by George Wier
“Did he? Which company, Viv? You have so many.”
“A.S.G. It stands for Angel Sent of God.”
“The story sounds good, Viv.” Cueball said. “Believable, even.”
“But?”
“As long as I’ve known you, something about it doesn’t compute. I’ll leave it there if you want.”
She nodded and made as if to stand. “Yes. Let’s leave it there. No good can come of any of it. There is one thing I have to ask you, Charles, before you go.”
“Go ahead.”
“You’re trying to track down Harrison. He is family. I won’t have you killing him.”
“No one said anything about killing him, Vivian. But he doesn’t belong outside of prison bars. Surely you realize that?”
Vivian DeMour hesitated, then slowly nodded.
[ 28 ]
After Cueball left, Vivian sat down at her kitchen table and fished out a Virginia Slims cigarette. She thumbed a gold-plated cigarette lighter she kept close by on the marble-top table and breathed in the smoke and thought absently how there is no hit quite like the first one.
Her telephone rang. She picked it up.
“Yes?” After a moment, she replied to the voice on the other end, “No, Hub. Do not. And you stay out of my personal business. I won’t have it.”
The caller was not yet mollified.
Vivian DeMour’s face reddened. Her jaw muscles filled out, as if she were clenching her teeth. Then a wild look flashed in her eyes, replaced by a stern coldness.
“Look here, Bailey,” she hissed between clenched teeth. “I don’t give a good crying damn about your problems with me or the way I conduct business, commercial or private. You are on my payroll, for the moment, because you are not so easily replaced. Bear that in mind for the future. At the moment, your star appears to be on the wane. It is up to you the direction it takes from here. Do I make myself clear?”
She hung up. She dragged on the cigarette once more and spun the package of cigarettes around between her nimble fingers.
The phone rang a second time. She answered it, her voice once again that of the pleasant yet businesslike woman. “Yes?”
As Vivian DeMour listened, she slid back in her chair, clutched the phone close to her ear, and breathed cigarette smoke to the ceiling between a wide smile.
“Oh, definitely. No, no. You were correct. A complete idiot. Always has been. He was just here.”
She listened raptly, her smile remaining fixed. Finally, she interjected, putting a degree of sultry seduction into her voice, “Why don’t you come over tonight, Leland? We can, uh, talk about it.”
Vivian DeMour burst into laughter. She recovered quickly, took a quick drag of her cigarette and said, “Yeah. I have made some new additions to the boudoir. Have you ever done it under black light?”
• • •
Leland Morgan hung up the telephone.
“Bitch,” he said.
From his third floor office, he gazed out the window to the blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico and the thin straight line of the horizon.
Morgan noticed his hand was trembling, and brought it up before his face. He turned it about as if seeing it for the first time, as if it were some alien thing he had never noticed before.
His phone rang.
“Morgan,” he said, and listened. “Where?” He picked up a pen and began scratching on the note pad on his desk. “I’ll be right down.” He hung up.
“Shit,” he said. “It never ends.”
• • •
Leland Morgan pulled his car off Seawall Boulevard and into the sand. He drove between a pair of tall dunes and down to the beach below. A crowd was gathered. Fortunately the Galveston Police were already on the scene, having taped off the area with yellow crime scene ribbon suspended between four narrow steel stobs driven into the sand. The ribbon flapped in the breeze.
The sun was almost down. Hopefully the photography would begin before it was gone completely. You could never have enough good lighting at a crime scene.
“What we got here?” Morgan asked one of the uniformed officers and stepped over the crime scene tape.
“A couple of beach walkers found her. She hasn’t been here long. The crabs hadn’t gotten to her yet.”
“Some looker,” Morgan said, and regarded the body of the woman. “Geez. She got carved up, didn’t she?”
“Yeah,” the officer said. “Oddly enough, we’ve got her identity. That’s her car parked over yonder. Her purse was still inside it and it was unlocked, so we found an I.D. that matches her face, so it’s her. At least whoever did this didn’t cut her face.”
“Right,” Morgan replied. “Any idea who did it?”
“We don’t know anything yet. We do know she’s not from here. She had lunch five hours hours ago at the Climax Club in Houston. Sounds like a real classy joint, to me. Found the receipt in her purse as well, with the time. It doesn’t look like she had anyone with her when she came here.”
“How do you know?” Morgan asked.
“When you see her car, you’ll know. First of all, it’s a piece of crap. Second, it’s got all her worldly possessions in it. There’s no room for anybody else to sit.”
“Great. Yeah. I know what this means.”
“We’ve got a killer loose on the Island,” the officer said.
“Yeah,” Morgan agreed, and sighed. “Yeah. We do.”
“You know who did this, Lieutenant?”
“I think I do,” he said. “And unfortunately, to catch him, I’ll have to work with exactly the wrong people.”
[ 29 ]
After a brief look at the murdered young woman in the Galveston County Coroner’s Office, Cueball and Micah stepped out into the humid sunshine of a Gulf Coast morning. Leland Morgan followed them.
“This,” Morgan said, “has taken on all of the earmarks of a serial killer on the loose. If it was Lynch, he sure changed techniques—he beats Jack Pense to a pulp, puts a bullet through Homer Underwood’s head. Now he’s graduated to knife work.”
“He started with knife work a long time ago,” Cueball said. “He used a knife in Houston and Dallas. Looks like he’s gone back to that. Besides that, a knife is more…um…intimate.”
“Why beat up Pense?” Morgan asked.
“I have no idea,” Cueball said.
“You say she was a known prostitute?” Micah asked.
“Yeah,” Morgan said. “She had the rap-sheet for it. She was originally from College Station, Texas. First busted when she was fifteen. She drifted down this way somehow and ended up getting picked up for soliciting in Fifth Ward, Houston. My guess is that her clientele were paying black men. But after a fine and a slap on the wrist later, she made her way here.”
“A blond cutie like that a prostitute?” Cueball said. “She should have been in the movies. And with that name, Ivy Greene.”
“Bad choices,” Micah said. “We have to bring down the son of a bitch who did this.”
Leland Morgan didn’t answer. Instead he stood gazing out beyond the town and into the Gulf. “This badge says I can’t kill someone unless I have to in order to protect others or myself. And then I have to.”
“None of us wants to have to do that,” Cueball said. “But we won’t be killing Harrison Lynch. He’s to be taken alive.”
“Why is that?” Micah asked.
“I can’t say just yet,” Cueball stated. “Let’s leave it for now.”
Micah digested Cueball’s words slowly. What was it he couldn’t say? “We’re a sad lot,” he said. “We’re dinosaurs is what we are. And we don’t even know we’re extinct. I tell you, gentlemen, I believe I would have no qualms whatsoever in taking that bastard out of this world. I believe I may have to do it, particularly after what I just saw. Because if I don’t, I’m not sure I’ll be able to live with myself.”
“Micah,” Cueball said. “You can ruminate on this all you want to. I’ve got to make a call over to the Galvez and set up an app
ointment. Check in on Jenny, see how she’s getting on. If there’s anything she needs, you let me know.”
“Alright,” Micah said.
“After you do that, would you drop in on Tommy Smart down at the pool hall and make sure everything’s running alright down there?”
“Fine,” Micah said. “Maybe by that time I’ll find my appetite again.”
“You do that,” Cueball said. “Leland, you call me if you get any lead on Harrison Lynch. We’ll do the same. It’s the three of us in this together. Alright?”
Leland Morgan regarded Cueball. “Am I fostering your friendship enough now?”
“You’re doing fine, Leland,” Cueball said. “Just don’t get too chummy. If you get in my way, I’ll run right over you.”
Morgan laughed. “Right. And I’d do the same to you.”
[ 30 ]
After a leisurely breakfast on High Island the next day, Cueball and Micah hit the road to Beaumont and a visit to Denny Muldoon.
They pulled up at the curb on Harcourt Avenue in the shadow of a line of tall oak trees, some of which must have been pushing the two hundred mark age-wise.
Micah whistled. “Some spread,” he said.
The estate sat on two perfectly trimmed and honed acres. A line of holly bushes phalanxed both sides of the fifty-foot long front porch. The columns were Corinthian.
“Makes me want to ask for a mint julep,” Micah said as they stepped up onto the solid hardwood planks of the porch.
Cueball pushed the doorbell button. A buzzer echoed throughout the house.
After a bit, the massive front door opened. A short, thin woman of perhaps thirty stood in front of them. She had a swimmer’s tan, curly tawny-brown hair, and blue eyes. She turned her attention from Cueball to Micah and smiled.
“Hello,” she said. “My name’s Minnie. Are you Mr. Boland and Mr. Lanscomb?”
“We are,” Micah said. “I’m Lanscomb. This is Mr. Boland. Nice to meet you.”
“It’s nice to meet you too, Mr. Lanscomb. You’re right on time. Won’t you come in?” Minnie turned and the two men followed her.
Minnie led them from the foyer, with its polished mahogany, brass fittings and nineteenth-century crown molding and through a large dining room with a thirty-foot table laden with silver service and the obligatory chandelier. They passed the family room where a large fireplace stood with the ghosts of winters past hanging about, its screen closed and the ashes swept cleanly away. From the family room and down a long hallway the two men were led into what had clearly once been a combination den and library with floor-to-ceiling built-in bookshelves. The top shelves still held books, but the lower ones held hospital supplies. The room smelled of rubbing alcohol, antiseptic, and the unsettling smell of disease. On the raised hospital bed in the center of the room lay Denny Muldoon.
Minnie stepped beside the old man and spoke in a low whisper. His eyes opened.
“Ah-hmm,” Muldoon cleared his throat. “Come in. Raise me up, Minnie. I recall asking you to have me dressed and in my chair before the visitors came.”
“Yes, Denny,” she said, not sounding the least apologetic about it. “But you were resting so quietly, and I thought they might not come after all. But here they are.”
“Well, raise me up at least, dammit,” the old man snapped.
Minnie pushed and held down a button on the side of the bed.
“How’s that?”
“Fine. Now go away,” Muldoon said.
Minnie brushed past Micah on the way out.
“So,” Muldoon said, his voice a rasp and his eyes taking in the two men. “You two have a seat.” There was a low settee close by.
“Now. How can I help you fellows?”
Micah tried propping one lanky leg up over the other but Cueball rapped his knee and Micah desisted.
“We want to know about Longnight,” Cueball said. “Everything you know, if you care to tell it.”
Denny Muldoon’s eyes not so much closed as they appeared to sink back into his skull. He grimaced for a moment, then his eyes popped open again.
“Always and forever the past,” he said. “Why do you want to know?”
“Because,” Cueball said. “It’s not over. It’s happening again.”
“Longnight is dead,” Muldoon said. “And the world is safer. Unless crazy shithouse ghosts can kill from the grave, it’s all over. It was over long ago, and all my nightmares are nothing but a dying man’s inability to flush the past down the toilet. So tell me, please, why you would say such an impossible thing could happen?”
“Longnight’s son is loose upon the world,” Micah said. “And he’s killing.”
“In Galveston?” Muldoon asked.
Cueball nodded.
Muldoon stared at Cueball, then he looked away, his thin lips pursed in a flush of sudden anger.
Cueball continued, “I know that you and Bonaparte Foley were after Longnight. I know that Foley was told to put an end to the killings. Longnight never came to trial and the murders stopped. I would assume from these simple facts that you and Foley did your jobs.”
Muldoon responded, “Foley was close on the heels of Longnight, and I had to divert him. I was under orders.”
“From whom?” Micah asked.
“From J. Edgar Hoover. I was the closest agent to apprehending Longnight, and I was to turn him over to the OSS.”
“OSS?” Micah asked.
“Office of Strategic Services,” Cueball said. “Precursor to the CIA.”
“Oh. Makes sense so far.”
“I was afraid Foley was going to kill Longnight, even though he promised me he wouldn’t. I couldn’t trust him.”
“Pardon me,” Micah said, “but you couldn’t trust Foley? Weren’t you the federal agent?”
“Your friend doesn’t like federal agents,” Muldoon said to Cueball.
“No, he apparently doesn’t,” Cueball replied.
Muldoon laughed, and it sounded like an old hound dog barking. “Well hell, neither do I,” he said. “I wish to hell I was the one who was taken off the case and Foley had found him first. Foley might have done the right thing and rid the world of him. Me? I was just following orders. That’s exactly what those fellows said at Nuremberg right before they hung them—every single one of them.”
Cueball nodded. “That’s what they say.”
“What did you do with him then?” Micah asked.
Muldoon grew quiet. He stared at Micah for a moment, as if seeing him for the first time.
“What value, I wonder, would you put upon an oath, Mr. Lanscomb?”
One of Micah’s eyebrows shot up.
“What I mean is, after Minnie told me who was coming, I made a phone call,” Muldoon gestured to the phone by his bed. “I found out who both of you were. You, Mr. Lanscomb, walked off from your job as sheriff with no more than a ‘by your leave.’ I’d say that there had to be a broken promise somewhere in there, no matter the circumstances.”
Micah’s lips compressed.
Cueball glanced at Micah sidelong and shook his head. Don’t say a word.
“And you, Mr. Boland…The official line is that you retired as a Dallas cop and went into the security business. That’s a bit of a stereotype, I know, but what’s left out of that is your close association with Officer Hog Webern. Did you retire willingly, or were you forced out?”
Cueball didn’t miss a beat. “I’ll start double-dipping with my social security when I turn sixty-five. How about you? Living on family investments or something else?”
Muldoon laughed again and the old hound dog came out to frolic. The laughter, however, broke down into a fit of coughing.
“You see that bag at the side of the bed?” Muldoon asked, gesturing. “That one takes my urine. Then there’s the machine over here that takes my blood and cleans it.”
“Dialysis,” Micah said.
“Right. And the government pays for the whole shootin’ match. They pay for Minnie to take care o
f me too. And that’s because I was the only man alive who could tell Longnight what to do. The only man he would listen to.”
Cueball sighed. “You were talking about oaths.”
“So I was. My oath was that I would never reveal to any living being any of the circumstances—or even the existence—of Longnight.”
“Since there are at least two oath breakers in the room,” Micah said, “if that’s your contention, then you’re outnumbered and at our mercy.”
“Yes. I can see that. So I suppose I’ll join you. From everything else I’ve learned about you two, I couldn’t be in better company.”
“Tell us then,” Cueball said. “What was his real name?” Cueball asked.
“That’s the one thing I won’t tell you.”
“Why?” Micah asked.
“First, because I promised, and that should be enough for you. Second, because no good can come from telling you.”
“So be it,” Cueball said.
Muldoon nodded and began. It took an hour for him to tell the whole tale, from start to finish.
“Can I ask you something?” Micah inquired when Muldoon seemed to be done.
“Go ahead.”
“Did you know Homer Underwood back in those days?”
Muldoon’s eyes fixed on Micah, and for a minute he stared at him, unblinking.
“Why do you ask?”
“Because. He seemed to know who you were.”
“How is he?” Muldoon asked.
Cueball cleared his throat, interrupting. “Homer Underwood is dead. Murdered.”
Muldoon accepted this bit of news quietly. He turned his head slowly and let out a long, deep sigh.
“A friend of yours?” Micah asked.
Muldoon didn’t answer. Micah turned to Cueball, who quietly shook his head.
“Gentlemen,” Muldoon said. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to rest now. Would you please leave me in peace?”
Cueball and Micah stood, offered their thanks for the interview. Receiving no reply but a faint, curt nod, they filed out of the room.
• • •
Minnie escorted them back outside.
