Shake a Crooked Town

CHAPTER V

Jessamyn Burger was both an attractive and comfortable dinner companion, Johnny decided. She had appeared in a conservative woolen suit firmly attached to a not-so-conservative figure. She had held up her end of the conversation, had laughed at his jokes, and had gradually turned serious when he described-still in a humorous vein-his encounter with Savino on the library steps and his reception at police headquarters. If she had heard the story before she was a good enough actress to disguise it.

“I think that you were luckier than you know,” she said quietly when he finished. “You're a stranger in this town. You have no idea of the situation here.”

“There was one thing that bothered me,” Johnny admitted. “I'd been in town an hour when Savino tied into me at the library. I couldn't figure how he got to me so fast. I think I know. He wasn't tailin' me. He was watchin' you, an' recognized me when I walked in.”

Her eyes widened. “Watching me? That's the most ridiculous idea I ever-”

“What's so ridiculous about it? You and Daddario were friends. You were in. Now you're out. They might be havin' second thoughts about what you learned about their business.”

“I learned nothing about their business, except what's hearsay in the town anyway.” She said it firmly. “Jim and I were friends for years but we never discussed his political affairs on any but the most platitudinous level.” Her eyes were steady on Johnny's. “We're still friends. I'm positive Jim would never do anything to hurt me or implicate me in any way.”

“Not while things were goin' his way,” Johnny argued. “Right now he's a little shook up. I think he's busy shorin' up the timbers on his political cabin. You might know more than you think.” Jessamyn Burger shook her head decisively and Johnny changed the subject. “Speakin' of hearsay in the town, I understand Dick Lowell has got himself an unofficial first lady.”

Her smile was unwilling. “For the length of time you've been in Jefferson you've certainly improved each shining hour. I don't think that situation is quite the way you'd appraise it from surface appearances, though. The woman's husband left her ten years ago but he's a dog-in-the-manger type who won't give her a divorce. She can't get it without him dragging her name and Dick's through every paper in the state. He's threatened to do it. Dick can't have that, so the status quo remains. It's a sordid but not unusual situation.”

So it wasn't Micheline Thompson with whom Dick Lowell was playing house, Johnny mused. He was surprised at the relief he felt at the news. If she had been involved it would almost have clinched her role in the Manhattan suite. Thinking of her recalled something else. He had called the number listed for Carl Thompson in the phone book before he had left Mrs. Peterson's to meet Jessamyn, and had raised no one. He pushed back his chair and signaled the waiter for his check. “Excuse me a moment,” he said to Jessamyn. He placed a bill beside his plate.

He walked out to the men's room and stepped into a phone booth just outside the door. He dialed the Carl Thompson number again and listened with a gathering frown as the phone rang and rang. He hung up and emerged from the booth thoughtfully. He wondered where Micheline Thompson was spending her time.

Back at the table he smiled down at Jessamyn Burger. “See you home, lady?”

“Oh, don't bother. It's out a little way. I'm-”

“Bother? I want to bother.” Her color bloomed at his inspection. “We'll take a cab out an' I'll walk back. I need the exercise.”

“Well-” He gave her no chance to argue. On the sidewalk he took her arm while the restaurant doorman flagged down a taxi. “The address is 546 Circle Drive,” she said as one pulled in to the curb. Johnny gave the driver the address and settled down beside her. It was a quiet ride.

“I'm sorry I can't invite you in for a drink,” she said when the cab pulled into a curving street lined, with apartment buildings. “As far as their librarian's morals are concerned, Jefferson is a small town.”

“I'll just walk you to the door,” Johnny said as the taxi stopped before a building shabbier than its neighbors. “I'd like to do this again when you can work me into your schedule.”

“I have no schedule,” she said before she thought. She smiled self-consciously. “I really should build myself up to you better than that, shouldn't I?” He took her arm again up the broad cement walk. At the door she turned. “Thank you. I enjoyed it.”

He opened the door. “I'll give you a ring,” he suggested. He stood on the step holding the door. “Is there any-” Over her shoulder as Jessamyn moved inside Johnny saw a shadow that materialized into Jigger Kratz and Tommy Savino standing there, waiting. Without even thinking about it Johnny stepped inside and closed the door.

At the expression on his face Jessamyn turned quickly. “Jigger!” she exclaimed in surprise. “What are you doing here?”

The big man stood with his hands jammed comfortably into his pockets, a cigarette dangling from a corner of his mouth. “Jim wants you should call him, Jessie,” he said. His lips seemed not to move at all.

“If Jim wants to talk to me he knows my telephone number!” she replied spiritedly.

“It'd be a good idea if you called him, Jessie,” Kratz said patiently. He rocked slightly on his heels, perfectly relaxed. Beside him Savino was taut as a bowstring, Johnny thought. “Take care of it, will you? Goodnight.”

“Goodnight?” she echoed, surprised. “What-” She looked from the two men to Johnny and back again. Johnny had moved casually a few feet from the door at his back, out into the small lobby with its polished floor. “Now look, Jigger-”

Savino's leash snapped. “Get inside!” he barked at her. He looked at Johnny with a dark, triumphant sneer. He circled to Johnny's left with the short, graceful steps of a dancer.

“Jigger!” the girl cried out. “Stop him!”

The big man smiled. Savino rushed Johnny, throwing a long right-hand punch. Johnny blocked it easily. In close, the slender man darted the forked fingers of his left hand at Johnny's eyes. Johnny caught the fingers and bent them back steadily upon the wrist. Savino went to his knees with a strangled sound.

“Give me a reason I shouldn't break 'em, wise guy,” Johnny growled down at the ashen face. He moved to put Savino between himself and Kratz who had made no move at all. Savino scrambled on his knees turning with Johnny, his eyes bulging as he tried to relieve the pressure on his fingers. His free hand came up and clawed at Johnny's hand. Johnny put a foot in Savino's stomach and thrust explosively, letting go of the fingers. Savino skidded on his knees across the lobby floor and crashed into Kratz's shins with a force that would have driven the average man backward. The big man never even missed a puff on his cigarette. “Try your luck?” Johnny invited him.

With no change of expression Kratz reached down and hooked thick fingers in Savino's coat collar. He hauled him to his feet. “He was told not to do that,” he rumbled to Johnny. “That's the only reason you're gettin' away with it.” He turned to the white-faced librarian. “You call Jim, Jessie.” He steered the reeling Savino through the door and was gone.

Jessamyn Burger drew a long breath as Johnny looked down at his right hand. Blood welled up on the back of it. “You're hurt!” she said sharply.

“Just a scratch,” Johnny told her. He reached in his pocket for a handkerchief.

“You come inside and wash that out,” she ordered him. “That man's fingernails could give you hydrophobia.”

“But you said-”

“I don't care what I said.” High heels click-clacking, she led the way up three steps and along a dimly lighted aisle past a self-service elevator. At a door marked 2-A she stopped and removed a key from her handbag.

The drab exterior of the building and the small, cluttered lobby had left Johnny unprepared for the room into which she led him. Solid cherry paneling covered the walls from floor to ceiling. Vividly scarlet linoleum on the floor was partially covered by a huge oval rug braided in a concentric black-and-white pattern. An austere white brick chimney centered the farther wall. Below it the fireplace was an old-fashioned Franklin stove extending outward on a raised white brick hearth. Bronze andirons in front of it and bronze knobs and medallions on the stove itself relieved its jet black severity. At the side a bronze-hooped, cherrywood bucket contained white birch logs. A low cherrywood table to the left held an ivory lamp and a bowl of flowers, and to the right a high cherrywood buffet held a matching lamp and a trailing green fern. Halfway to the ceiling on the white bricks of the chimney a golden rooster crowed silently.

“I like this,” Johnny approved. He realized that every fiber of wood visible in the room was cherry.

“Thank you. I designed it myself.” She glanced around as though trying to see it critically with his eyes. “And paid for it myself. My well-meaning knowledgeable friends tell me it has no particular distinction or artistic merit, but I like it. I like nice things.” She returned her key to her handbag. “You can wash up behind that door on the right.”

Beyond the bathroom Johnny had a quick glimpse of a bedroom in frilly pinks and whites. He ran the cold water and stuck his hand under it. He heard the sound of her heels on the tile beside him and turned to look. “Duck your head,” she commanded, and opened the medicine closet door when he complied. She took down a bottle of Mercurochrome and a box of Band-aids. “You have the biggest hand,” she said in surprise, working on it. Her voice trailed off.

Back out in the cherrywood living room he raised the question that had been on his mind. “Those two seem to think you're still on the home team the way they boss you around,” he said. He watched her face while appearing to smooth down the Band-aid on the back of his hand.

“I was kicked off the home team so long ago the bruises have nearly healed.” She said it with no real emphasis but it sounded sincere to his critical ear. “You'll have to watch yourself with Savino,” she continued.

“He's dropped a couple decisions today. He may go back into trainin'.”

She shook her head emphatically. “Not Savino. If he can't do it from in front he'll do it from behind.” She looked at him thoughtfully. “You're very strong, aren't you?”

“As strong as Kratz?

Her eyes darkened. “No one is as strong as Kratz.”

“He the boy who did the job on Thompson?”

Her face closed up. “I'm sure I have no idea.”

He'd touched the wrong button that time, Johnny decided.

He waved the bandaged hand at her. “Thanks, Jessie. For everything. I'll give you a ring.”

Her features opened up again at his use of her name.

“I–I'd like that.”

“Just keep the line clear,” he told her cheerfully, and departed.

He walked back to town, detouring out into the street each time a corner building ran right out to the sidewalk.

He saw no sign of Savino, or of Kratz, either.

Johnny sat in Richard Lowell's library as the white-maned mayor pushed a low, wheeled table alongside his chair. The table contained a brandy decanter, two pony glasses, and a cigar humidor. Lowell splashed brandy into each of the glasses and nudged one in Johnny's direction. He picked up his own and drained it at a gulp, set down his glass and refilled it. He selected a cigar from the humidor and carried brandy and cigar to the unlighted fireplace. “Help yourself to a cigar,” he said as an afterthought. His back was to the room. He flung the crumpled cellophane from his cigar at the set logs in the fireplace with exaggerated force. To Johnny he looked as nervous as a cat on hot bricks.

Johnny chose a cigar and glanced around the tremendous room whose walls were book-lined two-thirds of the way to a ceiling he estimated at eighteen feet. The fireplace was large enough to roast an ox. “Who pays the heatin' bills here?” he asked. “The city?”

Richard Lowell's expression was concentrated as he rotated the tip of his cigar carefully in the flame of a silver lighter. “This is the Lowell House,” he said when he had the cigar going to his satisfaction. His manner indicated that that should be all the explanation necessary.

“The Richard Lowell House?”

The mayor made an impatient gesture with his cigar. “The Lowell House,” he repeated. “Built by my people shortly after 1800. There've been Lowells in Jefferson ever since. There've been Lowells in city, state, and federal government ever since.” He looked moodily around the huge room. “This place is an anachronism now. I let my housekeeper go. I live in three rooms and I take my meals out. I have no family.” He shook his head. “Lately I've begun to understand the problems of dynasties when the succession peters out. Toby never married at all. After me, I don't know what becomes of the Lowell House.”

“But the Lowells run Jefferson?”

Lowell's smile was bitter. “I can take you to places in town where you can get an argument on the point. Oh, they used to, all right.” He took down his pony glass from the mantel where he had placed it while he lit his cigar.

“Thompson was your man. You're bein' moved in on since he was dragged out of the saddle?”

“Very succinctly put, my friend. I am indeed being moved in on.”

“But you're still the mayor.”

“The voting public still retains an affection for the name Lowell. As for the mayor's rights, powers, and perquisites, they're being whittled away every day.”

“By Daddario?”

“Jim would like to be mayor.” Richard Lowell shrugged. “Ten years ago I'd have called it impossible.”

“Riley is Daddario's man?”

“He is, although he was approved by the city council, which is a nine-man board. The vote was five to nothing with four abstentions. It was an extremely slapdash affair. I had no candidate to put up against Riley. It was railroaded through.”

“If you still control four council votes you can't be in such bad shape,” Johnny said.

“I controlled six at the beginning of this term,” Lowell said wryly. “Jim apparently is a better salesman than I am.” He drained off the balance of his brandy. “How was your dinner?”

“Fine an' dandy, until I ran into Kratz an' Savino afterward.” The mayor looked at him silently. “Savino threw another shoe. Kratz refereed. I don't think we settled much.”

“I'm not sure that I would put too much stock in anything Miss Burger may have said during your-ah-conversation.”

The flexible speaking voice carefully picked its way. “If she said anything?”

“She didn't say much,” Johnny admitted.

“It's not surprising. Despite their emotional-ah-disengagement, I happen to know that Jim and she are still financially involved.”

“He's payin' her off to keep her shut up?”

“No, no,” Lowell said hurriedly. “A project or two they embarked upon together in-happier days.” He set down his empty glass. “I talked to Toby about you this evening. He was surprised to learn that you were here.”

“Pleasantly?”

The mayor's smile was small and unwilling. “I didn't ask. I was more interested in his opinion of you. I might say it does you credit. Would you be open to a proposition?”

“Just a minute. If Jack Riley is Daddario's man how were you able to spring me from the lion's den today?”

“They don't buck me openly,” Lowell said. “Not yet, anyway. If I make a loud enough noise I get my way. Riley would like to cut me off at the knees but Jim's the patient type. He remembers all those voters who revere the name Lowell. Now about that proposition-”

“You're offerin' me the job of Chief of Police?”

The mayor stared. “Hardly.”

“Why not? Sounds to me like you need one on your side.”

“You're not being realistic, Killain. If I had the votes on the council to put you in as chief I'd have had the votes to keep Thompson on. Even though the type of charges that necessitated his removal did me as his sponsor no good at all with the independent members of the council.”

“I thought Toby was his sponsor.”

“Toby recommended him to me.” Irritation edged the mayor's tone. “Toby has been above and beyond Jefferson for twenty years. I seem to have been delegated to fight the Lowell rear-guard action.”

“So I'm not gonna be police chief. What is it, then? President of the city council?”

The mayor's smile was pained. “Really, Killain, you-”

“Tax assessor? Health inspector? Dog catcher?”

Richard Lowell flushed dully. “You know perfectly well I'm unable to offer you an official position of any kind.”

“But you're offerin' me a position.”

“Why-yes.” Lowell brightened. “You're accepting?”

“It might help if I knew what it was.”

The mayor looked down at his half-consumed cigar and threw it backward into the fireplace. “You would-ah- assist me. In a number of ways. There are projects I've been unable to execute because of the lack of the right man.”

“Assistant to the Mayor,” Johnny said musingly.

Richard Lowell looked startled. “I'm afraid there would be no title,” he said hurriedly.

Johnny tired of the game. “So you're hirin' a bodyguard,” he said bluntly.

“Not at all, not at all!” Mayor Lowell said it vigorously. “I've no need of one.”

“Glad to hear it. Say, how do I get in touch with Micheline Thompson? I've called her apartment twice and nobody answers.”

The mayor appeared taken aback by the abrupt change in direction. “I'm sure I don't-you say no one answers? The funeral, possibly-” He jammed his hands in his pockets to get them out of sight. Left to themselves they dry-washed each other nervously. “You have business with Mrs. Thompson?”

“Just a social call. I knew her in France.”

“You did?” Richard Lowell smiled uncertainly, sobered, then smiled again with an effort. “I had no idea-”

“I'll catch her in the mornin'. She looked good when I talked to her an' Daddario in New York. A lot different than-”

“Please.” Richard Lowell held up a hand. His tongue circled dry lips. “You talked to Jim Daddario in New York? In Mrs. Thompson's presence?”

“Make it the other way around. I talked to her in his presence.”

“How-who made this arrangement?”

“She called me, reminded me of France, an' asked me to come down an' see her. I went. Just about that time somebody was gettin' to her husband up in my room.”

“I'm extremely glad to have this information, Killain. I consider it highly significant that Jim was right in the neighborhood when Thompson was killed.” His voice took on added timbre. “You've already gathered, I'm sure, that it was because Jim was unable to control Thompson that he forced his removal.”

“Sure.” Johnny got to his feet. “Time to hit the road. If you ever get the dimensions of this job shaped up, give me a ring. An' if you get the scent of my thousand bucks anywhere on the local breeze I'd likewise appreciate a call.”

“Certainly. Happy to help.” Richard Lowell looked as though he would have liked to prolong the conversation but had suddenly run out of material. “Ah-goodnight, Killain.”

“Goodnight. I'll find my way out.” Johnny walked through the library door and the cavernous front hall. He turned around on the walk outside to look back at the house bulking large in the night, the massive central structure festooned with added wings. A glimmer of light from the library was the only break in the total expanse of darkness. One man living all alone in a house like that, Johnny thought.

The visit had strengthened a feeling Johnny had had that afternoon. Compared to the incisive, fast-acting Toby Lowell, Johnny knew that Dick Lowell was a bumbling incompetent. Unless his indecisiveness was an act-and Johnny could see no reason for such being the case-the mayor despite his bluffly hearty appearance was not much more than a hollow shell. In the city of Jefferson the Lowell blood was badly in need of an infusion of red corpuscles.

The Lowell House was three blocks from the business district. Johnny walked back, conscious of a pleasant lassitude. He hadn't been in a bed in thirty-six hours but he didn't feel tired. His nerve-ends seemed touched with quicksilver. He definitely was not in the mood for sleep. Restlessness clawed at him internally. His hand in his pocket closed on the thick wad of Mickey Tallant's loan and seemed to give purpose to his stride. He crossed the street to a cab stand on a corner, put his head in the window of the first cab in line and spoke to the dozing driver. “Any action in town?”

The cabbie jerked awake and turned to look at him. He looked at length and whatever it was he saw in Johnny's face it appeared to satisfy him. “What's your game, chum?”

“Poker.”

“You like it strong?”

“So-so.”

“We could try Louie's,” the driver mused aloud. “Although I heard there was a good game at Rudy's earlier. That's closer.”

“I can get in without an okay?”

The cabbie shrugged. “That's up to Rudy. Tell him Chuckles brought you. Hop in.” Johnny got into the cab. They went a half-dozen blocks and pulled into the curb in front of a tavern with an illuminated beer ad in the window. The neon sign overhead was dark and Johnny realized it was after midnight. He handed the driver a bill. “Thanks, chum,” the driver said. “Play 'em up against your belly inside. It's a bruisin' game.”

Johnny pushed experimentally at the outside door which opened at his touch. Inside, a single subdued light behind the bar framed a bartender washing glasses. “Rudy,” Johnny said to his inquiring look.

The man nodded. His hands didn't move from towel or glasses, but a door opened in the rear of the room and a short, stocky man entered. He walked up to Johnny, dark, liquid eyes contrasting oddly with a dark, hard face. “I'd like to take a riffle,” Johnny told him. “Chuckles, the cab driver, brought me around.”

“That's a strike less on you,” Rudy said amiably. “I don't know you, do I?” He pursed his lips at Johnny's headshake. “You wearin' any iron?”

“Not an ounce.”

“You mind if I check?”

“Help yourself.”

Rudy's capable-looking hands went over Johnny in a light patting routine. “What's your game?” he asked as he stepped back.

“Poker,” Johnny said for the second time.

“Can you stand it?”

Johnny took out Mickey Tallant's roll and slapped it against his palm. “For a while, anyway.”

Rudy nodded. “Right this minute it's a full game but somebody'll get batted out an' make a seat for you. Come on in.” He led the way to the door through which he had entered and opened it with a key. Johnny eyed it passing through. It was a thin door. Rudy wasn't afraid of a police shoulder against it. His question about a possible gun indicated he was more concerned about a holdup man than he was about an undercover man fronting for a police raid.

The room inside surprised Johnny. It was much larger than he would have expected from the tavern out front. It was a complete gambling layout, wheels, dice tables, blackjack tables, even a chemin-de-fer birdcage. It was quiet in the room except at the dice table. Only one blackjack table was open and a single roulette wheel spun lazily for two bored-looking customers. “Everything but live clients,” Johnny commented.

“We do our real business on weekends,” Rudy said. He nodded toward a soft-hatted group of men around a green baize table under a brightly shining drop-light. “Leave your name with the dealer for the next seat an' take a walk around.”

“Sure. How about a drink?”

“Sorry. The bar closes at midnight.” Rudy walked away.

In its own way the prohibition probably made sense, Johnny reflected. The wide-open gambling within forty feet of the main street could be fixed locally. Liquor was state-administered and could not.

He walked to the card table. Between hands he caught the green-eyeshaded dealer's attention, circled the table swiftly with a finger, and then pointed at himself. The dealer nodded. Johnny stood and watched the game. There was no money on the table and he didn't know the value of the chips but the quiet intensity of the game suggested that they didn't represent nickels and dimes. The game was straight poker with no flourishes.

After a few moments he wandered over to the dice table and looked on. There was a younger, harder-looking crowd at the dice table. Noisier, too. Johnny pushed on to a blackjack table and exchanged a twenty dollar bill for dollar chips. He climbed up on a stool and won and lost with almost religious alternation until he looked around at a touch on his elbow. “Seat open,” Rudy said.

“Fine.” He counted out a thousand dollars of Mickey Tallant's money and shoved the rest back in his pocket. He walked back to the poker table and slid into the vacant seat. The dealer shuffled and blended cards in a blurred whirr of celluloid and set them down on the table. “Game's jackpots,” he said briskly to Johnny. “Five, twenty-five, and fifty. Passed pots stop at four. No limit on raises at any time. You can go to the banker at any time. Any questions?”

“Coffeehousin' go?” Johnny asked him.

“Anything goes,” the dealer replied with emphasis. “You're not among friends.”

Johnny pushed his thousand dollars toward the dealer. “Let 'er rip.” He stacked up in front of him the twenty white chips, sixteen reds, and ten blues he received in return. He ran an appraising eye around the table. At five dollars for a white chip, twenty-five for a red, and fifty for a blue he could see a conservative twelve to fifteen thousand dollars in chips on the table. He drew his chair in a little tighter beneath him. His nostrils tested the familiar electricity in the air. He wished he had a cigar.

For thirty minutes he threw in hand after hand, sizing up the players in the game. He drew once to two pair after raising right behind the opener and driving everyone else out. The opener caught another pair and beat him. For the amount of money involved it was a looser game than he expected. Raises were frequent and there weren't too many folded hands. Two or three calls were not unusual. There was only one man in the game playing as tight a game as himself, a gray-haired man with a weather-beaten face.

On a four-time passed pot the deal came up to the man in front of Johnny. Under the gun, Johnny looked at his cards singly as they came off the top of the deck. The first three were nines, and he stopped looking. “Pass,” he said when the cards had stopped falling.

“Open,” the man behind him said. He tossed in two blue chips.

“Raise it once,” the next man said. He threw in four blues.

“Stay.”

“Out.”

“Out.”

“Up again,” said the dealer confidently. One by one he dropped six blues onto the pile.

Johnny felt the finger of excitement on his spine. Three hundred to play. He picked up his hand and spread his cards. He hadn't made any mistake. The three nines were there.

The next card was a king.

The last one was the fourth nine.