Black Mask (Vol. 29, No. 3 — January 1947)

“I am telling you. Use your drag as Keever’s secretary and get the phone company to give you the address of this place. Then send a taxi over.”

Kay promised disgustedly that she would, then I hung up and sat there a while. I was worried. Kay is not a gal to cry wolf. The odds were that this time Keever was in a real jam. The going had been getting increasingly tough, what with the governor and nearly every other state official of the opposite political party. Added to that, the other gang had a majority in both houses of the state legislature. Keever had been flies in their soup ever since his election, and they were all lying in ambush awaiting his first slip.

I didn’t want to see it happen. He wasn’t really a bad guy at heart. And besides, if the governor gave him the old heave-ho and made it stick, I was through as his chief investigator, and there are lots of worse jobs for cops.

So I sat there brooding over what the governor could possibly have got on Keever this time. I wasn’t worried about anything crooked — Keever was always scrupulously honest. Sure, when he’d been D.A. of Capital County there’d been a few gambling joints running wide open, but that was because Keever had sense enough to know you can’t change human nature with a night-stick. I mean it hadn’t been because he had his hand out.

I was still racking my brain over what the jam could be when the same skinny guy with the same pasty face walked into the dining room and said: “A taxi guy here for you.”

I managed to get on my feet.

“Thanks, pal. Mind telling me whose scatter this is?”

The pasty face looked puzzled.

“Damned if I know. I’m a stranger here myself.”

I made it out of the place, not even trying to find my hat. The cab driver wanted to give me some help, but I shoved him away. It’s the Corbett pride.

I noted that the apartment number was 4B, and when we got downstairs I saw that it was in a six-story apartment house on the corner of Elmhurst and Arlington Road. I meant to ask the driver whose apartment it was, but as soon as the cab started rolling I lost all interest in questions. I told the driver to drive slower or he’d have cause to regret it.

It was after midnight when he dumped me out at the side door of the Annex. When I paid him I discovered I still had most of my roll, which was some consolation, for I had an idea the gal Millie wasn’t above a little larceny. I wondered vaguely where she’d got to as I opened the door with my key. I walked through the dimly lighted, deserted corridor to the wing housing Keever’s offices, and Shelton let me in there.

The kid looked worried.

“I’m sure glad you’ve come, Ben. It’s been awful.”

I crossed toward Keever’s office. Curtis T. Durbin was seated glumly outside. He usually had a sneer for me, but this time I thought I detected an actual expression of relief as I showed up.

“Go right in,” said Shelton. “We’ll wait outside.”

My first impression when I saw Keever slumped over his desk was that he had gone to sleep. Then he straightened at the sound of my footsteps, and I saw that the man had been crying. He tried to get control over himself and even grin, and it was a sight I thought I’d never see.

The Keever I’d known had always been possessed of perfect poise, armed with an almost arrogant nonchalance. It’s an act that any good lawyer has to put on. A lawyer runs into so many surprises and has so many rugs pulled out from under him that he becomes an expert at landing on his feet and coming up with a smile.

Keever was especially adapted to this, for he had a postage-stamp face, commanding, with a fine-line mustache that impressed even judges. But now he was all in pieces. His face was flushed, and his eyes were bloodshot. I hate to think of any man crying, even Keever.

“It’s all over, Ben,” he said. “I’m ruined.”

It was enough to sober me, and it did. I sat down across the desk from him and said: “Let’s have it, boss. It can’t be that bad.”

“But it is, Ben. It is. That rat Patterson has got me where he wants me, and he knows it. After all these years of faithful public service I’m about to be disgraced! I’ll be disbarred, Ben, perhaps even sent to prison!”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve been a stupid fool! Believe me, I wasn’t dishonest — I was just dumber than hell!” Tears welled in his eyes again.

“Listen, boss, we’re getting no place fast.”

“You’ve heard of Phil Sutton?”

I caught my breath. “Go on.”

“Then you know what a crook he is. Nobody has any less use for him than I have, but when he organized the Acme Auto Insurance Company there was nothing I could do because his lawyers incorporated the concern properly and complied with the law in every detail. That was six months ago. Last week the state insurance department asked for a ruling on whether they should take over the concern. I went into the matter thoroughly.