“Alive, like at the DeSoto Hotel conference?”
The smile disappeared and he winced again; sat forward. “That’s been highly exaggerated, Mr. Davis. Most of what the press has said about that conference is based upon Huey’s own irresponsible hyperbole on the floor of the Senate of the United States.”
“He named FDR as a conspirator in a murder plot against him,” I said, raising an eyebrow. “That’s either irresponsible, or goddamn disturbing. The idea of the President of the United States, conspiring to have one of his challengers killed…”
His frown was dismissive. “It’s absurd! The DeSoto Hotel conference was aboveboard and respectable-four of the five pro-Roosevelt Louisiana congressmen were present, for God’s sake, as were ex-governors Sanders and Parker, and Mayor Walmsley….”
“All gathered to discuss the Huey Long problem?”
“It was a political caucus, sir, plain and simple. The business at hand was to select anti-Long candidates to run in the comin’ primary election.”
“What about Huey’s claim of having a transcript of the conference taken from a dictaphone his men planted?”
“Ludicrous.”
“Maybe so, but colorful as hell.” I checked my notes from my briefing by Alice Jean. “Among the tidbits Huey reported on the Senate floor was one unidentified speaker’s offer to ‘draw straws in a lottery to go out and kill Long. It would only take one man, one gun and one bullet.’”
“Please, sir, don’t dignify-”
“Another unidentified voice supposedly said, later, ‘Does anyone doubt that President Roosevelt would pardon anyone who killed Long?’”
He was shaking his head, slowly, his smile one of frustration. “Mr. Davis…how often do you suppose someone in Louisiana says ‘Somebody ought to kill that Huey Long’?”
“Every thirty seconds or so?”
“Precisely. It doesn’t mean they’ll do it, or even that they’re thinkin’ serious of it. It’s just a kind of…wish. A daydream.”
He made it sound wistful.
“Mr. Hamilton,” I said, “I have an admission to make.”
He looked at me sharply.
“My name isn’t Davis,” I said, “and I’m not a reporter. Name’s Nate Heller-I’m a bodyguard on Senator Long’s staff.”
He almost lost his balance in the swivel chair; he tried for indignation, but his fear was showing, as he said, “This is outrageous, sir! I must ask you to-”
My hands patted the air. “Whoa,” I said, “settle down. I said I was a bodyguard, not a spy….”
He stood. Pointed at the door. “Leave. Now.”
“I really am from Chicago,” I said pleasantly, crossing my legs, smiling up at him, ignoring his commands. “The Kingfish took a shine to me back at the Democratic Convention in ’32, when I was his police bodyguard. I came down on an errand, and he offered me a position….”
“What is your point, Mr. Heller?”
I arched an eyebrow, smiled half a smile. “My point is that I’m from Chicago, and I’m on the inside of the Kingfish’s personal staff…and did I mention I’m willing to do just about anything for money?”
He sat, slowly, studying me carefully. “I was just beginning to gather that.”
I shrugged. “So…if there’s any information you, or any of your Square Dealer or DeSoto conference pals, might need…anything you might need done.…Catch my drift?”
“I’m beginning to.”
The attorney swiveled in his chair and faced the window behind his desk, looking somberly out at the city the Kingfish had taken away from people like him.
“Just over a year ago,” he said very quietly, “a goodly number of ‘law-abiding citizens’ were gathered in this very office…most of them armed. We seriously discussed stormin’ Long’s suite in the Heidelberg Hotel…just a few blocks away…bravin’ the nests of machine guns and such to rid the world of a tyrant.”
“What made you change your mind?”
Hamilton shrugged. “Cowardice, perhaps. Reason, possibly. At any rate, we didn’t resort to assassination then, and I seriously doubt we would do it today…much as we might like to.”
“I see.”
“We are not barbarians, Mister…Heller, was it? We are civilized men in the grasp of a barbarian.”
That would’ve seemed arch, too, if Hamilton’s expression hadn’t been so tragically grave.
“Well,” I said, as I stood. “I appreciate your time.”
He nodded noncommittally, numbly.
I went to the door. “And I apologize for the deception. But if you change your mind, or talk to any of your friends who might see things…differently…well, don’t hesitate to contact me.”
“In that unlikely event,” Hamilton said, “where are you staying?”
“At the Heidelberg,” I said, at the door. “Just down the hall from the machine-gun nest.”
And I left him there, to ponder the possibilities.
7
Industrial sites were nothing new to a Chicago boy like yours truly; the steel mills and factories of the South Side, and of Gary, Hammond and East Chicago, Indiana, were like a foul-smelling forest just beyond my backyard.
But approaching by car, after dark, heading north from Baton Rouge, I felt overwhelmed by the sprawling otherworldly Standard Oil refinery. Appearing at first like some modern artist’s semi-abstract, geometrical vision of a metropolitan skyline, the vast facility soon filled the horizon, blotting out the world of woods and bluffs it emerged from, dwarfing even the Mississippi along whose banks its shadows fell. Security spotlights and billowing flares adding soft-focus radiance, scaffolding clinging like exoskeletons, the turrets of cat-crackers and the cannon-barrel towers of white-smoking chimneys loomed over a Paul Bunyan’s playground of baseball spheres and bullet tubes and cake-pan storage tanks.
The guard in the booth at the chain-link gate looked at my business card (or that is, Hal Davis’s card) and checked his clipboard. I was expected. He threw a switch and the gate slid open with a metallic whine that seemed only appropriate, and I guided the Buick into this city of steel and flame and smoke.
Louis LeSage-chief lobbyist for Standard Oil, and vice president of public relations-was waiting out in front of a three-story brick administration building. He rocked on his feet, hands clasped behind him, a tiny, balding man with a round cheerful face on a slender body. His wispy waxed mustache, like his cream-color suit and crisp red bow tie, somehow underscored his air of confidence.
When LeSage spotted me, he lighted up as if we were old friends-we had of course never met-and he walked over quickly to the side parking area where I was climbing out of the Buick. His arm was thrust out like a spear as he offered me his hand.
“Mr. Davis,” he said, exuberantly, his voice high-pitched and only faintly Southern, “I’m so very pleased to meet you. We don’t often get representatives of the Northern press down to have a look at our little facility.”
I let him pump my hand for a while, then dug out my notebook, looked up at the towering smokestacks and columnlike cat-crackers. “Just how ‘little’ is this facility?”
He gestured. “Shall we stroll?”
“Why not? It’s a pleasant enough evening. I’m surprised the air isn’t fouled by all that smoke.”
He established an easygoing pace as we walked down a cinder street; but he was holding back-he was in the energy game.
“You don’t see any black fumes, messin’ up the sky, do you, Mr. Davis?” he asked, but it wasn’t a question. “We’re a clean business, here at Standard. Oh, you may get a nasty little whiff of this or that…but for the most part, we pride ourselves at not foulin’ our nest. As for how ‘little’ we are, this is the biggest refinery in the world. Even bigger’n Bayonne.”
I didn’t doubt it. Right now we were strolling past a row of steel stills that could have kept Kentucky in moonshine for decades.
“We process 110,000 barrels of crude oil, each and every day, day in day out…am I talkin’ too fast for ya, Mr. Davis?”
“No. But, frankly, this isn’t the kind of information I’m after….”