“Now get this straight, Wennick, I’ve been pestered to death with detectives and reporters. If it’s about the Dalton murder, just start for the door. It’s late, and I’m busy. I’ve been interviewed and questioned until I’m sick of it.”
I lit a cigarette.
“Well?” he asked, at length.
“Personally,” I said, “I like to gamble, and I always like the long shots.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning,” I said, “that they’re offering one hundred dollars against ten dollars that you’ll be kicked out of office on the recall election.”
His heavy face turned florid, and his little eyes glinted in rage. “You,” he said, “get to hell out of here.”
“I was quoting facts. You shouldn’t get touchy about facts.”
“Get out!”
“Of course,” I said, studying my cigarette, “I could go to the other crowd, and make my deal with them. But they’d want just as much for the concession as though they were already in office. With you it’s different. Right now, the chances that you’ll be elected are one in ten. Therefore, you should be willing to talk business on reasonable terms. Then if it’s to my financial interest to see that you’re returned to office, your chances might be a hell of a lot better than one in ten. It would pay you to give it some thought.”
Slowly the florid color faded from his cheeks. I knew he was sparring for time and didn’t crowd him any. After a minute, he said, “What’s your game?”
“A new type of slot machine,” I said.
I looked up at the ceiling and said noncommittally, “I know a lot about the psychology of selling slot machines, and I know a lot about politics. I sold the mayor of Henlotown to the voters the last election.”
I saw suspicion flare into his eyes. “If you did that, how come you’re wandering around with a slot machine racket? Why aren’t you there grabbing gravy?”
“Some talk got started that could have led to trouble,” I said. “Somebody had to take the brunt of it. If the mayor had taken it, it would have been a smear. I took it.
“Don’t worry, brother, I’m getting mine for taking it, but the doctors have told me that for about a year I hadn’t better be around the Henlotown climate. It’s too high and dry.”
Bode thought some more, then said, “You talk a lot — to strangers.”
“You’re not a stranger,” I said. “What the hell do you suppose I’ve been doing the last couple of weeks?”
“What do you know about me?” he demanded belligerently.
I tried a shot in the dark. “More than your wife does,” I said, and was pleased to see his eyes shift.
“What do you want?”
“Slot machines.”
“It’s out. The people won’t stand for slot machines.”
“I’ll take care of the people. If I can make them stand for you, with the stink that’s hanging to your coattails, I can make them stand for slot machines.”
“You’ve got an over-confidence bug buzzing you, mister. Talk like that could get me mad.”
“There you go again,” I said, “refusing to face facts. Between you and me we may as well figure that a spade is a spade. When it comes to the taxpayers, we’ll play the game differently. A spade will become a sturdy implement of rugged construction designed to be of inestimable benefit to the farmer, and the factory workers as well, symbolical of the rugged honesty of our esteemed contemporary and fellow townsman, Preston Bode, friend of the laboring man.”
“Those are only words,” he said. “You can’t pull that friend-of-the-laboring-man racket in this town. The banks control it.”
“Just a babe in the woods,” I said.
“Who is?”
“You are. You talk simple.”
“What’s wrong with my statement?”
“Banks control finances,” I said. “Labor controls votes.”
“All right,” he said savagely, “you try to court the labor votes and the bank puts financial screws on you, and you come out at the small end of the horn.”
“You know how to handle that, don’t you?”
“No, and neither do you.”
“The ears of labor,” I said, “listen for the loudest voice. Financial institutions have ears which are attuned to the faintest whisper. If you shouted to the labor and then quietly whispered to the bankers, and your words made sense, you’d go to town.”
Bode started drumming nervously with the tips of his fingers on the edge of his desk. “Who thinks up the words that I shout and the words that I whisper?” he asked.
“That’s easy. I do — if I get the concession.”
“What kind of a concession do you want?”
I laughed, and said, “Don’t pull that line. I told you what I wanted — slot machines.”
“How much gravy for distribution?” he asked.
I said, “I’ve told you how much. I’m a gambler. I like to play the long shots. You’re a long shot.”
“You mean that if you show me how to beat this recall you want me to string along with slot machines for nothing.”
“Oh,” I said, “there’d be enough so you could keep yourself and friends in cigars. But I’d want you to remember that I was one of the early birds — up before breakfast to help you. If I deal myself in when things look pretty dark, I want to be in when they begin to look rosy.”
Little blue puffs of cigar smoke drifted upward past his beefy neck. Abruptly he faced me and said, “I could use a good man.”
“You’re looking at one.”
“This situation,” he said, “isn’t simple. You’d better get that straight before you start. The district attorney is out to make a killing by siding with the winner. A week ago he would probably have trailed along with the city administration. Now his head is full of maggots. He wants to be governor some day. He sees this as a good chance.”
“How about the city police?” I asked.
“I control them,” Bode said.
“You mean you did control them. They’re ready to sell out if they can find a taker. You know that as well as I do.”
“You,” he said, “seem to know altogether too damn much for a stranger.”
I said ominously, “I’m not a stranger, and I know a damn sight more than you think I do. Now then, do we trade or don’t we?”
“I have two associates I’d like to consult,” he said.
“How much time do you want?”
“Give me until ten-thirty tomorrow morning.”
“Okay. But if you’re going to play ball with me, we’re going to have to work fast. That means I want to be all ready to go just as soon as you say the word.”
“There’d be no percentage in moving slowly,” he said. “I think the answer’s going to be ‘yes,’ as far as that’s concerned.”
“If that’s the case,” I said, “we want to do something about that Dalton mess. It’s being handled in the worst possible manner.”
“How else are you going to handle it?”
“Lot’s of ways,” I said. “To begin with, you haven’t done the cause very much good with your statement.”
“What’s wrong with my statement?”
“Everything.”
“I told the truth.”
“That,” I said, “is not always wise. How deeply did you commit yourself?”
“What do you mean?”
“How much of your story can you change if you have to? Go ahead and give me the highlights of what you’ve told the officers.”
Bode said belligerently, “I told them the truth. Dalton wanted to go out and see Spred. Ray Mansfield and I had a talk with him. We decide to drive him out.”
“That story,” I said, “isn’t so hot. It isn’t even lukewarm. It could be heated up by your enemies, though — in the wrong way.”
“Why?”
“In the first place,” I said, “Dalton was Spred’s enemy. Spred was Dalton’s enemy. What’s more, you and Mansfield were in the other camp. I can’t conceive of any reason why Dalton should want to go out and see Spred unless there had been a sellout. But if he did want to see Spred and had taken you two along, you certainly would have been the ones to go up and ring the doorbell.