The Thomas Berryman Number (22 page)

Oona opened up her book. She pretended to read.
What I’m doing,
she thought.
I’d like to find out … What?
…

The boy swung his face down and up into her view. “I’d say. I’d
have
to say. You’re vis’tin’ Music City.”

Oona blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Just makin’ small talk,” the soldier grinned. “You’re goin to Nashville, I said. First time? First time, I’d bet.”

“First time,” she said.

“You’re sure gonna like it.”

The soldier grinned like the child of a brother and sister. “Country music capital of the world. Athens of the South. Home of the late President Andrew Jackson, I believe.”

“Oh, did he die?” Oona said.

The soldier smiled. Bright-faced already, he lit up one of the Tijuana Smalls he’d been smoking around Times Square in New York.

“Smoke?” he asked. It was a joke. To show that, he hurriedly blew out his match. The smoke from the cigar was faintly chocolaty.

The soldier then began to tell Oona his life story. He talked whether she looked at him, or out the window. He smoked more of the little cigars, and pestered the little stewardesses for more bourbon.

“Mah, mah, mah!” they would giggle. Just “mah, mah, mah.”

The jet finally began to circle over Nashville. A pencil pocket of glittering skyscrapers passed under the wing. There seemed to be a great wilderness around the main city. And Berryman was down there somewhere.

Up in the very front row of the plane, a first class stewardess was waking Joe Cubbah. She asked him to put on his safety belt. He asked her not to be ridiculous.

A green Dodge Polara was parked across the street from the American Legion Hall in Belle Meade. The car’s presence meant that Jimmie Horn couldn’t be far away.

At 11:15, a black detective in a white hat and blue business suit, Horace Mossman, joined two white detectives, Jerry Ruocco and J.B. Montgomery, inside the Polara.

The number of Nashville city detectives assigned to Jimmie Horn had always fluctuated between two and six, but when Horn announced his intention to run for the Senate, the number went up to eight … Eight detectives meant a 3-2-1 breakdown over each twenty-four hours, seven days a week. Usually, the single detective worked the eleven to seven shift.

On July 3-4, the single detective was Horace Mossman, and he was late.

“Mr. Mossman’s right on his schedule,” Ruocco flashed his gold-banded Timex at his partner. “Quarter hour late’s just about right for Horace.”

Mossman, who was in his late twenties and just recently married, smiled broadly. “It’s my woman,” he grinned. “She cries when I leave the house.”

“Excuse me while I go throw up.” Ruocco leaned over toward the young detective. Then he got out of the Polara to stretch.

Mossman shrugged, tugged on the brim of his white hat, switched on a strong penlight. He began to read the day’s log on Horn.

“Anything here?” he mumbled.

J.B. Montgomery was finishing off the last of three homemade meatloaf sandwiches he’d started the night with. Montgomery’s nickname among the other detectives was “Dagwood.”

“He’s gone to three dinners tonight,” Montgomery said. “Miz Horn at six. Ne-groes worryin’ about what the whites up to at eight. Whites worryin about the Ne-groes at nine. Same old shit, Horace.”

Mossman grinned. He continued through the handwritten log with a red pencil ready to underline anything that struck him as abnormal.

He underlined the name
Lynch
the second time he saw it. “Who’s Lynch?”

“Five foot eight or so. White hair down over his collar. Wears movie star sunglasses. Some friend of Santo Massimino.”

The red pencil stopped a second time.

“And what’s this 4:35?” Mossman asked.
“Hippie shakes hands with Mr. Horn.
That mean something?”

“Oh yeah … yeah. Add uh … add …
unidentified long-haired man pretended to uh, jab Mr. Horn in stomach.
A little fake punch, you know the kind …”

Mossman had stopped writing. “Nut, J.B.?”

“Nah … Jimmie just laughed. Seemed to know him from somewhere. He did one of those things off the boy’s chin. Chip off the old block things … We’ll check it with him tomorrow, though.”

“I’ll make a note,” Mossman said.

“You better make the note, Horace. I should’ve clarified that one better.”

The young black detective rewrote the note and underlined it with his red pencil. He gave it to J.B. Montgomery and the detective initialed the change.

The following evening the initialed note would appear in the
Nashville Citizen-Reporter.
So would the obituary of J.B. “Dagwood” Montgomery.

The first time I saw the UP photographs of Joe Cubbah I thought of the book
The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight.

In a close-up, Cubbah looks like the author James Breslin. He looks like he should be tending bar someplace. He has an impish grin.

I bought a print of one of the UP photographs for $7.50. I’m just letting it stare up at me now. It’s a weird feeling, especially the glossy gagman smile.

Cubbah got off the Eastern flight shortly after nine. A big man in a rodeo shirt met him at the gate and hand-delivered a manila envelope. Inside the envelope were sketches of Berryman that had come up from New Orleans. Cubbah examined the artwork as he rented a sports car from Avis. And because he was a cocky, foolhardy man—the antithesis of Berryman—Cubbah signed for the car with his own name.

It’s incongruous, but
under good circumstances,
Joe Cubbah would crack up most people. He has a lot of comical stories about Mafia people, and he tells them in eight or nine different accents and voices. He does the Godfather very well, but he says everybody does the Godfather. He does Carlo Gambino, and he says nobody does Gambino.

Lieutenant Mart Weesner met Cubbah under bad circumstances. At about midnight they had coffee and eggs together in a Nashville Burger Boy. Cubbah had followed the burly young trooper inside.

Weesner was in town to work the Fourth of July parade and rallies the following morning. He told Cubbah he was having trouble sleeping at the Holiday.

Joe Cubbah figured the trooper was actually out scouting up city women. Trying to score off some sympathetic waitress.

“I saw that Holiday Inn sign myself,” Cubbah said.
“Welcome, B.P.O.E.,
it said. Might just as well have said
Goodbye, Joe Cubbah.
No way I was going to stay there after seeing that. Those silly bastards be practicing trumpets when the maids show up.”

Weesner laughed out loud.

“What are they up to now?” Cubbah asked. “Breaking cocktail glasses in the swimming pool?”

One of the Burger Boy waitresses remembered Cubbah afterward. She remembered seeing the hefty state trooper leading him outside to show him the way to Ireland’s Bar. Then she’d seen them both drive off together in the trooper’s patrol car.

Ireland’s is an ersatz country roadhouse; a fancy britches watering hole for rich hillbilly singers. There’s a fat piano player named Dave the Rave there who’s a better musician than half the millionaires in the place.

Weesner and Joe Cubbah, both up around 230 pounds themselves, watched Fat Dave like he was a limited engagement concert. Sitting together at the bar they looked like tag-team wrestlers.

Their conversation wove around two subjects: women, and the army.

“I’m in the army, 1953, stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina,” Joe Cubbah was saying.

“What’d you make?” Weesner said.

“Didn’t make nothing. I was a boxer. No rank, just boxer. I boxed a guy name of Pepper something who later got his ass kicked by Marciano. I used to box all the top MPs in bars, too.”

“I boxed oranges in the navy,” Weesner grinned.

“Yeah, anyways, that fat pianaman does OK for himself with the local ladies was what I was getting to. I was wondering if your uniform works pretty good for you? Southern girls used to like a uniform, I remember. I used to wear it back to Philadelphia, the girls spit on me.”

Weesner laughed.

They ordered and drank another round, then Weesner slammed down a full glass of Budweiser on the bar.

“I’m getting loaded.” He shook his head. “I’ve got to goddamn work tomorrow, do you know that?”

“Yeah.” Cubbah wiped his mouth. “You got to march around with the mayor.” Cubbah took up a fistful of beer nuts. “Listen,” he said. “You ever eat squid? Hey, you ever heard of scungilli? … I’m in the mood for some squid,” he laughed. “I know, you’re in the mood to go back to your hotel and knock off.”

“I’ve got to,” Martin Weesner said. He stood up at the bar and called for a check.

Joe Cubbah took more nuts in his hand. He shook them around like dice.

They’d parked Weesner’s police car on the side of a grocery called Scamps 400.

As they got into the blue Plymouth, Weesner, bloated, burped. “Jesus Christ!” he said. “Excuse me.”

Cubbah slammed the door on his side.

“Listen,” he said when both doors were closed. “I’m going to have to ask you to take off your uniform.”

Weesner started to laugh, then he saw a three-to-four-inch knife in Cubbah’s left hand.

“Hey Joe,” he said, sober and serious in about ten seconds, “you’re a real funny guy and all …”

Cubbah slid the sharp blade into the folds of Weesner’s stomach.

“I don’t want you to talk anymore. See, I’m nervous now. I could make a bad mistake. You don’t talk unless I ask you a question … Now take your shirt off and throw it over in the back.”

The state trooper had trouble with the buttons on his tight, khaki shirt. Finally, he pulled it off though. He had a surprisingly small chest with almost no hair on it.

“Now the pants,” Cubbah said.

He didn’t sound like he was trying to be funny, so Weesner took off his trousers. He handed them across the seat. Then he sat behind the steering wheel in his underpants, socks and shoes. He was trying to think of a plan but nothing would come.

Joe Cubbah turned on the car radio.

“Now I’m trying not to hurt you,” he held the knife to Martin Weesner’s throat. “Believe me I’m not,” he said as he slid the knife in, straight down, then quickly out again.

Thomas Berryman was finishing a late meal in Le Passy, one of the Middle South’s most expensive and best restaurants. The dining room was extremely quiet, as it was past ten. The old wooden floors creaked softly under the footsteps of a few mincing waiters.

The third of July had been a long, busy day for Berryman; he was having trouble clearing his mind of work details. The Perfectionist in him was working overtime to luck over the Country Gentleman.

The day had begun at 8
A.M.
with Berryman following Bert Poole. Poole had walked to Horn campaign headquarters once again; then he’d taken a city bus out to the big Farmer’s Market: Berryman had been certain Poole was carrying the bulky .44 in his jacket. He’d walked around like Napoleon all morning long.

In the early afternoon Poole had gone home (Jimmie Horn had taken a short flight to Memphis), and Berryman had decided to switch rent-a-cars. He changed cars on the off-chance that he and the black Galaxie had been tied together. He later changed hotels for the same reason.

The new car was a blue 1974 Dart. It struck Berryman as a typical salesman’s car.

The new hotel was the Holiday Inn on West End Avenue near Vanderbilt. Berryman had registered under the name Foster Benton, with the Coca-Cola Bottling Co. of Atlanta. He’d registered through July 6th.

Now Berryman savored the first sips of a cup of steaming coffee brewed with chicory.

He was thinking about his powers of concentration. Looking into the swirling coffee, he reminded himself that
because he concentrated so well,
he had a unique advantage over his opponents. He controlled the moment; they didn’t. Yes, he actually did control the moment.

Then Thomas Berryman was off calculating sums of money. What was the amount he would have after Tennessee? Something above two hundred twenty thousand, he quickly figured. Tax-free cash. A tidy bankroll for Mexico.

As he sat over the coffee, he noticed his hand in the light from the table candle.

His hand was shaking.

A slight, steady, machinelike tremor made more obvious by the cup.

Berryman couldn’t take his eyes off his hand.

Strong, dark fingers forced in and around the delicate Wedgwood handle. “Piano player fingers,” Oona Quinn had called them. Trembling now.

A slight smile formed on Thomas Berryman’s lips. “Punk,” he muttered. “You punk.”

PART VI

The Jimmie Horn Number

Nashville, July 4

Bert Poole woke up and found he’d slept through the Fourth of July. In fact, it was just turning to night. A cloudy, purplish night.

He stalked around breaking his Martin Luther King lamp as well as plates and cups from the kitchen. He kicked over the brown Naugahyde chair. It was so fitting he thought—after months of planning for Horn, he’d missed it. He’d never be great now—not in any way, shape or form. He went outside looking for a fight.

After a few minutes of walking, he came to a Dobb’s House diner that was open.

He went inside and immediately took up hairy-eye-balling two southern hoods with gold coxcomb haircuts. The hoods were sitting over empty plates and Coke glasses. Merle Haggard was trying to tell their story over the jukebox.

“When a waitress came, Poole ordered a burger with Thousand Island dressing and a milkshake.

“Oh ma-in,” the girl mumbled as she scribbled the order. “Milkshake! Oh ma-in.”

Poole’s face was warm. His forehead was wet with perspiration.

“Ri-ight,” he laid out his nervous street-person’s accent. “I come in here for my dinner, ri-ight. My meal, right. And you have to hassle me, ri-ight.”

The waitress put on a little smartypants smile.

“’Course most people don’t ordah milkshake,” she said. “Not at four ay-em in the mornin.”

Poole put his hands over his face and slowly started to laugh. He peeked between trembling fingers at the Westinghouse clock over the counter. It wasn’t night. He hadn’t fucked it all up after all. It was ten after four ay-em.