Dig My Grave Deep Page 4

  Ramon stared at Port, waiting for his rage to come to him.

  “Hey—Calvin!”

  Ramon started chewing his lip, but no rage came to his aid, not even insults. Port came around the car, one hand in his pocket. He stopped with one foot on the curb, and looked at Ramon. Port was so casual, Ramon thought for a moment he could hit the man now.

  “Come along,” said Port. “I'll buy you some coffee.”

  Then Ramon ran after him and started to talk before he even caught up. “Why? Why did you do it? You threw me out without even a chance for me to make good, to do anything. I'm a member for two weeks, after it took me maybe three months—ever since we moved into the neighborhood. And you don't even—”

  He stopped when Port turned to look at him at the door to the shop. Ramon burst out, finally angry.

  “Did you tell that swinehead to throw me out? Did you?”

  “Sure I did,” said Port, and held the door open for Ramon.

  Ramon looked inside and remembered that Shelly would not be there, not until later. He went in and sat down at the counter.

  “Two coffees,” said Port to the man at the grill. Then he looked at Ramon. “Now shut up and listen.

  Ramon sat still, his mouth open.

  “You wormed your way into the club. You're in for two weeks, and you get thrown out. We don't want you. That's what Lantek knows, that's what anybody knows who cares to ask about it.” Port stopped to blow on his coffee. “I got a job for you and for that job you got to be thrown out of the club.”

  Ramon burned his mouth on the coffee.

  “Now here's the deal. Let me know if you want it.”

  Ramon had a sensation of quivering and was afraid it might show. He sucked in his breath, he smiled with mouth wide and stiff.

  “Sure, Dan. Anything. But why didn't you tell me? Why send Lantek—and me not knowing a thing, Dan. I thought I was going nuts!”

  Port looked at his coffee and blew on it.

  “Don't get so eager it makes you scared, Ramon. I told you once.

  “You can talk. You're on top, and nothing can...”

  “You had a bad morning?” Port paused. “When you're in Ramon, this happens all the time.”

  Port drank coffee and didn't say any more for a while. He poured water into the coffee and drank it that way. Ramon sat and waited. He thought about what he had heard, and didn't believe a word of it. After a while he said, “You have a job for me?”

  “As a gardener.”

  “You mean—in a garden?”

  “Go to the Apex Employment Bureau. They know you're coming. They got a request for a gardener and I want you to apply for the job. You'll be the only applicant, so you shouldn't have any trouble. Sam White at the agency will show you a sheet with dates and references. Learn it by heart, because that's your background. You've been a gardener most of your life.” Ramon listened for more.

  “After you try for the job go home and wait for me there. Where do you live?”

  Ramon told him.

  “I'll be over late. If you have the job, I'll tell you the rest.” Port got up, paid for the coffee. “And keep away from the club. You're out, and you don't like it.”

  Ramon nodded and watched Port walk out the door. Ramon felt he should be elated, now that everything was again well in hand; except, as he found it, nothing seemed to be in his own hands.

  Chapter Six

  Port pulled the car into a space markedReserved for Officials, and walked into the Municipal Building carrying the whisky carton with the questionnaires under his arm. Inside he said hello to the guard at the information desk and walked to the elevator. The old man who ran it said, “Nice seeing you, Danny,” and tried to carry the box into the elevator for him. Port thanked him and held on to it himself. He said, “Is McFarlane in?”

  “He's always in,” said the old man.

  “That figures,” said Port. “It takes double time, playing both ends against the middle.”

  “Why you keep dealing with him, Danny, knowing he isn't straight?”

  “If he were straight, Pop, you think he'd be dealing with me?”

  The old man pulled his head into his shoulders and didn't answer. He let Port out on the third floor and watched him go through the door where it saidCity Solicitor.

  The city solicitor wasn't in until Port told the girl who he was. “Mr. McFarlane will see you,” she said. “Since you told me so.” Port predicted for her a fine future with the fine attitude she was displaying, but advised that it would be better if she got married instead. She said that was her plan, except she was right now beholden to Mr. McFarlane, who would be unable to keep his composure if ten times a day he couldn't watch the way her back curved when she sits on her typist's chair. She swiveled toward the half-open door of the inner office and said, “Did you want me, Mr. McFarlane?”

  There was a severeharrump and the door opened all the way. McFarlane came out with strides that were meant to suggest how busy he was.

  “Hello, Port. All right, Miss Trent, are you finished with—”

  “Yes, Mr. McFarlane.” She handed a folder to him.

  McFarlane had twitchy eyebrows which detracted from the fact that he rarely looked a person straight in the face. Miss Trent turned her back, curved it beautifully, and started to type. McFarlane's eyebrows stopped jumping, but then he remembered Port. “Come along, Dan,” he said, and took hasty steps into his office.

  Port stood by the window and watched McFarlane settle down behind his desk. After a while Port said, “About that slum deal, McFarlane. What's your thought?”

  “Hardly my problem.” He looked at his fingernails and then up at Port. “Why this visit? Come to the point.”

  Port folded his arms and sat down on the window sill.

  “Where is the recommendation to raze the slum district?”

  “It's left City Planning. You know that.”

  Port smiled. “It left the commission a year ago. What I mean is, how hard is Bellamy pushing to get it before City Council?”

  “You read the paper, didn't you? Then you know how hard he's pushing.” McFarlane made a nervous squint while he lit a cigarette. “You're wasting time, Port. My time, at any rate.”

  Port's smile got wider, and then he laughed. “It's a fact you aren't wasting any time, McFarlane. A day hasn't passed since Bellamy's move, and already you hate to be seen with me. You sure Stoker will lose his ward?”

  McFarlane puffed hard on his cigarette. He almost looked at Port, but his eyes wandered off again.

  “So far, the slum clearance thing is only a resolution,” said Port. “It's before the council, or will be, but it hasn't been passed upon yet. They haven't even debated.”

  “You're whistling in the dark,” said McFarlane.

  “I'm just trying to give you courage, Counsellor.”

  McFarlane got up to reach for papers.

  “I'm busy, Port. I'm very busy. I'm due at a hearing in half an hour, and I've got to...”

  “Then you got half an hour. Tell me, McFarlane, did you make a ruling on that recommendation? City codes, and so forth?”

  “There was no need for a ruling. You know that this slum clearance thing is clean all the way through.”

  Port came away from the window and sat down by the desk.

  “The council can't vote the recommendation for clearing the area into special ordinance unless your office gives a legal ruling.”

  “Look, Port. That thing has come through my office maybe a dozen times, and you know it. It's routine when a resolution is as pure-white as this.”

  “Let's say you were asked, McFarlane. Let's say you were asked if that slum clearance project didn't violate city statutes. Would you know?”

  “Of course I'd know! Who do you think is responsible for the legality...”

  “You are. And I'm asking.”

  “It's clean! All the way through!”

  “Don't act like it frightens you, McFarlane.”

 
McFarlane controlled himself and hunched over the desk. His eyebrows stopped jumping, stayed way up on his forehead, and he talked with theatrical patience.

  “The old lodgings don't meet architectural codes; the proposed new ones do. The old lodgings don't meet health department ordinances; the new ones do. The old lodgings don't meet zoning laws; the new ones do. The old lodgings...”

  “So you have no thoughts on the subject, is that right?”

  McFarlane sat up again. “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “Here's what I want you to do,” said Port. “Make a ruling on the assessment for utilities.”

  McFarlane waited.

  “You and I know, McFarlane, that the utility companies aren't willing to pay more than fifty per cent of the cost for new installations in the homes for resettlement.”

  “Whatever you have in mind, you and I know that the city will pay the difference.”

  “By special assessment. And you, Counsellor, are the one who decides whether the special assessment is allowable under existing city ordinances.”

  “It is. And now, Port, if you will excuse...”

  “It isn't.”

  McFarlane sat down again.

  “The assessed money comes from taxes. Taxes are paid by the people. This assessment to pay for utilities benefits only some of the people. Under its statutes this city—any city, McFarlane—is not authorized to apply tax funds for the benefit of a special group.” Port looked inquisitive. “How's it sound, Counsellor?”

  This time McFarlane looked straightat Port, but he didn't say anything.

  “They can't tear down the slums,” said Port, “because the slum dwellers have no place to move. They got no place to move because the projected settlements won't have any utilities. They won't have any utilities, because the companies only pay fifty per cent of the new installations—and the city won't pay the rest. The city can't. Violation of statutes.”

  “That's my ruling?” said McFarlane.

  “That's your ruling.”

  “What if I don't?”

  “I'll tell Councilman Epp to bring it up at debate. Then the question will be why in hell you didn't look into that point. Neglect of office, McFarlane.” Port shook his head.

  McFarlane got up, stacked some folders together, and put them under his arm. He put out the cigarette that was smoking itself in the ashtray, and went out the door, Port following him.

  “How do you want me to submit it, at debate?”

  “Leave the grandstand plays to Reform. Just submit it in writing to the council committee that'll bring up the debate. A quiet demise.”

  “Whatever you like,” said McFarlane. He watched Port pick up his whisky carton. “I don't know how quiet it will be. Sump is chairman of that committee. You know Sump.”

  “I didn't mean to keep this thing buried. Just dignified.”

  “Sump will take care of that, too,” said McFarlane.

  Port laughed. “He after you now?”

  “I told you I have this hearing.” McFarlane looked at his watch. “And I'm late.”

  Port laughed and opened the door. “I'll go with you. Then you can blame it on me.”

  When they went through the office in front Port stopped where Miss Trent was typing and put his carton on top of the desk.

  “May I leave this with you?”

  She looked up and smiled straight in his face. “Anything,” and then she smiled at McFarlane too. He turned and went hastily out of the door.

  One floor below they went through the double doors where Probate Court used to be. The room was pretty much the same, except for the banister, which was gone, and the witness stand. However, the judge's bench had been kept in place, and that's where Councilman Sump was sitting. He was in the middle of a sentence, finishing it with the plaintive drone he affected, while he watched Port and McFarlane walk into the room. They walked past the seats for the public—Sump had always thought it was bad politics to have sessions in private—and McFarlane went to the witness table while Port sat down at the side, in one of the press seats. The press wasn't represented that day.

  “... and as soon as the city solicitor can spare us his time we need no longer hold up the committee's proceedings,” said Sump. Meaning no offense, the plaintive note had taken strong hold now, but the drone had remained the same.

  “I'm ready, Councilman.” McFarlane looked up at the bench. But Sump wasn't looking at his witness. He was eyeing Port, who nodded back with an angelic smile. Sump didn't acknowledge it.

  “If our city solicitor can now spare us...”

  “I'm ready. I said I was ready.”

  Sump looked pained, with just the right hint that he would bear up under it all. “The committee apologizes, not having heard the witness the first time. Please speak up, Mr. McFarlane. Speak up so the public can hear you, because it is the public, Mr. McFarlane, the public whose interests are vitally involved. The function of this committee,” and Councilman Sump sat up straight, there being no other members of the committee present, “as servants of our good citizens, is to act as the detergent quality, as the acid bath which removes the filth of disuse from truth. What we want, Mr. McFarlane, is truth scrubbed clean!”

  Port looked at the audience and saw they were having a fairly good time. There were some housewives with shopping bags, and one of the women was massaging her shoeless foot. One or two bums sat in the back, a man in a frayed overcoat taking constant notes, high-school kids, and a farmer from out of town who thought this was still the Probate Court.

  “This committee has submitted the question to you, Mr. Counsellor: whether relocation of tenement dwellers has taken into account the will of the public. I am referring to our list of particulars—a copy is here in my hand—which your office has had under advisement for the past two months. Have you, Mr. McFarlane, seen the list of particulars?”

  “I have.”

  “Then why, why has this committee received no answer?”

  McFarlane played it straight. He opened a folder and referred to notes. “On May twenty-seventh, last year, my office passed ruling on a resolution dealing with eviction and reimbursement of parties residing in the Highland area where, at the time, our new throughway was being built. Our ruling was posited on the spirit of eminent domain. When your list of particulars was submitted we referred you to that earlier ruling—our reply was filed on a Wednesday, which was two days after your submission—since in our opinion...”

  “In youropinion?”

  “That's what you asked for, wasn't it?”

  Sump lowered his eyes, sad now, and spoke like a father confessor. “Mac, you and I know, don't we, that opinion can never replace hard, crystal-clear facts?”

  “I fail to see the relevance—”

  “You fail to see?” Sump was roaring a full, righteous roar. “You fail, Counsellor—you fail in your office of trust, is my answer! Now then, let's get at the facts as we find them. On that Monday, when the committee submitted to you the list of particulars—this list of particulars—” Sump held his copy high— “on that Monday—just where were you?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Notmy pardon, Mr. McFarlane!” After allowing it to reverberate Sump lowered his voice, off-handed now. “You are an elected official of the city government?”

  “No, sir. My office is filled by appointment.”

  “Oh. Appointment. And when you were appointed, I'm merely guessing now, but when you were appointed, were you not appraised of the various duties contingent...”

  “I have been city solicitor for the past twelve years, Mr. Councilman. During the entire time of my tenure...”

  “You're interrupting.”

  “Mr. Sump!”

  “I hear you talking, Mac, but you haven't said a thing.”

  There was a silence, noticed by all, and then Sump got down to the part that made him famous.

  “Without the flim-flam, now, McFarlane, don't you think it funny that a man in your position shoul
d display a guilty conscience as easily as you just did?”

  “I didn't display anything of the sort!”

  “You weren't shouting? You sit there in the eyes of the public gathered behind you, and have the gall to say, in the face of the facts...”

  “I mean to say...”

  “You mean! Just what do you mean?”

  “Your assumption of guilt is ridiculous,” McFarlane said very quietly.

  “Facts are ridiculous?” Sump swelled, and then he started declaiming. Port had had enough and got up. He walked down the length of the room, to the door in back, and when he was halfway there he turned and looked at Sump on the judge's bench. Sump saw him but didn't interrupt the crescendo he was building to when Port jerked his head. Sump went on for a moment, and then got up. “This session will not be terminated until the facts have been shown! I'll be back in a minute.” He walked out the door which once had led to the judge's chambers.

  Port met him in the hall. Sump was shorter than Port, and had a way of looking up as if he expected to be slapped. “What do you want?” he said.

  “I want the crystal-clear truth, Mr. Chairman.”

  “Why don't you shut up?” said Sump.

  Port said, “I want you to come up to the third floor with, me. I got something for you. For the committee.”

  They walked up the stairs and down the hall.

  “Make it snappy,” said Sump. “I have a hearing downstairs.”

  “I know,” said Port.

  They went into the office where Miss Trent was sitting. She looked up with a smile and Sump straightened his tie.

  “Why, Mr. Sump,” she said. “What are you doing in the enemy's camp?”

  Sump straightened his tie.

  Port picked the box with the papers off the desk and said, “Thanks for keeping it for me.”

  She said, “Anything,” and watched Port walk out of the office.

  When Sump had closed the door Port gave him the carton. He took a questionnaire off the top and said, “I hold here in my hand...”

  “Why don't you shut up?” said Sump again.

  “It's a questionnaire. They all are. Answered and signed by the voters in Ward Nine. Since your committee will introduce debate on the slum clearance thing, you'll want to know all about this. The voice of the public, you know. Is that crystal-clear?”