by George Wier
“You are Greek then. I don’t mean to offend you, but you don’t look Greek to me,” Maceo said.
“What Greek ever does?” Longnight said. Maceo smiled warmly. “What are we having, Sam?”
“Well, actually I don’t ever eat breakfast so my lunch is normally breakfast fare. I’ve taken the liberty of ordering eggs, American bacon, coffee, grapes, toast and a cigar—although not necessarily in that order.
“That sounds perfect,” Longnight said.
Longnight took in a sweeping view of the Gulf of Mexico.
“A man could get used to this,” he said.
“Yes,” Maceo said. “I certainly have. It beats Palermo, though it reminds me of the coast of Sicily. The sand here is different. I prefer the taste of the Gulf of Mexico in my nose and on my tongue. I don’t know why.”
“I felt like that when I arrived. It’ll be difficult for me to leave.” Longnight’s eyes rested on a horizon of forever blue.
“Same here,” Maceo said. “That is, if I ever do. I’ll probably die here. Tell me, Randall—I’ve seen you in my club several times over the last few weeks. You must like it to keep coming back night after night.”
“I do,” Longnight said, and turned to look at Sam Maceo. There was a close look in the man’s eye. He was weighing, judging. And he was definitely fishing for something specific. In that instant, Longnight knew what the next question would be. It would be the same implied question, asked differently and much more directly.
“I’d like to know,” Maceo began, “what about the Balinese Room appeals to you? What is it about my club, specifically, that calls you back there? Are you looking for something? Or maybe, someone?”
Longnight thought no more than a minute and then realized it would be best that he spoke honestly, off the cuff, particularly to this man.
“I like the excitement of the place,” he said. “I enjoy watching the people. The music is superb, and the conversation is free and loose and generally uninhibited. People can relax there and be wholly themselves. It is the only place that I have found where every object fits. The South Seas Room in particular. I could live out the rest of my life in that room and become a fixture there.”
This seemed to satisfy Maceo greatly. The man sighed wistfully and turned his gaze toward the horizon where the sea met the sky.
“Well spoken,” Sam Maceo said after a moment. “You’ve put the right words to a feeling I’ve had since the day my brother and I opened the place. I’m glad you approve. Ah, here’s our food. Let’s eat. I don’t normally talk business over lunch, but I’ve got some pressing matters today. So if you don’t mind…”
“No. By all means,” Longnight said.
The valet set a plate before each man and then deftly deposited a large silver tray in the center of the table. Everything that Maceo had promised was there in abundance.
Each man began to fill his plate in earnest.
“Do you know Abraham DeMour?” Maceo asked.
“I can’t say as I do.”
“Abe DeMour is the best architect on this island,” Sam said.
“An architect. What does he design?”
“Who cares? If he is an architect he should be able to design anything. An engineer is supposed to be able to construct a toilet or build a bridge.”
“Agreed,” Longnight said.
“I have a proposal for you, Randall. I would like for you to approach Mr. DeMour. I would like to get his help to draw up the plans for a building.”
“A club?” Longnight asked.
Maceo’s eyebrows shot up.
“Not just a club,” he said. “The Club. Or rather, the Club and the Hotel. All together. But Mr. DeMour is what we call Old Island people. Myself and my brother, we are not Old Island people. And people like DeMour, while they have their uses, have a tendency to look down upon us.”
Longnight thought for just a moment. Here is the part where he must measure his words carefully. He must make no reference to gangsters, organized crime, or the like.
“I take it,” Longnight said, “that I am not to intimate a connection with yourself or your brother when I approach Mr. DeMour.”
“My brother? My brother has nothing to do with this, or at least not just now. The new hotel and club are my idea. But yes, just like you say, I wouldn’t mention anything he doesn’t need to know.”
Longnight used the food before him as an excuse to remain silent and let the man lay it all out for him.
“I’m not telling you what to do, I’m just saying what I would do. If it were me, I’d pass myself off as an investor in hotels. Maybe an independent. I’d let it be known that I enjoy building them, but that when I’m done I normally take my share and head off into the sunset. I’m willing to bet that DeMour would be interested in designing a hotel that would stand up to the Galvez. Every man wants to make his mark. But that’s just what I would do.”
Maceo acted as if he were passing off a simple anecdote of little consequence, but Longnight got the full gravity of it.
“I do love these grand hotels,” Longnight said.
“It’s settled then,” Sam Maceo said.
“Fine,” Longnight said.
Maceo hesitated a moment and there was a distinct absence of any superfluous motion. Longnight suspected that he was preparing well for his next statement as if it was a thing he was practiced in doing.
“For doing this job for me,” Maceo said. “I will compensate you adequately.”
Longnight grinned. “No you won’t,” he said.
“How’s that?” Sam said, his sandwich poised in midair. He looked up at Longnight.
“I won’t accept compensation. Let’s instead consider this a favor for a friend.”
Maceo put down the sandwich and leaned back in his chair. The hint of a smile spread across his lips.
“People don’t do favors for me,” Maceo said. “Not unless they expect something in return. And the kind of favors I do—well, let’s just say that you don’t strike me as the kind of fellow who would need my kind of favor.”
“Let’s not call it a favor then. Let’s just say that I’ll do this because it intrigues me, and because I am likely to enjoy it.”
Maceo laughed. “Then I won’t owe you.”
“Well,” Longnight said. “There is one thing.”
“Thank you,” Maceo said. “For a moment I was afraid that you were trying to change my outlook on human nature.”
“It’s just that I do enjoy the Balinese Room.”
“Ahh. Okay, then. Consider it already arranged. You will be my guest of honor whenever you come in. I will introduce you to anyone I feel you should meet, and all of your drinks will be on the house from now on.”
“Good. Now it’s settled,” Longnight said.
[ 21 ]
Longnight had his first close call when Tad Blessing, the bellhop, came in without knocking to deliver a bottle of Highland Scotch. The kid caught Longnight with his hands still bloody.
“Wow! Did you cut yourself, Mister?” Tad asked.
Longnight slammed the bathroom door on the kid’s face and then quickly apologized for it through the closed door.
“Look, kid. You scared me a little and I wasn’t expecting you. Yeah, I got a little cut on my hand, but I’m alright.”
“You need a doctor or something?” the kid asked.
“There’s a sawbuck on the bureau. Go and get me a small bandage and hand it to me when I ask for it, okay?”
“Uh. Yeah. Sure thing!” The kid left and five minutes later there was a tap at the door.
Longnight opened the door, reached out with one hand and took the gauze. After a moment he stepped out into the room, his left thumb and wrist wrapped up with the white dressing.
“Say, Tad. I have a job for you,” he said.
“Sure. Anything, Mr. Talos.”
“First, how well can I trust you?”
“Honestly?” the kid asked.
“Sure, honestly.”
Blessing laughed. “You can’t trust no one. That’s the truth. But trust you can buy.”
“That’s what I thought,” Longnight chuckled. He had a good thing going here and was determined to ride it out as long as possible. The Galveston nights, the salt sea breeze, the endless crashing of the waves on the beach below the seawall, the crowds along The Strand and that perpetual layer of smoke just overhead in the Balinese Room—each of these things intoxicated him.
“Tell me what you want and I’ll get it for you.”
“This one’s easy. The big secret is, my name is not Randall Talos. My last name is Lynch, but you’re never to use that name. I don’t have any friends, except maybe you, Tad. My friends call me Longnight. I don’t want you to use that name, though, unless you’re in my company and we’re alone. You got that?”
“Sure thing,” Blessing said, waiting for the real request.
“Good. Just so we understand each other. The other thing is simple. I want you to keep your ears to the ground for anyone asking after someone who goes by my nickname, Longnight. If you hear it mentioned, even in passing, I want to know immediately.”
“Somebody’s looking for you, ain’t they?” Blessing asked.
Longnight chuckled. “You could say that. I have to stay one step ahead of the divorce lawyers, is all.”
“Oh. Oh! Yeah. Sure. That’s easy. I hear your nickname from anybody else, I come let you know.”
“That’s fine. I’ll pay you in advance for it. How does a hundred dollars sound?”
“It sounds like a month worth of pay, to me.” The kid was suddenly in great spirits, the faux pas about the blood on his hands already seemingly forgotten.
“Now, Tad. You mentioned something about whores the other night. Where might I find some?”
[ 22 ]
“Where to, sir? Post Office Street?”
“Post Office Street?” Longnight mused aloud, letting the sound of the street name echo in and out of his own head.
The cabbie, likely the second or third generation removed from Ireland and mingled with other less than pure stock, said, “Post Office Street it is. Good thing, too, cause I want to catch Sheila before the night is over.”
“Sheila?” Longnight asked.
“Yeah. You might call me a regular. Best girl around and from the best house too.”
“And what house would that be, my good man?”
“Mattie Wickett’s. Say, you’ve never been there, have you now?”
“I haven’t. Ms. Wickett’s it is then,” Longnight said.
And then the stranger in Bobby Donnegal’s cab said something odd under his breath. “It may be a long night for Longnight.”
Later that phrase would stick with Bobby. It would bother him until he decided it was important enough to tell somebody. But by then—as such things often work out—too much time had passed.
Longnight knew the instant the cab turned onto Post Office Street. He didn’t see a street sign nor did he receive confirmation from the driver by word or gesture. The cabbie was lost in an imagined future moment with his beloved Sheila. He was humming a Glen Miller tune. It was for Longnight instead a moment of reverential insight.
While he waited he tasted the cool, salty night air through his window. He smelled cigarette smoke and thought of that wonderful place called the Balinese out on its long, lonely and roofed-over pier. He listened for and heard distant drunken laughter somewhere along the street outside the cab window.
And then the girl came unbidden into his thoughts, the daughter of the old architect. She with the innocent smile and the perfect, nearly ripe fruit. She. The one he had been permitted by fortune and fate to pluck.
He’d spent an hour with her in her own bedroom on the family estate, had entered and left via the trellis outside her window right after he’d said good night to her father on the front porch. He’d shaken the man’s hand, full knowing what he was about to do.
Later, standing across the street in blackness beneath the draping branches of a willow, he watched the second-story windows for the light in her room which he had known would be there. Her voluptuous upper torso, bared and silhouetted by the electric light of a small chandelier, beckoned to him. And when he’d reached her window, the girl had helped him inside with one finger pressed to her lips.
She was sixteen and he was thirty-eight. She gave herself to him and he took her, gladly, though the house was quiet and he had to be slow and gentle or else risk a discovery he could ill afford.
She cried out at the moment, but it was into his gentle but firm fingers. He had anticipated her time and made certain she did not betray them both.
Afterward they lay together until her breathing shallowed and evened and Longnight knew she was asleep.
When he left, making his slow but steady way back down the trellis, it was with the most profound regret. He wanted to kill her. To feel her hot blood on his hands. He could not, though. If nothing else, Longnight was canny. There was so much to do, and he must avoid getting caught.
They had arrived. Post Office Street, at the entrance to Mattie Wickett’s house of delights.
With a twirl of his cane, Longnight made his way up the narrow walkway and toward fulfillment.
[ 23 ]
His name was Denny Muldoon and he was a man who lived in perpetual pain. The pain was like a nest of rats in his stomach, gnawing, gnawing away. When he ate he wanted to die, and when he puked after eating it was all blood mixed with the food. He’d been to innumerable doctors and they’d all told him the same thing. “You have severe peptic ulcers.” That was what they invariably said. Not ulcer, the singular, but the plural, as if the one hole in his stomach had found a mate and produced offspring.
He’d tried Milk of Magnesia, he’d tried all-meat diets, no-meat diets, exercise, lifting weights, swimming, heating pads and clabbered milk. He tried a week of fasting, excessive sex, baths in artesian wells, hot springs, covering himself with sand at Virginia Beach like that Edgar Cayce guy said you could do to cure anything from the blues to frostbite. He’d tried everything but the one sure cure he knew would take care of it forever. Amen. That cure was secured to a leather shoulder holster under his left arm, and if he was ever admitted to a hospital and was in his right mind, he’d employ it before they took it away from him.
But just right now he had forgotten about his stomach. His stomach might as well have been on vacation in the South of France or searching for the source of the Nile or anywhere else other than where Denny Muldoon was. At the moment he was in the downstairs hall at Mattie Wickett’s whorehouse on Post Office Street in Galveston-fucking-Texas, looking at the most horrendous sight he had ever seen in his entire thirty-nine years on God’s green earth.
The blood had dried a dirty brownish black, what an artist might call ‘burnt umber.’ It was splattered over the walls, the tables, the chairs, the floor. There were even splatters of it on the ceilings, fourteen feet overhead. There were splotches of it under—under!—the throw rugs, as if whoever had committed this most heinous of crimes had lifted a corner of one of the rugs, then dipped his hand into one of the holes he had made in his victims, then dripped it on the bare hardwood floor beneath before dropping the rug back into place.
“Why am I not throwing up? Huh?” he asked his stomach. “Where are you when I need you to do what you do best?”
No reply. His stomach was in absentia.
Six people had died in this one house, all within the space of an hour. The killer had locked the door from the inside and had begun his grim harvest sometime after midnight two nights ago.
Denny had been in Waco at the time, submerging his aching middle in water so hot it almost scalded him. But he’d had the presence of mind to stretch the phone cord into the bathroom and prop the damn thing up on the toilet where he could get to it from his mother’s old porcelain claw tub.
When the call came and Agent Michaels had given him the word straight from J. Edgar himself, the pain
had vanished and had yet to return.
“Get down to Galveston, Denny. Right now.”
“Why? I just got home. I’ve got a week of vacation and I mean to use it.”
“You can take a vacation any time. This is straight from Hoover. There’s been a wholesale slaughter down there.”
“Where?”
“The locals will fill you in. Get yourself going. Right now.”
“Who did it?”
“We don’t know but we think we know, and if we’re right, when you find him you can’t kill him. No matter what.”
“Who?” Denny asked over the long line to Washington.
“Longnight,” Les Michaels said.
“Sweet Jesus,” Denny said. The phone clicked and went dead. He replaced it carefully on the hook on his porcelain bathroom throne, looked down at his distended stomach which had mysteriously quieted itself and then at the half empty blue bottle of Milk of Magnesia on the side of the tub.
“Alright,” Denny had said to the peeling paper walls. “I’m coming.”
The trip to Houston took four hours and Galveston another hour after that. The sun was just coming up when he crossed the causeway and rolled onto the island. He smelled the salt air and the brackish scent blowing up from San Luis Pass. He listened to the silence of his stomach.
Life was good—or good enough.
A local constable was waiting for him on the island side of the ferry.
“You Muldoon?” the constable asked.
• • •
He stepped out the back door to Mattie Wickett’s place. A man in khakis and a fine western hat regarded him from past the bottom back porch step.
“Everybody around here asks me if I’m Muldoon,” Denny told the man. “So yes, before you ask, I’m Muldoon.”
“Thought so,” the man said, and stepped up onto the porch. “I’m Bonaparte Foley, Texas Rangers. I’ve come to fetch you over to the Medical Examiner’s officer. They’re about to start the autopsies.” Foley was a granite-faced fellow in his mid-thirties.