Read Online The Criminal by Jim Thompson - Free Book Online

and whose very life depended on… Did you say something, Don?"
    "N-No, sir," I said. "I-I just coughed, Captain."
    "You should be making thirty-five thousand, Don. You're letting Teddy down. Oh, I know you think you're doing everything possible, but you can't know it. You simply haven't had the resources to try everything. if you were getting thirty-five thousand, now, twelve thousand five hundred more, it might make a big difference. It might mean life for Teddy and a mother for those little tots of yours and… Yes, Don? You said something?"
    "No, sir," I said. "I didn't say anything, Captain."
    He was silent for a moment. I eased my desk drawer open, got the cap off a pint of bourbon and took a big slug.
    "Feel better?" he said. "Well, there's something I'd like you to do, Don. I want you to walk over to the window and stick your head out."
    "Yes, sir," I said.
    It was coming now. We were getting into the main stretch. I walked over to the window and stuck my head out. Oh, yes, yes, indeed. I did exactly as I was told. He'd know if I didn't, just as he'd known when I took that drink. The Captain always knew. Part of it was instinct, the bestial cunning you find in the very lowest of the animals, but he didn't depend entirely on that. Only a very small fraction of the people in the Captain's pay were employed on his newspapers. The rest were spies, his spies, and they knew every goddamned thing.
    Once, years before, the Captain had told a managing editor to go out and get a cup of coffee. He was eating the poor bastard out, you see, telling him he was asleep at the switch. Well, the guy went down to a restaurant, but he wasn't a coffee drinker, it seems, so he took a glass of milk instead. And when he came back to the phone, the Captain fired him. He'd had a stool on his tail, and when the guy drank milk, whiz, the old axe.
    The rotten, stinking, son-of-a-bi-
    I picked up the telephone. "I'm back, Captain," I said.
    "Good," he said. "Perhaps you can tell me whether it's raining or not?"
    "No, sir," I said. "It's not raining."
    "Very good," he said. "That checks with my information. You've taken a great load off my mind, Don. I was beginning to have some doubts as to whether you'd know if it was raining or not."
    "Yes, sir," I said.
    Goddammit, why couldn't he get on with it? I should have been talking to the news desk, the telegraph editor, the city editor; figuring out the play on the day's stories. I glanced at the clock, and Jesus! it was only twenty minutes until our early-noon went to bed. If it wasn't ready in twenty minutes there'd be overtime in composing, overtime in the press room, overtime in circulation- overtime! overtime! the lousy, filthy union bastards-and we'd hit the street late, and-
    I'd kill him! By God, I would kill him! I'd sneak into that castle at night, and he'd be ass deep in teletype flimsies and whores, and I'd have that good old gasoline and those good old matches-big kitchen matches-and I'd burn him alive! BURN HIM -
    "You had a story in your late-final yesterday, Don. A paltry eight lines back near the classified pages."
    "Yes, sir? Yes, Captain?" He was crazy. If it was a good story we'd have played it.
    "A rape-murder out in the Kenton Hills section. Some fourteen-year-old girl. Very badly handled, Don. Should have been right column front page or better still a center page spread with banner and lots of art."
    "B-But, Captain-" I took the receiver away from my ear and stared into the mouthpiece. He was crazy, by God. "But, sir, there's nothing-nothing at this stage, at any rate-to justify-"
    "You don't think so, Don?"
    "Well," I said, "of course, I could be wrong. But there doesn't seem to be anything. Our courthouse man talked to the district attorney, and he doesn't feel-"
    "Perhaps you could change his mind, Don. Build a fire under him. Throw a few matches his way, if you get my meaning"
    "Well, I-"
    "What about this boy they're holding? This Talbert?"
    "They're letting him go," I said,