Page 16 of Shadow Ticket

“I could use some advice, Boynt.”

“Uh huh, and any chance you’ll be snapping out of this anytime soon?”

“I’m getting a hard sales pitch for somethin I don’t even know what it is.”

“Of course they’re trying to turn you. Back to what you never stopped being. They know all there is to about you, more than you ever knew. You think you’re reformed now. Not just a normal tough guy but a saintly one.”

“No use tryin to talk me back down into it either, Boynt.”

“Oriental Attitude, discipline, serenity, call it what you like, wallow as deep in it as you can get, but he’s still in there, Hicks, still the same dirt-stupid gorilla always ready to take short pay for beating up whoever he’s told to.

You think you’ve gotten past it, but those we all report to, they know better, they know that once you’re down here with us, you’ll never change, there’ll be no getting rid of that inner torpedo.

Whenever they need him, they will know how to call him out to do their bidding. ”

“They.”

“The federals who had you in are likely just a front, OK? It’s the outfit that’s behind them, a nationwide syndicate of financial tycoons, all organized in constant touch against the forces of evil, namely everything to the left of Herbert Hoover.

Worried about the next election, worried this latest Roosevelt if he gets in might decide to step out on his own, and even if he does revert to type after all, it might not be in time to stop the Red apocalypse that’s got them spooked out of what they think of as their wits.

And when big shots get nervous? Well. Better if the rest of us arrange to be someplace else. Which is why—”

“Oh, boy. The cheese heiress ticket again.”

“Quick as ever on the uptake, I always admired that about you.”

“Boynt. No. We had a deal, you said, I heard you say it, no more out-of-town jobs from now on, nothing further than half a pack of smokes down the Dubuque, Madison & Waukesha.”

“Don’t think this is easy for me, I admit once long ago in an absent-minded moment I might’ve said something about not sending you out of town again, but this probably won’t take you much past Chicago, and what’s a hundred miles to the streamlined velocities of the 1930s?”

“Sure there isn’t some way we could just do this all out of the office? Shortwave radio or something?”

“Too slow.”

“Radio waves, what’s faster’n that?”

“A live op who’s there already, on the spot.”

“Not me, remember I’m just the strong-arm gorilla, I don’t do runaway heiress tickets, that’s for new hires, kids with the energy and enthusiasm, talk to Zbig Dubinsky soon as he’s out of observation at County General, ain’t like I don’t have the time in, Boynt.”

“Too bad you never got around to the Civic Opera before they shut down. Deep lessons in it for the working gumshoe. For instance, you know how puzzled civilians always get when some frail little tubercular seamstress turns out to be a good-size specimen healthy enough to belt out her numbers to the back rows of the cheapest balcony seats in town and beyond? Well, which is she, they keep wondering. Answer is, is she’s both—but neither as important as what she really is, which is the love of the tenor’s life—and he’s not necessarily any Valentino either.

Educational point here is you never know who’s apt to be smitten gaga by whom, which guarantees plenty of job security for everybody in the business. ”

“Boynt, how often do I say it, she don’t remember me, no idea what I even look like—”

“That’ll help, just keep that pan as dumb and honest as it is, it’ll be like picking up an easy spare.

All else fails, go in there and make with the clodhoppers, who knows, she might not even yell for help.

Here, let’s just…” Boynt rolling over to the window, opening it, reaching outside into the freezing night and retrieving two heavy warped icicles, each with a vivid emerald bottle of Canadian IPA frozen into it.

“Back when you hired on, only a sap would believe there was anyplace to be promoted to around here, but modern bureaucracy must have a soft spot for saps, like God does for drunks, because now, and I’m sure you read the memo, the back office is creating a new mid-level job and calling it ‘case director,’ and planning to promote a few of you up to that.

You’ll have your own office—each get to run your own string of field agents… ”

“Soon as I get back in from out of town, and in one piece, natch.”

“Upper management believes we should begin cultivating the luxury market, taking clients only in the upper brackets. Let all those deadbeats you know so well just drop off the edge, once prosperity returns we’ll have position, see.

The U-Ops is headed uptown but definitely, which incidentally means all of us presenting more of a quality appearance. ”

“You’re trying to tell me something.”

“Nothing against the suit, Hicks, the cigarette burns, the multiple reweaving, buttons that don’t match up with buttonholes, personally I think all that adds character, a just-folks image that may’ve worked fine once among the less sophisticated, but the more we expect to be face-to-face with the well-to-do, you get it?

Hiring gorillas who’ll take short money to get beatings they probably deserve, that’s so out-of-date now—these days they’re looking more for William Powell, some brainwork, some class, which for one thing will mean a higher price tag suit, trust my sense of style here, the Prince of Wales and I both subscribe to the same fashion magazines—and now as to the shoes… ”

And so forth—Hicks figures a real bottle of beer is worth sitting through ten or fifteen minutes of this, though any longer might have to be negotiated.

“…as the P.I. field in general begins to shift from skips and small-time offenses into more of an espionage racket, along with that comes the need for a snappier getup, European Fascist uniforms at the moment, as you may have noticed from the newsreels, being widely admired and commented on.”

“Where do I find the money to afford anything ritzier than what I got on?”

“The national office. Next paycheck everybody’ll be seeing a nice WUGA.”

“That’s, uh…”

“Wardrobe Up-Grade Allowance? There was a memo.”

“How much?”

“Sliding scale. You, now—if we could only be sure you wouldn’t just go blow it in some juke joint—why your WUGA could be worth up to, oh, 20, 25 bucks.”

“What your wife’s always tellin me, Boynt, except she sez closer to 50?”

“Uh-huh, well, whatever you spend it on, don’t forget neckties and pocket handkerchiefs. Heart and soul of the business, if you really want to know…”

“Will I have to start drinking Martinis?”

“Stick with beer for now, and any plans to pose as some uptown society sleuth, let’s count on at least a year’s remedial work first.”

“Hey, I’ve got acting skills, that Duchess of Uckfield ticket, how about that?”

“That was back a while, maybe you got away with it then but we’re living in bleaker times now. Better just be yourself—with you, not the perfect option, I agree…”

Hicks looks in his shirt pocket, finds an empty cigarette pack, reaches a loosie from the shoebox-full that Boynt keeps on his desk, goes in another pocket, takes a penny and carefully places it in front of Boynt.

“There’s got to be even sorrier cases than me who’ve been involved with ol’ Daphne, big-business melodramas of the Airmont family I was never told nothin about, plus which,” lighting up, inhaling, coughing dramatically, “any statutes must’ve run by now, am I leaving anything out, oh and why is it again you’re picking on me with this? ”

“Some husband or wife gets bumped, who’s the first one anybody looks at? Homicide Bureau ABCs.”

“Not sure I see the connection.”

“Better that way.” A little wistful. “You’ll be happy to hear in any case that we’ve set up a get-together for you and the family lawyers. Even thought maybe I’d tag along.”

“Just to add that uptown touch, thanks, Boynt.”

—

The magazine selection in the outer waiting area at Godwin Zipf includes Popular Litigation, Modern Psychopathy, and Steamy Detective, deep in whose cover story it’s not till Boynt reaches and shakes him does Hicks realize he’s been immersed for a while. “Oh.”

“They say sometime this week.”

“On the way, Boss.”

“Not as high-caliber around here as it looks,” a front office type answering to Peckenway greets them smoothly, “more respect than revenue. If you need an attorney for the damned, that’s still Brother Darrow—we’re more like attorneys for the gol-durned, the gin mill across the street that picks up the overflow. ”

“And,” Boynt’s idea of suave, “runaway heiress work…”

“Mrs. Airmont would like her daughter back with as little public attention as possible, and without the clarinet player.”

“—and how much thought has she given,” wonders Boynt, as if he’s forgotten he’s talking out loud, “to what she’s willing to pay him to dump Daphne?”

“That’ll be another department, Special Arrangements, just down the hall, six attorneys, each a potential junior partner, no waiting.”

“Back in a flash.”

After an avuncular, though few would go so far as to say kindly, once-over, “According to our files, Mr. McTaggart, you and Miss Airmont have some previous relationship.”

“One long-ago boat ride, couple hours’ work—an impulse! Which happened years ago! I don’t even get a statute of limitations here?”

“Are you aware of the American Indian belief, referenced in depositions filed on Miss Airmont’s behalf, that once you save somebody’s life, you’re responsible for them in perpetuity?”

“No. No. I didn’t save her life. Which first,” Hicks explains, “means she had to be in some danger, which she never was, see, it was all timing, location—”

“Yes, turning briefly,” paper-shuffling, “to the words of the young woman herself—‘It was a crucially decisive intervention. The few hours’ time it bought me then have since represented all the difference between growing to normal adult maturity and being condemned to a lifetime of infantilized misery.’ ”

“Funny, she sounds just like a lawyer.”

“Given that ear for nuance, you may also appreciate the distinction between saving somebody’s life and changing the course of it, which considering also that Wisconsin law doesn’t apply on Ojibwe territory could be argued in court forever,” a shrug from which some private merriment may not be entirely absent.

Nodding, eyes held amiably wide, “Maybe you know what that means, but don’t bother to explain. Did Mr. Crosstown mention that my specialty usually is considered more along the lines of the muscle category?”

“Making you just the man for the job. Miss Airmont can become on occasion violently uncooperative, even with those concerned only for her mental well-being.”

“I think it’s called resisting arrest.”

“You’d approve of that, I expect.”

“A dame with some moxie instead of one more baby-talking lulu. Hmm, well, let me think that one over.”

Boynt comes back from down the hall looking strangely feverish, as if he’s fallen off a wagon too recently hammered together to have a name yet.

“How much?” Hicks asks once they’re outside.

“Hefty to whopping. You’ll see.”