Hot Springs (Earl Swagger)

by Stephen Hunter

  The boy smiled unsurely as if he wasn’t quite sure that this was going as expected. D. A. Parker and Earl looked at him with hard, level eyes.

  “Maybe he’s right,” said D.A. “We should check it out.”

  “It’s the Ohio Club. The Central Book, I’m telling you. Not in the casino but on the same second floor, in the back. It’s obvious. I found it.”

  He smiled in the way a man who thinks he’s really winning some points smiles.

  “We’ll go up there tomorrow and check it out,” D.A. said.

  “Yeah,” said Earl.

  “We can close this thing down early next week,” said Frenchy. “We take that place out, Owney’s licked. You said so yourself. That’s the key. What can he do? He has no other place set up and all the horse books die. They die in a matter of days. So what’s he do, spend his money to keep the town operating? Or bail out? We all know he’ll bail. He’s got to.”

  He summed it up admirably.

  “There’s a problem,” said Earl.

  “What’s that, Earl?” asked D.A. “If he’s got it, he’s right. And Owney won’t be detonating no bombs in Niggertown because once it gets out the phone room’s closed down, all his boughten judges and cops are going away from him ’cause they know he won’t git enough money to pay them off.”

  “No, that’s not the problem.” He looked hard at Frenchy. “Now, you got anything to add?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You sniffed this out on your own? All by your lonesome?”

  “Yes sir.”

  Earl looked hard again at the boy.

  “You lying to me? Short, are you lying? You could get us all messed up if you’re lying.”

  “Hey,” said Frenchy fearlessly, “I know that. No, I’m not lying.”

  “Earl, what?”

  “Goddamn you, Short!” Earl bellowed.

  Frenchy recoiled, stung.

  “Earl, what—”

  “There ain’t no windows at all atop the Ohio Club. And there ain’t no extra phone poles out back.”

  “Ah, well—”

  “Earl, how do you know?”

  “I know. I know, goddammit! I notice stuff like that, and by God, I know that!”

  “Ahh, well, maybe, uh—” Frenchy bumbled.

  “Short, I’m going to ask you one more goddamn time. Where’d you find this shit out? Where? Are you just making it up?”

  “Ah. Well, actually, uh—”

  For the first time in his life, Frenchy Short wasn’t sure what to say. He had a gift for improvisation under stress, that he knew; it had saved him getting cooked a number of times, though alas, a few times it hadn’t. But he was also utterly confused, because this great treasure was the home run that would make him a hero, he was sure, and erase completely the ambiguity of the killing of the two mobsters and the awkwardness of the accidental slaying of the two Negro women. It meant he was the star, the best boy, the success.

  “Short, you better tell us,” said D.A.

  “It just makes sense.”

  “Actually, it don’t make no sense at all.”

  “Short! Goddammit, you tell me!” Earl shouted.

  “Okay, okay. What difference does it make?”

  “It makes a difference, Short,” said D.A.

  “I broke in.”

  “You broke in? To the Ohio Club?”

  “No. The phone company.”

  Frenchy explained his thinking, his night mission, his burglary, his discovery.

  “Jesus Christ,” said D.A. “Do you know what could have happened to us if you got nabbed by the cops?”

  “I wasn’t going to get nabbed. It’s Hot Springs, Arkansas, for God’s sakes, not the U.S. Mint.”

  “Shit,” said D.A.

  “What difference does it make? I got it, didn’t I? Without a problem. No sweat. And it’s right, dammit. It’s the breakthrough we needed. Who has to know? Nobody has to know. It doesn’t matter. I didn’t burglarize anything. I didn’t steal anything. I just looked through some drawers, that’s all. Hell, those drawings might even be in the public domain, for all I know.”

  “I don’t know what difference it makes, but we got to tell Mr. Becker. He will have to know.”

  “But it’s good information. It is good, isn’t it, Mr. Earl? I mean, it’s good combat intelligence.”

  “It is, Short.”

  “What will happen to me?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Can’t you just say you got an anonymous tip?”

  “No. Not anymore. Becker wants more control from now on. I can’t order up the raids myself. He has to check off. I have to run this by him. We have to see what he says, all right?”

  “Look,” argued Frenchy, “now that we know what it is, it’s just a matter of time until we can find something to support it. Once we find that out, we go to Becker and say that that’s the primary evidence. Then we have our cause, we take the joint out, and we’re all heroes and we go home happy. It’s easy.”

  “You are a clever little bastard,” said Earl.

  “I ain’t getting into no big lying situation. I will have to run this by Becker. It’s his call. If it were my call, who knows, but it’s his call, he’s the one who has to answer for it, he’s the one signing the checks. It may be different now after all that shooting last time out. We just got back from a trip to Hot Springs, looking exactly for this information. But goddammit, Earl, you and I’ll git back up there tonight and talk to him. Short, you stay here. Don’t you tell nobody. You hear? Nobody! Got that?”

  “Yes sir,” said Frenchy. “But I’m telling you, this can be the big one.”

  • • •

  Frenchy spent the day in Texarkana. A movie called O.S.S. with Alan Ladd had just come out, and he sat through it twice, though he knew it was phony. It couldn’t have been like that in the war. The girl was some new actress he’d never seen, and who wasn’t that beautiful, and everyone smoked. But they didn’t have the class the OSS people had, Frenchy was sure; his uncle had class, a savoir faire, a mysterious intimation that life was more fun if you cultivated an ironic disposition and could hold your liquor.

  When he got back, it was around 6:00. Three of the men had returned already, Bear, Eff and Billy Bob, called Bob Billy for silly reasons, and the four had a kind of hearty how-ya-doin’ escapade there, exchanging stories. The three had gone to New Orleans and had a really fine time. When the conversation got around to Frenchy, he got very vague. He just said he’d had a damned good time too.

  Then a car pulled in, and it was Earl and Mr. D.A. They welcomed the men back, chatted pointlessly for a while, and finally left. Earl nodded at Frenchy and he joined the two in the office.

  They sat. It was darkening, and the old man turned on a lamp that filled the dreary little room with yellow light. Outside a bit of Texas wind moaned.

  Finally the old man looked up.

  “Here, I got this for you,” he said. It was a letter, on the official stationery of the Garland County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. “Mr. Earl had to work like hell to get this. He swore Fred Becker up one side and down the other, and said he’d walk if Sid didn’t cough up a letter.”

  “A letter?” said Frenchy.

  “A letter of recommendation. You deserve it,” said the old man.

  Frenchy looked over at Earl, who just sat there, darkness shading his eyes.

  To Whom It May Concern:

  Walter F. Short was in the employ of this office as an investigator and warrant-serving officer between July 28 and September 12, 1946. During this time, he performed his duties with exemplary courage and professional commitment. He exhibited a great deal of enterprise in the accomplishment of all tasks given him. He has a great future in law enforcement.

  Fred C. Becker

  Prosecuting Attorney

  Garland County,

  Arkansas

  “It ain’t bad,” said D.A., “considering at one point this afternoon he wanted to indict
you and send you to jail for breaking and entering.”

  “I don’t understand it.”

  “You been fired, son,” said Earl at last.

  “I’ve been fired?”

  “Mr. Becker says he’s got to allay community fears about us being out-of-control gunmen. He has to tell people that he’s taken command of the team, and that the ‘bad apples’ have been let go. You got the nod as the bad apple. As I say, he wanted to make a public example of you. Earl here got him to see what a bad idea that was.”

  Frenchy just stared off into space.

  “I found the Central Book,” he finally said. “Doesn’t that count for anything?”

  “It counts for not going to prison and walking out of here with a nice letter that’ll git you a job anywhere you want. Meanwhile Earl and I have to find some way to justify the raid. We got to do it all legal-like. That’s Mr. Becker’s order.”

  “It’s not fair,” said Frenchy.

  “No, it’s not.”

  “It’s just politics,” said Frenchy.

  “Yes, it is.”

  “You can’t let him do this.”

  “I can’t stop him from doing this,” said the old man. “I can’t stop him from doing anything. He says the governor is leaning on him from above and he’s got people in the community leaning on him from below.”

  Frenchy turned to Earl. “You supported this?”

  Earl looked him in the eye.

  “Sometimes you get a bad officer above you. It ain’t supposed to happen, but it’s in the cards. So you got to go along until you get an opportunity to make things right. You got to hold the unit together, you got to put up with the shit, you got to keep running the patrols. You got to take some losses. You’re the loss, Short.”

  “Jesus,” said Frenchy. “All these guys, from Podunk City and Hick Town U.S.A., and Toad Pond, Oklahoma, and I’m the one that gets canned. Jesus Christ, I fought for you guys. I killed for you guys. It’s just not right. Can I at least see Becker?”

  “Bad decision,” said Earl. “He don’t like face-to-face things. Figures, I’d say. Anyhow, he don’t like that kind of pressure and he could still indict you for B and E, or maybe even if he wanted to for shooting them two boys out back of that casino. Do yourself a favor. Learn from this, get the hell out of town, and go on with the rest of your life. You’re young and smart. You won’t have no trouble.”

  “But I—”

  “Yeah, I know. But the key thing here is, don’t let it get to you. Take it from me, son. Just start over fresh, and don’t let this thing haunt you. Me and Mr. D.A., we’re sorry. But it’s an outfit thing, a politics thing. Learn from this: it’s the way the world works.”

  34

  Pap Grumley’s death, of the commingled impact of grief and clap, pretty much finished the Grumleys as a possibility, as far as Owney was concerned. He would keep the Grumleys around to service his empire, to receive and make his payoffs, to lubricate the machine, to bust the odd debtor and the like, but he knew that without Pap’s stalwart leadership and heart, the Grumleys were done as a fighting force. Flem would stay as his factotum, but Flem would never be the man Pap was. Flem wasn’t a wartime leader, not by a long shot.

  So Owney finally made the decision that he’d been toying with all these weeks. He went to his gas station near Lake Catherine and placed his long-distance call to Sid in New York. He spoke to Sid, told him what was required. Sid did the legwork, made the connections, set up the proper channels and finally Owney reached the party he needed to reach. This was a Mr. A, who himself was speaking from a pay phone to avoid the possibility of federal wiretaps.

  “Thank you so much for talking with me, Mr. A. I hate to bother you.”

  “It’s nothing. Talk to me, Owney. Tell me what I can do to help you,” said Mr. A.

  “I got a problem. I got cops like you never saw. These fuckers, they come inta one a my joints with machine guns and shot the shit out of the place. They killed eleven boys of mine. Chicago, the fat Sicilian, that Valentine’s Day thing, it wasn’t nothing like this. Down here, it’s the South, there are no laws.”

  “Owney, the boys are talking. You know how it is when the boys talk.”

  “And that shmata Ben Siegel is talking too. Right? I know he is. It’s how a yentzer like that operates.”

  “Owney, no need to run down the other fellow. Ben is out in L.A., doing his job. You leave Ben out of this.”

  “Yes, Mr. A,” said Owney, slightly stung.

  “Owney, you have to take care of this. You ran a tidy little place down there and everybody was happy. People went down there for vacation and they were happy. They played the horses, the wheel, the slots, they met some girls, they laughed at Abbott and Costello, they heard Dinah Shore, it was very nice. Now you got bullets flying and people dying everywhere. You can’t do business in a climate like that, you can’t have no fun. Things don’t grow like we all think they should.”

  “I agree with you totally, Mr. A. Growth. Stability is the fertilizer of growth, which is the destiny of prosperity. What I have here is a franchise on the future. This is what will be, you’ll see. Except for these crazy cops.”

  “Very good, Owney. You still understand, I see. Now, you want we should send some fellas? I could dispatch some very good Jersey people.”

  “Nah. Not hitters. Hitters ain’t got no stomach for this. Hitters take guys out to the marshes and clip ’em with a .32 in the back of the head. It ain’t like that down here. It’s a fuckin’ war. Plus, hitters’d stand out like fuckin’ sore thumbs.”

  “So what do you need?”

  “I need soldiers. I mean real hard-ass fucking soldiers, been in some scrapes, shot it out with the fucking cops, ain’t afraid of nothing. Like the scary shit, when the lead flies. There are some boys like that.”

  “Sounds like you want Marines.”

  “Nah. What I want is armed robbers. I want the best armed robbery crew. They’d be the boys who could run a thing for me. They could plan and wait and spring a trap and shoot the shit out of it. They’d have the discipline, the long-term, wait-through-the-night guts. Okay. You know who I want, Mr. A. I want Johnny Spanish and his crew. They worked for me before. They worked for me in ’40.”

  “Johnny’s retired, Owney.”

  “Johnny owes me. He hit a big fucking score in ’40. Biggest caper of his career. I set that job up for him.”

  “Whyn’t you just call him? I could find the number.”

  “Mr. A, coming from you, it would be better. He’s black Irish. You know, I come from England. The Irish, they got a thing about the English.”

  “Just ’cause you tried to starve them to death.”

  “Hey, I didn’t starve nobody. All the time I have these problems with the Irish. That goddamned Vincent the Mad Dog, another black Irish, want to bust my balls. God, was I glad when he got his ass blown to shit.”

  “All right, Owney. I can make a call. I can ask a favor. But you know, Johnny and his people don’t work cheap. Johnny goes first-class. He deserves first-class.”

  This, of course, was Owney’s problem with Johnny. Johnny and his crew—that would be Jack “Ding-Dong” Bell, Red Brown, Vince “the Hat” de Palmo and Herman Kreutzer—took 60 percent of the take, leaving 40 for the local setup guy. This was unprecedented: in all other similar transactions, the armed contract robbers only got 50 percent. But they were the best, if a little aged by now. So if Johnny came down here for a bit of business and there was no up-front promise of a take, Johnny would need a cash down payment and a big backside splash.

  “It has to be Johnny,” said Owney.

  “It’s done. He’ll be there before the week is over.”

  “You got to hurry, Mr. A. These guys are one strike from taking over down here.”

  “Owney, Owney, Owney. Johnny will take care of it all. You can trust Johnny. We’ll look out for you, Owney. You can trust your friends.”

  35

  Junior Turner, the sheriff of
Montgomery County, looked at Carlo Henderson with a grimace of the purest dripping scorn. Junior was a big man in his thirties, with a face that looked like old possum hides hung on a nail in a barn somewhere. His fat belly exploded beyond the perimeters of his belt and there were stains of a disagreeable nature on his khaki shirt. He wore a big Smith & Wesson Heavy Duty .38/.44 in a fancy belt, the only fancy thing about him. Then he turned and launched a majestic gob of Brown Mule from his lips. It took off with a disgusting slurping sound, seemed to elongate as it followed the parabola of its arc, a yellowish tracer bullet glistening with mucus, tobacco curds and spit, until it struck dead center into the spittoon with a coppery clang, rocking the vessel on its axis.

  “This here’s a small town, my friend. We don’t much cotton to outsiders stirring up our business.”

  Mount Ida, a smear on the roadside consisting of a bar, a general store, a Texaco station and a sheriff’s office, stood in the trackless Ouachitas, encapsulated almost totally in a wall of green pine forest, about halfway between Blue Eye and the more cosmopolitan pleasures of Hot Springs. It united the two by a sliver of road called 270, mostly dirt, occasionally macadam, all of it lost and lonely through the high dense trees.

  “Sir, I am on official business,” said Carlo.

  “You say. The official bidness of Garland is bidness. So why’n hell’s a little old boy like you rutting around in a crime done happened in our county four years back? It was open and shut. If you read the papers, you know ever goddamned thing.”

  “I am just following up a loose end.”

  “Now what loose end would that be, son?” asked Junior, casting a yellow-eyed glance around to his two deputies, who guffawed at the sheriff’s rude humor.

  “I am not at liberty to say, sir,” said Carlo, feeling the hostility in the room.

  “Well, son, I ain’t at liberty to just open my files to any joe what comes passing this way,” the sheriff said. “So mebbe you’d best think ’bout moving on down the road.”

  “Sir, I—”

  But he saw that it was useless. Whatever grudge this man had against Garland County and its representatives, it was formidable and unbridgeable. He knew he was out of luck here. He rose and—

  “So you tell the Grumleys if they want to check out Montgomery, they can just go on straight to hell,” the sheriff said.