Shake a Crooked Town

CHAPTER VIII

Johnny awoke in the first rays of the sunrise with his stomach rumbling with hunger pains. He had been too disgusted to eat anything before going to bed five hours before.

He rolled over and lay on his back with his hands folded beneath his head. The trip to Rudy's had been a disaster. The corners of his mouthy turned down at the remembrance. The sour taste was almost literal.

He had stepped into the game brash with confidence. In the first dozen hands he had run second three times and had pulled in his horns a little. He had won a small pot with three sevens and almost at once saw a full house top his smaller full. That had been painful, but not nearly so bad as the hand shortly after on which he had wagered briskly on a pat flush against a two-card draw. After two return raises Johnny had called and watched his opponent cheerfully lay down the ace, king, queen, nine, and five of spades. He always liked to draw to an ace, king, queen flush possibility, his opponent explained.

Johnny salvaged his few remaining chips and backed out of the game hurriedly. When they started filling flushes on two-card draws it obviously wasn't his night. It had only taken him twenty-five minutes and fourteen hundred dollars to find it out.

“Murder,” Rudy said at the door, letting him out.

“First degree,” Johnny affirmed.

“You happen to know this Tolliver boy up in Emergency Hospital?” Rudy asked.

“Seems to me I've heard the name,” Johnny said carefully. “What happened to him?”

“I heard he run into a fence,” Rudy said dryly. He spat on the floor and scrubbed it out with his heel. So far as he was concerned, the conversation seemed to have ended.

Johnny tried to keep it moving. “You have to choose up sides in this town to get your umbrella for this game?” he asked.

“Never used to have to,” Rudy said heavily. He cleared his throat. “Never used to,” he repeated. “It'd better stay that way. I pay my dues to the lodge an' all I ask is to be left alone.”

“They been comin' at you lately from more'n one direction?”

“I pay my dues,” Rudy reiterated.

And that had been all. Rudy had refused to say another word, leaving Johnny to wonder why the subject of Tolliver had been brought up. Unless it was Rudy's way of making the point that he knew what was going on around town.

Johnny had stopped at the Western Union office and wired Mickey Tallant for fresh funds and had trudged back to Mrs. Peterson's wishing he had never left it.

He stretched lazily in bed, threw back the covers and sprang out. He dressed hurriedly in the room's chill. Autumn was coming with a vengeance. In the bathroom across the hall, he splashed water noisily and chopped at his wet-down hair with his comb. Three or four eggs and a like number cups of coffee should put a brighter aspect on things. It usually did. He remembered mornings after nights at the card table-Back in his room he tossed the comb at the bureau and reached for Mickey Tallant's leather jacket on the back of a chair. His hand became paralyzed in mid-movement. Jingle Peterson lay on her back in his bed, her red hair flying over the pillow, the covers demurely up to her chin.

Just for a second Johnny thought it was a put-up job, the presence of this decidedly under-age female. Just for a second. Until he saw the guileless face on the pillow. “You're dressed!” she accused him.

He loomed up over her at the bedside. “Your mother will skin you alive,” he told her. “Your mother will-”

“My mother is sound asleep,” she informed him. “Aren't you coming back to bed?”

He could never explain this to Mrs. Peterson, Johnny decided. He disposed of the covers in one tearing yank. “Hey!” Jingle protested, sitting up, her arms wrapped about herself. Her nightgown was plainly not her own, being six or eight inches too large in all dimensions. Johnny grabbed an ankle and hauled and she hit the floor rump first. “Oww!” she squealed. Shocked surprise was in the face. “What kind of a square are you, anyway?”

“Out,” Johnny said grimly. “On your feet and out.” She sat up straight in the middle of the floor, the picture of outraged indignation. “You unadulterated square,” she said bitterly. “I should have known you-”

He reached down for an arm and lifted her to her feet. She tried to hit him with her free hand and stumbled as she stepped on the trailing edge of the nightgown. A bare shoulder and a strawberry-tipped, pear-shaped little breast popped into view as the top portion sagged. Jingle grabbed at the billowing material.

“Out,” Johnny insisted. With her left arm in his grip he boosted her toward the door with a knee behind her, fending off her wild swings with his other hand. He heard her gasp as she went limp in his clutch and he looked over her shoulder at Valerie Peterson in the doorway.

“Look, Val,” the girl said immediately in a rapid recovery. “I can explain everything. I was just-”

Her mother didn't even look at her. “Thanks,” she said to Johnny. “I'll take over from here.” She reached for Jingle with her left hand. In her right was a hairbrush.

“No, no, no!” the girl exclaimed. She darted around behind Johnny who discreetly stepped out of the way. With the skill born of long practice, Valerie Peterson stepped in behind her daughter and took a firm grip on her left ear. “You've got to listen to me, Val! Val!”

“March!” Mrs. Peterson commanded, and the hairbrush spatted sharply against the fullest part of the nightgown. Jingle yelped and bounded into the air only to be hauled down by the grip on her ear. At the doorway there was another crisp smack, another yip, and another troutlike leap. The ballet was repeated at the head of the stairs and on every third step on the way down. Jingle and her mother disappeared from sight through the living-room door. But not from sound.

In seconds shrill, piercing yells drifted upward with metronomic regularity. Johnny snatched up his jacket and ran down the stairs. In the lower hall the girl's howls were intensified; if he hadn't seen the flatbacked brush in her mother's hand he would have suspected something far more lethal.

Outside on the stone steps with the front door closed he could still hear her, although not as plainly. Miss Jingle Peterson left the neighborhood in small doubt as to her immediate circumstances.

Johnny shook his head in mute admiration for the audible testimony to Mrs. Peterson's undiminished vigor, grinned slightly and set off up the street.

He sat opposite the richly polished outsized desk of Mayor Richard Lowell and considered the man behind it. Dick Lowell fidgeted under the inspection, shooting his cuffs nervously and sweeping back his white mane with quick-brushing motions of a flattened palm. His swivel chair creaked as he leaned forward in it to plant his elbows on the desk top. His eyes were bloodshot and his clean-shaven face looked haggard. “Killain, I-”

“You're beltin' at that brandy too much, Dickie,” Johnnyinterrupted him.

“Don't call me Dickie!” the mayor snapped back. He sat up straighter. “And as for the brandy, I believe I'm of age.”

“The dangerous age, maybe. When you up for re-election again, Your Honor?”

Richard Lowell winced at the question, Johnny's ironic salutation passing unnoticed.

“Not till next year, fortunately.”

“Fortunately, indeed,” Johnny said. “A mayor who shows himself to the voters in wide open gamblin' joints is on a downhill slide. A mayor who takes off his shoes at night in the company of a married woman is on a greased downhill slide.”

“So you heard about that, too.” Richard Lowell pushed back his chair. He looked at his well-manicured nails and buffed them on the lapel of his jacket. “That much at least is settled now.”

“Settled like how?” Johnny asked.

“She's getting a divorce.” Dick Lowell said it somberly, with no trace of triumph. “Quietly. He's finally agreed. It cost me-” He flung his arms wide and jumped nervously to his feet. “Never mind what it cost me. It's worth it.” He began to pace up and down behind his desk in short, choppy strides. “Dorothy and I will be married after a decent interval. After I'm re-elected. People forget. In the meantime, I'll be more-careful.” He stopped and looked at Johnny, the beautiful speaking voice picking up power and intensity. “I know I've slipped with the people, but I've got a year. In a year I can rebuild my image. All I need is a good issue to distract them, and I've got a dandy. I can kick off a campaign and in three weeks I'll have everyone back who ever voted for me and a lot more beside. I'll get up on a platform and lay it on the line: 'Citizens of Jefferson-'”

“'-we must throw the rascals out,'“ Johnny cut in.

“Well, yes.” Lowell's voice dropped from the rolling boom into which it had ascended. “Exactly.”

“An' what happens if the rascals point a finger back at the man on the platform?”

“They have no proo-” Richard Lowell closed his lips tightly. “The voters will know whom to believe. I'm going to clean up this town. I'm going to clean it up one hundred per cent. I'll start-”

“The last man I heard talkin' like that wound up on a hotel-room floor with a knife in his back,” Johnny said softly.

Dick Lowell sat down suddenly. He swallowed visibly. “I'm not-they can't intimidate me,” he said feebly.

Johnny looked at him. “They can't? Congratulations, Your Honor.” His voice turned hard. “I haven't found Micheline Thompson. Would you have any idea why?”

“I?” Lowell looked confused. “What do you mean?”

“Could it be that Micheline Thompson knows enough about Mayor Richard Lowell to warrant his keepin' her out of sight, rather than Daddario?”

“You're-you couldn't be more wrong.” The mayor's voice was shaky. “I desperately want to find her. She-she can be of the greatest assistance. You must find her.”

“How would it be if I looked in Dorothy's apartment?”

“Dorothy?” Richard Lowell looked stunned. “You would accuse Dorothy of-of lending herself to such a deception?” He sounded outraged.

“I don't know Dorothy,” Johnny pointed out. “I'm beginnin' to know you.”

“Why don't you ask Jessamyn Burger, your great and good friend?” Mayor Lowell thrust back with sudden viciousness.

“I already have. She claims Daddario never told her anything.”

The mayor's snort was explosive. “That woman is no schoolgirl. I'm not saying she has to know where Micheline is but never believe she knows nothing about Jim's activities. She's a shrewd one.”

“She says the brushoff was complete.” Johnny watched the man behind the desk.

“I'll never believe that.” Richard Lowell was emphatic. “For one thing, has she cut down on her scale of living?”

“I've been in her place. I wouldn't say she's equipped to run off Roman orgies three times a week. What've you got against her?”

“Her ambition. When she was the bright star in Daddario's crown I was just something in their way. She never had a good word for me or about me. I don't forget things like that.”

“How come Daddario cut her loose?”

“I've never been completely convinced that he has.” Dick Lowell scowled. “In politics you have to look beneath the surface. There was beginning to be some talk about their long 'engagement.' At a time when I was something less than discreet, myself, their separation gave them an opportunity to point a moralistic finger at me.”

“You don't think you went all around Robin Hood's barn to dredge that one up?”

“It's a possibility,” Lowell insisted stubbornly. “I trust neither of them.”

“What was Carl Thompson doin' for you when he was in the saddle in the chief's office?”

The mayor was silent for a count of three. “Protecting my interests,” he said at length. He hurried on before Johnny could speak. “Not trusting Daddario, I needed to be kept informed.”

“I figured you an' Daddario for partners.” Johnny made the statement in a deliberate manner.

“We-might have had an understanding. Once. That's water over the dam. He's out to get me. I intend to get him first.” Again richness of purpose firmed and deepened Lowell's voice. “If I can count on your help you won't be sorry, Killain.”

“The other day you thought this room might be bugged,” Johnny said. “How come you're such a popoff now?”

Dick Lowell's smile was tired. “There's not much news in anything I've just said.” His eyes went uneasily to his telephone. “I've read somewhere that it's possible to attach some sort of-ah-device to a phone so that not only phone conversations but all conversations in the room can be heard. Is it true?”

Johnny nodded. “It sure is.”

The mayor's eyes were sick. “There was one private conversation here I'm almost sure-how would I find out?”

“If you've got a friend in the upper bracket of the local telephone office they could probably tell you.”

Lowell smiled bitterly. “Jessie Burger's father was the manager of the local phone office before he died. She's still very well acquainted there.” He drew a deep breath. “You haven't said if I can count on you.”

Johnny rose to his feet. “You haven't said what you need done, Lowell.” He waited for a moment. “Your program's a little too vague for me right now. Brighten up the colors and try me again.” He turned to go.

“Killain, wait.” Lowell's tone was urgent. “You won't say anything to Toby? About-all this?” His eyes were pleading. “I intend to have it all straightened out shortly. Very shortly.”

“It's your baby,” Johnny said indifferently. “Even at this distance removed, though, I doubt you're kiddin' Toby Lowell very much about what's goin' on here. What do you do if he decides to bounce up an' look over the situation?”

“I run, not walk, to the nearest exit,” Lowell said with unexpected firmness. “But he won't. He's too busy to pay any attention to what's going on in Jefferson.” Bitterness crept back into Richard Lowell's voice. “You've heard of the senior citizen psych? That's the Indian sign Toby has on me. He's the eternal big brother who always knows best. We weaker vessels distress him.”

“Speakin' of weaker vessels, I've got to run by the Western Union office. I got batted out in Rudy's game last night.” Johnny paused as a thought occurred to him. “I got the impression Rudy doesn't care too much for Jack Riley's gendarmes.”

“Not many do.” The tone was acid.

“But they loved Carl Thompson's?” Johnny moved to the door in the ensuing silence. “For a politician, Richard, you just don't think fast enough on your feet.” There had still been no reply when he closed the office door from the outside.

At Western Union he picked up two thousand dollars and an accompanying telegram: CHECK TO THE ONE-CARD DRAWS YOU DUMMY. He grinned and started to crumple the yellow sheet. The New York dateline reminded him of some unfinished business. He found a phone booth in a drugstore, changed two dollars into silver, and called Sally at the apartment in New York.

“Johnny!” she exclaimed at the sound of his voice. “Where are you?”

“If anyone else is askin' that question, ma, it might be better if you didn't know. Joe Dameron been hauntin' you?”

“Not Dameron. That man Cuneo.”

“Uh-huh. They set a date for the inquest yet?”

“I haven't heard.”

“Find out, but don't ask the direct question. They'd know where it came from. Did they identify the guy?”

“Marty said it was some small-time hood.”

“Local?”

“I guess. Marty didn't say.”

“Find that out, too. I'll call you in a day or two. If they spring an early date on the inquest an' you need to get me in a hurry call the Mick. I'd tell you but you never could lie, ma.”

“Please stay out of trouble, Johnny. And come on home.”

He sat in the booth after he had deposited the amount the operator asked for and tried to figure it out. Something didn't add up. Daddario had had his own muscle with him in New York that day, but a stranger had been hired for the payoff. Check that, Killain. The stranger had been hired for Killain but do you know he had been hired for Thompson, too? You're damn right you don't. Kratz or Savino could easily have done the job. Except that after the beating Thompson had taken in Jefferson how had either one of them been able to get that close to him in the hotel room?

Johnny sighed, fished a dime out of the remaining change, and called Jessamyn Burger.

The drawn drapes darkened the motel room despite the hint of late-afternoon sunlight behind them. On the bed beside him the woman spoke drowsily. “It's been lovely, Johnny, but I've got to get back to town.”

He ran a questing palm over her sleek nudity. “The town'll still be there if you get back an hour later, won't it, Jess?”

She shivered at his touch and sat up. “No more. I want to shower.”

“We'll shower together.” He slid from the bed and scooped her up in his arms.

“What-?” Her voice was startled. “Stop it,” she protested as he carried her into the bathroom. He turned on a single light over the dressing table outside and set her down in the shower stall. “Stop it, Johnny! It's not-decent!”

His bulk effectively blocked the shower entrance when she tried to push past him. From a shelf he took down a wax-papered bathing cap and handed it to her. “Water's goin' on in ten seconds. Get that on your noggin if you want to keep your hair dry.”

“I want you to get out of here!” Her hands and arms were plastered about herself. The indirect light reflected softly from the white-tiled walls upon her full curves, warm ivory by contrast.

“Five seconds,” he said, and stepped inside and closed the glass door. His hand dropped on the shower faucet.

“No!” she exclaimed, but her hands were already hastily fitting the cap over her dark hair. “Johnny, no!” She gasped at the hissing rush of the chilly needle spray. “Oooh, it's cold!”

It warmed at once. He let her soak a moment and picked up the soap from the dish. He took her firmly by a plump shoulder and soaped her completely from neck to ankles, his big hand gliding over her glistening flesh. She stood on first one foot and then the other and her protests died to murmured little half-sounds. He rinsed her off and soaped her again, slowly. This time her body gave itself up to the soaping hand like a flower turning up to the sun.

He rinsed her again and handed her the soap. She soaped him gravely, the hiss of the water the only sound. She kneaded his back and shoulders for a long time. The silence was electric by the time she finished. He turned off the shower, picked her up by the elbows and lifted her out onto the bath mat. “Dimples everywhere, by God,” he said huskily, enveloping her in a towel. She said nothing, made no sound. He could hear her breathing.

He patted her dry first, then scrubbed with the towel till the white skin turned rosy. She twisted and turned under the scouring towel but her feet never moved from the mat. Her eyes were so dark they seemed black.

He dried himself hurriedly as she exited like a sleepwalker. He found her in the bedroom beside her neatly laid out clothing on a chair. She had on panties and one stocking. She made a small sound deep in her throat as he drew her gently back against himself, spoon-fashion. He bent his head to breathe lightly upon the velvety junction of her neck and shoulder.

He removed the panties. He didn't bother with the stocking.

It was well over an hour before they rose again and began to dress.

On the ride back to town she sat primly in her half of the hired car's front seat. Her eyes rested on the road straight ahead. Five miles out from town she sighed and turned to look at him. “I suppose it's time to return to reality,” she said wistfully. “Thanks for the trip to another planet.”

“Many happy returns,” Johnny said.

She smiled. “You know if you'd stop the yakking about Jim Daddario having horns and hooves I could get kind of used to you.”

“Why'd you suggest a little trip to the country when I called you today, Jess?”

Her smile faded. “I couldn't have you parading up to my door in broad daylight and staying, now could I?” she asked lightly. “Wasn't this cozy?”

“Very. I'm just wonderin' where I got the idea you're afraid to be seen with me in town.”

“That's not true.” She said it angrily.

His hands lay relaxed on the wheel as the car rolled along between level green fields. “Kratz and Savino haven't told you to stop seein' me?”

“Who pays any attention to Kratz and Savino?” she asked defiantly. She refused to meet his eyes when he turned his bead.

“Jess, you're the victim of a misplaced sense of loyalty.”

“No, I'm not. Really I'm not. You make me sound like a virtuous nitwit. I know what I'm doing. I'm not naive enough to think that a city like Jefferson is run under the articles of incorporation. On the other hand, the extent of the corruption you're attributing to Jim simply isn't true.”

“You'd like to believe that.” Johnny pulled a little further off the center of the road as the rear-view mirror showed a big sedan moving up rapidly behind them. He turned to look at her. “Do you? Are you sellin' yourself a bill of goods, Jess?”

“I'm-” Her eyes flashed over his shoulder. “Look out!” she screamed.

His eyes darted back to the road. The sedan loomed up on his left, inches away and cornering him to the side of the road. He couldn't take his eyes from the too-close fenders but he had the impression there were two people in it. He bore down on the horn and gripped the wheel. There was a long drawn out grinding of metal, twice repeated. The car shivered but Johnny held it straight. Clouds of dust boiled up from his right wheels on the shoulder. Instead of going for the brake he gave it more gas. The car leaped ahead, metal squealing as it freed itself. The sedan tried again but Johnny angled out into the center of the road. On a long curve he really gave it the gas and watched the sedan drop behind.

Coming out of the curve he saw a straight stretch ahead and no immediate traffic. Braking quickly, he slowed the car across the road. “Lock the doors behind me an' don't open 'em no matter what happens!” he said urgently. He jumped out and slammed the door.

The sedan had already squealed to a halt and started to turn as Johnny ran up the road toward it. With a screech of burning rubber it roared away before he could reach it.

He walked back slowly to his own car and a white-faced Jessamyn. He shook his head at the raw scrapes along the entire left side. “Boy, the man who rented me this is sure goin' to have a few unkind words for me.” He climbed back in under the wheel and tried to meet her eyes. “Still feel the same way about your friends?”

She tried desperately to screw herself together under his regard. “You probably staged the whole thing yourself!”

“You don't really think that, Jess. The boys were just givin' you a warnin'.”

“Warning!” She shuddered. “We might have been killed!”

“No.” He shook his head. “It was just a warnin'. Look at the spot they picked. Perfectly flat. I probably could've run out through the field except you never know what you'll sink a wheel in. A few miles back there was a two an' a half foot ditch. If they'd meant business that's where they'd have tried it. An' if they'd meant business they wouldn't have taken off when I stopped.”

“Take me home,” she said in a small voice. “I-take me home.”

The balance of the trip was completed in silence.

Jingle Peterson stepped out of the living-room doorway as Johnny passed through the lower hallway on his way to the stairs. “Val says I've got to apologize to you,” she said. She sounded subdued.

“Forget it,” Johnny said breezily. “Do me a favor, though.” He waited for her inquiring look. “Come around in a couple of years.”

Her smile was wan. “I must have seemed like a perfect fool.” Dark blood rushed into the round features.

“You were just rushin' your fences a little.”

Her face screwed up until he was afraid she was going to cry. “I th-thought you'd despise m-me.”

“For what, for God's sake? We both knew you were just kiddin' around. It was kind of bad taste, though. That's why your mother got hot.” He held out his hand. “No hard feelin's?”

Her small one gripped his hard. “Oh, no.” She drew a long breath. “I'm so ashamed. And I was so afraid you'd come in and laugh and crack wise about Val spanking me.”

“Look-it never happened, see?”

“Oh, yes it did!” she said with more of her usual pertness. “Well, thanks.” She retreated inside.

At the top of the stairs Johnny found Valerie Peterson waiting for him. She came directly to the point. “If you haven't found another place to stay yet, don't bother.” She started down the stairs.

“Well, thanks,” Johnny said in unconscious imitation of Jingle.

“Thank yourself,” Valerie Peterson said over her shoulder.

Johnny stood staring down after her until she disappeared into the living room.