Two Trains Running

by Andrew Vachss

  “Right now, what I want is for you to be a little curious about that man in 809.”

  “What for?”

  “I got a feeling about him, that’s all.”

  “I got a feeling, too,” Rosa Mae said, smiling. “I got a feeling that Rufus Hightower thinks there might be some green on the scene.”

  “Where you learn to talk like that, girl?” Rufus said, an undercurrent of anger in his voice.

  “I been around men think they slick since I first grew these,” she said, putting two fingers under her left breast and pushing up just enough to make it bounce sightly. “And I’m a real good listener.”

  “Rhyme ain’t worth a dime,” Rufus told her, winking. “But I got a pound I could put down, you want to look around.”

  “You so cute.” Rosa Mae giggled. “But I can’t buy new shoes with a promise.”

  She held out her hand, palm-up. Rufus handed over a five-dollar bill, watched it disappear into her bra.

  “Either the man had some friends come and visit, or he’s a big drinker,” Rosa Mae said. “That bottle of whiskey he’s got in his room’s been hit plenty. But he don’t keep himself like a drinking man.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A drinking man, specially one that drink in the morning, he don’t keep himself nice. This one, all his clothes hanging up in the closet, neat as a pin. I got nothing to do in his bathroom, either. Most of the time, a man checks into a hotel, it’s like he thinks he got a wife with him, mess he leave everyplace. Not this one. It’s like he cleans up behind himself.”

  “Next thing, you gonna tell me he makes his own bed.”

  “He don’t make the bed, but he sure do strip it down,” Rosa Mae said. “Right down to the mattress. Takes the pillowcases off, too.”

  “Yeah? Well, what’s in his suitcases?”

  “I don’t be opening nobody’s suitcases, Rufus.”

  “No, no, girl. I meant, he leave them open, right?”

  “He left one of them like that,” the young woman acknowledged. “Nothing in there but clothes. I didn’t look in the bureau, but he got all his shaving stuff and the like in the bathroom.”

  “The man say anything to you?”

  “This morning, he did. There’s no sign on his door, it’s after eight, I figure he’s out working so I let myself in. He’s just sitting there, in the big chair, reading the paper. I tell him I can come back later, when he’s out, but he tells me, just go ahead.”

  “I know you-all said something besides that, Rosa Mae.”

  “He just . . . polite, is all. A real gentleman. Some of the men that stay here, they like watching me clean up their rooms. I bend over to make the bed, I can feel their eyes. This man, he wasn’t nothing like that.”

  “Maybe he’d like old Carl better than you,” Rufus said, grinning.

  “You believe that, you three kinds of fool, Rufus,” she said, turning to go.

  Rufus watched Rosa Mae walk down the hall. The exaggerated movement of her buttocks under the loose-fitting uniform was a lush promise, wrapped in a warning.

  * * *

  1959 September 30 Wednesday 11:45

  * * *

  “Yes?” Cynthia’s voice on the phone was clear and clipped, just slightly north of polite.

  “May I speak to Mr. Beaumont, please?”

  “Who should I tell him is calling?”

  “I’m the man he sent for. I believe he’ll—”

  “Call back in ten minutes,” the woman’s voice said. “This same number.”

  * * *

  1959 September 30 Wednesday 11:50

  * * *

  Rufus ambled over to the pay phone in the basement, dropped a slug in the slot, and dialed a local number.

  “What?” a male voice answered.

  “This be Rufus, sir,” Rufus said, thickening his long-since-outgrown Alabama accent and introducing a thread of servility into his voice. “I calling like you said.”

  “Yeah?”

  “The man, he a drinker, sir. Big drinker.”

  “Can he hold it?”

  “Seem so, sir. But ah cain’t say fo’ sure, ’cause he might be one of those, sleeps it off.”

  “What’s he driving?”

  “Got nothing out back in the lot, boss. And there ain’t no plate number on the books from when he signed in.”

  “He didn’t come in on the bus,” the voice said, brawny with certainty. “I need to know what he’s riding, understand?”

  “Yes, sir. You know Rufus. I got peoples all over the place. I finds out for you.”

  “All right. He ask anyone to bring him anything?”

  “Not no girl, if that what you mean, sir.”

  “Stop fucking around,” the voice said, “and just tell me what I’m paying you for, understand?”

  “Yes, sir. I wasn’t . . . I mean, no, sir, the man don’t ask me for nothing. Not none of the other boys, neither. ’Cept for a bottle of whiskey.”

  “Get me that car, understand?” the voice said.

  “I—” Rufus started to reply, then realized the connection had been cut.

  Yassuh, massah, Rufus said to himself, twisting his lips into something between a snarl and a sneer.

  * * *

  1959 September 30 Wednesday 11:56

  * * *

  “He wants to see you,” Cynthia told Dett on the phone. “Do you have transportation?”

  “Yes.”

  “What kind?”

  “A car.”

  “Yes,” the woman said, without a trace of impatience. “What kind of car? Year and model. And the license plate, too, please. The guard at the gate will need this to pass you through.”

  “A 1949 Ford, kind of a dull-blue color. The plate is: Ex, Oh, Bee, four, four, four.”

  “All right, let me give you the directions. Please be here by two.”

  * * *

  1959 September 30 Wednesday 12:11

  * * *

  Dett slid the locked attaché case under the bed. From inside

  his Pullman, he removed a sculpture made of gnarled roots wrapped around a pair of doll’s hands, clasped together in prayer by a single strand of rusty barbed wire. He placed this so it would greet anyone who opened the suitcase.

  Dett shrugged into his overcoat, worked his shoulders in a slight circular motion until he was satisfied with the kinetic fit, then left the room.

  He answered, “Good afternoon to you, too,” to the elevator operator, deposited his key with the desk clerk, and walked out into the fall sunlight, eyes slitted against the glare.

  Two blocks away, Dett hailed a passing cab. It deposited him in front of a seedy pawnshop just over a mile away.

  Dett entered the pawnshop, pretended to examine a display of rings in a glass case while a man in a green eyeshade completed a transaction. As the customer moved off, clutching a few bills and a pawn ticket, Dett caught a nod from the proprietor and moved toward the end of the long counter. A buzzer sounded. Dett lifted the hinged portion of the counter and walked past a half-open bathroom door to a large storeroom, stocked floor-to-ceiling with goods: musical instruments, appliances, rifles, and hundreds of smaller items. The back door opened into a narrow paved lot, surrounded by a gated chain-link fence, topped with concertina wire.

  Dett closed the door behind him, took a set of keys from his coat pocket, and walked over to a faded blue ’49 Ford with a primered hood and chromed dual exhausts. The coupe had a slight forward rake, because the rear tires were larger than the fronts. Dett opened the door, climbed behind the wheel, and started it up, frowning at the engine noise.

  He slipped the lever into first, let out the clutch, and pulled out of the lot.

  * * *

  1959 September 30 Wednesday 12:56

  * * *

  “He should be here pretty soon, Beau,” Cynthia said.

  “Good,” Beaumont grunted, concentrating on shaving, using a pearl-handled straight razor against the grain.

  “
Beau . . . ?”

  “What?” he said, carefully rinsing off his razor.

  “This is the first time we ever did anything like this.”

  “You mean, use a contract man? You know we paid—”

  “An outsider, is what I mean. We paid . . . different people to do different things, but they were always local men. If they didn’t . . . do what they were supposed to, we would always know where to find them.”

  “Find their families, too, is what you’re saying.”

  “That is what I’m saying. This man, he’s not just a stranger, he’s like a ghost. You make some calls, and he magically appears.”

  “So?” Beaumont asked, patting his face with a towel.

  “I was just thinking. . . . If we’re big enough to attract so much attention . . . from people who want to move in on us, I mean, maybe we’re attracting attention from the law, too.”

  “The law? In Locke City? They’re all on our—”

  “Not the ones around here,” Cynthia said, pacing nervously behind her brother. “I’m talking about the state police. Or even the FBI.”

  “That’s what you’re worried about? That this guy’s some kind of secret agent?”

  “I’m just trying to help,” Cynthia said, hurt.

  “You always help,” Beaumont said, soothingly. “I wasn’t making fun of you, honey.” He spun his wheelchair so that he was facing his sister. “Remember, when we were kids, how you’d jump on anyone ever called me ‘crip’? If I hadn’t had you—”

  “I had you, too, Beau,” she said, a hand on his shoulder. “Do you remember Billy Yawls?”

  “I do,” Beaumont said, a broad grin breaking across his craggy face. “That was when I still had the braces.”

  “Yes! And when you challenged Billy, for . . . grabbing at me . . . he had to agree to make it wrestling. Otherwise, he would have looked like a—”

  “Sure. And I was a couple of years younger than him, too. But once I took that skinny little weasel to the ground . . .”

  “They never knew how strong you were, Beau. Not until that day.”

  “Yeah, I . . . Look, I’m sorry, honey. In fact, I already thought about what you’re thinking right now. But the only way the law could ever stick a pin in our balloon is from the inside, and they could never pull that off.

  “You think if the FBI could plant its own men inside the big mobs they wouldn’t have done it a long time ago? But they can’t. The Italians, the Irish, the Jews . . . they’re all related, some kind of way. And can you even imagine the feds trying to get a man inside one of the colored gangs?” he said, chuckling. “What would they do, dye one of their guys black?”

  “I don’t know, Beau. If the Mafia is really as big as everyone says, how could they all be related to each other?”

  “Well,” Beaumont said slowly, “you’re probably right. But we’re not like them. Not like any of them. We may not all be related, but we know every single man, all the way back.”

  “We don’t know this man you just hired, Beau. Not like that.”

  “That’s true,” Beaumont said, nodding to show his sister he had thought deeply about her concerns before making his decision. “But he’s just a contract man. It’s not like we’re making him one of us. He’s never going to get inside.”

  Beaumont wheeled himself back to the specially constructed sink, slapped an astringent on his face, then spun again to face his sister.

  “One thing we know about the feds, Cyn: they got unlimited funds. Money, that’s power. It can buy things. It can buy people. The way it’s told, that’s how they got someone to give up Dillinger—the reward. But, still, John was way ahead of them.”

  “Ahead of them?” Cynthia said, almost angrily. “Beau, they killed him. Gunned him down right on the sidewalk.”

  “That wasn’t John Dillinger,” Beaumont said, a true-believer, reciting an article of faith. “It was a fall guy. A patsy. The guy they killed, I heard he didn’t even have the right color eyes. Didn’t have any bullet scars on him, either. No, honey, Dillinger’s somewhere south of the border. He’s not dead,” Beaumont repeated, devoutly.

  “But if what you say is true, then they know.”

  “The FBI? Sure, they know. What difference does it make to them? They got Public Enemy Number One. Big heroes. So long as Dillinger stays missing, everybody’s happy.”

  “But what if he ever—?”

  “John Dillinger, everybody admired him for his moxie. He’s the stand-up guy of all time. Busting his boys out of jail, carving a gun out of a bar of soap—can you believe suckers actually bought that one?—he’s like a legend. But what people didn’t appreciate about him was how smart he was. He never worked for any of the outfits. He stayed independent, worked with guys he knew he could trust, not guys some boss told him he could trust.

  “John was a genius,” Beaumont said, lost in idolatry. “He knew it’s not about the truth of anything; it’s always about what people believe. The papers, they played him up like he was a god. Hoover doesn’t get Dillinger, it makes it look like the outlaws are stronger than the cops. So they make a deal. Hoover’s boys kill a patsy, and Dillinger walks away.”

  “You don’t know any of that, Beau.”

  “The hell I don’t, girl. Those guys who write the newspaper stories, they’re just like the people who write ads, like for toothpaste, or beer, or cars. It’s their job to sell you something, not to tell you the truth.”

  “Even if it is so, people do inform,” Cynthia said, hotly. “They do it all the time. Look at all those Communists.”

  “Sure. But those guys, they were . . . members. Real insiders, I mean. With this guy we’re bringing in, you’re not talking about one of us. He’s nothing but a hired gun.”

  “But couldn’t an FBI agent pretend to be the same thing? Like a spy?”

  “Not a chance, girl. There’s a line no undercover cop can cross, and this guy, he lives over it, see?”

  “No,” she said, adamantly. “I don’t under—”

  “The feds, let’s say you’re right, and they actually get one of their men inside one of the big mobs. Naturally, they’d have to let their guy do stuff, so nobody would get suspicious. If he had to steal, or hand out a beating, okay. But how is the FBI going to let one of their men kill someone? And this guy we’re bringing in, he’s put more bodies in the ground than an undertaker.”

  “If that’s enough reason to trust him, then Lymon—”

  “Exactly!” Beaumont cut her off. “Lymon’s pulled the trigger himself, more than once. So if he tried to hook up with another mob, he might tell some of our secrets—what he thinks are secrets—to grease the skids. But he can’t ever go to the law about us, not with what’s on his own plate.”

  “But if all we know about this Dett person is rumors . . .”

  “We got better than that, girl. A lot better. An actual eyewitness. Red said this guy walked into a nightclub, shot the bouncer, tossed a grenade into the crowd, and walked out, like he was delivering the mail.”

  “Why would Red want him to—?”

  “It was war,” Beaumont told his sister. “And this guy, he’s a soldier. Only not like for a country, for whoever pays him. But Red says that grenade thing, it was Dett’s own idea.”

  “God.”

  “Yeah. And that squares with what else I heard. Walker Dett, he’s not just a shooter. He plans strategy, like a general or something.”

  “What kind of a man would do that?”

  “That’s not our worry, Cyn. All we care about is what kind of man wouldn’t do it, understand? We don’t know what this ‘Dett’ guy is, but we know what he’s not. Whatever he is, he’s no lawman.”

  * * *

  1959 September 30 Wednesday 13:27

  * * *

  Dett drove the back roads gingerly, experimenting with the Ford’s reaction to various maneuvers. Piece of crap, he said to himself, as he muscled the coupe around an unbanked curve. The steering was rubbery, and the brakes
were a joke—even with skillful pumping, the stopping distances were way too long, and the car always nosedived to the right.

  He wasn’t lying about how it scoots, though, Dett thought. He had to balloon-foot the gas pedal to avoid spinning the rear wheels aimlessly in first gear, and even the first-to-second shift caused the tires to bark against the asphalt.

  And the car had been delivered clean, inside and out. The only indication of prior human presence was the registration slip in the glove compartment.

  “This is the guy you borrowed the car from,” the black man in the yellow shirt had told him. “Police call the number I gave you, somebody say, ‘Sure, I loaned my car to Mr. Dett.’ Describe you good, too.”

  “Very nice,” Dett had said.

  “I know my business, Chuck,” the black man replied, choosing to resent the compliment.

  Dett followed the directions he had been given, keeping the Ford in second gear in case he needed the extra braking power on unfamiliar roads. Every time he eased off the gas, the dual exhausts crackled, announcing his oncoming presence. Makes no difference, he thought to himself, noting a dozen spots where a sniper could roost along the way, it’s not like I’m sneaking up on them.

  He spotted the black boulder, proceeded as directed until he came to the guardhouse. Dett slowed the Ford to a near crawl as he approached, his window already rolled down.

  Seth stepped out, shotgun in one hand, and gestured with the other for Dett to get out of his car. Dett turned off the engine and climbed out of the Ford, tossing the keys underhand at Seth, who caught them smoothly without shifting his eyes.

  “Your spare’s about bald,” he said, glancing into the trunk.

  “Thanks,” Dett said.

  Seth placed the car keys on the Ford’s roof, then stepped back to let Dett reclaim them.

  Dett started the Ford, and motored along slowly until he came to the horseshoe-shaped driveway. He parked just beyond the entrance to the house, leaving the key in the ignition.