“Why you telling me all this, man?” the pimp said, plaintively. “I never did nothing to you.”
“I’m telling you so that you calm down,” Dett said. “We’ve got to go someplace where we can talk. I don’t want you thinking I need to get you alone so I can blast you.”
“What we got to talk about?”
“Soon as we get there,” Dett promised.
* * *
1959 October 03 Saturday 04:11
* * *
“This is good,” Dett told the pimp. “You can turn off the engine now. And the lights, too, please.”
“You making a mistake, man. Let me talk to you. I got money. Serious money.”
“I don’t want your money,” Dett told him. “I want to be your friend.”
“My friend? You got some way of making friends, man.”
“Have I talked badly to you?” Dett said. “Haven’t I been respectful?”
“Oh, yeah, man. You the most polite killer I ever met.”
“I already told you—”
“Yeah, I know. I got it.”
“Please don’t do something stupid,” Dett said, just short of pleading.
“Stupid? What I going to do that—?”
“You probably have a gun somewhere. At least a knife.”
“In my coat,” the pimp said. “The mink, on the back seat. But I got a permit for that piece, man. I’m a—”
“—professional.”
“Right! I—”
“You see what I mean? About respect? We’re both professionals. Businessmen. That’s why we can be friends.”
“How are we gonna be friends?” the pimp said, willing calm into his voice.
“Friends help each other.”
“What kind of help you—?”
“A man with a lot of ladies working for him is a man with a dozen pairs of eyes and ears.”
“My girls’ job ain’t to—”
“Whores gossip all the time,” Dett said. “He-say, she-say, that’s what they do, right?”
“You can’t be the law,” the pimp said. “Otherwise, I be down at the cop house, and some cocksucking faggot detective be ready to put a phone book on my head, he wanted to know something.”
“They did that to you?”
“When I was young and stupid, yeah. When I was still learning my game. But now? Not hardly, man. I ain’t no street-nigger trash. I got lawyers and everything. And I got a license to do what I do, same as the one for the gun. Bought it from the same people, too. That’s how I know you ain’t no cop, understand?”
“Sure,” Dett said. “That just proves you’re a real professional. A professional, he knows the value of information, and he knows how to use it, too. Like right now. You used information you have about this town to tell you I’m not a cop, see?”
“You playing with me, man?”
“No. I’m being honest with you, that’s why it sounds so strange. You know I’m not a cop, like you said. Not a local cop, anyway. But you know I’m not federal, too, don’t you?”
“Yeah. Those boys dress even worse than you. And they never work alone. Always two of them.”
“Okay, then. We can talk now, can’t we?”
“You holding the pistol, man.”
“I’m sorry about that. But I had to get you to go someplace with me. Someplace where you could just be yourself, no image.”
“I always be myself, wherever I am.”
“All right,” said Dett, agreeably, “whatever you say. Now, tell me. Do you ever bring your girls to private parties?”
“No, man. I got some girls, sure. But they out there, on the street. Where you found me.”
“A car like this, the way you dress, you must be holding a whole stable of racehorses,” Dett said, deliberately echoing Moses’s words. “Some of them have to be doing better than five-and-two tricks. Especially white girls.”
The pimp closed his eyes. I get it now, sounded inside his head. This is how it ends. “What you want, man?” he said, wearily, not opening his eyes.
“I asked you about parties.”
“Where you from, man? Around here, man wants some private action sent to his house, he don’t want a nigger along for the ride, unless he driving a cab.”
“So the girls would drive themselves?” Dett asked.
“I got another ride besides this one. They need to go someplace, they take that.”
“Your girls turn lump tricks?”
“No, man. I don’t do my women like that. But, sometimes, you know how it can be, customer can’t get it up, he blames the girl.”
“You ever lose a girl that way?”
“Girls come and go all the time, man. Cop and blow, that’s the game. My bottom woman, maybe, maybe a couple of her wives-in-law, that’s all I can count on, go the distance with me.”
“No. I mean lose one.”
“Like a trick kill a girl? No way, man. Never happen. I mean, I know it could happen, not saying it couldn’t. I had girls run off. Every mack has that happen. But I never had one go to the morgue.”
“I was in a place, once,” Dett said. “There was a man there. Real big shot. Rich, well connected. He liked to hurt working girls; paid heavy cash for his fun. One night, he went too far, and a girl died.”
“Why you telling me all this?”
“Because it was a weakness, what the man had. It made him easy.”
“Easy for what?”
“Easy for me. For what I do.”
“You’re a blackmailer?”
“Sure,” said Dett, his tone making it clear that the two men were mutually agreeing to a lie more comfortable than the truth they shared.
“Who you looking at?”
“I’m not particular. He’s got to be connected, that’s all.”
“Connected, like in . . . ?”
“Dioguardi. Shalare. Beaumont. That level.”
“Men like that, they don’t be visiting no whorehouses.”
“I asked you about private parties, remember?”
“Yeah, I remember. But I never did business with any of those men. Maybe some of their boys get their tubes cleaned once in a while. Probably do, as a matter of fact. But that ain’t the kind of thing any of the girls would talk about.”
“Too scared?”
“Scared? Of what? It’s no big thing, not to them. Most tricks pump themselves up, anyway. Working girls’ll tell you: with them, every man’s got to be a big man, you know?”
“Yes.”
“Who you looking at, man? A judge, something like that?”
“I’m not particular.”
“You really not going to kill me?” the pimp said, opening his eyes. “Right?”
“We’re going to be friends,” Dett said. Not predicting, stating a fact.
“There’s one guy,” the pimp said, thoughtfully. “I don’t know who he is, but he’s the fish you want to land.”
“Why is that?”
“Because, the way it works, the madam, Ruth’s her name, she taps a girl, says she’s going to get a visitor in the blue room, the girl knows what that means.”
“This guy?”
“This guy. Only nobody ever sees him. They put the girl in this room, put a black hood over her head, then they put her shoulders into this harness thing, like. So she can’t turn around. The door opens. The man comes in. Does his business, Greek-style, and leaves. Never says a word.”
“Does he hurt the girls?”
“You mean, because he goes up the chute? No, man. The girls know it’s coming, so they can get ready for it. And he lubes up, too.”
“What if one of the girls doesn’t want to—”
“You want to work Miss Ruth’s house, that’s part of the deal. She tells every girl, right up front. This guy, you may never get picked, but if you do, you’re going. And the man pays.”
“Any of your girls ever get a hint who he is?”
“Not a clue, man. The blue room, it’s in the basement. There’s a
back door, leads right down to it from the outside. Whoever he is, the man don’t have to come through the house. And one thing’s for sure—Miss Ruth is never going to talk. She knows a lot of things, but she never says. She’s famous for that.”
“If this story is true, we’ll be friends,” Dett told the pimp.
“Meaning, if it ain’t, you gonna find me some night and kill me?”
“What does it matter?” the velvet-voiced gunman said. “I know you’re telling the truth. I know we’re friends now.”
* * *
1959 October 03 Saturday 09:22
* * *
“Lymon’s been talking,” Beaumont said.
“Lymon!” Harley said, shocked. “Who would he—?”
“Shalare. He’s been talking to Shalare.”
“Nah.”
“What?” Beaumont demanded.
“I just mean . . . some of the men we got, they’re like women, you know? Always talking. Yap-yap. Gossip. Maybe he had a beer with Shalare. Shot a game of pool with him. That doesn’t mean he said anything about our business. Besides, we’re not at war with—”
“Harley,” Beaumont said, heavily, “I want you to listen to me. Sometimes, you have to take a couple of steps back, look at things from a wider angle. You see more that way. Shalare’s coming at us same as Dioguardi is, only from a different direction. Dioguardi, he’s a muscle guy. But Shalare, he’s been plowing another field.”
“Where? I never heard of his boys doing—”
“He’s been buying politicians like a kid collecting baseball cards. Not the locals. You know the city council; they’ll take money from anyone, for anything. But that’s look-away cash; they don’t have the clout to change anything. Shalare, he’s been working the top shelf. The Assembly, the Senate, maybe even the governor.”
“All that for this little town?”
“Yeah,” Beaumont replied. “All that for this little town. And everything that’s in it.”
“But what could Lymon even tell them?”
“Lymon carries the bag for us. He could tell Shalare every stop he makes. And how much he leaves at each one.”
“He’s too smart for that,” Harley protested. “You know Lymon; he’s not a man to take chances.”
“A man who never takes chances is a man who hedges his bets,” Beaumont said. “I think that’s why Lymon started talking in the first place. But now he thinks he’s betting on a winner.”
“Shalare?”
“Yes.”
“He’s wrong.”
“Dead wrong,” Beaumont said, nodding his massive head for emphasis.
* * *
1959 October 03 Saturday 10:05
* * *
“He said he was probably going to be staying longer than he planned at first.”
“It must be very lonely for him, traveling all the time. Remember when we used to go visit your Aunt Madeleine in Chesterfield over the summers? Your father could never get time away from the store, so it would be just the two of us.”
“And Madeleine. And that big slob—”
“Your Uncle Max was nothing resembling a slob,” Carl’s mother said, grimly. “He was an educated, cultured man.”
“An educated, cultured Jew,” her son retorted, venomously.
“I’m disappointed in you, Carl,” his mother said, stiffly. “I did not raise my son to be a bigot.”
“It’s not bigotry to understand people,” Carl said, with icy assurance.
“You never took the time to understand—”
“Uncle Max? I understood him very well, even when I was just a boy. He’s like all of them. He gives the impression of being intelligent, but he’s really just . . . clever. There is a difference, Mother.”
“Where in the world did you ever get such a—?”
“There are racial characteristics,” Carl interrupted. “It’s no accident that Jews are good businessmen. They have a plan, a world plan. That’s why they keep to their own kind. They even have their own language. They may look white, but they’re not.”
“Carl!”
“Mother, I wish you would pay more attention to history. The Jews are a tribe, a separate and distinct race. Now they even have their own country.”
“Everybody in America once had their own country. You know very well that your own great-grandfather came here from Sweden.”
“Yes. We’re pure Nordic stock, on both sides. But what you say isn’t accurate, Mother,” Carl said, his voice both academic and concerned—a tutor who wanted to make sure his student really understood the lesson. “The Indians were born here, and they lived like wild animals. The coloreds were brought here, right out of the jungle. But those who came voluntarily, like our people, came from civilized countries. They came here to be Americans. And today, if I were to travel to, oh, I don’t know, Paris,” he said, airily, “I would be seen as an American, not a Scandinavian.”
“But you are an—”
“But wherever a Jew travels, he travels as a Jew,” Carl said, in a tone of finality. “They came here as part of their plan.”
“I don’t under—”
“The plan, Mother. It’s well documented. The Jews want to control . . . everything. Look closely. See who owns things here. Who runs the banks. The newspapers. Look at Hollywood, it’s dominated by the Jews.” Carl took a sip of his coffee, watching his mother’s face over the rim of the cup. “If you look closely, if you read between the lines, you can see the pattern emerging. The whole so-called civil-rights movement is really run by the Jews. You can see Jew money everywhere. Anytime a colored man is arrested in the South—well, not every time, but when it’s a big case, the kind we read about even here—you’ll see he has Jew lawyers. Who’s paying for that? Some sharecroppers who took up a collection? I don’t think so. The Communists who were exposed, how many of them turned out to be Jews? Look at the Rosenbergs. Who were they loyal to? Not America, Russia. And where do most Jews come from? Russia.”
“Carl!”
“Calm yourself, Mother. Most of what has been reported in the popular press about the Nazis is nothing but Jew propaganda. You don’t really believe six million people were gassed to death, do you? Research shows that was physically impossible.”
“Carl, I never pry into your affairs, but—”
“Oh, I know you saw the flag, Mother. It’s just a symbol. A symbol of racial purity.”
Carl’s mother began sobbing softly. “You can’t . . .”
“Ssshhh,” he said, reaching over to stroke her shoulder.
“Carl, people were killed over there. And it wasn’t just Jews they put to death. They killed Gypsies and . . .”
“They never exterminated Aryans,” Carl said, firmly.
“But . . .”
“I know,” Carl told her quietly. “Mother, I truly know.”
* * *
1959 October 03 Saturday 13:39
* * *
“You never write anything down?” Beaumont said.
“Would you want me to?” Dett asked.
“I’m not saying that. But all that information you asked for, it’s a lot to remember.”
“It’s a skill you can teach yourself. Like driving a car, or shooting a gun. Takes practice, that’s all.”
“Makes sense to me,” Beaumont said. “That’s something I can understand. What I’m not so clear about is why you’d want to meet Dioguardi’s people way out in the country.”
“You ever see the way cops search a house?” Dett said. “They look into everything. They look under everything. But they never look up.”
“That’s why you want that old shack? Because it has that crawl space up top?”
“Yeah. Besides, I need them to think I’m local. An out-of-towner wouldn’t even know how to find that place, right?”
“That’s true. But how do you know they’re planning to jap you?”
Dett’s eyes were gray mesh, absorbing without reflecting.
Moments passed.
<
br /> “Yeah, you’re right,” Beaumont finally said. “What else would they do?”
* * *
1959 October 03 Saturday 15:22
* * *
“He frightens me,” Cynthia said. “Every time he comes here, he . . . he changes the air we breathe, somehow. I can’t explain it.”
“It’s not like you to get spooked, honey.”
“I know it’s not,” she said, crisply. “That’s why I’m saying it now.”
“You want me to cut him loose?” Beaumont asked.
“You’d do that, Beau? On nothing more than my . . . feeling?”
“Of course I would, Cyn. This . . . business we’re in, it’s probably like any other. There’s people you can never trust, people you can trust sometimes, but how many do you ever meet you can trust all the way?”
“I don’t know. You handle all the—”
“You,” Beaumont said, lovingly. “From the minute I was born, you.”
* * *
1959 October 03 Saturday 16:04
* * *
“You said one car,” the pawnbroker said to Dett.
“I said one space,” Dett rebutted, neutral-voiced. “There’s never going to be two cars back there at the same time. Just different ones, alternating.”
“That still should be more—”
“I came here as a courtesy, so you wouldn’t be surprised when you saw another car in the space I rented. I’ve always been polite to you, haven’t I? And I dealt fair, paid you what you wanted, didn’t I?”
“Yes. But—”
“All right. I’ll tell Mr. Beaumont you want to change the deal.”
“Anyone can say a name,” the pawnbroker said, in his professional bargainer’s voice.
“They can,” Dett agreed. “Sometimes, a man thinks he can make an investment with that. Spend a dime on a phone call, say a name, and get back a big reward. You seem like such a smart man. With your own business and all. I thought we were friends.”
Two Trains Running Page 12
