In the last episode of The Crowded Streets, Rocky found himself investigating the financial indiscretions of Congressman Howard Dixon. While on Mission City Drive, a street lined with telephone poles and booths, Rocky was handed a hundred dollar bill by a stranger in a green suit...
As soon as I realized what he had given me, he sighed softly to himself, as if that was something he wanted to get off his chest for a long time, and now, at last, he was finally successful. A bribe, pure and simple. I had been bribed before, of course, but never this soon. Usually it was deeper in to the case, when I had evidence that could shut things down for a whole lot of people in a short amount of time, not the second I had stepped out of the car to make some initial inquiries.
“What's this for?” I asked innocently.
His genial smile continued on unbroken. He took a manicured finger and scratched the end of his poor excuse of a mustache. “Anything you like,” he said, sweetly, “provided you don't spend it here.”
“What's the matter with this place? I like it here.”
“Well,” he said, as he cradled his face in his hand and rested his elbow in the arm crossing his chest, “you wouldn't believe it to look at it, but this is not a very friendly neighborhood. For instance, they don't take very kindly to strangers asking questions. A funny quirk they have.” He pointed over my shoulder. “Mr. Johnson across the road, there? He once called the police on a man from the Herald because he simply asked him too many questions. You see? Funny.”
I wasn't about to be threatened by a character like him in a getup like that. I gave him a nice pat on the shoulder and practically knocked the wind out of him. “Maybe I'll take my chances.”
All I had to do was take three steps away from him, down the sidewalk. He started to follow me like he was auditioning for the part of my shadow, and he was doing really well until I stopped and turned around. He stopped all right, but he was so frightened by the look on my face that he had to back off a few steps. “Perhaps you don't understand,” he said, now earnest. “This goes much further than me.”
It made me laugh. “I was hoping,” I said. “Tell me, Franklin...”
“That's not my name,” he interrupted, defensively. “I just said that because I gave you the hundred dollar bill.”
“Fine. You want to tell me your real name, then?”
“No, but...”
“So listen up, Franklin: how do you know who I am and what I'm doing here? As far as I know there's only one person in the world who knows what I'm up to, and she ain't you. I don't know who you are, but I've got a pretty good idea who you work for, and if you're smart, you'll know that the old regime is crumbling in this city. You might as well give in before you end up part of the rubble.”
He tried on that wicked leer of his for size. “I don't know what you're talking about.”
I wrapped my hand around his skinny green tie and pulled him up by it far enough to lift him up but not so far that he wasn't touching the ground. His lips pursed and his cheeks expanded as if he forgot that he could still breathe. I took the hundred dollar bill and shoved it in the band of his hat, right next to the feather. Then I pushed him away. His legs didn't catch him properly and he fell on his backside on the concrete.
I took one more step in his direction and it was enough. Franklin forgot his job and he scampered off to find someone bigger and stronger to deal with me. In order to do that he would have to go back to his source. Just what I was counting on.
He threw himself into the front seat of a red Chevy parked across the street and got up to speed in half a second. To get to where he was going h had to pass by me and when he did his eyes danced in horror, as if I might grab hold of the running boards and tear his car apart with my bare hands. No need for that. All I had to do was follow. I ran to the Buick and hauled it back on to the road.
The way was paved with even more telephone poles and booths, too many to count. It was almost as if Franklin was following the poles themselves, because even when he turned right off Mission City Drive and on to Blakeslee then left on to Valley, the poles and booths never decreased in their frequency. He knew I was following. He took his turns too fast and ran stop signs and drove a good thirty miles an hour over the local limits. I stayed a good distance back but the local traffic cops still could have nabbed me for speeding. Finally, Franklin tried a cute maneuver in the parking lot of the Newton Bank and Trust on Valley that was supposed to lose me, so I made him think that he lost me. He came out in an alley, and headed up Parmenter Street, started observing the traffic laws again with ignorant bliss.
The red Chevy parked in front of an unmarked building. I pulled off a half a block away and watched him get out. Franklin fairly skipped into the building without a care in the world. Boy, he didn't know what was going to hit him.
Where has the mysterious Franklin gone? And could the contents of the building lead to the evidence against Congressman Dixon? Find out in the next episode of The Adventures of Rocky Stone!
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