Kill the Boss Goodbye

Chapter One




For a town of three hundred thousand, San Pietro looked very dead, but it was noon and it was out of season. The race track was open two months of the year and the rest of the time the town just baked in the sun and spread into the prairie. San Pietro had wide streets and big lots, for there was plenty of room. The plane factories reached into the open along the rim of the town because land was even cheaper there, with more of it.

There was a traffic light at the main intersection, making useless blinks from one color to the next and then all over again. A car with a backfire came down the street and crossed against the light just when the cop came out of a beer parlor nearby. He went to the curb to look at the driver and when he recognized him the cop waved and watched the car pass. Then the cop lit a cigar and walked down the street, keeping under the store awnings.

The light kept changing monotonously. Once, when the color happened to turn from amber to green, four cars in a row came through driving low on their springs with the load of the men inside. The cars headed straight down the main drag, out to the edge of town, and one by one they came to a smooth stop at the big motel that was built like the Alamo. There were no other cars parked in sight and the four that pulled up made an unusual picture. It was different during the season. When the track was open they came from all over the state, cramming the town, because Tumbleweed Park was an exceptional track, and famous.

Thirteen men got out of the cars, stretched their legs, and filed through the door of the coffee shop. The place was empty except for Pearl, who said “Hi” when they came in, and Phido, who didn't say anything because he had the coffee cup to his mouth. He looked over the rim. Then he swallowed wrong, coughed, and slopped coffee where his cup missed the saucer.

The men hadn't answered Pearl. They went straight through the kitchen in back, to the corridor, because that was the shortest way to get where they wanted to go. When the door in back had swung shut after the last of them Pearl turned back to the counter and said, “What kinda business? You know them?”

“Do I know them!” said Phido, but he said it more to himself.

Being big and awkward he bumped the counter hard when he got up and Pearl made a comment about it, but Phido didn't hear any more. He went through the kitchen, opened the door to the corridor, but didn't go any further. He could see it from where he was.

He could see the room with the telephones, the blackboard where the odds were posted, and it could have been the quotation room of a broker's office except for Phido's buddies against the wall, the police captain, and the sheriff who had come along just for good measure. The sheriff backhanded one of the men by the wall and one of the others got sapped. While everybody left, the sheriff put a seal across the door lock and then he left too. They hadn't bothered Phido. They nodded at him because they knew him, but since he hadn't tried stopping them they had left him alone.

When they all got into the cars Phido ran to the coffee shop window, looking puzzled and anxious. Pearl came up too, not knowing what to think.

“A raid, Phido? How come they raided—”

“I don't get it,” said Phido, saying it several times over till Pearl interrupted him.

“Better do something, Phido. Call Mr. Fell. Better tell him they got one of his places!”

Phido started cursing and turned away from the window. “Call Fell! How'm I gonna call him? If Fell was around you think this coulda happened?”

He went to the wall phone with a dime borrowed out of Pearl's uniform pocket, where she kept her tips. He called a tobacco store back in town with gold lettering on the window that said, Cigars, Tobacco—Thomas Fell, Prop.

This was the only place Thomas Fell owned that had his name on the door. He also owned the San Pietro Realty Company, the Tumbleweed Concessions Company, the Blue Star Taxi Cab Company, and Accounting, Incorporated, Accountants and Appraisers. He owned a big part of the race track and ran all of it. According to public knowledge he ran several other things, including City Hall.

The man who answered the phone didn't know whether Fell was back.

“I'm calling from the motel,” said Phido. “I just saw...”

“Why, all of a sudden, call here? He never shows up here any time.”

“I know,” said Phido. “I just thought....”

“Just because you work out of this place, what makes you think he'd check in here first, after he's gone for over a month?”

“I wasn't thinking,” said Phido.

“What makes you think he's back, anyway?”

“I'm just asking,” said Phido, getting excited. “There's been a raid! Just now! They—”