The same thing went for holdup men and thieves in general. The Maceos would not abide criminals in their midst to make citizens fearful and more demanding of stricter law enforcement. It was in the Maceos’ own interest that the locals feel safe enough to enjoy nights on the town. It was an open joke that Sam and Rose did a better job of protecting Galveston than the police department they paid off.
“In other words,” I said, “they got a monopoly on the thievery business in this town and mean to keep it that way.”
“In other words,” Buck said, “yeah.”
They’d come away from New Orleans with enough money to tide them over for a while, but between living expenses and gambling losses and Buck’s cathouse habit and Russell’s good times with Charlie, their stake had dwindled pretty fast. They started going up to Houston, where there were plenty of independent gambling joints. But as strangers they were everywhere suspect from the start and they’d had some close calls. Even where they were able to pocket their winnings without trouble, they were warned not to come back, and pretty soon they ran out of big-money games to sit in on.
So they’d gone back to holdups. Small stuff only—no banks. There’d been so many Houston banks robbed in the year before that the city and county both were now paying a bonus to any cop—and a reward to any private citizen—who shot a holdup man in the act. They paid bounties to manhunters who brought in wanted robbers, dead or alive. It wasn’t a policy ever made public, it hadn’t been in the newspaper, but the word was on the vine and everybody’d heard it.
“I tell you, kid, it’s some gun-crazy sonsofbitches in that damn Houston,” Buck said. “We ain’t real keen on hitting some bank where everybody in the place is packing a piece and praying for somebody to try a stickup.”
“Hell, I break a sweat robbing a grocery store anywhere near Houston,” Russell said.
Over the past few weeks they’d been taking it easy and talking things over, discussing possibilities, keeping their ears open in the speakeasies and gambling joints. And then last week they’d finally decided what to do. If I’d been a few days later in getting to Galveston they would’ve had to leave a different message for me with Miller Faulk.
They told me about it over supper at a bayside place overlooking the shrimp docks. We sat at a back corner table and between the four of us ate six dozen raw oysters and two big buckets of smoked shrimp, shucking the peels onto the newspaper the waitress had spread on the tabletop. We talked and talked as we ate, telling each other to keep our voices down, now and then snickering like a bunch of schoolkids.
West Texas was the place. Oil boom country.
“I don’t know why we ain’t gone out there before now,” Buck said. “It’s so damn right.”
East Texas had its share of oil towns, of course—hell, it’s where the business got started in this state—but according to Buck the boomtowns around here had mostly tamed down by now. There was still money to be made in them, but not by any Johnnies-come-lately like us. The way the Maceos had a lock on Galveston was how some bunch of big shots or other had a lock in every East Texas oil town—and with the same sort of cozy arrangement with the cops. No independent hustling allowed.
“But the way we hear it, out west it’s still wide open,” Buck said. “Every man for himself and devil take the hindmost. The cops all as crooked as corkscrews—except for the damn Rangers. But there ain’t all that many of them, praise Jesus.”
“All those towns full of boomers making money hand over fist,” Russell said, “and full of sharpies of every kind parting them from it.”
“But what they ain’t got enough of,” Buck said, “is somebody to part the sharpies from it.”
“In other words,” I said, “you’ve perceived a shortcoming in the economic system of West Texas. A shortcoming which presents lucrative possibilities to whoever might be bold enough to remedy it.”
“Exactly right, Mister smartass,” Buck said. “Lucrative possibilities. Especially since Bubber Vicente’s out there now. Our old job broker. Miller Faulk told us. He used to work for Bubber in Narlens till his wife left him and moved to Houston and he came out to try and get back with her. Anyway, a couple of months ago Bubber came to Houston and—”
“Poor old Miller,” Russell broke in. “Back in Narlens, Eula put the horns on him at least twice that I know of. Best thing ever happened to him was when she run off. But then the fool comes chasing after her. Buys that piece-of-shit filling station and tells everybody he’s turning a new leaf. I swear, some guys never learn.”
“He must love her is what it is,” Charlie said.
“I know it,” Russell said. “And look what it’s got him.”
She stuck her tongue out at him.
“If you all don’t mind,” Buck said, giving Russell and Charlie a look.
He turned back to me. “A couple of months ago Bubber shows up in Houston and tells Miller he had to cut out of Narlens in a hurry after a pair of sonofabitch cops who’d been shaking down everybody in the Quarter were found floating in the river and some other sonofabitches were trying to stick the rap on him. Said he was on his way to West Texas to go partners with a old pal, another job setup man. Wanted Miller to go with him but Miller said no, he was back with Eula again and wanted to stay that way if he could. Bubber said if he changed his mind to get in touch with him at the Bigsby Hotel in Odessa.”
“Miller tell him you and Russell were in Galveston?” I said.
“Nope. We’d told him not to tell anybody where we were except you—if you should ever come around—and he took us at our word. He figured he’d tell us about Bubber the next time he saw us, but turned out that wasn’t till a couple of weeks ago. So we send Bubber a wire asking how’s business and a few days later he wires back it’s booming, he’s got more jobs than he’s got guys to do them, so come on out if we want some of them.”
“It’ll be just like in Narlens,” Russell said. “Bubber’ll point them out and we’ll do them.”
“His leads always been worth every dollar of his cut,” Buck said.
“In other words,” I said, “West Texas here we come.”
“In other words,” Buck said, “I can’t hardly wait.”
“Me neither,” Russell said. His grin as big as Buck’s and mine.
“Me neither,” Charlie said. Her smile small.
The plan was to rent a place to live in as soon as we got out west, a place where Charlie could stay while we were out on a job, a place we could retreat to and where we could pass for straight citizens, a place well removed from Bubber Vicente’s base of operations and whatever heat might all of a sudden come down on it. After studying a map of the region, we settled on Fort Stockton. If you drew a circle no more than a hundred miles across to include most of the boomtowns out there, Fort Stockton lay near the south rim of it and Odessa close to the north, some eighty-five miles away.
To beef up the stake we’d need to make the trip and get set up, Buck and Russell decided to sell the Pierce-Arrow—which was anyhow too showy for our line of work. You want a plain Jane of a car that blends right in with most others. They sold the Arrow to Miller Faulk, who’d always admired it and topped all other bids with an offer of five hundred dollars and a fairly new green Model A sedan which he’d had specially fitted with a radio. Miller said we were doing the right thing to swap the sometimes temperamental Pierce-Arrow for a hardy Model A that could handle that tough West Texas country.
Over the next few days, Buck and Russell settled their accounts and took care of a few other matters—including a special order of business cards with all three of our names listed on them as sales representatives of Matson Oil and Toolworks of Lake Charles, Louisiana.