I had to think very fast to decipher the meaning behind his crudities of expression. “I see,” I said.
“You don’t see yet. We thought this Wally Dermody was clean as a whistle — until a few weeks ago. We found that he had been what the books call a bit indiscreet. There were some letters. To his girl. We are very disappointed in Wally Dermody because it looked as though he would make us a fine mayor. The girl’s name is Prissy Thorpe, and she is highly annoyed because it seems Wally cut her as soon as we tapped him for the Mayor’s office. The letters she has are pretty emotional, from what Wally tells me. In few words, they are documents which do us no good printed in the paper. In fact, they amount to a kiss of death for our candidate.”
“I see,” I said.
“Not yet you don’t see, Anderson. This Prissy is a smart dish. She’s stashed the letters in the Harbor National Bank in a safety deposit box. She’s sitting in an apartment on West Osceola with her hands crossed, waiting to see who comes through with the high bid for those letters, my organization or Russ Pardo’s boys.”
The last name — Russ Pardo — rang a bell. On one trip while in the company of our Mr. Darben I had heard Mr. Pardo mentioned as being a hoodlum type and so-called boss of Pacific City. Obviously Mr. Artigan intended to contest his position through a clever political manipulation.
“Have you made a bid?” I asked weakly.
“No point in that. Pardo is in. He’s got his hands on more cash than we can round up. But I have been able to stall her from making a deal with Pardo. If we can get the letters, we’ll burn them, and our boy is in and, little by little, Pardo and his crowd will be eased out. If he gets them, you can bet they’ll be spread all over Pacific City and Wally Dermody will be one dead political duck. It’s too late to try to build up another candidate. We’ve got to sink or swim with Dermody, damn his peanut-sized brain.”
“I see,” I said.
“I wish, Anderson, you’d stop saying that. Now, here’s the program. We’ve been back-checking on Prissy Thorpe. Thorpe isn’t her right name. It was originally Kelly. We tried to get an angle on her folks and a big plum drops right in our lap. She’s got a kid sister still going by the name of Kelly right here in town. She’s a carhop at a place called the Turk Drive-in. four miles out Route 80. The first little job for you, Anderson, is to snatch the kid sister and bring her here. Because it’s a federal rap, we had to get out-of-town talent.”
I found myself almost incapable of words. “I’m to abduct a young woman?”
“None of that stuff,” Fish said sharply. “You just grab her and bring her here.”
Artigan gave Fish a look of deep contempt. “Never mind him. I might as well give you the whole plan. We’ve got to figure on what to do if this Prissy Thorpe-Kelly doesn’t care what happens to her kid sister. This you’ll love. If Prissy won’t listen, then you’re going to shoot a hole in Wally’s head. We’ve got to a guy on Homicide. All we have to do is tip him and he’ll spout to the press that it is obviously the work of Russ Pardo. With Wally dead, those letters won’t do Pardo any good. You can’t smear a dead guy. We’ll be all ready to run in another pigeon — named Francis A. Towner, who will immediately start screaming that Wally was a martyr to good government and the way the people can show their feeling about such gunman tactics is to elect him by a landslide vote. But we’d rather have it work out the first way, because I’m not too sure of this Francis A. Towner. He’s a lawyer and he’s a little smarter than Wally. He may be tough to handle once he gets in office and we’ve got nothing special on him to use against him. The stinker may get in and try to make a deal with Pardo.”
“When shall I... ah... snatch the damsel?” I asked, attempting to speak in the vernacular.
“That better be tonight,” Artigan said, “Fish’ll get a road map and spot the place on it for you. Georgie’ll drive.”
“I prefer to work alone,” I said.
He stabbed me in the chest with his finger, leaning across the table. “You’ll work like I say. You’re getting enough for it, remember.”
I smiled at him. “Well, I suppose I’m at liberty for the rest of the day, Mr. Artigan?”
“That’s right. You can use the pool and play records. Any bets you want to get down, see George. The liquor isn’t locked up, but don’t get stinko. Stay away from the gate and away from the phone.”
“A movie relaxes me,” I said.
“Oh, Nicky told you, did he? Brenda can run the projector. I got a nice file of stuff. I’ll tell her you want some movies.”
Brenda came out and sat meekly at a table some distance away. Soong brought her some coffee. Artigan stood up. “I got to go in to the office. Fish, George, Artie and Brenda’ll be around all day.”
Two men I hadn’t seen before appeared in the doorway. They looked at me coldly. Artigan left with them and I heard the car start up on the other side of the house.
It did not take me long to find that I was a virtual prisoner in the house. Once I almost made it to the phone before George appeared like magic, leaning against a door frame, cleaning his fingernails. I found the record library but it did not contain any DeBussy, a type of music I find exceptionally restful.
Fish brought a map, properly marked, and spread it on a table for me. He pointed with a pencil. “Here we are. And there is where she works. She’s on tonight. I checked. You’re the boss, Jumpy.”
To allay his suspicions I marked out a route, directly to the Turk Drive-in, then extending beyond it and zig-zagging back through narrow streets.
Fish nodded. “That’s good. It’ll look like we took her the other way. Now how about plates on the car? It’s rigged so they can be switched from the inside. There’s a lever on the dash.”
“Have we Florida plates in stock?”
“Sure thing. Yeah, that should be okay. Then we switch back to the regular ones. Now for the girl, you think chloroform or ropes and a gag or what?”
I swallowed a faint feeling of nausea. “We won’t need any of that, Fish. I’ll handle that matter personally.”
He bobbed his head. “You know, Jumpy, it sure is a treat to me to see how cool you boys operate.”
“If the planning is adequate,” I told him, thinking of the sales manual I had written back in what had begun to feel some other existence, “nothing can go awry.”
“Can go what?”
“Awry. Askew.”
“Sure, sure.” He bobbed his head.
I am ashamed to admit that such adulation made me feel larger than life size. It is pleasant, I found, to be considered to be a desperado, a devil of a fellow.
I yawned. “I believe I’ll take a nap to digest my lunch, Mr. Fish.”
He showed me to a bedroom and closed the door gently. I went at once to the windows. I could see over the high wall and out into the street. Some children played there. A car went by slowly. So near and yet so far. I sat disconsolately on the bed. I lay down and tried to devise a plan. I shut my eyes to facilitate the thought processes. When I opened them again it was dark outside and somebody was knocking on the door.
Soong beamed at me and said, “Chow, boss.”
After dashing cold water on my face I went down. The evening meal was spread buffet style on the big table in the dining room. Some sort of a party seemed to be in progress. There were several girls and many trays of cocktails. A lot of them turned and looked at me as I came down the stairway. Brenda wore a pale blue frock and she seemed to be quite over her sullen attitude of the morning. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes danced. The other girls seemed to be of rather the same type. All too vivid, with their red, red lips and their shining eyes and their bold dresses.
Mr. Artigan came immediately to me. “Little party,” he said in a low voice. “It’ll make a good cover in case of trouble. Know what I mean?”