"Okay, chum." He grinned crookedly. "But I still think you're a damn fool. Do I have to tell you why?"
"Tell me anyway."
"I know more about you than you think. That's the frustrating part of newspaper work. You always know so many things you can't use. You get cynical. If this confession is printed in the Journal, a lot of people will be sore. The D.A., the coroner, the Sheriff's crowd, an influential and powerful private citizen named Potter, and a couple of toughies called Menendez and Starr. You'll probably end up in the hospital Or in jail again,"
"I don't think so."
"Think what you like, pal. I'm telling you what I think. The D.A. will be sore because he dropped a blanket on the Lennox case. Even if the suicide and confession of Lennox made him look justified, a lot of people will want to know how Lennox, an innocent man, came to make a confession, how he got dead, did he really commit suicide or was he helped, why was there no investigation into the circumstances, and how come the whole thing died so fast. Also, if he has the original of this photostat he will think he has been double-crossed by the Sheriff's people."
"You don't have to print the identifying stamp on the back."
"We won't. We're pals with the Sheriff. We think he's a straight guy. We don't blame him because he can't stop guys like Menendez. Nobody can stop gambling as long as it's legal in all forms in some places and legal in some forms in all places. You stole this from the Sheriff's office. I don't know how you got away with it. Want to tell me?"
"Okay. The coroner will be sore because he buggered up the Wade suicide. The D.A. helped him with that too. Harlan Potter will be sore because something is reopened that he used a lot of power to close up. Menendez and Starr will be sore for reasons I'm not sure of, but I know you got warned off. And when those boys get sore at somebody he gets hurt. You're apt to get the treatment Big Willie Magoon got."
"Magoon was probably getting too heavy for his job."
'Why?" Morgan drawled. "Because those boys have to make it stick. If they take the trouble to tell you to lay off, you lay off. I you -don't and they let you get away with it they look weak. The hard boys that run the business, the big wheels, the board of directors, don't have any use for weak people. They're dangerous. And then there's Chris Mady."
"He just about runs Nevada, I heard."
"You heard right, chum. Mady is a nice guy but he knows what's right for Nevada. The rich hoodlums that operate in Reno and Vegas are very careful not to annoy Mr. Mady. If they did, their taxes would go up fast and their police co-operation would go down the same way. Then the top guys back East would decide some changes were necessary. An operator who can't get along with Chris Mady ain't operating correctly. Get him the hell out of there and put somebody else in. Getting him out of there means only one thing to them. Out in a wooden box."
"They never heard of me," I said.
Morgan frowned and whipped an arm up and down in a meaningless gesture, "They don't have to. Mady's estate on the Nevada side of Tahoe is right next to Harlan Potter's estate. Could be they say hello once in a while. Gould be some character that is on Mady's payroll hears from another guy on Potter's payroll that a punk named Marlowe is buzzing too loud about things that are not any of his business. Could be that this passing remark gets passed on down to where the phone rings in some apartment in L.A. and a guy with large muscles gets a hint to go out and exercise himself and two or three of his friends. If somebody wants you knocked off or smashed, the muscle men don't have to have it explained why. It's mere routine to them. No hard- feelings at all. Just sit still while we break your arm. You want this back?"
He held out the photostat.
"You know what I want," I said.
Morgan stood up slowly and put the photostat in his inside pocket. "I could be wrong," he said. "You may know more about it than I do. I wouldn't know how a man like Harlan Potter looks at things."
"With a scowl," I said. "I've met him. But he wouldn't operate with a goon squad. He couldn't reconcile it with his opinion of how he wants to live."
"For my money," Morgan said sharply, "stopping a murder investigation with a phone call and stopping itby knocking off the witnesses is' just a question of method. See you around-I hope."
He drifted out of the office like something blown by the wind.
46
I drove out to Victor's with the idea of drinking a gimlet and sitting around until the evening edition of the morning papers was on the street. But the bar was crowded and it wasn't any,fun. When the barkeep I knew got around to me he called me by name.
"You like a dash of bitters in it, don't you?"
"Not usually. Just for tonight two dashes of bitters."
"I haven't seen your friend lately. The one with the green ice."
"Neither have I."
He went away and came back with the drink. I pecked at it to make it last, because I didn't feel like getting a glow on. Either I would get really stiff or stay sober. After a while I had another of the same. It was just past six when the kid with the papers came into the bar. One of the barkeeps yelled at him to beat it, but he managed one quick round of the customers before a waiter got hold of him and threw him out. I was one of the customers. I opened up the Journal and glanced at page lA. They bad made it. It was all there. They had reversed the photostat by making it black on white and by reducing it in size they had fitted it into the top half of the page. There was a short brusque editorial on another page. There was a half column by Lonnie Morgan with a by-line, on still another page.
I finished my drink and left and went to another place to eat dinner and then drove home.
Lonnie Morgan's piece was a straightforward factual recapitulation of the facts and happenings involved in the Lennox case and the "suicide" of Roger Wade-the facts as they had been published. It added nothing, deduced nothing, imputed nothing. It was dear concise businesslike reporting. The editorial was something else. It asked questions-the kind a newspaper asks of public officials when they are caught with jam on their faces.
About nine-thirty the telephone rang and Bernie Ohls said he would drop by on his way home.
"Seen the Journal?" be asked coyly, and hung up without waiting for an answer.
When he got there he grunted about the steps and said he would drink a cup of coffee if I had one. I said I would make some. While I made It he wandered around the house and made himself very much at home.
"You live pretty lonely for a guy that could get himself disliked," he said. "What's over the hill in back?"
"Another street. Why?"
"Just asking. Your shrubbery needs pruning."
I carried some coffee into the living room and he parked himself and sipped it. He lit one of my cigarettes and puffed at it for, a minute or two, then put it out. "Getting so I don't care for the stuff," he said. "Maybe it's the TV commercials. They make you hate everything they try to sell. God, they must think the public is a halfwit. Every time some jerk in a white coat with a stethoscope hanging around his neck holds up some toothpaste or a pack of cigarettes or a bottle of beer or a mouthwash or a jar of shampoo or a little box of something that -makes a fat wrestler smell like mountain lilac I always make a note never to buy any. Hell, I wouldn't buy the product even if I liked it. You read the Journal, huh?"
"A friend of mine tipped me off. A reporter."
"You got friends?" he asked wonderingly. "Didn't tell you how they got hold of the material, did he?"
"No. And in this state he doesn't have to tell you."
"Springer is hopping mad. Lawford, the deputy D.A. that got the letter this morning, claims he took it straight to his boss, but it makes a guy wonder. What the Journal printed looks like a straight reproduction from the original."