Blood and Thunder nh-7

by Max Allan Collins

  Vidrine’s smile was shy. “There were a lot of skeptics who didn’t think either one of us knew what we were doing.”

  “Them aristocratic snobs on the board at Tulane, what the hell do they know? They were overcrowded, and Louisiana needed goddamn doctors! Maybe Rome wasn’t built in a day, but it just took me sayin’ so, and, whiz, bang-we had a new medical school. And now what? Just four years later? What’s the enrollment this fall?”

  Huey gestured with a hand for Vidrine to sit next to him, and he did.

  “Nine hundred,” Vidrine said, humbly proud.

  “Increased the enrollment times nine in only four years. Damn! Now, that’s an accomplishment.” He patted the doctor on the shoulder like a child who’d performed well. “When I appointed you super’ntendent of Noo Awlins Char’ty Hospital, I wanted to show the worl’ that a back-country doctor like you was ever’ bit as good as any big-city sawbones. Thanks for not makin’ a liar outa me, son.”

  Vidrine nodded and smiled sheepishly; he was behaving like a new priest in the presence of the Pope.

  “Got your pretty little wife along?” Huey said, and suddenly rose, and so did Vidrine, who sensed he was being dismissed.

  “Yes, I do….”

  Huey walked him toward the door. “You put tonight’s dinner at the Hunt Room at the Heidelberg on the ol’ Kingfish’s tab, y’hear?”

  “That’s not necessary….”

  “Don’t insult me, now, by rejectin’ my generosity.”

  “Yes, sir,” Vidrine said, smiled, nodded and went out.

  I was shuffling the cards. Quietly, I asked Murphy, “What’s his background? Seems like a kinda unassuming type to be holding such fancy administrative jobs.”

  “Dr. Arthur Vidrine-former general practitioner from Ville Platte,” Murphy said, as if that answered my question.

  “What’s Ville Platte?”

  “Bump in the road, over Opelousas way.”

  I began dealing, Black Mariah again. “How does that qualify him for anything?”

  “Gimme a damn spade, would you? He captained the Long campaign in those parts.”

  No further explanation was necessary for this Chicago boy.

  A little later another unassuming character entered for an audience with the Kingfish. Heavyset, crowding six feet, he made himself seem smaller by hunching his shoulders and holding his straw fedora in front of him with two hands; under eyebrows that seemed perpetually raised, two squinty slits appeared, and a nervous smile curved beneath a nondescript beak. The overall impression he gave was of bemused embarrassment.

  “You wanted to see me, Kingfish?”

  “Yeah, come in and sit down!” The Kingfish was on the couch again.

  “Who’s this guy?” I whispered to Murphy.

  “Jim Smith-president of LSU,” he whispered back.

  “Now what the goddamn hell is this about a ridin’ academy out at the college?”

  Smith shrugged, hat still in his hand; the little smile remained embarrassed. “Thelma likes to ride. I bought her a thoroughbred, and she likes wearing those cute outfits. She thought the coeds might enjoy…”

  Huey was shaking his head. “When I hired you, on the advice of a stationery salesman I might add, the idea was to get rid of them goddamn highfalutin suckers over at the university, and put in some down-to-earth folks. Now your wife is havin’ fancy parties and puttin’ on airs and at her biddin’ you’re usin’ my funds to start a fuckin’ ridin’ academy?”

  “Well…as I was saying, it’s a nice activity…”

  “For the coeds. Right. Well, I see in the paper where two girls fell off them horses on their fannies, last week.”

  The smile got more nervous. “Do I have to tell you about the lying press, Senator?”

  “No, you don’t. I have three words for you: sell them plugs.”

  “Senator?”

  “Sell them plugs! Get rid of them horses! No more ridin’ academy. Besides which, my people tell me you may wanna talk to the missus about this handsome, strappin’ former Army man she hired to be her groomsman. Word to the wise.”

  The smile disappeared; he hung his head. “Yes, Senator.”

  “Now. This comin’ fall…those journalism students I expelled last year, they’ll be back on the Reveille, I suppose.”

  “Yes sir. Except for those that graduated.”

  “Well, tell those prima donnas that if they print any more unflatterin’ letters or editorials about me and my administration, they won’t be graduatin’.”

  “I’ll make that clear, Senator. I’ve already told them I would fire the entire faculty and expel the complete student body before I’d offend you, sir.”

  The Kingfish’s grin just about burst his face. “You’re my kinda educator, Jimmy. Now…you handpick the new editor, and tell him LSU is Huey Long’s university, and no bastard is gonna criticize Huey Long on Huey Long’s own goddamn money! Is that clear.”

  “Crystal, Senator.”

  “I enjoy our little talks, Jimmy. Go, now.”

  He stood. “Yes, Senator.”

  And he was up and out.

  The Kingfish sat shaking his head. He said to nobody in particular, “Now that’s my brand of university president. Not a straight bone in his body, but he does what I tell ’im to.”

  That evening, the Kingfish was in top form, bounding across Memorial Hall, down this corridor, down that one, outdistancing his half-dozen thuglike guards, with whom I blended in disturbingly well. Brushing by lobbyists, tourists, legislators, stopping to chat sometimes for a couple minutes, sometimes a couple seconds, he finally strutted into the House of Representatives like a rich uncle arriving late at the family reunion.

  The human dynamo bounded up and down the aisles, showing off that shit-eating grin, pressing the flesh, laughing loud, an important man making his minions feel important, too. Now he was crouched beside this member’s seat, whispering, now he was jumping up like a jack-in-the-box at a question directed to him by another member, now he was leaning in at that member’s seat, bellowing with shared laughter, only to suddenly propel himself up to the dais, to consult the Speaker, before strutting back down an aisle, grimacing, shouting. And then the process began again.

  The balcony was packed with spectators, whose eyes followed the bouncing ball of the Kingfish, who was after all the whole show here. The legislature rubber-stamping process was devoid of drama.

  Finally Huey ambled back up to the dais and helped himself to the swivel armchair by the Speaker of the House. No one objected; certainly no one was surprised.

  The down-home crudity of Huey’s style was at odds with this magnificent tan-and-brown marble chamber; a frieze of the state’s plants and animals hugged the ceiling, and various fixtures were also decorated with stylish flora and fauna. But the massive walnut voting panel, behind the Speaker’s chair, invoked an altar, and the place resembled nothing so much as a Protestant church with a very wealthy congregation.

  Our hoodlum honor guard was again assembled at the rear, seated behind a rail, with the exception of Big George; maybe he and his brown-bagged tommy gun weren’t welcome in the House. Huey had told us that if any pro-Long legislator got confused and pushed the “no” button on any of his bills, one of us was to guide that lawmaker’s hand to “yes.”

  I was no judge, but the going-through-the-motions session seemed to be moving right along. Absentmindedly, I checked my watch-it was nine on the nose. When I glanced up, Huey-still seated up on the dais-was waving at somebody in the back of the room. Trying to get their attention.

  It took me a while, but I finally got it.

  Me? I mouthed to him.

  And his head bobbed up and down, yes.

  I wandered up to the dais, thinking that the floor of the Louisiana House of Representatives was one place I never expected to be, and looked up at Huey behind the dais like he was the teacher and I was about seven years old.

  “See that feller over there?” the Kingfish asked.r />
  I glanced over where he was pointing, and between the railing and the wall, a handful of people were talking. Possibly legislators, although there were reporters and various political hangers-on lurking about, as well. The only one I recognized was my old friend, lobbyist Louis LeSage.

  “You mean LeSage?” I asked.

  “No! The one smokin’ that big old ceegar.”

  A dark-haired guy about forty was indeed enjoying a “big old ceegar.” I recognized him as one of the many political appointees who’d stopped by the suite on the twenty-fourth floor to chat with the Kingfish this afternoon.

  “I’m about to give ya your last official assignment on my staff,” the Kingfish said.

  “What is it?”

  He raised his eyebrows and grinned like the greedy kid he was. “I want you to get me half a dozen of them Corona Belvedere cigars.”

  “I thought you quit smoking.”

  He frowned. “It would be my luck to hire the only man in Chicaga with a goddamn conscience. I’m in the mood to celebrate, son! Get me them cigars!”

  I shrugged. “Sure. Where?”

  “Downstairs in the cafeteria. They got a box of ’em down there, at the tobacca stand. Now go on, git outa here-make yourself useful! Earn that two-fifty a day….”

  So I went down the stairs to the cafeteria. The white-tile-and-gleaming-chrome restaurant was deserted except for the help, two girls behind the food line and a few colored guys back in the kitchen. I got myself a cup of coffee, decided against the apple pie with cheese, and took my time buying Huey his cigars, so I could flirt with the pretty blonde behind the tobacco counter. She had eyes that were a robin’s egg blue and a Southern accent you could have ladled onto pancakes. She was also chewing gum: nobody’s perfect.

  “I get off at ten, han’some,” she said. “Why? You got somethin’ in mind?”

  Us randy sumbitches always do, but before I could mount a reply that would combine just enough sincerity with the vague promise of sin, a sound, from above, interrupted.

  Muffled thunder.

  “What the hell was that?” the blonde asked.

  “Not thunder,” I said, and ran, pushing open one of the heavy glass doors like it was spun sugar, rushing up into the stairwell, where the rumbling sound continued and goddamn it, I knew what it was, not thunder, but the sound of blood being spilled: gunfire, roaring gunfire.

  Not one gun, but many, an artillery barrage of handguns and maybe a machine gun….

  Pulling my nine-millimeter out from under my left shoulder, I went up the stairs two at a time, the echo of continuous gunfire rumbling down the stairwell like an earthquake.

  I practically collided with him, as he came staggering around the corner, onto a landing of the stairway: the Kingfish!

  His mouth was bloody, but his suit was pristine; his eyes lighted up at the sight of me, and he held out his arms as if he wanted to hug me.

  I slipped my arm around his shoulder, as he leaned on the railing. I managed, “What the hell?…”

  “I’m shot,” the Kingfish sputtered, and in the process spit blood all over my suit coat.

  We were both shouting: the echoing thunder of gunfire upstairs roared on, unabated. We were in a terrible fever dream and neither of us could wake up. He was stumbling down the stairs, weaving, and I supported him as he tried to walk, and guided him out of the stairwell, down a hallway and to a bank of glass doors at a side entrance, pushed one open with my shoulder and drunk-walked him outside.

  When the glass door shut, the thunder of guns finally stopped-or did it just seem to?

  I had no idea what had happened up there, except that it had been some form of hell on earth. I knew, for certain, only two things: I had failed this man leaning limply against me; and that I mustn’t fail him now.

  I leaned the Kingfish against the glass doors, like I was balancing a bass fiddle against a wall, and ran out under the portico into the driveway and stood in front of two approaching headlights with my arms outstretched.

  13

  The beat-up black four-door Ford screeched to a halt, more from age than speed; the legislative session-with its promise of Kingfish theatrics-had attracted a packed house of spectators, starting to leisurely clear out now that the show was over, wandering into the sultry night, getting their cars from the parking lots on either side of the building. Most of these good citizens weren’t aware a second, bigger show had eclipsed the main attraction….

  I was still standing like a scarecrow in front of his car when the driver leaned his head out and, more startled than angry, yelled, “What the hell’s the idea, bub?”

  I spoke as I came around to him. “Where’s the nearest hospital?”

  “Are you crazy?” He was a little man in his thirties, straw hat, wire-frame spectacles, suspenders over a white T-shirt; a farmer, most likely, and a poor one. Your typical Huey supporter.

  “The Senator’s been shot, you dumb rube! Where’s the nearest hospital?”

  He opened his eyes wide and pointed. Through the portals of the portico, the statehouse lights danced on the small, manmade Capitol Lake, and on just the other side of it, not a quarter of a mile away, the lights of a low-slung building winked on the black surface of the water, as well.

  “Our Lady of the Lake,” he said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s a hospital, ya dumb city slicker!”

  I yanked his door open. “Help me with the Senator….”

  The driver got out, leaving his motor running, and now he saw Huey leaning against the glass doors like a statue that lost its pedestal. “Jesus Christ…it’s Huey Long.”

  “Help me with him!”

  We drunk-walked him to the car, eased him into the backseat; Huey didn’t cry out or even moan-he was barely conscious. I sat back there with him as the car drove through the portico, made a U-turn and pulled around to head north on a street that hugged the wooded lakeside. The farmer had the old sedan floored, but top speed seemed to be about forty. The skyscraper Huey had built in this wilderness receded behind us; the motor thrummed in tune with the nocturnal drone of crickets. Between statehouse and hospital was a little bitty stretch of untamed Louisiana….

  With both hands, Huey held on to the right side of his upper belly; he lay draped across the backseat, his head resting on my shoulder. I kept an arm around him, as if he were a big child I were comforting.

  “We’re almost there,” I said. “Very close.”

  “I wonder…”

  His eyes were wild.

  “What, Kingfish?”

  “…I wonder why he hit me?”

  He closed his eyes. I patted his shoulder gently as the lights of the sprawling three-story brick building that was Our Lady of the Lake Sanitarium grew larger before us.

  The beat-up sedan pulled under the brick canopy of the emergency entrance and jolted to a stop. I got out on my side and came around and opened Huey’s door. The driver was still behind the wheel.

  “Give me some help, goddamnit!” I said.

  “I helped you,” he said. “I brung you here.”

  I half-dragged Huey out of the backseat-he was just awake enough to be cooperative-and was standing there with the Kingfish leaning his full weight against me when the driver said, “I didn’t even vote for the son of a bitch,” and peeled off in a cloud of gravel dust.

  Shit! And here I thought Huey had the farm vote sewed up….

  I lifted Huey gently up, on his back, onto a rolling metal stretcher-table that waited by the emergency room doors; he groaned, moaned, but did not cry out. He seemed semidelirious, muttering, “Why?” and “Why’d he shoot me?” and “I don’t understan’” and variations and combinations. All I could see on the suit coat was a quarter-size black powder burn surrounding a small bullet hole, and some flecks of blood. But his mouth bubbled bloody foam….

  There was a bell to summon aid, and I rang it, rang it hard, and kept ringing, but nothing happened, so I kept ringing
while I pounded my fist on the nearest of the double doors so hard the goddamn hinges started coming loose. Finally a ghostlike figure of a nun in her flowing white habit came rushing into view, and pushed open the doors.

  “It’s the Senator, Sister,” I said.

  Her pale pretty face was a cameo of concern as she went to the Kingfish, stretched out on the rolling table. “Oh, dear-what’s this?”

  “He’s been shot.”

  “Help me wheel him to the elevator.”

  We pushed him through the doors and onto an elevator, which the Sister operated.

  “What happened?” she asked. “Who shot Senator Long?”

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t there.”

  I told her how he’d come stumbling down the stairs, and I’d commandeered a car to bring him here.

  She was shaking her head. Then she said something that surprised me, something I’ll never forget: “This was bound to happen.”

  We got off on the third floor; most of the lights were out in the hospital, it was after hours, but things were coming alive, nuns floating down the hallway like pelicans, and other medical personnel, nurses, interns, were starting to gather, as well. It all seemed unreal; the world whirled as we rolled the silent Kingfish down dark narrow hallways and finally toward, and through, the double doors labeled emergency operating room.

  Suddenly the world was blinding white, as more ghosts gathered ’round the Kingfish and eased him from the metal stretcher onto a sheet-covered operating table. A white-garbed intern, with no surgical mask, a blond boy who looked impossibly young, approached with a scalpel; but all he did was start razoring off the Kingfish’s clothes.

  Huey was conscious, but he wasn’t saying anything; he was staring at the ceiling with wide empty eyes. If his chest hadn’t been heaving, I’d have taken him for dead.

  Another intern, a dark-haired boy, was swabbing out Huey’s mouth. “Little abrasion.” He turned to glance at me; I was keeping back, out of the way. “Did he hit himself against something?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe he stumbled against a wall, coming down the stairwell….”