The Fools in Town Are on Our Side (48 page)

“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want—” the gray-haired man crooned in a singsong voice and rocked back and forth some more on his knees.

Necessary beckoned to me and I went over to Orcutt's body. He lifted the towel again. Carol Thackerty had been right; something had taken away his face. The nose was almost gone, and there was some
bone visible and also some blood. Only the eyes were the same, and they contained no more in death than they had in life. Necessary dropped the towel back into place.

“You know him, don't you?” he said, jerking a thumb at the kneeling man.

“Frank Mouton, candidate for the city council.”

Necessary shook his head and turned to Sergeant Krone.

“Call Benson at Homicide and tell him to get his crew over here.” Krone hurried to a phone.

Necessary turned to Carol. “Well?” he said.

“I have my own key,” she said. “You know I have my own key.”

“I know,” Necessary said in a patient, reassuring voice.

“I was in the hall when I heard the shots. I was still in the hall and I heard three shots.”

“Take it easy, Carol,” I said.

“Let her tell it,” Necessary said.

“When I heard the shots I hurried and I got so frantic that I couldn't find the keys in my purse and then I found them and finally got the door open and he was kneeling over Orcutt and praying and pouring this stuff on his face.” She stopped and took a deep breath. “So I called you and then got a towel and put it over his face.” She turned and stared through the window at the Gulf.

Mouton must have been close to sixty. His hair was gray and sparse on top of his long slab of a head. He had closely set, dark eyes. They looked out of focus behind his rimless glasses that were cocked a little to one side about halfway down a long, thin nose that seemed to have too many veins in it. His red, wet mouth was open now, crooning something else. He rocked back and forth and then started on the Twenty-third Psalm again. He wore a tan raincoat that was buttoned up to his neck.

Homer Necessary walked around him, got down on his hands and knees and smelled the empty pint jar. He rose and stared at Mouton. “Some kind of acid,” Necessary said. He walked over to the kneeling man and nudged him with his foot. “Hey, Mouton,” he said.

Mouton looked up at him. “Amen,” he said.

“What d'you kill him for?”

“He was a son of Satan,” Mouton said. “Father, forgive them for they know not what—”

“Get up,” Necessary snapped.

“I am the resurrection and the life—”

“Get your ass up,” Necessary said again in a hard voice and grabbed Mouton by an elbow and jerked him to his feet.

“Whosoever believeth—”

“He's a deacon in his church,” I said.

“I remember,” Necessary said. “Take off your raincoat, Deacon.”

Mouton looked coy and suddenly went into a pose that resembled September Morn. “Not in front of you,” he said.

“Jesus,” Necessary said.

Mouton looked wildly around the room. He saw Carol Thackerty and smiled and I couldn't find much sanity in that smile. “I'll show
her!”
he said.

“All right,” Necessary said, “show her.”

Carol turned from the window as Mouton moved over to her. “You're very pretty,” he said, unbuttoning his raincoat. “I like pretty girls. I'm going to show you something nice.” He held his raincoat open.

Carol looked at him and then turned back to the window. “He's naked underneath the coat,” she said in a dull tone. “He's got the legs of his trousers belted to his thighs somehow, but the rest of him's naked.” She paused. “He's ugly.”

Mouton spun around and held his raincoat wide open so that we could all take a look. He was ugly all right. “Button that up, mister!” Sergeant Krone snapped, and Mouton pouted before he rebuttoned the coat up to his neck.

Mouton looked down at Orcutt's body. “It's all so confusing. First, I was Judas and he was the Savior and then he was Judas and I was—I was—” He stopped, looked at me, and then in a calm, rational voice said, “I'm a professional man, you know.”

“I know.”

“I'm a pharmacist,” he said, a little desperately this time.

“I know,” I said again.

“Why d'you kill him, Mouton?” Necessary asked.

“Why?”

“That's right. Why?”

“Because, you miserable fuckhead, God told me to!” With that, he walked over to a chair and sat down. He closed his eyes and refused to say anything else. The homicide cops finally took him away not long after Orcutt's body was carted off to the morgue where they found three bullets in it.

Carol Thackerty answered the phone when it rang in Orcutt's bedroom-office where the three of us sat. The homicide crew was still busy in the living room. Forty minutes had passed since they had taken Mouton away.

“It's Channing d'Arcy Phetwick the third,” Carol said. “He wants to talk to whoever's in charge of Victor Orcutt Associates.”

I made no move toward the phone and neither did Necessary. Finally, he said, “Take it, Dye.”

I took the phone and said, “Lucifer Dye.”

Old man Phetwick's voice was dry and gritty as emery dust. “I am grieved to learn of Mr. Orcutt's death,” he said.

“Yes. All of us are.”

“So is Doctor Colfax, who is on the line with me.”

“I was sorry to hear about it,” Colfax said.

“Yes,” I said.

“Poor Mouton, too,” Phetwick said. “Is he really mad?”

“I'm no doctor,” I said, “but he looked crazy to me.”

“Orcutt's death changes things,” Colfax said, all business now that condolence time was over.

“Especially for Orcutt,” I said.

“With the Lynch person gone and with the police department reorganized by Mr. Necessary, I think our main objectives have been accomplished,” Phetwick said. “In view of Mr. Orcutt's death, we have decided that we can dispense with the services of his firm. This is no
reflection on you, Mr. Dye, and we expect to offer a generous cancellation settlement.”

“You want us to pack up and leave then?” I said, more for the benefit of Necessary and Carol than for my own clarification. I understood what he wanted.

“Well, yes, if you insist on putting it that way,” Phetwick said.

Dr. Colfax chimed in. “You did your job, Dye, and a damned good one. Now we don't need you anymore, so we'll pay you off and everybody's happy.”

I decided to go formal. “Would you hold on please while I confer with my colleagues for a moment?”

“Sure,” Colfax said.

I turned to Necessary and Carol. “They want us to bug out,” I said. “They'll make a cash settlement.”

Necessary frowned and carefully removed a piece of lint from the sleeve of his blue uniform. He looked at Carol. “Had Orcutt told them about what Dye and I have got set up with Luccarella and the out-of-town guys?” he said.

“No,” she said. “He was going to tell them today.”

“He tell them about the senator and the magazine?”

She nodded. “He told them about that. Phetwick's already got the counter-attack written.”

“They're trying to cool it off,” Necessary said.

“So it seems,” I said and took my hand from the mouthpiece of the phone. “It'll only be a few seconds,” I said.

“Take your time,” Colfax said and chuckled to demonstrate that he understood how people might scurry about when they suddenly found themselves out of their jobs.

“Well?” I said.

Necessary looked down at his blue left sleeve again, stroked it gently with his right hand, smiled to himself, and then looked up at me. “I think,” he said softly, “I think they're going to have to fire themselves a chief of police.”

I nodded. “Carol?”

“I'd like to see if he gets the girl in the last reel.”

I took my hand from the phone. I looked at the mouthpiece rather than at Carol and Necessary. I felt their eyes on me. I took a deep breath. “I explained things to them,” I said.

Phetwick's voice was dry and remote. “I knew that they would be reason—”

“Our answer is no,” I said and hung up.

 

 

I wasn't asleep when Necessary called at six-thirty Friday morning. I was lying
in Carol's bed, staring at the ceiling, and thinking about Victor Orcutt. He seemed far more attractive in death than he had in life, but there must be a great many persons who seem that way.

“It's started,” Necessary said.

“When?”

“Just before dawn. Luccarella and his friends went calling.”

“On who?” I asked.

“On all of them.”

“What happened?”

“The next flight out of here is a direct one to Minneapolis and St. Paul. It leaves in fifteen minutes. Tex Turango's on it.”

“He's from Dallas,” I said.

“The Onealo brothers are from Kansas City, but they're on it, too,” Necessary said.

“Anyone else?” I said.

“Sweet Eddie Puranelli. All he could get was economy class.”

“But he took it.”

“Uh-huh,” Necessary said. “And glad to get it. Lt. Ferkaire says Puranelli doesn't look too well. There're some teeth missing, Ferkaire
says, and one eye's closed, and something's wrong with his nose. Looks busted, Ferkaire says.”

“He'll feel better back in Cleveland,” I said. “What about Nigger Jones and Jimmy Schoemeister?”

“That's why I'm calling you.”

“Where are you?” I said.

“In the lobby.”

“I'll be down in fifteen minutes.”

“Make it ten,” Necessary said and hung up.

Carol rolled over in the bed and propped herself up on an elbow. “Necessary?” she said.

“He said it's started.”

“You want some coffee?”

“No time.”

“I can use the immersion unit.”

“Okay,” I said and started to dress. She had the instant coffee ready by the time I came out of the bathroom. I drank two sips and lit a cigarette. I used to smoke Pall Malls then.

“He say anything else?” she asked.

“Some are leaving town; some aren't.” I drank more of the coffee and then handed her the cup.

“I never knew what life could be, Captain,” she said, “until you came here to Pago Pago.”

I kissed her. “I'm riding with them, Alma,” I said. “Sodbusters've got rights too.”

Necessary was pacing the lobby when I stepped out of the elevator. His eyes looked tired and bloodshot and it gave them a peculiar three-toned look, or four, if you counted their whites.

“You took long enough,” he said in the grumpy voice of a man who's been up most of the night.

“I had to rinse out a few things,” I said and followed him to the
long black Imperial which waited in front with Sergeant Krone at the wheel.

Once we were rolling I asked Necessary about Nigger Jones and Jimmy Twoshoes. He shook his head as if trying to clear it. “They won't budge,” he said. “Their people came in last night. Schoemeister's got about a dozen; Nigger Jones's got about the same.”

“What's Luccarella got now?”

“About ten from New Orleans and maybe a dozen more from back east. Ferkaire's keeping score out at the airport.”

“Anyone prominent?” I asked.

He shook his head again. “Run of the mill guys; nobodies.”

“So it's a three-way race now,” I said.

“Three-way,” Necessary agreed and stared out the window. “You know something,” he said.

“What?”

“The little fellah would have liked all this.”

“Orcutt?”

“Yeah. He'd of wanted us to report in with color Polaroid shots of all of them. Then he'd of started plotting and figuring what to do next.”

“You miss him, don't you?” I said.

He nodded again. “Sort of. Don't you?”

“Sure,” I said and then tried to determine whether I'd lied. I decided I hadn't.

“He had a head on him,” Necessary said. “You got to give him that.”

“I don't think it's hard to figure out what he'd do now,” I said.

Necessary turned to me and I'm sure he was totally unaware of the look of relief that spread across his face. He needed a new Orcutt and he thought he'd found him in me, but he was wrong, of course. I was intuitive where Orcutt had been coldly logical. I made it up as I went along while Orcutt already had the next two paragraphs polished in his mind. Orcutt had been a genius and I was just barely smart enough to knot my own tie. I didn't want to play Orcutt for Necessary. I wanted to tag along and now and then say, “That's right, Chief.”

“What do you think old Orcutt would do?” Necessary said.

“Where's Nick the Nigger?” I said.

“In a private home over in Niggertown.”

I sighed. “I think that Orcutt might remind Schoemeister of that, in case he didn't already know.”

Necessary stared at me for several moments. He shook his head slowly and then smiled, but there was nothing pleasant in it. “Orcutt never would've said that.”

“No?”

“No,” Necessary said. “He was damned cold-blooded, all right, but never that cold-blooded.”

We went calling on Frank (Jimmy Twoshoes) Schoemeister in his four-room suite on the top floor of the Lee-Davis Hotel, which was in a ho-hum race with the Sycamore for the title of “Swankerton's Finest.” We had to go through three of the suite's rooms before we were ushered into the one that Schoemeister occupied. He was alone, but the three rooms that we passed through had contained young and middle-aged men in quiet suits. They had looked at us with flat, expressionless stares and then gone back to whatever it was they had been doing, cleaning their Thompsons, I suppose.