“And it's always the next drink that's the relaxer. Okay, go out and get us some supper,” I said, giving her another ten. “Can you make it to the store?”
“Oh, I'm not drunk. Air will do me good.”
She put on an old jacket and I stood at the window and watched this tall, gawky girl walk down the street, trying to hold herself in, walk steadily. There was something drab about her; she wore clothes the way you throw a towel around yourself as you rush from the shower to the phone. She was the type to grow fat and thick, maybe have a floppy Hitler-should-have-them-as-tonsils bosom. Yet, although my eyes called me a liar, she was beautiful, even voluptuous to me. It was almost funny—with Flo and the other sharp chicks I'd been fooled by their beauty, and it took me time to realize they didn't have much else, that beauty alone is empty as a gaudy paper bag. But with this clumsy kid I first went for her honesty, her warmth—and then suddenly realized she was a beauty. Maybe this is what they call love, I told myself, only one thing has to go— the bottle. A lush drives me wild.
I stood there, thinking about Joe and how he probably had my ten bucks and what a poor slob he was, when I got a cute idea. I went to the phone and changed my mind. Harry was the kind of sharpie who might have his phones tapped and I didn't want the call traced here. Somehow his even knowing about Mady would dirty her. I went down to the corner drugstore and dialed, wondering if he'd be in at this hour. A whining voice said, “America! America!”
It was the creep. “Amen. Harry in?”
“Who's calling?”
“This is personal.”
“Who is this?”
“Mind your own damn business and put Harry on.”
“I will hang up unless you tell me who is calling.”
“Tell him Matt is calling. And be very careful, Thatcher, I've got my eye on you—lots of people are watching you,” I added, knowing it would worry a backward joker like him.
“What do you mean?” There was a pause, then Harry's smooth voice asked, “Hello? Matt?”
“Harry, I'm in a small jam. Can you lend me a hundred?” It tickled me to take some of Joe's dough away from Harry and give it back to Joe.
“Want to work for me, Matt?”
“I only want to put the bite on you.”
“Sorry. Be more than glad to give you the dough, Matt, but the way you act, don't know if you're on the bum or not... might as well put my foot down before you make this a habit. You understand, chum. Now, if you want to work, I'll advance you...”
I cursed him and he giggled like a school girl—it always pleased him to be called certain names. It was an unfortunate giggle—for him—it gave me a real bang-bang idea.
I went back to the house and called Joe, told him to park in front of the house at seven sharp, I wanted to talk to him.
“What about?”
“Tell you then. Don't let Mady know you're parked,” I said. It wasn't impossible Harry was tapping Joe's phone too. You worry about a phone tap and you can go crazy. I said, “You might be able to stop paying off the mutual... eh... friend of ours.”
He said, “Oh,” then, “I'll be there, Matt.”
Mady returned with bags of food and a lot of talk. Some people try to pull themselves together when high by chattering. She was complaining about the high prices of food and I sat in the big chair in the living room and watched her moving about in the kitchen. I felt tired, missed my afternoon nap. I must have dozed off, for the next thing I knew she was shaking me, telling me supper was on.
She wasn't a bad cook—although it's hard to spoil steak—and we ate and she asked, “You find out what you wanted to in town?”
“Nope,” I said, weighing how much to tell her. If Saxton got wind of what I had in mind, he'd kill anybody who was in the know.
She was waiting for me to go on, so I said, “1 suggested to the cops—to my buddy Max—that the Wilson murders ought to be checked over again. He didn't think so.”
“What do you mean, checked over again?”
“As you said, Henry Wilson wasn't the type to kill his wife. I merely thought there were a few angles might be looked into... just to be sure,” I said carefully.
“Well, I still can't believe he did that horrible crime. Why won't the police look into it?”
“Because it's all wrapped in a neat package and they don't want to bother untying the pink ribbons. Too busy with parking tickets.”
“Seems to me if you have ideas about a crime, the police...”
“When a man becomes a cop he changes. They say a criminal is outside the law. Well, a cop is worse off, he's outside everything. He's either hated or sluffed off by the public. Any law enforcement officer is nothing but a human blackjack... and even if a sap is a tool, it's hardly anything you have any love for, or real use.”
“Like a gun...”
“Don't interrupt the professor. No, a gun can be a thing of beauty, a lot of fun at target practice, but a blackjack... you can only use it as a club, and it's always ugly. That's the way a cop gets. His job is so big —if all the laws were enforced—and he knows he's hated, so he does only what he can do the easiest and best in the hours he has. Guess that isn't too clear.”
“No.”
“Well, look at it this way, what I was asking Max involved extra work on his part. Because of the bull and red tape thrown at him, a good cop isn't concerned about justice, but only about closing a case. I don't mean Max would frame an innocent man, although some incompetent cops would, but unless he can see a clear angle.... Here, maybe this will show how a cop's mind works. When Max and I were detectives, we went to a bar one night where some guy claimed a sixteen-year-old whore had rolled him for ten bucks. According to his story, he had picked her up at this Skid-Row bar, gone to her room and given her a half a buck. He had a roll of two hundred bucks on him. While he was sleeping, she took a tenspot.”
“Cheap bastard,” Mady said.
“Exactly what Max said. He was taking advantage of this kid, even if she was peddling it. We'd have to send the girl up to a reform school for whoring, only if we added theft, she'd go to a tougher place. Max looked at the guy and asked, 'Sure you want to press charges against this girl?' And the guy was full of righteousness and said no little bitch could roll him and all that. So Max said, 'Then I hereby arrest you for statutory rape, since this girl is under eighteen.' The guy got a year in the can. That was Max's way of helping the girl, punishing the jerky mug. But it never occurred to him to slap the guy in the mouth, let the kid off.”
“Could have given her another chance.”
“That only works out in the movies. A kid whores only because she's hungry. You don't give her a new shuffle unless you figure a way for her to work and eat. A cop can't change all that. He figures that in a reform school she'll be out of his way, and at least eating regular.”
Mady shivered. “It's the city, too many people live too close, lack decent houses. You ever have any desire to live in the country?”
“The country is as crooked as the city, has all the same vices, only maybe in different shape. And the quiet gives me the jitters—it's too loud. I like being around things, see something happening all the time.”