You can start by getting a shaker of Tom Collinses up here in ten minutes.”
“Yes sir, Mr. Fancy.” The boy left the room with alacrity.
Tossing his coat on the bed, Dan followed it with his tie, shoulder holster, shirt and undershirt. Adele, seated on a chair near the window, watched him with startled, uneasy eyes. Happening to catch her expression, the big man grinned in amusement, then ignored her completely as he opened his bag and drew out some fresh clothing.
Stripped to the waist, Dan Fancy was a throwback to the Neanderthal man. From great shoulders like wedges of concrete to his fleshless waist, iron-hard muscle girded his frame. A light matting of black hair covered his chest and arms like a sweater, and his deceptively deliberate movements, which could not quite conceal a catlike grace, added to the impression that he was a primeval being who would be more at home in a cave than a modem hotel room.
From nowhere the absurd vision of Dan Fancy dragging her into a cave by the hair popped into Adele’s mind. Angrily she shook it out.