"It is," said Leo. "We'll do our part."
"We are all taking the right steps," said Owney, to signify that the meeting was over.
The two men left.
"Any bright guys got any bright ideas?" he asked. "Or do I have to fire you mutts and bring in some heavy fuckin' hitters from Cleveland or Detroit or KC?"
"Now, sir," said Pap, "ain't no damned call to be talking to a Grumley like that. You know us Grumleys go to the goddamn wall fer you every damn time you need us, Mr. Maddox. That's God's honest truth."
He hitched up his pants, stiff with indignity, and launched a gob of something blackish toward the spittoon, which it rattled perfecdy.
"Telephones," said Hem.
"What?" said Owney.
"Goddamn telephones. If'n them boys is hiding in secret, and if we follow Mr. Becker but don't never see him leavin' town, and he's there every goddamned time, he's got to be reaching them boys by telephone. You know the boss of the phone company. So whyn't we tap into his lines, and listen to his calls. That way we get to know where they gonna be striking next. And we'd dadgum be waiting for 'em. Radio intelligence, like. We done it to the Krauts in Italy, toward the end of the war. Intercepted their messages, sure as shit."
"You know, Owney, that's very good," said F. Garry. "That's quite good, actually. I'm sure Mel Parsons could provide technical guidance. After all, he's an investor too, isn't he?"
"Yes, he is. Goddamn, that is good. Pap, you raised a fuckin' genius."
"I knowed about what happened in Italy in '45," said Flem proudly. "That's whar they court-martialed me."
"They court-martialed you?"
"Yes sir. The second time. Now, the third time they…"
It was D. A.'s idea but it was Earl who figured out how to make it work.
He called Carlo Henderson the next morning.
"Henderson," he said, "how'd you like to go on a little trip?"
"Uh. Well, sir―"
"No big deal. Just a little lookie-see party."
"Sure."
"You got a straw hat?"
"Here?"
"Yeah?"
"No sir."
"How 'bout some overalls, a denim shirt, some clodhopper boots?"
"Mr. Earl, I'm from Tulsa, not the sticks. I went to college. I'm not a farmer."
"Well, son, that's fine, because guess what's in this bag?"
He handed over a paper sack, much crumpled, weighing in at around five pounds.
"Uh.. overalls, a denim shirt, some clodhopper boots and a straw hat?"
"exactly. Now I want you all dressed up like Clyde the Farmer. I'm going to have one of these federal dam workers drive you downtown. Here's what I want. You just mosey around the block City Hall is on, where Mr. Becker's office is. And the blocks a couple each way."
"Yes?"
"Here's what you're looking for. A phone company truck and man. Parked somewhere in that vicinity, working probably on a pole, but maybe under the street or at some kind of junction box. Now the thing is, you can't let him see you watching him. But if you see him, you watch him close, see, because I think you'll see he ain't really working. He's actually playing at work. But he's got earphones and a rig set up to the pole knobs or some such, don't know what it'd be. But he's really listening. He'd be all dialed into calls coming out of Mr. Becker's office."
"But we don't get calls from Mr. Becker's office."
They got pouches delivered by a fake postman, with the information for that night's raid encoded, a system put together by D. A. with the express intention to avoid a wiretap.
"That's right. We don't. You know it and I know it. Mr. Becker knows it and we both know D. A. Parker knows it, because he thought it up. But they don't know it. We could let him tap his butt off, but Mr. D. A. came up with an idea to turn their little game against them. This one could turn into some real damn fun and I don't know about you, Henderson, but goddammit, I could use me some fun."
Chapter 20
GANGSTERS SLAIN IN HOT SPRINGS read the headline in the Little Rock Arkansas Democrat two days after the raid.
Prosecuting Attorney's Raiders Send Two "Most Wanted" to County Morgue
Hot Springs―Officers from the Prosecuting Attorney's Office shot and killed two highly dangerous wanted men in a nighttime raid on an illegal gambling establishment here tonight.
The shootings occurred at the Belmont Club, on Oakland Boulevard in South Hot Springs, at approximately 10:30 P. M.
Dead were Thomas "Tommy" Malloy, 34, of Cleveland, Ohio, a bank robber who was listed as No. 1 on the FBI's most wanted list, and Walter "Wally Bud" Budowsky, 31, also of Cleveland. Budowsky was No. 7 on the list.
Both men were pronounced dead at the site.
Malloy, a career criminal since his teens, was wanted on several charges of armed robbery, including the July 5, 1945, robbery of a Dayton, Ohio, bank and trust that left two officers dead and two more wounded. That crime catapulted him to No. 1 on the FBI's list, but he is wanted in connection with at least 12 other charges, including a kidnapping, two counts of assault with attempt to kill and several more counts of fleeing across interstate lines to avoid prosecution.
Budowsky is also suspected of taking part in the Dayton job, as well as several other crimes. Both men served time in the Ohio State Penitentiary.
The editorial was even better.
Becker: A Man of His Word It seems that when Garland County Prosecuting Attorney Fred C. Becker gives his word, that word is as good as gold.
Elected in a controversial election just last month, Becker has moved aggressively against organized crime interests in Arkansas' shameful bordello town 35 miles to the south, raiding two casinos in the past week. Long a haven for gamblers, gunmen and ladies of the night. Hot Springs is becoming downright dangerous for such folk, owing to Becker's crusade.
At the same time, it's becoming a place of pride for citizens who obey the law, worship God and go to church on Sunday.
Becker is to be commended for his efforts and maybe Arkansas would do well to think about hitching its wagon to his star in the 1948 gubernatorial race. If he can clean up Hot Springs, a Herculean labor if ever there was one, then who knows how far he can go?
This was a good day for Becker. The Arkansas Democrat was the only paper with a reputation outside the state; it could get him noticed nationally. Who cared what die Garland county rags screeched about or their demands for indictments against the raiders; they had no circulation outside the county, no influence on party politics, no reach to the state's bosses, no connections to the national press.
Already that seemed to be happening. He was onto something. The winds of change were in the air; the tired old men who'd rim the country while the boys were off fighting had to step aside now, and whoever saw that first and seized that opportunity would go the furthest. If he became governor in 1948, he would be the youngest governor in the history of Arkansas, one of the youngest governors in the United States. The sky was the limit; who knew where that could take him, particularly if the radio networks began picking up on it.
Already Life was sending a man down, and that meant Time would follow and probably Time's imitator, Newsweek. Those magazines were read in Washington, where it really counted. Maybe… Senator Becker. Maybe… even bigger.
So after his morning news conference―a love celebration, really, in which the little Rock boys pulled rank on the snippier Hot Springs bumpkins and asked flattering, Softball questions―he went back to his office to luxuriate in his success. As a matter of fact, he wasn't an aggressive prosecutor so much as an ambitious politician. There were a number of routine matters before him―moves to prosecute traffic offenders, county statute violators, petty criminals in the Negro section―but all of them could wait.
Instead, he loaded up the bowl of his English briarwood with a fine mild Moroccan tobacco, lit it up, and enjoyed the sweetness and the density of the smoke and the pure pleasure: he concentrated on enjoying the moment, and more than
a few minutes passed in this state of high bliss before a knock came at the door.
It was Willis O'Doyle, his number-one clerk, who had ambitions of accompanying his chief as far as his chief could go. O'Doyle had a communique from D. A., an out-of-schedule communication unusual in and of itself.
It said, when decoded, "Please call us at 2:00 P. M. tomorrow and order us to raid Mary Jane's, in the Negro section out Malvern Avenue. This will pay very big dividends."
Hmmm, he thought. What the hell is this about?
Earl came to them that very morning.
"All right, fellas," he said. "You want to gather 'round?"
The raiders, sleeping on cots, spent lazy days when they weren't actually scheduled to hit some place. Earl had plans to keep them in shape with various dry-fire exercises but it seemed so poindess because there was so little room in the pump-house station and they couldn't work outside, because of fear of discovery. So he let them sleep, stay clean, clean their weapons and otherwise occupy themselves until the word came on the target that night.
This was his first urgent gathering since they'd swung into operation.
"We have an opportunity," he said. "In the service, the CO'd just give the order and I'd draw up a plan and that would be that. But this ain't the service, and it's your butts on the line, so I figure you ought to have some say-so in what we do next. Fair enough?"
The men nodded or murmured assent, even the still-sleepy Frenchy Short, now something of a hero for his victory over the two gangsters.
"Y'all know what radio intelligence is?"
"Fred Allen?" somebody said.
"No. Gangbusters!
There was some laughter.
"Not quite," said Earl. "It's what you can do when you break the other guy's code. Or it's what you can do when you know the other guy's broken your code, only he don't know you know. Well, we now got us a chance to play a little radio game, 'cept that it's a telephone game.
"Mr. D. A. knows all the tricks, and he figured Owney's boys would be trying like hell to find us. He figured they'd even try and tap Mr. Becker's phone lines. That's why we don't use telephone lines. Well, goddamned if Carlo Henderson didn't go downtown yesterday dressed like a farmer, and goddamn if he didn't find a telephone crew set up at a junction box where all die prosecuting attorney's lines are shunted through te the big Bell office. So they are listening. Here's a coupla things we could do.
"First, we could just mark it, and make certain we never gave up nothing on the phone. See, that would keep them guessing, and it would cause them to spread out their resources, because mind my words, what they want to do is ambush us.
"Now here's another thing we could do: we could pass out phony information. We could say, See, we're going to Joe's Club. So they'd set up to get us at Joe's Club, only we'd hit Bill's Club. That way we'd be sure to have a raid without no problems. We could probably do that two, three times. Then they'd catch on, and that game'd be over.
"But there's one last thing we could do. We could pass out the information that we were going to hit Joe's Club. So you can bet they would load up at Joe's Club. They'd love to hit us and hurt us and kill some of us. They'd love to humiliate Mr. Becker and send us home in shame. But here's the wrinkle. We know that they know. So instead of them hitting us, we lure them in, and then we hit them. They think they got us marked, all the time we're marking them. We counterambush and we smoke 'em good. See? Their best shot is blasted, the power and the prestige of Owney Maddox and his hillbilly gunmen is made to look pathetic. We found a place on Malvern that'd work right fine. Called Mary Jane's."
"Hell," said Bob Billy, one of the most aggressive raiders, a Highway Patrolman from Mississippi, "I say we go and kick some fellers upside the head."
Cheers and laughter and agreement rose.
Earl let it die down.
"Okay," he said. "That's fine and good, but understand where you're going. You're going into the fire. Sometimes you can't control what happens in there. Blood will be shed, blood in this room. Know that going in. If it's more than you bargained for, it's okay. But I want a vote, and I want it secret, so nobody feels pressure. I want it written down. A simple no or yes. Because we can't make this work if we don't believe in it."
It was unanimous.
Chapter 21
"He's finished," said the Countess.
"But suppose he isn't?" Ben said.
"He's finished. I know he's finished."
"But suppose he isn't? He's a tricky bastard, slippery and smart. He gets out of it somehow. And he hears I been talking against him. And he gets to thinking about it. And he hears about the desert and the building I'm doing and the plans I got. And he reads the writing on the wall. He knows that even though I'm in a different state two fucking thousand miles away, he and I are at cross purposes."
"Don't get paranoid, darling."
"What's paranoid?"
"The idea that everyone is out to get you."
"Everyone is out to get me."
"But not yet. Because you are smarter and quicker and you see these things so much sooner."
They lounged by the pool of the Beverly Hills Country Club, beside a diamond of emerald-blue water patrolled by the legends of the movie business, their wives, their children, their managers, their assistants, their bodyguards. The Countess wore a white latex suit a la Esther Williams; her legs were tan, her bust was full, her toenails were red.
Bugsy wore a tight red suit that showed off his extremely athletic body, his ripply muscles, his big hands, his larger-than-life penis. He too was tan, and his hair gleamed with oil, the sun picking it up and glinting off it fabulously. He looked like a movie star, he wore movie star sunglasses and he sipped a movie star's drink, a pina colada, from a tall glass.
Virginia was on one of her trips back east, to visit certain aging relatives or so it was said. He actually wasn't too clear on where she was, but it helped to have her gone, as she could be a pain in the ass. She'd been really annoying of late.
The Countess, by contrast, was a more comforting person. Her name was Dorothy Dendice Taylor DiFassio, the last moniker making her an authentic countess, though the count had long since been abandoned. She was one of Ben's earliest Southern California lovers and she had connections to Italy through her title, and the two of them had some crazed adventures together.
"That is why I need a backup plan and I need it now."
"You'll come up with something."
"I have to be ready. He's now involved with this goddamn crusader. Everybody's talking about it. He got two Cleveland boys clipped on him and right now his name is mud in every syndicate spot in the country. He is so weak now he can hardly keep it going. But I know him. He'll come up with something, he'll get out of it, you'll see."
"You give him too much credit, darling. Look, there's a cute one!"
She pointed at a pool boy. These creatures came from all over America to become movie stars. Most failed but some actually got as far as pool boy. They modeled their bodies and their blond locks around the club, hoping to catch a producer's eye. The one she noticed, though, was beefier than most and not blond at all, but rather dark-haired.
"You, boy," she called.
"Christ, Dorothy," said Bugsy, "are you going to fuck him right here?"
"Possibly. But it would hurt my chances for a table at El Morocco. Boy, come here."
The lad obliged.
"What's your name?" she asked.
"Roy, ma'am," he responded.
"Roy, eh? How wonderful. Roy, I think I'd like a whiskey sour with a lemon twist. Do you think you can remember that?"
"Yes ma'am."
He lumbered off.
"That one's going to be a big star someday," she said. "He's got a certain je ne sats quoi."
"I'll say," Bugsy said. "The way he was staring at my dick shows what a future he's got in this fruit town!"
"Ben, you are so crude. I don't think he's homo."
"The handsome ones are all hom
o. Anyhow, back to my problems."
"Oh, that's right, darling," said Dorothy, "I forgot. Yours are the real problems. The rest of us are simply bedeviled by petty annoyances."
"Well, Dorothy, I do not think Roy the Pool Boy is going to pull out a chopper and clip you right here. I am at risk and I've got to deal with this problem."
"Do you want him killed?"
"Ah―difficult. I'd have to get permission. It'd have to go through channels. And everything's so spread out these days. It used to be a few blocks of Brooklyn, now it's everywhere, from coast to coast. Getting things okayed can be tough and time-consuming."
"So what you really want is him eliminated, but not necessarily killed."
"That would be right, yeah. If I could get him sent up for five years or so, he'd have nothing when he got out."
"Hmmm. What are his weaknesses? His vanities?"
Ben thought hard. He remembered the beautifiil art deco apartment overlooking the city, the phony English accent, the liveried staff, the sense of elegance.
"He wants to be a British gendeman. He wants to be cultivated. He wants to be like the real Gary Cooper, not the real Cary Grant. He likes furniture, art, food. He wants to be a king. He's tryin' to be bigger than who he is. He's tryin' to forget where he came from and what made him."
"I see," said the Countess. "Quite common, actually. And exactly why I treasure you so dearly: you are what you are to the maximum. There's no hypocrisy in you. Not a lick of it."
"I guess that's a compliment."
"It is. Oh, hello, what's this?"
It was Roy the tall Pool Boy. He held a whiskey sour on a silver platter and he offered it to madame.
She opened her alligator purse and removed a $50 bill.
"For you, darling," she said.
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