“Yeah, chum, and some other places to boot. He’s probably starting in on Boone, right now. The gambling house first, the girl-houses later, and so on. That license of yours — that’s his warning to you. Keep your nose clean.”
“This town is his, bag and baggage, Home. You can’t buck him. Why, do you know he is the only lad ever to beat the federals?”
“How?”
Rothman shrugged. “Protection upstairs, mostly. And smart business management. It was an income tax rap. When they can’t pin anything else on a rat, they try the income tax approach. Swisher beat it. Now what do you think?”
“I think,” I thought slowly, out loud, “that I had better get to hell back to Boone and wait for another insurance case.”
“Smart boy! I think so, too. And we’re taking you to the station. Come on.”
Before we left the office, Rothman picked up the scratch sheet bearing Elizabeth Saari’s name, studied it a moment, and put a match to it. We watched it burn.
“Don’t want that on me,” he said without explanation.
“How does this Swisher get away with it?” I objected on the way down the stairs. “What holds the organization in one piece, safe from the police in Croyden and elsewhere?”
“Politics,” Rothman grunted. “How the hell do you think one party stayed in office for fifteen years? Ballotbox stuffing. And what is given in exchange for the stuffing? Protection. Some people say he runs the party, instead of the party running him. I dunno. It doesn’t make a lot of difference. He gives them the vote, they give him the city or the state on a platter.”
“I begin to see why I lost my license. And I thought the chief didn’t dare step out of line.”
“Mistake. Nobody’s okay until you look them over.”
“I also begin to see why the Boone police didn’t do everything they should have done about Evans’ death. Do you suppose the whole department...?”
“Maybe,” he grunted, “maybe not. I doubt it. Too many noses in the know isn’t a good policy. One, sometimes two men at the top can handle everything in good order. Watch the chief, don’t trust the mayor. But above all, drop this and stay clear of the matter.”
I would have, too, Louise, if I’d been given time.
The shadow left us at the railroad station. Rothman and Liebscher stayed with me until I climbed the coach steps.
“It looks good, Horne. It looks as though they wanted to see what you were up to, here. Now that you are leaving, they might be satisfied and forget it. And Home, keep clear of that woman doctor.”
My train pulled out.
There were only a few people in the coach. I flipped over the back rest of the seat in front of me and put my feet up on the opposite seat. A several days’ old newspaper was stuck between the seat and the wall. I tore out the crossword puzzle, put it in my pocket, and tried to read the daily short story.
It was called “Point of View” and told about a pair of monkeys sitting on a limb, in their cage, watching the crowd. They are watching the people and wondering what people are thinking about, while the people are wondering what
I wondered what the conductor was thinking about as he punched tickets, and what the people were thinking as they handed him the tickets to be punched.
I wondered what Leonore had been thinking about when she got the note supposedly from Evans? Other than hatred and anger of course. What had she thought when she read the demand to return the bracelet that meant so much to her?
What was she thinking about that night on the lake, skating? What torturing thoughts had so completely blinded her that she had not seen the looming danger of the hole?
Hold on a minute. Louise, I’m not so sure that
The person I saw on the lake appeared to be a girl. The girl appeared to be a very poor skater. She might have been doped. And Leonore was not doped if I could believe Dr. Elizabeth Saari. On this particular point I could believe Dr. Elizabeth Saari because the complete autopsy report was down in black and white if I cared to read it. Therefore, the person on the ice was a poor skater, and, therefore, it was
Leonore may have been under the ice at that moment.
The guy who had driven me back to town had steered rather slowly along that rutted lake road. I had thought at the time he was being careful. But now, as I mentioned to Rothman earlier, I think it was because he wanted me to see the skater. He was coolly manufacturing a witness who could testify later to having seen a girl skating on the lake at midnight. When the body of Leonore turns up, the witness will naturally jump to the conclusion it had been Leonore skating.
Very clever. On another man it would have worked. On me it almost worked. Swisher’s error was that he didn’t know Leonore had previously convinced me she could skate.
