Mansfield tightened his lips. He was a sturdily built man with heavy black eyebrows that met above the bridge of his nose, and a jaw that seemed only a little less massive than the ones I’d seen on gorillas in the zoo.
“I don’t like it,” he said.
“Don’t like what?” Bode demanded.
“Don’t like anything about it. I started following your advice, and it keeps getting me in deeper and deeper. I want to quit. That’s all I want. I want peace. I don’t care about graft. I don’t care about—”
“Shut up,” Bode said. “You’re in no position to quit now.”
“I just want you to count me out. I don’t want to have anything more to do with any of this business.”
Bode said to Gail, “Don’t pay any attention to him, Carl. He’ll see reason when he hears what Wennick has to say.”
Gail nodded. “I’d like to know something of Wennick’s plan for handling this political situation.”
“He says he can get Spred acquitted,” Bode said, “and make him something of a martyr.”
Mansfield cracked his knuckles, and said, “That’s too dangerous to fool around with. Gentlemen, the more we get tied up with Spred’s case, the more we are damned in the eyes of the public. My advice is to throw Spred overboard, denounce him in no unmistakable terms, take everything which has gone sour during the last two years, and dump it on Spred’s shoulders.”
“You can’t do that,” I said. “If anything has gone sour, you either got your cut or you were suckers. With the Scar beating the reform drums, the people aren’t going to like crooks.”
“Wennick’s right,” Gail said, through a cloud of cigarette smoke. “The minute we go before the voters trying to show that Spred victimized us and we didn’t know what was going on, we make ourselves the laughing-stock of the city.”
“Let’s hear some more,” Bode said.
“Before I do any talking,” I said, “I always like to know whom I’m talking to. As I understand it, Mr. Mansfield is one of the councilmen.”
“That’s right.”
“And who is Mr. Gail?”
Bode’s eyes met mine. “Mr. Gail,” he said, “is Mr. Gail.”
“So I gathered,” I said dryly.
“I am vouching for Mr. Gail,” said Bode.
I looked across at Gail and said, “There’s something vaguely familiar about your face. Haven’t I seen you before somewhere?”
Gail looked me over with the sudden interested curiosity of one who is trying to place a familiar face. He studied my features, pursed his lips, looked reminiscent for a moment, and then slowly shook his head.
“I’ve never seen you before in my life,” he said. “I never forget a face and I wouldn’t be apt to begin with yours.”
“Then it must have been a case of mistaken identity,” I said. “Well, gentlemen, you can take it or leave it. My best guess is, that the way to handle this thing is to get Spred acquitted.”
“Would we need a fall guy?” Gail asked.
“Why not make Dalton the fall guy?” I asked.
“How?” Bode asked.
“By making it appear that Spred shot him in self-defense.”
“It’s too late to do anything like that now,” Bode said.
“I’m not so certain,” Gail said, studying the tip of his cigarette.
The telephone rang several times, sharply, insistently. Bode frowned and said, “Damn that girl. I told her I wasn’t to be interrupted, no matter what happened.”
He jerked the receiver from the telephone, and said, “Evelyn, what the hell’s the matter? I told you I wasn’t to be—”
His voice trailed away into silence. I saw his face show a quick flicker of surprise, then set in the wooden lines of a man who is betting aces-up in a poker game and is worried about them. They’re too big to lay down, and not big enough to put much faith in.
He did lots of listening and no talking. After the receiver had stopped making noise in his ear, he said, “I’ll think it over and call you back. I’m busy now. Goodbye.”
He dropped the receiver into place, and looked around at us as though debating whether he should say anything. Finally, he said, “That was police headquarters giving me a first confidential report. The boys made another search of Spred’s grounds this morning. Down in a flower bed where it had escaped observation before, they found Dalton’s gun. Two shells had been fired.
“It looks as though they were blanks. Four shells hadn’t been fired — one blank and three bullets. You see what that means? Dalton figured Spred was bluffing with all of his talk about shooting him down like a dog. He was going to show Spred up. So he either fired straight at him to give him the fright of his life, or fired the blanks at his feet to make him dance.”
Ray Mansfield wiped his forehead with his handkerchief.
Carl Gail was eying him narrowly. His face became cold, and hard as granite. I saw the skin grow white across his knuckles as his hands gripped the arm of the chair.
“How,” he asked, “did the police happen to go out there to look?”
“Some guy telephoned in that Dalton had dropped a wad of pay off money.”
“And the cops went out without saying anything to you?” Gail asked.
Bode fidgeted. “Well,” he said, “the call came in early this morning and—”
“Nuts,” Gail interrupted. “If the dough had been there, they were going to give you a double-cross. That shows how much control you have over the police department.”
“Boys,” I said, “you can see for yourselves what it all adds up to. Mayor Spred is certain to be acquitted now. Don’t you think it would be wise for me to handle it so you can get a coat of whitewash?”
It was Gail who spoke. “No,” he said. “We don’t.”
I tried to keep the surprise out of my face and knew that I failed. Hell, he could have hit me in the face with a wet towel, and I wouldn’t have felt any more surprised.
Bode almost fell out of his chair. “What’s that?” he asked.
Gail ground out the end of his cigarette in an ash tray. “I said no,” he said simply.
Mansfield fidgeted around in the chair. “As far as I’m concerned, that’s exactly the way I feel about it. I just want out of this. I want to quit.”
“Carl, what’s eating you?” Bode said to Gail. “This man can—”
“You asked me, didn’t you?” Gail said, without raising his voice,
“Sure, I asked you. But I thought your answer was going to make sense.”
“You have it,” Gail said. “It does.”
Bode looked imploringly up at me. “Now listen, Wennick, let’s not have any hard feelings over this. I think there’s been a bit of a misunderstanding. Would you mind leaving us alone while we talk it over?”
“Not in the least,” I said, and then turned to face Gail. “Your young friend has the reputation of knowing his way around. He thinks that with the finding of that gun, Spred’s acquittal is certain, and that you don’t need to make any concessions in order to beat the recall election. That, gentlemen, is what I call chiseling, and I have one treatment for chiselers. I hope I don’t have to use it. Good morning.”
V
I walked out into the sunlight as dazed as an addle-brained boxer who has stopped one with his chin just when he thinks the other man’s knees are buckling. I had one little chore I wanted to do.
I called a taxi and went into Spred’s office. Edith Forbes was in the reception room, pounding away on a typewriter. She looked up as I opened the door and smiled when she saw who it was.
“Hello,” I said, “How’s chances for a talk?”