Three by Cain: Serenade/Love's Lovely Counterfeit/The Butterfly

by James M. Cain

  At this reminder of the lowly role he had played, Ben’s eyes flickered. Obviously he would have liked to let the thing rest there, to let Mr. Cantrell have his dignity, to get on with the deal. It would be less trouble that way, and he hated trouble. But something must have told him this was really a test of strength, that if he weakened now, he couldn’t handle this man, even if he bagged him. He smiled pityingly. “So you never took it off Caspar, hey? It’s a good thing he’s not here to hear you say that. Now you know and I know and we all know that if you stuck around Caspar you took it or you didn’t stick. I notice you were there, right up to the last whistle blow, and that means you took it. So that’s what you’re doing now.”

  His big halfback’s paw hit Mr. Cantrell’s feet, which were still on the desk, and Mr. Cantrell’s feet hit the deck. Mr. Cantrell came up standing, then walked around the desk, and the two men faced each other malevolently. Then Mr. Cantrell’s face wrinkled into a grin, and he nudged Ben in the ribs. “Hey, Ben, you forgot something.”

  “Yeah, and what’s that?”

  “It’s not the heat makes me like this, it’s—”

  “The humidity?”

  “Right!”

  Both roared at this sally, in a room-shaking, tension-easing laugh, and Mr. Cantrell felt in Ben’s pockets for a cigarette. “Were we supposing, Ben?”

  “That’s it, copper.”

  “Go on, tell me some more.”

  “If you want to be Chief, I might swing it.”

  “You in person?”

  “Yeah, me.”

  “You and Jansen; I didn’t know you were that thick.”

  “We’re not.”

  “O.K., just getting it straight.”

  “Just the same, I can swing it.”

  “Keep right on.”

  “Of course, you got to sell him. You got to convince him that you, or any cop, can clean this town up in twenty-four hours, providing one thing.”

  “Which is?”

  “You get a free hand.”

  “And then?”

  “Surprise, copper, surprise! Then you clean it.”

  “A clean tooth don’t grow much fat.”

  “You follow the chickens?”

  “Yeah, a little.”

  “O.K., then you know how they cut off the spur, just a little way from the foot. And you know how they fit that gaff over the stump—that pretty-looking thing that’s all hand-forged steel, with a point on it that would go through sheet-iron, and a nice leather band to go around his leg, soft, so it don’t hurt him any, and he likes it … So you clean up the town, you do it for Jansen, just like you said you would. You cut off the spur, and that cleans it. How can a chicken violate the law with no spur to fight with? O.K., you just don’t tell him about that gaff in your pocket, that’s all. You got it now?”

  “No.”

  “Well, you will.”

  “Look, smart guy, what do I do?”

  “Do? You do nothing, You get called in, that’s all. You and about twenty others, one at a time you get called in to say what you got to say, if anything. And you, you got nothing to say. Sure, you can clean the town up. Any cop can—providing you get a free hand. You don’t polish apples, you don’t shake his hand, you don’t even care. But you mean business, if he does.”

  “Well, does he?”

  “He appoints you acting chief.”

  “And?”

  “Then you hit it. Then you’re in.”

  “Boy, it’s clear as mud.”

  “Oh, mud settles if you give it time.”

  A half hour later, in another place, where he could be friendly and frank, Ben was more natural, seemed to be having a better time. This was in the office of Bleeker & Yates, a firm of lawyers in the Coolidge Building, whereof the senior partner, Mr. Oliver Hedge Bleeker, had just been elected District Attorney by a majority as big as Mr. Jansen’s. So it was with Mr. Yates, the junior partner, that Ben had his little visit. He was a graying man in his thirties, and kept his blue coat on, as befitted an attorney with an air-conditioned office. Ben took him completely, or almost as completely, into his confidence, and made no secret of his former connection with Caspar. But he hastened to explain the circumstances: the abdominal injury, received in professional football; the need of work, and the offer from Caspar; then the absurd situation that developed, wherein his distaste for the job collided with the unpleasant probability that if he quit it he would be killed, for what he knew, and to gratify Caspar’s conceit. As Mr. Yates’ eyes widened, Ben went on, telling of his activities for Jansen. He didn’t say what they were, and insinuated they were pathetically slight. Yet he insisted he had been a Jansen man. “I just about got to the point where if I couldn’t call my soul my own I was going to call my carcass my own. Yes, I worked for Jansen, and I’m proud of it. I want you to know it, because before we go any further you’d better know the kind of guy I am.”

  “Were you the—‘leak spot,’ as we called it?”

  “The what?”

  “Well—Miss Lyons, as I suppose you know, had a source of information about Caspar. In the Jansen organization, we never knew exactly who that source was, as she never told us. We always called it the ‘leak-spot.’ ”

  “I can’t tell you the source of Miss Lyons’ information. I played a small part in the campaign. It was small, and believe me it was unimportant. But I’d like you to know I was against Caspar, I was helping to break him, before now. During the campaign. While it was still a fight.”

  “And what do you want with me?”

  “You know anything about pinball?”

  “Why, I’ve played it, I guess.”

  “I mean the hook-up.”

  “Well, not exactly.”

  “You reform guys, you don’t know much, do you?”

  “Well, is it important?”

  “Look, I can’t tell you from way-back, but in my time there’s been just two rackets. Two really good ones. Two rackets that made money, and kept on making it, and were safe—or safe as a racket ever gets. One was beer, until prohibition got repealed, and the other is pinball, and both for the same reason. You know what that reason is?”

  “Human greed, I suppose.”

  “No—human decency.”

  “I don’t quite follow you.”

  “Beer—I don’t talk about hard liquor, because that was really intoxicating—but beer, that was against the law mainly because the great American public thought it was, well, you know, a little—”

  “Scandalous?”

  “That’s it. But once they went on record about it, they didn’t really care. It was just a little bit against the law, if you know what I mean. That meant it was just as illegal as some D.A., or enforcement officer, or maybe both of them working together, said it was. That meant you could make a deal. Not all over, maybe, but most places. You remember about that?”

  “Oh yes, quite vividly.”

  “O.K., then beer went, didn’t it?”

  “You mean it became legal?”

  “That’s it—anybody could sell it, and the racket went. So the boys had to find something. So for a while they made a mess of it. They tried stick-ups, and kidnapping, and Murder, Inc., and a lot of stuff that didn’t pay and that landed plenty of them in the big house and quite a few on the thirteen steps. And then they got wise to gambling. Of course, that wasn’t exactly new.”

  “I wouldn’t think so.”

  “No, that cigar-store front with a bookie behind, and that guy on the corner, selling tickets to a policy game, and the big bookie places downtown—most of that had been going on a long time. But beer, when it made its comeback in the drug stores and markets and groceries, that gave the boys an idea. Why not put gambling in the drug store too? Why not bring it right to the home, so Susie and Willie and Cousin Johnny can drop their nickel in the slot? And when they went into it a little they found out that pinball was like beer. The great American public frowned on it, but didn’t really care. It was against the law,
but not very much. So that meant they could make a deal. So they did. And all over the United States you’ll find these machines, in drug stores, cafes, ice cream parlors, bowling alleys, and restaurants. They’re outlawed in New York now, and Los Angeles, and a few other places, but everywhere else, they’re wide open.”

  “Wait a minute, you’re going too fast for me.”

  “Yeah? What’s bothering you?”

  “Who owns these machines, Mr. Grace?”

  “O.K., now I’ll give it all to you, quick. You understand, anybody can make amusement machines, and plenty of them are made locally—juke boxes, shovel games, pinball, whatever you want. They’re made in those little tumbledown places over on the other side of the carline, where you wouldn’t hardly believe there’d be a factory at all. But most of them, the good ones, with shiny gadgets on them and patent attachments, come from Chicago. That’s the center, and two or three of the big houses there make ninety percent of the national product. Some of them are O.K. The juke boxes, for instance, they’re not against the law anywhere, and they got good tone quality if you like tone. I don’t.”

  “Me neither.”

  “But the rest, the pinball machines, no manufacturer in Chicago takes a chance on what some D.A. is going to do. They’ve got to be owned locally, and they’ve got to be paid for in cash. In Lake City, they’re owned by about the sickest bunch of jerks you ever saw—stooges for Caspar, that could scrape together a few hundred dollars to buy some machines, and that had to scrape it together, for one reason or another. Then they were set. They had their machines, and they gave him his cut, and the machines paid, clear of the fifty percent to the drug store man, and Solly’s cut, and one or two other little rake-offs we’ve had, three or four bucks a month to the owner. That meant that in a year he had his money back and the rest of it was gravy. The drug store man, he was sitting pretty. He had two or three machines in, and they paid seven-eight-nine bucks a month apiece, and that was a good slice of the rent. And it was cash. And—”

  “It’s still going on, isn’t it?”

  Ben, who had been striding around, giving Mr. Yates the benefit of his researches and reflections for the last few weeks, sat down now with a cryptic smile. “As to that, suppose you tell me.”

  “I—what would I know about it?”

  “They’re still going, of course, but whether they’ll be going, or what the situation is going to be after the new administration goes in—that depends pretty much on your partner, Mr. Bleeker, the new D.A.”

  “I can’t tell you what he’s going to do.”

  Mr. Yates spoke quickly, sternly, conscientiously. Ben shrugged amiably. “Just gagging. None of my business what he’s going to do, but—”

  “Once more: What do you want with me?”

  “Oh, I’m coming to that. Now, Mr. Yates, I’m going to surprise you. So far as Lake City is concerned, I believe pinball is doomed.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s wrong. To the extent that it’s gambling, it’s wrong, and that temptation ought to be taken away from our young people, and if I know your partner, Mr. Yates—of course I can only judge from the speeches he made in the campaign, but he made himself pretty clear—he’s going to take that temptation away. I’m betting my money that that’s the way the cat is going to jump, and that’s why I’ve come in to see you.”

  “Yes, I’m listening, Mr. Grace.”

  “To the extent that it’s a game of chance, it’s wrong, and that part is against the law. But to the extent that it’s a game of skill, it’s good clean recreation, and that’s not against the law.”

  “Just how do you separate these two aspects of pinball—or is that metaphysical operation supposed to be my useful function?”

  Mr. Yates’ tone was dry, his expression ironical, his eye cold and steely. Ben jumped up and gave him a little, just a little, of the manner he had turned on Mr. Cantrell.

  “Listen, pal, I didn’t come in to ask you to turn black into white, or whatever you mean by that crack about metaphysics. I’ve come in to offer you a perfectly legitimate and honest and decent job, so let me finish before you crack smart … I separate them, by using different machines, a completely different class of amusement equipment. Those companies in Chicago, they haven’t been asleep either, brother. They can read the writing on the wall just as well as I can. The law, it’s pretty much the same in every city of the country, and it prohibits a game of chance. A game of chance, with a pay-off, is out, and they know it. Understand, this is local legislation all over the country, but one by one, communities are going to put that game of chance on the skids. But those kids, and those drug stores, between them, they’ve developed a demand for a decent, honest game of skill—baseball, football, softball, all sorts of table imitations of the big stuff outside, that kids can play with each other at night, have a good time, and not lose every dime they’ve got. There’s no pay-off. Have you got that? There’s no pay-off.”

  “I think you make that clear.”

  “The most those kids get is a certificate, or engraved diploma, whatever it is, saying they made a home run, or hole-in-one, or dropkick from the fifty-yard line, just a souvenir, because experience shows you’ve got to give them something, or the game don’t pay. But, experience also shows that this class of game is just as profitable, to the drug store owner, as gambling—”

  “How can it be?”

  “They enjoy it better. They play each other, not the machine, so it’s all on the up-and-up. They get a break. That’s what cuts the machine’s take on gambling pinball: those kids wake up, sooner or later, that they’re being cheated. This way they’re not.”

  “Now I’ve got it. Go on.”

  “All right, so I’ve got a hook-up, I’ve got it arranged to bring in this new class of machine and install them in Lake City—if, as, and when the old ones are thrown out. I don’t know what Mr. Bleeker is going to do, and I don’t ask you even to ask him what he’s going to do. But this much I’ve got to know: Is my class of machine legal? I can’t take a chance on bringing in five thousand machines here—”

  “Five thousand?”

  “Look—there’s five hundred drug stores around Lake City, two or three hundred cafes, I don’t know how many ice cream parlors—I’m trying to get it through your head that this is big business. I can’t take a chance on that much dough, and then have friend Bleeker decide that the felt on the table don’t meet the requirements of Section 492 of the Sanitary Code, something like that. I’ve got to know where I stand, and I’ve got to know in black and white. That’s the first thing. You know him, and you can certainly put a legal question to him that he’s bound, as I see it, to answer. The next thing is, just to protect the interest of all the little guys that want to put machines in, I’m going to organize an association. I don’t kid you about it. That association is going to know from the beginning that it’s politically powerful. It’s got two or three men in key spots of every precinct, and it can make any D.A., whether his name is Bleeker or whatever it is, treat it polite, with no kicking around. I want you to represent that association, as attorney. For that, you’ll receive a pretty nice yearly retainer. Just how much I don’t know today, but we can work it out. I don’t ask you to do anything but represent us legally—but we want real representation, and you look to me like you’ve got some stuff. I don’t mind saying I’ve had my eye on you since before the election. Well—now you know where you come in, at last.”

  Mr. Yates got up and took several turns about his office. Presently he sat down. “Well—there’s a little question of ethics here.”

  “I don’t quite know what you mean.”

  “You see, I’m Bleeker’s partner.”

  “That’s O.K. by me.”

  “I’m not sure it is by me. Or—by the bar association. Or—by Mr. Bleeker. I’d say it was one of those things—”

  “Well, if the ethics bothers you I can go somewhere else and no hard feelings. I came in here, as I told you, b
ecause—”

  “Hey, wait a minute.”

  “O.K. Sorry.”

  “I haven’t turned your offer down. But I would like to think it over a bit. Perhaps talk to Mr. Bleeker about it. See what he thinks of the propriety of my accepting such a—”

  “Now I get it.”

  “Shall we meet again—say next week?”

  “Next week is fine.”

  So it happened, some days after Mr. Jansen’s inauguration, that a throng of frightened druggists, cafe owners, and other such people, assembled in one of the convention rooms of the Hotel Fremont. It had been, indeed, a somewhat disturbing week. First of all, there was the alarming circumstance that Mr. Jansen, the afternoon he took office, appointed a police board of three of the leading reformers of the town. Two days later this board had named Joseph P. Cantrell as acting Chief, and for a brief time there was a false dawn, a hope that Mr. Jansen wasn’t quite so stern as he had pretended. Then, in quick succession, came two occurrences that had nothing to do with Mr. Jansen, but which didn’t harmonize, somehow, with an easy view of life. The Federal grand jury indicted Mr. Caspar for certain violations of the income tax law. Then the county grand jury indicted him for the murder of Richard Delany. Then, after these straws blowing down the wind, the tornado struck. A uniformed patrolman, one afternoon, entered every place in the city where pinball machines were in operation, and stood guard over them until a truck appeared outside, and expert workmen came in, took the machines apart, and stowed them in the truck. After the truck had departed, to the wail of sirens, the uniformed patrolman left a summons with the owner, notifying him to appear in police court next day and defend himself against preposterous charges: the maintenance of a nuisance, the maintenance of devices tending to the corruption of minors, the operation of common gambling machines.

  Then next morning had come the postcard that might mean an answer to all these bewildering things: it was signed by Benjamin L. Grace, and simply informed the recipient that a meeting of the Lake City Amusement Device Operators’ Association would be held that day at the Fremont, and that any operator of an amusement machine would be eligible to attend. The time of the meeting, 2 P.M., had been set, obviously, with an eye to the time of the hearings, which were to be in the Hall of Justice Building at four o’clock. By 1:30, worried little men in gray mohair coats began to appear at the Fremont, to be led by a bellboy to Ballroom A, where they sat down in groups to whisper, and wait for whatever was forthcoming. Ballroom A had been furnished by the hotel as an accommodation to Ben, who was living there now, in one of the Sky-Vista apartments, consisting of living room, bedroom, bath, and pantribar alcove. Of the better hotels in Lake City, the Fremont was the oldest, and the most serious rival of the Columbus.