Two Trains Running

by Andrew Vachss

  “Aimed at us?”

  “No, that’s the . . . twist. Lymon thinks he’s being aimed at Dioguardi.”

  “Well, good luck to him, then.”

  “It’s not that simple, Brian. There’s two men dead already, another so deep asleep he probably won’t ever wake up. But from what we hear, Dioguardi himself doesn’t think that was Beaumont’s doing.”

  “Wasn’t he told same as us? That we’re all to be under the flag of truce?”

  “The thing about a liar is, he thinks everybody else is one, too. Dioguardi’s a treacherous devil; so he thinks we must be treacherous devils ourselves. The way his mind works, he probably believes it’s us trying to reduce his ranks, shooting from behind the cover of the white flag.”

  “Three men?” Brian said.

  “Yeah, that isn’t much, I know. But if he hits back at us, it could torpedo the whole big plan.”

  “The election? How could a man like Dioguardi stop something so powerful?”

  “Because it’s going to be paper-thin,” Shalare said, quoting his recent visitor. “If Beaumont gets us all back to fighting, we’re not going to be able to pull this off. And even if he’s not playing games, moving us around like chess pieces, unless he plays with us, it’s going to hurt. The entire political machine in this county is his. And we need it to be ours.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “We bring Dioguardi the head of whoever’s picking off his men. Because that has to be the man Beaumont brought in, even if Dioguardi himself can’t see it.”

  “Where’s he staying?”

  “Not now. It’s too soon. We have to wait for Lymon to give us more. Otherwise, Dioguardi won’t appreciate the gift, see? We need proof that he’s Beaumont’s man, not ours.”

  “And it’s our man, Lymon, that’ll do that.”

  “It is. He’s a treasure to us.”

  “If Beaumont knew, he’d be buried treasure.”

  “He doesn’t,” Mickey Shalare said. “It took me the best part of two years to get this going. I was slow. I was careful. And now I’m almost ready.”

  * * *

  1959 October 04 Sunday 15:30

  * * *

  “Two white males. Fifty-seven Chrysler two-door hardtop. Alpha, X-ray, Bravo, four, zero, two, local,” a man sitting behind a pair of binoculars mounted on a tripod said, his clipped voice etching every syllable. “Copy?”

  “Two white males. Fifty-seven Chrysler. Alpha, X-ray, Bravo, four, zero, two, local,” a man with a notebook open on his lap repeated.

  “That’s Shalare’s car, his personal car,” the spotter said. “But I can’t make out the faces at this angle.”

  “That’s not our job,” the other man answered.

  The two men, identically dressed in smog-gray jumpsuits, were stationed on the top floor of an abandoned factory that had once mass-produced steam boilers. They had been dropped off at midnight, offloaded from an unmarked delivery van, together with canteens of water, freeze-dried rations, a chemical toilet, two sleeping bags, and a variety of distance-viewing devices, including night-vision binoculars.

  “It probably is Shalare,” the spotter said. “This is where he brings anyone he wants to talk to alone. I wish we could get a listening device on that car of his. It would be a gold mine.”

  “That’s not our job,” the other man repeated. He lifted his eyes from his notebook to the corner of the room, to where a long padded case lay on the floor.

  * * *

  1959 October 04 Sunday 15:39

  * * *

  “When I said ‘dug in too deep’ before, I didn’t mean like in a bunker or anything,” Beaumont said. “I meant dug in the way roots do.”

  “That means a lot to you, Beau? Those roots?”

  “Well . . . yeah. Yeah, it does, Cyn. That’s been the difference for us, all these years, right? I mean, the Italians, remember when they were holding those hearings, about the Mafia, on TV? They’d talk about this ‘family’ or that ‘family,’ but all they meant was some gang called by the boss’s name. That’s not real family. Not a band of brothers. Not like we are.”

  “It’s still your . . . organization, Beau. Without you, they couldn’t—”

  “Yes they could!” the man in the wheelchair said, intensely. “Maybe not this minute, but someday . . . We’re just like a real family, Cyn. The father passes on to the sons. When we’re done, you and me, there’ll be someone else running things. But it will always be ours.”

  “So that’s why!”

  “What? Cyn, are you—?”

  “That’s why you want Lymon . . . gone. That’s why you’re not telling him wrong stuff, so he could pass it along to Shalare. You did that before, Beau. Remember, back when you found out Tiller Hawthorne was telling the Richardson brothers about . . . about what we were doing? When you had that big run, down from Canada, you gave Tiller the wrong route, and told him the disguise. So the Richardsons ended up hitting a post-office truck, and they all went to prison.”

  “Tiller wasn’t really one of us. Just a guy who did work.”

  “I know. Lymon, he’s . . . he’s that ‘family’ you’re always talking about, Beau. Still, you could use him the same way you used Tiller, instead of having Harley . . .”

  “Lymon’s fifty times as smart as Tiller. If I tried the same thing on him, he’d sniff it out in a second.”

  “Then just cut him loose, Beau. Kick him out.”

  “He’s a dirty Judas, Cyn. Selling his own people for pieces of silver.”

  “He’s just a weak man, Beau.”

  “Lymon? What’s weak about him? He stood with us against Lenny Maddox, didn’t he? He’s handled a hundred jobs, and never showed yellow once.”

  “He’s . . . changed, I guess. If he wanted to sell you for money, he could have done it a long time ago, Beau. Right at the beginning, even. How much would Maddox have paid if Lymon had given him warning about what you were planning to do that day? It’s not . . . I’m not excusing him, Beau, but it’s not as if Shalare wants you dead. He just wants . . . Well, we’re not even sure what he wants, but it isn’t what Dioguardi’s been after. Now, if Lymon were talking to that man, that would be different.”

  “Look, Cyn, I can’t—”

  “Lymon wasn’t going to take over anyway, Beau. He’s the same age as we are.”

  “It’s Harley,” Beaumont said, firmly. “He’s got the . . . vision, I guess you’d say. Look at how he came up with a way to make money out of that acreage we own out on Route 85. All we were getting out of it was a couple weeks’ rent, once in a while, when the carny would come to town, or they’d have a tent revival. It was Harley who came up with the idea of a drag strip, and a track for those go-kart things.”

  “He’s so young, Beau.”

  “I don’t think that’s such a bad thing, Cyn. He’s more . . . in touch than a lot of our guys are. More forward-thinking. Remember when he first talked about selling marijuana? We thought that was just for those beatniks, but Harley said there was money to be made there, and he was right.”

  “He was right because it’s kids smoking it. That’s how he knew so much about it. Just like that drag-strip idea.”

  “We were all young once, Cyn. It’s not how old you are that makes you a leader; it’s how smart you are. But our kind of people, they won’t follow a man unless he’s been blooded.”

  “It doesn’t have to be Lymon’s blood!”

  “I . . . All right, damn it. I’ll feed Lymon a diet of baloney from now on, see if maybe we can’t put a little sugar in Shalare’s gas tank. And when this is over, I’ll cut him loose,” Beaumont said, making a ripping gesture at his chest, as if pulling out his heart.

  * * *

  1959 October 04 Sunday 15:48

  * * *

  “Your boss ready to talk to me now? Or does he need some more messages?”

  “You!” Vito sputtered. “He’ll . . . he wants to talk to you. Just hang on, I’ll—”

  “I�
��ll call back. Fifteen minutes. If anyone but your boss answers this line, it’ll cost you more men.”

  * * *

  1959 October 04 Sunday 15:56

  * * *

  The panel truck that had delivered guns to the junkyard slowed

  as it came to an intersection of alleys north of Lambert Avenue. This afternoon it was beige, and each side had a plastic sign attached with magnets: FOSTER BROTHERS PEST CONTROL. The truck’s license plate was mud-splattered; its window glass was heavily hazed.

  “I don’t like this,” the driver said.

  “What else is new?” the man in the passenger seat said, almost slyly.

  “I mean it, Fred. We’re supposed to be gathering intelligence. Surveilling, interviewing—”

  “We pay informants, Milt,” the shorter man in the passenger seat said, mildly. “That’s right in the—”

  “We pay authorized informants. These kids, they’re not even—”

  “We’re not giving them money.”

  “Come on, Fred. What’s the difference?”

  “The difference is, like I told you before, initiative, okay? Just pull over there, by those garbage cans.”

  * * *

  1959 October 04 Sunday 16:00

  * * *

  “When things change, people have to change, too,” Beaumont said, lighting a cigarette. “There’s whole towns that didn’t understand that, Cyn. Ghost towns, now. A plant closes down, a mine stops operating, it’s like somebody cut off the air supply. The town just . . . suffocates. Locke City was a fine place to live during the war. Everybody had work, everybody had money. But then it all dried up, like a farm with no rain for years. So we had to plant new crops.”

  “We always had gambling, Beau. Here, in Locke City, I mean. Even when we were kids, there was always places where you could find—”

  “That was low-level stuff, honey. Not organized, the way we have it now. There’s a mountain of difference between a crap game on a blanket in an alley and a professional dice table, with a man in a tux raking in the bets and pretty girls walking around with trays of drinks. What makes Locke City special isn’t the games. Or the girls. It’s not just what you can get here; it’s the quality of it.

  “Look, there’s places all along the river where you can buy a drink, dry county or not. And there’s no town where you can’t find a dice game, or a whorehouse. But those are rough places, where you’re just as likely to wake up in a back alley with your wallet missing. A man comes to Locke City, he knows he’s going to be protected, if he comes to the right places. Our places. We don’t water the booze, and we don’t serve Mickey Finns. Our houses don’t get raided. If you bet on a horse, or a football game, or whatever, and you win, you will get your payoff. That’s what we’re really selling here. Not sin, safety.”

  “There must be plenty of places in the big cities where you could get the same—”

  “Sure, if you’re rich. There’s always high-class places, with everything nice and protected. But Locke City, we built it for the workingman. The regular, average guy. The folks who live here now, they all make their living from the people who are passing through, see? Everyone’s invested, one way or the other. That’s why the water has to be calm on the surface. From the time we took over from Maddox, we’ve kept it that way.”

  “But now you bring in this . . . I don’t know what to call him.”

  “Because we need him, Cyn. The prettier the flower, the more people want to pluck it. If Dioguardi was just going to keep nibbling at the corners, we could deal with him on the quiet. Do the kind of thing to protect ourselves that never makes the papers. But he’s coming hard now, and we have to put him down for good. Close him up.”

  “Beau . . .”

  “Cyn, I can smell danger like a mine-shaft canary. Dioguardi’s just a gangster. And not even a smart one; he’s like the guy who gets to run the family business because he married the boss’s daughter. Whoever gave him this territory, they knew he couldn’t do anything big with it. He’s been around, what, three, four years? What’s he ever had, that two-bit protection racket of his? I’m surprised he can even cover his payroll with what he takes in. Now, all of a sudden, a couple of months ago, he starts moving in on our places. Jukeboxes, punch cards . . . still just little stuff. What for?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I don’t know, either. Like I said, he’s a stupid man. So, maybe, it could be no more than that. But Mickey Shalare, he’s not stupid. Not even a little bit. Something’s coming. And we’re not going to sit here and wait for it. Hacker was the last one of us who’s going to be taken by surprise.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “We’re going to adapt. Find other ways. That’s what we did with the . . . doctors, right?”

  “You mean the—?”

  “A girl needs an abortion—I don’t just mean in Locke City, I mean anywhere—what’s she supposed to do? Go visit one of those coat-hanger guys? Risk getting crippled for life, or even dead? Now we’ve got it all in one place: clean, safe, sterile. And never a whiff from the law. It’s been a real moneymaker, too.”

  “And it all started with me,” Cynthia said, choking back a sob.

  “It didn’t have to, sweetheart. I never wanted you to—”

  “I had to, Beau! There was no way we could have—”

  “Yes, we could,” Beaumont said, clenching his jaw as he bit off the words. “Here in Locke City, in our town, there’s nothing we couldn’t do, Cyn.”

  “No,” she said, firmly. “There’s some things we could never do.”

  The man in the wheelchair closed his eyes, nodded his head a couple of times. His sister walked behind his desk and stood next to him, her hand on his shoulder.

  “It was just you and me, from the beginning,” he said. “You remember when Dad would come home? Stinking drunk? Remember when he used to think it was real funny, kick the braces out from my legs, watch me crawl?”

  “Beau . . .”

  “How many beatings did you take for me, Cyn? How many times did you throw your body over me when he came at me with the belt?”

  “It didn’t matter. I—”

  “I never knew about the rest. Not until I saw—”

  “I don’t want to talk about . . . about that, Beau. You know I don’t.”

  “You told Mom,” he said, bulling through her refusal. “And what did she do, the dirty bitch? I wish they hadn’t been asleep when I did it.”

  “Beau!”

  “The cops never even took a second look,” he said. “Why should they? A couple of drunks like them, falling asleep with a lighted cigarette, cans of kerosene right there in the house for the heater. The paper said you were a hero, carrying your little brother out of that fire just in time.”

  “You were the hero.”

  “I wish I could kill them both again,” Beaumont said, unaware his hands had turned to claws. “For what they did.”

  “They were poison, Beau. That’s why I could never—”

  “Not because the baby would have maybe been—?”

  “No. I could bear that. Look at Luther. He’s not right. He never will be. But he’s a lovely little boy.”

  “Luther’s not a little boy.”

  “You know what I mean, Beau. I could have lived with a . . . damaged baby. But I could never carry on their seed. It would have been like spreading a filthy disease. I couldn’t. . . .”

  Beaumont took a deep, slow breath, then said, “I’m sorry I said what I did, Cyn. You were right—you were right then, and you’re right now. I’ll never speak of it again.”

  “Beau, do you think we’ll . . . Do you think we’ll go to hell?”

  “Into the fiery pit? That’s where they went, sweetheart. God wasn’t around to save us, so we saved ourselves. I don’t think there’s anything after . . . this. But if there is, there’s no hell for you. Not for you, Cyn. Everything you did, everything you ever did, it was only for love.”

  “You,
too, Beau.”

  “Killing those animals? Sure, that’s true. But there’s been a lot marked down on my ledger since then.”

  “Wherever you go, I’m going with you.”

  “Then it doesn’t matter where it is,” the man in the wheelchair said, closing his eyes again.

  * * *

  1959 October 04 Sunday 16:04

  * * *

  When the phone in the back office of the restaurant rang, it was Dioguardi himself who picked up the receiver.

  “Who are you?” he said, without preamble.

  “I’m a businessman, just like you. I want to do business. So I sent you my card, and a sample of my work.”

  You’re a very cute guy, Dioguardi thought to himself. “Okay,” he said aloud, “what kind of business do you want to do?”

  “The kind where I get paid.”

  “Paid how much? And for what?”

  “Well, that’s really your choice. You can either pay me for what I sent you a sample of, COD, or you can pay me to take my business elsewhere.”

  “Uh-huh. And how much payment would we be talking about?”

  “For deliveries, it’s a sliding scale, starting at a grand a head.”

  “Starting?”

  “Starting. But if you want to make a deal for me to move my operation to another city, you can pay a onetime noncompetition fee. That’d be ten large.”

  “Just to go away?”

  “Far away. And not come back.”

  “You, uh, ever do this other places?”

  “Lots of other places. It’s what I do.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to do business at all.”

  “That’s up to you.”

  “I can’t just—”

  “I understand. I’ll give you some time to think about it, okay? Then I’ll call again, and you can give me your answer.”

  “Hey! If you—”

  The dial tone cut off whatever Dioguardi was going to say.