She rose, got halfway across the room, and then turned to me. “You, too?” she said.
“No, thanks,” I said.
“Do go on, Homer,” Orcutt said.
“Well, these new plants and factories start moving in about 1964 and 1965 and they bring a hell of a lot of their top-and-middle-echelon people with them. They all had families and they were used to the kind of schools and stuff that they’d had in Jersey and Connecticut and New York and Pennsylvania. A lot of them were real bright kikes, if you know what I mean.”
“Could you possibly avoid the anti-Semitic slurs, Homer?” Orcutt said it as if he didn’t really think there was much hope.
“I haven’t got anything against Jews,” Necessary said. “I just call them kikes. I always have and I probably always will.”
“Go on,” Orcutt said and sighed.
“Well, they start agitating and about that time the niggers start getting riled up and they start agitating. You know, all that desegregation stuff. There’s a reform movement and about 1965 the reformers put up a slate. Well, hell, they win a few offices — they get the school board for instance. Maybe the county coroner, but not much else. But it scares the shit out of the old guard.
“In the meantime, some of the boys over in New Orleans hear about the action in Swankerton, so they start scouting around. And when the government announced that they’re going to build an air depot in Swankerton, the New Orleans bunch moves in fast.”
“How?” I said.
“Look at it this way,” Necessary said. “The town’s going to have a floating population for a while — about five thousand skilled construction workers, all spenders. After that there’ll be the soldier boys plus the civilian employees. That creates a market — a demand. The New Orleans outfit decides to be the sole supplier.”
Carol Thackerty came back in the room with a glass of Scotch and water and handed it to Necessary. “There’s no ice,” she said.
“That’s okay,” Necessary said and took a gulp of the drink, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Do continue, Homer,” Orcutt said, “and try to be as concise as possible.”
“What the hell you think I been doing?” Necessary said. “You told me to tell him so I’m telling him and if you think I’m too long-winded, then tell him yourself.”
“You’re doing fine,” I said.
“Okay,” he said. “Okay. I’ll just tell it the way it happened. Well, the New Orleans crowd comes in and they land hard. First, they move in on the numbers in Niggertown and take that over. Then they run all the white whores out of town and bring in their own and jack up the prices from fifteen and twenty bucks a lay to thirty-five and forty. They don’t bother the nigger whores any. Then they knock over a few blackjack games and the next day drop around selling protection. They spread a lot of juice around — the city council, the mayor, the chief of police, and a few of his buddies all get well, if you know what I mean.”
I said that I did and went on listening to Homer Necessary’s tale, which for him would now and forever remain in the present tense.
“Finally, they move in on the nightclubs and bars. They bust up a few and then work the protection slam. If the guy hasn’t got enough money, they loan it to him at twenty percent a week — or ten percent, if they like him real well. If he can’t pay, they buy him out for maybe forty cents on the dollar. I mean they really make it legal and everything. Next they get the city council to pass a new ordinance allowing the bars to stay open twenty-four hours a day. They do this because they got three shifts working to build that new air depot and when it’s finished the civilians are going to be working three shifts, too.”
Necessary stopped for a large gulp of his warm Scotch and water. “Now then,” he said, “they finally get the air depot built and then they start hiring the civilian help. Well, the niggers get all upset because not enough of them are being hired. At least that’s what they say. So some of their fire-eaters move down from up North and start stirring up the colored people. Then the unions get mad because they still aren’t able to organize the runaway plants from up North, although they do all right with the air depot because that’s all Federal money. So they finally call a strike at six of the biggest textile plants and then the union guys at the depot walk out in sympathy. I hear it’s against the law, but what the hell, they do it anyway.”
After that, Necessary said, the city officials turned to the New Orleans crowd to break the strike and also put an end to the mounting pressure from the black population.
“It takes them a week,” Necessary said with something akin to admiration. “Just a week. The niggers and the laborskates are getting together, you know — starting to cooperate — so the New Orleans people import a few hard cases from somewhere, up North probably. Well, they knock off a couple of the chief niggers and make it look like it’s done by a couple of local rednecks from the union. They leave evidence all around, like a rifle that belongs to one of the rednecks. Well, the chief of police can’t do anything but bring the two white guys in. Or have ‘em brought in. But on the way four niggers stop the car, take the two white boys out, and blast them deader’n hell. Well, that tears it.”
“I would imagine,” I said.
“The town gets real ugly,” Necessary said, after another swallow. “The whites are scared of the niggers and the niggers are scared of the whites. The strike just peters out and a carload of new nigger agitators from up North can’t even round up a crowd big enough to fill an outhouse. So everything settles back to just like it was before with the New Orleans crowd running things nice and smooth.”
“At this point, Mr. Dye,” Orcutt said, “I suppose you do have some questions.”
“Lots of them,” I said, “but only a few that won’t keep for a while. First of all, the deadline of the first Tuesday in November means an election is coming up, right?”
“Right,” Orcutt said.
“Since it’s an off-year, that means a local election.”
“Yes.”
“Those who’re paying your fee,” I said. “Doctor Colfax and Phet wick the third. I assume that they want to throw the rascals out so that theirs will get in?”
“Precisely.”
“And what you want me to do in the next two months is to make this town so corrupt that even the pimps will vote for reform?” I said.
“Most graphic, Mr. Dye,” Orcutt said. “Most graphic indeed.”
“You’re not taking this on a contingency basis are you?”
Orcutt smiled. “I may be young, Mr. Dye, but I am not naive.”
“No, I don’t think you are. But I’m quite sure that you haven’t collected your fee in advance.”
“No.”
“I’ve heard of deals like this,” I said. “One that comes to mind happened in Germany.”
“In Hamelin?” Orcutt said.
“That’s right.”
“They didn’t want to pay off after the man got rid of the rats,” he said.
“No. They didn’t.”
“So he piped their children out of town, I recall,” he said.
“Everybody does. You may need something like a pipe.”
“What do you suggest?”
I tapped my breast pocket that contained the Xeroxed list. “This list is missing a couple of names,” I said.
There was always that about Orcutt. He never needed the simple diagram that came with the do-it yourself kit. He just smiled again and even managed to put something into it other than nothing.
“You mean the names of Doctor Colfax and Mr. Phetwick?” he said.
“Yes.”