Collins, Max Allan - Nathan Heller 08

by Blood (and Thunder) (v5. 0)

  “The boss does,” McCracken said, and shook his head. “I ain’t seen this many cops in one place since that all-night diner shut down.”

  Messina was in the game now. “Why would anybody wanna kill the boss?”

  “It sure ain’t no picnic guardin’ him,” McCracken said, and shook his head again. “Cain’t hardly keep up with him.”

  “Walks faster’n most men run,” Murphy said. “Stops and starts, and stops and starts—it’s like chasin’ after a goddamn trolley car.”

  “It’s like a goddamn game of musical chairs!” Squinch McGee said, holding his cards in two trembling hands.

  A few hours later—after supper had been catered up to us from the cafeteria in the capitol’s basement—I saw the truth of their words. Keeping up with the Kingfish, as he shuttled back and forth between the House on one side of the building, and the Senate way over on the other, was work for Jesse Owens.

  Watching this banty rooster expending boundless energy was a thing of wonder: pressing the flesh, keeping an eye on what were apparently routine matters, he obviously wasn’t taking any chances about getting his bills pushed through.

  On one of the rare occasions I was able to keep up with him, falling alongside, I said, “Mind if I ask you something, Kingfish?”

  “Only way to learn, son.”

  “Why do you fight so hard, when you got the battle won from the starting pistol?”

  “Son,” he laughed, “I ain’t even begun to shoot from the taw, yet.” He stopped on a dime, put a hand on my shoulder and his bulging brown eyes bore into me like needles. “Why do I run my fanny off like this? I’ll tell ya why, and you’ll wanna remember this: never write what you kin phone, never phone what you kin talk head-to-head, never talk what you kin nod, never nod what you kin wink.”

  And he winked at me, and took off like a race car.

  He was halfway down the hall from us when a man in white stepped out from where he’d been standing beside a pillar and planted himself in front of Huey, blocking his way.

  “Now, I don’t want trouble with you, Tom,” Huey was saying, as we moved quickly up.

  “This time ya’ve gone too far, Huey,” the man, who was elderly and frail-looking, said in a tone that managed to be both strong and quavering. Hatless, his snow white hair neatly combed, he wore wire-frame glasses and his face was handsome, dignified, but the sunken cheeks revealed the fragile skull under the creped skin.

  “Now, you step aside, Tom.”

  “It’s unconstitutional, this bill of yours…. We have a great president, and it shames every citizen of this fine state when you—”

  By now, we had formed a half-circle around the pair. The Kingfish had made no indication he wanted us to intercede.

  Huey thumped his chest. “Ah do the speeches aroun’ here, you feeble-minded ol’ fool! Git outa my way, and go slap damn to hell, while you’re at it!”

  The old man stepped forward, his right hand raised. “Don’t curse me, you power-drunk bastard….”

  Huey took several steps back; his face was white. The thought of this old man hitting him had paralyzed the great dictator with fear!

  There was a sharp crack! as Big George lurched forward and slapped the old man, knocking his legs out from under him like kindling.

  Huey, brave again, stood with windmilling arms, raging over the fallen senior citizen. “You’re the one who’s drunk! Git ’im outa here! Git ’im charged with drunk and disorderly, disturbin’ the goddamn peace or somethin’! And usin’ obscenity in a goddamn fuckin’ public place!”

  “I’ll take him,” Messina snarled, and threw himself at the old man like a ball, grabbing the gent’s collar and yanking him to his feet. The old boy looked dazed, his glasses askew.

  I pulled Messina away by one thick arm; the look he flashed back at me might have been a rabid animal’s. Nonetheless, I pushed myself between him and the old man. My right hand was on the butt of the nine-millimeter holstered under my left arm.

  “Let me take him,” I said to Huey, looking at him hard. “I’m done for the night, anyway.”

  Something akin to shame flickered in Huey’s eyes when he saw my expression. Had the Kingfish been a human being, once upon a time?

  Then the Kingfish gave me his prize-winning shit-eating grin. “You have put in a long day, Nate. Know where the Baton Rouge police department is?”

  “I’m a detective,” I said. “I’ll find it.”

  A hand was on my arm; it felt like a giant’s hand, but it was only mental-midget Messina’s.

  His eyes were glittering with emotion again, but a different one.

  “Don’t ever put your hand on me,” he whispered, his face in mine.

  “Sen Sen’s only a nickel,” I said. “Make an investment.”

  I hauled the old boy out of there, being just a little rough with him to keep the other bodyguards from looking at me too askance. We went out onto the landing of the capitol, with the forty-nine granite steps stretching down before us; the military guard remained, but at about half the force of before. The gardenlike grounds yawned before us in the pale light of a quarter moon, like a hazy paradise, but the weather made of the night a sultry, sweltering hell.

  “Thank you, young man,” the old gentleman said. “I’ve…I’ve never seen you before.”

  “I’m just passing through.”

  “You’re from Chicago.”

  “How did you know?”

  He straightened his glasses, smiled; his poise had returned. “I have a good ear for accents. You have a distinctly flat, nasal twang.”

  “I know. I’m taking something for it.”

  He frowned in thought. “You’re no Cossack. Are you really a detective?”

  “Yes.”

  “Investigating these murder threats?”

  I frowned in thought. “Are you a reporter?”

  “Used to be. Work for the administration, now.”

  “What administration?”

  “Why, FDR’s, of course. Publicity director for the Federal Education Program. Huey wants to pass a law so he can put people like me in jail.”

  “You do strike me as a dangerous type.”

  His smile might have been a pixie’s. “If you like…I can direct you to the police department….”

  “Why, do you want to go to jail?”

  “If you don’t take me there, he’ll fire you.”

  Fuck the two-fifty a day. The list of things I will do for money is damn near endless; but it doesn’t include aiding and abetting the assault of elderly gentlemen.

  “Doesn’t matter,” I said. “I’m quitting tomorrow. You got an automobile here?”

  “Yes, indeed.”

  “Can you drop me somewhere?”

  “Yes, indeed!”

  The ten-floor Heidelberg Hotel was on Lafayette Street. The Mississippi was damn near in its backyard; and next door was a Victorian residence with a clothesline, and cows and horses grazing in the yard. Baton Rouge was the goddamndest capital city I ever saw.

  The hotel’s top-floor restaurant, the Hunt Room, was decorated with fox-and-hounds prints and mounted examples of the taxidermist’s art. Alice Jean and I chose to sit under the canopy in the open-air section of the restaurant. We could see the Mississippi and the quarter moon’s ivory reflection on its black surface; we could see cows belonging to the family in the Victorian home munching in a small pasture separated from the river by some trees. A paddle-wheeler’s mournful whistle echoed down the river.

  I had just told Alice Jean—who looked lovely in a white organdy dress with red polka dots and a matching red beret—about the old ex-reporter getting slapped.

  “If I hadn’t stepped in,” I said, “Messina would have beat him to a pulp, and Huey would have sent him to jail on trumped-up ‘disturbing the peace’ charges.”

  She was sipping a Ramos Gin Fizz, a specialty of the house that Huey had imported from the Roosevelt Hotel in New Orleans. “‘Tom’ you said? That was probably Tom Ha
rris…they’re old enemies, Huey and Tom.”

  I set down my glass of rum. “It doesn’t bother you? Doesn’t it surprise you that—”

  “Nothing Huey does, at this point, would surprise me.” She was smiling but her eyes were infinitely sad.

  “Nothing?” I hadn’t told her yet. “What if I told you Huey knows we’re sleeping together?”

  She almost choked on her latest sip of cocktail. I waited for her to regain her composure; she never quite did. Finally she said, “Can we discuss this in private?”

  We sat in her room—the rooms at the Heidelberg were modest, at best, small, colorless studies in cheap wood veneer and cut-rate carpeting. The hotel was the tallest in the city but, remember—it had cows next door.

  I was in a straight-back chair; she sat on the edge of the double bed, wrinkling the cream-color spread.

  “Huey knows?”

  I nodded. “In fact, I think he set us up.”

  Her frown was bewildered; her eyes flying. “Set us up?”

  “Huey and me hung around together in Chicago, remember. Back in ’32. He knows my style.”

  She made a disgusted kiss of her cupie mouth. “Your…style?”

  “Yeah…yeah, that I’m a randy son of a bitch, okay? We’ve been together less than a week, and I’ve already cheated on you.”

  That was twice I surprised her.

  Boy, those eyes could get big. “Cheated on me? Why, you son of a bitch!”

  “Randy son of a bitch. I don’t remember anything about her, if that’s any consolation. She might’ve been a redhead. Murphy Roden and I apparently picked up some college girls in the French Quarter a few nights ago.”

  “Apparently?”

  I shrugged. “Too much tequila. Jesus Christ, Alice Jean, I’m no angel, and neither are you. Don’t you get it? The Kingfish was counting on that. He put us together so we’d maybe become an item, in which case I’d keep you outa his hair for a while. You’re bad for his image, remember? And it worked.”

  “Why, that bastard…” But for some reason, she was smiling a little.

  I smiled, too. “You gotta admire that kind of manipulation.”

  She was nodding. “And I gotta admit, you and me are a good match, Heller.”

  “Thanks.”

  “And all the while, he was payin’ you, how much?”

  “Two-fifty a day.”

  She shook her head. “Only Huey. Only Huey.” She narrowed her eyes appraisingly. “Why’d you tell me this? When did you find out?”

  “Just yesterday.” I stood. “Look. You’re a great gal, and more fun than a barrel of chorus girls, and I’m gonna miss the hell out of you…but, baby—I want out of this southern-fried insane asylum.”

  Now both her eyes and her smile were sad. “Goin’ home, Heller?”

  I nodded.

  “Don’t like the way the Kingfish does business, huh?”

  I came over and sat on the bed next to her. My voice was quiet, almost tender as I said, “I can handle the idea of a little honest graft. Hell, if it wasn’t for patronage, I’d never’ve made it onto the Chicago P.D. But this Gestapo stuff…shit. It’s for the fuckin’ birds.”

  She was nodding. “So, then—I would imagine you’ll be donating all the money.”

  “What money?”

  She put on an innocent air. “Why, the money Huey paid you. You’ll be donating it all to charity, of course.”

  I grinned wickedly at her. “You wanna know what I’m gonna do?”

  “Sure. I wanna know what you’re gonna do.”

  I put my hand on one of those round, high, firm breasts and exerted just enough pressure to make her lean back and she smiled slyly as I climbed on top of her.

  “I’m gonna do the same thing to you,” I said, undoing my belt, “that Huey P. Long’s doing to Louisiana….”

  The next morning—Sunday—just after nine o’clock, the House Ways and Means Committee assembled in an upstairs public hearing room at the capitol. Seated on a riser on a table that stretched horizontally along the wall, the fourteen committee members faced a small table where citizens could testify or speak their minds, and, behind that, a gallery of benches where citizens could observe the sacred lawmaking process.

  Murphy Roden, Joe Messina, Squinch McGee, Big George McCracken and myself were stretched along the rear wall like a hoodlum honor guard.

  The Kingfish—resplendent in tan linen, red-and-green tie, black-and-white shoes—was seated at the witness table, and his presence was no doubt responsible for the packed house. Abuzz with excitement at being in the same room as the great man, the God-fearing folk filling the gallery had either skipped church or gone to early services, men in straw fedoras and white shirts and black suspenders, women in Sunday bonnets and floral-print frocks. Farmers and other working-class salt of the earth, here to worship their rustic savior. A few representatives of the “lyin’ press” were scattered throughout the gallery, as well.

  The morning outside the open windows was a little cloudy but windless and dry and hot; there was no sign that God had noticed August was over and September had supposedly arrived. Ceiling fans whirred and the gallery spectators used cardboard fans, some of which said “I’m a Long Fan”; flies droned and swooped and, when swatted, died.

  First thing this morning, I had asked Huey to have somebody book me a plane or a train back to Chicago, for tomorrow; this would be my last day. He’d thanked me for my services. We were still pals.

  I had one last day of Loozyana craziness to endure, at the not inconsiderable $250 daily rate. And while I was almost certain to be appalled on occasion, I was equally sure of being entertained.

  Right now, for example, Huey was chairing the Ways and Means Committee meeting from the witness table.

  “Of course you know,” Huey was saying, pouring himself a glass of ice water from a sweating glass pitcher, “I’m not here in any official capacity—I’m merely here to discuss these measures, a priv’lige accorded every Loozyana citizen. Now, shall we begin our discussion?”

  All but one of the committee members nodded; a young, dark-haired fellow was glowering at the senator.

  “That’s Jack Williamson,” Murphy whispered. “Lake Charles. He’s the only anti-Long man on the committee.”

  “This first bill, Senator,” Williamson was saying, “rearranging the thirteenth and fifteenth districts…you of course realize it, in effect, gerrymanders Judge Pavy out of office.”

  “Nonsense,” Huey said. “The Judge retains his office until January 1, 1937…. When it comes election time, he simply has to run in a new district, is all.”

  Williamson arched a skeptical eyebrow. “Did the people of these districts request this change be made?”

  Huey stared at the young representative for a long time; but Williamson did not wither. In fact, he repeated his question.

  And Huey finally said, with a smile about as convincing as mail-order false teeth, “Yes, the people of Evangeline Parish are ever’ bit behind it, and the St. Landry Parish members of the House are all for it. Now, call the question.”

  The bill passed committee, 13 to 1.

  But at least Williamson got on the record his objections to the various bills Huey roller-coastered through, most of which were gerrymanders or assaults on Huey’s enemies in New Orleans; but the anti-FDR bill sparked the biggest discussion, one that woke up the press reps in the gallery.

  “What exactly is the purpose of this bill, Senator?” Williamson asked.

  Huey answered grandly: “Why, to enable us to carry out the great principles of the Constitution of the Yew-nited States.”

  “I see. Then it’s not designed to prevent the expenditure of federal funds in Louisiana?”

  For once Huey was thrown; his answer was a vague muttering: “It intends to prevent the violation of the Constitution of the United States.”

  “What do you have in mind, Senator? What’s the purpose of this bill?”

  Huey flared; his voice wa
s a roar. “That certain sacred rights are reserved to the states and the people! That whoever violates the Constitution of the United States in the great state of Louisiana is subject to a misdemeanor punishable by a fine and a jail sentence!”

  “You’re willing to make law of this vindictive, patently unconstitutional claptrap,” Williamson said, ruffling the pages of the bill in the air disgustedly, “even though its chief effect would be to keep vast sums of federal money out of your own state?”

  Huey slammed a fist on the witness table; his water glass and pitcher sloshed and spilled some.

  “Young man,” the Kingfish said indignantly, “I will preserve the Constitution of the Yew-nited States at any cost! We’re still Jeffersonian Democrats in Loozyana!”

  Applause and cheers from the gallery rocked the room. Shouts of support echoed: “Hot dog!” “Give ’em hell, Huey!” and such like. It was the Oklahoma fairgrounds all over again.

  This was a crowd that apparently relished the idea of being deprived of federal funds.

  I shook my head.

  “What’s wrong?” Murphy whispered.

  “I gotta get back to Chicago,” I said, “where people understand the value of a dollar.”

  By early afternoon, Huey had pushed thirty-one bills through the committee.

  He bragged about it, over the lunch he had sent up from the basement cafeteria to that twenty-fourth-floor suite. “That’ll put a crimp in that crip’s plans! Sumbitch thinks he can run my state!”

  He sat at a white-topped table in the kitchenette area of the suite, eating with the boys. I’ll spare you the brutal details, but watching Messina put away meat loaf and mashed potatoes was an appetite killer; suffice to say even Huey didn’t eat off Messina’s plate.

  We bodyguards played cards again, all afternoon, while Huey entertained a stream of legislators and lobbyists and the like, on errands of patronage and politics; the only one of these I recognized from previous sessions was Reverend Smith, who dropped by with some Share the Wealth Club literature for Huey.

  But the paramount topic seemed to be lining up January’s primary ticket, and in Louisiana, the Democratic primary was the only election that counted. One visitor in particular seemed even more concerned about this topic than Huey.