“You talked to him, Tim,” said Ron. “What did he have to say?”
“The brushoff,” I told him. “He didn’t want me or anything I could offer him. When I left, Jordan Reed’s chauffeur was waiting to take Danile for his meeting with Reed.”
“At the plant,” said Myron. “That’s where she said they were getting together.”
“There are six of us here,” said Ron. “Not counting Cathy, of course. Maybe it would be a good idea if we all went over to the plant and had a talk with these people.”
“No,” said Art.
We all turned and looked at him. I’d practically forgotten he was there. I still didn’t know whether Jack Wycza had sent him back, or he’d come on his own hook, sticking to the agreement we’d made.
“Why wouldn’t it be a good idea?” Ron asked him.
Art looked at me. “I don’t know any of these people, Mr. Smith,” he said. “Except Bill Casale, there.”
“It’s all right,” I told him. “We’re all in the same leaky boat together.” I looked around at the others. “This is Art,” I said. “He works for Jack Wycza.”
“Worked,” he corrected me.
I reeled off the names of the other people present, and then said, “Now. Why wouldn’t it be a good idea for us to go down to Reed & King?”
“Because Reed and Jack Wycza have combined,” he said.
And everybody started talking again.
This time, I was the one who shouted them all down and said to Art, “What do you mean they’ve combined?”
“Just what I said. They’ve teamed up. I guess Reed was afraid you people would make trouble. So he and the rest of his crowd are holed up at his plant, and Jack is going there, too, with a small army. That’s the deal. Reed promises to protect Jack from the CCG, and Jack supplies the army to protect Reed from you people.”
“I guess,” said Myron Stoneman slowly, “Dan and Brice had the right idea after all. Leaving town might be the smartest thing to do, under the circumstances.”
“No, God damn it!” I was stuck, and I was getting mad, and there was no place for me to get rid of the anger. “I’m not running away,” I said. “I’m going to beat these bastards!”
“How?” said Myron.
I glared at him, and shook my head. I didn’t know how.
“An army,” said Ron softly, as though he couldn’t believe it. “For God’s sake, he’s got an army.”
And then we were silent. We were all involved in this, and we were all discovering that we’d wound up on the short end of a very dirty stick. All except Bill Casale, still sitting silently in a corner and waiting to find out who had killed his grandfather.
Bill Casale! By God, I had an army, too!
I jumped to my feet. “Bill,” I said. He looked startled at being addressed. “One of seven people,” I told him, “killed your grandfather. One of them is Myron Stoneman, right over there. Two have just left town. One is at home, trying to find a loophole in his lawbooks. And the other three are out at the Reed & King plant. Now, it’s got to be one of those seven.”
“Which one?” he asked me.
“Not me, Tim,” said Myron.
“Shut up,” I said over my shoulder. Back to Bill, I said, “What will you do when I tell you which one it was?”
“I’ll call my father,” he said, “and tell him.”
“And then what?”
“Then the family,” he said stolidly, “will go get the guy.”
“What if he’s one of the three at the plant?” I insisted. “Holed up in there with Jack Wycza’s crowd from the North Side to protect him.”
“We’ll still get him,” said Bill calmly.
“Are you sure?”
He nodded. “I know my family,” he said.
“What if I just tossed out a name?” I asked him. “What if I said right now that Jordan Reed killed your grandfather?”
“Did he?”
“That isn’t the point. What if I said he did?”
“You’d have to prove it to my father,” he said. “The family isn’t here just to do your work for you.”
I’d done my work too well. I could remember the good old days, when the Casale family was ready to lynch Ron Lascow on no more say-so than the radio. Now, when I needed them, they wanted proof.
“If I prove my case, Bill,” I said, “and it turns out he’s one of the men in the plant, then your family will go get him. Right?”
He nodded.
Suddenly Art chuckled. “Mr. Smith,” he said, “You’re a wonder.”
“I don’t understand,” said Hal. He was looking in bewilderment from face to face.
“It’s easy,” Art told him. “Mr. Smith, here, just recruited his own army.”
“It might not be one of the three, Tim,” said Ron.
Hal Ganz said, “Tim, you can’t mean it. That isn’t the way to do things, Tim, you’ve got to let the law—”
“If we let the law,” Myron interrupted him, “we’ll all be on the inside looking out. Oh, not you, I suppose. You look like one of those clean-nosed types. But I’ll be jailed, and so will Ron Lascow over there, and so will Tim.”
“But for God’s sake,” cried Hal, “a pitched battle—”
“What other way is there, Hal?” I demanded.
“I can’t believe the CCG—” he started.
“Hal, wake up,” snapped Ron. “You heard what Tim said when he came back. The guy from the CCG is going off to meet Jordan Reed.”
“Jack Wycza wouldn’t have mobilized his crowd,” said Art, “unless he had a pretty strong guarantee from Reed.” Hal shook his head. “There has to be some other way,” he said. “If we could send a plea to the Governor—”
Ron said, “No, Hal. I’m sorry, but the answer is no. Let me tell you some politics. The Governor of this state lives in the capital, Albany. He belongs to one political party, and the city of Albany is controlled by the other political party. The way I understand it, the CCG has a close unofficial connection with the Governor’s party, and is building up a reputation on small towns in order to get the local machine in Albany. The Governor would very naturally like to see the capital city of the state run by his own party.”
“This has gone beyond politics,” said Hal desperately.
“For you, maybe,” said Myron. “Not for the politicians.”
“A thing like this,” said Ron, “doesn’t leave politics behind until it reaches court, and sometimes not even then. The decision is going to be made in this town long before anybody gets to court. The ones who go to court, indicted by a grand jury, will be the ones who’ve already lost.”
“I don’t see what you’re trying to convince him for,” said Art. “Don’t you have other things to do?”
“I think I should leave,” said Hal, getting to his feet.
I nodded. “Maybe you’re right.”
We waited silently until he left, and then Art said, “When does this army of yours go into action, Mr. Smith?”
“That’s the tough part,” I said. “I have to find out who’s been doing the killing. And if it isn’t one of the people in the plant, I don’t have an army after all.”
“It wasn’t me,” said Myron. “That’s all I can tell you. It wasn’t me, and I didn’t even know about this CCG business until the morning after that gunman tried to kill you.”
“Let’s do this the old classical, way,” said Ron. “The three parts of any murder: motive, method and opportunity.”
“All right,” I said. “Try it and see where it gets you. Opportunity, to begin with. They all had lots of opportunity. The first attempt was made at one in the morning. Myron, where were you?”
He grinned. “Home in bed.”