In the last episode of The Crowded Streets, Rocky had been told by his new client Wanda Marcellus that Congressman Howard Dixon had been lining his pockets with government money through two companies: Assura, makers of fine telephone poles, and Altair Systems, who produce telephone booths.
I had naturally taken Wanda Marcellus' description of Mission City Drive as an exaggeration. A street lined with poles was too likely to catch the attention of at least one Los Diablos newspaper and would be enough to keep that paper going for a month of headlines, especially if Congressman Dixon could be seen as responsible, but as I drove to that part of town and hit the 600 Block, I saw that Wanda didn't blow the story completely out of proportion. I pulled the Buick off the road and counted: twenty-two on one side alone, and sixteen on the other, with a selection of five phone booths on each side to fill in the blanks. All ten booths were unoccupied.
I took advantage of the situation and jumped into the nearest. It was very new, with no tears in the seat cover and a solid shine on the telephone itself. I dropped in a nickel and asked for the Chronicle offices. An old friend, Wyatt Donaldson, scratched out a meager living on whatever scraps the old rag could dig up as a reporter on the City Beat, and once the first line of defense asked me what I wanted I put in a good word for Wyatt.
He answered in a handful of seconds: “How's business, kid?”
“Better, better. Tell me something: do the old slave drivers you work for have any love lost for the Honorable Howard Dixon?”
Wyatt had a laugh that always lasted about two seconds two long and was a couple of notches too loud. “If they had the power they would roast Dixon for dinner and have the leftovers for lunch the next day. Surely, you've been reading us lately. We made so much hay on the brother-in-law's toilet business we could build new houses for a hundred little pigs.” He coughed into his hand, and as I heard the gears winding around in his mind, he lowered his voice and said, “Why the interest in Dixon?”
“Just curious. You wouldn't be looking to top your last story, say, with a direct link to the man himself.”
Wyatt coughed again. He's the only man I know who can't even hide his poker face over the phone. “We killed that story months ago. Who told you?”
“A little bird. Now how did a nice, juicy little item like that get laid to rest? Especially by a paper who lives to cook Dixon's goose. I'm sitting at one of a handful of booths along Mission City Drive with a gorgeous view of a well-made telephone pole or twenty and how does this mess not hit the stands?”
The pause on the other end of the line was deafening. Finally, he said, “You been drinking?”
We had different stories. Dixon certainly had a lot to answer for. “Come over here and take a look at it yourself,” I said to Wyatt. “I'll let you know what I dig up. Exclusive. I'm sure my client wouldn't mind spilling the beans. After all, she works for Wilson.”
“A good man, Wilson,” Wyatt mused. “You don't often hear it from a man in my business but George Wilson ain't just the people's champ. Off the record, everyone on my side of the fence is rooting for him, too. Hand over the goods, old son.”
I relayed everything Wanda Marcellus had given me in my office and he passed on what he knew: turned out it had nothing to do with Dixon's finances. Instead, it was a fling with a Miss So-and-So from Downtown Nowheresville, complete with love letters, a receipt for a couple of dresses and a fur coat from Gorringe's of Hollywood, and an assortment of pictures outside a hotel room. The story was killed by the higher-ups, Wyatt said, because they didn't want the paper to look like some kind of scandal sheet. Splitting hairs if you ask me, but if they wanted to leave that junk for the tabloids and the pulp sheets, all the best to them.
A man with not enough chin and too much forehead and a pencil-thin mustache oozed into view. He wore a dark green suit and a hat with a white feather in it, the kind that sits on the shelves for years until someone needs it for a costume party. He stood outside the booth and waited, as if there weren't nine other options for him. Whoever he was, he didn't want to use the phone, that was for sure.
I asked Wyatt: “What makes you so sure they won't kill this story?”
“What do you mean?”
The man outside the booth looked off at the distance and tapped his foot absently. He began to whistle impatiently. “Doesn't sound like they were as eager to take down Dixon as you supposed,” I said, and the man in green decided to take a more direct approach. He tapped on the glass of the booth. “Keep in touch,” I said into the phone and hung up, keeping my eyes on the man outside at all times.
I slid the door open and he smiled an odd, leering smile at me. “Rocky Stone?” he asked.
“Who wants to know?”
“Mr. Franklin,” he said, and extended his hand for me to shake. When I took it, he limply shifted a folded-up hundred dollar bill into mine.
Who is this mystery man, and why is he attempting to bribe Rocky? Find out in the next episode of The Adventures of Rocky Stone!
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