Part 15 (1/2)
”Word gets around.”
”Small town. You know how it is. Everybody hears everything. Trouble is that when they pa.s.s it along, they add a little to make it more interesting.”
”Then you know Arnstead is missing?”
”I heard about it.”
”And Betsy Kapp is missing, too.”
He was startled. ”The h.e.l.l you say!”
”She had a seven o'clock date last night and didn't keep it and hasn't been seen since.”
”That's a weird one. That isn't like old Betsy. I tell you, it would take a lot of pleasure out of having lunch at the Lodge if anything happened to her.”
”I understand she and Arnstead were pretty close. Maybe they took off together.”
”h.e.l.l, I can't buy that. They had something going, I guess. But that was months ago. Funny, she'd fool around with Lew.”
”Maybe it was a business relations.h.i.+p, Johnny.”
He leaned back watchful. ”What's that supposed to mean?”
”I knew the name was familiar, but I didn't connect it up right away. I remembered that a year, year and a half ago, somebody told me that if I ever got stuck in this neck of the woods, I should look up a Deputy Lew Arnstead, and he could fix me up with something real choice, that it would cost, but it would be worth it.”
”Do tell.”
”You're the one who told me it's a small town. I guess if it was true, you'd have heard about it.”
”I think I heard somewhere that Lew had an extra girlfriend or two he'd hire out.”
”I guess he'd have to be pretty careful about it, working under a man like Hyzer.”
”Mister Norm sees what he wants to see and believes what he wants to believe, just like everybody else.”
”He doesn't impress you?”
He shrugged. ”I vote for him.”
”So it's a nice quiet place, with a very quiet little newspaper.”
”There's no point in scaring up trouble by printing a lot of things that agitate people.”
”Was the car Linda Featherman was driving brought in here?”
”What the h.e.l.l have you got on your mind, McGee! I asked you in here to thank you for the way you played fair with my boy. I didn't know I was going to get some kind of third degree.”
I smiled, stood up. ”I'm just curious about your nice little town, Johnny. No offense. I admit I am a little curious about your first litter. I like Ron. He's a good one. But from all reports his sister is as rotten a little tramp as you can find anywhere.”
His face turned to a brown mask, and he did not move his lips when he spoke. He spoke so quietly I could barely hear him. ”Understand this. n.o.body mentions her in my presence. She is absolutely nothing to me, and the sick sow that bred her is nothing to me. I don't care if they are alive or dead. I don't care if they roast in h.e.l.l or find eternal bliss. Now get out of here.”
I got. That much hate is impressive, no matter where you find it. It makes you want to walk on tiptoe and breathe quietly as you get out of range.
I found breakfast and then flipped a coin. Heads was Deputy King Sturnevan. Tails was Mrs. Jeanie Dahl. Had it landed on edge I was going to try Miss Kimmey, in the third grade. It was heads.
King had some reports to finish. He said to wait around. Twenty minutes later he came out and walked over to the Buick. He leaned in and shook his head sadly. ”You gotta talent, man. Billy Cable catches you jaywalking, he'll club your head down between your knees.”
”Get in, and I'll tell you about it.” I told him. I was at the wrong place at the wrong time, and witnessed Betsy chop him down.
King nodded. ”I knew he wanted to get into that. But I didn't know he was d.a.m.n fool enough to go after it that way. If Mister Norm heard he tried to use his badge to get her onto her back, he would be out in the street. Seems like she didn't fight you off much, McGee. That's the way she is. She will, but not often, and she has to do the picking.”
”She picked Lew Arnstead.”
”I know. Surprised folks. The Betsy-watchers. Not her type. But you can't tell.”
”King, how much can we trust each other, you and I?”
He s.h.i.+fted his big belly around and beamed at me and winked a scarred eye. ”You can't trust me one d.a.m.n bit if it's something the man ought to know.”
”I have a crazy question which has been growing and growing, and I have to ask. Make it hypothetical. Could and did Lew Arnstead get away with things that Hyzer would have fired anyone else for?”
I watched him make his slow decision. ”It bothered me a long time, pal. Tell you the truth, it surprised h.e.l.l out of me when Hyzer did boot him out and file charges. And I saw Lew's face when it happened, and I think Lew was as surprised as me.”
”Do you think Hyzer knew Lew was pimping?”
”You get around good. That wouldn't be easy to come by I guess Lew started four years back, about then. I think maybe Hyzer decided that if a broad was going to peddle it, it's better to have somebody keeping it under control. He had to hear about it, but as far as I know, he never looked into it. And Lew never turned up rich enough to ask for an investigation of where and how he got it.”
”Could he have been handling it for Hyzer?”
”I am going to forget you said that, pally. Because if I remember it one minute from now, I am going to pull you out of this pretty car and see if I can rupture your spleen with a left.”
”Sorry I asked. I apologize.”
”It just couldn't be, believe me.”
”Now you know and I know that a cop builds his own string. He doesn't start off with old hustlers. He starts with girls who've gotten out of line and he scares them into making a choice his way. He's usually smart enough to try it on the ones who will take to it without much fuss, or he isn't in business long. He breaks them in himself, then puts them to work.”
His broad face was unhappy. ”I guess if Mister Norm looked into it and found that was the way it was being done, he would have had to get rid of Lew. So he didn't look into it. I know the score, pally. I remember there was an immigration officer in Miami who put the heat on for whether girls got a renewal or got s.h.i.+pped back to the crummy villages they came from. Then one of them, as I remember it, wrote her kid sister not to come to the States and told her why, and the kid sister gave it to the old man, and he flew up on the money his daughter had been sending back to Peru, and put a knife into that civil servant. He put it in about forty times, starting just above the knees and working his way up. Somebody could have known about Lew and didn't make the move until Lew was no longer a law man.”
”I just happened to tell Hyzer about how Billy went after Betsy Kapp a year and a half ago.”
”How can one man make himself so popular so fast? You going to run for mayor?”
”I don't know. I think of lots of questions and look for answers. Question: Would somebody kill Arnstead in order to take Hyzer off whatever hook he was on?”
King thought it over. ”He doesn't act like anybody with the pressure off. He's pus.h.i.+ng harder than ever. I thought over what you said the other night about Lew. He had to be way out on speed. It fits. So how and why does a speed freak get clobbered? Who knows?”
”King, what was the verdict on Linda Feather-man?”
He snapped his head around, completely puzzled. ”Verdict? What do you mean? Accidental death. One-car accident. Excessive speed. Fell asleep, maybe.”