“Depends on how long it’ll take, Mr. Masetti. I’ve got another appointment at one. If we could get together at twelve—”
“Twelve is fine. Lunch, or not?”
“Better make it the bar. Lunch is what I’m supposed to eat at one.”
He laughed politely and said, “I’ll see you then.”
I hung up, trying to figure out what that was all about, made a notation on the telephone slip, put it in my pocket with the other one, and locked myself out of my office. I crossed the hall and said to Jess, “Is Clarence Darrow free?”
“Sure,” she said. “He’s just counting his money.”
“Again?” I went on through to Ron’s office. He was sitting at his desk, frowning at the lawbook open in front of him.
Ron was the new-look bright young man, complete with brush-cut blond hair, black horn-rim glasses, square face, strong jawline and small straight nose. Not yet thirty, he’d been back in town from law school for five years. In that time, with a combination of smiling friendliness and legal shrewdness, he’d made a good solid place for himself in the local hierarchy. The bottom of his ambition was the state legislature. There wasn’t any top.
Now he looked up at me, grinning, and said, “People versus Smith. Baby rape.”
“You get all the interesting cases,” I told him. “Ever hear of the Citizens for Clean Government?”
“That’s the outfit from Albany, isn’t it?”
“I’m asking you.”
“If it’s the outfit I’m thinking of,” he said, “I have heard of them, yes.”
“What about them?”
He shrugged. “Reformers. Hell on wheels, gonna root out graft, corruption, kickbacks, bribery, nepotism and ass-pinching in high places.”
“Is that possible?”
“You know what I mean.” He closed the lawbook with an air of relief, and said, “They’ve been making a name for themselves around the state. They work out of Albany, but they’re mainly hitting the smaller towns. Like Monequois and New Hamburg. Remember reading about them in the papers?”
“I haven’t read a paper since Dewey was elected President,” I told him.
“Well,” he said, “they started with Monequois, if I remember right. That’s up near the Canadian border some place. They went in there, nosed around for a month or two, dragged a truckload of evidence to the grand jury, and kaboom!”
“Was ist das — kaboom?”
“Monequois,” he said, “now has a new mayor, a new police chief, two less lawyers and a saintly expression.”
“They sound effective,” I said.
“They are.” He studied me for a minute, chewing on his thumbnail, and then said, “I was supposed to keep quiet about this, but the hell with it.”
“The hell with what?”
“I take it Masetti called you, too.”
“He called you?”
“Around ten. Wants me to have a chat with him at one o’clock.”
“I’m on tap at twelve,” I told him. “What does he want, do you know?”
“I can guess,” he said. “Good old Winston is next on the list.”
“I got that part of it,” I said. “But what does he want to talk to us for?”
He shrugged. “I suppose he wants us to finger our friends. Reformers are like that. No sense of loyalty.” “Somebody tried to gun me last night, you know.”
He nodded. “I heard about it.”
“I’ll bet you eighty-five cents it had something to do with this reform outfit.”
“Sure,” he said. “Somebody afraid to get fingered.”
“The bastard.”
“Who’ve you got dirt on, Timmy me boy?”
“Everybody,” I told him. “The whole lousy crew.”
“Even little me?”
I grinned at him. “As soon as that Hillview tax shuffle you worked up sneaks through the Council, yes.”
He blinked. “Where the hell did you hear about that?”
“My spies,” I told him, “are everywhere. Listen, Ron, what say we join forces and go see Masetti together? You free at twelve o’clock?”
“I could be,” he said. “But what if I decide to sell out? I won’t be able to do it with you there as witness.”
“Neither will I, tax man,” I said.
He grinned. “I get the point. I’ll see you at the hotel at twelve.”
“Fine.” I looked at my watch. “I’ll see you,” I said. “I got business.”
“Business?”
“I’m on my way to deliver an ultimatum.”
“If you don’t show up at twelve,” he said, “I’ll see if I can raise bail money for you.”
Four
I left the bank building and walked down DeWitt Street to State, and catty-comer across DeWitt toward City Hall. Gar Wycza, in police uniform, was standing in the middle of the intersection, making believe he was directing traffic. He was one of the million or so Wyczas on the town payroll. Jack Wycza, the boss of the clan, was Councilman from the Fourth Ward, up in Hunkytown on the North Side. I waved to Gar, and vice versa, and I went on toward City Hall.
Winston was a small town, with a small town’s politics and a small town’s outlook. The war population boom, because of the Amalgamated Machine Parts Corporation over on Wheeler Street and the Reed & Kong Chemical Supplies Corporation down on Front Street, had boosted the town to upward of forty thousand people, but it still felt and acted like a town of fifteen thousand.
Now I walked through the block-square City Hall Park in the late June sunshine. A few bums were loafing on the benches by the trees, resting up between elections. Over to the left, the town library was doing a thriving business in high school students boning up for their exams. This year, the teen-agers were all imitating Sal Mineo and Brigitte Bardot, and they all looked as though they were going to do something obscene any minute.
I went through the revolving door and clacked across the marble flooring to the ancient elevator. To the ancient elevator operator, I said, “Three.”
“Righteeo,” he said. He pushed the gate closed, and the elevator wheezed upward. He looked at me and said, “Heerd ye had some trouble last night.”
“A little,” I said.
“They don’t have gunplay no more like they used to,” he said. “Times we had seven, eight of ’em, laying out on the City Hall lawn, dead as mackerels.”
“City Hall lawn?” It seemed like a hell of a place for a gunfight, all things considered.
“Sure,” he said. “That was during old Jock Shaughnessy’s administration, rest his soul. When he was Mayor. Had a whiskey plant right down in the cellar, he did. Right here in City Hall.” He cackled a bit at the memory.
“A whiskey plant? You mean they made the stuff here?”
“Heck, no,” he said. “A still is where you make it. A plant is where you store it. Like a warehouse. Old Flynn’s gang tried to raid the plant here one night, steal the whiskey. Oh, that was a lovely fight!” He shook his head, cackling again. “They don’t have gunplay no more like they did in them days,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said. “These are pale times, I guess.”
“You betcha.”
We stopped, and it was the third floor. I turned right and walked down the long corridor to the door at the end marked “Mayor Wanamaker.”
Cathy was typing at her desk in the outer office. She smiled at me when I went in, and said, “What time did you get up?”
“Around ten.”
“Have you found out anything about — last night?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “I’ll know better by this afternoon.”
“There’s something funny going on around here, Tim,” she said.
“Like what?”