John glanced covertly at Marvel, then looked back at me. "I'm trying as hard as I can, man. Sometimes I think she's about to haul my butt back to the bedroom, but then. I mean, Jesus, this is takin' longer than it has with any woman I ever met."
"Is she real, or is she teasing?"
"She's real, I think."
"Then that's probably a good sign," I said. "All the time."
"You think so?"
We both looked at Marvel and realized that everybody in the room was looking at us. We'd been whispering in a way that immediately attracts attention.
"Uh, we didn't want to bother you, talking," John said.
"Uh-huh," said Marvel.
"Here's the situation," Marvel said, a half hour after her argument with Davis. She rolled off the bed and whacked a rolled-up copy of the printout against her thigh. "This is good stuff. It lays out the kickbacks and the payoffs, how much and where it went, but everything is done by code numbers. We know who the code numbers represent, but we couldn't prove it immediately."
"If the IRS gets it, they could check bank deposits."
"Sure," said Davis, "but that would take some time. If things drag out, we might not be able to get all of them out of the office simultaneously."
"Not even if they steal a hundred thousand bucks?" John asked.
"That'd do it, but that's an extra risk, and we don't know if that whole crazy con game with the bridge is going to work," Marvel said. "We were talking back in Memphis about blackmailing them out of office."
"Not the first three," I said. "Only the governor's redneck appointments."
"Why not try it now?" Marvel asked. "The bridge idea has always seemed kind of. shaky. If we can get around using it, we'd expose John to less risk, you and LuEllen to less risk, and we might get to the same place."
I thought about it for a moment. If we could blackmail them out of office, there would be less exposure. And LuEllen was worried already. I looked at John. "What do you think?"
"Sounds OK to me," he said. He turned to Marvel. "How would we do it?"
"Harold will call Dessusdelit, tell her he's got to see her, that it's important," Marvel said. "She knows him, she knows he wouldn't bullshit. He'll go over to her house and lay the books on her. Tell her that all he wants is her resignation. Hers and St. Thomas's and Rebeck's. They quit, and he loses the books."
"Can you pull it off?" I asked Harold.
"I don't know," he said pensively. He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked at Marvel, and I realized he would do about anything she wanted him to. "It's worth a try, I guess. Dessusdelit's a politician, and she used to sell real estate. She's been cutting deals all her life. Maybe she'll figure she can cool out the books and come back later. She won't know the rest of it – the part about us taking over the town."
I glanced at John again, then turned to Marvel.
"OK with me," I said. "But it's your call."
"Let's try it," she said with satisfaction. "If it doesn't work, John can still try the bridge scam, you and LuEllen can still hit City Hall, and we can still go to the governor. But if it does work, we avoid all that trouble."
"That's a lot to do before Friday," I said. "If we're going to work the bridge scam, it has to be on Friday, so we've got to move."
"We'll be back home before supper," Marvel said. "Harold can call Dessusdelit tonight. Maybe even go over tonight. And just in case, I'll start calling around and put the word out about John. Smart Memphis dope dealer just bought some land, and there's something happening with the bridge. It'll get back to the mayor and her crowd tonight, same time as Harold."
"Good. And if Harold can't convince Dessusdelit and the others to quit, we'll need some help next week, after the state cops come in. We'll need a half dozen people with white-southerner accents, to call the paper and the TV station, demanding that the council resign."
"That's fixed," Harold said simply. He was wearing his brown suit again and sweating lightly despite the air-conditioning.
"What about the interim rednecks?" I asked.
"We've got two names, Marvin Lesse and Bill Armistead. Both are pretty wimpy, and we've got them by the balls on some illegal cement sales. We'll get them appointed, and when it's time to push them off. well, they'll go," Marvel said.
"We hope," added Davis.
We all looked at each other for a minute; then Marvel said, "It's scary," and John said, "Let's do it."
The program was complex.
Marvel would finish translating the books, stripping out the portions that applied specifically to Dessusdelit, St. Thomas, and Rebeck. Harold would show only those portions to Dessusdelit.
If Harold couldn't deal, we'd work the bridge scam.
The scam was a variation of the old pigeon drop routine. I figured if the pigeon drop worked a million times on Miami Beach, it ought to work once in Longstreet.
But instead of dropping an envelope of money on the sidewalk, we were dropping a bridge.
The bridge that Longstreet no longer had but desperately needed.
Marvel would plant the rumor that the state Department of Transportation was recommending construction of a toll bridge. But the bridge wouldn't come into the downtown area for engineering and cost reasons. Instead, it would cross the river just north of town, coming down on the Brown property.
The property John now held an option on. A property that would quickly sprout gas stations, fast-food joints, convenience stores, and maybe a small shopping center.
That kind of information is routinely held secret by state departments of transportation so that land prices aren't inflated before condemnation proceedings begin. The state DOT's engineering office would be the only place that could confirm Marvel's rumor.
Bobby was monitoring the Longstreet phone exchanges, checking lines out of the city offices, and at the homes of the most prominent members of the machine, scanning for the DOT's number in the state capital. When the number was dialed, a phone would ring at Bobby's place. An "engineer" would answer. No information could be released, he would say; studies were still under way. But where did you get that information? That information is restricted.
In other words, Yes, that's right, we're putting in the bridge.
It was a marvelous opportunity for a well-run machine, one we were sure it wouldn't overlook. Whoever controlled the land at the base of the bridge would make a lot of money. And that was. Brown. No? Some black dude from Memphis?
When John was contacted by a member of the machine, he would hint that he was working for a bigger Man in Memphis and couldn't act on his own. He'd be the reluctant bride, but he'd get back to them, quickly. When he got back, he'd say the Man would welcome participation, especially since it could grease the council votes needed on zoning matters around the bridge. But votes wouldn't be enough; the Man would also need money from the machine.
There'd be some back and forth, but Friday afternoon, after talking to the Man in Memphis, he'd tell the machine that he needed to see some cash. Right then. Before he went back. They didn't have to give it to him; that would make them too suspicious. They only had to show it to him. Show him that they could get it. A hundred thousand. He was leaving for Memphis in an hour.
There was only one place they'd be able to get that much cash that quickly. The float. The float and the city's cash account at the bank. We'd work it so they had to take the money out of the bank but wouldn't be able to return it the same day.
St. Thomas, who ran the loan-sharking business, kept his stash at the City Hall, in the city clerk's safe. We figured they'd put the hundred thousand in the same place, for safekeeping until the banks reopened Monday.
If we could get the cash out, Marvel would be at the capitol. When we called, she'd go straight in to see the governor's hatchet man. He'd turn out the cops and accountants, and by Saturday night the council would be trying to explain what had happened to a hundred thousand dollars in cash – and why it'd been taken out of the bank in the first place.