“The old goat’s had enough,” Harry the Waiter said.
“I’ll have a cognac, old blackamoor buddy,” Laffter said. “A double.”
Harry the Waiter inspected him. “Spilled chili on your shirt, huh? Well, shoot, you only been wearing it four days now. Could’ve got another two days out of it at least, if you hadn’t spilled stuff on it.”
“Step and fetch the drink, waiter,” the old man said, his voice loud enough to make heads turn.
“I got a good mind to eighty-six you right here and now,” Harry the Waiter said.
The old man glared up at him. “A good mind? You?” He shook his head in well-feigned disbelief.
“Old broken-down reporter,” Harry the Waiter said, and clucked sympathetically. “No sadder sight in the world. Used up. Worn out. Never was. Half drunk most of the time.” He turned to Dill. “You sure you wanta buy this old fool a drink?”
“I’m sure,” Dill said.
Harry the Waiter shook his head and turned away. As he moved off, the old man spoke in a loud voice of mock apology: “Misses the jungle, you know.” He grinned without mirth at Dill. “What d’you think a double cognac’ll buy you?”
“I need to find out who wanted that story about my sister printed.” Dill smiled, but it was a cold and even heartless smile just as he had intended it to be. “That’s one,” he said. “Two, I need to find out who leaked it to you.”
“Do you now?” the old man said.
“And three, if you don’t tell me, then I’ll make you wish to hell you had.”
The old man snorted. “What d’you think you can do to me, Dill? I’m seventy-three fucking years old. It’s all been done to me already. You gonna beat the shit out of me? One knock and I’m dead and you wanta know what my last words would be? ‘Thanks very much,’ that’s what. Get me fired? I’d move to Florida and fry in the sun like I shoulda done five years back. You can’t make me wish I’d done one goddamn thing.”
Dill smiled his smile again. “My sister had an insurance policy, Chuckles. I’m the sole beneficiary. The amount she left is a quarter of a million dollars. Are you indigent?”
Laffter’s washed-out blue eyes turned suspicious. “What d’you mean, indigent?”
“Are you without funds? Broke? Busted? Flat? Tapped out?”
The old man shrugged. “I got a few bucks.”
“Good. Then you can afford a lawyer.”
“For what?”
“You’ll need him when I sue you for libel. Not the Tribune. Just you. I know my sister wasn’t on the take, Chuckles, but your story says she was. I don’t think it’ll be too hard to prove malice — do you, Miss Singe?”
“I think you’ve got an excellent case,” Singe said.
“And how much will two hundred and fifty thousand dollars buy in legal services?” Dill asked her.
Singe smiled. “Years. Simply years.”
“Now if I sue you, Chuckles, do you think the Tribune’s going to pick up your legal fees?”
“You haven’t got a case,” the old man said with a sneer. “You don’t know anything about libel, either one of you. I know more about libel than both of you put together. They’ll laugh you outa court.”
“Then we’ll appeal,” Anna Maude Singe said with another smile.
“Appeals cost money,” Dill said. “I’ve got two hundred and fifty thousand to spend, Chuckles. How much’ve you got?”
“You got shit,” the old man said, as Harry the Waiter appeared and put a balloon glass of cognac in front of him.
“Who’s got shit?” Harry the Waiter said.
“This fuck says he’s gonna sue me for libel.”
Harry the Waiter grinned at Dill. “You need a witness? You need somebody to stand up in court and say how nasty this old fool is? You do, I’m your man.”
“Go away,” Laffter said.
Harry the Waiter went away, grinning. Laffter watched him go. He remembered his cognac then, picked it up, and drank. When he put it down he smacked his lips and lit one of his Pall Malls.
“There was no libel in that story,” he told Dill. “You think I don’t know when I’m skirting the edge?”
Dill shrugged and looked at Singe. “Libel trials can be long drawn-out affairs, can’t they?”
“They can go on forever,” she said.
Dill looked back at Laffter. “You know what old man Hartshorne’ll do when I sue? He’ll hang you out to dry, Chuckles, especially if the Tribune isn’t a defendant. He won’t even remember your name. He might even fire you, but that won’t stop the suit. I’ve got both the money and the time. I don’t think you’ve got enough of either.”
Laffter finished his cognac in a gulp. “Blackmail,” he said.
“Justice,” Dill said.
“I didn’t say she was on the take.”
“You implied it. You told me you wrote another story about her once before, a feature, but they didn’t print it. It’ll be interesting to find out why.”
“They killed it, that’s all.”
“But why?” Anna Maude Singe asked. “Did they kill it — if they did — because it was inaccurate, malicious, unfair — libelous? What?”
“It was a fucking feature, lady, that’s all. It was cute, if anything. You can’t sue for cute.”
“Today’s story wasn’t cute, Chuckles,” Dill said.
The old man stared at Dill for long moments. Finally, when he sighed and said, “You really would, wouldn’t you?” Dill knew he had won and almost wished he hadn’t.
“Count on it.”
“Five years ago I’d’ve told you to go fuck yourself.”
“Five years ago you were only sixty-eight.”
“So what d’you want?”
“Who leaked you the stuff on my sister’s finances?”
“Leaked?” Laffter said. “How do you know it was a leak? I got taps down there I turn on and off like a faucet. You know how long I’ve been on police? — fifty years, that’s how long. Think about it. Fifty years — except during the war. I’ve seen rookies come on the force, grow old, and retire. Christ, I’ve even seen rookies have kids who’re damn near ready for retirement themselves. I’m a fuckin’ institution down there, Dill. Leaks!” He almost spat out the last word.
“Who’d you get it from, Chuckles?” Dill said.
The old man sighed again, picked up his empty glass, and drained the last few drops. “The chief,” he said in a resigned voice.
“You mean the chief of police — Rinkler?”
“The chief of detectives, asshole. Strucker.”
“Why?”
“Why?” the old man said, his tone incredulous. “Did you ever ask somebody why they told you something? Is that how you used to do it for UP, Dill? Somebody out at the statehouse’d let something drop and you’d say, ‘My goodness, why are you telling me all this?’ Is that how you used to work it, fella?”
“No.”
“Then don’t ask me why.”
“What’d he say to you?”
“Strucker? He said, You might find this interesting. He reeled it off and I wrote it down. And sat on it — until today when the word came down and they said, Let’s go with that Felicity Dill stuff you’ve got. It was a story, that’s all — news — and I wrote it straight as a string because that’s how I do it. And there wasn’t one word of libel in it. You know it and I know it.”
“The word came down from where — old man Hartshorne?” Dill asked.
“I don’t know,” Laffter said. “Either him or junior. What the fuck difference does it make?” He paused and then said, “That’s it! That’s all, by God!” He shoved the table away and rose. “You still wanta sue, Dill, well, you just go ahead and goddamn well sue.