“There won’t be any thrill,” Duncan remarked, lighting a cigar. “It’s just a chore. There probably isn’t even a murder. What’s more, she’s politically important. If you went up, it would be just as a curiosity seeker, and she’d resent it.”
“Why not call me a technical consultant?” asked Moraine.
“What could you consult on,” Duncan asked, “outside of poker?”
“Oh, I’ve got lots of miscellaneous information in the back of my head. I know something about psychology and I know something about paper, a good deal about photography, something about ink...”
“And damn little about murder cases,” Duncan interrupted. “They’re a nuisance.”
“Oh, so it really is a murder?”
“I don’t know. She says it is, but I doubt it. It’s probably just a family fight, but we’ve got to look into it.”
Duncan, reclining against the cushions, puffed appreciatively at his cigar and said, “No kidding, Sam, did you have the three aces pat?”
“That,” Moraine proclaimed, “is a secret. I never hold a kicker unless I know I’m going to catch something to go with it.”
“Baloney!” the district attorney said, snuggling down into his overcoat. “The next time I pick a poker partner I’m going to pick one who doesn’t know so damn much about sales psychology and advertising. You have me at a disadvantage.”
He raised his voice and said to the driver, “Kick open the siren and give her the gun. I’ve got a date to get revenge in a poker game after we get done with this call.”
The siren moaned into noise, swelled into a screaming crescendo, as the driver pushed the car to top speed.
“This,” proclaimed Sam Moraine, “is something like... What would the voters say, Phil, if they figured the siren was screaming for a right of way so the district attorney could get into a poker game and retrieve a lousy six bucks that he’d lost?”
“What would the voters say,” Phil Duncan countered, “if they knew anything that went on behind the official scenes? And, what’s more, it wasn’t a lousy six dollars. It was six dollars and seventy-five cents, and that’s money!”
Moraine braced himself as the car swerved. Tires screamed.
Morden, who hadn’t moved a muscle, remarked, “Why the hell didn’t that guy get over when he heard the siren?”
The district attorney said nothing. He was smoking calmly, too accustomed to those rapid rides even to brace himself when confronted by danger.
“Wish I had your nerves,” Moraine said.
“It’s just boredom,” Duncan told him. “I used to be frightened stiff. Now I’m bored. I can’t get a kick out of the job any more.”
“You’re going to run again, Phil?”
“Sure, just like I’m going to play poker with you again. I’ve got so much invested now I can’t afford to quit.”
“What have you got invested?”
“Time and career.”
“Can’t you make more out of your private practice than you can on salary as district attorney?”
“Sure.”
“Why stay with it, then?”
“It’s a stepping stone.”
“A stepping stone to what?”
“I don’t know. Of course, Sam, I’m talking frankly with you, perhaps more frankly than I’d talk even with myself, just because you’re a friend, something of a psychologist, and a practical man. I might tell myself that I was devoting my life to public service, and might believe it. If I told you that, you’d say, ‘Hooey!’ Therefore, I’m frank with you. I might lad myself along, but I couldn’t kid you along.
“No, Sam, I got into this job because I figured there was a future in it — not in the job itself, but in what the job might lead to. You know me well enough to know that I wouldn’t want to send an innocent man to the gallows. I wouldn’t try to. On the other hand, one of these days there’s going to be a big prosecution. It may be a murder charge against some prominent person. It may be a big graft prosecution. No one knows just what it’ll be, but sooner or later it’s bound to show up. Then, if I can make a good showing, I could move on up the political ladder. Many times the breaks have sent a clever prosecutor into the governorship.”
Duncan had lowered his voice, leaned toward Sam Moraine, so that his remarks were audible only to the man who shared the back seat with him.
“Who’s going to be your most dangerous opponent in the election?” Moraine asked.
“Johnny Fairfield. Pete Dixon is backing him.”
Moraine said, “That’s because Carl Thorne is backing you?”
“Sure. For the past ten years Carl Thorne and Pete Dixon have fought for control of this town. Neither one of them ever runs for office. Neither one of them ever makes a speech. They keep out of the newspapers as much as possible. But don’t ever fool yourself they aren’t mixed up in every major political campaign.”
“Both crooks?” Moraine asked.
“I wouldn’t say that. Dixon is unscrupulous. Thorne is my friend.”
Duncan leaned still closer to Moraine and said, “Confidentially, Sam, I’d like to stand just on my own two feet, but it can’t be done. This county is run by a political machine, and it’s too highly organized for a man to buck it. Right now, Carl Thorne controls both the city and the county. Dixon is lying low, trying to uncover some scandal that he can spring about election time.
“Just between you and me, I think Thorne might like to have someone in my office who would be a bit more complacent about things. But, with Johnny Fairfield coming out as Dixon’s candidate, and the probabilities that a reform party will also back Fairfield, Thorne will swing his machine back at me. He wouldn’t dare to let Dixon control the district attorney’s office... Incidentally, it’s because of Carl Thorne that I’m going out on this case personally instead of sending an investigator. Thorne is friendly with the Bender woman.”
The car slued around a corner, swung in close to the curb. Barney grunted, and jerked his head toward a house.
“That’s the joint,” he said.
The driver slowed the car to a stop.
“Not going to take me up with you?” Moraine asked.
Duncan hesitated for a moment, then said, “You really want to go, Sam?”
“If it’s not going to make any trouble for you,” Moraine told him, “I’d prefer listening in to sitting here in the car and twiddling my thumbs.”
“Come on, then,” the district attorney said. “I’ll tell Bender you’re an expert on different types of paper and I thought perhaps she might have a letter or two from her sister that she might want you to look over. But, for the life of me, I can’t see why a man wants to horn in on all this grief when he doesn’t have to do it to earn his living.”
“Other pastures look greener,” Moraine pointed out.
“Pasture, hell!” Duncan exclaimed disgustedly. “It’s a dump heap. Come on.”
They pushed open the door of an apartment house, entered the elevator, went to the third floor, their steps pounding down the corridor. Morden raised his knuckles to knock on a door, but, before he could knock, the door was flung open and an attractive woman gave them a quick smile.
“Oh, I’m so glad you’ve come!” she said to Phil Duncan.
Duncan’s manner was gravely professional.
“Mrs. Bender, let me present Mr. Moraine. Moraine is head of the Moraine Advertising and Distributing Company. You may have heard of it. He’s an expert on certain technical matters. He happened to be available, and I brought him along, thinking he might help us.”
She gave Moraine her hand. The tips of her fingers were cold.
“Thank you,” she said. “Come in.”