The old man stepped forward, his right hand raised. “Don’t curse me, you power-drunk bastard….”
Huey took several steps back; his face was white. The thought of this old man hitting him had paralyzed the great dictator with fear!
There was a sharp crack! as Big George lurched forward and slapped the old man, knocking his legs out from under him like kindling.
Huey, brave again, stood with windmilling arms, raging over the fallen senior citizen. “You’re the one who’s drunk! Git ’im outa here! Git ’im charged with drunk and disorderly, disturbin’ the goddamn peace or somethin’! And usin’ obscenity in a goddamn fuckin’ public place!”
“I’ll take him,” Messina snarled, and threw himself at the old man like a ball, grabbing the gent’s collar and yanking him to his feet. The old boy looked dazed, his glasses askew.
I pulled Messina away by one thick arm; the look he flashed back at me might have been a rabid animal’s. Nonetheless, I pushed myself between him and the old man. My right hand was on the butt of the nine-millimeter holstered under my left arm.
“Let me take him,” I said to Huey, looking at him hard. “I’m done for the night, anyway.”
Something akin to shame flickered in Huey’s eyes when he saw my expression. Had the Kingfish been a human being, once upon a time?
Then the Kingfish gave me his prize-winning shit-eating grin. “You have put in a long day, Nate. Know where the Baton Rouge police department is?”
“I’m a detective,” I said. “I’ll find it.”
A hand was on my arm; it felt like a giant’s hand, but it was only mental-midget Messina’s.
His eyes were glittering with emotion again, but a different one.
“Don’t ever put your hand on me,” he whispered, his face in mine.
“Sen Sen’s only a nickel,” I said. “Make an investment.”
I hauled the old boy out of there, being just a little rough with him to keep the other bodyguards from looking at me too askance. We went out onto the landing of the capitol, with the forty-nine granite steps stretching down before us; the military guard remained, but at about half the force of before. The gardenlike grounds yawned before us in the pale light of a quarter moon, like a hazy paradise, but the weather made of the night a sultry, sweltering hell.
“Thank you, young man,” the old gentleman said. “I’ve…I’ve never seen you before.”
“I’m just passing through.”
“You’re from Chicago.”
“How did you know?”
He straightened his glasses, smiled; his poise had returned. “I have a good ear for accents. You have a distinctly flat, nasal twang.”
“I know. I’m taking something for it.”
He frowned in thought. “You’re no Cossack. Are you really a detective?”
“Yes.”
“Investigating these murder threats?”
I frowned in thought. “Are you a reporter?”
“Used to be. Work for the administration, now.”
“What administration?”
“Why, FDR’s, of course. Publicity director for the Federal Education Program. Huey wants to pass a law so he can put people like me in jail.”
“You do strike me as a dangerous type.”
His smile might have been a pixie’s. “If you like…I can direct you to the police department….”
“Why, do you want to go to jail?”
“If you don’t take me there, he’ll fire you.”
Fuck the two-fifty a day. The list of things I will do for money is damn near endless; but it doesn’t include aiding and abetting the assault of elderly gentlemen.
“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “I’m quitting tomorrow. You got an automobile here?”
“Yes, indeed.”
“Can you drop me somewhere?”
“Yes, indeed!”
The ten-floor Heidelberg Hotel was on Lafayette Street. The Mississippi was damn near in its backyard; and next door was a Victorian residence with a clothesline, and cows and horses grazing in the yard. Baton Rouge was the goddamndest capital city I ever saw.
The hotel’s top-floor restaurant, the Hunt Room, was decorated with fox-and-hounds prints and mounted examples of the taxidermist’s art. Alice Jean and I chose to sit under the canopy in the open-air section of the restaurant. We could see the Mississippi and the quarter moon’s ivory reflection on its black surface; we could see cows belonging to the family in the Victorian home munching in a small pasture separated from the river by some trees. A paddle-wheeler’s mournful whistle echoed down the river.
I had just told Alice Jean-who looked lovely in a white organdy dress with red polka dots and a matching red beret-about the old ex-reporter getting slapped.
“If I hadn’t stepped in,” I said, “Messina would have beat him to a pulp, and Huey would have sent him to jail on trumped-up ‘disturbing the peace’ charges.”
She was sipping a Ramos Gin Fizz, a specialty of the house that Huey had imported from the Roosevelt Hotel in New Orleans. “‘Tom’ you said? That was probably Tom Harris…they’re old enemies, Huey and Tom.”
I set down my glass of rum. “It doesn’t bother you? Doesn’t it surprise you that-”
“Nothing Huey does, at this point, would surprise me.” She was smiling but her eyes were infinitely sad.
“Nothing?” I hadn’t told her yet. “What if I told you Huey knows we’re sleeping together?”
She almost choked on her latest sip of cocktail. I waited for her to regain her composure; she never quite did. Finally she said, “Can we discuss this in private?”
We sat in her room-the rooms at the Heidelberg were modest, at best, small, colorless studies in cheap wood veneer and cut-rate carpeting. The hotel was the tallest in the city but, remember-it had cows next door.
I was in a straight-back chair; she sat on the edge of the double bed, wrinkling the cream-color spread.
“Huey knows?”
I nodded. “In fact, I think he set us up.”
Her frown was bewildered; her eyes flying. “Set us up?”
“Huey and me hung around together in Chicago, remember. Back in ’32. He knows my style.”
She made a disgusted kiss of her cupie mouth. “Your…style?”
“Yeah…yeah, that I’m a randy son of a bitch, okay? We’ve been together less than a week, and I’ve already cheated on you.”
That was twice I surprised her.
Boy, those eyes could get big. “Cheated on me? Why, you son of a bitch!”
“Randy son of a bitch. I don’t remember anything about her, if that’s any consolation. She might’ve been a redhead. Murphy Roden and I apparently picked up some college girls in the French Quarter a few nights ago.”
“Apparently?”
I shrugged. “Too much tequila. Jesus Christ, Alice Jean, I’m no angel, and neither are you. Don’t you get it? The Kingfish was counting on that. He put us together so we’d maybe become an item, in which case I’d keep you outa his hair for a while. You’re bad for his image, remember? And it worked.”
“Why, that bastard…” But for some reason, she was smiling a little.
I smiled, too. “You gotta admire that kind of manipulation.”
She was nodding. “And I gotta admit, you and me are a good match, Heller.”
“Thanks.”
“And all the while, he was payin’ you, how much?”
“Two-fifty a day.”
She shook her head. “Only Huey. Only Huey.” She narrowed her eyes appraisingly. “Why’d you tell me this? When did you find out?”
“Just yesterday.” I stood. “Look. You’re a great gal, and more fun than a barrel of chorus girls, and I’m gonna miss the hell out of you…but, baby-I want out of this southern-fried insane asylum.”
Now both her eyes and her smile were sad. “Goin’ home, Heller?”
I nodded.
“Don’t like the way the Kingfish does business, huh?”
I came over and sat on the bed next to her. My voice was quiet, almost tender as I said, “I can handle the idea of a little honest graft. Hell, if it wasn’t for patronage, I’d never’ve made it onto the Chicago P.D. But this Gestapo stuff…shit. It’s for the fuckin’ birds.”