“He’ll be right down,” his father said, and hung up. “They want to set up a barricade, just in case. I won’t walk with you. Be careful. I’ll be here all day if you need me.”

“Thanks.” It was a bit of paternal support, and it felt comforting. It had muscle behind it, the authority of a long-time high-ranking cop. If Clausen had turned as sour as his own evidence of August 12 indicated, Leland could need all the official help he could get. Any police department in the state could pick up his license on demand, and then he would have to struggle with the State Bureau of Licenses to get it back. It was not in that instance that he wanted help, but today, if he antagonized someone and jammed. Officials in Clausen, with something to worry about, would avoid making powerful enemies. In their own camp they could wield terrible power, like not providing police when they were needed. It was from outside that they were the most tender, and because of our multiple governments, most accessible.

Every public servant knew how it worked. Someone saw someone else with his mitt in the basket and was stricken by nothing more or less than envy. The money was quick, big enough and, almost best of all, tax-free. A patrolman who saw his captain carrying home a case of liquor turned up at Christmas at the same bar for a bottle or two. Someone taking the chance for bigger money incited the others that much more. Workmen saw their bosses paying building inspectors and thereupon took away everything not driven into the ground. If a cop knew of others taking and had no chance to take himself, he let down. Citizens saw him lounging against buildings, smoking on the street, hustling groceries. A fireman who saw a buddy stuffing a television set into his chief’s car broke down inside. Could the chief get discipline then? A fire battalion or a station house could keep clean if its officers stayed clean and made the ranks toe the line. A little man could be broken into his job or busted out of the department. But when the money leak was big enough, there was a stampede. Even a captain’s morale caved if the pressure came from too many directions. The wife of a captain earning fourteen thousand was still not very well dressed when there were school tuitions and a mortgage. Could he take her nagging, spurred by her friends’ derision, for very long, when the money to be taken was floating on the surface, helping or hurting no one real, and he could look in the mirror and see someone cleverer than before and, really, not more evil? It was not so much a stampede as an epidemic, and there was no one who could not be weakened enough to succumb to an infection cultured to the size he thought he was.