Amusement Park. Before then, Dunstan had been in on the take in a minor way, not called upon to actually do anything other than close his eyes from time to time, but the mess at the amusement park had changed all that. He’d been in on attempted murder, he’d seen people killed, he’d wound up with the robber holding him captive at gunpoint, and when it was all over, he’d had it. Not because O’Hara had been so enraged at him, full of yelled charges of cowardice; that had been nothing but O’Hara blustering away his own fear and incompetence. And not because of the cold contempt he had seen in that old man Lozini’s eyes; what did he care about the contempt of a creature like Lozini? It was his own attitude toward himself that had made the change. He had suddenly known he couldn’t live that way any more, a living contradiction, straddling the fence of the law, a hypocrite in every breath he took.
So he’d quit the force, and moved away from the city of Tyler completely, and had found a job here with a firm that maintained central air-conditioning units in office buildings, the kind of work the Army had originally trained him for. He had a good job, good friends, a good life, a few girl friends in the last couple of years. If it weren’t for the absurdity of the seven-dollar-a-month pension check, he wouldn’t ever have to think about Tyler again.
What could he do about the checks? Nothing. Move, leaving no forwarding address? Almost impossible in this organized world, not without disrupting his life entirely. It was easier, finally, just to cash the check each month, spend the seven dollars, try not to think about it.
At nine-forty he went and got dressed. He wrapped his bathing suit in a towel, and was just putting the rolled towel on the table by the front door, next to the pension check, when the apartment doorbell rang. He frowned at his watch: ten to ten. Harry was never early. He pulled open the door, and it wasn’t Harry at all. It was a smiling self-assured guy holding a paper bag in front of himself, holding it by the bottom with just one hand. “Paul Dunstan?” he said.
It was a vaguely familiar face. Was he really somebody from Tyler, or was it just that Dunstan had been looking at the pension check that made him think this guy had something to do with that city? He said, “Yes?”
“I’m sorry about this,” the guy said, smiling, sounding truly sorry about it, “but I don’t know how much O’Hara told you.” And he reached into the paper bag.
Dunstan’s reactions were slower than when he’d been on the force. He didn’t move until the gun with the silencer screwed on the end of it started coming out of the paper bag, and by then it was too late.
Twenty-three
“First-rate sermon. Reverend,” George Farrell said.
The minister’s noncommittal face suggested he knew he was being used. “I’m glad you liked it, Mr. Farrell,” he said.
Farrell kept pumping the man’s hand, holding it in both of his so the minister couldn’t make a premature withdrawal. Out of the corner of his eye, Farrell watched Jack, standing unobtrusively to one side; Jack would give him the high sign when the photographers and cameramen were finished, and then he would let go of the minister’s hand.
Farrell made a lovely all-American picture there in the sunlight, and he knew it. Tall, heavy-set, with a banker’s stockiness and an actor’s profile and a doctor’s professional intimacy, he
Over to the side, Jack lifted a hand to his medium-long hair, brushing it back. Farrell, smiling a manly smile, said, “Keep up the good work, Reverend,” and released the minister’s hand.
“You too, Mr. Farrell,” the minister said, with no expression at all in face or voice.
And to hell with you, Mac, Farrell thought. Smiling, he turned away, automatically reaching to take Eleanor’s elbow. She was there, of course, right where she should be, the perfect complement: tall, ash-blond, competent- looking, attractive without seeming oversexed, with just the slightest touch of apple-pie plumpness about her. Where would a public man be without this wife?
The two of them went down the church steps together, Farrell waving broadly to the curious crowd; mostly churchgoers, attracted by the television equipment, who had stayed because they recognized their mayoral candidate. Sudden spontaneous applause broke out among them, true spontaneous applause, and for just a second Farrell was so startled he almost broke stride. Then he moved on, feeling a great wave of emotion well up within him. They truly liked him, the people really and truly liked him.
The limo was at the curb, and Jack was already there to hold the door open and the citizens at bay. Eleanor got in first, and Farrell after her. Jack shut the door, slid in front next to the driver, and they were off, followed by the unmarked police car with its two plainclothes bodyguards.
“Well,” Eleanor said. “So much for that.”
Farrell stretched his feet out on the gray carpeting. The limousine had been contributed for the duration of the campaign by a local automobile dealer, and its normal role as a rental vehicle was revealed by the pair of folded bucket seats tucked up against the front-seat back. Farrell opened one of these now and put his feet on it. He felt physically content, and still pleased at that applause. Spending months manipulating emotional reactions, it came as a shock and a delight to be liked without inducement.
Eleanor had taken out her large notebook and was studying it. “Coffee with the volunteers at headquarters,” she said.
He nodded; nice kids, the volunteers. Though they bewildered him at times. He’d look at them, see their intense shining eyes staring back at him, and he’d wonder just who in the name of God they thought he was. Well, it didn’t matter, did it? You couldn’t buy for all the money in the world the work they did for free, out of whatever noble misconception it was that drove them.
Eleanor was closing the notebook, but Farrell said, “What’s after that?”
She opened it again. Technically, an old pol named Sorenberg was Farrell’s campaign manager, but it was strictly an honorary position, a part of the fence-mending Farrell had had to do early on. Eleanor was his campaign manager, she had the whole structure in her mind and every detail in her notebooks. “Visit the swimming pool at Memorial Park,” she said. “Little League game at Veteran’s Field. Dinner and speech to the teachers’ union. Dinner and speech to the Urban League.”
