The Kingfish sat shaking his head. He said to nobody in particular, “Now that’s my brand of university president. Not a straight bone in his body, but he does what I tell ’im to.”
That evening, the Kingfish was in top form, bounding across Memorial Hall, down this corridor, down that one, outdistancing his half-dozen thuglike guards, with whom I blended in disturbingly well. Brushing by lobbyists, tourists, legislators, stopping to chat sometimes for a couple minutes, sometimes a couple seconds, he finally strutted into the House of Representatives like a rich uncle arriving late at the family reunion.
The human dynamo bounded up and down the aisles, showing off that shit-eating grin, pressing the flesh, laughing loud, an important man making his minions feel important, too. Now he was crouched beside this member’s seat, whispering, now he was jumping up like a jack-in-the-box at a question directed to him by another member, now he was leaning in at that member’s seat, bellowing with shared laughter, only to suddenly propel himself up to the dais, to consult the Speaker, before strutting back down an aisle, grimacing, shouting. And then the process began again.
The balcony was packed with spectators, whose eyes followed the bouncing ball of the Kingfish, who was after all the whole show here. The legislature rubber-stamping process was devoid of drama.
Finally Huey ambled back up to the dais and helped himself to the swivel armchair by the Speaker of the House. No one objected; certainly no one was surprised.
The down-home crudity of Huey’s style was at odds with this magnificent tan-and-brown marble chamber; a frieze of the state’s plants and animals hugged the ceiling, and various fixtures were also decorated with stylish flora and fauna. But the massive walnut voting panel, behind the Speaker’s chair, invoked an altar, and the place resembled nothing so much as a Protestant church with a very wealthy congregation.
Our hoodlum honor guard was again assembled at the rear, seated behind a rail, with the exception of Big George; maybe he and his brown-bagged tommy gun weren’t welcome in the House. Huey had told us that if any pro-Long legislator got confused and pushed the “no” button on any of his bills, one of us was to guide that lawmaker’s hand to “yes.”
I was no judge, but the going-through-the-motions session seemed to be moving right along. Absentmindedly, I checked my watch-it was nine on the nose. When I glanced up, Huey-still seated up on the dais-was waving at somebody in the back of the room. Trying to get their attention.
It took me a while, but I finally got it.
Me? I mouthed to him.
And his head bobbed up and down, yes.
I wandered up to the dais, thinking that the floor of the Louisiana House of Representatives was one place I never expected to be, and looked up at Huey behind the dais like he was the teacher and I was about seven years old.
“See that feller over there?” the Kingfish asked.
I glanced over where he was pointing, and between the railing and the wall, a handful of people were talking. Possibly legislators, although there were reporters and various political hangers-on lurking about, as well. The only one I recognized was my old friend, lobbyist Louis LeSage.
“You mean LeSage?” I asked.
“No! The one smokin’ that big old ceegar.”
A dark-haired guy about forty was indeed enjoying a “big old ceegar.” I recognized him as one of the many political appointees who’d stopped by the suite on the twenty-fourth floor to chat with the Kingfish this afternoon.
“I’m about to give ya your last official assignment on my staff,” the Kingfish said.
“What is it?”
He raised his eyebrows and grinned like the greedy kid he was. “I want you to get me half a dozen of them Corona Belvedere cigars.”
“I thought you quit smoking.”
He frowned. “It would be my luck to hire the only man in Chicaga with a goddamn conscience. I’m in the mood to celebrate, son! Get me them cigars!”
I shrugged. “Sure. Where?”
“Downstairs in the cafeteria. They got a box of ’em down there, at the tobacca stand. Now go on, git outa here-make yourself useful! Earn that two-fifty a day….”
So I went down the stairs to the cafeteria. The white-tile-and-gleaming-chrome restaurant was deserted except for the help, two girls behind the food line and a few colored guys back in the kitchen. I got myself a cup of coffee, decided against the apple pie with cheese, and took my time buying Huey his cigars, so I could flirt with the pretty blonde behind the tobacco counter. She had eyes that were a robin’s egg blue and a Southern accent you could have ladled onto pancakes. She was also chewing gum: nobody’s perfect.
“I get off at ten, han’some,” she said. “Why? You got somethin’ in mind?”
Us randy sumbitches always do, but before I could mount a reply that would combine just enough sincerity with the vague promise of sin, a sound, from above, interrupted.
Muffled thunder.
“What the hell was that?” the blonde asked.
“Not thunder,” I said, and ran, pushing open one of the heavy glass doors like it was spun sugar, rushing up into the stairwell, where the rumbling sound continued and goddamn it, I knew what it was, not thunder, but the sound of blood being spilled: gunfire, roaring gunfire.
Not one gun, but many, an artillery barrage of handguns and maybe a machine gun….
Pulling my nine-millimeter out from under my left shoulder, I went up the stairs two at a time, the echo of continuous gunfire rumbling down the stairwell like an earthquake.
I practically collided with him, as he came staggering around the corner, onto a landing of the stairway: the Kingfish!
His mouth was bloody, but his suit was pristine; his eyes lighted up at the sight of me, and he held out his arms as if he wanted to hug me.
I slipped my arm around his shoulder, as he leaned on the railing. I managed, “What the hell?…”
“I’m shot,” the Kingfish sputtered, and in the process spit blood all over my suit coat.
We were both shouting: the echoing thunder of gunfire upstairs roared on, unabated. We were in a terrible fever dream and neither of us could wake up. He was stumbling down the stairs, weaving, and I supported him as he tried to walk, and guided him out of the stairwell, down a hallway and to a bank of glass doors at a side entrance, pushed one open with my shoulder and drunk-walked him outside.
When the glass door shut, the thunder of guns finally stopped-or did it just seem to?
I had no idea what had happened up there, except that it had been some form of hell on earth. I knew, for certain, only two things: I had failed this man leaning limply against me; and that I mustn’t fail him now.
I leaned the Kingfish against the glass doors, like I was balancing a bass fiddle against a wall, and ran out under the portico into the driveway and stood in front of two approaching headlights with my arms outstretched.
13
The beat-up black four-door Ford screeched to a halt, more from age than speed; the legislative session-with its promise of Kingfish theatrics-had attracted a packed house of spectators, starting to leisurely clear out now that the show was over, wandering into the sultry night, getting their cars from the parking lots on either side of the building. Most of these good citizens weren’t aware a second, bigger show had eclipsed the main attraction….
I was still standing like a scarecrow in front of his car when the driver leaned his head out and, more startled than angry, yelled, “What the hell’s the idea, bub?”
I spoke as I came around to him. “Where’s the nearest hospital?”
“Are you crazy?” He was a little man in his thirties, straw hat, wire-frame spectacles, suspenders over a white T-shirt; a farmer, most likely, and a poor one. Your typical Huey supporter.