“Very thorough,” I said.
“Yes, it is, isn’t it?” Orcutt said. “Now here is a cashier’s check for five thousand dollars with which you’ll open a personal checking account at the First National Bank in Swankerton. And this is a letter of credit from my St. Louis bank. I believe it’s for — yes — twenty thousand. I hope you don’t have to use all of it, but you may. And since you have nothing to carry these various items in, here’s a wallet that should contain five hundred dollars cash.” He looked inside and counted rapidly. “Yes, it does.” Then he turned to Carol Thackerty and frowned. “I specified pin seal,” he said.
“They didn’t have any,” she said.
Orcutt looked at the wallet with distaste. “I suppose this will do, but it’s certainly not what I had in mind, Mr. Dye.”
“It’s fine,” I said and started to put all the cards into their proper compartments.
“I’ve saved the most important until last,” Orcutt said. “It’s the culmination of more than a month of intensive work on the part of myself, Miss Thackerty, and Homer.” He handed me five folded sheets of what seemed to be ordinary typing paper. When I unfolded them I saw that it was a long list of typewritten names that were divided into two sections and labeled “Advocates” and “Adversaries,” which I thought to be a little fancy. The adversaries ran four pages; the advocates only one. After each name were four or five single-spaced lines of biographical data which included such personal information as sexual inclinations and preferences; drinking habits; financial peccadilloes; emotional hang-ups; social and political position; chronic illnesses; mental aberrations; family background; educational attainments; current and past professions or businesses; estimated net worth; outstanding loans and debts; youthful indiscretions; and previous arrests, if any.
It was condensed and abbreviated enough to make Who’s Who seem garrulous. But it was all perfectly readable and I skimmed through it quickly, then folded it and stuffed it away in an inside coat pocket.
“It was a two-man job,” I said.
“Why two? Why not six or nine or even twenty?” Orcutt said and permitted me another inspection of his nothing smile.
“First, the information is useful for only two things: coercion or blackmail. A committee doesn’t do that. Second, one of them is a doctor; the medical terms give that away. So do the personal physical details. The other one is a trained researcher, probably a newspaperman, but somebody who knows where to look and who has a keen sense of the relevant.”
Homer Necessary put his empty brandy glass down and squirmed in his chair. When he couldn’t keep quiet any longer, he leaned toward me, his arms resting on his knees. “Maybe we dug it all up by ourselves, Dye. Maybe we just looked here and there, asked around, and then put it down on paper.”
“Maybe,” I said, “if you had a couple of years, instead of a couple of months. But you didn’t.”
“You’re quite right, Mr. Dye,” Orcutt said. “Two persons did compile the information. One is Dr. Warner Colfax. He owns a rather large clinic — the Colfax Clinic, to be precise. In addition to the regular medical services that its sixty-bed hospital provides, it’s also a drying-out haven for drunks and narcotics addicts — those who can afford it, at any rate. Then, too, it’s a place that the aged can comfortably spend their remaining golden years, providing that they, or their children, can come up with fifteen hundred dollars a month; and it’s also a place of comfort and care for those who suffer minor mental aberrations.”
“He didn’t miss much,” I said. “The drunks and the addicts will spill anything for a bottle or a fix and the old folks will reminisce and ramble as long as somebody’ll listen. God knows what the psychotics would babble. No doubt Dr. Colfax has access to all records.”
“No doubt,” Orcutt said. “The newspaperman deserves a more fitting appellation, however He’s actually the editor and publisher of The Swankerton Advocate and its evening sister, The Swankerton News-Calliope. Odd name for a paper, don’t you think?”
“Very,” I said. “What’s his name?”
“Channing d’Arcy Phetwick, the third. Phetwick is spelled with a p-h, not an f. There’s a Channing d’Arcy Phetwick the fourth around, too, but he’s turned out to be something of a wastrel. The senior Phetwick also owns a television station which is the local NBC affiliate; a fifty-thousand-watt radio station, also NBC affiliated; a tremendous amount of timberland on the Coosa River in Alabama (pulp for newsprint, of course), a statewide trucking service in which he ships his papers, thus boosting his circulation considerably; numerous valuable downtown and suburban real-estate properties, plus a couple of profitable plantations, I suppose one should call them.”
“I assume that Phetwick and Colfax are paying your fee?” I said.
“You assume correctly.”
“That list of thumbnail biographies is divided into two parts, the advocates and the adversaries.”
“Isn’t that precious?” Carol Thackerty said.
“Merely convenient, Carol,” Orcutt said.
“Maybe you’d better tell me some more about the town,” I said.
“Swankerton has changed tremendously in the past ten years,” Orcutt said. “A number of manufacturing concerns, formerly located in the North, have moved here for the usual reasons — tax concessions, cheap, unorganized labor, adequate housing, what have you. About six years ago the Defense Department built an Air Force supply depot there which is, I think, the second or third largest in the country and employs about fifteen thousand persons. Swankerton was formerly a nice quiet town of around one hundred thousand. There was an established order, and one would be hard put to cite the sociological difference between the Swankerton of 1915 and the Swankerton of 1960. It grew a little, of course, during those forty-five years, but there was that established order. Certain people ran certain things. This one had the gambling and that one had the Chamber of Commerce. Another one had the prostitution franchise, if you will, and yet another one might have the city council in his hip pocket. It was really quite cozy. Homer has made a thorough study of it and I think we may consider him to be our authority.”
Orcutt nodded at Necessary benignly, like a piano teacher encouraging a good but bashful pupil at the annual parents’ day recital.
“Like Victor says,” Necessary said, “it was all very, very sweet. Everybody had everything staked out — from Coca-Cola to moonshine. One guy had the ABC — you know, the bar and liquor licensing office. It cost you anywhere from two to five thousand to get a bar license. Liquor stores came cheaper — about fifteen hundred. The gambling was mostly wide-open blackjack and the county sheriff and the Swankerton police chief split that. They got a ten percent rakeoff and they had guys spotted around who could tell what the nightly take was down to the last nickel. They had a sweet little burglary ring going with the buttons working the lookout for the thieves. That was a sixty-forty split. The cops got the sixty naturally. The whores were all local talent, mostly broads from the sticks. Nothing fancy.”
He paused and looked at Orcutt. “If you want me to tell him the rest, I need something to gargle with.”
Orcutt looked at Carol Thackerty. “There’s a rather good bottle of Scotch in my bedroom, Carol — would you mind?”