Killing Time

Twelve

George Watkins, the world’s fattest DA, hailed me in the corridor at City Hall. I turned and waited, and he came puffing toward me at a half-trot, his bald head gleaming beneath the overhead globes. “You got a minute, Tim?” he panted, when he reached me.

I checked my watch. It was almost five-thirty, and Cathy was supposed to be finished work at five. “A minute,” I said. “But not much more.”

“This won’t take long,” he promised. “Come on into my office.”

He led the way, going at a more sensible pace this time, and I fell in beside him. His secretary had gone from the outer office, and he led me through and inside, where he motioned me to sit down and himself settled gratefully behind his desk.

I noticed a thick sheaf of papers on his desk, bound in maroon cloth, a title stamped on the cloth in gold. “New play?” I asked him.

He nodded happily. “Got it in the mail yesterday,” he said. “They want me to put some of the money up.”

“Will you?”

“I think so.” He patted the manuscript fondly. “Looks like a real hit to me,” he said.

I leaned forward and read the title upside down. A Sound of Distant Drums. If it was a hit, it would be George’s first. “Good luck,” I said.

“Thanks.” He became suddenly businesslike. “I won’t beat around the bush, Tim,” he said. “It’s about this CCG thing.”

“I’d guessed that part of it,” I told him.

“Now, the CCG,” he said, “is a political outfit, just like any other. Take it from me. All they want is a reputation, to be able to say they’ve cleaned up this town and that town and the other town. But they’ve got ambitions, you can count on it. I don’t know what, whether they’re trying for Albany or New York City or the whole state or what, but they’ve got a purpose behind all this.”

Judging from Masetti, their purpose was pretty virginal, but I nodded anyway, to help him get to the point.

“The way I see it,” he said, “they’re going to be wanting friends later on. Once they’ve got their reputation made, and they’re ready to make their move, they’ll want friends. And that means,” he concluded triumphantly, “that they’ll make a deal.”

That one caught me off guard. “A deal?”

“Of course. We make it easy for them, give them their scandal on a silver platter, and then they make it easy for us.”

“That sounds like desperation talking, George,” I said.

“The hell it is. Tim, look. No outfit could be as efficient and tough-minded and politically aware as the CCG and be totally clean.”

“Is this what you and Myron Stoneman were arguing about at the meeting?”

“Myron,” he said disgustedly, and made a brushing-away motion. “They’ll make a deal, I’m sure of it.”

I shrugged. “So be sure of it.”

“Now here’s the thing,” he said. “We can’t risk having an elected official seen talking with anybody from the CCG, so there’s the problem of who’s going to suggest the deal. We want you, Tim. You’re safe. You can make the suggestion, and even if they turn it down they can’t touch you. You aren’t an official.”

“What’s the deal?” I asked him.

“You’ll do it?”

I wouldn’t, but I was holding back the refusal till I got the story. “First tell me what the deal is,” I said.

“We give them one man,” he told me. “One man to raise a stink about.”

“Who?”

He looked doubtful, and hedged. “We aren’t one hundred per cent sure yet, Tim.” Which was a lie. They were sure, but they wanted an out in case I was loudly opposed to their choice.

“Who do you think?” I insisted.

“Jack Wycza.”

Jack Wycza. City Councilman from the Fourth Ward, over in Hunkytown on the North Side, where the factory workers from Amalgamated Machine Parts all lived. His cousin Gar was the traffic cop I’d been exchanging grins with all day. His other cousin Dan was one of the cops who’d come out to the diner last night after the shooting.

The thing was, Wycza was an independent force up there in Hunkytown, free of City Hall and unpredictable. If somebody had to be thrown to the wolves, he was the natural choice. He was a Councilman, which was enough for a good-sized scandal on the local level. And he was a thorn in the side of the City Hall regulars, because he was a free agent. And, last but not least, he was kept out of the general monkeyshines, so he couldn’t return the favor by hollering on anybody else.

It wouldn’t be hard to nail Jack Wycza, either. Within his own ward, he’d broken almost any law you’ve ever heard of. Every last one of his relatives was drawing a city salary. He got pay-offs and kickbacks and protection money all over the ward. He ran his own horse-room on Miller Street. He was very, very nailable.

“What do you think, Tim?” George asked me.

“I think it stinks,” I said.

“Because of Wycza? We can always get somebody else, Tim. It doesn’t have to be Wycza.”

So I’d been right about the hedge. “It doesn’t have to be me either,” I said. “The hell with Wycza. I’m not running your errands, I’m not doing your dirty work. I do this, and somebody makes a phone call to the Fourth Ward and says, ‘Tim Smith was—’Ю”

“None of us would do a thing like that,” he said. He was shocked, he was.

“Hell, no. And none of you would take a shot at me either.”

“Tim, look, you’re one of us—”

“And the hell I am, too.”

“We have to know where you stand, Tim,” he said. “We have to be sure of you.”

“I don’t stand,” I told him. “I’m out of it. This is your war, and I don’t want any part of it, and I’m not going to have any part of it.”

“I don’t know, Tim—”

“Well, I know, and I’m telling you.” I got to my feet. “Count me out,” I said. “Fight your own battles.”

I started out of the office, pausing at the door to look back at him and point at the play manuscript on his desk. “Good luck with that,” I said.

He didn’t answer me.