“No.”
“You ever heard of John Frazee, Milton Sournaugh, Joseph Minitelli, Kelly Farmer, or Jules Goreaux?”
“No,” Henderson said.
“Well, they say they all know you and that they’ve been shaking down fags and pimps and whores for you, some of them for as long as three years. They work on a percentage, they tell me; they get twenty-five and you get seventy-five. What you got to say about that?”
“Nothing.”
“What do you kick back to Lynch? I hear it’s up around two-thirds now.”
“I don’t know anything about kick backs.” Henderson said. “I just do my job.”
Necessary leaned back in his chair and stretched and yawned. “How long would it take to draw up charges against Captain Henderson here, Mr. Dye?”
“A few hours,” I said.
“What do you think?”
“Perhaps you might take into consideration his claim that he was only doing his job.”
“That’s a thought,” Necessary said. He leaned over his desk toward Henderson and nodded in a confidential, you-can-tell-me manner. “How much you really knocking down a year, Henderson? Sixty? Seventy-five?”
“I don’t knock down anything,” Henderson said.
“You think I should bring you up on charges?”
“That’s up to you, Chief Necessary.”
“It sure is, isn’t it? Probably get your wife, too, for running a whorehouse, come to think of it. Be a real mess, but you could probably get off with — oh, say — five years, maybe ten.”
Henderson cracked then. Not much, really; just enough. He looked down at his shoes. That was all. “What do you want?” he said dully.
“A list,” Necessary said. “Break it all down, where it comes from, who gets it, and how much. And I want your name at the bottom of it. I want it on my desk by five o’clock tonight.”
“All right,” Henderson said.
“I want your resignation, too.”
Henderson looked up quickly and his mouth opened, but no words came out. “Undated,” Necessary said, and Henderson closed his mouth.
“What do you think, Mr. Dye?”
“Well, he can’t stay in vice. As you said, he seems a little sick of it.”
Necessary nodded judiciously. “He sure does, doesn’t he. You got any suggestions?”
“There’s always the Missing Persons’ Bureau,” I said.
Henderson looked at me, and if he was afraid of Necessary, he wasn’t of me. The snarl came back to his mouth. “There ain’t any Missing Persons’ Bureau.”
Necessary smiled. “There’ll be one tomorrow and you’ll be in charge of it. How much help you think he needs, Mr. Dye?”
“At least one man,” I said.
“Maybe a rookie?” Necessary said.
“A rookie could learn a lot from Captain Henderson.”
Henderson rose slowly from his chair and half-turned toward the door. “Sit down, Henderson,” Necessary snapped. “I’ll tell you when you’re dismissed.” Henderson sat down again.
“You don’t have to make a dash for the phone,” Necessary said. “Lynch’ll have a full report on this from Mr. Dye inside of an hour. And don’t get any funny ideas about appealing either. You’re in real bad trouble, buster, and the only thing that’s keeping you out of the state pen is me, so don’t forget it. Is that clear?”
“Yes,” Henderson said.
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, sir, Chief Necessary.”
“Take off.”
“Yes, sir.”
He didn’t hurry to the door. He seemed too tired to hurry.
“That was the last one,” Necessary said, going down a list on his desk.
“At least he didn’t get down on his knees and beg like Purcell did,” I said.
“I’m gonna transfer Purcell to head up the vice squad,” Necessary said.
“Jesus Christ.”
“We’ve sort of shuffled them around this last month,” Necessary said happily. “None of them knows whether to shit or go blind. They’re scared to take their payoffs. Christ, I’ve had some punks even call me at the hotel at night and ask me who they should pay.”
“What did you tell them?”
“Sit tight and don’t worry. That the lid’s off.”
“I hear that the word’s getting around,” I said.
Necessary nodded. “It doesn’t take long. Listen to this. It’s a list of what Lieutenant Ferkaire calls ‘distinguished arrivals.’ He’s that young cop outside there.”
“I know who he is,” I said.
“Listen to this. These are just the ones who’ve flown in during the past three days. Edouardo (Sweet Eddie) Puranelli, Cleveland; Frank (Jimmy Twoshoes) Schoemeister, Chicago; Arturo (Tex) Turango, Dallas; the Onealo brothers, Roscoe and Ralph from Kansas City; Nicholas (Nick the Nigger) Jones from Miami; and a whole delegation from New Orleans. They came to see Lynch.”
“What are the rest of them doing?”
“Looking around. Taking a market survey. Sizing things up. The word’s got out that Lynch has slipped. The New Orleans crowd knows goddamn well something’s slipped and I hear they’re unhappy about it.”
I rose and moved toward the door. “I’ll go see him.”
“Lynch?”
“Yes.”
“Give him my best.”
“He’ll want a meeting.”
“What do you think?”
“Let’s see what happens this morning.”
“Okay,” Necessary said.
I paused at the door. “Is Lieutenant Ferkaire still keeping a check on arrivals?”
Necessary nodded.
“You might tell him to keep an eye out for one.”
“What’s he look like?”
“Tall, redheaded, and wears a pipe and Phi Beta Kappa key.”
“Name?”
“Carmingler.” Necessary made a note of it.
“Hard case?”
I nodded. “About as hard as they come.”
Chapter 35
Two unfriendly strangers met me at the door of Lynch’s Victorian house. About the only difference between them was that one was bald and the other wasn’t. The bald one stood squarely in the doorway while the one with hair took up a protective flanking position. Neither of them said anything. They stood there and looked at me and their expressions made it clear that they didn’t want any today, no matter what it was.
“Where’s Boo?” I said.
“Who’s Boo?” the baldheaded one said.
“The mayor’s son.”
“We don’t know any mayor.”
“Tell Lynch I’m here.”
“Tell him who’s here?”
“Dye. Lucifer Dye.”
“Lucifer Dye,” the bald one said slowly, as if he couldn’t decide whether he cared for its sound. “We don’t know you either, do we Shorty?”
Shorty was close to five-eleven so something else must have earned him the nickname, but there was no point in dwelling on it. “I never knew nobody named Dye or Lucifer either,” Shorty said. “Where’d you get a name like Lucifer?”
“Out of a book,” I said. “A dirty one.”
“And you want to see Lynch?” the baldheaded one said.
“No,” I said. “He wants to see me.”
They thought about that for a moment until they got it sorted out. “I’ll go see,” Shorty said and left. I stood there on the screened porch with the man with the bald head. We had nothing further to say to each other so I admired his dark green double-breasted suit, his squared-off black shoes, and his green-and-black polka dotted tie. A bumblebee had fought its way through the screen and buzzed about the porch. When we got tired of admiring each other, we watched the bee.
“They ain’t supposed to fly,” he said. “I read somewhere that the guys who design airplanes say bumblebees ain’t built right for flying.”