Hot Springs (40 page)

“Virginia, how many times do I have to tell you? Forget the cowboy. It’s got nothing to do with the cowboy. You don’t have to protect the cowboy. But you have to put that move on Owney, because he will see through the father-son bullshit in a second, and will know you have a secret agenda. He will believe that’s the secret agenda. We want him to believe that I’m obsessed with the cowboy, that I’ve sent you there to find out who the cowboy is. That way, he will discount what moves I’m making and consider me a noncompetitor, caught up in some grudge match that don’t have nothing to do with business.”

“Okay,” she said, and took another toot on the martooni. “Too much vermouth. Bartender, gimme another, easy on the vermouth. And two olives.”

“She likes fruit,” Ben said to Mickey. Mickey didn’t say anything. He hardly talked. He just sat there, working on his fire hydrant impersonation.

“Now,” said Ben. “What’s next? It’s very important. It’s the point!”

“The painting.”

“Yeah, the painting. You might have seen it the first time, Virginia, if you’d been paying attention instead of rubbing your tits up against Alan Ladd.”

“He hardly noticed, believe me. His old lady was watching him like a hawk.”

“He noticed, I guarantee. Anyhow: look at it very carefully. Get its name. But remember exactly what it looks like. In fact, buy a little sketch pad and as soon as possible, sort of draw what it was like. Label the colors.”

“This is stupid. I ain’t no fancy artist like Brake.”

“Braque, Virginia. It’s French or something.”

“This is secret-agent stuff. What do you think, sugar, I’m in the OSS or something?”

“Virginia, this is important. It’s part of the plan. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“We have to know all about that painting. Go back a second time, and check your first impressions, all right?”

“I can’t stand that creep twice”

“Force yourself. Be heroic, all right?”

“Ty!” she suddenly shouted, rising.

A small, fine-boned dark-skinned man had entered the bar for his own bout of martoonis; Virginia waved, her voluptuous breasts undulating like whales having sex in a sea of the brand-new miracle product Jell-O.

Ben felt a wave of erotic heat flash through his brain as the two mighty wobblers swung past him, and turned to see the man toward which she now launched herself.

It was that movie star,Ty Power.

“Virginia,” he said, “why, what a nice surprise.”

“Martooni, honey lamb? Join us. You know Ben.”

“Don’t mind if I do, Virginia.”

“How’s the new picture? I hear it’s swell.”

Business. Ben sighed, knowing he had lost her for the time being. Then he retreated to his own private recreational world as Virginia pretended to be a movie star and Ty concentrated on her giant breasts and Mickey worked the fireplug routine. He thought about how he was going to kill the cowboy and enjoy every second of it.

Carlo finally reached D. A. late that night from a phone booth in Washington National Airport. It took a pocketful of nickels before the connection was finally established and even then D. A. was only at this mysterious number rarely. But this time he was, though he’d clearly roused himself from a deep sleep.

“Where the hell have you been?” the old man demanded.

“I’m in Washington, D. C. I was checking on Earl’s Marine records.”

“D. C.! Who the hell told you to go to D. C.?”

“Well sir, it’s where the investigation took me.”

“Lord. Well, what did you find out?”

“Sir, I have to ask you. Suppose—” He could hardly get it out. “Suppose there were evidence that suggested Earl killed his own father?”

“What?”

He ran his theory by D. A.

“Jesus Christ.”

“Sir, if ever a man needed killing, it was Charles Swagger. Heck, it may even have been self-defense and the reason Earl didn’t turn himself in was ‘cause he knew he’d get hung up in Arkansas and miss the trip to Guadalcanal.”

“You tell nobody about this. You understand? Nobody.”

“Yes sir.”

“If I find a chance, I may poke Earl a little bit on the subject. But that’s all. Under no circumstances are we going to indict a man like Earl for something that can’t be proven but by the circumstantial evidence in some forgotten Marine Corps file.”

“Yes sir.”

“Now you get on back here. We may be moving back into Hot Springs very shordy, and we need you.”

“Yes sir.”

Frenchy was gone. Carlo was still tending to a sick mother and would be back. Two others elected not to return, and after the heavy weapons were confiscated, Bear and Eff left the unit, saying the work was now too dangerous.

That left six men, plus Earl and D. A., no weapons, no vests.

“Y’all have to decide,” Earl told them, “if you want to go ahead with this. We’re operating on about two cylinders. You’re young, you got your whole lives ahead of you. I don’t like it any more’n the rest of you, but those are the facts and I ain’t sending any man into acdon who don’t believe in the job and his leaders. Anybody got any comments?”

“Hell, Earl,” said Slim, “we started this here job, I sure as hell want to finish it.”

“I will tell any man here,” said Earl, “that all he has to do is come to me in private and say, thanks but no thanks, and I’ll have you out of here in a second, no recriminations, no problems, with a nice letter from Fred C. Becker. We ain’t fighting Japs. We’re fighting gamblers and maybe it ain’t worth it for men with so much yet ahead.”

“Earl,” said Terry, “if you could go through the war and come home and have a baby on the way, and still go on the raids, that’s good enough for me.”

“Well, ain’t that peachy. You may feel different if you get clipped in the spine or get an arm shot off.”

“Earl, we are with you. You lead us, dammit, we’ll follow.”

“Good,” said Earl. “You goddamn boys are the best. Carlo will be back soon, that’s another gun. Plus, we think we got a real fine idea on where to hit ‘em where it hurts the most.”

He issued orders: he and Mr. D. A. were going back to the Hot Springs area that night to find another place to hide the unit, and they’d send word for the others to join up in two days or so. For the rest, they were just to train under Slim’s guidance, working with the remaining .45s and practicing their pistol skills.

Earl and the old man poked about in the far environs of Hot Springs, looking for a good hide. A trailer camp out by Jones Mills promised something, but was too close to the main road in the long run, and not far from a small casino and bar where surely the presence of a passel of hard-looking young men in the vicinity would be noted.

“A fine sity-ation where the law’s scared of getting spotted or jumped by the criminals/’ fumed D. A. “Ain’t never been in nothing like this before. Like we’re the ones on the goddamned run.”

They tried a hunting lodge near Lonsdale, to the north, cut over and tried a fishing camp at Fountain Lake, and still couldn’t quite settle on a place. Off toward Mountain Pine was Grumley territory, so no further progress to the west was made; instead, they cut back, drove up the Ouachita toward Buckville; at last they located Pettyview, an agricultural community with almost no street life at all. A quick inquiry by Earl at the real estate office located a chicken farm, abandoned since before the war and up for rent. They drove out and found the site about the best: an old house, an empty barn, six long-deserted chicken houses, piles of bones and shit turned to stone out back, and no neighbor within four miles or so. The bam could easily enough conceal all the cars, lamps didn’t have to be lit at night, and the place was available for $35 a month with an option to buy, month to month. D. A. forked over the $70 in cash, and they were in business again.

“Let’s head back into town,” said Earl. “I want to see how things are going in that colored whorehouse.”

“Sure,” said D. A. “Who knows what might come of it.”

“Want to get there just after dark, so’s nobody sees us.”

Again D. A. said sure, and they drove on in silence, and D. A. fiddled with the radio, trying to line up on the Hot Springs KTHS beam, which played a lot of the jump blues and new bebop he seemed to have a strange affection for. He liked music with a little juice to it, he’d say.

“Say, Earl,” said D. A., “been meaning to ask. Your daddy? He’s killed in, where was it?”

“Mount Ida,” said Earl. “Nineteen forty-two.”

“They never caught who done it?”

“Nope.”

“I’d think a man like you’d be gunning for whoever done it. Want to go back and track that dog down and make him pay.”

“My daddy was looking to die, and had been for years. That mean boy done him and me and everbody else a damn favor. I’d give the bastard my big old star medal if I found him.”

“Earl! Damnation! You shouldn’t talk like that! He was your daddy, and a fine upstanding man. A law officer. Shot it out with some bad fellas. A hero in the Great War. I’m surprised to hear you talk as such.”

“My daddy was a bully. He’d just as soon thump you as look at you, while he’s sucking up to the quality. He always thought he was too good for what he got, and he was ashamed of who he was and who we were. He was a Swagger, from a long line of Swaggers descended from folks who settled this part of the country right after the Revolutionary War. I hope my ancestors weren’t the bastard he was.”

Bitterness seemed to swirl over Earl, as if he didn’t like being reminded of his father. Now he was grumpy and gloomy.

“Could he have been somehow mixed up in any Hot Springs business?” asked D. A. “I mean, Owney and the Grumleys got a lot to answer for. Could that somehow be a part of it?”

Earl actually laughed, though there was a bitter, broken note to it.

“That’s a goddamn hoot if I ever heard one! My old man was a drunk and a hypocrite and a whoremonger and crooked to boot and a bully. But see, here’s the thing: nothing he knew was worth getting himself killed over. Absolutely nothing. He was a little man. Only thing he knew were all the back roads and paths in Polk County. He got that from all the hunting he done, and all the heads he put up on his wall. He cared more about them heads than he did his own children. What the hell could he have known to interest an Owney Maddox? Mr. D. A., you sure you’re still on the wagon?”

“Okay, Earl, just asking. Thought I’d check it out.”

Earl stopped.

He looked directly at D. A.

“Let me tell you something. Nobody knows a goddamned thing about my father, and it’s best that way. Long gone, buried and forgotten. That’s the way it should be. Now, Mr. Parker, I don’t like to talk sharp to you, but I can’t be talking about my father no more. It makes me want to drink too powerfully, you understand?”

“I understand, Earl, and I apologize.”

“Fine. Now let’s go check on them Negro people.”

They drove on in silence, cruising down Central through South Hot Springs, turning right at the hard angle that was Malvern Avenue and following that up to the Negro section. Night had fallen and it was a jumping street, as usual, with the gals calling down from their windows and the crowds bustling into the beer joints, to rim against the wheel or bet the slots. And when they got to it, it seemed even Mary Jane’s had found some kind of new life. It was really thrumming, almost like some sort of tourist attraction like the alligator farm or the shooting gallery in Happy Hollow. It looked like old Memphis Dogood was having himself a time keeping up with his customers, and the lack of girls in windows suggested they were all making their night’s nut and more on their backs.

D. A. drove around back, where it wasn’t crowded, and parked the car. The two men got out, found the door open and a man out back smoking.

“You, boy,” said D. A., “you go on in and find Memphis. You tell him some friends want to see him.”

The boy looked at them sullenly, but then rose and obeyed. Soon enough three heavyset fellows escorted the large yellow whore called Marie-Claire out. She looked them over and then said, “It’s okay.”

“Where’s your man?” asked D. A.

“Gone. They come git him. He ain’t never comin’ back. He in the swamp somewheres.”

“Who got him?” asked Earl.

“White mens. Grumleys, mos’ likely. Don’t rightly know. They come by, tell him they need to see him. Thas all. A few days back. He ain’t comin’ home, I tell you.”

Earl shook his head.

“Sister, maybe he just wandered off with another gal,” said D. A.

“And leave his place? Memphis love this place, he ain’t never gonna leave it ‘cept to be underground, thas God’s truth.”

She glared at the old man, showing a surprising ferocity for a black woman.

“I think Maddox got to him. Grilled him, then dumped him. Or had somebody dump him, more his style,” said Earl.

Then he turned.

“Sorry, sister. All this bad stuff come down on your place from white folks, sorry about all that. These are bad people and we’re trying to clean it up and people get hurt sometimes. Very sorry.”

“You was the one shot that Grumley hoozer had the gun to my throat, wudn’t you?”

“Yes ma’am. That was me.”

“Well, suh, tell you somethin’ then. You want to know about Mr. Owney fancy-man Maddox? I know a man might could help you.”

“Tell me, sister.”

“Yes suh. Ol’ man name Jubilee Lincoln. Live by hisself over on Crescent, little oP house. Spirit call him late in life. He speak fo’ God now, run the New Light Baptis’ out his front parlor. You might wanna see him.”

“Why’s that?”

“He know about this. You go see him.”

They got to the New Light Baptist Tabernacle half an hour later, finding it a wooden house that had seen better times in a run-down neighborhood that backed into the hills of East Hot Springs.

“Now, Earl, you s’pose that gal went to call Owney Maddox and the boys? And they’re waiting for us in there?”

“Don’t reckon,” said Earl. “I don’t see how she could help Owney after what he done to Memphis.”

“Earl, you think of them as regular people, whose minds work just like ours. It ain’t like that.”

“Sir, one thing I do believe is that they are the same.”