That’s the way it would have stayed if Prohibition didn’t come and go like it did. Lyncastle took the switch in stride, but the three big cities on each side of it voted an option and kept themselves dry, so anybody who wanted a drink simply crossed the river into Lyncastle and got themselves a package. It wasn’t long after that you could get anything else you wanted too. Lyncastle became what is known as a wide-open town. Little Reno. Ten feet off the sidewalk you had crap tables, slots, faro layouts, roulette... hell, everything. Nobody bothered to work in the smelter any more. The gambling rooms were paying high for bouncers, croupiers, dealers, shills and whatnot.
I wondered what they’d pay a killer to knock off a D. A. who didn’t like what they were doing.
The hackie was holding the door open for me. “Here y’are, buster. Buck and a half.”
“Take two. They’re little.” I slammed the door shut and stepped up on the platform.
The station was practically deserted. A young colored boy was curled up in a handcart, his head nestling on a pillow of mail sacks, and inside a woman with a baby m her arms was dozing off on a bench. Across the platform a bus, dark and dead looking, was hiding in the end port. Over there was where the bruiser hung out and I looked for something moving in the shadows.
I waited a long time, but nothing moved. Evidently he only checked incoming schedules. I crossed the platform and stood in the doorway, looked around quickly and stepped inside.
The old boy was just closing his ticket window when he saw me. His voice was lost in the slamming of the grillwork and the rattle of the shade being drawn over it. A door opened in the side of the booth and he was waving me inside furiously. He was so worked up he hopped around like a toad making sure the door was locked tight before he pulled a couple of benches together.
“Damn, Johnny,” he said with his head wagging from side to side, “you sure beat all. Sit down, sit down.”
I sat down.
“Anybody see you come up here?”
“Nope. Didn’t matter if they did, Pop.”
I got the puzzled squint again while he fingered his mustache. “I heard talk an’ I read the papers. How come you’re here and what’s the bandage on your head for? They do that to you?”
“Yeah, they did it,” I told him easily.
“Damn it all, finish it!”
“Not much to finish. Guy named Lindsey wanted to talk to me. We talked. It got a little bit rough and we finished talking in the hospital. Nobody got around to saying much. Lindsey seems to think we’ll be having another talk soon.”
“Never took you to be a fool, Johnny. Took you to be a lot of things, but never a fool.”
“What else did you take me for?”
I put it to him too fast and he shifted uncomfortably. “I’m... sorry, son. Didn’t mean to bring that up again.” Then his face pinched together. “Maybe I was wrong.”
You can cover a situation nicely by sticking a butt in your mouth. That’s what I did. I still didn’t know what he was driving at and I wasn’t tipping my hand asking questions about something I should have known.
“Maybe,” I said through the smoke.
“There’s a bus going out tonight.” He checked with his watch. “Better’n two hours yet so you can wait here. If nobody saw you come in they won’t know you’re here.”
“Forget it, forget it. I like it here.” I grinned at him slowly. “Pop, what do you know about Lindsey?”
“Johnny, you...”
“I asked you something.”
“You ought to know what he’s like. After Bob Minnow died he swore he’d get the guy who done it and he’s never stopped trying. He’ll never give up, Johnny. He ain’t like the rest. Lindsey’s straight as they come. He’s the only decent guy left and he stays that way because that’s the way he’s made. I’m telling you, Johnny, nothing’ll pull him off your neck. Not money or nobody or nothing. God knows they tried. He woulda been ousted long ago for not playing ball the way everybody else does, only he knows too much. He don’t talk, but if he did it would be pretty tough.”
He stopped and took a breath. I said, “Spell it out. A lot of things happen in five years. What’s the pitch?”
“Yeah,” he nodded, “I guess you might not know about it at that. Things ain’t peaceful anymore like they was. You saw the town, didn’t you? Sure. Gin mills on every comer and nothing but gambling joints in between. Drunks and lushes all over the place. Prostitution in the North End and who cares? Nobody cares so long as the money rolls in. There’s more of it in this town than the state capital and just like the boys want it. You’d think that the people would say something.
“Okay, they vote and so what? The election always winds up to keep the town laws the way they are now. The City Council moves the way the merchants want ‘em to move and no other way. That’s what’s so screwy about it. There’s better’n fifty thousand people in this town and every year it looks like practically all of ’em are in favor of a good cleanup. They swamp the polls and still the opposition makes ’em look sick.”
“Who runs it all?”
“Runs it? Hell, you got the mayor, the council, this association, that association, the Republicans, the Democrats. Hell...”
“I mean who runs it, Pop. Who runs all the works together?”
“Come again?”
“Somebody’s behind the works.”
“Oh... sure, sure. You take the joints in town now, they belong to the Lyncastle Business Group. That’s Lenny Servo’s bunch. He heads up the saloons and the game rooms.”
“What does he own?”
“Own? Hell, he don’t own nothing. He got the cigarettes and hat-check concession in all them places and makes more’n they do. Nope, he don’t own a thing, but he’s got enough cash to stake a guy who wants to open up a joint. Lenny, he don’t take any chances. He sits back and takes it easy while he runs his organization.”
I took a deep pull on the cigarette and let it settle in my mind. “He sounds like a nice guy,” I said.
“Great guy. Everybody wants to be palsy with him. He’s free with his dough if it means he gets something back. Like the recreation park he ‘donated’ to the city... if they’d give him some swampland on the river. So now the swamp’s gone and he’s got a layout there that pulls in all the river traffic during the summer. Real fancy place it is.”
“Where’s he from?”
The old guy shrugged. “Who knows? He moved in about six years ago. Ran a saloon for a while before he branched out.” He stopped speaking at the floor and let his eyes come up to mine. “You got a lot of curiosity about a town you gotta get out of, Johnny.”
“I’m not getting out of anything.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Go ahead.”
“You kill Bob Minnow?”
I said it like it was the answer without saying a thing at all. “Guess.”
The clock made a whirring noise on the wall. Outside the baby whined then was still. “I didn’t figure you did, Johnny.” He smiled at me and his shoulders went up and down in a sigh. He looked at me again and shook his head. “Never figured you did, boy, but now I’m not so sure.”
I could feel the nasty sneer trying to crawl across my mouth. “Why?”
“Didn’t think you had the guts, that’s why.” He set himself for something he thought would happen.
“What changed your mind?”
I got that look again, the one with the puzzle behind it. He took a long time saying. “It took more guts to come back than to kill old Bob.”
I mashed the last of the butt under my heel. “Never try to figure a guy, Pop. It doesn’t always work out.”
“No... no, it sure don’t at that. Mind telling me what Lindsey had to say about all this?”