Hot Springs (Earl Swagger)

by Stephen Hunter

  “I knew,” she said. “They didn’t have your name in the papers with those other poor boys.”

  “That’s the one thing they got right, then.”

  “All those boys, Earl,” she said.

  “It was just so wrong,” he said.

  “Earl, come home. That is the devil’s own town. You’ve given it every last thing and what’s it got you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Earl, it’s not worth it.”

  “No, it’s not. It never was. All them boys gone.”

  “Earl, you can’t think about that. It’ll kill you.”

  “I know. I should think of other things: how’s that baby?”

  “Kicking a bit. A little kicker, if you ask me.”

  “I’m coming home as soon as I can, sweetheart. I will be there when it comes.”

  “I know you will or die trying,” she said.

  He watched it play out in the newspapers over the next few days. He thought he was beyond surprise, but even he had trouble believing what came next. The New Era had it thus:

  JAYHAWKERS AMBUSH SELVES

  Seven Die in Railyard Mixup

  Members of the Prosecuting Attorney’s special raid team evidently got in a gunfight amongst themselves in darkness last night in the Missouri and Pacific Railyard.

  Seven men were killed, including D. A. Parker, 65, a legendary FBI agent who shot it out at one time with the gangster chieftains of the ’30s.

  Sources indicate that Parker was the leader of the unit, known in local parlance as “Jayhawkers,” after the Kansas brigands that bedeviled Hot Springs before the Civil War.

  “I am exceedingly disappointed in Mr. Parker,” said Fred C. Becker, Garland County Prosecuting Attorney. “He was a man of experience but evidently in his advanced age, his mind began to deteriorate and he made a number of bad judgments. Night operations are tricky, as I learned firsthand in Italy in the United States Army. I will forever hold myself responsible for my lack of foresight in not replacing him with more rational personnel. I feel the pain of this loss immensely. And I take full responsibility.”

  Sources gave this account of the night’s events.

  Acting on a tip, Parker took his unit to the railyard, where he suspected a train robbery, similar to the Alcoa Payroll Job of 1942, was being engineered.

  In the darkness, his men got separated. For some reason, one of them fired and all the others began to fire at indistinct targets.

  When it was over, seven men, including Parker, lay dead.

  The state papers in Little Rock were kinder, but only a little bit. In all, that seemed the verdict: an idiotic D. A. Parker leading his little ragtag band into the railyard on a fool’s errand, where out of sheer stupidity it self-combusted. The Jayhawkers had killed themselves.

  Earl knotted the rag up into a ball and tossed it across the cell. He lay all day and night. It was not unlike the war. He just stared at a numb patch of ceiling, trying to work out what had happened and why. He tried not to think of the boys and the brief spurts of fire that took them down so neatly, and how well planned, how ingenious the whole thing was. He tried to exile the grief he felt for the good young men and the rage he felt for Becker and Owney Maddox and this Johnny Spanish, the professional bank robber, who must have set the whole thing up.

  He tried so very hard, and he tried hard not to think of the mute coffins, lined up and shipped without ceremony back to their points of origin.

  • • •

  On the third day, he was taken from the cell into a little room, and there discovered not Fred C. Becker but Becker’s head clerk, a ferrety little man with eyeglasses named Willis O’Doyle.

  “Mr. Swagger?”

  “Yeah. Where’s Becker?”

  “Mr. Becker is working on important cases. He could not attend.”

  “That bastard.”

  “Mr. Swagger, attacking Mr. Becker verbally will not do you any good in this room.”

  “Am I being charged with anything?”

  “No. Not if you cooperate.”

  “Jesus Christ, he gets seven men who fought and bled for him killed and I’m supposed to cooperate?”

  “Mr. Becker is as upset as you at the outcome of the action. But he feels with more effective leadership from Mr. Parker and yourself this could have been avoided.”

  O’Doyle looked at him with placid ideologue’s eyes, unaware, uninterested.

  “Mister, you don’t know much about things, do you?”

  “Be that as it may, Mr. Swagger, I am here to inform you that the governor of the state of Arkansas has today officially required that the prosecuting attorney’s special raid team officially cease to exist. Mr. Becker has decided to comply with that order. A news release to that effect will be put out this afternoon.”

  “He can still win, you know. He can still hit the Ohio, even with just a few state cops, close it down, and put it to Owney Maddox.”

  “I don’t think Mr. Becker is interested in further dangerous activities, especially in the downtown area.”

  “He’s given up.”

  “Sir, it does you no good to assail Mr. Becker.”

  “If he doesn’t do something, he’s a loser. He’s gone. Nobody’ll ever elect a quitter to anything in this state. It’s the South, for God’s sakes.”

  “Mr. Swagger, the city attorney was going to indict you on charges of malicious mischief, discharging a firearm within city limits, leaving the scene of an accident, and breaking and entering for that little trick of crashing into the Fordyce. You’re lucky he didn’t include pandering and sexual deviancy for entering the women’s bathing area!”

  O’Doyle was a prude; his little face knitted up in distaste.

  “But Mr. Becker interceded in your behalf. All charges will be dropped against you and Mr. Henderson. The condition is that you sign a statement acknowledging the events in the railyard three nights ago, and leave town immediately, and never come back. This offer is on the table for the next ten minutes. Mr. Becker wants you gone. Gone forever, so that he can begin the healing. He has many more steps to make on his journey.”

  Earl just looked at him with contempt. Becker had made some kind of peace with the city, with, presumably, Owney. It was all to be covered up.

  “What kind of investigation did they make at the crime scene?”

  “It was never considered a crime scene, but an accident scene. The Hot Springs city police cordoned it off, and set about to provide medical help. Unfortunately, so well trained was your team that all the bullets were fatally placed. Seven men were declared DOA. It’s been a very bloody summer.”

  “You could pull that one to pieces with ten minutes’ worth of investigation. Did they take up shell casings? Did they do forensics on the bodies? Did they talk to witnesses who heard different kinds of gunfire? Did they even find carbines in the area? Our carbines were taken away, along with every other long gun and our vests. How could we have shot each other with carbines if we didn’t have no carbines—”

  “I am assured that several carbines were recovered on site, Mr. Swagger. You had better get used to the idea that this is over, and that the best thing for you to do is leave the county and begin again elsewhere. I’ve spoken to Mr. Henderson. He’s seen the wisdom in our suggestion.”

  “I don’t know why you bastards always turn on the men you pay to do your killing for you,” Earl said. “But that’s the way it happens.”

  “You understand, you are also forbidden from making contact with Mr. Becker, from speaking to journalists or publishing an account of these events, of publicly identifying yourself as a member of what the newspapers called the Jayhawkers?”

  Earl looked at him.

  “You are also officially warned that any attempt at misguided vengeance against those you perceive as culpable in this case will be considered a willful violation of this agreement and the law as well, and you will be prosecuted aggressively and to the full extent of our resources. You are to leave town q
uickly, quietly and completely. You are never to set foot in Garland County again. Your ten minutes are almost over, sir.”

  Earl just shook his head.

  “Mr. Swagger, this isn’t merely the best deal you’ll get, it’s the only deal you’ll get. I’d sign off on it, get out of town and get about my life’s work, whatever that may be.”

  “He’s just going to write all them boys off?”

  “Mr. Swagger, I have other appointments. If this document is not signed in the next three minutes, I will direct the city attorneys to begin legal proceedings against you. With a wife on the verge of a baby, I don’t think you want to spend the next few weeks in jail while this thing is painfully sorted out. By the way, your badge, which was in your effects, has been confiscated and destroyed. Furthermore, as you are no longer a bonded officer of law enforcement, you have lost the right to carry a concealed weapon. Sir, I would sign and vanish as fast as possible.”

  Earl’s bull rage suggested to him that he ram the little man’s skull against the wall, but he saw what paltry good that would do, and after he smoked a cigarette, he signed the goddamn thing, feeling as if he’d just sold out his oldest and best friends.

  “Oh, and one last thing, Mr. Swagger. You will be billed seventy-five cents for the dry cleaning of your suit and tie and the laundering of your shirt and socks.”

  50

  Becker would see nobody. He canceled all appointments. He sat alone in his office, contemplating his ruin. Of course he lacked the nerve for suicide, and he enjoyed the self-pity too much sober to blur it with alcohol, so he simply stared out the window, sucked on his pipe, and blew huge clouds of aromatic smoke into the air.

  Why did I ever try this idiocy? he thought.

  What possessed me?

  Am I merely stupid or am I colossally ignorant?

  The newspapers were really piling on. Even his nominal allies in Hot Springs were distancing themselves from him. He’d been made to look like a bloody buffoon and now Owney would be bigger than ever.

  It had all vanished: governor in ’48, the youngest ever in the state’s history. Maybe the Senate then. Maybe the national ticket. There is nothing more intensely bitter than a fantasy that has sustained one for a decade suddenly being snatched away and crushed by reality. How could he daydream now? How could he settle back in the minutes before sleep and see himself exalted, vindicated, loved, propelled ever onward on good looks, charm and sheer affability? Postwar America was going to take off like a rocket; television was going to rule and that would give the advantage to handsome men; there would be change everywhere, as the young replaced the old, as a new order took over for an old one.

  And he had lost.

  He would not be part of it.

  It seemed so unfair.

  He loaded another ton of tobacco into his pipe and forgot himself in the intricacy of the ritual for a while, then finally got everything tamped and squashed in just right, and lit a match and drew in the firecrackly explosion of dense heat. In that alone there was pleasure.

  The door opened.

  “Mr. Becker?”

  “I told you I didn’t want to be disturbed.”

  “It’s your wife.”

  “I can’t talk to her.”

  “It’s the tenth time she’s called.”

  “I don’t care. Leave me alone.”

  “What about the two o’clock staff meeting?”

  “Cancel it.”

  “What about your meetings with the mayor and the chamber of commerce?”

  “Cancel them.”

  “What about the newspaper people? The waiting room is full of them. The columnists have tried to bribe me. They’re annoying everybody and some of them don’t flush the toilet when they’re done with it.”

  “I issued a statement. I have nothing further to add.”

  “Yes sir. Would you like a glass of water or some coffee or something?”

  “No.”

  “Mr. O’Doyle is back.”

  “I don’t want to see him.”

  “There are several matters that need—”

  “Let the staff decide.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Please go away.”

  “Yes sir. Oh, this came. I’ll leave it here for you, sir.”

  Becker sucked in the pipe smoke, blew out still more ample clouds of smoke. He almost slipped off into his favorite fantasy, where he stands before a national convention, feeling the power of history as it approves him, and various people who denied him his specialness are seen below the podium, their faces crushed in bitterness. But then caught himself and returned to normalcy, and he was the one who was bitter and would be for a long, long—

  This came. I’ll leave it here for you, sir.

  Now what the hell did that mean?

  He looked and saw a large manila envelope on the floor, face down.

  What was this? Why would she leave it? What was … ?

  His curiosity momentarily overcoming his lethargy and self-hatred, he went to the doorway and picked the envelope up.

  It was first-class, special delivery, from Los Angeles, California, addressed to him personally, and marked HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL.

  What the hell?

  He opened it and looked at the contents and—

  “Miss Wilson! Miss Wilson! Get the Little Rock FBI on the horn! And fast!”

  51

  Earl was escorted to his car by two Hot Springs plainclothesmen whose demeanor indicated they’d be just as happy to beat him to a pulp as to spit. He drove the seven blocks to the hospital with a black-and-white ahead of him and one behind him, and the plainclothesmen behind them.

  He parked and went in, and found the boy sitting wanly in the waiting room. His left side was heavily bandaged and his arm immobilized by a sling, and his face appeared pale and forlorn.

  “Well, ain’t you a sight,” Earl said, glad to see the kid was basically all right. That meant he hadn’t lost them all. He’d saved one. He’d gotten one through it. That at least he’d done, when he’d failed at all else.

  “Howdy, Mr. Earl,” said Carlo. “Good to see you.”

  “Well, sir,” said Earl, “guess my last official act is to take you to the station and see that you head back to Tulsa. Then I’m to get out of town and don’t come back no nevermore, or these fine gents’ll throw me in jail.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Got the car right out here. Can you make it? Do you need a wheelchair?”

  “No sir. I’m fine. I lost some blood, that’s all, but the bullet passed through without breaking any bones. I been ready to leave for two days.”

  “Guess all them important boys had to decide what to do with us.”

  “Yes sir. Heard they was going to throw us into jail.”

  “But heroic Fred Becker stopped that. Yes sir, that’s what I like about Fred, he always stands by his men.”

  “He’s a real hero, that one,” said the boy.

  They walked out into bright sun, and all the cops were lounging on their bumpers. Earl waved.

  “Howdy, y’all. We’re going to the train station. Let me know if I get too far ahead of y’all now.”

  The cops stared at him grimly; now that he was disarmed and beat up badly, he didn’t scare them a lick, no sir.

  He opened the door for Carlo, then went around and got in.

  The hospital was in the north end of town; they drove south down Central one last time to the train station. The eight bathhouses FordyceSuperiorHaleMauriceQuapawOzarkBuckstaffLamar gleamed on the left and on the other side of the boulevard, ancient, corrupt Hot Springs marched onward, the Medical Arts Building, the Southern, all the smaller casinos and brothels, on down to the Ohio.

  “We could still shut that place down,” joked Earl. “Two men without guns, with a cop escort. That would at least surprise ’em.”

  “Give ’em a good laugh, wouldn’t it, Mr. Earl?”

  “It sure would, Henderson.”

  Two blocks beyond
they reached the train station. All evidence of the shootings of four nights earlier had vanished by now; the place hummed with pilgrims come to take the waters. The Missouri and Pacific 4:30 lay next to the station, cutting off the view of the railyard beyond, so at least they didn’t have to look at the killing ground, the switching shed or the culvert.

  Earl bought the ticket, one-way to Tulsa, $8.50, with just about the last of his cash. Supposedly the state would forward a last paycheck, or so he had been promised, but he’d believe it when he saw it.

  The train wouldn’t leave for half an hour, so the two men sat down on the bench. Discreetly, the policemen and the detectives set up a watch around them.

  “You want an Eskimo Pie, Henderson?”

  “Yes sir.”

  Earl went back inside, got the boy the ice cream and returned. While the boy ate his ice cream, he lit up a cigarette and stared at the train just ahead of him.

  “Mr. Earl,” said the boy. “How come you knew where that culvert was?”

  “What?” said Earl.

  “How come you knew where that culvert was?”

  “Hmmm. I don’t much know. Must have seen a map. What difference does it make?”

  “How come you knew how steep the hill behind the Belmont was? How come you knew that street ran downhill not far from Mary Jane’s? How come you knew where the manager’s office at the Horseshoe was? Mr. Earl, was you in this town before you got here with D.A.?”

  Earl didn’t say anything. Then he said, “What difference does it make?”

  “I have to have this out with you, Mr. Earl. Mr. Parker wouldn’t want me to. But I have to know, Mr. Earl. If you murdered your father, I have to know, and then I have to work out what to do next. I can’t let a murder pass, no matter that the man who committed it saved my life. I’m a police detective and that’s what I’ll be till the day I die.”

  “You are a good cop, Henderson. Wish I could say the same.”

  Earl lit another cigarette. The boy stared at him intently.

  “It makes sense, Mr. Earl. You were going to the Pacific. You thought you were going to die over there. You had to have it out with your daddy, to punish him for beating your brother till he died, then hanging him up in the barn, and beating you till you ran away. But you couldn’t disappear during normal duty, because the Marine Corps would keep a record. But when the division moved out for the West Coast from New River, that would be your time, Mr. Earl. You could disappear and come back and your sergeant pals would cover for you. You could get here and wait for him and recon the place and learn it up one side and down t’other. So you meant to beat him up and you shot him instead. You drive him out to Mount Ida, you dump him, you hop a freight, then another troop train, and you’re on your way to Guadalcanal and who would know? Is that how it was, Mr. Earl?”