“We know,” Murfin said.
“Well, the first thing I know these six guys that I never heard of before fly out from Washington. But they don’t come near me. So the next thing I know there’s this special meeting of the Council’s board of directors and here’re these six guys sitting there, not up to the table, you know, but back up against the wall. They all look alike. Maybe thirty or thirty-three, smooth-looking jaspers with real nice suits and shiny shoes. And from what I hear each of ’em’s carrying enough cash money to burn a wet mule. So they bought it. The vote, I mean. There was a motion to dispense with my services, it was seconded, there’s this six to five vote, and I’m outa my fuckin’ job just two months before I’m eligible for a pension. Well, I start nosing around and I find out that these guys laid out about twenty thousand dollars cash money to rig the vote on the board of directors. I can’t prove it, but that’s what I hear and it adds up because the next time I see old Sammy Noolan — you remember old Sammy who never had a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of either — well Sammy’s driving a Pontiac GTO and he never drove nothing better’n a second-hand Ford in all his life.”
Koontz took another swallow of his beer. “Okay, so I’m outa my job, but I still keep in touch. Well, the next thing you know, the Council breaks off negotiations with the city. Wham! Just like that. Then these six guys that Gallops sends out from Washington come up with a new set of proposals. Well, one of the guys on the Council board, maybe you remember him, Ted Greenleaf?”
Murfin nodded to show that he remembered Ted Greenleaf.
“Well, Greenleaf’s been around a long time and he takes one look at what these guys have come up with and he says to ’em that they’re fuckin’ crazy. Now Greenleaf’s the one who led the fight for me in the Council meeting, although it wasn’t much of a fight, so they don’t even try to buy him off. They don’t even try to argue with him. They just smile politely at him and let him have his say and on the way home that night his car is forced over to the curb and somebody beats the shit out of Ted Greenleaf and the next day he resigns from the Council board and puts it in writing. He has to put it in writing on account of he’s in the hospital with his fuckin’ jaws wired shut. You gettin’ the picture?”
“Yeah, I think so,” Murfin said.
“What do the new demands ask for?” I said.
“Well, lemme tell you about that. That’s really something. These new demands ask for a whole passel of stuff but the key points are real simple. They’re demanding a flat twenty percent pay increase across the board and a four-day week. Well, I mean that sits with the city like a saddle on a sow. The city just laughs at em. But these six guys who’ve taken over the negotiations by now, they don’t laugh back. They just smile as cool as you please and don’t budge an inch.”
“What about the membership?” Murfin said.
Koontz shrugged. “Well, you know what the membership is like. You tell ’em that they can have Friday or maybe Monday off as well as Saturday and Sunday plus a twenty percent pay hike and, hell, they ain’t gonna say no.”
“Yeah, but will they go out on strike for it?” Murfin said.
“We used to put the Council newspaper out once every month, right?”
Murfin nodded. “Right.”
“Well, now it’s coming out every week and I mean it’s slick. It’s full of figures and statistics to show how the city can pay for all this stuff with no sweat. On top of that each member has received an individually robotyped letter explaining to him just how much money he’ll make over the next five years when the city meets his demands. Well, shit, I mean it looks like a whole wad of money. All he has to do to get it is go out on strike for maybe a month or two. And even with what he’ll lose in pay, he’ll still come out way ahead, according to the phony figures that these six sharpers have come up with.”
Murfin shook his head. “The city’ll never go for it. Hell, there’s hardly a city in the country that’s not almost flat-ass broke. They sure as shit won’t go for any four-day week and a twenty percent pay increase.”
“You ain’t exactly telling me anything new,” Koontz said. “But that’s what they’re gonna go for anyhow. After they dumped me they dipped down into the rank and file and came up with this loudmouth nigger who they made executive director. The second thing they did after they named him was to vote him a new Cadillac. Not a little Cadillac, but a big fuckin’ Cadillac. Well, he gets his picture in the papers and on TV and they give him my salary and my expense account, and shit, there’s nothing that nigger ain’t gonna do for them.”
Murfin drank some of his beer and looked carefully at Koontz. “But you haven’t just been sitting around the house all this time, have you, Freddie?”
Koontz took another look around the back of the booth toward the bar. Then he turned back, hunched forward, and lowered his voice to a hoarse, confidential whisper. “Well, I’ve been talking to some of the guys and we’re gonna have a meeting tonight.”
“Where?”
“At the fuckin’ Odd Fellows Hall, can you imagine? Ten years ago I got the membership to vote that we oughta have our own headquarters. So they gave me the okay and I built us a hell of a fine place. Two stories, nice big meeting hall, even a recreation room and plenty of office space. Even had a nice little wet bar in my office. Well, day before yesterday, I tell ’em I wanta use the union meeting hall and they lie to me and tell me it’s all booked up. So I gotta go rent the goddamn Odd Fellows Hall for fifty dollars. Hell, I don’t mind the money. I’ve paid more’n that to watch two flies fuck. It’s the principle of the thing.”
“When’s the meeting?” I said.
“At eight o’clock tonight. Some of the guys who ain’t got just shit, clabber or mud for brains are gonna be there. They don’t like all this strike talk either. Hell, if it was gonna come to a strike, we’d go for compulsory arbitration first. That’s what Arch always said and I agree with him. Nobody knows how a strike’s gonna turn out. For all you know it might bust the union and the first thing you know you’d be signing a yellow-dog contract to keep your job. You know, sign something where you’d agree to get out of the union if you’re in it or not join it if you’re not.”
“You think that’s a possibility?” I said.
Koontz shrugged. “Who the hell knows?” he said. “You get a long strike and who’s gonna get pissed off most? Well, the fuckin’ voters, that’s who, and they’re already screamin’ about how the city’s got too many people on the payroll anyhow. Well, if a strike keeps them from getting their garbage picked up for two months, then come election day they’re sure as shit stinks gonna vote for somebody who ain’t gonna play patty-cake with no union. And don’t think the pols don’t know this.”
“Have you been talking to some of them?” Murfin said.
Koontz nodded glumly. “Yeah, I’ve been talking to them. Or they been talking to me, although they sorta sneak around to do it now that I’m out of a job. They’re worried that if there’s a strike, the party’s gonna lose St. Louis and if it loses St. Louis, it’s gonna lose the whole state. Well, that started me thinkin’.”
“About what?” I said.
“I started thinkin’, ‘How come Gallops picked on me?’ I mean, shit, I’m not the only frog in the pond. So I make a couple of long distance calls. Like I said, I ain’t got nothing else to do. I call Jimmy Horsely over in Philadelphia and Buck McCreight up in Boston. I figure maybe they might have a spot for me. But whaddya know, they’re just about to call me because the same thing’s happened to them just like it happened to me. They got dumped and they’re looking for jobs. And they tell me it ain’t no use callin’ Phil Leonard in New York or Sid Gershman out in L.A. or Jack Childers up in Chicago because they’re dumped, too, just like I was, except Gallops sent in more guys and spent a hell of a lot more money to get the job done in those places than he did here. Whaddya think of that?”