The Devil's Odds

by Milton T. Burton

  “I hear he’s already got his finger in the pie in Dallas,” I said.

  He gave me a jaundiced look. “He bankrolls an Italian grocer who has two bookmaking joints that operate almost exclusively in the small Italian immigrant community up there. If you want to call that having his finger in the pie, then he has his finger in the pie. But that’s as far as it goes. The real action in Dallas and Fort Worth is run by Herbert Nobel and Benny Benion.”

  “I hear they’re at one another’s throats,” I said.

  He nodded. “Yeah, and they have been for three or four years. Barbarism. But that’s them. Down here we’re civilized, and we rely on the political pressure our friends mount at the capitol. Oh, I admit we’ve got a few toughs on the payroll, but the truth is they do the community as much good as they do us, considering that they’re better than the cops at running the armed robbers and safecrackers and the whatnots off the island.”

  I laughed. “Yeah, but your boys have an advantage over the cops when it comes to dealing with people like that. They can always feed ‘em to the crabs if they don’t see the wisdom of leaving when they’re told to leave.”

  He grimaced and shook his head. “All those stories have been blown way out of proportion, Virgil.”

  “Sure, Sam.”

  “Honestly, that’s how it is, and it’s better this way. The people that run this island won’t put up with gang wars. And they won’t put up with anybody coming in here who’s going to fool around with the unions or start up loan-sharking operations.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t know about DeMour, though.”

  He shook his head in annoyance. “I should have. I used to know everything that happened here on the coast, but now it seems like I’m the last to find out.” He glanced at his watch. “When did you eat last? I skipped lunch myself, and I’m getting hungry.”

  “Me, too,” I said.

  “Good. As soon as those two bodyguards get here, let’s go to Gaido’s. I owe you one for telling me about this.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Gaido’s had opened two decades earlier as a hole-in-the-wall café on Murdoch’s Pleasure Pier, and then began its long ascent to its present position as the best restaurant in a town famous for good seafood. The current location was at Thirty-ninth and Seawall overlooking the Gulf. It was midafternoon and the dining room was almost deserted, but we got good service. And why not? After all, my companion’s casinos and nightclubs were the Island’s main attraction, the engines that kept the money flowing in and the town happy and prosperous.

  The waiter had just left with our orders when we looked up to see Tommy Trehan’s partner headed our way, a strained smile on his lean, hard face. Packin’ Jack Amber was a former bootlegger known all over the Gulf Coast. Tall and slim, he was dressed in a tailored suit of gray flannel and a cream-colored overcoat that sported a fur collar.

  Jack was a gambler and a bookie, tough and dependable, and to the best of my knowledge he’d never been involved in violent crime or strong-arm. A native East Texan born only a few miles from Press Rafferty’s place near Palestine, he’d served honorably in the AEF during World War I and at one time he’d been a competitive pistol shooter. Back during Prohibition he’d been one of the state’s premier rumrunners, but in those days he was known as plain Jack Amber. He unintentionally earned the nickname “Packin’ Jack” late one December night not long after the Volstead Act was repealed when he dropped by the Crescent Liquor Store on South Main in Houston to buy a fifth of his favorite brand of scotch. That same evening a notorious local hophead named Josiah Henry decided to rob the store armed with a snub-nose .38 Smith & Wesson. Had robbery been the only thing on Henry’s agenda that evening, Amber would have viewed the incident as none of his business, an incident from which he could abstain with a clear conscience. But the junkie, a sadist with a reputation for senseless violence, was also one of the state’s legendary cop haters. After cleaning out the store’s till, he loudly announced to all present his intention of murdering a popular Houston police captain who happened to be buying a box of cigars when the doper had walked in.

  Henry had been running on borrowed time long before he decided to hijack the Crescent Liquor Store. For several years every police officer in the area had viewed him as a DOA waiting to happen, and his fate had been unalterably sealed two months earlier when he’d beaten and badly maimed a popular Post Office Street whore known as Sweet Linda Moretti, thereby earning himself the everlasting hostility of Sam Maceo’s older brother, Rosario. A prudish and straitlaced man in his own life, Rosario was broad-minded on the subject of prostitution and took a fatherly attitude toward many of the island’s working girls. That Sweet Linda was a local Italian orphan girl had been the final nail in the hophead’s coffin. After she was attacked, Rosario gave his men orders to shoot Henry on sight, and the story was that any cop from Beaumont to Port Aransas could earn himself a free week in the best suite in the Galvez, complete with the finest whiskey, willing chorus girls, and limitless gourmet food, all by the simple expedient of presenting Papa Rosario with Josiah Henry’s head on a platter. Verbally flamboyant in times of anger, Maceo had meant his offer to be taken metaphorically. Nevertheless, everyone close to him knew he wouldn’t have turned a hair if some literal-minded beat cop had walked into his office at the Turf Athletic Club with Henry’s severed cranium floating around in a bait bucket full of blood.

  It was an offer Amber knew about, but one which didn’t interest him in the least. But he was a good friend and occasional poker buddy of the police captain, a benign, grandfatherly individual named Leonard Mallory who was one of the best-liked men on the Houston force. And Jack Amber was also armed that evening. His trade as a gambler meant that he often carried large sums of cash, and at such times he kept a small-caliber automatic nestled in a chamois skin holster under his left arm.

  If Henry had simply shot Captain Mallory without fanfare he probably wouldn’t have had problems, but he wanted to get a few cheap thrills by feeding on the man’s fear before he pulled the trigger. When Amber heard the robber tell the clerk to clean out the cash register, he’d been some twenty feet away on the other side of the store, standing behind a tall Schenley display rack. He deftly slipped his pistol from its holster and stood rock-still, prepared to defend himself on the outside chance that the bandit decided to search the room. When Henry announced his intention of murdering someone, Amber’s curiosity overrode his caution and he peeked carefully around the corner of the display to see who the prospective victim might be. Much to his displeasure he saw the junkie holding his old poker pal by the uniform collar, the short barrel of the .38 buried in the elderly cop’s throat.

  Amber took a deep breath, muttered a nearly silent and exasperated “shitfire,” and stepped out from behind the display, his Colt Woodsman Target pistol at arm’s length, the sights aligned.

  Henry had been shooting speedballs that day, a half-and-half mixture of cocaine and morphine. The coke made him mentally alert, but the morphine made his movements slow and overly deliberate. When Amber moved into his line of sight, Henry made a crucial mistake; he decided he needed to turn both his attention and his revolver toward this new, unwanted intrusion. But he wasn’t quite quick enough; as soon as the muzzle of his .38 wobbled safely away from the cop’s neck, Jack Amber put a Winchester .22-caliber hollow-point into the center of his forehead two inches above the midline of his drug-crazed eyes.

  Southern country boy to the core, Amber gave all the credit to his father: “That’s where my daddy told me to shoot a hog at killing time,” he explained to the investigating officers in a soft, almost apologetic voice. “He said they’d never squeal if you hit ’em right there.”

  Amber’s father must have known his business because Josiah Henry didn’t squeal a lick. He just fell to the floor and gave a few languid twitches before he shucked off this mortal coil and passed on to whatever reward he’d earned in his short, unproductive life.

  To everyone th
at mattered Josiah Henry had been bought and paid for long before his fatal meeting with Jack Amber, and the grand jury never heard of the incident. That Amber had been carrying a pistol illegally at the time of Henry’s death was tactfully ignored by both the cops and the district attorney. The only jury that mattered in this case was the consensus of law enforcement opinion; the unanimous verdict was that Amber had performed an outstanding public service. From that time on, he’d been known as Packin’ Jack, the policeman’s friend.

  He greeted Maceo first, then wrung my hand like a long-lost brother.

  “Hell, I didn’t know you two guys were acquainted,” Maceo said.

  “Oh yeah,” I replied nonchalantly.

  “You bet,” Amber said. “Virgil helped my sister’s boy out of a bad mess.”

  Everybody who knew Amber, a childless bachelor, was aware that he doted on his widowed sister’s three kids—an older boy and twin girls who were just about high school age. A couple of years earlier the boy and another kid had stolen three registered Hereford heifers from a farm near Lufkin. It was more a schoolboy prank than anything else, though the rancher was mad as a hornet. Sensing the boy was redeemable, I interceded with the district attorney and convinced him to drop the charges back to misdemeanors. The judge sentenced the boys to ten days in jail and a heavy fine, and forced them to make restitution. And from what I’d heard, Jack Amber gave his nephew a sound thrashing the minute he hit the pavement.

  “How’s the kid doing, Jack?” I asked.

  “He’s on track now, in his second year at A and M, majoring in animal husbandry. He decided there’s more future in studying cattle than in stealing ’em.”

  “Sit down,” Maceo said. “What’s on your mind?”

  Amber laughed a cold little laugh. “The fact is I need to talk to both of you. I was on my way to the Balinese to see you when I stopped by the Turf Club for a minute. Little Tommy told me Virgil was in town and looking for you, too, so…”

  “What you got for me?” Maceo asked.

  “Bad news.”

  “Let’s have it.”

  “They raided my book in Port Arthur this morning and shut it down.”

  “Who raided it?” Maceo asked in surprise.

  “The sheriff’s department. Milam Walsh’s boys. And I thought that since—”

  “You’re right,” Maceo said with a nod. “It’s my problem.” He turned to me and explained. “Jack is partners with me and Rosario in a couple of legitimate real estate projects. Because of that and a few other services he’s done for us in the past, he’s considered part of our organization. That means that as far as that bunch in Jefferson County is concerned—”

  “Not anymore I’m not,” Amber said. “They claim that from now on I’ve got to cut my own deal.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yeah. They say the price has gone up and that there’s going to be a little competition in the gambling business in the future. I knew he meant this Salisbury guy I keep hearing about.”

  “So why didn’t you go for it?” Maceo asked, winking at me.

  “I may not be much, Sam, but I don’t screw my friends.”

  Maceo winked at me again and asked, “Who did you talk to? Walsh?”

  Amber shook his head. “Nolan Dunning. And that’s why I was looking for Virgil, too.”

  “Yeah?” I asked.

  “Yeah. You have really pissed that boy off. No doubt about it.”

  The waiter came with our food. “Want something to eat, Jack?” Maceo asked.

  The other man shook his head. “Just coffee.”

  “So what did you do to get crosswise with Dunning?” Maceo asked me.

  “He beat him up, is what he done,” Amber said with a grin. “Whipped that boy like a one-legged stepchild. Missing front tooth, broke finger, general lacerations and abrasions. And a bad case of wounded pride.”

  “How did you find out about it?” I asked.

  “Hell, I asked him what happened, and he said a dead man named Virgil Tucker did it.”

  “A dead man, huh?” I said.

  “Yeah, and that’s why I decided to look you up when Little Tommy told me you were in town.”

  “I’ve had people threaten me before, Jack,” I said.

  “Take it seriously this time,” Maceo said firmly. “Dunning is mean as hell and he hasn’t got any sense. He thinks that as long as he’s in tight with Walsh he can get away with anything. And in Jefferson County he pretty well can.”

  “He’s right, Virgil,” Amber agreed.

  “I hear you,” I said. “But don’t forget that I’m carrying an active Ranger commission. That should make him stop and think.”

  “Yes, it should,” Maceo said, “but that boy doesn’t have anything upstairs to think with.”

  “I’ll be careful,” I said. “All I want is to have a talk with Salisbury and then go on about my business. When I go to see him tonight Charlie Grist will be with me.”

  “Good,” Maceo said. “Don’t go near those people by yourself.”

  “What do you want me to do about the book, Sam?” Amber asked.

  Maceo thought for a minute, then said, “Go ahead and pay what he asks. This is just temporary, anyway.”

  Amber shook his head, a frown on his lean face. “I don’t like that, Sam. It makes you look weak.”

  “It’s the best course in the long run,” Maceo countered. “Don’t worry. This situation will rectify itself once the governor decides to get moving.”

  “If you say so—” Amber began.

  “That’s the way it’s got to be,” Maceo said, and smiled at both of us, caught up in the irony of the moment. “Isn’t this something?” he asked. “We have to wait for the damn politicians to run the bad gangsters out of town so the good gangsters can make a decent living. I don’t know what this world’s coming to.”

  * * *

  After we finished lunch, Maceo and his two bodyguards departed for the Turf Club, while Amber gave me a lift back over to the Balinese Room, where I’d parked my Ford.

  Most successful gamblers buy a fine new car every year. Not Jack Amber. His vehicle was a 1937 Cord convertible, an exquisite, dark blue machine with pontoon fenders and retractable headlights. It was common knowledge that it was his pride and joy and that he spared no expense in keeping it maintained. “I swear, Jack,” I said as I climbed in, “when you die you’ll have them haul you to the cemetery in this damn thing.”

  He grinned. “Yep. And when I get there I’m gonna be buried in it.” Then his mood darkened. “This is bad business, Virgil,” he said.

  “Yeah,” I agreed.

  “I don’t think Sam is taking it seriously enough.”

  “That’s exactly what I told him earlier today.”

  “Why is the governor so slow in moving against this bunch?” he asked. “Always before when they’ve tried to horn in over here they’ve gotten the boot in no time flat.”

  “Sam says it’s political, and I tend to agree. That’s the way Coke Stevenson has always operated.”

  “You know him, then?”

  “Casually, yes. How much do you know about South Texas politics?”

  “Very little.”

  “Then let me fill you in,” I said, and gave him a quick rundown of how the machine operated in my part of the state.

  “Amazing,” he said, once I’d finished.

  “Right. And Stevenson needed the organization’s help when he ran for lieutenant governor back in thirty-nine. It was a close race, and he sent his people down to San Diego to cut a deal with George Parr.”

  “I’ve heard the name. What is he, exactly?”

  I laughed and shook my head. “It would take a week to explain George,” I said. “For one thing, he’s the political boss of Duval County. But since he’s the one with the contacts in the national Democratic organization, all the rest of the county bosses defer to him and usually follow his lead. Which makes him the most powerful man in South Texas, and one of the
most powerful in the state.”

  “What about the governor?” he asked. “What kind of guy is he?”

  “He’s an honest man, and basically decent, but he’s like every other politician in that he doesn’t want it to be too obvious that he cut some of the deals he had to cut to get elected. Or that he’s in debt to the South Texas outfit, to say nothing of the big oil companies and the chemical firms. So he thinks that if he takes his own good time making the decisions he’s going to have to make anyway, then it’ll look like he made them free of outside influence. And maybe he’ll even be able to believe it himself.”

  “So that’s why he’s moving so slow on this deal, right?”

  “That’s my guess.”

  “Maybe your friend George could talk to him about this mess. Apply a little pressure.”

  I shook my head firmly. “Won’t work. George wouldn’t go for it because he’d be spending political capital and not getting anything in return. You see, Galveston’s problems really aren’t his problems or South Texas’s problems.”

  Amber looked bemused. “I think I’ll stick to gambling. Politics sounds a little too cynical for my tastes.”

  “That’s wise, Jack,” I said with a laugh as he pulled up behind my Ford. “You’d just be a babe in the woods.”

  “So you’re going to see Salisbury tonight?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Me and Grist and some young Ranger named Klevenhagen.”

  “Give Marty boy my regards.”

  “Oh, I’ll do that, Jack,” I said with a sour grin. “I know it will mean a lot to him.”

  “No doubt,” he said and put the Cord in gear and pulled out into a gap in traffic.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The Grotto originally opened as the Empire Club in 1929, the last year of the Roaring Twenties. Since then it had known several different owners, but no one had seen fit to alter its Art Deco interior. It was built with expensive materials and beautifully furnished, just as you’d expect from a place planned back in those heady days before the Great Crash brought the boom of the twenties to an abrupt halt. The lighting was dim and subdued, but I could see walls of inlaid wood with stylized chrome and art glass decorations. The bar, a long, curving sweep of chrome-trimmed fruitwood, lay just beyond the mezzanine. Behind the bar, etched into the mirror, the Roman war god, Mars, kept company with a gaggle of helmeted warrior nymphs and one lone and rather lonely-looking swan. An ivory-colored grand piano dominated the bandstand at the other end of the room. When we entered, a four-piece combo was accompanying a tall blonde crooner who was doing a good job of “White Cliffs of Dover.” One more reminder of the war I wasn’t fighting.