“About Thompson, of course.” The mayor looked defensive. He folded his hands in his lap. “I suppose Carl damned me to you up, down, and sideways?”
“He never even mentioned your name,” Johnny said truthfully.
“Then he had a damn sight more forbearance than I'd have had in his place,” Lowell said grimly. “I'm the man who fired him. Under pressure,” he added hastily.
“An' Toby didn't like it?”
Richard Lowell smiled bleakly. “My brother has an unrealistic approach at times to the problems of municipal government in a city like Jefferson.”
“What's your problem?”
“It's a long story.” Lowell ran a hand nervously through his hair. He couldn't have been more than fifty, Johnny thought, but the hair was snow white. “First I'd rather go into why you're here.”
“I'm here because I'm a thousand dollar loser to the action in New York an' because somebody tried twice to scrag me. It didn't look to me like I was goin' to get any answers I wanted at that end of the line.” He moved onto the offensive. “Why are you standin' me off here, now? What are you afraid of?” He rose to his feet. “Tell your police department they'll need more'n a wagon to bring me in the next time they take the notion.”
“It's not my police department!”
“You sprung me from down there,” Johnny pointed out.
“A quid pro quo. Jack Riley-”
“It was your police department when Thompson was chief?” Johnny pressed him when Lowell hesitated. The mayor nodded reluctantly.
“Who submarined him?”
“I think you'd better come out to the house tonight,” Lowell decided. “I don't like to talk here. I'm never sure-” His hand again made the sweeping gesture through his hair.
“You mean you think your own office could be bugged?”
“I've invited you to my home,” Lowell said stiffly.
“I've accepted,” Johnny said promptly. “Late, though. Say around ten. I'm havin' dinner at eight. With Jessamyn Burger.” Richard Lowell's mouth opened but no sound came forth. Johnny smiled at him. “Give my regards to Toby when you call him to report I hit the deck here.”
“I'm not-who said-” The mayor groped for a reply.
“See you at ten,” Johnny said. “And for Christ's sake try to make a little more sense than you're makin' now, will you?”
He closed the door to the private office from the outside. The brunette secretary again looked up from her typing. Johnny walked over to her desk and looked down at her. “I hear your boss is shackin' up with an unmarried female,” he said solemnly. “Is it you?”
Her mouth curved humorously. “No, it's not.”
“Shame on him, then. Would it do me any good to put my name on the list?”
“I'm afraid not.” She raised her hand from the typewriter keys to show him an engagement ring. She was smiling openly.
“That's the toughest decision I dropped today,” he told her. “Ten thousand thousand good wishes.”
Her eyes followed him all the way to the door.
Back at Mrs. Peterson's his key let him into the front hallway and he started for the stairs. “Well! Whom have we here?” a fresh young voice inquired from behind him.
Johnny turned. A chubby teenager with schoolbooks under her arm was examining him from the living-room doorway. She had flaming red hair done up in a pony tail, a pert face, and a mouth heavily lipsticked in the latest version of a femme fatale. “I'm the new roomer,” Johnny said.
“Val just never tells me these things,” the girl announced dramatically. “I'm Jingle Peterson.” She put down the books and moved out into the hall to get a better look at him. All her movements were exaggerated. She eyed the silver-studded jacket with frank approval. “Cool, man. That skin's really got the beat.” She ran a hand lightly over the jacket, her head tilted up to watch his face, her expression saucy.
“Pleased to meet you, Jingle,” Johnny acknowledged. “I'm Johnny. Who's Val?”
“Val?” Her thinly plucked eyebrows rose. “My sainted mama. Mrs. Valerie Peterson. We won't have any trouble with her.” She tapped a finger lightly on his chest. “Pleased to meet you, Johnny. Aren't you going to offer me a drink?”
“What the hell would you do if I did?” he asked in amusement.
“Why, drink it, of course!” She fluttered her eyelashes at him. “What else does one do with a drink?”
“How old are you, Jingle?”
“Don't you agree that chronological age has nothing at all to do with one's maturity?” she asked rapidly in the manner of a well-rehearsed lesson.
“Fourteen?”
“Mercy! Do I look like a child?'
“Fifteen an'a half?”
She pouted at him. “I think you're horrid. I'm ages older than that. If you can't see — ”
“Must've been sixteen last week,” he decided aloud. “It's not that I don't appreciate the vote of confidence, Jingle, but don't you think you deserve somethin' better'n an old crock like me?”
“You're not all that old,” she announced firmly. “You have an interesting face. Sort of grim. I think we're going to be very good friends.” Her face lighted up suddenly. “Are you any good at algebra?”
“I'm the world's worst.”
“Oh, well,” she sighed. “You can't have everything.” She sailed grandly back into the living room and picked up her books. The eyelashes fluttered at him from the doorway. “See you later, large man. It's been the most.”
“It sure has,” Johnny agreed. “Hey! Can you press a suit?”
“One dollar per each, satisfaction guaranteed or your money back,” she said briskly.
“Hot up your iron. I'll bring it right down.” At the top of the stairs he encountered Mrs. Peterson, her dust mop exchanged for a broom. From her position it was obvious she had heard every word from the hallway below.
“Thanks for the way you handled that,” she said to Johnny when he went to pass by.
“You don't want to get mad at the kid. She's just testin' her wings.”
“Her generation defeats me,” Valerie Peterson said darkly. Her hands opened and closed on the broom handle. “We thought about the same things when we were her age, God knows, but it's their credo to proclaim it. I walk a tightrope trying to decide what's talk and what isn't.” Her eyes went down the stairs broodingly. “I guess I'll have to give up this business before long. Right now she's still afraid of my hairbrush but when the day comes that she isn't-” She shrugged. “Well. This floor is off limits to her, incidentally. Our bedroom is downstairs.” Johnny nodded. “There was a man here asking questions about you just after you went out.”
“He say who he was?” Johnny asked quickly.
“He didn't have to say. I was born and raised in this town. His name is Kratz. He has a used-car lot on the edge of town. He's also mixed up in local politics.”
“What did he ask you, Mrs. Peterson?”
“Just who you were. He seemed surprised when I told him.” Maybe it had been a break at that, using his own name, Johnny reflected. Kratz had been trying to pick up the alias. With him using his own name it might slow them down a little wondering about his backing. They'd picked him up so fast there sure as hell wasn't anything the matter with their liaison.
Valerie Peterson was watching his face. “I want no trouble here,” she warned him. “I know this Kratz. You mind what I say.” She walked away from him, down the stairs. In his room Johnny took down his suit from the closet and headed for the kitchen and Jingle.
CHAPTER V
Jessamyn Burger was both an attractive and comfortable dinner companion, Johnny decided. She had appeared in a conservative woolen suit firmly attached to a not-so-conservative figure. She had held up her end of the conversation, had laughed at his jokes, and had gradually turned serious when he described-still in a humorous vein-his encounter with Savino on the library steps and his reception at police headquarters. If she had heard the story before she was a good enough actress to disguise it.
“I think that you were luckier than you know,” she said quietly when he finished. “You're a stranger in this town. You have no idea of the situation here.”