The Criminal (6 page)

"Ho, ho!" she said. "Well, I know I got to do something. You certainly can't expect me to take all the blame."

I began to get scared. I thought about Dad and the time Jack Eddleman had raised such a fuss, and, now, well, now, there was really something to fuss about, and if he acted that way then, what would he do now.

"I could wash them out for you in the creek," I said. "You want me to do that, Josie?"

"Pooh!" She jerked away from me. "Cold water and no soap. A lot of good that would do!"

"Well," I said. "Well-uh-well, maybe-"

"Well, go on and say it," she said. "If you've got anything to say, say it!"

"I'm trying to, ain't I?" I said. "What do you think I'm trying to do, anyway? Shut up a minute, for gosh sake, and give me a chance."

"Well, go on," she said. "And don't you dare tell me to shut up, Mr. Bobbie Talbert!"

"Maybe-well, maybe," I said, "you could kind of sneak up behind those bushes at the top of the cliff, and when you see your mother talking to someone you could slip around the block and come up the alley to your house and get into some other clothes."

"And what would I do with these?" she said. And then she said, "Well, I guess I could. I could spill ink on them or something and put them in the dirty clothes, and maybe, well, I guess that would be all right."

"Will you, Josie?" I said. "Will you do that?"

"Maybe."

"Promise," I said.

"Maybe. I will if I can."

"But why the heck can't you?" I said. "I told you just how to do it, and you said you could so what's the maybe about?"

She shrugged, looking at me out of the corner of her eyes. And I knew she would do it; she just had to and she knew it as well as I did, so why wouldn't she promise?

I guessed she must have been sore, and not entirely because of her clothes. She felt like I did now. I guessed, kind of sore and mean and tired and dirty-feeling. It was funny how you could feel one way a couple minutes before, and then just the opposite now. I felt just as crummy as she did, only I couldn't act like she did. I had to go on coaxing and begging her to promise.

"Look at me, Josie," I said. "I got some on my clothes, too, and I'm not mad. I don't try to make you feel bad about it."

"Oh, pooh," she said. "It's different with a boy. Anyway, it's all your fault. You don't have any right to be mad!"

"You wouldn't-you'll do it like I said, won't you, Josie?" I said. "Won't you, Josie?"

"I said I would. Maybe."

"No maybe, darn it! You've got to promise."

"Maybe. I said maybe, and I mean maybe," she said.

She gave me another of those looks out of the corner of her eyes. And I knew she was just being spitey; she just
had
to do it, doggone it. But, well, what if she didn't? A crazy old girl like that, there was no telling what she might do.

I began to get scareder. Scareder and sorer. All at once I grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her.

"I'll show you!" I said. "Doggone you, you promise or I'll-I'll-"

"Pooh, ho-ho," she said. "Just what will you do, anyway?"

"You'll see. You better promise," I said. "Promise?"

"Maybe," she said. "That's what I promise. Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, may-Bobbie!
D-Don't
…"

He kept on talking to the operator after I picked up the receiver and said hello.

"Now you're quite sure of that, miss," he was saying. "You're positive we still have a managing editor? Mr. Skysmith is still with us?"

"Yes, sir," she giggled. "H-He's-tee, hee-he's on the wire now, sir."

The stupid, silly bitch! Boy, maybe she thought that was an ass in her girdle, but she'd find out. It was pure mud from now on and I'd make her know it.

"You're positive," the Captain said. "It isn't someone posing as Mr. Skysmith? He has all the proper credentials?"

"No, sir. I mean, yes, sir. He's-hee, hee, hee…"

The goddamned rotten stinking little bitch! Laughing at me because I was getting the razz and thinking she could get away with it. Thinking, by God, I'd take it from every goddamned pissant in the plant just because I had to take it from that goddamned dried-up, bastardly, son-of-a-bitching old Fascist.

I made a fast shuffle through the clips on my desk, those from the opposition papers and those from ours. I couldn't see where we'd missed a thing. We had everything the opposition had, and we had it better and more of it.

"Well," the Captain said, "as long as you're positive, miss. Don, how are you this fine morning?"

How
was
I? How the hell would I be? "Fine, sir," I said, as the operator went off the wire. "How are you, Captain?"

"Wonderful," he said. "I tell you, Don, there's nothing like this mountain air. You'll have to come up some time."

"Thank you, sir," I said. "I'd like that very much." And I closed my eyes, thinking,
oh, you son-of-a-bitch, you don't know just how much I'd like to
.

I could picture myself up there in that castle, creeping into his room with its big twelve-by-twelve bed. It would be loaded down with teletype flimsies and probably if you dug deep enough you'd turn up every whore west of the Mississippi. But to hell with them. I'd burn them all up together. I'd say, "I got something hot for you, Captain," and then out with the good old gasoline and a handful of matches, and-

"Don," he said. "I've been very much worried about Teddy. How is she getting along?"

"Wha-" I squeezed my eyes open, and unclenched my teeth. "Why, all right, I hope, Captain. The doctors aren't very committal, but they believe the malignancy was confined to the left breast. It's largely a matter, now, of wait and see."

"Terrible." He clicked his tongue. "So young, so beautiful. A terrible, terrible thing."

You bastard! Oh, you son-of-a-bitch!

"Yes, sir," I said. "She's suffered a great deal."

"Terrible," he repeated. "I think those things are always so much harder when one has young children."

Whoremonger, filth-eater! Go on and turn the screws. Tickle that floozie. But one of these days, powie! A five-alarm fire
…

"Well," he went on, "I suppose the situation could be worse. At least you have the satisfaction of knowing you're doing everything possible. The very best doctors and surgeons, the finest care without stint. That's something to be grateful for, isn't it, Don?"

"Yes, sir," I said. "Teddy and I are very grateful, Captain."

"A lovely girl, Don. Fine and uncomplaining and courageous. The children would be lost without her."

Monster, bastard, inhuman son-of-a-bitch. Keep it up! I'll reach right through the phone and grab you!

"Let's see, what are you making now, Don? Twenty-five thousand, isn't it?"

"Twenty-two fifty."

"Not enough," he said. "Oh, that's not nearly enough, Don. Why, if I had someone like Teddy to work for- someone who depended on me and whose very life depended on… Did you say something, Don?"

"N-No, sir," I said. "I-I just coughed, Captain."

"You should be making thirty-five thousand, Don. You're letting Teddy down. Oh, I know you
think
you're doing everything possible, but you can't know it. You simply haven't had the resources to try everything. if you were getting thirty-five thousand, now, twelve thousand five hundred more, it might make a big difference. It might mean life for Teddy and a mother for those little tots of yours and… Yes, Don? You said something?"

"No, sir," I said. "I didn't say anything, Captain."

He was silent for a moment. I eased my desk drawer open, got the cap off a pint of bourbon and took a big slug.

"Feel better?" he said. "Well, there's something I'd like you to do, Don. I want you to walk over to the window and stick your head out."

"Yes, sir," I said.

It was coming now. We were getting into the main stretch. I walked over to the window and stuck my head out. Oh, yes, yes, indeed. I did exactly as I was told. He'd know if I didn't, just as he'd known when I took that drink. The Captain always knew. Part of it was instinct, the bestial cunning you find in the very lowest of the animals, but he didn't depend entirely on that. Only a very small fraction of the people in the Captain's pay were employed on his newspapers. The rest were spies,
his
spies, and they knew every goddamned thing.

Once, years before, the Captain had told a managing editor to go out and get a cup of coffee. He was eating the poor bastard out, you see, telling him he was asleep at the switch. Well, the guy went down to a restaurant, but he wasn't a coffee drinker, it seems, so he took a glass of milk instead. And when he came back to the phone, the Captain fired him. He'd had a stool on his tail, and when the guy drank milk, whiz, the old axe.

The rotten, stinking, son-of-a-bi-

I picked up the telephone. "I'm back, Captain," I said.

"Good," he said. "Perhaps you can tell me whether it's raining or not?"

"No, sir," I said. "It's not raining."

"Very good," he said. "That checks with my information. You've taken a great load off my mind, Don. I was beginning to have some doubts as to whether you'd know if it was raining or not."

"Yes, sir," I said.

Goddammit, why couldn't he get on with it? I should have been talking to the news desk, the telegraph editor, the city editor; figuring out the play on the day's stories. I glanced at the clock, and Jesus! it was only twenty minutes until our early-noon went to bed. If it wasn't ready in twenty minutes there'd be overtime in composing, overtime in the press room, overtime in circulation- overtime! overtime! the lousy, filthy union bastards-and we'd hit the street late, and-

I'd kill him! By God, I
would
kill him! I'd sneak into that castle at night, and he'd be ass deep in teletype flimsies and whores, and I'd have that good old gasoline and those good old matches-big kitchen matches-and I'd burn him alive!
BURN HIM
-

"You had a story in your late-final yesterday, Don. A paltry eight lines back near the classified pages."

"Yes, sir? Yes, Captain?" He was crazy. If it was a good story we'd have played it.

"A rape-murder out in the Kenton Hills section. Some fourteen-year-old girl. Very badly handled, Don. Should have been right column front page or better still a center page spread with banner and lots of art."

"B-But, Captain-" I took the receiver away from my ear and stared into the mouthpiece. He was crazy, by God. "But, sir, there's nothing-nothing at this stage, at any rate-to justify-"

"You don't think so, Don?"

"Well," I said, "of course, I could be wrong. But there doesn't seem to be anything. Our courthouse man talked to the district attorney, and he doesn't feel-"

"Perhaps you could change his mind, Don. Build a fire under him. Throw a few matches his way, if you get my meaning"

"Well, I-"

"What about this boy they're holding? This Talbert?"

"They're letting him go," I said, "for the present at least. He admits intimacy with the girl, but the rape if any would seem to have been the other way around. All the people in that neighborhood-her own parents, for that matter-say she was pretty much of a chaser. She'd take out after anything that wore pants while this boy, on the other hand, did everything he could to keep out of her-"

"But he was intimate with her."

"This one time, yes. But he was miles away at the time she was strangled. Honestly, Captain, I-"

"Can he prove that he was miles away?"

"Well-well, perhaps not. He doesn't have any iron-clad alibi. But he went out to the golf course several days a week, we know that much. We know what kind of a boy he is- character-wise-and the kind of girl she was. Under the circumstances, the d.a. is reasonably satisfied that he's telling the truth. He went on to the golf course. She lingered in the canyon waiting for a chance to slip into her house and get her clothes changed. Someone came along and found her there- they've fixed the time of her death at about noon-and-"

"And who might that mysterious someone be, Don? Does the d.a. have another suspect?"

"Not at present, no," I said. "They think it might have been some hobo, someone that dropped off a freight there where they slow down for the trestle. I understand that quite a few tramps, because of the water and the trees-"

"But the d.a. doesn't have anyone in custody? Aside from Talbert, there are no other suspects and there is every chance that there will be no other?"

"Well-"

"We've flubbed a good story, Don. Moreover, we've been remiss in our duty to the public. We don't know the facts in this case. We haven't given the public the facts. Just what do we
know
about this boy, anyway? What do we
know
about his background, his character, what he might or might not do? How do we
know
the district attorney has done his job thoroughly? How do we
know
he isn't soft- headed or incompetent? We don't, do we? We don't have anything to go on but his word. We've failed our trust to our readers."

I shook my head. Hell, it was a juvenile case, wasn't it? How could you, with no real evidence to go on, smear a-.

"It's a murder case, Don. Murder and rape. There's been too much hush-hush about these juvenile criminals. We've got to call a halt, and this is an ideal time to begin."

An ideal story, he meant. It had just about everything. Young love and sex and murder and mystery. With the opposition still playing ethical-.

"We'll run them off the stands, Don. By the time they wake up, it'll be too late. It'll be
our
story with the readers."

"Yes, sir," I said. "But-"

But why not kidnap the kid and hang him from the flagpole? That would make a good story, too, and it wouldn't be any worse than this.

"Don't misunderstand me, Don. All we want is facts, no distortions or exaggerations. We find out everything we can about this boy. We see that the d.a. and the police do their jobs properly. That's all. We don't try the case in the newspaper."

Oh, we don't, huh? What the hell did he call it? All the facts, all the dirt we could dig up and nothing to offset it. The "facts" and the d.a. doing his job-doing a job if he wanted to keep his.

"All right, sir," I said. "I understand."

"I read your quarterly report, Don. It's quite good."

"Thank you, sir," I said. "I thought you'd be pleased with it."

"Yes, it's good. For a man getting twenty-two thousand five hundred. My very best wishes to Teddy, Don, and please do everything you can for her."

He hung up.

I hung up.

I glanced at the clock, squeezed my forehead between my hands. It was too much, by God; a man can take just so goddamned much and then he's had it.

I snatched up the phone, called for a conference hookup and gave news, and telegraph and city desk the word on the late-noon. Then, I told the city editor, Mack Dudley, to drag his ass in, and, yes, those were the words I used.

He came in, carefully dosing the door behind him. I waited until he started to sit down, and then I brought my fist down on my desk as hard as I could.

He jumped like he was shot out of a gun.

"What kind of crap is this?" I yelled. "What the hell kind of city editor are you? You get a prize story dumped in your lap, and just because I'm not around to write it for you, you louse it up! I'm through, get me? You think you can wander around in your goddamned sleep, and let me take the ass-eatings I'll-"

"Now, look," he said. "See here, Don-Mr. Skysmith. I don't-"

The phone rang.

"Excuse me, Mack," I said; picking it up. "Yes? Skysmith speaking."

"Don"-it was the Captain again-"I don't like to make any suggestions concerning your personnel, but…"

"Yes, sir?" I said. "I'm always delighted to have your suggestions on anything, Captain."

"That operator who handled my call a while ago; she struck me as being a very intelligent young woman. I hope she isn't transferred to the night shift."