by George Wier
“You’re asking me to kill a story? Seriously?”
“There’s no story. There never was a story. I’ll take you on a tour of Ms. Wickett’s boarding house, if you are of a mind. You’ll find nothing there, I assure you.”
“What about Donnegal? Where is he?”
“Lord knows what cabbies do on their days off. Good luck finding him though.”
Underwood smiled. He reached into his inside coat pocket and withdrew a square of hardback paper and laid it on the desk in front of him. It was a police photograph of Mattie Wickett’s parlor, complete with the butchered hide of Martindale and two of the women.
“Name your price,” Denny Muldoon stated.
“There ain’t that much money on this island,” Underwood stated.
Muldoon eased back in his chair and interlaced his fingers on top of his head.
“What if,” he began, “and just ‘what if.’ What if the price had nothing to do with money?”
Underwood’s eyes grew cool and steady. “Could you speak a little more plainly?”
“Plainly. All right. Try this. Name a thing.”
“A thing,” Underwood repeated uncertainly.
“Yes. A thing. It could be anything.”
“Anything?” Underwood asked softly.
“Anything.”
“Would you need to know now what that ‘anything’ would be?”
“No,” Muldoon said, equally as soft. “You can think about it.”
“I’ve already thought about it, Denny. I will accept your kind offer.” Underwood stood up, plucked his hat from the corner of the desk and seated it on his head. “Tonight. The Hotel Galvez. Engage a room for the night. I will see you there at nine o’clock p.m. in the hotel bar.”
Underwood turned to the door, opened it. Before leaving he said, “It’ll be late enough then for us to have a few drinks.”
[ 34 ]
Cueball hadn’t been inside the Galvez in years. Apart from its luxurious hotel suites and its spacious meeting rooms, the Galvez had a five-star restaurant that was one of the jewels of the Island. The grand Spanish architecture of the hotel extends into Bernardo’s, the hotel’s eatery, which is replete with vanilla linen tablecloths draped over hardwood tables from a century gone, candle-laden brass chandeliers and a panoramic view of the Gulf of Mexico. Cueball sat at a round table and finished off a glass of Italian wine.
“It is good?” the small man at his elbow inquired.
“Yes, Giuseppi, it is astonishingly good. But to me, any wine that I’m drinking is good. I told you before, I’m more of a whiskey man. You should save this for those customers more—”
“Particular, Mister C.C.?”
“Yes, Giuseppi. Particular I am not. Now,” Cueball wiped his lips and laid his napkin aside, “you were going to give me the tour all over again.”
“Yes, Mister C.C. Indeed!”
Giuseppi Grassi had come to Galveston in the early 1970s while Cueball was still a street cop in Dallas. The first night back on the Island, he and Myrna had stayed at the Galvez. Their realtor was getting the closing documents ready on their Ball Street house. Giuseppi had been no more than bellhop then, but over the years he had worked his way up into the hotel management. When Cueball had called the hotel asking for him, he was pleasantly surprised to have Giuseppi on the other end of the phone line in less than a minute.
During their stay all those years before, Giuseppi had made himself completely useful to Cueball, even going so far as to drive across town to fetch needed documents from his real estate agent. And during that stay neither Cueball nor Myrna had been ready for what Grassi called “The Grand Tour.” There simply hadn’t been enough time back then. Cueball was glad Giuseppi was still here. He would now fulfill the little man’s most fervent wish—or at least what had seemed so at the time.
“This way, Mister C.C.,” Grassi said.
“Actually, Giuseppi, what I want is not quite what you call The Grand Tour. You’ve been around long enough to have heard all of the legends of this hotel, haven’t you?”
Giuseppi Grassi stopped and turned toward Cueball.
“But of course.”
“Then what I would like to see is the penthouse suite,” Cueball said.
“Ahh! That. The home of Mr. Maceo.”
“Yes. For starters.”
“And then?”
“First the penthouse. The ‘and thens’ will all fall in line after that.”
“Very good, sir,” Giuseppi said and wheeled about. “To the elevator. Unless you would like to take the stairs?”
“I would, but my legs wouldn’t. The elevator will do fine.”
• • •
“There’s nothing here,” Cueball said.
“It is only a room,” Giuseppi said. “Still, it is the best room in the place. See the view of the Gulf? And the roof terrace? This is a sought-after room. Presidents have stayed here.”
“I wish the walls had ears,” Cueball said. “And a mouth to repeat what was said.”
“You are referring to Mister Maceo,” Giuseppi said. “Perhaps you should speak with Mr. Blessing.”
“Who?”
“He was here all those years ago, when Mister Maceo was here. He was a bellhop then. He comes to the restaurant downstairs for lunch, although he doesn’t eat much when he does. His food is mostly wasted. I would like to introduce you to him, Mister C.C.”
“I would appreciate that, Giuseppi.”
“Maybe he’ll be here today.”
• • •
Cueball stepped around to face the man.
“Mr. Blessing?”
He was not much older than Cueball himself. His left side appeared more shrunken than his right, evidence of a stroke at some point within the last ten or fifteen years. The absence of muscle tone in his left arm, which rested atop his dinner napkin and the slackness of the left half of his face, giving him a lopsided, almost sardonic grin, bore testament to a sudden shift one day long before.
“Who are you?” the man asked, his words slow and deliberate as he looked up from his dinner, which looked as though it hadn’t been touched. Blessing laid down the fork that he’d been holding in his right hand.
“I’m digging into Longnight.”
“Longnight?” the man asked as he turned his eyes slowly toward Cueball. The man looked up at him and when he did, he shuddered.
“Longnight,” Cueball said. “No one seems to know his real name. But I think you knew him.”
“I haven’t heard that name in a long time. Well, what are you waiting for? Have a seat.”
Cueball sat to Blessing’s right. “My name is C.C. Boland.”
“What is it you want to know, Mr. Boland?” the stricken man asked.
“There’s an entire history of this island that has never been written. It probably never will be written, thankfully.”
“Brother, you can say that again. No one would believe it anyway, and it’s best that way.” Blessing tried to raise his left arm with his shoulder muscles, but gave it up and used his right hand to lift the lifeless, curled hand and place it on the table next to his plate. He leaned forward to keep it there.
“What do you want to know about Longnight?”
“How he was captured,” Cueball said. “That for starters.”
“It was me,” Blessing said.
“I don’t follow.”
“There’s that old saying about loose lips sinking ships.”
“I’m familiar with it,” Cueball said.
“Well, these old lips are about to start flapping again for you, Mr. Boland. Here, why don’t you drink this glass of wine. They always fill one for me and I never touch it.”
“Much obliged,” Cueball said, and pulled the glass close to him.
“All right. It was 1943. And here’s what happened.”
[ 35 ]
“I was a young fellow then.” Blessing began. “Sixteen or thereabouts. This was during the War. The rest of the wor
ld was going mad and here it was all light and glitter and fine wine. Sort of like they say the Titanic was before it went down. The island was a haven for anyone wanting to escape wherever they come from. I was a bellhop in this hotel we’re sitting in when a strange man came. He was dark and suave and full of high intelligence. You could see things going on behind his eyes. He took it all in. I told him about the clubs and the girls and the nightlife.
“But this fellow, Longnight, he wasn’t looking for whores. He was looking for…I didn’t know what he was after, or, at least I didn’t know at first. I pointed out the Balinese Room to him that first night, just across the street out his window. He spent a lot of time there at the Maceo’s place—the Balinese Room—night after night after night. He was on the island from maybe October to December. He paid for his room in cash. He had one of those money belts they used to make and sell at the finest haberdashers. It was near to full when he got here and was only half empty by the time he was captured.
“The murders began within days of his arrival. I didn’t connect any of that up until much later. First it was just disappearances. Someone whispering to me that so-and-so lady had up and left, I forget who, but she was the queen of the walk of high society. Another time there was a body found, or part of one, out on the beach just beneath the seawall. That sort of thing happens every once in a blue moon. But then there was the Post Office Street murders. That one got hushed-up. It never made the papers. In fact, none of it ever did. I think Homer Underwood managed to keep the story from getting out. He was the newspaper man in those days. But let me tell you, this island was stirred up. We were all nervous-like—the way you can kick an anthill lightly and watch those suckers come pouring out, running around in circles and madder than hell. One minute life goes on natural and normal, the next, the shadows at night begin to take on what they call ‘definition.’
“But then that Texas Ranger fellow was on the Island and that federal agent. They were going here and there talking to people, asking questions. A lot of strange stuff started happening then. I seen Underwood and Muldoon, the federal agent, going into a room together and they didn’t come out ‘til the next day.
“One night I was working late and Longnight said something about going off in a direction he’d not gone before, so I had recommended a little club down on the west end. Hanny’s Place. It was a colored joint with gambling going on that was sanctioned by the Maceos only so long as they paid-up properly. There was some wild stuff going on down that end in those days. Muldoon—that agent—he cornered me. He wanted to know where Longnight and Underwood had gone. Then he peeled out after them, and so I decided to follow him and see if he was going to kill them.
“Once I got to Hanny’s Place—that was the colored joint—this black shape came around from behind me then and I like to have pissed my pants. At first I thought it was a ghost, but then I see it’s the silhouette of a man in a cowboy hat. It was that Texas Ranger, Bonaparte Foley. He walks up to the front door and tries to open it, but by then those men already locked it from the inside. Then Foley takes his gun out and shoots the handle off the door, and then he shoots off the hinges. He took that door in his hands, threw it aside and stepped inside. I waited there in the dark, sweating the whole time but no one except Foley ever came out, and he came out alone. A bunch of white folks go into a colored joint? And don’t come out? At first I thought maybe Foley had killed everybody in there. By this time I was out of my car and walking to the front entrance. Foley walked past me. I couldn’t see much of his face because it was in shadow, but what I could see made me shiver all over. About that time I heard the sound of boat motors revving up ninety to nothing.
“When I went inside that place there wasn’t a soul in sight. I didn’t see any blood anywhere. No tables were turned over. Everything looked peaceful-like, as if everybody had been dancing and then got up and walked out, except I knew they had run. Even the musical instruments on the band stand lay there as if they had been put down calmly.
“I don’t know what happened inside Hanny’s place that night. Maybe there’s no living soul who does know. But I do know this. No one ever heard or saw that Longnight fellow ever again. I heard that old Homer Underwood died recently. Muldoon too. Makes a fellow wonder who’s going to die next. Yes. It does.”
• • •
“Thank you for telling me everything, Mr. Blessing,” Cueball said.
Blessing picked up his left hand with his right and put it back in his lap, then he regarded the plate in front of him as if seeing it for the first time. He lifted his right hand and pushed it away from him.
“Those days,” he said. “There are times I wish I was back there. And then there are times I wish I’d never been born. But my daddy had a saying. He said, ‘Wish in this hand, piss in this one, and see which one fills up faster.’”
“My daddy had almost the same saying,” Cueball said, “only his wasn’t as nice.”
[ 36 ]
“Tad!” Denny Muldoon snapped across the lobby of the Galvez. The sun had gone down and the night had come. It was a warm night—too warm for Christmas Eve.
“Yes sir?” Tad Blessing asked.
“The dapper man. Where did he go?”
Blessing swallowed. “Uh…”
“Underwood went with him, didn’t he?”
“Uh. Yes sir.”
“Where?”
Blessing looked back toward the hotel front desk behind him to make certain they weren’t being observed by the night manager. As he turned back he found himself being lifted off the ground by a fist knotted at his chest.
Muldoon pulled the kid’s face close to his own. He reeked of alcohol, cigarettes and rancid sweat. He whispered to him between clenched teeth. “Listen, you little pissant nigger. You tell me where they went right this minute or I’ll break your fucking neck.”
Blessing nodded. He thought he might black out.
Muldoon set him down, released him and began smoothing his shirt and collar. He glanced over Blessing’s shoulder and smiled at someone back there, either the consierge or the night manager.
“Okay,” Muldoon whispered again, this time through a wide, false smile. “Where did they go?”
“Hanny’s Place. Colored joint...on the west end. Sits out on a pier down there.
“How far down there? And how long ago did they leave?”
“About…eighteen miles. Half…half hour ago. Mr. Underwood and Mr. Longnight, they wanted—”
“What did you call him? Longnight?”
Blessing nodded.
“Shit,” Muldoon said. He turned without another word and made for the front doors.
“Yeah. Shit,” Tad Blessing said to himself.
• • •
Bonaparte Foley was hopping mad. A phone call to Austin during a rest stop in Houston quickly revealed that he had not indeed been summoned back as he had been led to believe. He’d called the governor’s mansion and spoken directly with Governor Coke Stevenson. When Foley told the Govenor he was headed to Austin as fast as he could get there, Stevenson had said, “What’s your hurry?” A moment of clarification had the governor asking him, “Just what the hell are you talking about, Ranger Foley?” to which Foley cryptically replied, “Apparently, Governor, I’m talking about a lying bastard of a federal agent. I’m sorry for the false alarm, Governor. And good night, sir.”
Foley turned his Ford around and drove back to Galveston as if the four horsemen of the apocalypse were riding roughshod behind him. He had his mind made up to kill Muldoon long before he crossed the narrow corduroy causeway to the island.
Muldoon’s car wasn’t at the police station. On a hunch, Foley drove by the Galvez in time to see the bellhop, Tad Blessing, nearly wreck his car getting out of the parking lot. Blessing had neglected to turn on his headlights.
Foley turned into the Galvez, killed his headlights and then turned around and followed Blessing into the inky blackness.
• • •
It
was obvious to Foley that Blessing was following someone else, and he had yet another hunch that it would be either Longnight or Muldoon. And Muldoon had been spending a great deal of time with that homosexual newspaperman, Homer Underwood. Underwood somehow must have Muldoon by the short hairs.
Foley drove by instinct and adrenaline alone. Blessing’s occasional tap on his brakes was the only real clue how far ahead the kid was. In order to play it safe and avoid running into the kid’s ass, Foley eased to the left and tried to stay in the oncoming lane, hoping no one else this night was driving without their headlights on this long, lonely stretch of Texas coast.
The trip took twenty nerve-wracking minutes. Foley watched as Blessing stopped his car across from Hanny’s Place and just sat there in the dim lights outside the place. The parking lot at Hanny’s was full, and the colored blues music from inside the place poured out into the stillness of the night.
Foley waited a minute to see if the kid would get out, but then decided to plunge ahead. One way or another, there would be some action. He’d either catch Longnight, or he’d catch up with Muldoon, or possibly both of them, and then there would be hell to pay.
[ 37 ]
Longnight was enthralled with the old colored man and his harmonica. As he watched him he unconsciously thrummed his fingers on the tabletop and tapped his foot against the hardwood floor of the place. The musician, all grizzled white hair over a taut, dark chocolate skeletal frame, made a rigid metronomic movement backward and forward to the bass drum beat. Shrill notes blasted from his harmonica between cupped hands in syncopation such that the damned thing seemed to speak, and what it orated was a tortured soliloquy of complaint against the world and the way things shouldn’t be.
Blue smoke hung suspended just above head height. On the dance floor, the people moved and gyrated in a way Longnight had never seen before. It was alien and primal, and at the same moment raw and powerful. And it was, to his surprise, so completely right. Far from the class and style of the Balinese Room or the elegance of a grand ballroom, Hanny’s Place was full of life. Young Tad Blessing had steered him to the right place. There was a twenty-dollar bill in the works for the kid when he got back to the hotel.
