Love's lovely counterfeit - James M. Cain [46]
"I acted as I thought best, your honor."
"As Castleton is across the state line, it's clearly a Federal matter, so I wholly agree with Mr. Bleeker: there's nothing for me to do but dismiss your prisoner."
"It's not up to me to decide it, your honor."
"This is a Federal matter."
Mr. Yates soliloquized a little, as soon as he and Ben were on the street again. "You'd think it was a Federal matter. It would certainly seem that they'd have a law covering it, so the F.B.I., or somebody, could take charge and rub you out. However, they haven't. I've been looking it up. It's perfectly legal."
***
The five o'clock Mercury plane was just winging in as Ben poured June's cocktail, and he stepped to the window to admire it. "Look at that little green beauty—and think what she's bringing in with her. All but one favorite lost today, and that means there'll be four hundred we split on this one trip alone. Plenty of dough you're making for Dorothy. How is she, by the way:
"She's all right, thank you."
"Summer camp closed?"
"Yes. I sent her back to college."
"Oh—I didn't know that."
"Not to the one she'd been attending, of course. I couldn't have got her back there, after the trouble over the—missing articles. But there's another little place where they accepted her, and she can complete her senior year."
"Near here?"
"Does it matter?"
"Just being sociable."
"I prefer not to say."
The plane was dipping down for the airport now and Ben watched it for a minute or two, taking sips out of his cocktail, always blotting his lips with his handkerchief.
Presently he said: "I love that little thing. And the beauty of it is, the whole thing's on the up-and-up. We're not putting anything over on Jansen this time. It's legal, the District Attorney says it's legal, the court says it's legal. And to think of what Delany would have cut in for, if he'd wanted to stick—just because he knows a lug in Chicago by the name of Frankie Horizon. The hook-up in Castleton was so easy it made me laugh. The cops fixed it up on account of the favor we did them after the bank stick-up. You and I, we just didn't realize that we'd made a few pretty good friends."
"Do you have to say 'we'?"
"Anything you like."
"I'd rather you left me out, if you don't mind."
Ben sighed, went around turning on the lights, took June's coat from her, hung it in a closet. It was a mink coat, of smart length and cut, and he admired it before he slipped it on the hanger. At any rate he sank his nose into it, to feel its softness, and to smell it. He seemed to be in an amiable humor. He sat on the arm of her chair, touched her black curls.
"One thing I did I think you'll like."
"What's that?"
"I ended this parole racket."
"How do you mean?"
"Quite a few of them owed money for paroles they'd bought—to Caspar, I mean. I could have made them cough up, if I'd wanted to. In fact, Cantrell was after me to turn on the heat. Nice guy, Cantrell is...I told him it was out. If those people got out of jail, it's O.K. by me and they got nothing to fear from me. From now on they can start their lives over again, and I wish them all the luck in the world. You got anything against it?"
"Why should I?"
Her tone, which was wholly indifferent, rebuffed him. In a moment he said, "One other thing I did I know you're going to like."
"Yes? What's that?"
"Those houses. The red light places. I'm closing them down. I told Cantrell there was a few things I'd stop at, and one of them was taking it off a lot of poor girls for leading a life of—"
He stopped at the sudden blaze in her eyes. "But you'd take it off me, wouldn't you?"
"What do you mean, take it off you?"
"For leading