Killing Time

Four

I left the bank building and walked down DeWitt Street to State, and catty-comer across DeWitt toward City Hall. Gar Wycza, in police uniform, was standing in the middle of the intersection, making believe he was directing traffic. He was one of the million or so Wyczas on the town payroll. Jack Wycza, the boss of the clan, was Councilman from the Fourth Ward, up in Hunkytown on the North Side. I waved to Gar, and vice versa, and I went on toward City Hall.

Winston was a small town, with a small town’s politics and a small town’s outlook. The war population boom, because of the Amalgamated Machine Parts Corporation over on Wheeler Street and the Reed & Kong Chemical Supplies Corporation down on Front Street, had boosted the town to upward of forty thousand people, but it still felt and acted like a town of fifteen thousand.

Now I walked through the block-square City Hall Park in the late June sunshine. A few bums were loafing on the benches by the trees, resting up between elections. Over to the left, the town library was doing a thriving business in high school students boning up for their exams. This year, the teen-agers were all imitating Sal Mineo and Brigitte Bardot, and they all looked as though they were going to do something obscene any minute.

I went through the revolving door and clacked across the marble flooring to the ancient elevator. To the ancient elevator operator, I said, “Three.”

“Righteeo,” he said. He pushed the gate closed, and the elevator wheezed upward. He looked at me and said, “Heerd ye had some trouble last night.”

“A little,” I said.

“They don’t have gunplay no more like they used to,” he said. “Times we had seven, eight of ’em, laying out on the City Hall lawn, dead as mackerels.”

“City Hall lawn?” It seemed like a hell of a place for a gunfight, all things considered.

“Sure,” he said. “That was during old Jock Shaughnessy’s administration, rest his soul. When he was Mayor. Had a whiskey plant right down in the cellar, he did. Right here in City Hall.” He cackled a bit at the memory.

“A whiskey plant? You mean they made the stuff here?”

“Heck, no,” he said. “A still is where you make it. A plant is where you store it. Like a warehouse. Old Flynn’s gang tried to raid the plant here one night, steal the whiskey. Oh, that was a lovely fight!” He shook his head, cackling again. “They don’t have gunplay no more like they did in them days,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said. “These are pale times, I guess.”

“You betcha.”

We stopped, and it was the third floor. I turned right and walked down the long corridor to the door at the end marked “Mayor Wanamaker.”

Cathy was typing at her desk in the outer office. She smiled at me when I went in, and said, “What time did you get up?”

“Around ten.”

“Have you found out anything about — last night?”

“I’m not sure,” I said. “I’ll know better by this afternoon.”

“There’s something funny going on around here, Tim,” she said.

“Like what?”

“Wanamaker’s been on the phone practically all morning, calling all kinds of people. And he had me clear the large conference room for him for three o’clock.”

I nodded. “Council of war. Good. That’ll save a lot of footwork. Tell him I’m here, will you?”

“Does it have anything to do with what happened last night, Tim?”

“The council of war? Probably. I’m not sure yet.”

“You can tell me about it tonight. You are coming over for dinner, aren’t you?”

“Six o’clock,” I said. “I’ll do my best.”

“We’ll have steak. And salad.” She got to her feet. “I’ll be right back.”

I watched her walk into the inner office. Last night had been one of the few times I’d ever seen her lose control, let her emotions run away with her. And now she was back to normal again, talking about steaks and salads instead of about running away. If I were ever to get married, which was doubtful, Cathy Evans would be the woman.

She came back a minute later, held the door open, and said, “His Honor will see you now.” She winked at me.

“Golly,” I said. I patted her hip on the way by, and went on into the inner office, a huge, high-ceilinged, dark mahogany square, and behind the magnificent desk sat His Honor, Mayor Daniel Wanamaker, a paunchy type with a jolly baby-kissing face like a shaven Santa Claus and a pair of wire-framed spectacles that glinted in the light. He’d been Mayor of Winston for the last fourteen years, and theoretically he was local head of the Party in Power. But it was only theoretically. He was a figurehead for Jordan Reed, and he knew it as well as anybody.

“Ah, there, Tim,” he said jovially as I came in, but the joviality was a little more forced than usual. Behind the big smile and the glinting spectacles, Dan Wanamaker was a worried man. “I hear you got into a ruckus last night,” he said.

“That’s what I’m here about.”

“Here? You should be talking to Harcum, Tim. After all, he’s the Chief of Police.”

“Sure. I understand you’ve got a meeting set for three o’clock.”

He managed to frown and still keep smiling at the same time, something only politicians can do. “Cathy shouldn’t tell you my little secrets, Tim,” he said.

“It’s no secret,” I told him. “The Citizens for Clean Government are riding into town playing Grant, and we’re supposed to play Richmond. I know about that. I also know that was the cause of the ruckus last night. Somebody’s afraid I’ll play with this reform outfit, and—”

“Now, Tim!” he cried, giving a pretty good imitation of shocked surprise. “You don’t think anybody in Winston, anybody you know from around—”

“Let’s skip that part,” I said. “I do think it, and so do you.”

He shook his head sadly. “Tim—”

“Look, Dan,” I said, interrupting him. “When you were elected Mayor for the very first time, you put me on your staff. Right?”

He nodded emphatically. “Certainly. Four thousand dollars per annum. And you’re worth every cent of it, Tim, I want you to know that.”

“Why? What makes me worth it?”

He blinked. “Well—”

“I’ll tell you why,” I said. “Because I can be relied on to do my work and keep my mouth shut. Because, to take a handy for instance, ten years ago when you played footsie with the repaving bid—”

“Now, Tim, now, now. That was a long time ago, Tim.”

“There’s a lot of stuff more recent. But I want you to think about the fact that I kept my mouth shut ten years ago, and I want you to think about what that means. For the last ten years, you’ve been sitting behind this desk. If I hadn’t kept my mouth shut, you’d have spent the last ten years sitting behind bars, and you know it.”

“Tim, it’s give and take,” he said. “We all watch out for one another. You do me favors, I do you favors, that’s the way of the world.”

“Sure it is. I go along with that one hundred per cent. But what kind of a favor was that ruckus last night?”

He smiled and sweated, sweated and smiled. “Tim,” he said, fatherly, smiling so hard I could hear his jaw creak. “Tim, I swear to you I had nothing to do with that. Why should I have you murdered, Tim? Why should I have anybody murdered?”

“I’m not saying it was you. I’m saying it was somebody in this town. I’m saying it was somebody who’s going to be at that meeting at three o’clock.”

His smile was tacked on with thumbtacks. His gaze drifted away from mine, and his chubby hands worked on the desk. “Tim,” he said, “maybe you’d better come to the meeting yourself. If there’s been a misunderstanding—”

“There sure as hell has been a misunderstanding.”

“You come to the meeting, Tim,” he said. He met my eye again, and redoubled the smile. “We’ll straighten it out,” he assured us.

“I’ll be there,” I said. “But first I’ll see the reform boy myself. And I just may take Ron Lascow along with me.”