The Sweet and the Dead

by Milton T. Burton

  Like any sane cop, I’d always wanted the people I arrested to come along peacefully. However, if they were in the mood for a little roughhouse, I’d been willing to oblige them, and back in my younger years I actually got a thrill out of physical confrontation. That was then. Now I was older, if not especially wiser. Too old for rolling around on the ground biting ears and gouging eyes, and my body paid the price quickly. By the time I got back home I was beginning to stiffen up, and my lower rib cage just over my left kidney was in agony. I poured three inches of Teacher’s into a glass and washed down two of Jasper’s Percodans. Then I called Blanchard’s home number.

  He answered on the third ring, and the sleep dissolved from his voice as soon as I identified myself. I quickly told him of the killings at the Gold Dust. “If you move quick you should be able to catch them with the bodies,” I said.

  “Now, hold on, Hog,” he said. “That may not be the route we need to take at all.”

  “What!?” I asked in astonishment. “Jasper Sparks dead-bang on a double murder? You don’t want that?”

  “Sure I want it. But that’s not all I want.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I still intend to nail the rest of that bunch, not just Sparks. If you break cover now we may never get them. Besides, with you as a witness we’ve got him on the killings for sure. We just don’t need to be in a hurry to do anything about it.”

  I was shocked. Truly shocked. It’s not uncommon in police work to hold back on lesser charges to protect an operation. But I’d never heard of it being done with murder. I didn’t like it, and I said so. “This sucks, Curtis,” I told him firmly. “Those two guys he killed probably have families, maybe even wives and kids. And you’re letting Jasper walk?”

  “Not walk. Not permanently, anyway. Just a little stroll down the beach is all. But I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll make sure the bodies get found quickly, if that will make you feel better. I think we can do that much without any risk. Then we’ll see who the victims were. I doubt that they were too respectable or they wouldn’t have been out drinking and looking for pussy in one of Sam Lodke’s joints at that time of the evening.”

  “Drinking and getting laid aren’t crimes,” I said.

  “I know that, and I’m not moralizing. I’m just commenting on the reality of the situation, which is that the Gold Dust doesn’t attract the carriage trade.”

  “I don’t like it,” I said.

  “I don’t either, Hog. But that’s the way it has to be. You said the car was a Buick?”

  “Yeah,” I replied. “A 1970-model Electra, bone white.”

  “I’ll have people searching for it first thing in the morning. And I know about where to have them look. These guys are creatures of habit, and in the last couple of years they’ve dumped a half dozen cars with bodies in the trunks at this one particular area about fifty miles north of Biloxi. When we find it we’ll tell the press that some hunter stumbled across it.”

  “Shouldn’t I give you a formal statement about what happened tonight?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I guess that would probably be a good idea,” he said without much interest. “Just write it out by hand and mail it to me.”

  When I hung up my hair was trying to stand on end despite his reassurances. Suddenly I saw the wisdom of taking out a little insurance to cover my ass. While I could be placed at the club at the time of the killing, I could still set myself up an alibi for the time while the bodies were being dumped. Across from my apartment building sat an all-night truck stop called the 45 Grill that dated back to the 1940s. The owner was a Biloxi fixture named Hoyt Mangee, a thin, weathered man of seventy who’d been one of the Gulf Coast’s legendary fishing guides at one time. For reasons I never understood, Hoyt worked the graveyard shift. I think he had trouble sleeping, but whatever his motivation, he was almost always on duty by midnight. Since I’d been in town he and I had struck up a casual friendship.

  I finished my scotch and put the bottle into a paper bag to take with me, intending to entice Hoyt into sharing a late-night drink. Then I locked my apartment and walked across the street to the 45. I loved the ambiance of the old place. It was a museum of memorabilia he’d acquired in a long and full life—newspaper clippings, old fishing gear, and photographs of record fish and famous people he’d guided in years gone by. Prominent behind the register was a large framed shot of him and John Steinbeck with their arms around each other at the Flamingo Bar in Key West in 1946, both drunker than Cooter Brown.

  There were only two customers there that night, along with a single waitress and the cook. Hoyt was manning the cash register near the door. “Let somebody else skin the marks,” I said. “Come on back and let’s talk.”

  He nodded and I headed for the booth in the far corner of the room. As soon as he sat down I made a point of asking him the time and then doodling around with my watch like I was setting it. But I was really making sure he was aware of the time of my arrival. The old man was in the mood for more than one drink that night, and it was after 4:00 A.M. when I finally returned home, floating back across the street on a pink cloud of alcohol and Percodan.

  Eighteen

  I felt like hell when I woke at noon the next day, and I was so stiff I could hardly rise from my bed. After a hot shower, two more Percodans, and a plate of bacon and eggs along with plenty of black coffee at the 45 Grill, I was beginning to feel halfway human. I came back to my apartment and lolled around on the bed for a while, watching a game show without much interest. I was just about to take a drive down the beach to get some fresh air when the phone rang. It was Blanchard. “The car was found in the area where I expected it to be found about ten this morning,” he said.

  “Who were the victims?” I asked.

  “One of them was a petty criminal named Richard DuFay. He’s got a sheet with a few things on it, a couple of small-time residential burglaries, shoplifting, that kind of minor shit.”

  “And the other one?”

  “He was a square guy, a shrimper by the name of Johnny Drucker. He was DuFay’s cousin, but neither guy was married, so no fatherless kids are left behind or anything like that.”

  “It’s still bad, Curtis,” I said. “And I don’t like it.”

  “Neither do I, Hog. But we’ll nail Jasper and Arps both on this when the time comes. Holding off now is for the greater good.”

  “What about the local cops?”

  “They may come to see you since you were seen having an altercation with them, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. The Biloxi cops aren’t too efficient.”

  “Okay,” I said. “And by the way…anything more on Benny’s killer?”

  “No, but I hope we’re going to have a break on that in a few days. My guy in Gulfport is nosing around as strong as he dares.”

  “Good,” I said. “Now, on this thing with Jasper, I’ll do it your way since I don’t see that I have any other choice. But I’m going to tell Bob Wallace, if for no other reason than to try to cover my ass.”

  “Your ass is perfectly safe,” he said with a laugh. “But go ahead and tell Bob if it makes you feel better. I think he’ll see it my way. See ya, Hog.”

  Over the next couple of days I dropped back in the Gold Dust three or four times. The Biloxi cops had come by and asked a few routine questions, but apparently nobody said anything about my little disagreement with the deceased. I wasn’t too surprised. The Gold Dust was that kind of joint—a place where everybody you talked to was a brimming fount of wisdom, but where no one ever knew anything.

  Bob Wallace didn’t like it either, but he was willing to go along with Blanchard. “If it was me,” he said when I told him, “I’d make the murder case right now and forget about the carnival robbery. But it ain’t me, so let’s give him the benefit of the doubt.”

  Nineteen

  I kept my appointment with Eula Dent, and she turned out to be a surprise. Her office was in a renovated nineteenth-century building only a couple of blocks fr
om the courthouse. I only had to wait a couple of minutes before her secretary showed me into her inner sanctum, a homey pine-paneled chamber that held a desk, a pair of comfortable chairs, and three old-fashioned oak filing cabinets. I’d been expecting a hard-eyed old hooker whose Drewery Holler background could be read in her face. Instead, the Queen Mother of the Biloxi underworld turned out to be a classy, well-preserved woman in her midfifties. Dressed in a stylish green wool skirt and a cream silk blouse, she could have passed for an English professor at an Ivy League university. She was about five five, slim and well-toned, with short, dark hair that showed a heavy sprinkling of silver. And she was still sexy enough that I could easily see why she made Freddie Ray Arps want to go out and howl at the moon back in her younger days. Had I met her cold I would have taken her at face value as a talented and intelligent professional woman who was worlds apart from the likes of Jasper Sparks.

  That same evening Nell and I went to the party. Dolly turned out to be a kittenish little blond in her midtwenties with a sweet cameo face and worried eyes. How a man like Avalon had wound up with her was a puzzle to me. But the minute I saw her I knew that I wanted to make things as easy on her as I possibly could. So I greeted Billy Jack like a long-lost brother, and a great load seemed to lift from her shoulders. Most of the Gold Dust regulars were there, with Sam Lodke even stopping by for a few minutes. Jasper was back from his Central American junket. He had the little redhead on his arm, and she was decked out in a short, low-cut dress that put her knockers in everybody’s face. Several square couples were present also, and I guessed they were neighbors. The party passed without a hitch except for Billy Jack trying to pump me on Jasper’s current plans. Nell and I stayed to help clean up. It had been a nice evening, but Little Dolly’s eyes were sad, and when she said good-bye to us at the door she hugged Nell like she was afraid she’d never see her again.

  The next day Jasper and I went up to Jackson to get the guns for the job. We roared out of Biloxi in his Mark III like the demons of hell were after us, and went charging northward with the speedometer locked on ninety and him tooted to the gills. We also had a lid of Colombian weed onboard that he’d brought me from Central America, plus both of us were packing handguns. But that was the Dixie Mafia style. Subtlety and misdirection were never part of their strategy.

  “Did Billy Jack act snoopy to you at the party?” Sparks asked me once we were a few miles out of town.

  “Yeah,” I replied. “He knows something’s up.”

  “Shit! I thought so. He kept hinting around at me too. That fucker’s gotta go, Hog. Otherwise he may blow the whole thing.”

  “Wait until after the first of the year at least,” I said. “Until then tell him that you may have something coming up that he can get in on. String him along if you can.”

  “Why wait?”

  “Why not? As dumb as Billy Jack is, we might be able to side-track him until it’s all over. It would be better to wait until after the score goes down if we can. We don’t need any kind of heat at all right now.”

  “Maybe you’re right.”

  “I know I am,” I said firmly.

  “Okay. We’ll try it like you say.”

  “It’s better, I guarantee,” I said. “By the way, what’s the story on the guns?”

  “We’re getting them from a guy named Doyle Ward. Ever heard of him?”

  “I don’t think so,” I replied.

  “He’s an old-time gunrunner, a really heavy character. Shit, he’s been selling stuff to South American revolutionaries of one kind or another since back in the 1930s. I mean, he ran guns to Castro when he was hiding in the hills trying to oust Batista. Then as soon as Castro took over he began selling shit to anticommunist groups that were trying to overthrow him, and he’s been supplying them ever since. In fact, he even sold a bunch of stuff to the CIA to help equip that Bay of Pigs bunch.”

  “No joke?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Amazing, ain’t it? I’m telling you that if Doyle knew of two guys who were out to get one another, he’d sell ‘em each a piece. And then he’d sell one to the grieving widow if she wanted revenge.”

  “Where does he get them?” I asked.

  “Everywhere. A bunch of what he’s been sending to the anti-communist people in Cuba is stuff he bought from some corrupt general in the Czech army.”

  “You’re not kidding me, are you?”

  “It’s the gospel truth,” he said with a grin. “The guy heads up their quartermaster’s corps over there. But it happens all the time in Eastern Europe. Russia too, I’ve heard. I mean, their system is so fucked up that the only way a guy can get ahead is to play the black market for all it’s worth. Ain’t the world a grand place? Think about it a minute. Here we are, great big capitalistic America selling fighter planes to the commies in Yugoslavia while the commies in Czechoslovakia are selling guns through Doyle to the anticommie rebels in the Caribbean. Does any of this shit make sense to you?”

  “Not much,” I agreed. “Have you done business with this Ward guy before?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Many times. My needs are just nickel-and-dime stuff to him, but he always accommodates me. You see, I like to use weapons that I know are clean on an operation like this. I mean, say you let a guy bring his own piece and somebody winds up getting smoked with it. Then the asshole neglects to get rid of it. Next thing you know the damn thing shows up in his car on some chickenshit search for who knows what, and they match up the ballistics. Then they got him, and if he’s staring down into fifty-to-life, he might decide to roll over just to make things a little easier on himself, you know? Then everybody’s fucked. But I get guns I know are clean, issue them, then after the caper they go straight into the drink even if they haven’t been fired. Neat and tidy. More guys been sunk by guns they hung on to than anything else.”

  “I’m with you on that,” I said.

  In Jackson we pulled into an alleyway only four blocks from the capitol building. After a few minutes a big green Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight glided up behind us. We went around to the back of the Lincoln while two well-dressed but tough-looking young white men climbed from the other car. In a matter of seconds ten 9mm Star semiautomatic pistols were lodged in the Mark III’s trunk, the men had been paid, and we were on our way.

  “I take it your friend Doyle didn’t come,” I said.

  He shook his head. “Doyle is out in Vegas, as always. He’s got a half dozen guys working for him. You know, doing the drudge shit.”

  We stopped at a fancy steak house for dinner, then went rocketing out of town like the old Fireball Mail. A few miles south of Jackson Jasper pulled over to the side of the highway, and said, “Say, Hog, why don’t you take the helm for a while? I’m so blasted I’m seeing about four sets of lines down the middle of this fucking road.”

  I got behind the wheel and we were on our way at a more sedate speed. A few minutes later he asked, “What’s it like to be working the other side of the law now, man? I mean, are you having a lot of anxiety and all that shit?”

  I shook my head. “Not much different than I’d feel with a big bust coming up,” I said. “Just kind of excited, if you know what I mean.”

  “Sure, I got it. Same way with me. I think we got a pretty good crew in the works here. But you know, I kinda look at ol’ Hardhead as the centerpiece of the deal, if you get my drift. The linchpin, the guy that holds it all together. I mean, like just having his presence in the endeavor gives everybody strong morale. You know what I mean?”

  “Sure,” I said. “He’s steady, ain’t he?”

  “Like a fucking rock. I bet he’s done a dozen guys over the years. And some of them were very high dollar hits.”

  “So I’ve heard. What’s his technique?”

  He laughed. “Shit, he ain’t got no one technique. Knives, bombs, guns. Maybe even can openers, too, for all I know. You name it, he’s used it. But his favorite way is high-powered rifles. I’ve heard him say he likes the luxury of dist
ance that a high-powered rifle gives you.”

  “Really?” I asked with interest.

  “Yeah. A couple of times he’s used these Remington-model 700 magnum deals with heavy target barrels. Big Leopould ten-power scopes, laminated stocks, glass bedding, all that good shit. Then he tunes those mothers up and hand loads his own ammunition until he’s got a rig that can shoot into a half inch at a hundred yards. That means he can keep his shots in a three-inch circle at three hundred yards, and with that kind of accuracy he can take out a human head with no trouble at all at that distance.”

  “Interesting,” I said.

  “Fucking lot of trouble is what it is,” he replied. “My idea is just get ‘em off alone someplace and then blow them away. Fuck all this cloak-and-dagger bullshit when it comes to a hit. Just do it.”

  “He’s never gone down for a hit, Jasper,” I said. “Smaller shit, yeah. But never a hit, and that’s something to think about.”

  “Hey, that’s right! You’ve seen everybody’s sheets. That must be a gas. What’s mine say?”

  “Well, Mr. Sparks,” I replied pontifically, “your police file indicates that you are a naughty young miscreant who associates with ladies of questionable character and ingests unnatural substances into his body.”

  “Ahhh-ha-ha ...” he laughed. “You’re the man, Hog. But you know, it’s funny about Hardhead. He don’t like to do squares. Just people in the game. And people who seem to be squares but who operate on the edges of the game. Like Eula Dent.”

  “What about Eula?” I asked anxiously. “He’s not planning to take her out, is he?”

  “Nahhh…I was just giving you an example. See, Hardhead really don’t like these respectable people who have their rackets going under cover. He’s always been an up-front bandit, and that’s what he respects.”

  “Interesting,” I said.

  “Yeah. Hey, you follow the Braves?” he asked, abruptly switching gears from murder to baseball. “Things look pretty good for them with that new pitcher they signed up out of North Carolina. ...”