Killing Time

Three

I woke at ten, with sun in my eyes. There was a note from Cathy on the kitchen table, telling me to make my own breakfast, to come on over for dinner around six, and to try to keep from getting myself killed. I washed and shaved and dressed, made myself a quick breakfast of toast and instant coffee, and left the house to go find out who was rocking the boat.

I headed for my own office first, in the Western National Bank Building. I left the Ford in the bank parking lot and took the elevator up to the fourth floor. Jack, the pilot, said, “Hear somebody was gunning for you, Mr. Smith.”

“It was a case of mistaken identity,” I told him. “The guy actually wanted a fella name of Jones.”

He gave me an employee laugh and opened the doors. I went down the hall and stopped off at Ron Lascow’s office to see if there’d been any phone messages for me. I don’t spend much of my time in the office, so the phone company hooked up an arrangement whereby Ron’s secretary, Jess, can take my calls when I’m not around. Ron Lascow is either the town’s sharpest young lawyer or youngest sharp lawyer, and we find our businesses overlap every once in a while.

“Got two,” Jess told me as I stuck my head into the office. She’ll marry Ron one of these days, maybe when he makes her pregnant, and it’ll be a pity. She’s the best-looking girl this town has ever produced, tall and slender, built like a fashion model, with long reddish-brown hair and level Lauren Bacall eyes.

“Got to what?” I asked her, as usual.

“Got to get back to my own work,” she said, as usual. She handed me the two slips. “Will you be staying in the office now?”

“For a few minutes anyway.”

“Okay.” She thumbed the toggle that switched my calls back to my phone. I tossed her a salute and strolled over to my own place, directly across the hall.

It takes me a while to get into my office. I’m on the direct-wire burglar alarm, the one that sounds off down at Police Headquarters should anybody try to break in, and I have to clear that before opening the door. First, there’s the key to open the metal box attached to the wall beside the door. Then there’s the key to switch off the alarm control inside the box. And finally there’s the key to the door.

I played with all these keys for a while, and finally got into my one-room office, the door closed behind me. My office is strictly functional. Having a monopoly in town, I don’t have to impress my customers. So the floor is black linoleum, uncarpeted, the walls are neutral gray, the two windows overlooking De Witt Street are covered by Venetian blinds but not by curtains or drapes, and the desk and chairs are good workable office furniture, squarish and plain.

The filing cabinet is the one exception. It’s one of the most expensive cabinets on the market, made of solid steel, reinforced, with a double combination lock, and it’s the reason for the burglar alarm on the door. In that cabinet is everything that’s happened in Winston in the last fifteen years that could have gone to court and didn’t.

I sat down behind my desk and looked at the two slips Jess had given me. One was from Marvin Reed, the only son of Jordan Reed, who was the first half of Reed & King Chemicals and currently chairman of the board. Marvin, the son, wasn’t doing much of anything and never had, though he was now about thirty-two. He was married, and was sitting around the old man’s mansion waiting for the old man to die so he could take over the company. The “old man,” though, was a hearty fifty-five, so it looked as though Marvin’s taking control of the plant might occur around the same time he became eligible for Social Security.

Nevertheless, my first call was to Marvin, at home, and his wife Alisan answered. “Tim Smith, Mrs. Reed,” I said. “Your husband left a message for me to call him.”

“Here?”

“Yes, ma’am. Isn’t he there?”

Her voice was cold as ice. “Just one moment.”

I waited, just one moment, and Marvin came on the line. “I want to get together with you, Tim,” he said. “Lunch all right?”

“What’s the subject matter, Marv?”

“I’d rather tell you there.”

“If it’s something to do with Alisan, you made a mistake having me call you at home.”

“It isn’t anything like that,” he said quickly, and added, “Though she probably thinks so. Hotel Winston for lunch?”

“All right,” I said. I looked at my watch. “How about one o’clock?”

“Fine. I’ll see you in the lobby.”

“Right,” I said. “So long.” I held the phone to my ear and heard a click as Marvin hung up, and right after that another click. The advantages of the extension phone.

Though Alisan did have a legitimate reason to be suspicious. Marvin had decided, about five years ago, that he no longer liked the sleek slender civilized kind of woman any more, the Alisan kind of woman. What he liked now was the blond busty come-and-get-it kind of woman. But he had his old man to worry about. Papa Reed was a bug on family. If Marvin didn’t prove himself a son worthy of the Reed name, he wouldn’t be getting the Reed & King plant.

So the sallies with the blondes had to be sporadic, and at a distance, usually New York. And if Marvin Reed wanted to shed Alisan — as he did — it would have to be because Alisan had failed and was no longer worthy, not because Marvin wanted freedom to cat around.

In a pretty useless bid for freedom, four years ago, Marvin had tried to hire me to tail Alisan, on the off-chance she was doing something she shouldn’t. I knew the job was useless, and I don’t like shadow work anyway, so I cleared the thing with the local law and let Marvin import an investigator from New York. The import had tailed Alisan until he realized nothing was ever going to happen, and then he spent most of his time boozing, with me and other locals, telling tall tales about life in the big city.

In the meantime, Alisan had caught on. Life for Marvin had not been all joy and fa-la-la for the last few years.

Wondering what silly idea was irritating him this time, I made a note about lunch on the phone slip, put it in my pocket, and looked again at the other one. Paul Masetti, it said, a name I’d never heard before. He’d called at ten o’clock and wanted me to get in touch with him at the Winston Hotel.

I phoned the hotel, and there he was. “I just got here from Albany,” he said. “I may have a job for you. I’d like to talk it over with you.” His voice was rough and harsh, like a back-country preacher after a long day.

“What kind of job?” I asked him.

“Have you ever heard of the Citizens for Clean Government?”

I had to admit I hadn’t.

“It would be a lot easier to explain in person,” he said. “If you’d have time to join me for lunch—”

“Depends on how long it’ll take, Mr. Masetti. I’ve got another appointment at one. If we could get together at twelve—”

“Twelve is fine. Lunch, or not?”

“Better make it the bar. Lunch is what I’m supposed to eat at one.”

He laughed politely and said, “I’ll see you then.”

I hung up, trying to figure out what that was all about, made a notation on the telephone slip, put it in my pocket with the other one, and locked myself out of my office. I crossed the hall and said to Jess, “Is Clarence Darrow free?”

“Sure,” she said. “He’s just counting his money.”

“Again?” I went on through to Ron’s office. He was sitting at his desk, frowning at the lawbook open in front of him.

Ron was the new-look bright young man, complete with brush-cut blond hair, black horn-rim glasses, square face, strong jawline and small straight nose. Not yet thirty, he’d been back in town from law school for five years. In that time, with a combination of smiling friendliness and legal shrewdness, he’d made a good solid place for himself in the local hierarchy. The bottom of his ambition was the state legislature. There wasn’t any top.

Now he looked up at me, grinning, and said, “People versus Smith. Baby rape.”

“You get all the interesting cases,” I told him. “Ever hear of the Citizens for Clean Government?”

“That’s the outfit from Albany, isn’t it?”

“I’m asking you.”

“If it’s the outfit I’m thinking of,” he said, “I have heard of them, yes.”

“What about them?”

He shrugged. “Reformers. Hell on wheels, gonna root out graft, corruption, kickbacks, bribery, nepotism and ass-pinching in high places.”

“Is that possible?”

“You know what I mean.” He closed the lawbook with an air of relief, and said, “They’ve been making a name for themselves around the state. They work out of Albany, but they’re mainly hitting the smaller towns. Like Monequois and New Hamburg. Remember reading about them in the papers?”

“I haven’t read a paper since Dewey was elected President,” I told him.

“Well,” he said, “they started with Monequois, if I remember right. That’s up near the Canadian border some place. They went in there, nosed around for a month or two, dragged a truckload of evidence to the grand jury, and kaboom!”

“Was ist das — kaboom?”

“Monequois,” he said, “now has a new mayor, a new police chief, two less lawyers and a saintly expression.”

“They sound effective,” I said.

“They are.” He studied me for a minute, chewing on his thumbnail, and then said, “I was supposed to keep quiet about this, but the hell with it.”

“The hell with what?”

“I take it Masetti called you, too.”

“He called you?”

“Around ten. Wants me to have a chat with him at one o’clock.”

“I’m on tap at twelve,” I told him. “What does he want, do you know?”

“I can guess,” he said. “Good old Winston is next on the list.”

“I got that part of it,” I said. “But what does he want to talk to us for?”

He shrugged. “I suppose he wants us to finger our friends. Reformers are like that. No sense of loyalty.” “Somebody tried to gun me last night, you know.”

He nodded. “I heard about it.”

“I’ll bet you eighty-five cents it had something to do with this reform outfit.”

“Sure,” he said. “Somebody afraid to get fingered.”

“The bastard.”

“Who’ve you got dirt on, Timmy me boy?”

“Everybody,” I told him. “The whole lousy crew.”

“Even little me?”

I grinned at him. “As soon as that Hillview tax shuffle you worked up sneaks through the Council, yes.”

He blinked. “Where the hell did you hear about that?”

“My spies,” I told him, “are everywhere. Listen, Ron, what say we join forces and go see Masetti together? You free at twelve o’clock?”

“I could be,” he said. “But what if I decide to sell out? I won’t be able to do it with you there as witness.”

“Neither will I, tax man,” I said.

He grinned. “I get the point. I’ll see you at the hotel at twelve.”

“Fine.” I looked at my watch. “I’ll see you,” I said. “I got business.”

“Business?”

“I’m on my way to deliver an ultimatum.”

“If you don’t show up at twelve,” he said, “I’ll see if I can raise bail money for you.”