“Who?” I said, thinking maybe I had offended him.
“That six-toed, web-footed, sappenpaw,
His voice trailed off as he whispered further insults under his breath.
A half dozen cars in various stages of disrepair were angle-parked along the front of the building.
Dented fenders, cracked windshields, globs of orange primer where paint jobs had been started and
never finished, hood ornaments and hubcaps gone; it looked like the starting line of a demolition
derby.
“Your boys got something against automobiles?” I asked.
He growled something under his breath and wheeled into a spot marked only THE KID.
“I?ll take Mufalatta?s place,” he said defensively. “He?s never around anyway.”
We were fifty yards from the front door, a long way in the raging storm. He cut the engine and leaned
back, offering me a Camel.
“No thanks, I quit,” I said.
“I don?t wanna hear about it,” he said, lighting up. He cracked the window and let the smoke stream
out into the downpour.
“I can understand about your feelings toward old man Findley,” he said. “The old boy had a lotta
class, I?ll give him that. He dealt one last hand before he retired.”
“How?s that?”
“His last hurrah. He brought in Ike Leadbetter to head up the force here. Findley was smart enough to
know the burg needed some keen people to keep an eye on things when the track was built—the local
cops were about as sophisticated as a warthog in a top hat. Leadbetter had been through the mill
already. He?d done a turn up in Atlantic City before he came here, so he was savvy. Was Leadbetter
brought me in.”
“And Leadbetter is good?”
“Was.”
“Where?d he go?”
“No place. He?s dead. Leadbetter knew what was gonna happen, I mean law-wise. He had learned a
lot in Atlantic City. And he was honest.”
“What happened to him?” I asked.
“Three years ago, ran his car into the river, if you can believe that.”
“You don?t?”
“I stopped believin? in accidents an hour after I got here.”
