The Sweet and the Dead

by Milton T. Burton

  “Is that a fact?” he asked, his eyebrows raised questioningly.

  “Indeed it is,” I said. “And the two of you are more alike than either of you would ever admit.”

  He gazed at me long and hard, then stuck out his hand. “Come see us, Hog.”

  Forty-six

  Back when I was a kid everybody around Fredericksburg had horses. Mine was a quarter horse who-knows-what cross, a longlegged sorrel gelding named Dink who could go like the wind. Until girls became the dominant factor in my life in the tenth grade, I lived to get home from school every day and get him saddled. Ever since I’d put in for retirement I’d intended to get back into riding if for no other reason than much-needed exercise. Then a couple of weeks earlier I’d seen a horse that interested me while Nell and I were out driving in the country north of town. I’d even gone so far as to call the number on the For Sale sign and talk to the owner. Everybody claimed that Bobby Culpepper was very knowledgeable about all things equestrian, and at the time I’d thought about asking him to go look the horse over for me. But I’d gotten busy with the upcoming operation, and the project had been sidetracked. Now it was on my front burner. A second phone call to the owner confirmed that the animal was still available.

  The next morning I phoned Culpepper at his apartment. There was only a moment’s hesitation when I made my request. “Sure, Hog,” he said. “Did you want to do it today?”

  “If possible,” I replied.

  “Well, I got to be downtown on some business this morning, but I’ll be through by noon.”

  “Why don’t I pick you up in front of the courthouse at twelve?” I asked quickly. “Then after we see the nag I’ll buy us lunch.”

  “Yeah, sure,” came his laconic response.

  We were both on time, and soon we were across the bay and speeding up Highway 15.

  “How far from town is it?” he asked.

  “About twenty miles. Nell and I found it the other day when we were out riding around.”

  “What breed are we talking about? A thoroughbred? Quarter horse? What?”

  “American saddlebred,” I replied.

  “They’re good horses,” he said. “Solid, calm, easy to handle. If it had been a thoroughbred I’d have told you to shoot the damn thing instead of buying it. They aren’t fit for anything but the racetrack.”

  I nodded and we rode along in silence for a few minutes, then I said, “Listen, Bobby, I really appreciate this in light of the past. After all, I arrested you couple of times.”

  “Well, Hog,” he replied in his deep voice, “to tell you the truth when you first showed up in Biloxi and got thick with Jasper, I really resented it. But I got to thinking, and finally came to realize that when you were a cop you were just doing your job. I mean, we all got to get by, and that’s just what you were having to do back then to put the groceries on the table. Besides, from what I keep hearing, you’re in a pretty good pickle over there in Dallas. I mean, it really looks like you may get jammed up on the deal. I got sympathy for anybody facing a murder charge.”

  “I can beat it, Bobby.”

  “You sure?” he asked. “How?”

  “Alibi.”

  “You got somebody good to alibi you, Hog?”

  “No, but I will have if it goes to trial.”

  His big sullen face broke into what passed for a Bobby Dwayne smile, and he gave out a deep braying laugh. “You all right, ol’ Hog. You know that?”

  “Indeed ...” I murmured.

  “Besides, I got the idea that Danny Boy wasn’t your first score anyway.”

  “Does Macy’s tell Gimbel’s?” I asked cheerfully.

  He gave me another rumbling laugh, then said, “You know, we both lucked out on this carnival deal.”

  “Damn right,” I agreed. “What made you steer clear of it?”

  “I dunno. I just thought it stunk from the first. I mean, Jasper has always been a fool for splashy publicity and that colors his judgment—”

  “No shit,” I snorted.

  “What about you?” he asked. “I thought you were in whole hog, if you’ll pardon the pun. How come you pulled out at the last minute?”

  “It wasn’t me,” I lied smoothly. “It was Weller. I mean, his antennae picked up some bad vibes. That old man’s got fine-tuned instincts, and they saved both our hides.”

  “Really? I thought maybe your cop experience flashed you some kind of alarm.”

  “Nope,” I said firmly. “It’s nothing I’m proud to admit, but if it hadn’t been for Hardhead I’d have charged right on in there and got what the rest of them did.”

  “Jesus ...”

  “Tell me about it,” I said.

  The horse was in a pasture of about ten acres that lay better than a mile from the nearest house. When we pulled up it trotted over to the fence. Culpepper knew what he was doing, and he had the sort of big, slow-moving hands that are reassuring to horses. He opened its mouth and examined its teeth carefully, checked its feet, and looked it over good. “How old did they claim it was?” he asked.

  “Seven years,” I answered.

  “That’s about right,” he said. “How much are they asking?”

  “Five hundred.”

  “If it doesn’t have any bad habits that you’re aware of, I’d advise you to buy it. It’s really a fine-blooded animal.”

  “That’s what I wanted to know.”

  On the way back I asked, “Where do you want to eat? My treat, so anywhere in town—”

  “How about the Grotto?” he asked. “I never can get enough shrimp when I’m down here.”

  “We’ll do it,” I said. “How about a stick of good weed to whet the old appetite first? I’ve still got some of that Colombian Jasper brought back from his gambling junket.”

  “Yeah, man,” he purred enthusiastically. “He told me about that. Hog Webern, the tokin’ lawman. Haul that shit out and let’s fire it up.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t like to stink up my car,” I told him. “Why don’t we pull over someplace and have a drink along with it.”

  “Good enough.”

  A mile farther down I turned off onto a rutted lane I knew that led up to an abandoned barn. I wheeled the deVille around so it was pointed back up the lane, and then reached for the glove compartment. “Let’s stretch our legs and have that toke,” I said.

  “Sure,” he replied.

  I took out a pint of Teacher’s and stepped from the car. Culpepper got out on the other side, and we both walked around to the back of the car. I reached in my coat pocket and pulled out a bomber joint I’d rolled that morning at home. I handed it to him and said, “Light up.”

  I cracked the seal on the bottle and raised it to my lips while he touched the flame of his lighter to the end of the joint and sucked the first hit deep down into his lungs. It was a fine day. The breeze blowing in off the Gulf was a little too cool, but the sun was bright and the sky was free of clouds and as blue as it was ever going to be. The whiskey tasted smoky and rich, but as much as I loved good scotch, I hardly felt it going down. Culpepper took another toke and stood patiently waiting his turn at the bottle, his handsome, running-to-fat features sagging a little with the incipient age that now would never come, his normally feral eyes placidly taking in the last scenes they would ever see. I capped the bottle and tossed it over to him, and while he was catching it I slipped the little silenced Colt Woodsman from my pocket and put a bullet through the top of his right foot.

  It took him a couple of seconds to react, and by that time I’d zeroed in on his other foot. I squeezed the trigger a second time and moved well back away from him. He tried to take a step forward and collapsed to his hands and knees. “Jesus, Hog!!” he exclaimed. “What in the name of God are you doing?”

  I waited a few moments before I answered, giving his system time to accommodate the pain and shock. Then I said, “It’s payback time, Bobby Dwayne. Time to settle the accounts.”

  “Payback? What did I ever
do to you?”

  “Not me. Benny Weiss, my old partner.”

  “Oh, God!” he groaned hopelessly. “How did you find out about that?”

  “Your wife ratted you out,” I replied with a harsh laugh. “In fact, she ratted out everybody she knew. They had her on thirteen counts of interstate prostitution, and she was looking at some hard time. So she rolled over, and she’s been sneaking off and talking to the feds for a month now. They’re going to set her up somewhere in a different part of the country with a new name and a new career. I hear she’s already found herself a new boyfriend.”

  There was a sick expression on his face. “That sorry bitch,” he muttered.

  “Well, hell, Bobby…You knew she was a whore when you married her. What else can you expect when you marry a woman like that?”

  He didn’t answer. Instead he scrambled around where he could sit. Then he tried to cross his legs Indian fashion, but the pain in his feet was too much. Finally he stuck them straight out in front of him and braced himself with his arms, grimacing with the effort.

  I waited calmly until he was able to look back up at me once again, then I said, “You’re over and done with, Bobby Dwayne. The only thing left to decide is whether you go hard or easy.”

  “It was a contract deal, Hog. I was in a jam and needed the money bad or I wouldn’t have fooled with no cop. I didn’t have nothing against him. I swear.”

  I shook my head in wonder. “Do you really think that makes me feel any better? Now I want to know who was behind it.”

  “I can’t do it,” he said, no doubt trying to evoke in his mind the hoods’ code of stoic silence that had never really existed and never would. “I don’t snitch people out, ever—”

  “Oh, sure you do,” I said, cutting him off. “You’ve done it before, and you’ll do it now. A couple through the kneecaps and you’ll sing me the Catechism. Make it easy on yourself.”

  I aimed the little Colt at his right knee and waited. It didn’t take him long to cave. It never does with his kind. I once read about an eighteen-year-old French girl who was part of the Resistance, tortured by the Nazis for twenty-seven days before she finally died, and she never gave up a thing. But not the great Bobby Dwayne Culpepper. He drew in a big hitching breath and nodded in resignation. “Okay, okay. It was a guy named Owen Marcel up in Texarkana,” he said. “He steered the deal.”

  “Owen Marcel the bookie?”

  He nodded. “Yeah ...”

  “Owen never knew Benny.”

  “He just got a fee as a go-between. It was set up for some guy here in Mississippi.”

  “But who contacted Owen Marcel?”

  “Sam Lodke.”

  “Shit!” I said. “But why Lodke? What in the hell did he have against Benny?”

  “Owen said that Sam was fronting for some cop out of Jackson who had an old score to settle. Since he and Sam both stood to get some slack from this guy in the future, they went for it. And that’s all I know, I swear.”

  And I knew just which cop it had to be, too. I just didn’t know why. But I knew how to find out. “How about Danny Boy?” I asked. “Why did you do him?”

  “Damn! You know about that, too?”

  I laughed and my laughter sounded a little crazy in my own ears. “There’s no secrets in this business, you fool. Now give it up.”

  “It was a contract job too. Through Owen.”

  “Who was behind it?”

  “I think maybe it was the same guy. The cop who—”

  “That sounds about right,” I said with a nod.

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Oh, you’re about to get it. Don’t worry.”

  “Hog—” he began.

  I shook my head and gave him a cold smile. “You’re there, Bobby Dwayne. The place we all wonder about, and now it’s quittin’ time.”

  “Don’t do it, Hog,” he begged, the fear sick and heavy in his voice. “Please ...”

  I put a Remington hollow-point right in the center of his forehead and drove away with a song in my heart. On the way back to town I pulled off to the side long enough to throw the Colt into a deep bar-ditch, then I cruised on into Biloxi and ate a late lunch of Gulf oysters at Karl’s Grotto. Back at my room I lay down for a nap and slept like a baby for two hours. When I woke up I reflected for a while on the nature of what I’d just done. I’d known other cops who had crossed that line, always for reasons they felt were justified. But I’d never been tempted until now. And I was well aware that the time might come when I’d have regrets, maybe in those long, cold hours after midnight when sleep is elusive and the ghosts dance mockingly in the back of the mind. But for the moment I felt as good as I ever had in my life.

  Forty-seven

  The next afternoon I drove down to the Gold Dust and found the place almost empty. I told the bartender that I needed to see Sam Lodke, then I got a beer and went back over to the booth where I’d spent so much of my life in the last few weeks. I scooted over into the corner where Jasper Sparks had so often sat. The perspective there wasn’t anything impressive. Just a dingy old strip joint that smelled of beer and stale cigarette smoke. Fifteen minutes later Lodke came hobbling up. I didn’t waste time on false pleasantries; I’d passed enough casual conversation with these people to do me for a lifetime. “Sit down, Sam,” I told him.

  “Sure, Hog,” he replied. “What’s on your mind?”

  “I saw you and Curtis Blanchard up in Jackson the day after Christmas,” I said. “In that coffee shop by the capitol building.”

  He closed his eyes for a moment, then took a deep breath and raised his eyelids to look across at me impassively. His skin gave him away, though. The room was cool and dry, but a fine film of sweat had sprung up on his forehead.

  “You see,” I continued, “catching the two of you together that way got me to thinking. I just couldn’t figure out what the biggest damn thief on the coast was doing talking to the chief inspector of the state police. Finally, the only conclusion I could come up with is that you’re his prime snitch. Ain’t that a gas? Everybody thinks you’re the kingpin around here, the guy who steers all the jobs, banks the money, takes care of the widows and orphans. You steer the jobs, all right. And you take your cut off the top, and every now and then you set somebody up. Then there’s a big lurid shootout where Curtis Blanchard gets all the credit. And I know something else, too. I know you steered the hit on Benny Weiss.”

  He blanched, truly frightened now. “What do you want?” he asked in a near whisper.

  “Information. And if I don’t get it, me and Bob Wallace will put out to every informant in three states what you’ve been doing. It’ll be a miracle if you live another month. But if you come clean right now I’ll give you a clear pass on Benny’s death. I don’t like it, but you were just the middleman, and I realize I’ve got to give up something to get something. I’m after the big fish, and that makes me willing to trade your life for the information I need.”

  He was silent for the longest time, looking down at the table, barely moving. “Okay,” he finally said with a resigned sigh. “What do you want first?”

  “Let’s hear why Blanchard had Benny killed. And Danny Boy Sheffield, too, while we’re at it. Then I want to know all about the carnival caper.”

  Without even hesitating he gave me a morose nod.

  “And one further thing,” I said. “Just in case you’re tempted to entertain any cute notions since we’re alone here, you need to keep in mind that Nell Bigelow and her father are both very aware of where I am right now and what I’m doing.”

  “Can I go get me a drink first?” he asked.

  “It’s your bar, Sam,” I said with a dismissive shrug. “Get anything you want. But if you’ll bring that bottle of Teacher’s and a couple of glasses over here, I’ll buy.”

  After I returned to my apartment I spent a half hour on the telephone with Nell’s dad. “It was just like we thought,” I told him. “Blanchard set it up from the very beginning. An
d there’s something else that’s even worse.”

  “Yeah? What could be worse?”

  I quickly told him about Blanchard’s involvement in the death of Benny Weiss, omitting the killer’s name and his recent demise.

  “Where do we go from here?” he asked, his voice heavy.

  “That depends on you,” I said. “But have you seen the TV publicity he’s been getting? He may be in a position to get elected governor of Mississippi without your help.”

  “Oh, no doubt about it. He’s already picked up some strong support in the last few days. In fact, I doubt that he can be stopped at this point.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, and that’s the trouble with democracy,” he said, his deep voice rumbling across the miles. “Sometimes it’s just too damn democratic. I got my own notions about this situation, but what do you think we ought to do?”

  I told him.

  Later that afternoon I called Weller’s home in Birmingham and left a message with his wife that it was urgent for him to get in touch with me. Before an hour had passed the phone rang, and it was the old man. He agreed to meet me at five the next afternoon at Mattie’s Ballroom on the Strip.

  After supper that evening Nell and I sat on her aunt’s front porch for a while. It was cool, but we were both bundled up in thick sweaters and had a bottle of well-aged Napoleon brandy along to stoke the fires.

  “So you talked to Daddy today?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” I replied absently.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “I was just wondering if we might ever get to the point that we’re as bad as Jasper and the rest of those guys. Do you think so?”

  “I don’t know, Manfred,” she replied. “I certainly hope not, though I think Curtis has. You said he didn’t even give them a chance to surrender out there that night?”

  “Hell no.”

  “And you expected him to? I mean, you had sort of a tacit understanding?”