Blood and Thunder nh-7

by Max Allan Collins

  I gave him half a smile, using the side of my face that wasn’t puffy. “How did you happen to be there, Murph? Or do you usually stroll through the swamp around dawn, Sunday mornings?”

  A grin flickered. “Just like a dick. No gratitude, just questions.”

  “Thanks for saving my life. What the hell were you doing there?”

  “Carlos called me.”

  “Carlos called you?”

  “Yeah. He’s no flunky, you know-he’s a modern-day Laffite over there in Jefferson Parish, on the West Bank. It’s wide-open over there. They make money hand over fist.”

  “And he called you.”

  He shrugged. “He and Dandy Phil Kastel and Mayor Maestri got a good thing goin’. Got a lot of good things goin’, in fact. Carlos is no fool-he figured Big George had gone off on a personal tangent, and wanted to make sure helpin’ bump you off was kosher with the boys in the backroom.”

  “And you weren’t about to let Big George ‘bump off’ your good pal, were you?”

  “Course not.”

  “Killing an insurance investigator from up North, who was working on the Long case-think of the trouble it could stir up.”

  “Well, that’s true-but friendship…”

  “Fuck friendship. You used me.”

  He frowned, more confused than irritated. “Used you? Now, how the hell did I use you?”

  “You wanted to find out what Dr. Vidrine knew. What he had.” I gave him a full, lovely smile. “What better way to do that than send somebody working to take the Longsters down? Somebody like me.”

  “You’re talkin’ fool nonsense, Nate.”

  “Well, he has the bullets, Murph. Two of ’em. One’s a.38, the other’s a.45.”

  His face whitened; his expression was long and lifeless.

  “But,” I said, “he isn’t gonna use ’em.”

  Relief showed through. “Not gonna use ’em?”

  “If I’m lyin’, you’re dyin’,” I said cheerfully. “He just wants to be left alone, to live his life, and do his work. An admirable point of view. If you boys stay away from him, everything will be just fine. But he’s got those slugs spread out with relatives or lawyers or something, and if he dies under circumstances that even seem the least little bit mysterious, the bullets will surface. And somehow I don’t think it’ll be the assistant superintendent of police whose desk that evidence gets delivered to.”

  “Nobody’s gonna bother Vidrine,” he said somberly. “You got my word.”

  “I don’t need your word. Vidrine’s got you good ol’ boys by the short and curlies. And you know it.”

  He shook his head, laughed humorlessly. “You don’t seem very grateful….”

  “What about Big George, Murph? You’re a cop. How did you handle it? How’s it gonna play in the papers? It was justifiable homicide, sure, but one of the state’s top cops, shootin’ down the building superintendent of LSU? That won’t look good.”

  Murphy said nothing.

  “Or did Big George take a permanent vacation? Let me guess-don’t tell me. Do Carlos and his boys also make Southern-style gumbo, from time to time? Right now, McCracken wouldn’t happen to be in that big gray washer tub, marinating in lye, would he?”

  Murphy stood. “You don’t seem to be in the mood for a visitor….”

  “By the way,” I said, “d’you think you could have your coppers take a look for that rental Ford of mine?”

  “Already did,” he said softly. “It’s out front.”

  “Good. My gun’s in the glove compartment. It’s got sentimental value.”

  “We at the state police are always anxious to serve the public,” he said dryly. He waved a sour good-bye with his Panama, and was halfway out the bedroom door when I called to him.

  “Hey, Murph-stick around. I want to fill you in on my investigation. I want to tell you what really happened in that capitol hallway, on a certain Sunday evening last year.”

  “Is that right?” His attention was piqued. “If mem’ry serves, I took that ’un in, firsthand….”

  “Forget it, then.”

  He strolled back in. “Run it by me, why don’t ya?”

  “All right,” I said. “Sit back down. Like we say around these parts-set a spell.”

  Murphy sighed heavily and sat back down on the little vanity chair; he began twisting his hat in his hands again.

  “It starts with Seymour Weiss,” I said. “Seymour, and probably a number of others in the Long organization, were getting unhappy with Huey. Specifically, with Huey’s unquenchable-and unrealistic-thirst for power. Let’s face it, state political machines all over the country were getting fat on New Deal dollars…but not the Long machine. The Kingfish was too busy battling FDR, alienating the cash source and blocking funds from getting to Louisiana. Now, sacrificing short-term profits for long-term goals is fine-but Huey’s presidential ambitions were a pipe dream.”

  “The Kingfish had followers all over the country,” Murphy said. “His Share the Wealth Clubs…”

  “Eight million strong. Impressive number. But not enough votes to put a man in the White House, not by a long shot. And just recently Huey’d come a cropper trying to put his man in power in neighboring Mississippi-and if the Kingfish couldn’t sway his own next-door neighbor, if he couldn’t even guarantee carrying the South, what in the hell was the point of a presidential push?”

  “Some say he was setting the stage for 1940,” Murphy said.

  “And maybe he was. Trouble is, it was 1935 and the federal tax boys were breathing down the Longsters’ collective necks. Now, Seymour knew that without the Kingfish around, he could deliver enough votes to FDR to end both the federal tax probe and the pending congressional inquiry into the constitutionality of Long’s dictatorship.”

  “All of a sudden you’re an expert on Louisiana politics.”

  “I’m from Chicago, Murph. I’ve been an expert on corrupt politics since grade school. Anyway, it’s just a little over a year after the assassination, and where are we? The Long machine is backing the man Huey used to affectionately call ‘that crippled fucker.’ Federal money’s flowing like water into the Pelican State, and all the tax investigations and congressional inquiries have mysteriously shut down.”

  A smile twitched. “You know what they say about politics making strange bedfellows.”

  “I sure do. And Seymour has a long history of strange bedfellows-like Louis LeSage, for instance, lobbyist and vice president of Standard Oil. Standard, Huey’s arch enemy, who on the eve of Huey’s murder were just champing at the bit to make a backroom deal. A deal Governor Leche, of course, has since cut. You see, Seymour is one savvy character-he could read the handwriting on the wall: the Long machine could run much more smoothly, and profitably, without the Kingfish around. After all, the Long machine was designed to work on the state level, not national. Huey’s megalomaniac ambitions were derailing that smooth-running machine.”

  Murphy smirked dismissively. “But without Huey, where did that leave his ‘machine’?”

  “Well, it’s running on all cylinders right now; I saw Leche’s little hunting lodge. It’s as simple as this, Murph: at some point last year, it became clear to Seymour that Huey Long would make a better martyr than a leader.”

  He was shaking his head, no. “Seymour and Huey were like brothers.”

  “Cain and Abel were brothers. Seymour was also Huey’s treasurer, and he alone knew how much unrecorded cash money was in Huey’s ‘dee-duct box’…it was at least a million. Probably much more…and all that money disappeared when Huey was murdered.”

  “Murdered,” Murphy said, “by Dr. Carl Weiss.”

  “No. Somebody else, Murph.”

  “Who then? Overzealous bodyguards? Even if that were true, it wouldn’t be ‘murder’….”

  “Oh, it’s murder, all right.”

  He smirked. “Yeah? Then who ‘done’ it?”

  “You done it, Murph.”

  He blinked. Laughed. �
�Me?”

  “Not you alone, of course.”

  He shook his head, laughed again, harshly. “Of course not! It was a conspiracy, right, Nate? And everybody in that crowded corridor was a conspirator!”

  “Not everybody. Just you and Big George McCracken…who I’ve helped you conveniently remove…and maybe Judge Fournet.”

  “Judge Fournet? Now you’ve completely lost your mind.”

  “Well, maybe you can find me a padded cell next to Joe Messina-who wasn’t in on it, by the way. He truly loved the Kingfish. Seymour, of course, the master puppeteer, made sure he wasn’t in that hallway at all; he didn’t even come to town. As for Fournet, I’m honestly not sure about him. At any rate, there were enough people involved for a lawyer pal of Huey’s to warn him about a ‘murder plot.’” I managed a shrug. “Anyway, this is a case with many a loose end. But I’ve tied one hell of a lot of ’em up….”

  “Really? Then, tell me-how’d we pull all this off?”

  “It began with a phone call or two from a ‘friend’ from within the Kingfish’s inner circle to Dr. Carl Weiss. Getting that idealistic young doctor all riled up about the ‘nigger blood’ issue was the first step. Then Dr. Carl was contacted by this same ‘friend’-you, possibly McCracken, maybe even Fournet, or another party-and told to come to the capitol, and wait at a specific place, the corridor outside the governor’s office. Dr. Carl was told the Kingfish was willing to listen to him plead his case; this embarrassing subject was not one the young doctor would likely discuss with his family. This was something he had to do on his own. Now, Dr. Carl had to know he couldn’t stop the gerrymander of Judge Pavy…but he could appeal to Huey’s sense of decency not to defame his family with this racial slur.”

  Murphy said nothing; he had stopped turning his hat.

  “Somebody-probably Big George-held a parking place right out front for Dr. Carl…if the doctor had stopped on impulse, as he’s supposed to have, it’s highly unlikely he would’ve lucked into such a prime parking place right out front. The lot was packed, and the show inside was in full sway, with a full house.”

  “Supposition,” Murphy muttered.

  “Perhaps,” I said. “But Big George wasn’t in the House with the rest of us in the bodyguard contingent that night-he slipped away…though he did turn up later, in the hallway. Only he wasn’t carrying his usual toy: that submachine gun in the paper sack.”

  “So what?”

  “So, maybe he already knew there was going to be gunfire in that narrow passageway, and didn’t want to take his tommy gun into such close quarters.”

  Murphy swallowed. Said nothing.

  “As Huey stepped out of the governor’s office,” I said, “Judge Fournet attracted his attention, stopping him…and that’s when Dr. Carl Weiss stepped forward, thinking he had, essentially, an appointment with Huey. Huey, knowing nothing about it, probably brushed him off, rudely…and the doctor hauled off and slugged him-the perfect cue for you to go into your act.”

  The brown eyes widened. “My act?”

  “You dove forward, coming up alongside the doctor, shooting Huey point blank with your own.38, and tackling Dr. Carl, as if he were the assailant.”

  The brown eyes narrowed. He was slumped in the chair.

  “Then as you wrestled him down, you shot Dr. Carl in the throat, killing the poor ‘sumbitch,’ making him an instant dead patsy….”

  He was looking at the floor. Turning the hat slowly in his hands.

  “But you took a hell of a risk, didn’t you? Maybe you hadn’t figured on your trigger-happy brothers turning that hallway into a living hell. They almost blinded you, didn’t they, with their muzzle flashes, so anxious were they to help you drill that poor little doctor. In fact, one of ’em…probably Messina…accidentally nailed the Kingfish in the back, as he was fleeing.”

  “Bullets were ricocheting,” Murphy said hollowly.

  I tried to get more comfortable; it didn’t work, but I could see him better. “You obviously had a throw-down gun, the doctor had to be armed, but later…when Big George moved the doctor’s car around back, to a less suspicious position, he found the doc’s own weapon in the glove box. Since the word from the hospital mistakenly confirmed the notion that the bullet had gone through the Kingfish, this was perfect: after somebody fired a round or two out of it, you substituted Dr. Carl’s real gun for the throw-down piece.”

  Silence hung in the room like a storm cloud threatening thunder.

  Finally he said: “Finished?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Quite a yarn.” He stood slowly. His eyes gazed at me unblinkingly. “But can you prove it?”

  “No.”

  He laughed, once. “I didn’t think so.”

  “Particularly not in this state. Besides, my sympathy’s with Mrs. Long. If I tell the insurance company this really was a murder, it’d just cost her ten grand.”

  He squinted at me, trying to read me. “Can you live with that?”

  “Sure. After all…you saved my life-you’re my pal.”

  The sarcasm made him wince; at least he had that much humanity left.

  “What I wonder,” I said, “is, can you live with it?”

  His eyes tightened.

  “With what you did to Dr. Carl Weiss,” I continued, “and his pretty widow and his baby son, and their whole goddamn family, and the Pavys….”

  His frown had both irritation and frustration in it. “What else can I do? What’s done is done. Jesus, Nate. What do you expect me to do?”

  “Go to hell,” I said.

  He just stood there looking at me, for several long moments.

  Then I pointed toward the door; the effort hurt, but it was worth it. “Get a head start, why don’t you?”

  Murphy started to say something, thought better of it, put on the Panama and went quickly out.

  26

  The rest of that Monday, I slept, mostly. The only thing I accomplished was getting out of bed to use the bathroom; I also used the upstairs phone, in the hall, to call Mrs. Long. Not wanting to concern her, or muddy the waters, I didn’t let her know about the beating I’d taken. Or about my thoughts regarding Seymour Weiss and Murphy Roden and the murder plot. That’s what Huey had hired me to uncover, wasn’t it? And I finally had, hadn’t I?

  ‘I’m down with influenza,” I told her on the phone.

  ‘Oh dear,” she said. “I’m sorry. I hope it’s not too serious.”

  “Just some sore muscles and stiff bones is all. But I won’t be able to show you my report before you leave for Washington tomorrow. Could I send you a carbon?”

  “That would be fine. I’ll give you my address in Washington. Oh, and I have your thousand-dollar bonus here, in cash. Shall I have it messengered to your hotel?”

  “Please,” I said, and called the hotel to ask them to put the envelope from Mrs. Long, when it arrived, in their safe.

  And that was that.

  By Tuesday I was up and around, and spent the morning sitting at Alice Jean’s dining-room table, using a typewriter she’d sneaked home from her office back in her capitol days. Referring to my little notebook from time to time, I plowed through the report to Hugh Gallagher at Mutual Life Insurance-policy number 3473640.

  Alice Jean kept me plied with coffee and doughnuts, and fixed tuna salad sandwiches and iced tea for lunch; I was getting used to drinking it sweet. Both today and yesterday, she’d made an attentive, sympathetic nurse, as thoughtful as she was attractive. But she’d been uncharacteristically quiet; almost brooding.

  Something was troubling her, and I didn’t think it was just my injuries.

  The report was finished by two o’clock; it ran eight pages, and concluded thusly: “There is no doubt that Huey P. Long’s death was accidental.”

  I was lyin’, but at least I wouldn’t be dyin’. This was best for all concerned, except possibly for Mutual Insurance, and somehow I thought I’d get over that.

  Later that afternoon, I again sat in a
n easy chair in the living room of Yvonne Weiss’s bungalow on Lakeland Drive, in the shadow of the capitol tower. Again she sat on the mohair sofa. Her plump, dark-haired year-and-a-half-old son, in a pale blue playsuit, was amusing himself at her feet, playing with his ball, which was also one of a handful of words he was gleefully trying out.

  The swelling around my mouth was down, and the rest of my bruises didn’t show, but Yvonne Weiss was a doctor’s wife and she could tell by the way I moved something was wrong.

  “You’ve been injured,” she’d said, when she met me at the door. Her look of concern touched me; I almost got teary for a moment, for some goddamn reason. Maybe it was my two hundred and thirty-six bruises and welts.

  “I fell down a flight of stairs,” I said.

  “Oh, my! Clumsy you.”

  Now she was sitting quietly, reading my report.

  As she got toward the end, she read aloud, in a somewhat halting, dignified tone: “There is no doubt that Dr. Carl Weiss attacked Long physically, but there is considerable doubt that he ever fired a gun. Witnesses stated that the bodyguards were firing blindly, repeatedly and wildly. The consensus of informed opinion is that Long was killed by his own men and not by Weiss.”

  As she read, her son looked up from his ball and studied her, cocking his head from side to side, transfixed by his mother’s words; it was as if she were reading it to him, and he had understood everything.

  Her smile wasn’t very big, but it was a heartbreaker. “Thank you, Mr. Heller, for letting me see this.”

  “Ma!” the boy said. He was smiling his own heartbreaking smile, even if he didn’t have much in the way of teeth yet.

  “You understand,” I said, “that this is a confidential report. The insurance company won’t make it public, and, talking to Mrs. Long, I doubt she ever will. She has political aspirations for her son, and in the long run, it’s better for her to get along with her husband’s political heirs….”

  “Better to leave her husband a martyr,” she said, with only a hint of bitterness.