Sin In Their Blood - Ed Lacy

     “Businessmen. And if they don't subscribe, or let us screen their employees—for from five hundred to a grand, depending upon the number of workers—why then I smear them in the newsletter. It's surefire.... I can put a small concern out of business within three issues of my newsletter.”

     “Screen their employees for what?” I asked, tossing the newsletter back on the desk.

     “For Reds, or anybody they want to call a troublemaker. I don't care, I'll screen anybody for anything— long as there's a bundle of that green stuff on the line.. Hell, Matt, this makes the old strike-breaking racket look like small time...”

     “I never went in for fink work.”

     “Maybe being in the hospital you don't know it, but the whole atmosphere of America has changed. Everybody is scared stiff. There's a magic word—red. Hint that anybody is a Communist and their goose is cooked. Got to be very careful what you think and read these days. Notice those files in the other room? They're worth a million bucks to me, and I'm not just blowing off. Last year I stumbled on a joker called Thatcher Austin, a fanatic on the...”

     “I saw him.”

     Harry grinned—he'd even straightened out his teeth. “Something for the books, isn't he? Comes from one of the old blue-blood families—minor key society stuff. Except they been stony since way back to the '29 crash. Thatcher was never exactly all there....”

     “He looks it.”

     “Convinced himself the crash was all part of a revolution started by Al Smith, Roosevelt, and Stalin to make his family poor. He was nutty. So his folks found him a hobby, what they call mental therapy. He started reading all the papers and mags, including the union stuff and left newspapers, filed the names of everybody mentioned there. Tells me for fifteen years he used to work ten and twelve hours a day at it. Realize what that's worth under the McCarran Law? I've a file as good as the FBI's! And the Austin name comes in handy when contacting the big shots. It's a cinch— when we screen a plant or an office, even a school or church, all we do is cheek their employees against our files. Half hour's work and the big shots think I'm a regular Sherlock Holmes because I tell them Joe Blow, their elevator operator, attended a meeting for Roosevelt back in 1937, or something Joe Blow don't even remember himself.”

     “What does buster need you for? What's his cut?”

     Harry laughed and relit his pipe. “You won't believe this but all that jerk gets is sixty a week, his own desk, 'and a bright badge saying he's an honorary Deputy Police Chief. He's happy, and works like a bastard. But I've only scratched the field, Matt; with these files I can cover the country, no telling how big we can get... if I can find somebody I can trust. Be like old times, Matt, we were always a smart team.”

     “I want to forget old times,” I said. “And I'm tired.”

     Harry waved his hand, as if pushing me away. “I'll be the front man, make the speeches at the businessmen's luncheons, all that bunko. I'm good at it, know how to scare them crazy. You'd run the office, follow up my leads. It's a dream, no danger or rough stuff... and how the dough rolls in.”

     “Legalized blackmail,” I said, thinking it was time for one of my vitamin pills.

     Harry shrugged. “I didn't make the laws. All I know is it's legal, patriotic, and pays off. People are scared, worse than during Prohibition. Hell, now people are scared to even look at a sunset any more—it's red. Matt, you interested?”

     “Nope.” I got to my feet again. “So long, Harry, have fun.” As I left the office I heard him say, “You dumb-ox, I'm offering you real dough for no work and...”

     When I got downstairs and out on the sidewalk, a horn wailed and I saw, Flo behind the wheel of a sleek roadster. As I got in she asked, “You find an apartment yet, or shall we go to a hotel?”

     “I'm going to the High Street police station.”

     “Aw Matt, honey, you're sore about me taking up with Harry? I told you he doesn't...”

     “I'm not steamed about anything, and stop climbing all over me. People are watching us.”

     “Then let's go to a hotel. I know a...”

     “Stop it, Flo. Things have changed—we're done.” She put her face next to mine and I twisted away from that mouth, asked, “Baby, you going to drive me to the police station, or do I walk?”

     She moved away, started the car. “What's changed? If you're not sore, I mean, what else could I do, get a job in the five and ten or.... God, Matt, you weren't wounded there?”

     “No. But I've been... eh... sick—and I didn't get a dose either. Look, baby, I've been away more than a year, and it's all over for us.”

     “But why?”

     “Who knows the way of these things? It just is,” I said, sounding like advice to the lovelorn.

     She drove expertly through the heavy afternoon traffic. “Aw, Matt, I been looking forward to your coming back. Harry's no good. Sometimes I think he gets more delight out of teasing me, slapping me around, than going with me. You know how I tick, Matt, I got to have a real man.”

     “You shouldn't have any trouble finding one.”

     “I thought I had you.” Flo sighed. “I don't know, Matt, we should have married and settled down, and by this time I'd be fat and sloppy and with a house full of kids. Now I'm all mixed up. I have money—Harry's good that way, likes to see me dress flashy, the jewels, this car—but it all doesn't add up to anything. Things seem empty. All I think of is how good we had it. Maybe not much real dough, but we were made for each other.”

     I don't know if it was smelling her, or hearing her talk and remembering—or what, but I was beginning to run a little temperature. Which was funny, because Flo and I were never romantic, merely good between the sheets.

     The idea of kissing her, being with her, made me cold with fear and I said, “Cut the chatter, baby. That's over, forget us.”

     “Just like that, two lousy words, forget us, and you think I can get you out of my system? It ain't like that, Matt. We could start over again, I'll give up the car and ice, or if you want, I'll stay with Harry, take his dough and see you till you get started and ready to...”

     “You've become quite a gal.”

     “You're the one to decide what I'll do,” she said, drawing up in front of this old run-down brick building that was the High Street precinct, parking beside the NO-PARKING sign. “Merely said that, Matt, to show you how much I need you. I'm desperate for a guy like you. Know how hard up I am? Even let that bedbug, Thatcher, have a piece now and then—for comic relief. Ought to see him, he's something, strictly a weirdie.”

     “I bet. Aren't you playing close to home? If Harry found...?”

     “Who the hell do you think makes me go with that nitwit!” Flo said savagely.

     That figured, I didn't think the tin badge would be quite enough to hold the creep. I got out of the car. “Sorry, Flo, but I have my own troubles.”

     She said, “Matt, look at me, I've been feeling... dirty... for months. Just seeing you makes me feel all fresh, and wanting you so damn much I have a pain in my guts.”

     “Take some Turns,” I said like a dope and she began to cry. I reached in and squeezed her hand. “Didn't mean the corny crack, Flo. You're as pretty as ever and all that but... I can't explain it, baby, but it's over for us. Has to be that way. I don't want to hurt you but that's...”

     She bent down and kissed my hand and I yanked it away, said, “Goodbye, Flo.”

     “No, we'll talk some more about this. Matt, there isn't any other chick?”

     “Nothing like that, it's merely that...”

     “Then we'll talk more about us.”

     “Maybe.” I waved and walked into the station, looking at the lipstick and spit on the back of my hand, wondering what it would show under a microscope. The desk sergeant was a cop I didn't know and I asked. “Captain Max Daniels in?”

     “Who's calling?”

     “Matt Ranzino.”

     He glanced at me with mild interest and picked up the phone. I asked, “Where's the can?”

     He pointed toward a door I should have seen and I went in and washed off her spit, carefully washed my face and hands with strong soap. I was taking out one of my pills when I heard Max's hoarse, “Where is he?” and then he came barging into the John, slapped me twice on the back with his right—knocking the pill out of my hand—and threw a left at my shoulder. I stepped inside the punch and pushed him away, said, “Still carrying your left too low.”

     We shook hands like mad and Max said, “You old miserable unbathed bastard, it's great to see you!”

     He'd changed a little—his hair was graying along the edges and his face was fatter. But his clothes were still crumpled, he still didn't know how to shave—there were little patches of stubble on his face—and of course there was a big dent where I'd broken his nose.

     He gave me the old double slap on the back again, asked, “What we standing here for? Come into my office—not that it looks any better than this craphouse.”

     Max's office was a plain room with a battered and butt-burned desk, two chairs—one of them with a broken back—and on his desk were framed snapshots of his fat wife and the two little girls. On one of the green walls there was a small picture of Max in a fighting pose, cut out of the papers when he'd won the Golden Gloves heavyweight title. Max had been riding the gravy train as police department boxing champ for several years till I came along and beat his brains out. It was the start of a real friendship.

     Max bent down to get his pint out—why do they always keep it in the bottom drawer? The top would be more convenient—and I said, “Not for me.”

     He kicked the drawer shut, tilted his chair, the good one, against the wall. “Matt, I've missed your ugly puss. Going into the agency racket again? You want, I can get you back on the force, being a vet of two wars and all that. Hell, you're only 33, still retire before you're 50.”

     “You mean retire to one of these two-bit night watchmen or messenger jobs so I could live on my pension?”

     Max sent an oyster of spit into the tin wastebasket. “Going to get your license again?”

     I stared at the wastebasket. Max? I'd never thought of that, could be.

     He asked, “What's the matter?”

     “Nothing.”

     “What's your plans, champ?”

     “To do a lot of nothing. Get a quiet room on the ocean front, take care of myself.”

     Max looked at me with troubled eyes, rocked his chair. “Matt, what's wrong? You talk like a washed-up old man. You're still a kid, and you used to be tough as...”

     “That's it, Maxie... used to be. They took all the toughness out of me in Korea, and in the hospital. I lay there for months, sweating out dying, losing a lung, fighting with them not to cut away my ribs... give me air.... I don't know, Maxie, I've always had confidence in myself, in my body, but now... I have to treat myself like I was made of delicate glass from now on. I can't risk...”

     “What crap! I was in touch with the docs at the hospital; all you have is a scar on your lungs. Why half the people in the world have a scar on their lungs, had TB at some time and never even knew it. For all I know, maybe I have. And I heard about your running out on that goon Tops Anderson today. For Christsakes, what's happened, Matt, lost your grip?”

     “Could be. Now I have to figure things like this: if I swing on a Tops, get into a brawl, I might open the scar again, really fix my wagon. Another thing, the docs said I probably got the germ in my lung before Korea—everybody has the germs inside them. So when I look at a Tops, or even you, I keep wondering if this is where I got it, if this bastard is the one who...”

     “You've turned soft, sound like a dizzy hypochondriac. Why two years ago you would have slapped Tops loose from his teeth for even looking at you wrong!”

     “That was two years ago. Max, why do we make such a big deal of being tough? All we see on the screen, the radio or TV is some joker bragging how tough and rugged he is. I didn't have much to think about in the hospital, so I figured out toughness. It's for the birds. Unless a guy is ready to take a stand—and that means ready to die—on anything, even getting called a louse or a SOB, then being tough is all a bluff, being a coward. And if you're really tough, ready to kill or be killed over a hard look—then you're stupid.”

     “Sweet God, you talk like you're half dead, a...”

     “That's what I am, half dead. And I don't give a damn about anything but seeing I don't become all dead. That's why I'm here—besides wanting to see you again —want you to do me a favor—get me a pistol permit.”

     “Your hands are the best weapons you'll ever have. What you need a rod for?”

     “You want me to make it formal? As a citizen I'm asking for a gun permit for protection. From time to time I'm going to run into other slap-happy characters like Tops, guys I once slugged, and this running is tough on my lungs. With a rod I could bluff my way...”

     I stopped, for Max's fat face was twisted up as though he was going to cry. He shook his head sadly. “What's wrong with you? Running!... And you know I can't give you a permit on those grounds. Also you damn well know there's no point in packing a rod unless you're going to use it. That'd be great, getting sent up for knocking off a slob like Tops because you're scared to...”

     “You won't get me the permit?” .

     “No!”

     “Okay. I'll make application for one at police headquarters, anyway.” I stood up. “Say hello to Libby and the kids....”

     Max got to his feet. “Wait a minute, can't we talk? For crying out loud, we're old friends and...”