Just don't do anything controversial.
It was around noon when Mitch stepped off the plane. He checked his bag at the airport, and rode the airline's limousine into downtown Dallas. Since the hour did not seem a good one for paying a call on Frank Downing, he stopped in at a bar and grille that he remembered from his last visit to the city. But he was not remembered by the personnel of the place.
'Sorry, sir.' The bartender idly swabbed the counter with a damp towel. It's against the law to sell liquor by the drink in Texas.'
'So what?' Mitch laughed, 'You're a new man, aren't you? Where's Jiggs McDonald?'
'There's no one here by that name, sir. Would you like a cup of coffee?'
Mitch said angrily that he didn't want any coffee. He was tired and worried and hot, and getting a drink was suddenly very important to him. 'Now, come on and give me a bourbon and water!' he demanded. 'What the hell? I've been buying drinks in here for years!'
'No, sir. We don't serve drinks here.'
'The hell you don't!' Mitch jerked his head at a man a few stools away. 'What's he drinking if it isn't booze?'
The man turned and looked at him, a man with a very broad face and a forehead that ended at his eyebrows. He rattled the ice cubes in his glass, then arose and moved down the counter to where Mitch was sitting.
'What do you want?' he said. 'Coffee or trouble?'
'I think I'll settle for some air,' Mitch said, and he left the place very quickly.
He felt like nine kinds of a damned fool. It was always stupid to start a beef, and he had done it without the slightest excuse. He was in the worst jam of his career, and he needed to be fast and smart. Smarter and faster than he had ever been before. Yet he had virtually stuck out his neck and asked to have his head kicked off!
The incident left him badly shaken up. He forced himself to calm down, taking a long second look at his mental makeup. As a result, he canceled an earlier plan to call on Teddy while he was in Dallas; to appeal to her to be reasonable in her demands. Teddy had never been reasonable. Only the wildest grasping-at-straws thinking had let him hope that she sight be reasonable now.
At any rate, his problem was an immediate one. Thirty-three thousand dollars or its approximate had to be had now. Without it, he had no future-none that Red would be a part of. Without it, he would be broke. And just how could a man be broke, Red would wonder, when he has a safe-deposit box full of money?
He hailed a cab. The driver looked back over his shoulder as Mitch gave him an address.
'Too early, mister. They won't be open this time of day.'
'We'll see,' Mitch said.
'I'm telling yuh. Why don't you let me take you to a real live place?'
'Why don't you,' Mitch said, 'for God's sake take me where I told you to? Are you going to do it or am I going to have to call Frank Downing and give him your name and license number, and tell him that I can't keep an appointment with him because-'
The cab started with a jerk. It moved swiftly, without further conversation from the driver, for the next thirty minutes until it reached the wrought-iron gateway to Downing's domain.
Mitch got out there and paid off the driver. At this innocuous hour, the gate was, of course, unlocked and he started up the long curving driveway to the house.
The neighborhood had been a very good one at one time. Even as it was crowded downhill by the expansion of the business and industrial districts, there had been a number of holdouts against the march of progress. People who had lived here almost as long as there was a city. People with four-story mansions (with two-story living rooms), and grounds that Occupied a square block.
Downing had picked up one of these magnificent old houses early in the area's transition period. He had restored and renovated it completely, and enclosed the grounds with a tasteful tapestry-brick wall. Aside from that, and certain essential modifications to the interior, the place was almost unchanged.
The front door stood wide open. The interior hummed with the activity of cleaning people-men and women with mops and brooms and vacuum cleaners. Beyond giving Mitch a polite glance or nod, they showed no interest in him. He was not their problem. He would be taken care of by someone whose problem he was.
Mitch met that someone very suddenly. He was starting down a small side corridor which led to Downing's office when a thin, tired- looking man lazed out of the shadows.
'Selling something, mist-' He broke off, a flicker of recognition in his eyes. 'What d'you say, Mitch?'
'Who can kick?' Mitch said. They shook hands, Mitch with his right, the other man with his left, since his right was in his pocket. 'Is the boss in, Ace?'
'You should know,' Ace said. 'He must have told you he would be or you wouldn't be here.'
'Well, I'm afraid I don't have an appointment. I just happened to be in Dallas-'
'Tsk, tsk.' Ace clucked his tongue reproachfully. 'Be nice now.'
Taking Mitch by the elbow, he guided him up the corridor to Downing's office. There he rapped on the door in a certain way, waited a moment and then moved inside with Mitch.
The gambler was seated at his desk; sharply dressed as always, except for his rolled-up shirt sleeves, slick-haired and freshly shaven. There was a pile of account books and ledger sheets in front of him, as well as a small adding machine. He was making a computation on it as Mitch and Ace entered, and he did not look up until he had completed it.
Then without a word of greeting or the smallest sign of surprise, he asked Mitch how he was on income taxes.
'You mean what do I know about them? Nothing,' Mitch said. 'I always hire an accountant.'
'I hire three. You'd think that would be enough, wouldn't you?' Downing shook his head. 'Three guys ought to be able to keep one set of tax records, and do it right.'
'Well, those people have to be awfully careful, Frank. If they try to claim something you're not entitled to-'
Downing said that wasn't what he was kicking about. His trouble was that the accountants kept claiming too much. 'I tell 'em not to, by God. I tell 'em to figure everything from the government's angle, and then tack on ten per cent. But will they do it? Hell, no! Okay, Ace.'
Ace went out, giving Mitch an approving little pat on the back. Mitch accepted the offer to fix himself a drink, and Downing poured coffee for himself from a Thermos carafe. Taking a sip of it, he asked how Red was doing.
'I liked that kid. By God, I liked her! How come you didn't bring her with you?'
'I didn't know I was coming myself,' Mitch said. 'It was one of those spur of the moment things. You see…'
He explained about the checks. Downing listened expressionlessly. 'And you want me to collect on them for you?'
'That's right. Or I'll discount them to you.'
'Then go ahead and ask me. I'll smile when I tell you to go to hell.'
'You're too good for your own good,' Mitch sighed. 'But what about the fifty grand you collected for yourself?'
'What about the sixty grand I spent collecting the fifty grand?' Downing shrugged. 'I've got principles, pal, but they don't extend to your dough.'
Mitch was disappointed, but not surprised. He said he guessed he'd better be running along; he had a date with a west-bound plane. 'It'll get me in Big Spring tonight, and I can drive out to the ranch in the
