The Erection Set

“What could they be after?” I asked him.

He gave me a funny little grin. “That’s what we’re wondering. Now, old farts like us got holes in their memories, but if we keep thinking long enough, we might find out what it was all about. We still got a few friends around who remember a little better and we’ll ask around. You going to be in Linton long?”

“Know the old house at Mondo Beach?”

They bobbed their heads in unison.

“My hidey-hole, and keep it under your hats.” Then I told them what was going to be happening around the plant when the movie company moved in. Their seamed faces broke out into broad smiles.

Stoney said, “Damme, all them girls around. Think we’ll get to see any of them flesh scenes they make nowadays?”

His baldie friend looked at him and grunted. “Hell, why bother? You can’t get it up anymore anyway.”

“Like hell I can’t! Why just last month ...”

He was still telling the story when I left.

Bennie Sachs wasn’t comfortable talking business at his home. He was still in his uniform with his gun belt hanging on the back of his chair and he looked tired. In the kitchen his wife made rattling noises at the sink and the two kids were asleep. Now he ran his fingers through his hair and watched me through those smoky eyes of his. “You’re really going all out, aren’t you?”

“Not yet,” I said.

“Look, you don’t go dropping fag charges on anybody to start with these days. You never can tell whose toes you’ll step on.”

“All I want to know,” I said, “is have you ever heard any noises in that direction?”

“I hear all kinds of noises, Kelly. I don’t sit in judgment on moral issues, I simply enforce the laws.”

“Tangling with the Barrins got you shook?”

“Not one flipping bit, my friend. If they got out of line, they’d go the same route as anybody else. And let me add something before you try it. Yes, there are certain preferential treatments you give local citizens of justifiable character, otherwise, you’d be batting your head against the wall. There’s no harm in going out of your way a little bit to do favors either, just as long as you spread the joy in other directions too. This isn’t all that big a place where a cop can be totally impersonal and all the way out of it. I live here too. I know people. They know me. If there are strangers around here, you’re one of them.”

“Let’s get back to the first question with something added.”

“Look...”

“You know about the picture that’s going to be made here, don’t you?”

He stopped swinging in his chair and watched me.

“Yeah, they’ve already applied for permits.”

“Not because my cousins like the idea, buddy. I’m squeezing them. There’ll be money in this town if the deal goes through, but that’s not the end of it. I have to keep squeezing if I want Linton to stay alive.”

“Come off it; Kelly, the factory is going to ...”

“That’s a lot of bullshit. There’s a back alley fight going on that will probably make a junk pile out of the whole shebang if it works out wrong. Now look, I’m not asking for information. I’m looking for an opinion. I can go around you easy enough, but I haven’t got the time and you’re the most direct route.”

Something seemed funny to him and he let me see a begrudged smile. “People are known by the company they keep,” he said.

“What?”

“An old adage, Kelly. Like princes shouldn’t consort with clowns. The stage makeup might rub off on the wrong sleeve.”

“Skip the philosophy.”

He stared at his hands and rubbed them together. “One of our proper but sissy citizens was up on a morals charge. He was bailed out, defended and released all through the efforts of an anonymous benefactor. It happened to another a year later and we put the hints together, but that ended it.”

“No name?”

“Draw your own conclusions,” he said. For a few seconds he sat there in thought, then turned around in my direction again. “In five years we had four cases of extreme brutality reported. The pattern was always the same ... a young whore all beat to hell but not willing to make any charges. Always a screwy story of falling out of a window or something. Invariably, big medical bills would be paid in full, in cash, and the twist would leave town for greener pastures well bankrolled. The last one was two years ago.”

“Just four?”

“Only that many were reported. Finding a beat-up whore isn’t all that unusual. Finding four in the same age group is.” He was studying my face, then said, “What’s wrong?”

“It’s backward, that’s what.”

“What’s backward?”

“Nothing you’d be interested in, Mr. Sachs. I just think you blew a cute notion of mine to bits.”

“Maybe it’s a good thing.”

Leyland Hunter sounded tired and told me that an old man needed sleep a lot more than the young studs, but he came out of his grouch when I asked him if there had been any news on a street kill a few days ago.

“That’s been in all the papers, Dog ...”

“I haven’t seen the papers.”

“May I ask why...”

“Did they get an identification?” I insisted.