"The pickpocket whom the police picked up after he had lifted your wallet."
"Umm... what about him? I saw the cops grab him."
"I think he said something about having an appointment..." Cranston said.
"I don't get it," Stanton said. "But this is your business, not mine."
"I'll try to get word to your father somehow," Cranston said at the door.
"In the meantime, lie low; don't answer the door unless I knock three taps, a
pause and then another knock."
Stanton nodded. "Make it as fast as you can... I'm going to blow my top if
I have to hole up here much longer."
"I'll do my best." Cranston was gone, and a frightened young man was alone
with his thoughts.
Outside the hotel room Cranston looked up and down the hallway. This hotel
was precisely what he had wanted. It was not good enough to attract any
publicity, and not bad enough to have the police pay it any special attention.
He walked down the rather threadbare rug that carpeted the floor. The
elevator was slow in arriving at the floor. Cranston mused as he waited for it,
better pick up the newspapers and see what's been going on.
Strange set-up in this town. But as he thought more about it, there was
nothing too strange. Almost any town had its own political setup, its little
battles between its civil servants, its own kind of venality, of sudden death
and corruption.
The elevator car dropped to the ground level. On his way through the
quiet, dark lobby, Cranston bought the papers from a candy stand. The man
behind the counter was nodding in sleep. Cranston left the proper change on top
of the counter and walked away. The counter man didn't even stir.
There was no one else in the lobby but the incurious desk clerk who seemed
almost ready to join the counter man in a nap. Yes, it was exactly the right
kind of hotel for a badly wanted man to hide out in.
A doorman in a rather battered uniform signaled for a cab as he saw
Cranston exit. "Cab?"
"Yes, please." Cranston got in and leaned back. Too bad this whole thing
had developed in such a way that he had been unable to have Shrevvie along.
He looked over the papers he had bought. The world situation was relegated
to the comparatively unimportant left-hand side of the front page.
The reporters were busy making political capital out of the murder of Ally
Mingus. The two papers represented two different political camps. Each was
blaming the other political party. The democrats pointed out that only under a
republican administration could murder walk unchecked. The republican viewpoint
was that the murder was a hangover from the previous regime which had been
democratic. They both had very little about the actual murder, but a great deal
about the political aspects of the death of a ward heeler.
Mingus had obviously been one of those only too common figures who operate
in the shadowy area between legality and the underworld. Making their money in
the demimonde, they use it to control the local politicians... to put in a fix,
to keep the reins of power in their own hands.
The district attorney, a man with an eye to the future by the name of
Lancer, was clearly making hay while the sun shone. There was a long interview
with him in one of the papers in which he attacked the police.
This was a standard gambit. Cranston sighed. So often internecine warfare
between the police and the D.A.'s office interfered with the tracking down of
