Race with Death

by Gilbert, Morris

  Rankin blinked in astonishment. “What’d you say?”

  “I said let him go.”

  A rush of red blood swept over Rankin’s blunt face. He dropped his grip on Jimmy’s arm and squared himself before Savage. “You tellin’ me what to do, Savage?”

  “Sure, I am.”

  The cell had grown totally quiet, the men staring at Savage as though he had lost his mind. Ben got up, looking almost frail against the bulk of the massive Rankin. He held up his hand, saying, “Look at the edge on my hand.”

  Rankin stared at the hard ridge that ran along the little finger down to the heel of Savage’s hand. A sneer came to his lips. “You some kind of karate nut? I eat ’em alive.” He lifted a massive fist in a threatening gesture, saying, “Why, you little—”

  But the threat was never finished. Savage whipped his arm around so quickly that his hand was a blur, and in one motion drove the hardened edge against the muscular throat of the big man. The blow made a meaty sound, and Rankin staggered backward, clutching at his throat. He was gagging, and his eyes bulged wildly as he tried to speak. As the other inmates watched with astonishment, Savage moved closer to Rankin.

  “I didn’t hit to kill that time, Rankin,” he said, and there was something in his still face and burning eyes that held the big man still. He was coughing and gagging, trying to breathe. The pain was worse than anything he’d ever known, and he stared at Savage who said, “Next time I’ll give you a real chop. It’ll smash your trachea—and you’ll choke to death. Or maybe I’ll do this—”

  Again the motion was too swift for Rankin to dodge. Savage struck the nose of the big man with the heel of his hand, catching the nose underneath and driving it upward. The force of it drove Rankin’s head back, and the intense pain brought a hoarse roar from the big man. He stood there, unable to speak, his eyes filled with confusion.

  “That was a love tap,” Savage said. “If I have to do it again, I can drive the bones of your nose up into your brain.” He stepped closer to Rankin, adding, “You’re a pretty tough fellow, Al. I know you could flatten me with one punch—but if you do, make it a good one. Because no matter how you beat me up, you have to sleep. And all I need is one good shot to break every bone in your throat and stop your clock.”

  Rankin was gagging and it was with difficulty that Savage made out the words. “You want to see a doctor? Sure, I’ll call the guard.”

  When the guard came to stare inside, he demanded, “What’s going on?”

  “Rankin’s had an accident,” Savage said. “He wants to go to the infirmary.”

  “What happened?”

  “He hurt his gully-gully,” Savage said blandly.

  The guard stared at him, then opened the door, saying, “Come on, Rankin.” As he shut the door, he grinned slightly. “Watch your buns, Savage.”

  “Yeah.”

  When Savage turned around, the other men looked at him with awe in their eyes. Jimmy whispered, “Gosh, Ben—I never saw anything like that!”

  “He’ll nail you for sure, soon as he gets able,” said one of the inmates, a long, lean man with black hair.

  “Hit the Rankins hard enough, and they don’t come back,” Savage shrugged. He wanted to tell Jimmy it was better to get beaten to a pulp than live in fear. Anything was better than fear. But he knew it wasn’t the right time for a lecture, so he lay down on the bunk, aware that the others were staring at him.

  An hour later, the same guard that had taken Rankin to the infirmary came to unlock the cell. “Come on, Savage. Interrogation room.”

  “What about Rankin?” the skinny inmate demanded.

  The guard shook his head. “Had something broke in his throat. They sent him over to Baton Rouge General for surgery.”

  “He say how it happened?” Jimmy asked quickly.

  “Said he tripped and hit his throat on the table.” A slight grin touched his lips. “You guys better watch out for all these dangerous tables in here.”

  Savage followed him down the hall, then down two flights of stairs. “In here.” The guard opened a door, and Savage stepped inside a fairly large room with several chairs and a desk over to one side. Oakie was sitting in a chair which he’d tilted back against the wall. He grinned wickedly at Ben, saying, “Hey, here’s the famous cop-shooter, Riley.”

  Catlow was standing beside the window, peering out at the construction that was going on. He turned and shook his head. “Well, the Highway Department found a street they’d forgotten.” He glared at Savage as if it were his fault, then shook his head, saying sourly, “They’ll never be satisfied as long as we’ve got one lousy street that’s not blocked off with their little orange barrels!”

  Oakie grunted, “Sit down, Savage. Got a few questions for you.” He heaved himself out of his chair and came to stand in front of Savage. “Give me some good answers, and we’ll be nice and let you go. Give us a problem, and we’ll keep you in the slammer for a long time.”

  “Aw, come on, Lou, don’t be so hard-nosed.” Catlow shrugged and said, “Savage, we checked you out. For a PI you’re not so bad. Just give us a few answers and you can go.”

  Savage stared at the two. “I think you’ve been seeing too many old cop movies,” he remarked. “The old ‘good guy and bad guy’ routine went out with Dragnet.”

  Oakie’s face turned red instantly. “Don’t play games with me, Savage!”

  Savage turned to Catlow. “Now, it’s your turn. You’re supposed to take the big bad cop off my back. Then I’ll be grateful to you. Then you can send Oakie out of the room and I’ll tell you what you want to know, because you’ve saved me from the bad cop.”

  Oakie cursed, but Catlow smiled, his thin lips turning up at the edges. “Be quiet, Lou.” He studied Savage carefully, his gray eyes sharp and calm. “Okay, so you know the drill. You gotta know that we can give you a bad time if you don’t cooperate.”

  “Sure you can.” Savage had decided that it was Catlow who was the brains of the pair. There was a lazy air about the man, but Savage had seen men like Catlow before. Ignoring Oakie, he faced the small officer. “What do you want to know?”

  “What you were doing with Sunny Sloan in the DEO building.”

  “Aw, come on, Catlow,” Savage shrugged. “You know that already. She told you exactly what we were doing there.”

  “I’d like to hear your version of it.”

  Savage saw no harm in sharing part of what he knew, so he went through the story. He told the pair about the threats the reporter had received, and ended by saying, “. . . so I just tagged along to be sure she didn’t get popped. And when you two stepped off the elevator, it never occurred to me that you were the law. If you’d said ‘police,’ that would have made things a whole lot easier.”

  Oakie sneered, his eyes pulled down to slits. “You’ll have a time proving that in a court—that we didn’t show IDs.”

  Savage asked curiously, “Who called you guys?”

  Catlow shrugged. “One of the secretaries you and the dame interviewed. She called Phil Herndon, and he called us.”

  “Herndon? He’s the governor’s little helper, isn’t he?”

  “Yeah. And he told us to see that you stopped hassling the help over at DEQ. Said if you wanted any information you should see him.”

  “I’ll bet he’s already had a visitor,” Savage remarked. “The Sloan woman’s probably camped on his desk.”

  “No, she’s been seeing the mayor and the chief,” Catlow frowned.

  Savage suddenly grinned. “Make things a little hot for them?”

  Oakie burst out, “I’d like to—”

  “Shut up, Lou!” Catlow glowered at his partner, and Oakie flinched. “You got us into all this with your stupid sap!” He turned to Savage, and there was a light of amusement in his eyes, though he allowed nothing to show on his face. “The media folks, they’ve got quite a punch,” he remarked. “I think the powers that be would just as soon not have a ‘Special Report on Police Brutality’ ap
pear on Channel Two.”

  “What about me?”

  “You’re outta here,” Catlow said.

  “When?”

  “They’ve got your stuff ready now.”

  Savage nodded, then remembered something. “Got a favor to ask.”

  “Favor!” Oakie burst out. “You’ve got more brass than—”

  “What favor?” Catlow asked, eying Savage cautiously.

  “Kid named Jimmy in my cell—he’s being hassled by a big thug named Rankin. Be nice if you get the kid out of there.”

  “Didn’t know you were a Boy Scout, Savage,” Catlow did smile then. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “Thanks.”

  Catlow turned and walked to the door. He called for the guard, but as Savage reached him, he said, “Don’t come back here, Savage. The climate of Baton Rouge is dangerous to your health.”

  Savage paused, then nodded, “I’ll take it up with my doctors. Thanks for the tip, Catlow.”

  Savage left the room, and as he followed the guard down the hall, he heard the sharp voice of Catlow cutting the cursing of Oakie short. He was mildly surprised that he had gotten out of it so easily. Pulling a gun on a police officer wasn’t a little thing.

  He thought of the kindness of the black guard, and his words: You just put your trust in Jesus, brother. The memory stirred him strangely, and he had a sudden sense of longing for something that seemed to elude him.

  9

  Sisterly Advice

  * * *

  The old State Capitol Building of Louisiana stood as a beautiful edifice while the new one rose above it in stark contrast. The old structure, built of pink marble, displayed all the classic lines of past centuries, while the new, a tall, gray structure, had nothing to recommend it except height. Huey P. Long, the fabled governor who ruled the state with an iron hand in the twenties and thirties, decided that Louisiana would have the tallest state capital building in the union and forced the legislature to squeeze the people for the funds to build it.

  As is true with most dictators, the taste of the Kingfish was execrable, and he left the monument to bad taste sticking up in the air so that the first thing one saw when crossing the Mississippi River was the drab building.

  Inside, the capital appeared no more artistic than any other modern building. The first floor had a semblance of taste, with dark marble floors and a spacious lobby. But as one went upward, floor after floor yielded nothing but hallways dissecting rooms filled with utilitarian and tasteless office furniture. Like a huge beehive, people moved endlessly around and through the passageways, bound on meaningless errands that would produce nothing but mountains of paper—which would either be shredded at once, or filed and shredded a few years later.

  On a tour, one citizen looked around with admiration at the activity of the building and said, “Boy, they’re sure an active bunch, ain’t they?” His guide looked around and said scornfully, “Look—the most active chicken in the barnyard is the hen that’s just got her neck wrung!”

  But if nothing significant happened in most of the rooms, there was one office on the tenth floor that occasionally became the scene of some activity that actually produced action. Governor Layne Russell had created an inner sanctum out of part of that floor, and from time to time he called his hirelings together to do some fine tuning on his machine.

  The noon sun pooled its yellow light on the floor of the office, which was covered by a Persian rug that cost enough to feed a Korean village for a month. It was a sensuous piece of work, thick and soft, with an intricate design woven into endless patterns. These patterns curled and arched in such a way that they sometimes seemed to move.

  Governor Layne Russell sat in the black leather chair behind the huge rosewood desk that had at one time belonged to Andrew Jackson. He had furnished the room with the finest of antiques and paintings—using state money, of course. He already had placed them, in his mind, in the fine home he was building in the Garden District of New Orleans.

  That would come later, of course, for one of the two senators was stepping down in just one year—and who but Layne Russell could fill his shoes? And after that—who could say. Huey P. Long scared the pants off presidents in his day, and there was no reason that a modern version of the Kingfish couldn’t do the same.

  The governor leaned back in his chair, puffing nervously on a cigar. He finally ground it out and tossed it into a gleaming brass cuspidore—one that had been spat in by no less a notable than Ulysses S. Grant. Russell thought of Grant, of his greatness as a soldier—and his absolute impotence in the office of President of the United States. Russell was a history major—though a lawyer by degree—and had learned to avoid pitfalls by studying those who’d fallen from high places.

  Grant could fight wars, but he didn’t have political savvy enough to be a justice of the peace, Russell mused. His trouble was always picking the wrong man for any job.

  Russell locked his fingers, the four-carat diamond on his right hand glittering, and allowed his mind to run over the government of the state. He could call the names of thousands of men and women, never forgetting a face. When he stopped a farmer on the streets of Bunkie and said, “Why, Albert Miles—I haven’t seen you for five years. How’s that boy of yours doing in vet school?” well, that man would vote early and often for Layne Russell!

  “Yes, sir!” Albert Miles would say with pride to his friends, “some politicians are stuck up, but not Layne Russell! He’s a man of the people, he is!”

  Russell had built his machine on minority votes, and despite the fact that he never improved the plight of these people in the state, they somehow thought he was their only hope. How he did this was a mystery. He dressed like the millionaire that he was, drove the finest cars, and spent almost no time with any minority group—except just before elections. But in every poll, his name led all the rest where minorities were concerned.

  The strangest thing of all about Russell’s success in office lay in the fact that he was a crook. He had been indicted several times for theft, though never convicted. A governor who holds the power of an absolute monarch is extremely difficult to convict.

  And the people of Louisiana—a majority of them, at least—seemed blind to the fact that Russell was a crook. During his last campaign, he ran a close race with Mason Henderson, a former High Dragon of the Klan.

  During that hard fought battle, the slogan of Governor Layne Russell that appeared on hundreds and thousands of bumper stickers was: Vote for the crook! (as opposed to the racist, of course!)

  Russell sailed into office with a respectable margin, which seemed to prove that people of the state wanted crooks in office more than they wanted racists.

  A soft tap on the door pulled Russell’s thoughts around, and he said, “Come in.”

  The man who entered was in his early forties. He was overweight and tried to hide this fact by wearing tight clothes. Nobody had ever explained to him that it was loose-fitting garments that disguised spare tires and that tight knit shirts advertised the bulk. He had brown hair, receding somewhat, and a pair of muddy brown eyes that looked worried.

  “Sorry to be late, Governor,” he said, sliding into the chair in front of Russell’s desk. “Had to run over to Monroe and get that mess the mayor made cleaned up.”

  Russell stared at the man without comment—which proved to be somewhat unnerving for the visitor. Phil Herndon had made a career out of pleasing Layne Russell, and one frown from the governor was like a falling barometer to a seaman. He was an intelligent man, but had missed making a great career. Early in life he’d been sure of being a leader in state government, but time had passed, and he’d spent himself getting other men elected to office. He was one of those men whose time never comes, or comes too late. Now as he sat nervously before Russell, he tried hard to cover the fear that welled up inside his gut.

  “Phil, we’re in trouble.”

  Russell was, perhaps, the most handsome man in the state. Tall, tanned, and with sil
ver hair always in place, he could have been an actor on the stage. He knew how to charm the socks off people, but there was a carnivore lurking beneath his suave exterior—and no man knew this better than Phil Herndon! He’d seen too many men sliced up politically and dumped in the obscurity of political limbo to doubt it.

  “What’s wrong?” Herndon asked, trying unsuccessfully to keep the fear out of his voice.

  “You know—or ought to know.” Russell got to his feet, crossed the room, and poured himself a drink. Turning quickly, he shook his head, displeasure on his lips and in his eyes. “It’s the mess you made with that detective from New Orleans.”

  “Savage?” Relief washed over Herndon’s rounded face. “Hey, it’s cool, Gov. We put the skids under him.”

  Russell glared at Herndon, and anger crackled in his tone. “Skids? All you did was stir up a hornet’s nest, you stupid idiot!”

  “Hey, I don’t—”

  “If I hadn’t stepped in, that woman reporter from New Orleans would have had the thing plastered all over the front page of the Advocate!”

  “But you told me—”

  “I told you to put a damper on the Prejean thing.” Russell leaned back, thinking hard. “It’s only a few days until Prejean’s execution. Once that’s over, the Sloan woman can’t get anywhere. Nobody cares enough about a dead con to make waves.”

  “She can’t dig anything up, Layne.”

  Russell stared at him with contempt. He had to have tools like Phil Herndon, but he grew easily disgusted with their incompetence. This clown doesn’t know what a fine line we’re walking, he thought. If the truth ever got out about that woman’s death, we’d both be fed to the crocodiles!

  “Phil, we’re in trouble on this,” he said slowly. “I know you think we’re covered, but one slip and we’re dead in the water. Now, you did a good job that night,” he nodded. “I owe you for that. And you know the attorney general’s job is going to be up for grabs next year. You handle this thing right, and I’ll help you get it.”