by Ross Thomas
“You were with him?”
“I was with him on all of them except when the traffic cops stopped him. I tell the old guy not to pay and sure enough, here they come, a couple of real punks. They call him dad and ask for the weekly premium and all that and the old man says he’s not paying. They just smile and open a big jug of Lysol and pour it all over his vegetables. Soderbell gets all that. The old man still won’t pay so they get a couple of cans of shaving cream in those aerosol things and squirt it all over the inside of his meat case. Nothing rough yet and Soderbell gets that on film too.”
“The conversation, too,” I said.
“That too. Then they start getting rough with the old man. They slap him a couple of times and bend his arm a little and he starts yelling. Soderbell wants to go help him, but I tell him to shut up and just keep shooting. Finally, one of them hits too hard and the old man faints or passes out. They open the cash register, take out their thirty dollars or whatever it is, and leave. Soderbell gets it all.”
“What happened to the store owner?”
“We send him to Colfax’s Hospital, all bills paid. Then we give him his bundle and as soon as he gets over his concussion he heads for Florida.”
“He recovered?” I said.
“Sure, he recovered,” Necessary said. “If I thought they were going to kill him or anything like that, mess him up real bad, I’d of stepped in. But they just mussed him up a little and if I’d done anything about it, then Soderbell’d lost some real fine stuff.”
“You’re nothing but heart, Homer.”
“What the Christ would you have done?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Probably have gone for the film instead of the rescue.”
Necessary stared at me with his brown and blue eyes and I could find no admiration in them. “You know, Dye, you got something wrong with you inside somewhere. Maybe in your head. You remind me of some tough old cops that I’ve known who got worried when they couldn’t feel about things like they did when they were rookies. It bothered some of them so much that they went out looking for things that’d make ‘em feel like they thought they should, and if they didn’t get killed doing it, they got preachy. I don’t think you feel a hell of a lot about anything or anybody. But you think you should because of all the crap around that says that’s the way normal people are. Well, you just as well face it: you ain’t normal. You might have been once, but not anymore, so you may as well get used to it.”
“I feel I should be taking notes.”
Necessary shook his head. “I haven’t got much hope for you, Dye. You’re the kind who’ll keep on playing by somebody else’s rules, lose every time, and always wonder why.”
“Whose rules do you play by?”
“My own, good buddy, my very own.”
“And you never lose?”
Necessary finished his drink. “Sure I lose,” he said, “but when I do, at least I know why.”
The telephone rang fifteen minutes after Necessary left and it was Gorman Smalldane calling from New York.
“You’re five days late,” I said.
“And you’ve got some nice playmates,”
“I know.”
“You want the good as well as the bad?” Smalldane said.
“Just the bad.”
“I’ll skim it for you.”
“Fine.”
“The Thackerty woman’s been arrested twice for prostitution. It was nol-prossed both times.”
“Anything else?”
“She was Phi Beta Kappa in her junior year.”
“Is that supposed to be good or bad?” I said.
“I won’t try to influence you.”
“Thanks.”
“Victor Orcutt,” Smalldane said. “No record other than a rather startling academic one. He’s a genius.”
“If you don’t believe it, ask him.”
“Like that, huh?”
“Like that.”
“Homer Necessary. Now there’s a name I like. At twenty-six he was a second-grade detective who busted his own police department wide open. By himself. He nailed every one from the chief on down. He had facts, figures, documents, photographs, and his evidence and testimony helped send thirty-one of his fellow officers to the state penitentiary. The chief himself got five years. The city was so impressed and grateful that it made Necessary its new chief of police at twenty-seven, and for the next fifteen years he—shall we say—prospered. He did everything the old crowd did and added a few new licks of his own.”
“Was he fired?”
“They could never nail him. There was a lot of talk about it, but he resigned four years ago to enter what he called ‘private industry,’ which turned out to be Victor Orcutt Associates. After he resigned, there was another tremendous shake up in the police force, but Necessary was completely absolved.”
“He saw to that,” I said.
“Ramsey Lynch, born Montgomery Vicker. He’s been in and out of trouble since he was sixteen. Born in Newark and at eighteen legally changed his name to Ramsey Lynch at his family’s insistence. The family was rather staid and prominent in a mild sort of way. He was on the fringes of the rackets until he took a fall for one of the higherups on a narcotics rap and spent eighteen months in Atlanta. After that, they were so grateful that they set him up in New Orleans where he was either Number Two or Number Three boy until he opened up in Swankerton where I understand he’s now Number One. The only member of his family who still admits that he’s alive is one Gerald Vicker who lives in Hong Kong. They’re supposed to be close.”
“They are,” I said.
“Now the dessert,” Smalldane said. “Your chief of police, Calvin Loambaugh. Born in Swankerton and joined the army at nineteen for a three-year hitch. He came out a first lieutenant in the MPs. Served in Germany and there’s nothing on him there. He joined the police force in Buffalo and resigned under a cloud.”
“What kind of a cloud?”
“Suspected of being a receiver of stolen goods.”
“Could they prove it?”
“They could, but they didn’t because they had him for something else which they also wanted to forget about.”
“What?”
“Two counts of child molestation.”
“And they let him off?”
“Buffalo was having a lot of trouble with its cops about that time,” Smalldane said. “They didn’t need any more.”
“What then?”
“Loambaugh joined the Birmingham police just in time for the riots there. He got a couple of commendations and suddenly resigned under yet another cloud, one that really looked like rain.”
“Child molestation?” I said.
“Right. Three counts this time. By the way, he’s married and has two children of his own.”
“Then he came back home,” I said.
“Right again, and in a rise that can only be described as meteoric, he was appointed Swankerton’s chief of police four years ago, doubtless at the behest of your friend Lynch.”
“What does he go for,” I said, “little boys or little girls?”
“Both.”
“Any concrete evidence?”
“No. All talk, but it was reliable.”
“Your service is excellent, Gorm. Send me a bill.”
“You think you’ll be around to pay it?”
“Why not?”
“Some rumors I heard.”
“What about them?”
“They claim that things might get rough in Swankerton.”
“Probably.”
“I think you need some help.”
“From whom?”
“Me.”
“This isn’t a PR campaign, Gorm. There’s no million-dollar budget and no bonus for the cutest press release. I’m not out to win the hearts and minds of men to democracy’s side. I’m not even sure that I’m out to win.”
“I won’t cost you anything,” Smalldane said.
“It’s not that.”
“I don’t know where to fit you in.”
“We’ll think of a slot.”
“I don’t think that we—”
“I’ll be there at three tomorrow afternoon,” he said. “You don’t even have to meet me at the airport.” Then he hung up.
Homer Necessary called me at two o’clock that morning and wanted to know if I were awake.
“I am now.”
“Soderbell’s here,” he said. “We’re leaving in half an hour.”
“Where’s here?”
“My room.”
Twenty minutes later I joined them in Necessary’s room. Soderbell was fooling with a Bolex Pro 16mm camera equipped with what looked to be a zoom lens.
“You don’t have to carry the lights after all,” Necessary said.
“Why?”
“Soderbell’s using infrared film. Says he doesn’t need lights.”
“It’s not infrared,” Soderbell said. “It’s Kodak two-four-eight-five rapid-access retrieval stuff with an ASA of twelve thousand.”
“Will it do what it’s supposed to?” Necessary said. “I hear that infrared’s the best.”
“It’s got some infrared in it,” Soderbell said, and for all I knew he could have been telling the truth. “But with special processing, the film I’m going to use is better.”
“Don’t get me wrong, but I’ve heard that the infrared stuff is better,” Necessary said.
Soderbell put on the face that he must have used to deal with the enthusiastic amateur. “It’s dammed good, Homer, but I think my stuff is just a little better for this particular job.”
“Well, you’re the expert,” Necessary said, obviously unconvinced. “Just don’t forget that if something goes wrong they’re not coming back and pose for retakes.”
Soderbell was a patient man. Perhaps most professional photographers are. He lit one of his French cigarettes and blew some of its acrid smoke around the room. “Quit worrying, Homer. The only thing that can go wrong is if we are caught, and if that happens, none of us will have to worry.”
The bars were still open at two-thirty in the morning in Swankerton and seemed to be doing a good swing-shift business. We drove down Snow Street in Necessary’s rented Impala, turned left onto Fourth, followed that for six blocks, and then turned right onto Forrest. We drove four more blocks until Necessary found a parking place that he seemed to like.
“We walk from here,” he said.
We were in Swankerton’s wholesale district. The street was lined with long, low brick buildings, most of which had loading docks at their fronts or sides. Rows of silver, red and blue semis, sometimes parked less than six inches from each other, hulking tributes to the teamsters’ skill, were backed up to the docks waiting to be unloaded.
In between something called Gulf States Distributors, Inc. and Merriman Liquors (Wholesale Only) was a narrow, frame, three-story house, which sat far back on its fifty-foot lot. We turned into its cracked sidewalk, went up four steps to a small porch with a broken plank, and waited until Necessary unlocked the door. Inside, the house was vacant and smelled as if the door hadn’t been opened in years.
By guess and by feel we followed Necessary down a long hall. There was no furniture to bump into.
“We turn right and go up the rear stairs,” Necessary said.
I reached my hand out and touched Soderbell. “You okay?” he said.
“Fine.”
“Step up and turn right again,” he said.
I followed slowly, using the bannister and placing both feet on each stair tread.
“Left here,” Necessary said from some place up above me. We were in another hall that led toward the rear. Necessary opened a door and a window in the room produced enough light to make a single vague outline of him and Soderbell. I followed them into the room.
“I got three-o-four,” Necessary said. “What have you got?
I looked at the luminous dial on my watch. “About that. Maybe three-o-five.”
“What do you think?” Necessary said to Soderbell. The cameraman went to the window and peered out. “That light in the alley will just save us,” he said. I moved over to the window and looked out. The frame house was longer than I had thought. Its rear was flush with the alley and the window I stood at had a view of the rear of a firm directly across the alley that was called Bolberg and Son, Wholesale Furriers. There were no windows in the rear of the furrier’s building but there was a sturdy-looking steel door and a corrugated-metal overhead door that was large enough for a good-sized truck to go through.
“Nice, huh?” Necessary said.
“Who owns it?” I said.
“Some guy called Bolberg.”
“I mean this house.”
“It belongs to Phetwick like almost everything else in town. He just keeps paying taxes on it and waits for the price to rise. I understand it’s up to about two thousand dollars now.”
“For the house and lot?”
“A front foot,” he said. “I think it’s on the tax rolls for about five thousand dollars, and that does include the house and lot.”
“That light over there’s sure as hell going to save us,” Soderbell said again, as if to himself. The light that arched over the furrier’s metal door was about a hundred watts and was encased in a wire-mesh shield.
“What if they bust it?” Necessary said.
“Then we’re shit out of luck,” Soderbell said. “Let’s break out this window. It’s too dirty to shoot through.”
“Why not just open it?” Necessary said.
“I tried. It’s nailed shut.”
“Wait a minute,” Necessary said. He took a roll of masking tape from his pocket and started to tape the window in an intricate, cobwebby pattern. He took off his shoe and tapped the window with its heel. It broke and we spent the next few minutes removing pieces of taped glass until Soderbell said he had enough space to shoot through.
We waited five more minutes, until it was 3:20. The lights of a car turned into the alley from its far right end.
“You ready?” Necessary said to Soderbell.
“Always,” Soderbell said.
The car rolled down the alley slowly. Spotlights on both sides flashed along the rears of buildings. One of them flicked across the house we were in, but not above the first story. “That’s why I said second story,” Necessary muttered. “Nobody ever looks up. You can tell ‘em till you’re purple, but they won’t look up.”
The car fixed a spotlight on the iron door of the furrier’s and kept it there. Soderbell’s camera was whirring faintly. The car was black and white and had Swankerton Police Department stenciled on its side along with a nice, official-looking shield. Big white letters on its black top spelled SPD. It slowed, almost to a stop, and then drove on by. The spotlights went out.
“Get its number, boy, get its number,” Necessary whispered to Soderbell.
The camera kept on whirring and then stopped. “I got it.”
“That’s the lookout crew,” Necessary said. “They’ll cruise around the block from now on.”
We waited four or five minutes more until another set of lights approached from the right end of the alley. I looked at my watch. It was almost exactly 3:30 A.M. The car cut its lights when it was slightly past the furrier’s steel door. I wasn’t sure, but I thought that the car had two occupants. It was a dark color, either blue or black, and it had no markings.
“The thieves,” Necessary said.
Whoever was in the car made no move to get out. Another minute went by before yet another set of car lights turned into the alley from the right. Then its headlights went out and the driver used his amber parking lights instead. He switched them on and off in rapid succession four times. The new arrival parked on the other side of the furrier’s back door and from where I stood I could see that it was another black-and-white police car. Soderbell’s camera whirred some more.
Two men got out of the police car and
stood in the pool of light made by the shielded bulb above the metal door.
Soderbell whispered directions to them. “Move, you sonofabitch. Now turn this way and look up just a little… a little more, you mother … oh, that’s fine … that’s just fine … your shield and everything.”
The two men who got out of the squad car wore the gray-and-blue summer uniforms of the Swankerton police. They waited by the door until they were joined by two men in dark clothing who had waited in the unmarked car. One of the men carried a small bag. The two policemen took up positions so that they could watch both ends of the alley. The man with the bag handed it to his fellow thief and bent over the door. He turned his head two or three times, and the other man passed him something.
“He’s fixing the alarm system,” said Necessary, who furnished us with a running commentary on the methodology of the theft. In a few minutes the man in the dark clothes had the door open. His fellow thief went back to the unmarked car, stored the bag away, and opened the trunk.
The two thieves, accompanied by one of the policemen, entered the building. Soderbell got a few shots of the remaining cop as he walked in and out of the circle of light. It was almost another five minutes before the two thieves and the policeman came out, all burdened with armloads of furs. They dumped them into the open trunk of the unmarked car. After that, they made three more similar trips. Soderbell filmed it all, muttering unheard directions to the silent stars of his back-alley drama.
During the thieves’ final trip into the warehouse, the policeman on guard moved over to the driver’s side of the squad car. He reached in with his left hand and did something else with his right, but we never could see what it was because the car’s spotlight blazed on. It blinded Soderbell and transfixed him before the window with his camera aimed directly at the spotlight. He stood there like that until the bullet hit him somewhere in the chest, I thought, and hurled him back into the room a few, wild staggering steps. He fell in a lump, still holding the camera, and in the brief, total silence that followed, I listened to it whir.
The cop must have been nervous because he fired through the window twice more. Then the spotlight went out and I could hear the four of them jabbering in the alley. I was flat against the wall next to the window. Necessary was already bending over Soderbell. He rose quickly and I saw that he had the camera in his hands.
