I was in my underwear, in bed, a comfortable bed, or as comfortable as any bed can be when your body is covered with welts and bruises. At least my head wasn’t aching. My watch was on the nightstand: 8:10. Nice to know. Now, what day was it?
The bedroom I recognized: Alice Jean’s, in the Beauregard Town bungalow. Pink stucco walls and a five-piece art moderne waterfall bedroom set with contrasting grains of walnut veneer creating angular designs, like the shooting pains in my arms and legs whenever I tried to move.
I couldn’t get back to sleep. The sun was in my face and turning over would have been agony; so I just lay there, moving only enough so that the strip of sunlight at least fell between my eyes. Lay there and felt sorry for myself.
And thought.
And fitted pieces together, like those contrasting wood veneers that formed the pattern of Alice Jean’s bedroom set.
I had breakfast in bed about an hour later. Alice Jean looked in on me, noticed I was awake, informed me it was Monday morning, and asked me if I thought I could eat. I said yes, and scrambled eggs and toast and orange juice went down surprisingly well. Of course, she was spoon-feeding me off a tray, a buxom angel of a nurse in an appropriately white frock with blue trimming.
After the meal, she took the dishes down and came back with another tray bearing a cup of coffee with cream and sugar on the side. I took it black. It went better with my bruises that way.
I said, “How’d I get here?”
She was sitting on the edge of the bed. “Murphy Roden brought you. He thought you needed looking after, and figured I’d be willing to do it.”
“Wouldn’t do for me to show up in a hospital.”
She frowned. “Why? What the hell happened to you, anyway?” Then she seemed embarrassed, blurting out what she’d been dying to ask. “You don’t have to talk about it. You don’t have to talk at all. Just get feeling better.”
“I feel fine. I feel like goddamn Fred Astaire. All I lack is the top hat and tails.”
“Settle down, now….”
I tried to sit up a little. “I need to make a phone call. Not right away, but before tomorrow.”
“I can make it for you.”
“No you can’t. It’s to Mrs. Long.”
She lowered her gaze. “You should try to sleep some more.”
“Okay. Can you get that sun out of my face?”
“Sure,” she said, and got up and adjusted the shade.
I closed my eyes.
I opened my eyes.
She was leaning over me, to see if I was sleeping, which I had been, but I’d sensed her, and woken; and now her lovely, heart-shaped face, framed by those dark flapper curls, was before me, a vision of concern.
“You have a visitor,” she said.
“Murphy?”
“Yes.”
Figured.
I said, “Prop an extra pillow behind me, would you?”
“Are you sure…?”
“Yeah.”
I allowed her to push me forward enough to slide another pillow under me; it didn’t hurt any worse than falling down a couple flights of stairs. But I wanted to be in a sitting-up position.
“Now send him up.”
She nodded and went off, and a few moments later, Murphy, in a white linen suit, peeked in. He took off his Panama fedora and smiled, a little.
“Need somebody to hold your hand, kid?”
“I prefer Alice Jean. But come on in. Pull up a chair, Murph.”
He did-the dainty one from the vanity; he sat forward on the tiny chair, turning the fedora in his hands like a wheel. “At least they didn’t mark your face up. Mouth’s a little puffy, but otherwise, you’re still the same ol’ ravin’ beauty.”
I gave him half a smile, using the side of my face that wasn’t puffy. “How did you happen to be there, Murph? Or do you usually stroll through the swamp around dawn, Sunday mornings?”
A grin flickered. “Just like a dick. No gratitude, just questions.”
“Thanks for saving my life. What the hell were you doing there?”
“Carlos called me.”
“Carlos called you?”
“Yeah. He’s no flunky, you know-he’s a modern-day Laffite over there in Jefferson Parish, on the West Bank. It’s wide-open over there. They make money hand over fist.”
“And he called you.”
He shrugged. “He and Dandy Phil Kastel and Mayor Maestri got a good thing goin’. Got a lot of good things goin’, in fact. Carlos is no fool-he figured Big George had gone off on a personal tangent, and wanted to make sure helpin’ bump you off was kosher with the boys in the backroom.”
“And you weren’t about to let Big George ‘bump off’ your good pal, were you?”
“Course not.”
“Killing an insurance investigator from up North, who was working on the Long case-think of the trouble it could stir up.”
“Well, that’s true-but friendship…”
“Fuck friendship. You used me.”
He frowned, more confused than irritated. “Used you? Now, how the hell did I use you?”
“You wanted to find out what Dr. Vidrine knew. What he had.” I gave him a full, lovely smile. “What better way to do that than send somebody working to take the Longsters down? Somebody like me.”
“You’re talkin’ fool nonsense, Nate.”
“Well, he has the bullets, Murph. Two of ’em. One’s a.38, the other’s a.45.”
His face whitened; his expression was long and lifeless.
“But,” I said, “he isn’t gonna use ’em.”
Relief showed through. “Not gonna use ’em?”
“If I’m lyin’, you’re dyin’,” I said cheerfully. “He just wants to be left alone, to live his life, and do his work. An admirable point of view. If you boys stay away from him, everything will be just fine. But he’s got those slugs spread out with relatives or lawyers or something, and if he dies under circumstances that even seem the least little bit mysterious, the bullets will surface. And somehow I don’t think it’ll be the assistant superintendent of police whose desk that evidence gets delivered to.”
“Nobody’s gonna bother Vidrine,” he said somberly. “You got my word.”
“I don’t need your word. Vidrine’s got you good ol’ boys by the short and curlies. And you know it.”
He shook his head, laughed humorlessly. “You don’t seem very grateful….”
“What about Big George, Murph? You’re a cop. How did you handle it? How’s it gonna play in the papers? It was justifiable homicide, sure, but one of the state’s top cops, shootin’ down the building superintendent of LSU? That won’t look good.”
Murphy said nothing.
“Or did Big George take a permanent vacation? Let me guess-don’t tell me. Do Carlos and his boys also make Southern-style gumbo, from time to time? Right now, McCracken wouldn’t happen to be in that big gray washer tub, marinating in lye, would he?”
Murphy stood. “You don’t seem to be in the mood for a visitor….”
“By the way,” I said, “d’you think you could have your coppers take a look for that rental Ford of mine?”
“Already did,” he said softly. “It’s out front.”
“Good. My gun’s in the glove compartment. It’s got sentimental value.”
“We at the state police are always anxious to serve the public,” he said dryly. He waved a sour good-bye with his Panama, and was halfway out the bedroom door when I called to him.
“Hey, Murph-stick around. I want to fill you in on my investigation. I want to tell you what really happened in that capitol hallway, on a certain Sunday evening last year.”
“Is that right?” His attention was piqued. “If mem’ry serves, I took that ’un in, firsthand….”
“Forget it, then.”
He strolled back in. “Run it by me, why don’t ya?”
“All right,” I said. “Sit back down. Like we say around these parts-set a spell.”
Murphy sighed heavily and sat back down on the little vanity chair; he began twisting his hat in his hands again.
“It starts with Seymour Weiss,” I said. “Seymour, and probably a number of others in the Long organization, were getting unhappy with Huey. Specifically, with Huey’s unquenchable-and unrealistic-thirst for power. Let’s face it, state political machines all over the country were getting fat on New Deal dollars…but not the Long machine. The Kingfish was too busy battling FDR, alienating the cash source and blocking funds from getting to Louisiana. Now, sacrificing short-term profits for long-term goals is fine-but Huey’s presidential ambitions were a pipe dream.”