Night Extra

Bridewell laughed. “That’s a new one. What are we supposed to be doing? Running a horse room?”

“Running the Acme Construction Company and Bell Wreckers,” Terrell said.

Bridewell was jarred, Terrell saw, and surprise twisted his hard, cautious face. But he recovered himself almost immediately. “I told you I was in a hurry,” he said, pulling out his watch. “Is that all you’ve got to tell me?”

“You have no other comment?”

“I have no comment at all — now or any other time.” Bridewell was studying his watch. “You’ve heard some malicious lies, or else you’re just trying to stir up a story. Why should I dignify that with a statement?”

“That’s all you’ve got to say?”

“I’ll add that it’s a dirty, vicious lie, if that will make you happy.” Color surged up in the old man’s face and his voice rose angrily. “I don’t know who’s responsible, but it’s a foul and stupid attack.”

“Do you know Ike Cellars?”

“I’ve seen him around. If you call that knowing a man then I know him.” Bridewell was breathing rapidly. “I’m used to slander, Terrell. But I don’t take it laying down. You print this rumor and it’s going to cost your paper plenty.”

“The figureheads of the companies are talking,” Terrell said. “To the police. They’ve identified you and Ike Cellars as the real owners. Two companies made money out of the Parking Authority — the two owned by you and Ike Cellars. Would you sue us for printing that, Mr. Bridewell?”

Bridewell said, “Who sent you here?” He put aside his bluster as easily as he would a topcoat. Now he was watching Terrell with shrewd, cold eyes. “Caldwell’s people?”

“No. This is just a way station,” Terrell said. “I’m after a story. Who killed Eden Myles? Who framed Caldwell and why? Looking for those answers has brought me this far.”

“Caldwell framed? Haven’t you read the police report?”

“I don’t believe it. Do you?”

“Why shouldn’t I? Is there anything sacred about Rich Caldwell? Is he so much better than the rest of us?”

“He didn’t kill Eden Myles.”

“I believe the police, young man.” Bridewell took a step toward Terrell and shook a fist in his face. “Why should I believe Caldwell? Tell me that, you smart young snoop. He’s a trouble-maker — a blue-stockinged, meddlesome prude who doesn’t have the sense to mind his own business. The great reformer!” Bridewell’s tone became savage and mincing. “Isn’t that enough to make you puke? Where was he when we built this city? Eh? When the canals were dug through to the estuary, when the riverbed was moved past Dempster Street, and when the whole center-city was tom apart to make way for new streets and office buildings? We did that without his help, or the help of the puling snobs who lived on the fat of the land in the big houses in the suburbs. The city is a stinking mess they wouldn’t dirty their shoes in. But we built it to what it is — me, Charlie Brickell, the Schmidt brothers, yes and Ike Cellars and Mayor Ticknor. Our companies and banks and guts did the job. And so he comes along now after his years in snobby schools and his years traipsing around France and Europe, and he holds his nose and tells us we did a lousy job and that he’s going to clean everything up and send us all to jail. Well, who’s in jail, Mr. Snoop? Us or Rich Caldwell?”

“Who deserves to be there?” Terrell said.

The old man stared at Terrell for a few seconds, then he said, “I accept the police verdict,” in a cold, impersonal voice.

“You’re afraid not to.”

“I’m afraid of nothing. This is my home, my city and I’ll fight for it. The men who made this city may have taken short cuts. Graft, corruption — I don’t deny it. But I’ll fight back to keep them from being victimized by a pack of holier-than-thou reformers. Their achievements are greater than their faults. You’ll learn that someday. You don’t grow big following little men.”

“You believe that bilge, I think,” Terrell said. “Well try to make it stand up to the dirty facts. Eden Myles was killed by a hoodlum imported by Ike Cellars. Your partner, Ike Cellars, framed Caldwell. Your partner committed murder just as surely as if he squeezed the life from the girl’s body with his own hands.”

“The police report convicts Caldwell,” the old man said, striking the arm of a chair.

“Why didn’t you fight it out in the courts?” Terrell said. “Let Caldwell win the election, let him make his charges against you, haul you into court—” Terrell stared without pity at the old man’s pale face. “Ike didn’t want it that way, did he? He wanted direct liquidation. He wanted to frame Caldwell for murder. Get him out of the way forever. Didn’t he?”

The old man seemed to be holding himself together with a definite physical effort. “Get out,” he said in a shaking voice. “I’ve heard enough of your slanders. Get out.”

“All right, Mr. Bridewell.”

“I’m going to St. Louis to visit my daughter. I won’t be back in the city for three months. I don’t care what happens—” Bridewell was trembling helplessly now. “I don’t care what happens to anybody.”