Shake a Crooked Town

CHAPTER IV

On the granite library steps Johnny stopped to light a cigarette. A heavy push from behind sent him reeling. The cigarette flew from his hand and he staggered down three or four steps before recovering his balance. Another stiff push nearly upset him again as he turned to see what had happened. He stared at a slim, dark, handsome-looking man standing on the step above him. The man grinned and pushed Johnny again, deliberately.

Belatedly, Johnny recognized the dark man as the one who had been in the Manhattan suite with Micheline Thompson and Jim Daddario. Savino. Tommy Savino. Had this little pimp followed him all the way up here from New York? If he had, it left Killain with plenty of egg on his face. “What's the matter with you?” Johnny demanded at another push. Only the first one had moved him. Still smiling, Savino said nothing. He stepped down onto Johnny's level as if to push again, changed his mind and swung his left hand. It caught Johnny on the ear, more of a slap than a punch, but it stung.

The man's left arm started up again, and Johnny reached for it. He checked himself immediately. That's what he wants, he told himself. He's looking for trouble. This is his town.

He evaded the left hand with a head movement. Savino's fixed smile took on a jeering aspect at Johnny's checked grab for his arm. He kicked Johnny heavily in the right shin. A hot, glowing coal ignited in Johnny's stomach. There was nothing openhanded about the right hand smash with which he hit Savino flush in the sneering mouth, knocking him flat on his back on the steps.

The dark man scrambled to his knees like a snarling wildcat, the corners of his mouth dribbling blood. His right hand darted to his left wrist. Johnny stepped in close and picked him up bodily. He carried Savino to a wall buttress and stood him up against it with a knee in his back to hold him there. Unhurriedly, Johnny worked the left arm around behind the struggling body and beneath the loose-flowing jacket sleeve found a knife holster strapped to the forearm.

Savino cursed luridly as Johnny removed a deadly-looking six-inch blade from the holster. He was disappointed to find no bone in the handle as there had been in the knife that had killed Carl Thompson. Johnny placed the blade against the stone buttress and applied pressure until it snapped off close to the hilt.

“Ye're under arrest,” a voice rambled from behind him. “Both of you. Fightin' in public.” Johnny turned. Sap in hand, a hulking patrolman stood watchfully, feet planted wide apart. Johnny removed his knee from Savino's spine. The slim man whirled but the policeman spoke hastily. “None of that, now. We'll settle it at the stationhouse. March on out to the curb.”

Johnny looked at the high, narrow, boxlike body of the vehicle pulled up out in front. It had two steps up from the back and no windows. A twenty-year-out-of-date Black Maria that appeared without being summoned. Here comes trouble, Killain, Johnny told himself. It looked as though Carl Thompson had known what he was talking about.

They walked through the rim of a gathering crowd to the police van. Johnny got in first and went at once to the front end and stood with his back to the wall. Savino followed him, and the patrolman lumbered on last. He looked at Johnny up in the front. “Sit down, you,” he said sharply, and turned to close and latch the van doors.

Johnny stayed where he was. The instant the staring faces of the people outside were shut out, Savino charged, the patrolman a stride behind. Johnny grabbed Savino and held him out at arm's length, using him as a buffer against the sap in the policeman's big hand. “Get him, Collins,” Savino grunted, writhing in Johnny's hands. Johnny tightened his grip and Savino swore hoarsely. Behind him Patrolman Collins prowled ineffectually, trying to get at Johnny past the barrier of Savino's body. Their heavy breathing filled the van.

A sharp left turn staggered them up against the wall. The van slowed and Collins smothered a remark under his breath. As it stopped he hung the sap back on his belt, opened the back doors and stepped down. Johnny half-threw Savino at the doors and he staggered out into a sunlit yard. Johnny followed cautiously and found himself in a hollow square of public buildings with thousands of windows looking down upon the open space. He relaxed for the first time in minutes. This kind of trouble didn't usually come in the open and the sunlight.

The driver swung down off the front seat, a folded canvas stretcher under his arm. His stolid expression turned foolish at sight of all three of his passengers on their feet. He hurriedly stuffed the stretcher back inside the van.

Back entrance double-doors were spaced at regular intervals around the square. A blue light marked Police Headquarters. “Get inside,” Patrolman Collins said curtly. His hands were empty. A raging Savino almost sprinted to the door. Johnny moved quickly to keep him within reach. Savino might be allied with the police but he was still Johnny's passport. The moment Johnny was maneuvered into laying a hand on the police rather than on Savino the situation would become a lot stickier.

He followed on Savino's heels down a long, polished-stone corridor. Closed doors on both sides bore silver-lettered glass panels labeled City Engineer, City Clerk, City Health Department, City Council Meetingroom, City Tax Office. Savino's pace outdistanced Collins and the van driver. A red neon arrow with the word POLICE beneath it pointed down a short flight of stairs. Savino ran down them with Johnny right behind him. They burst out into a brightly lighted room with a high desk behind which sat a hard-faced uniformed sergeant.

Johnny made it his business to beat Savino to the desk. “I want to prefer charges against this man,” he said. He tossed the broken knife up on the desk. “That thing had four more inches on it when I took it away from him.”

“I'll prefer the goddamn charges,” Savino blurted thickly. His handsome features were pale with anger. Dried blood crusted a corner of his mouth. “Where's Riley?” he demanded.

The sergeant nodded silently to an unmarked door at the rear of the room. Savino wheeled and walked to it, entering without knocking. The desk man glanced back at the stairs as Collins and the driver rattled down them. “I brought 'em in, Sarge,” Collins puffed. “Fightin' on the street.” He pointed at Johnny. “He started it.”

“He's preferring charges against Savino,” the sergeant said. His face was expressionless. He held up the broken knife. “Claims he took this away from him.”

“I didn't see nothin' like that,” Collins said. “First I saw this guy hit Savino in the mouth an' flattened him.”

“Then why'd you arrest Savino?” Johnny asked him. “Just to give him a shot at me in the van?”

Cold blue eyes looked down on Johnny from behind the high desk. “I don't see any marks on you,” the sergeant said. “Any witnesses to your story?”

“Three,” Johnny lied easily.

The blue eyes shifted to Collins who looked suddenly uneasy. “I'm tellin' you what I saw, Sarge.” He bore down heavily on the personal pronoun. “I didn't-”

He stopped as the door at the rear of the room behind which Savino had disappeared opened quickly. A big man in an impressive uniform filled the doorway. He was both tall and wide. There was barely enough room in the doorway to see Tommy Savino standing in the room behind him with a smirk on his face. Johnny looked at the scrambled egg motif on the big man's uniform cap and the bulge of crumpled white shirt overflowing the belt buckle visible via the unbuttoned jacket. “What is it, McDonough?” the man in the doorway asked.

“Street fight, Chief,” the desk sergeant replied. “Collins brought-”

“Book that one,” the chief interrupted him, looking at Johnny for the first time. “I'll talk to him later.”

McDonough held up the broken knife. “He's preferring-”

“I said book him.” The chief left the doorway and headed for the stairs. Savino followed, grinning.

“I guess right about here is where I get to make my phone call,” Johnny said to Sergeant McDonough. The sergeant cut his eyes toward the stairs, Johnny saw that the chief had halted on the second step. It wasn't likely this crew would let him make an outside phone call but they should be curious as to whom he wanted to make it.

There was no sound from the stairs. With no change of expression McDonough stood up behind the desk. He lifted a phone over the top of it and handed it down to Johnny, stand and all. “Make it snappy, pal,” he said.

One look explained the generosity. It wasn't a dial phone. They could hear the name or the number he asked the operator to get for him and still have plenty of time to retrieve the phone before the connection could be made.

Johnny lifted the receiver. “Mayor Lowell's office,” he said to the switchboard operator's inquiry. Above his head Sergeant McDonough glanced quickly at the stairs.

“Break that up!” the chief barked.

McDonough yanked hard on the cord going over the top of his desk. Johnny had anticipated it. Nothing happened. The sergeant leaned down over the front of the desk. Johnny backed away as far as he could get but the cord wouldn't let him get far enough. “Tell the mayor-” Johnny said to the new feminine voice on the line and paused to lower his head as. McDonough punched down at him. Instead of hitting him in the face the sergeant hit him in the forehead. It drove Johnny back a step but he retained his grip on the phone. “-that I'm a friend of his brother Toby's an' that your cops are givin' me a hard time at headquarters. Tell him-” McDonough's roundhouse right landed on Johnny's cheekbone despite his effort to evade it. McDonough's grunt was clearly audible. “Tell him to get down here,” Johnny said rapidly. He dropped to one knee to avoid McDonough's follow-up smash. He bobbed up instantly, slapped the receiver into the cradle and threw the telephone over the desk, hard. It hit McDonough squarely in the chest. “Thanks for the use of your phone, Mac,” Johnny told him as the sergeant went backward into his chair with a crash.

Chief Riley was halfway toward the desk from the stairs. “Did he get that call through?” he demanded of no one in particular. He didn't wait for an answer. Dark blood flared in the wide, moon face as he glared at Johnny. He looked big but he looked soft, too, Johnny thought. “We'll fix your clock, mister,” the chief said to him harshly. “We know how to take care of wise guys around here. You won't be so lucky the next time.” He half-turned to look back up the stairs at the sound of rapidly descending footsteps. “You're going to find your umbrella's got a hell of a leak in it.”

He stalked back into his office, slamming the door.

Mayor Richard Lowell clattered briskly down the stairs and into the room. He looked exactly like his picture, Johnny thought, except on a larger scale. The head was large and crested with a cockatoo-like white pompadour. It commanded instant attention. The strong face gave a lion-like appearance to the average-sized physique. “You called my office?” he demanded of Johnny and without waiting for an answer swung to the desk. “What about this, McDonough?”

The gray-faced sergeant climbed laboriously to his feet. He stood half-doubled over. “Wise-bastard-” he got out between his teeth. His breath whistled on the sibilants. “Hit me-with the phone-”

“I asked you what happened here.” The mayor glanced from McDonough to Johnny, his expression curious. “Was Riley here? Where is he now?”

Johnny pointed at the closed door. He realized for the first time that Tommy Savino had disappeared. Lowell started to say something, hesitated, took Johnny by the arm and led him to a corner. “Who are you?” he asked in an undertone. “What took place here?”

“I'd like to talk to you about it. Privately,” Johnny said.

“Why should you want to talk to me?” Lowell sounded suspicious. He had a rich, beautifully polished speaking voice. Every syllable was produced with a vocal flourish. “And what's this business of your being a friend of Toby's?”

“I talked to Toby yesterday afternoon.”

“You did?” Mayor Lowell kindled. “Did Toby send you up here?” His voice had risen; he lowered it immediately. “Did they find it out?”

“What kind of a town are you runnin' here?” Johnny asked in his turn. “Or aren't you runnin' it at all? These guys like to had my ears nailed to the wall.”

Angry color invaded Richard Lowell's patrician features. “I hope I'm running this town!” he blustered.

“I hope so, too, but some people don't seem to have gotten the message. I was in town an hour an' I was jumped on the street by a man named Savino. He an' a cop with him had a wagon handy to roll me in here. I had trouble keepin' 'em off me in the wagon.” Johnny fingered a rising lump on his left cheekbone. “I had more trouble gettin' to talk to you. Is all that a part of the town you're runnin'? An' does Toby know about it?”

Without a word the mayor turned and strode to the door through which Chief Riley had exited. He went right on in without bothering to knock. He closed the door behind him. Johnny returned his attention to the desk. McDonough sat down, his blue eyes glaring down malevolently at Johnny, but he said nothing.

The silence lasted until the mayor rushed out of the chief's office, banging the door behind him. Storm signals darkened his face. “We can talk upstairs,” he said curtly to Johnny.

Behind the desk McDonough rose to his feet again. He looked torn the closed door to the mayor. “Hold up a minute,” he protested. “Nobody's told me what to do with the charge against-”

“The second thing you can do with it,” Richard Lowell interrupted him with a vicious clarity in the mellow voice, “is tear it up.” Without a backward glance he led the way to the stairs and Johnny followed him.

On the upper level they walked to the front of the building and a door marked OFFICE OF THE MAYOR. Inside, Lowell hurried past a brunette secretary who paused in her typing to look up at Johnny with interest. She was an extremely good-looking girl. Johnny wondered if it were she with whom the mayor was shacking up as charged by Mrs. Peterson. If so, Richard Lowell went up a couple of notches in Johnny's estimation. The girl was a knockout.

In his private office, the mayor closed the door. It was elaborately furnished with heavy, old-fashioned pieces. “Sit down,” he said. His tone made it a command. He softened it at once. “Now for God's sake catch me up on what's going on around here. First of all, did Toby send you?”

“No.” Johnny could see the mayor's disappointment in the blunt negative.

Disappointment was followed by renewed suspicion. “Then who are you? What are you doing here?”

“I'm tryin' to retrieve a bankroll heisted from me.”

Richard Lowell sat down behind a wide oak desk. His expression was puzzled. “Isn't that a matter for the police? I mean, why come to me?”

“You're Toby's brother. The corn hasn't stopped poppin' since I talked to Thompson. Somebody-”

“You talked to Carl Thompson?” The mayor had moved forward on the edge of his chair. “When?”

“Yesterday afternoon at my place.”

“Your-?” Richard Lowell slapped his forehead dramatically with an open palm. “Of course,” he exclaimed. “You're Killain. Toby called me about you. I didn't make the connection because he didn't say you were coming.”

“He didn't know it. After Thompson was killed-”

“How did it happen?” the mayor broke in eagerly. “I've had no details at all.”

“Knifed,” Johnny told him. “An' twice last night someone tried to add me to the score.”

“You? Why?”

“Because Thompson talked to me?” Johnny asked his own question.

“I see,” Lowell said slowly. “Yes, I do see.”

“Why'd Toby call you?” Johnny asked casually.

“About Thompson, of course.” The mayor looked defensive. He folded his hands in his lap. “I suppose Carl damned me to you up, down, and sideways?”

“He never even mentioned your name,” Johnny said truthfully.

“Then he had a damn sight more forbearance than I'd have had in his place,” Lowell said grimly. “I'm the man who fired him. Under pressure,” he added hastily.

“An' Toby didn't like it?”

Richard Lowell smiled bleakly. “My brother has an unrealistic approach at times to the problems of municipal government in a city like Jefferson.”

“What's your problem?”

“It's a long story.” Lowell ran a hand nervously through his hair. He couldn't have been more than fifty, Johnny thought, but the hair was snow white. “First I'd rather go into why you're here.”

“I'm here because I'm a thousand dollar loser to the action in New York an' because somebody tried twice to scrag me. It didn't look to me like I was goin' to get any answers I wanted at that end of the line.” He moved onto the offensive. “Why are you standin' me off here, now? What are you afraid of?” He rose to his feet. “Tell your police department they'll need more'n a wagon to bring me in the next time they take the notion.”

“It's not my police department!”

“You sprung me from down there,” Johnny pointed out.

“A quid pro quo. Jack Riley-”

“It was your police department when Thompson was chief?” Johnny pressed him when Lowell hesitated. The mayor nodded reluctantly.

“Who submarined him?”

“I think you'd better come out to the house tonight,” Lowell decided. “I don't like to talk here. I'm never sure-” His hand again made the sweeping gesture through his hair.

“You mean you think your own office could be bugged?”

“I've invited you to my home,” Lowell said stiffly.

“I've accepted,” Johnny said promptly. “Late, though. Say around ten. I'm havin' dinner at eight. With Jessamyn Burger.” Richard Lowell's mouth opened but no sound came forth. Johnny smiled at him. “Give my regards to Toby when you call him to report I hit the deck here.”

“I'm not-who said-” The mayor groped for a reply.

“See you at ten,” Johnny said. “And for Christ's sake try to make a little more sense than you're makin' now, will you?”

He closed the door to the private office from the outside. The brunette secretary again looked up from her typing. Johnny walked over to her desk and looked down at her. “I hear your boss is shackin' up with an unmarried female,” he said solemnly. “Is it you?”

Her mouth curved humorously. “No, it's not.”

“Shame on him, then. Would it do me any good to put my name on the list?”

“I'm afraid not.” She raised her hand from the typewriter keys to show him an engagement ring. She was smiling openly.

“That's the toughest decision I dropped today,” he told her. “Ten thousand thousand good wishes.”

Her eyes followed him all the way to the door.

Back at Mrs. Peterson's his key let him into the front hallway and he started for the stairs. “Well! Whom have we here?” a fresh young voice inquired from behind him.

Johnny turned. A chubby teenager with schoolbooks under her arm was examining him from the living-room doorway. She had flaming red hair done up in a pony tail, a pert face, and a mouth heavily lipsticked in the latest version of a femme fatale. “I'm the new roomer,” Johnny said.

“Val just never tells me these things,” the girl announced dramatically. “I'm Jingle Peterson.” She put down the books and moved out into the hall to get a better look at him. All her movements were exaggerated. She eyed the silver-studded jacket with frank approval. “Cool, man. That skin's really got the beat.” She ran a hand lightly over the jacket, her head tilted up to watch his face, her expression saucy.

“Pleased to meet you, Jingle,” Johnny acknowledged. “I'm Johnny. Who's Val?”

“Val?” Her thinly plucked eyebrows rose. “My sainted mama. Mrs. Valerie Peterson. We won't have any trouble with her.” She tapped a finger lightly on his chest. “Pleased to meet you, Johnny. Aren't you going to offer me a drink?”

“What the hell would you do if I did?” he asked in amusement.

“Why, drink it, of course!” She fluttered her eyelashes at him. “What else does one do with a drink?”

“How old are you, Jingle?”

“Don't you agree that chronological age has nothing at all to do with one's maturity?” she asked rapidly in the manner of a well-rehearsed lesson.

“Fourteen?”

“Mercy! Do I look like a child?'

“Fifteen an'a half?”

She pouted at him. “I think you're horrid. I'm ages older than that. If you can't see — ”

“Must've been sixteen last week,” he decided aloud. “It's not that I don't appreciate the vote of confidence, Jingle, but don't you think you deserve somethin' better'n an old crock like me?”

“You're not all that old,” she announced firmly. “You have an interesting face. Sort of grim. I think we're going to be very good friends.” Her face lighted up suddenly. “Are you any good at algebra?”

“I'm the world's worst.”

“Oh, well,” she sighed. “You can't have everything.” She sailed grandly back into the living room and picked up her books. The eyelashes fluttered at him from the doorway. “See you later, large man. It's been the most.”

“It sure has,” Johnny agreed. “Hey! Can you press a suit?”

“One dollar per each, satisfaction guaranteed or your money back,” she said briskly.

“Hot up your iron. I'll bring it right down.” At the top of the stairs he encountered Mrs. Peterson, her dust mop exchanged for a broom. From her position it was obvious she had heard every word from the hallway below.

“Thanks for the way you handled that,” she said to Johnny when he went to pass by.

“You don't want to get mad at the kid. She's just testin' her wings.”

“Her generation defeats me,” Valerie Peterson said darkly. Her hands opened and closed on the broom handle. “We thought about the same things when we were her age, God knows, but it's their credo to proclaim it. I walk a tightrope trying to decide what's talk and what isn't.” Her eyes went down the stairs broodingly. “I guess I'll have to give up this business before long. Right now she's still afraid of my hairbrush but when the day comes that she isn't-” She shrugged. “Well. This floor is off limits to her, incidentally. Our bedroom is downstairs.” Johnny nodded. “There was a man here asking questions about you just after you went out.”

“He say who he was?” Johnny asked quickly.

“He didn't have to say. I was born and raised in this town. His name is Kratz. He has a used-car lot on the edge of town. He's also mixed up in local politics.”

“What did he ask you, Mrs. Peterson?”

“Just who you were. He seemed surprised when I told him.” Maybe it had been a break at that, using his own name, Johnny reflected. Kratz had been trying to pick up the alias. With him using his own name it might slow them down a little wondering about his backing. They'd picked him up so fast there sure as hell wasn't anything the matter with their liaison.

Valerie Peterson was watching his face. “I want no trouble here,” she warned him. “I know this Kratz. You mind what I say.” She walked away from him, down the stairs. In his room Johnny took down his suit from the closet and headed for the kitchen and Jingle.