Southern Select (The Dutch Curridge Series Book 2)

by Tim Bryant

  I knew we could drive by and pluck him away like a berry from a bush. The ride even tempted with the possibility of a real news story. How could he pass it up?

  I didn't want to go in alone, so Slant Face volunteered to join me. Dulcie, not feeling wanting to wait behind with Merriweather, Bismuke and Pudsey and who could blame her, came along too.

  "We look like winkin,' blinkin' and nod," I said.

  "I'll just stand there and nod then," said Slant.

  "I'll handle the winking," I said.

  I could see that Blinkin' and Nod were taking to each other just fine.

  We found Melvin with his feet up on his desk and an unlit cigar between his lips. He'd turned in his copy and was waiting to be cut free. He had no interest in traipsing out into the Acre.

  "I know what goes on down there," he said. "I don't need to see it for myself. I'll see you guys in the news tomorrow."

  We pushed and prodded, and he pulled with matching force. Adolphus Merriweather was going to do what? And we believed him? And Dulcie, I thought you had more sense, and Slant Face, is that your real name and where exactly are you from?

  "Pudsey's out in the car," I said.

  "What is a Pudsey?"

  "Your friend Walter Bismuke's out in the car," I said.

  "Actually, it's his car," said Slant Face.

  "Walter Bismuke? Walter Bismuke is out there?" Melvin said.

  Suddenly his feet were off the desk and on the floor, and he was standing at attention.

  "You told me to go see him, Melvin."

  "What is Walter Bismuke doing, driving you cats around town?" Melvin said.

  He was grabbing his coat and hat, which I took to mean there had been a change in disposition. Away we went, with Melvin yelling instruction to a copy editor over one shoulder and promising he would be back in on the following afternoon over the other. When we walked out onto the street, the first thing I saw was an empty parking space where we'd left the Savoy.

  27

  "That Pudsey fella took walked down that alley to take a piss, and he never came back," said Walter Bismuke.

  He was propped against the hood of his car with the headlights glossing off the windows of a long abandoned Chinese laundry and down an alley that seemed to disappear right through a crack in hell itself. Merriweather was in the front seat, pretty much just as we'd left him. I wasn't sure he was awake or even alive until he lifted his head and said, "I shot down the alley. I think I might have hit him."

  "You didn't hit shit," Bismuke said. "Ain't nothing down there but a wet spot on the wall."

  Bismuke came toward us, extending a handshake to Melvin.

  "He's only got four bullets left now, so let's hope Patrick Cavanaugh doesn't lead us into any dark passageways."

  Merriweather was holding the Smith & Wesson through the rolled down passenger-side window and pointing at the empty space where the alley began, cutting between two crooked buildings. If Pudsey dared to reappear there at the roadside, Merriweather was ready to make him dance.

  "I hope you didn't need to get little Pudsey back home before midnight," he said.

  Melvin walked around to the far side of the car and stepped in with the single-mindedness of someone on his way to a funeral.

  "Let's go see Peechie," said Slant Face, and we all piled back into the car in the same order we had before, except for Melvin Chambers replacing Pudsey.

  "We leaving the little guy here?" said Bismuke.

  He started the car and rolled up his window.

  "I think the little guy left us here, Walter," said Merriweather.

  And we were off, Merriweather seeing no reason to roll his window up. The September air was cool blowing on my face, and it brought back a little bit of my bite. I was intent on showing Chambers that the night held promise, even if Merriweather was in for a big letdown.

  "Walter," I said, "as you and Mr. Merriweather were telling the story, you were driving through the mountains of Missouri with a quarter of a million dollars and Patrick waiting for you here in Texas."

  Walter looked at Merriweather who seemed to be waiting for more as well.

  "We thought we had someone following us when we crossed the Arkansas state line," he said.

  "Remember the sign on that mountain?" Merriweather said. He laughed, and you could see all the medicine he'd been taking right there in his pupils. He reminded me of an old man I'd watched die in Dallas Methodist while I was trying to ply him for information. The fact that the old man died with enough cyanide in his system to give his nurse and caregiver ten years in prison didn't make me feel better.

  "Four people took this hill and didn't make it out alive. Slow down and don't be victim number five," said Bismuke.

  "That's right," I said. "No reason you can't slow down and enjoy the view, Mr. Merriweather."

  "Maybe we could hold hands and sing songs too," Merriweather said.

  We were just blocks away from Peechie's, and the mood in the car was shifting gears. If Adolphus was growing reluctant, the rest of us were settling in and making the best of it. At this point, if he had called it off, I think we would have ganged up on him. Still, we had plenty of time for Peechie's, and I wanted us all to go in for a round of drinks. It seemed appropriate.

  Bismuke picked up the story, but he started backtracking, talking about Dr. Anthony Cavanaugh and how he'd been ramrodded by the district attorney in Chicago. That was something I could relate to. I'd certainly seen it happen in Fort Worth, and I didn't think we'd invented that particular wheel.

  "The D.A. wound up paying half the jury off to get a guilty verdict, and we knew it," he said. "Six years in Joliet. Dr. Cavanaugh would have never survived that."

  "So where is the doctor now?" said Melvin.

  "He's somewhere between Minnesota and Thunder Bay, up in Canada," said Bismuke. "Least, that's where he was the last time we heard from him."

  "And the money you were hauling back to Texas was his?" I said.

  "Legally, yeah," said Bismuke.

  "He couldn't get to it," said Merriweather. "It was up to us. It was just a matter of time 'til the law found it. If they got it, it'd be gone for good."

  "Did Anthony know that Patrick was sending you boys for it?" Slant Face said.

  Merriweather looked at Bismuke and Bismuke looked at Merriweather. Neither said anything, but they were like two kids cheating on a school exam, each one knowing the only way to save his own skin was to zip his lip and trust someone he didn't trust a lick.

  "Let's sing that song now," said Walter Bismuke.

  We all sat in silence, waiting for him to lead off and reveal which one he had in mind.

  "What's that one they were playing on the radio?" Merriweather said.

  "That Glow Worm song?" said Bismuke. "I'm with Curridge. Anyone pipes up with that one, I'm putting a bullet in your talk box."

  "Not that one, goddamn it," said Merriweather.

  I considered launching into the Lefty Frizzell, but I couldn't remember the first line. My singing voice isn't as good as James Alto's either, so I spared them.

  “Y’all remember that song, kids used to sing it,” said Melvin Chambers. He was trying to whistle, which made it look like he was playing his beer bottle the way I'd seen old time jug bands blow on a jug of shine.

  “We ain’t singing no goddamn kid songs,” said Bismuke.

  “No,” said Melvin, “not a kid song. It’s a war song.”

  Whistle while you work,

  Hitler was a jerk

  sang Melvin, way out of melody but with admirable gusto.

  Mussolini bit his weenie

  sang Slant Face, right on cue.

  now it doesn’t work.

  sang Dulcie Boon.

  Adolphus Merriweather looked at us like we were all crazy. This man who, just an hour earlier, was raving blue murder about being poisoned and about taking people down with him. I think I saw a trace of a smile on his face too, if not on his lips, then hidden somewhere just be
hind his eyes. If you were going down before sun-up, it wasn't a bad way to go down at all. I leaned over and gave Dulcie Boon a smack on the forehead.

  28

  Peechie's was more wild and untamed than usual— like a child with no parents in the room— and for reason. Hick Hinson was nowhere to be seen. In his place, a young kid that I recognized all the way across the room.

  "Ray!"

  He didn't hear me over the roar of the Saturday night revelers, and when I sat myself down right in front of his face, I still didn't seem to register.

  "How's things, Ray," I said.

  "What can I get for you?" he said.

  Slant Face, Melvin and Dulcie arrived behind me, and he seemed to find more interest in Dulcie than anyone else. I wasn't sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing.

  "I'll take a whiskey and Dr Pepper," I said.

  He nodded and grabbed a glass.

  "Ten o'clock, two and four," he said.

  "Yeah, I'm running behind," I said. "I've got some catching up to do."

  I ordered a whiskey sour straight up for Dulcie. It was Ruthie's favorite, and I wanted to see how they stacked up.

  Slant Face didn't know Ray Naylor from Tom, Dick or Harry. He just knew he wasn't Hick Hinson, much less Patrick Cavanaugh.

  "How'd you come to get this job?" he said.

  Ray never looked up at Slant, never slowed down.

  "Regular guy didn't come in for his shift," he said. "They needed somebody, and I was close by."

  "This young man moved into Patrick's apartment," I said. "I guess it's only natural he would take over his job too."

  Ray stopped what he was doing and looked at me.

  "I know you."

  I almost felt bad. I didn't have anything against the kid. He was a good kid no doubt. Working his way through school by bartending on weekends. What was to fault with that? It surely kept him and his girl in spending money, and, if she— what was her name?— had to spend a Saturday night or two alone, I could identify with her too.

  We took our drinks and made our way to a table at the front window. Not my usual table, but that one was occupied by three beefy looking guys straight from the late shift at the meat packing plant. Slant and I immediately got into a discussion about why people in meat packing plants always wear white.

  Things were changing at Peechie Keen's, and it wasn't just the man behind the bar. There was a new sign on the wall next to the front door which read, “You can drink in here, but please go outside to get drunk." A sign most of the clientele were too juiced up to decipher, from the looks of things.

  More humorously, what looked like an authentic carcass of a rattlesnake had been nailed over the door into the office, over which someone had placed a cardboard sign reading Pete the Python. It was good to see Hick had a sense of humor.

  Sufficiently assured that Patrick Cavanaugh was nowhere in the crowd at Peechie's, Merriweather was bent on planning his big move. It was Slant Face who proposed that, instead of driving up to Cavanaugh's place and putting an easy bullet into his head from the cover of a window, Merriweather ought to at least give his enemy the satisfaction of a fair duel. He was just cocksure enough to agree.

  "It'll go down in history like that Longhair John Whats-It," he said. "You know."

  I did know. Hell's Half Acre legend had it that Longhair Jim Cartwright, who was the city marshal in the late nineteenth century, had been running a protection racket on the side, shaking down Acre businesses for extra dough. The first in a long line of sheriffs and lawmen who did pretty much the same thing. Longhair Jim finally met his match in a little guy named Luke Short, who was part owner of the White Elephant Saloon, decided he didn't really want to pay Cartwright's extortion money.

  The story goes that Cartwright showed up in front of the White Elephant and words were exchanged. Short claimed that he wasn't holstered and went to unbutton his coat so Cartwright could see for himself. Cartwright didn't believe him, thought Short was going for a gun, so he drew his piece. Well, his suspicions were confirmed, because when Cartwright's pistol got caught up in his watch chain, Short pulled his and shot Longhair's thumb clean off. Cartwright fumbled around and tried to change hands and got took four more slugs for the trouble.

  "You feeling like Luke Short tonight," I said.

  "Luke Short can feel as Luke Short as he wants to," he said. "I feel like Adolphus Merriweather."

  For the first time all night, I was almost disappointed that Patrick wouldn't be there for this Saturday night showdown. A good old fashioned duel in Sixth Street might have been a fun thing to witness. I had a strong hunch that pretty much anyone you wanted to put up against Merriweather could have shot both of his thumbs off and a few extra fingers too before he'd have gotten off a single shot. Served him right.

  The crowd in Peechie's was getting louder and more rambunctious, and it took Melvin Chambers to call my attention to whatever was going on at the front entrance. The door had been thrown open, and a man stood framed by it, pointing outside at something none of us could see.

  "You know that guy?" said Melvin.

  I didn't.

  "He's asking for somebody," I said.

  "It's Patrick Cavanaugh, come to call you out into the street," said Bismuke to Merriweather. I can't hear much other than a dull roar out of my left ear anyway. I was trying to ignore him, figuring he was some drunk who was looking to pick a fight.

  "He said there's a body," said Dulcie Boon, who was sitting on my good side.

  She stood up, and I did too, and when we did, the whole table and it seemed like half the bar did as well.

  The man was still standing in the doorway, pointing and saying something about a dog, when I pushed him aside and walked back into the night air. Sprawled out on the sidewalk like a bum sleeping off an early night drunk was a man wrapped in a long coat and a suit. His hat sat brim up a yard away, one arm stretched out like it was trying to snatch it.

  "Is he dead?"

  The man in the doorway was still in the doorway, afraid to come any closer and reluctant to walk away. Slant and the gang were filing out past him, single file.

  I bent down and shook the man.

  "Hey, mister. You okay?"

  He looked like he might have been sleeping off a drunk. I turned him over where his face was in the meager light from the street corner lamp, and I could see that he wasn't having a good night at all. Slant knelt down next to me.

  "It's another one," I said.

  Slant picked up the guy's hat. A pork pie. White with a broad black band. Not like mine.

  "Dutch."

  "Dutch," he said again.

  I didn't answer.

  "It's Hick."

  A whisper. As sure of itself as I was unsure.

  "I don't know," I said. "I can't even tell."

  Out in the middle of Jones Street, the crowd seemed smaller and quieter than before. Dulcie stood out in the street, looking north for a sign of somebody coming to the rescue. Merriweather stood on the curb, bent over and looking at the ground. Over against the wall, still with a glass and a towel in his hand, I saw young Ray, open-eyed and jawed, wanting to be nowhere more than back in the arms of his college girl.

  29

  The Savoy could seat six passengers comfortably, but we had our half dozen jumbled, with four of us packed knee to knee across the back and Walter and Merriweather balancing out the front. The front was a one-third/two-thirds split bench, so it made sense that someone would move up. Trouble is, no one wanted to sit between the two.

  When we got piled back in, Bismuke kept the key, because, much as I wanted to give the car a spin, I didn't want to fight him for it. Dulcie got in the middle front and I rode shotgun. It wasn't Merriweather's cup of tea, but he was growing less combative as the night wore on. Either he was secretly starting to enjoy himself, or he was conserving energy for the duel.

  He was riding directly behind me, then Melvin Chambers next to him and Slant Face against the back door on the drive
r's side. Slant Face and I had both tried to talk Ray into leaving with us. With Hick Hinson on his way to the city morgue, we'd suddenly developed a pattern, and I didn't want to chance adding the kid to it. When he saw the riding arrangement, he balked, saying everything was copacetic. Looking at us, I couldn't blame him.

  "They got Patrick. Now they got Hick Hinson," said Slant Face. "We've got to take a closer look at Peechie Keen's. It's starting to look like somebody's out to shut it down."

  "It's the obvious thought, isn't it?" I said.

  I wondered if I had been too close to see it.

  "Why would anybody want to shut Peechie Keen's down?" said Slant Face.

  It was obvious to me that the same person had shot both him and Patrick. Two or three shots to the back of the head at pretty close range. These hits weren't designed to be survived. They were designed to frighten.

  "That note," Dulcie said.

  She had been the one to find the note. Pinned to his shirt collar and almost obscured by the overcoat, no one had seen it until the coroner's office arrived and loaded him up. "Second warning. Next time I get ugly."

  "I'd say that was already pretty ugly," said Melvin Chambers.

  I knew I had to find the killer and find him quick. Before, it was had been a lone incident. One victim. It was a matter of etiquette. Someone you know is murdered, you find who did it. Now, a reputable establishment had been threatened. A second victim. Someone was still at work, and he was making it messy for a whole bunch of people.

  "Who would want the place shut down?" I said.

  We might try to hunt down Penny Bob Yoder, but the worst trouble I'd ever heard of him being in was losing a game or two of poker. He didn't seem like the kind to bet big— hell, he'd got his name by playing for nothing more than pennies— so I didn't imagine him getting into trouble big either. Still I threw his name out there to see if anyone could make an argument for or against it.

  "I don't see the angle," said Melvin Chambers.

  Angles. Writers were always looking for angles.