Free Judas Cat by Dorothy Salisbury Davis

that’s that. Take the county offices. Hardly anybody would say they weren’t corrupt. It’s a joke that all the slot machines get carted away before elections. Do they get destroyed? Oh no. It’s the same old machines operating on the same old corners two months after the same state’s attorney goes back into office. I’ll tell you one thing, Joan. I’ve done a lot of thinking since I’ve been back. The good warm feeling of being home wears off, especially when you see people like Altman in the easy chair next to you. And sometimes when I think of the energy it would take, the expense, the time, to dislodge him … let alone the guys he emulates up at the county, it makes me sick to my stomach. The waste of it, Joan. The horrible, sickening waste.”
    Joan watched the ornament on the car hood seem to ride the center marker of the road for a while. “I don’t think you’re right, Alex,” she said, her voice just carrying above the sound of the motor. “I was thinking tonight how little time, really, the whole long life of Andy Mattson was. From what you’ve just said you could go to two things. You could say that every good effort you make is wasted, for you, at least, and you’ll forgive me if I say you’re setting a very high store by your values—and mind, I agree with them. Or you set yourself up as the sole authority on what’s right and wrong. Again, I’d agree with you now, but I might not always agree with you. To put it very simply, Alex, I don’t think time spent fighting corruption even on its lowest plane is time lost. In fact, I think that’s the only place to fight it. There at least, you know what you’re fighting.”
    “But is there time, Joan? Is there time?”
    “There’s time enough,” she said. “There has to be.”
    They were in Masontown then. Alex looked at the gasoline gauge. “I’d better get some gas before they close up.” He pulled into a station at the one traffic light between Hillside and Riverdale.
    “Hi, Whitie,” the attendant said. “What team you playing with this year?”
    “Fabry’s gang. We’re all old men.”
    “Fill her up?”
    “Got change for twenty, Phil?”
    “No, I don’t, Whitie. I just sent my money up to the bank.”
    “Make it a dollar’s worth then.”
    When the attendant came around to take the money, he stuck his head in the window and said “hello” to Joan. “I hear an old guy up your way got murdered today, Whitie. That a fact?”
    “If it is, the coroner’s going to be surprised,” Alex said. “He returned a verdict of death from natural causes.”
    “Oh.” The man was obviously disappointed. “Funny how things get twisted up, ain’t it?”
    “Not always,” Alex said, starting the motor. “Good night, Phil.”
    Ten minutes later they reached the limits of the county seat. Riverdale had grown into one of the ugliest towns in the state. It had about it the look of age without permanence. At its edge the houses were squat and unfinished looking, although most of them had been there for years. In many places a second house had been built on the lot intended for one dwelling and perhaps a little square for gardening. After seasonal layoffs, the workers had sold half their land to a new influx of laborers, hoping in that way to lay up enough against the next hard pull. This practice scarcely brought harmony to the community, selling to people they resented. And, all in all, it kept a large part of the population interested only in their own troubles, and impervious to town or county business.
    Alex pulled the car out of a streetcar rut, causing it to swerve sharply, and bob along the bricks. “Sorry, Joan,” he said.
    “I hate this street,” she said. “I hate the whole town, in fact.”
    The cemetery to their right was bogged down in weeds. Even in the dim street lights, the shadows of the uncut grass hung across the dusty tombstones. Beyond the cemetery on the lower level near the river, lay Plant Number 4 of the