“What?” Necessary asked.
“We’re going to apply Orcutt’s First Law.”
“To get better, it must get much worse,” I said.
“You remembered!” he said. “I’m so delighted!”
“You were going to tell us how simple it was,” Necessary said.
So Orcutt told us and as he said, it was simple, but then a broken neck can also be described as a simple fracture.
Homer Necessary made two calls before we went back to his twelfthfloor office. Carol Thackerty was on the other phone that Orcutt had had installed in the Rickenbacker Suite and when I went out the door I heard her setting up a conference call between Swankerton, Washington, and New York.
While we waited for the elevator I said, “How many times has he been out of the hotel since he got here?”
“Orcutt?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t think he’s been out any since we got here from San Francisco,” Necessary said. “He was out a couple of times before that, you know, when you weren’t here yet.”
“I’d think he’d get cabin fever.”
Necessary shook his head. “Not him. He likes playing spider king.”
There were two doors to Necessary’s office and both of them were busy that afternoon. Five minutes after we got there, Lt. Ferkaire came in, brimming with his sense of justice, eager to please, and proud of the University of Tennessee ring that he wore on his left hand. I think he made the chief of police nervous, although Necessary never said anything other than that he thought Ferkaire was “a nice, bright kid.”
“They’re bringing the first one up now, sir,” Ferkaire told Necessary.
“They got their instructions like I said?”
“Yes, sir. They bring them in this door and when they come out your other one they take them back where they picked them up.”
“Any trouble locating them?” Necessary said.
“No, sir. Not yet.”
“You tell them all to be goddamned polite?”
“My exact words, sir. Goddamned polite. Excuse me for asking, Chief Necessary, but how important are these men?”
“To who?”
“Well, I mean how do they rank nationally?”
“They’re major league, kid,” Necessary said. “Don’t worry about it, they’re all pros from the majors.”
“Would you like me to sit in, sir?” Ferkaire asked stiffly, but not stiff enough to keep the eagerness and hope out of his voice.
“Not this time.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“For what?” Necessary said. “I just told you you couldn’t sit in.”
“I just meant—” Ferkaire grew flustered and tried to think of something else to say, something pertinent, when Necessary said, “Forget it. When the first one gets up here, bring him right in. Who’s first by the way?”
Ferkaire looked at a three-by-five card that he carried. “Frank Schoemeister. Chicago.”
Necessary nodded. “That’s all, Ferkaire.”
Ferkaire said yes, sir, again and left.
“Jimmy Twoshoes,” Necessary said as he moved behind his desk. “They come up with the goddamnedest nicknames. I knew one in Pittsburgh once that they used to call Billy Buster Bible because he used to carry one around and always let them kiss it before he shot them. He used to shoot them through the ear. The left one, I think.” He sank back in his executive chair and looked at me. “You going to be over there by the window?”
“That’s right.”
“I wish to hell more light would come through it.”
“There’s enough to give them the idea.”
“You want to go first?” he said.
“Better if you did,” I said. “They may not know you, but they’ll know the gold braid. I’ll come in on the chorus.”
Necessary looked at his watch. “It’s going to be a long afternoon.”
“Longer than most,” I agreed.
A few minutes later Ferkaire knocked on the door, entered, and said, “Mr. Frank Schoemeister, Chief Necessary.”
Then he closed the door and left Schoemeister standing there in the center of the room. Schoemeister looked at Necessary, then at me, and then back at Necessary. After that he studied the rug, the ceiling, and the two flags behind Necessary’s desk. He nodded his head as if he’d reached some silent agreement with himself and put his hands in his coat pockets. Then he smiled and it came out hideous.
Necessary waved a negligent hand at him. “Sit down, Schoemeister, pick a chair. That’s my special assistant over there, Mr. Dye.”
Schoemeister nodded in my direction, selected a chair so that he could keep me in view, and sat down. Finally, he decided to say something: “Social?”
“Social,” Necessary said.
“You don’t mind if I smoke then?”
Necessary waved his hand again. “You want a drink? I’m going to have one.”
“A drink?” Schoemeister said. “That would be nice.”
“What would you like?” I said, moving to the bar.
“Scotch and water, please.”
I mixed three of them and handed Schoemeister his. He accepted it with a slim, well-cared-for hand that went with the rest of him, which was equally well tended. He was not yet forty, looked even younger, and wore dark, quiet clothes that almost made him look like a successful corporate executive whose career was a couple of years ahead of schedule. He looked like that until you noticed his shoes. And his mouth. The shoes were black alligator with large silver buckles that got encouragement from the white, brushed-suede fleurs-de-lis that decorated each toe. I had read somewhere, probably in a barber shop, that Jimmy Twoshoes had more than two hundred pairs of customcobbled footwear and sometimes wore as many as six different pairs in a day. But he had only one mouth, and there was nothing he could do about that, although he had tried hard enough. The twelve puckered white scars were still there where they had sewed his lips together with fishing line in 1961. The heavy mustache he wore failed to disguise the scars that twisted his mouth into a perpetual snarl. The Chicago police never did learn who had sewed Schoemeister’s lips together, nor would Schoemeister tell them. During the month after he was released from the hospital funerals were held for four of Schoemeister’s more prominent contemporaries. They had all died messily and none of their caskets was opened during their funerals.
“We got a nice little town here,” Necessary said after he took a swallow of his drink.
“I noticed,” Schoemeister said.
“Got some new industry and more on the way. Got one of the best little beaches on the Gulf. The niggers have been fairly quiet up till now. Nice big Air Force depot about fifteen miles out of town helps keep the unemployment down. Got a good, clean, local government that listens to reason. Of course, Swankerton’s no Chicago, but it’s a real nice little city where you can still walk the streets safe at night. You here on a vacation?”
“Vacation,” Schoemeister said.
“There’ve been some changes here recently,” Necessary said. “They put me in as chief of police and Mr. Dye’s my new special assistant and it’s sort of up to us to look out for law and order.”
“I hear the last chief of police shot himself,” Schoemeister said.
“He sure did, poor guy. Pressure, I guess. Funny you’d bring that up, but a good friend of his left town this afternoon sudden like. Name’s Ramsey Lynch. Ever heard of him?”
Schoemeister nodded. He did it carefully. “I’ve heard of him.”
“Well, he was quite prominent here in certain circles. Had a lot of interests.”
“Who’s looking after them for him?” Schoemeister said, and I decided that he knew what the right questions were.