“Depends on who you are…and what you have in that briefcase.”
He blinked. “Oh, this? Business papers. Contracts! I represent the Telegraph in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania….”
“You want an interview?”
“No! We want to publish Senator Long’s new book.”
The little guy filled me in, and then I sat him down where I’d been parked, over by the potted plant, and went over to where Huey was waiting while Seymour paid for a stack of newspapers.
“Thanks for baby-sittin’ Alice Jean, son,” Huey said, by way of greeting.
“She puked in my lap. Hope you’re willing to front the dry-cleaning bill.”
He snorted a laugh. “I’d be a pretty sorry cuss iffen I didn’t.”
I pointed over to the chair where I’d deposited the publisher’s rep. “See that shrimp in the glasses, with the briefcase? He’s from Harrisburg.”
Huey thought about that. “You know, we’ll be goin’ home through there, on the train. Little early for a reception committee.”
“It’s a little early for anything. His bosses heard about your new book, and heard, too, that you came to New York looking for a publisher. They want to make a serious offer. Tonight.”
His smile plumped his cheeks; his eyes danced. “Seymour! Go tell that little feller with the caterpillar on his lip to come on up to our suite in ten minutes. Gotta talk to Heller here, first.”
Seymour had overheard what I’d told Huey. He frowned and said, “We have morning appointments scheduled with several prominent New York publishers.”
“Didn’t you say it would take ’em six months at least to get the book on the stands?”
“Yes…”
“Well, a newspaper publisher’ll understand the importance of timeliness. We’ll talk to ’em.”
“But the New York publishers…”
“Can go slap damn to hell. Nate! Come ’long with me, now….”
Seymour and the male secretaries went over to talk to the little man, while Huey-his arm around my shoulder-walked me over to the elevator, and Messina and McCracken trailed after.
On the way up, Huey told me how lovely the Carr girl’s drawings had been; that he indeed intended to have her illustrate My First Hundred Days in the White House. Apparently Phil Baker had entertained, as well, playing the accordion, singing a few songs.
“Sorry you missed out on the fun, son,” Huey commiserated, unaware that I’d had instead the pleasure of tucking in his nude (and stewed) mistress.
In the bedroom of his suite, the Kingfish slipped out of his coat and loosened the loud red-and-green necktie. Unbidden, Messina brought us each a warm bottle of Coca-Cola and a cold glass of ice.
“Right now’s ’bout the time,” Huey said, as we sat down on the sofa where we’d spoken before, “when I miss a gen-you-wine nightcap. What’s your drink, Heller?”
I raised the glass of Coke. “This, with rum in it. Or if I gotta choose between ’em, just rum’ll do fine.”
His expression turned wistful. “Give me a sixteen-year-old bonded whiskey and ginger ale, any day.” He shrugged away the nostalgia, and raised the glass of Coke in a toast. “Here’s to the common man…and the uncommon leader.”
I raised my glass of Coke and clinked it against his. “Here’s to you, Kingfish.”
He smiled at that, took a sip, and then said, casual as commenting on the weather, “Former law partner of mine had a tip, yesterday. Says a plot’s been formed to murder me.”
I sat forward. “A tip from who?”
Huey shrugged. “All my friend could tell me, bein’ a lawyer bound by certain rules of ethics, was that the tip come from a ‘conscience-stricken enemy.’”
“Sounds a little vague.”
The protuberant brown eyes rolled. “Oh, there were some specifics, all right. This killin’ is supposed to take place ’fore the special session of the Louisiana legislature adjourns.”
“And when is that?”
“Session starts the seventh of September. And it won’t last long…day or two. That’s all it’ll take to ram my bills through.”
I frowned. “That’s just a week from now.”
The casualness, I finally gathered, was his version of false bravado; studying his face, the bulging eyes, the faint tremor of his hands, I could see the Kingfish was well and truly scared.
“That’s right,” he said. “This ‘conscience-stricken enemy,’ seems he’s willin’ to fight me, politically…but, much as he’d like to see me silenced, he draws the line at shutting me up permanent, through violence.”
“And that’s all you know, about this specific ‘plot’?”
Huey nodded, sipped his Coke, raised his eyebrows. “That’s the sum total.”
There were several long moments of silence-an unusual occurrence in a room shared with Huey Long.
I said, “You don’t have to be from Louisiana to know Huey Long’s got no shortage of enemies.” I shook my head, sighed heavily. “A week isn’t much time to sort through ’em all.”
“No it isn’t.”
“Who do you think might be behind the plot?”
He twitched a humorless, disgusted smirk. “If we were talkin’ about some individual,” he said, “some sorry shiftless skunk who don’t cotton to my take-charge kinda gov’ment…the list could run in the thousands, anyway.” He looked at me, hard. “But a conspiracy-somethin’ organized-a ‘murder’ plot? That narrows it way the hell down.”
“How far down?”
He held up three fingers, began to tick them off. “It’s one of three, you can be damn sure…. It’s either my old friends at Standard Oil, who don’t take kindly to my idea of taxation…”
Even I could’ve guessed that one.
“…or certain gamblin’ interests, here in New York, who ain’t been happy ’bout me changin’ the terms on ’em, terms of a deal we made a while back….”
And I knew Huey had some mob ties-I’d witnessed that in Chicago, in ’32.
“…or the Square Deal Association-that buncha sorry, good-for-nothin’ political malcontents…”
But I had no idea in hell what the Square Deal Association was.
Much as I wanted to take Huey’s $250 a day, not to mention a chance at that ten-grand bonus, I was beginning to sense just how far in over my head I was.
I spread my hands. “What do you expect me to do? I don’t know Louisiana. I’m a goddamn outsider….”
His grin was nasty. “That’s what I like about ya. You I can trust. Easiest way somebody like me gets taken down is if somebody on the inside, somebody I trust, some dog-faced son of a wolf Judas Ice-carry-it betrays me.”
“Okay. Okay. Three main possibilities, then. But how would I go about looking into it?”
“You’re the detective. You tell me.”
“No,” I said. “You tell me-where to look. Who to talk to.”
He pointed a manicured finger at me. “Tell you what. I’m gonna give you three names outa my private son-of-a-bitch book. Each one of these names’ll represent one of them three groups I mentioned. You figure yourself a way to check up on jest these three individ’als, and in one hell of a hurry, we’ll have a damn good idea whether there’s any dang ‘murder plot’ or not.”
The Kingfish looked at his watch, shambled to his feet. I had a feeling I was about to be dismissed.
He said, “That fella from the Harrisburg paper oughta be here, long about now. You best run along.”
I stood. “Huey, if I’m going to do this job for you, I’m going to need an in-depth briefing….”
He shook his head, no. “Not from me, you ain’t. Far as the rest of the boys go, far as even Seymour Weiss and my aides and all are concerned, you’re just another bodyguard. Got it?”
I nodded. “But I still need…”
He took me by the arm, leading me toward the door. “You’ll ride back on the train with my party. I’m takin’ Alice Jean along, takin’ her back home where she can’t cause me no trouble. You can talk to her. She’ll fill ya in on any background you might need.”
I couldn’t believe what he was saying. His spurned mistress would be my background contact?