Masetti looked at each of us in turn. “Well?” he asked us. “Have I convinced you?”
“There’s only one slight problem in all this,” I told him. “As you said, you aren’t going to be living here after this all blows over. But I am, and so is Ron. Both of us have to live in this town. Both of us need the tolerance and cooperation of the local politicos in order to make a living. If either of us turns against the politicians today, we’re liable to have a tough time surviving tomorrow.”
“Winston is a nervous town,” added Ron. “Tim here hasn’t even said he’d help you, and already he’s been shot at once.”
Masetti nodded. “I heard about that,” he said. “You were very lucky, Mr. Smith.”
“Very fast,” I corrected him.
“But I should think,” he went on, “that that should simply make you want to help us all the more. These political criminals are dangerous to your life, much more than to your livelihood.”
“It’s a poor life without a livelihood,” I told him.
“There hasn’t been the reform group made,” said Ron, “that can get all the crooks. If you people leave even one of them still at his desk in City Hall, and Tim and I helped you get the rest of them, that one will still make life rough for us.”
“As I said before,” Masetti said slowly, “I am on salary. A very good salary, I might add. Local citizens who actively and publicly assist us are also put on salary.”
“Stop right there,” I told him. “Let me give you the facts of life. Do you see this suit I’m wearing?”
He nodded, puzzled.
“It was tailored for me,” I told him. “Ready-mades emphasize my pot.” I stuck one foot out from under the booth. “Thirty-five-dollar shoes,” I said. I fingered my tie. “Imported from France,” I said. “Cost me eight dollars. It’s one of the cheapest ties I own. The only reason I drive a car made in fifty-one is because that’s the last year a sensible car was made in this country. If I wanted, I could have a new car tomorrow, and I could pay cash. I have a nice fat savings account at the Western National, and a checking account almost as fat. I have a guaranteed income, and don’t have to wait for people to come to the office and hire me.”
“I understand all this—” he started, but I interrupted him, saying, “You don’t understand a goddam thing. Now listen to me for a minute, and this isn’t any hypothetical example, this is fact. There’s a balance in a town like this, a balance like one of those mobiles they used to show pictures of in the magazines a few years back. Everybody has a place, and everybody has a weight, and it all balances out. You find yourself a good place, and a heavy weight, and you watch yourself, you’re careful not to throw the whole mobile out of balance, and you can stay. You’ve got position, you’ve got place. As long as you help to keep the mobile balanced, your position is safe. But if you start swinging around, throwing your weight around and kicking the other parts of the mobile, knocking the balance all haywire, you’ll all of a sudden find yourself out on your ear. I’ve got a good position, with all the money I want and all the prestige I need. I’ve got the position, and I’m keeping it, because I’m careful about balance, I don’t throw my weight around. Ron here is just beginning to build himself a position on the mobile. As long as he shows that he respects the balance, that he isn’t going to be grabby or pushy, he’ll be all right. Otherwise, he’s out. He’ll live in this town and maybe make a kind of a living defending drunks and wife-beaters, but he’ll never get onto the mobile.”
“Your analogy isn’t accurate,” said Masetti primly. “The CCG—”
“The CCG,” I interrupted him, “is out to kick the mobile to pieces. And it can’t, it never will. It can maybe clip some of the parts out, disrupt the balance for a while, but the mobile will still be there when it’s finished. Everybody will shift around a bit, until it balances again, and the whole thing will go on the same as before.”
“It’s the way of the world,” said Ron offhandedly.
Masetti studied me with grim disappointment. “I was given to understand,” he said, “that you had a well-formed civic conscience—”
“Hold it,” I said. “Hold it just a second. Do you know anything about this town? Aside from the fact that the politicians are crooked, do you know anything else at all?”
“I was hoping that you—”
“Okay, mister, I will.” I held up one hand, fingers spread, and started counting off. “The people in this town,” I said, “have nothing to bitch about. Not a thing. The schools are some of the best in the state, the streets are kept in good condition, there’s no organized prostitution or narcotics or racketeering, taxes are low—”
“An intelligent criminal,” Masetti interrupted me, “will always cover his crimes with a veneer of good works.”
“That veneer,” I told him, “has made this a goddam nice town to live in.”
“Why Winston, anyway?” Ron asked suddenly. “Why this town?”
“Sooner or later,” said Masetti, “we will have investigated every town in New York State.”
“Why start here?” Ron asked him. “There’s worse places than Winston.”
“Thousands of them,” I added.
“We didn’t start here,” he said. “This is the third town we’ve come to. We began with—”
“What about New York City?” Ron asked him.
I said, “The hell with New York City. What about Albany, the town you people are working out of? They don’t even bother with the veneer in that place. The streets are all potholed—”
“In Albany,” Ron interrupted me, “property assessments are made after elections. That’s control of the voters.”
“We’ll get to Albany eventually,” Masetti said irritably. Albany wasn’t the town he wanted to talk about.
“When?” I asked him.
“I don’t know what the schedule is, I do not run the CCG.”
“Who does?”
“Bruce Wheatley. You may have heard of him. He—”
“Never have,” I said.
“The point,” said Masetti, his irritation growing, “is that we are now interested in Winston—”
“Which happens to be my home,” I told him.
“And have you no interest in making your home a better place to live?”
“It’s a fine place to live,” I said. “The mobile is well balanced, the people are getting a square deal, and the whole place is quiet and pleasant. I like things just the way they are.”
“Then you won’t help us.” A grim sadness colored those words. With them, I had just been excommunicated.
Masetti looked at Ron and said, “And you, Mr. Lascow?”
“Uncle Timothy is my mentor,” said Ron flippantly. “I’ve learned all about life from him.”
The disapproval lines in Masetti’s face deepened. “Then,” he said coldly, “if you’ll excuse me—”
We excused him, with pleasure.
After he left, Ron and I had a beer and talked things over. That mobile I’d been yaking about was already pretty shaky. This town was too fat, too contented. It had been a long time between reformers, and the town wasn’t quite sure what to do with one any more.
Most of the pieces of the mobile would be at the meeting in City Hall at three o’clock. Ron hadn’t been invited, so I told him I’d go up to his office after it was over and let him know what had happened.
“If it looks like they’re going to fall apart,” said Ron thoughtfully, “it might not be a bad idea to be on the side of the angels after all.” He sipped meditatively at his beer. “I understand,” he said, “that this CCG is pretty effective. They just might be able to tear that mobile of yours apart after all.”