Page 27 of Shadow Ticket
“Your young friends have been conspiring to operate a shortwave transmitter, possibly dangerous, certainly illegal.”
“Kids with a radio hobby, so what?”
“An alarmingly high percentage of the traffic is encrypted, with a potential for altering events far removed in time and space from the likes of—” gesturing around the beaverboard interior.
“Uh, huh, just a couple of working stiffs, you and me, ain’t it.”
A passing smile, in which any note of cordiality would be hard to locate.
“And should you be telling me stuff like this?”
“Falls within your need to know, if you’re going to be working on the case.”
“Who said I was—”
“You speak the German tongue, we’re told.”
“Picked up a word or two, who don’t, beer-barrelin around M’waukee?”
“Anything else? Polish, Italian, Hungarian?”
“Only enough to get into a fight. Why? Sounds like out-of-town work, which I don’t—”
“Oh, quite far out of town in fact.”
Now, most of the time gastric distress and Hicks are strangers. Alka-Seltzer is not about to name him Customer of the Year. But there are exceptions, brought about by even the hint of an out-of-town ticket, when the best he can manage is to sit very still with a deaf-n-dumb expression on his kisser.
“Boynton Crosstown at the U-Ops has every confidence.”
“Uh-oh, now Iamworried. Appreciate the job offer if that’s what this is, but maybe somebody missed the patch of troublesome history between me and you folks’s shop—”
“We’re not the prohis. All that foolishness we’re ready to overlook. You’ll find we’re easygoing, bighearted ‘mugs,’ in a funny kind of way. All warrants will be suspended, all charges dropped, you’ll be as pure as Ivory soap.”
“Let’s see, that’s ninety-nine and 44 one-hundredths percent, so a hundred take away 44, that still leaves…wait…”
“They don’t have Original Sin in Milwaukee?”
“South side, maybe…”
“Truth is,” the federal as if sharing a confidence, “it’s your job history. All those labor radicals you sent to the accident ward. Somebody who’s anti-Red but not a Nazi either.”
“Plenty of them to pick and choose from, I’d of thought, and anyhow I’m semiretired these days, haven’t busted a Bolshevik head in can’t remember how long but thanks anyhow, nothin personal,” heading amiably for the door, “just a working flatfoot, see, makin this a definite Pasadena—”
“We’d much prefer that you cooperate, though you’re always welcome down at our little country jailhouse in Atlanta G-A, plenty of southernhospitality to enjoy, why, who knows, you could end up cellmates with the Big Fellow himself.”
“And you’d be runnin me in for what again?”
“Too technical to explain, think of it as Aggravated Mopery.”
“Wrong tough guy. Try Primo Carnera.”
“Your country calls.”
“Line’s busy.”
“I’m afraid it isn’t optional,” explains T. P. O’Grizbee. “Like it says on the subpoena we haven’t served you yet, laying aside all and singular your business and excuses. A federal rap, not to be shrugged off. Potential wrongdoers might keep in mind as yet little-known lockups such as Alcatraz Island, always looming out there, fogbound and sinister, and the unwelcome fates which might transpire therewithin. The Drys can seem like the violent ward at Winnebago sometimes, but this is the next wave of Feds you’re talking to. We haven’t even begun to show how dangerous we can be, and the funny thing? Is, is we could be running the country any day now and you’ll all have to swear loyalty to us because by then we’ll be in the next war fighting for our lives, and maybe that’ll be all you’ve got.” Taking off his horn-rim specs briefly to drill Hicks with a rhetorical eye-to-eye. “It’s your wife and kids too.”
“Single. Too young for the last one, always felt lousy about that, next one I’ll join up and get killed in it, promise.”
