Okey, how many cops do you find living on a street even as good as this, with nice lawns and flowers? Id know four or five, all vice squad boys. They get all the gravy. Cops like me live in itty-bitty frame houses on the wrong side of town. Want to see where I live?
What would it prove?
Listen, pally, the big man said seriously. You got me on a string, but it could break. Cops dont go crooked for money. Not always, not even often. They get caught in the system. They get you where they have you do what is told them or else. And the guy that sits back there in the nice big corner office, with the nice suit and the nice liquor breath he thinks chewing on them seeds makes smell like violets, only it dont he aint giving the orders either. You get me?
What kind of a man is the mayor?
What kind of guy is a mayor anywhere? A politician. You think he gives the orders? Nuts. You know whats the matter with this country, baby?
Too much frozen capital, I heard.
A guy cant stay honest if he wants to, Hemingway said. Thats whats the matter with this country. He gets chiseled out of his pants if he does. You gotta play the game dirty or you dont eat. A lot of bastards think all we need is ninety thousand FBI men in clean collars and brief cases. Nuts. The percentage would get them just the way it does the rest of us. You know what I think? I think we gotta make this little world all over again. Now take Moral Rearmament. There youve got something. M.R.A. There youve got something, baby.
If Bay City is a sample of how it works, Ill take aspirin, I said.
You could get too smart, Hemingway said softly. You might not think it, but it could be. You could get so smart you couldnt think about anything but bein smart. Me, Im just a dumb cop. I take orders. I got a wife and two kids and I do what the big shots say. Blane could tell you things. Me, Im ignorant.
Sure Blane has appendicitis? Sure he didnt just shoot himself in the stomach for meanness?
Dont be that way, Hemingway complained and slapped his hands up and down on the wheel. Try and think nice about people.
About Blane?
Hes human just like the rest of us, Hemingway said. Hes a sinner but hes human.
Whats Sonderborgs racket?
Okey, I was just telling you. Maybe Im wrong. I had you figured for a guy that could be sold a nice idea.
You dont know what his racket is, I said.
Hemingway took his handkerchief out and wiped his with it. Buddy, I hate to admit it, he said. But you ought to know damn well that if I knew or Blane knew Sonderborg had a racket, either we wouldnt of dumped you in there or you wouldnt ever have come out, not walking. Im talking about a real bad racket, naturally. Not fluff stuff like telling old womens fortunes out of a crystal ball.
I dont think I was meant to come out walking, I said. Theres a drug called scopolamine, truth serum, that sometimes makes people talk without their knowing it. Its not sure fire, any more than hypnotism is. But it sometimes works. I think I was being milked in there to find out what I knew. But there are only three ways Sonderborg could have known that there was anything for me to know that might hurt him. Amthor might have told him, or Moose Malloy might have mentioned to him that I went to see Jessie Florian, or he might have thought putting me in there was a police gag.
Hemingway stared at me sadly. I cant even see your dust, he said. Who the hell is Moose Malloy?
A big hunk that killed a man over on Central Avenue a few days ago. Hes on your teletype, if you ever read it. And you probably have a reader of him by now.
So what?
So Sonderborg was hiding him. I saw him there, on a bed reading newspapers, the night I snuck out.
Howd you get out? Wasnt you locked in?
I crocked the orderly with a bed spring. I was lucky.
This big guy see you?
No.
Hemingway kicked the car away from the curb and a solid grin settled on his face. Lets go collect, he said. It figures. It figures swell. Sonderborg was hiding hot boys. If they had dough, that is. His set-up was perfect for it. Good money, too.
He kicked the car into motion and whirled around a corner.
Hell, I thought he sold reefers, he said disgustedly. With the right protection behind him. But hell, thats a small time racket. A peanut grift.
Ever hear of the numbers racket? Thats a small time racket too if youre just looking at one piece of it.
Hemingway turned another corner sharply and shook his heavy head. Right. And pin ball games and bingo houses and horse parlors. But add them all up and give one guy control and it makes sense.
What guy?
He went wooden on me again. His mouth shut hard and I could see his teeth were biting at each other inside it. We were on Descanso Street and going east. It was a quiet street even in late afternoon. As we got towards Twenty-third, it became in some vague manner less quiet. Two men were studying a palm tree as if figuring out how to move it. A car was parked near Dr. Sondeborgs place, but nothing showed in it. Halfway down the block a man was reading water meters.
The house was a cheerful spot by daylight. Tea rose begonias made a solid pale mass under the front windows and pansies a blur of color around the base of a white acacia in bloom. A scarlet climbing rose was just opening its buds on a fan-shaped trellis. There was a bed of winter sweet peas and a bronze-green humming bird prodding in them delicately. The house looked like the home of a well-to-do elderly couple who like to garden. The late afternoon sun on it had a hushed and menacing stillness.
Hemingway slid slowly past the house and a tight little smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. His nose sniffed. He turned the next corner, and looked in his rear view mirror and stepped up the speed of the car.
After three blocks he braked at the side of the street again and turned to give me a hard level stare.
L.A. law, he said. One of the guys by the palm tree is called Donnelly. I know him. They got the house covered. So you didnt tell your pal downtown, huh?
I said I didnt.
The Chiefll love this, Hemingway snarled. They come down here and raid a joint and dont even stop to say hello.
I said nothing.
They catch this Moose Malloy?
I shook my head. Not so far as I know.
How the hell far do you know, buddy? he asked very softly.
Not far enough. Is there any connection between Amthor and Sonderborg?
Not that I know of.
Who runs this town? Silence.
I heard a gambler named Laird Brunette put up thirty grand to elect the mayor. I heard he owns the Belvedere Club and both the gambling ships out on the water.
Might be, Hemingway said politely.
Where can Brunette be found?
Why ask me, baby?
Where would you make for if you lost your hideout in this town?
Mexico.
I laughed. Okey, will you do me a big favor?
Glad to.
Drive me back downtown.
He started the car away from the curb and tooled it neatly along a shadowed street towards the ocean. The car reached the City Hall and slid around into the police parking zone and I got out.
Come round and see me some time, Hemingway said. Ill likely be cleaning spittoons.
He put his big hand out. No hard feelings?
M.R.A. I said and shook the hand.
He grinned all over. He called me back when I started to walk away. He looked carefully in all directions and leaned his mouth close to my ear.
Them gambling ships are supposed to be out beyond city and state jurisdiction, he said. Panama registry. If it was me that was he stopped dead, and his bleak eyes began to worry.
I get it, I said. I had the same sort of idea. I dont know why I bothered so much to get you to have it with me. But it wouldnt work not for just one man.
He nodded, and then he smiled. M.R.A. he said.