The Slickers by L. Ron Hubbard

James England was an important fellow to Alaska. His station up there on the knoll is Alaska’s biggest and best. Now what’s going to happen to it? I depend on him, or rather did, for my advertising. What do you make of it?”
    â€œMake of what?” said Norton.
    â€œWhy, his murder.”
    â€œI thought they said it was suicide.”
    â€œThey said it was accidental.”
    â€œI wasn’t listening very closely.”
    â€œWhat do you make of it?”
    â€œWhy should I make anything of it? It’s none of my business.”
    â€œI thought you were in town to look into his disappearance.”
    â€œDid you?”
    â€œWell,” said Wagner, his dark face turned full on Norton now, “that was my impression. The Federal marshal wasn’t making any progress and so I thought you had been sent down to look into it.”
    â€œKnow anything about it?”
    â€œAbout his disappearance?”
    â€œYes.”
    Wagner looked closely at Norton but he couldn’t see through the rain and shadows well enough. “I know no more than anybody else. He had no enemies in particular and he was well loved.”
    â€œI heard differently,” said Norton.
    â€œNo man is worth his salt who hasn’t a few enemies,” said Wagner nervously. He stayed around for nearly a minute but nothing more was said and so, uncomfortably, he went away.
    Norton was glad he had gone. He wanted some more cold rain on his face. He wished corpses weren’t a part of a lawman’s business. At times like these he intensely regretted the small gold disc pinned to his wallet. That small gold disc sent him to such unseemly places.
    Ketchikan, for example.
    He looked at the rain and wondered that the skies were never emptied. A hundred and eighty inches a year was a tropical output with none of the tropical advantages. Of course it wasn’t as cold here as it was in Juneau . Far north though it was, it was as warm through the winter as most of the US coastal towns. If only it wouldn’t rain.
    Bill Norton did not much like this country. He had been in it six months, most of the six spent behind a desk in Juneau, the last spent wandering around Ketchikan trying to get a lead on a sack of “snow” and Jerry McCain. He had found the heroin leading nowhere so far as he could discover. And he had found no sign of FBI special agent Jerry McCain. There was no more “snow.” There was no trail whatever leading to the disappearance of his former boss. There was only rain. Rain and bars and drunken Indians and soldiers much drunker. Bill Norton, looking at the bobbing masthead and boom of a halibut boat tied to the Tamgas dock, was reminded of a gibbet .
    Up the slippery boards skated a burblingly active young man, one of Bill’s main responsibilities. Chick Star had just graduated from the School in Washington. Some clerk had sent him to Alaska on the first boat. Chick wore people out.
    â€œWhat’s the excitement?” said Chick.
    â€œCorpse,” said Norton diffidently.
    â€œAw, honest? Who, where?”
    â€œEngland. Drowned.”
    â€œGee! You finally located England? Gosh! Say, that’s good work! Gosh, why wasn’t I around?”
    â€œIf you’d stop chasing klootches you might get in on something sometime,” said Norton, bored.
    â€œKlootches,” said Chick in a hurt voice. “I don’t chase klootches. I can’t stand the sight of an Indian. Why would I chase klootches?”
    He was so earnestly involved, so gashed to the marrow, that Norton looked at him. Chick was six feet seven. He weighed two hundred and eighteen pounds. He ran into and knocked over things. He was twenty-three and serious. He was full of ambition. He polished his gold disc every night before he went to bed and carried his heavy Colt revolver to dances.
    â€œIf you don’t you’ll go nutty with this rain,” said Norton.
    â€œOh, I like the