“Wipe them out,” Finney said.
“You know, let them kill each other off.”
“Kill each other off.” He nodded.
“That’s correct.”
“And you thought that would work, Mr. Fitch?”
Mr. Fitch looked surprised. “But it is working, isn’t it?”
“Uh—”
“I’m reminded of the anarchists around the turn of the century,” said Mr. Fitch. “Of course, they were an unpleasant sort of men, but they had an interesting theory. They felt that if enough kings were assassinated, sooner or later no one would care to be king.”
“That’s an interesting theory,” Finney said.
“So they went about killing kings. There aren’t many kings these days,” Mr. Fitch said quietly. “When you think about it, there are rather few of them about. Oh, I’m certain there are other explanations, but still—”
“I guess it’s something to think about,” Mattera said.
“It is,” said Finney. “Mr. Fitch, what happens when you run through all the gangsters in town?”
“I suppose I would go on to another town.”
“Another town?”
“I seem to have a calling for this sort of work,” Mr. Fitch said. “But that’s all over now, isn’t it? You’ve arrested me, and there will have to be a trial, of course. What do you suppose they’ll do to me?”
“They ought to give you a medal,” said Mattera.
“Or put up a statue of you in front of City Hall,” said Finney.
“I’m serious—”
“So are we, Mr. Fitch.”
They fell silent again. Mattera thought about all the criminals who had been immune three months ago and who were now dead, and how much nicer a place it was without them. Finney tried to figure out how many kings there were. Not many, he decided, and the ones that were left didn’t really do anything.
“I suppose you’ll want to take me to jail now,” said Mr. Fitch.
Mattera cleared his throat. “I’d better explain something to you, Mr. Fitch,” he said. “A police officer is a very busy man. He can’t waste his time with a lot of kooky stories that he might hear. Finney and I, uh, have crooks to catch. Things like that.”
“What Mattera means, Mr. Fitch, is a nice old guy like you ought to run home to bed. We enjoy talking to you, and I really admire the way you speak, but Mattera and I, we’re busy, see. We’ve got an inordinate lot of crooks to catch...” There! “... and you ought to go on home, so to speak.”
“Oh,” said Mr. Fitch. “Oh. Oh, bless you!”
They watched him scurry away, and they smoked more cigarettes, and remained silent for a very long time. After a while Mattera said, “A job like this, you got to do something crazy once in a while.”
“Sure.”
“I never did anything this crazy before. You?”
“No.”
“That nutty little guy. How long do you figure he’ll get away with it?”
“Who knows?”
“Fifteen so far. Fifteen—”
“Uh-huh. And close to seventy others that they did themselves.”
A light went on across the street. A door opened, and a man walked toward his car. The man had ears like an elephant. “Ears Carradine,” Mattera said. “Better get him before he gets into the car.”
“You tell him.”
“Hell, you’re closer.”
Carradine stopped to light a cigarette. He shook out the match and flung it aside.
“I had him nailed to the wall on an aggravated-assault thing a few years back,” Finney said. “I had three witnesses that pinned him good — and not a breath of doubt.”
“Witnesses.”
“Two of them changed their minds and one disappeared. Never turned up.”
“You better tell him,” Mattera said.
“Funny the way that little guy had that car gimmicked. Read about it in the paper, you know, but I never saw anything like it before. Cute, though.”
“He’s getting in the car,” Mattera said.
“You would wonder if a thing like that would work, wouldn’t you?”
“You would at that. You should have told him, but it’s that kind of a crazy night, isn’t it?”
“He might see it himself.”
“He might.”
He didn’t. They heard the ignition, and then the single shot, and Ears Carradine slumped over the wheel.
Mattera started up the squad car and pulled away from the curb. “How about that,” he said. “It worked like a charm.”
“Sixteen,” said Finney.
Sometimes They Bite
Mowbray had been fishing the lake for better than two hours before he encountered the heavy-set man. The lake was supposed to be full of largemouth bass and that was what he was after. He was using spinning gear, working a variety of plugs and spoons and jigs and plastic worms in all of the spots where a lunker largemouth was likely to be biding his time. He was a good fisherman, adept at dropping his lure right where he wanted it, just alongside a weedbed or at the edge of subsurface structure. And the lures he was using were ideal for late fall bass. He had everything going for him, he thought, but a fish on the end of his line.
He would fish a particular spot for a while, then move off to his right a little ways, as much for something to do as because he expected the bass to be more cooperative in another location. He was gradually working his way around the western rim of the lake when he stepped from behind some brush into a clearing and saw the other man no more than a dozen yards away.
The man was tall, several inches taller than Mowbray, very broad in the shoulders and trim in the hips and at the waist. He wore a fairly new pair of blue jeans and a poplin windbreaker over a navy flannel shirt. His boots looked identical to Mowbray’s, and Mowbray guessed they’d been purchased from the same mail-order outfit in Maine. His gear was a baitcasting outfit, and Mowbray followed his line out with his eyes and saw a red bobber sitting on the water’s surface some thirty yards out.
The man’s chestnut hair was just barely touched with gray. He had a neatly trimmed mustache and the shadowy beard of someone who had arisen early in the morning. The skin on his hands and face suggested he spent much of his time out of doors. He was certainly around Mowbray’s age, which was forty-four, but he was in much better shape than Mowbray was, in better shape, truth to tell, than Mowbray had ever been. Mowbray at once admired and envied him.
The man had nodded at Mowbray’s approach, and Mowbray nodded in return, not speaking first because he was the invader. Then the man said, “Afternoon. Having any luck?”
“Not a nibble.”
“Been fishing long?”
“A couple of hours,” Mowbray said. “Must have worked my way halfway around the lake, as much to keep moving as anything else. If there’s a largemouth in the whole lake you couldn’t prove it by me.”
The man chuckled. “Oh, there’s bass here, all right. It’s a fine lake for bass, and a whole lot of other fish as well.”
“Maybe I’m using the wrong lures.”
The big man shook his head. “Doubtful. They’ll bite anything when their dander is up. I think a largemouth would hit a shoelace if he was in the mood, and when he’s sulky he wouldn’t take your bait if you threw it in the water with no hook or line attached to it. That’s just the way they are. Sometimes they bite and sometimes they don’t.”
“That’s the truth.” He nodded in the direction of the floating red bobber. “I don’t suppose you’re after bass yourself?”
“Not rigged up like this. No, I’ve been trying to get myself a couple of crappies.” He pointed over his shoulder with his thumb, indicating where a campfire was laid. “I’ve got the skillet and the oil, I’ve got the meal to roll ’em in and I’ve got the fire all laid just waiting for the match. Now all I need is the fish.”