“Of course,” said Les Manners.
“No, I don’t know that,” I said. “I know I’ve co-operated with you people in the past, and you’ve co-operated with me—”
“Well, that’s what I mean,” said Reed.
“But that doesn’t mean,” I said, drowning him out, “that I’m on the Jordan Reed string, like the rest of this crowd.”
“We’re not on any string,” said Myron Stoneman angrily.
“Of course not,” said Les Manners indignantly.
“That isn’t the question,” said Reed smoothly, and I knew he damn well didn’t want it to be the question.
“The question,” I said, dragging them back to what I’d been talking about, “is whether or not I can feel safe in this town, as long as you people are running it. If I can—”
“Now, Tim,” Reed started, placatingly, smiling at me some more, while the others all looked to him for help.
I wouldn’t be interrupted. “If I can,” I said again, louder, “then you people can feel safe from me. If I can’t, then neither can you.”
“That sounds something like a threat, Tim,” said Les Manners, in his most businesslike manner.
“It is a threat,” I told him. “You people know I talked to Paul Masetti of the CCG, just a couple hours ago. He asked me to work with him, to help him get the goods on all of you.”
“You wouldn’t do that, Tim,” said Reed.
“Not if I felt safe,” I told him. I looked at each of them in turn. “You people,” I told them, “are safe from me only as long as I’m safe from you. But if it comes to a showdown, there isn’t a one of you I wouldn’t crucify.”
“We’ve all been kind of upset, Tim,” said Claude Brice, looking intelligent as hell.
“We know where we stand now,” George Watkins added firmly, in the same tone he undoubtedly used when talking to the director of one of his Broadway flops just before opening night. “We can handle this CCG business,” he said positively, “so there’s no need for anybody to fly off the handle.”
“If you’re right,” Myron Stoneman told him.
George bristled. “I’m right,” he snapped.
I didn’t know what they were arguing about, and I didn’t care. “There’ve been two tries,” I said, breaking into their squabble. “There better not be a third.”
“There won’t be a third,” Reed told me soothingly.
“Of course not,” piped up Dan Wanamaker, smiling at me like an ad in the Saturday Evening Post.
“I want to be sure of that,” I insisted, ignoring Dan, talking to Reed.
Harcum piped up. “Let me get things straight now, Tim,” he said, giving a passable imitation of competence. “Do you want me to look for whoever it was took the shot at you and hired Tarker, or do you just want the guy to stop gunning for you and if he does everything’s forgiven and forgotten?”
“I want him to stop,” I said.
He looked puzzled. “Then what about me?”
“You do whatever you want,” I told him. “The guy you’re looking for is one of the seven people at this table. Do you want to take a chance on booking one of these pals of yours? He’d want to make damn sure he dragged you down with him, wouldn’t he? And he could do it, too, couldn’t he?”
“This makes it damn tough, Tim,” he said.
“Do you want him caught?” Les Manners asked me.
“I want him to stop,” I said. “If he does, then the whole thing is over and forgotten, and we all go on the way we’ve done in the past. If he tries again, I turn the CCG on the whole lot of you.”
“What you’re saying, in effect,” said Myron Stoneman softly, “is that this person shouldn’t miss the next time. He should make sure he kills you.”
“He’ll miss,” I told him. “I’ve seen him in action twice now. He’s too clumsy. He’ll miss again.”
“He may improve with practice,” Stoneman said.
Jordan Reed suddenly wasn’t smiling. “There won’t be any more practice,” he snapped. “And that’s that.” He looked at me, serious now. “I don’t know who the idiot was, Tim,” he said. “But he’s finished, I guarantee it.”
Ten
Ordinarily, Jordan Reed’s guarantee is rock-solid in Winston, something you can rely on absolutely. But there was nothing ordinary about the current situation, so I did my best to shore up Reed’s guarantee with some guarantees of my own.
The first thing to take care of was my ace in the hole, my files. Leaving City Hall, I went back across the park without being shot at, smiled at Gar Wycza for the thousandth time that day, and walked on down DeWitt Street to the Western National Bank Building, and beyond it to the bank parking lot. I traded hellos with Jakey, the uniform-capped old man who presides over the parking lot, and looked around to see if Ron Lascow had come back with my Ford.
He had. It was over in the comer, in its usual place, and Ron Lascow himself was emerging from the back seat, coming out rear first. I went on over, and he turned as I reached the car. “Just in time,” he said. He brushed his hands together in an exaggerated gesture, and said, “I’ve done all your work for you.”
I looked in the window, and saw the cardboard cartons sitting on the back seat. “Thanks, Ron,” I said. “I appreciate that.”
“What the heck you got in those things, anyway?” he asked me. “They weigh a ton.”
“Just some old out-of-date files I’m getting rid of,” I told him.
“One of the nice things about our office building,” he said, “is the janitor service.”
“I thought I ought to burn this stuff myself,” I explained. “It’s all old stuff, pretty useless to me, but there’s no sense taking any chances with it.”
He took off his horn-rims and removed perspiration from the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger. “I kept all the good stuff,” he told me. “I knew you wouldn’t mind. All about divorces and juicy stuff like that.”
“Paperbacks are hotter,” I suggested. I stepped around him and opened the driver’s door of the car. Sitting in it, my feet hanging out the side, I looked up at him. “In case I stop being lucky,” I said, “I’d like you to do me a favor.”
He frowned. “What do you mean, stop being lucky?”
“If I’m killed,” I said. I was doing my damnedest to think of some way to say it that wouldn’t sound like dialogue from a Grade B movie.
“You mean that business last night?”
“Some day I’ll tell you the whole story,” I said. “In the meantime, will you do me the favor?”
Puzzled and curious, he nodded and said, “Name it.”
I motioned at the cartons in the back seat. “I’ll let you know where I stash this stuff,” I told him. “Or, if I don’t get the chance, ask old Joey Casale. You know him?”
“The grocer out your way,” he said.
I nodded. “In case I’m, well, killed, I’d like you to give those cartons to Masetti.”
He looked doubtful. “Well—”
“There’s nothing in there on you,” I assured him. “And Masetti looked to me like the kind of guy who wouldn’t spread it around where he got the stuff, if you asked him not to.”
“All right,” he said. “But I don’t expect it to happen.”
“Hell, neither do I. If I did, I’d be in Florida by now.”
“Is that why you wanted me to bring the cartons down?” he asked me. “So nobody would see you carrying the stuff out of the building yourself?”
“Partly,” I said. “But mainly, I was beginning to worry about that waistline of yours. You haven’t been getting enough exercise lately.”
“If you stir things up around here, Tim,” he said, “I’ll get all the exercise I need.”
“Every cloud has a silver lining,” I told him, and slid around to face the steering wheel. “Don’t take any wooden defendants,” I told him.