More nods.
“Sure, I’m right! And I’m not talking about naming it after yourself, the way Old Man Locke did back when he opened the first mill, before any of us were born. I’m talking about making your living from it. Land is money. You can farm it, or you can brew mash on it, or you can open a little roadhouse, or… well, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that you get something going.”
Beaumont’s iron eyes swept the room, a seismograph, searching for the slightest tremor of inattention. Satisfied, he went on:
“You can see it happening, everywhere you look. The Irish, the Italians, they can run a whole city, but not by themselves. When they want to do business with people outside their tribe-and you know, they have to do that-they need… branch managers, I guess you’d call them. And, sooner or later, those managers, they see how things work, how much money there is to be made, they want to go into the business for themselves.
“That’s what we did. That’s how we got started here. We built up a beautiful thing for ourselves. We got the gambling, we got the girls-not just the houses, the strip joints too-we got the jukeboxes, we got the punch cards, we got the liquor, we got money out on the street, working for us… And when dope hits this area hard-the way it has up in the big cities-we’ll have that, too.
“But, remember, every time you got that candy, here comes some big guy who wants it all for himself. You understand what I’m saying?”
“Those wop bastards don’t have a chance,” the broad-faced man said, with the calm assurance of a man stating a known fact.
“It depends on what they want to put into it, Sammy,” the man in the wheelchair said. “They know we’ve got the cops and the judges, but they also know those people aren’t with us-they’re just whores, charging us for every trick. When this jumps off, they’ll stand on the sidelines, and climb into bed with the winners.”
Beaumont looked around the room, using his eyes to lock and hold each man individually before he continued:
“Now, you know, they’ve already been around, the Italians. Sat down with me. Very nice, polite. They just want a little taste, is what they say. But it would never stop there. When they come for us, they’re going to come hard.”
“You really think one guy’s going to make that much of a difference?” Lymon asked.
“You mean, do I think we need him?” Beaumont said. “Hell, no. What Sammy said is the truth. The outcome’s not in doubt. But being a good general isn’t just about winning wars; it’s about keeping your men safe, too. And if this guy’s half as good as I’ve been told, he’ll get it over with quick.”
1959 September 28 Monday 22:09
A battleship-gray ’56 Packard sedan purred down the interstate, past the exit marked LOCKE CITY. A few miles later, the driver pulled into a service area. He drove to the pumps, glanced at the dash, noted the gas gauge read just below the halfway mark, and shut off the ignition.
“Fill it up with high-test, and check the oil and water, please,” he told the young man wearing a blue cap with a red flying-horse emblem who came to his rolled-down window.
As the pump jockey went to work, the driver walked over toward the restrooms, hands swinging free at his sides. As he turned the corner of the building, he encountered a pay phone. The man slotted a coin, dialed a number, and waited, his back to the wall.
“I was told you’d be expecting a call. About your garage,” he said into the receiver. His voice was flat, using neither volume nor inflection to communicate.
He listened for a few seconds, then said, “I can find it. Inside of an hour, all right?”
The man listened again, then hung up.
“Took almost twenty gallons,” the pump jockey said when he returned. “Man, you were empty. Oil’s okay, though.”
The man paid his bill, got behind the wheel. He noted approvingly that the pump jockey had cleaned his windshield.
1959 September 28 Monday 22:30
At the next exit, the driver circled back and re-entered the highway, heading back the way he had come. As he turned off at the Locke City sign, he pushed a button set into the gauge cluster. The four-digit row of numbers reset itself to 0000. A trip odometer began to click off the miles, the rightmost numerals, in red, indicating tenths.
From an inside pocket, the driver took a hand-drawn map, which he taped to the padded dashboard. He followed County Road 44, keeping the big car at a subdued pace, watching the odometer. When the mileage reading hit 013.4, the driver slowed slightly, his eyes another pair of headlights.
The dirt road was unmarked, barely wide enough for two cars. The driver turned in cautiously, pulled as far over to the side as possible, and extinguished his headlights. He rolled down his window, plucked a nearly full pack of Lucky Strikes from the seat next to him, and turned it around in his right hand, over and over, breathing shallowly through his nose.
Several minutes later, the driver tossed the pack of cigarettes back onto the front seat. With his left hand, he thumbed the fender-mounted bullet spotlight into life.
The big car crawled forward cautiously as the dirt road narrowed, became rougher. The spotlight picked up the remnants of a tar-paper shack. It had no door, no glass in either of its two windows, half its roof, and only three of its walls.
The driver steered into the clearing behind the shack. He stopped the car and stepped out, leaving the door open and the engine running. He circled the car, opening each of the other doors in turn. The overhead interior light was intense, illuminating the seats and floor of the Packard as brightly as if it were in a showroom. He then unlocked the trunk, activating still another light.
The driver stepped away from his car and lit a cigarette, holding it in his left hand. His right dangled at his side, empty. He stood utterly still. Not tense, motionless.
The night-sounds merged with the barely discernible throb of the Packard’s engine, its power muted by a set of highly restrictive mufflers.
The driver raised one foot, ground out his cigarette on the sole of his shoe, and deposited the butt in the pocket of his dark-blue sport coat.
“Whisper said you was one careful motherfucker.” A voice came out of the darkness, seemingly pulling a man along in its wake. A barrel-shaped black man wearing denim overalls and an egg-yolk-yellow T-shirt emerged: He was holding a long-barreled revolver in his left hand, pointed at the driver’s midsection.
“Careful for me; careful for you,” the driver said, nothing in his voice but the words themselves.
“You right about that,” the black man said, moving closer, “if Whisper was right about you.”
The driver shrugged, to show that decision was out of his hands.
“You know how the garage works?” the black man asked.
“I leave my car with you. You give me another one to use. When I’m done, I call you, and we trade back.”
“Uh-huh. And Whisper, he told you, it costs a grand, right?”
“Five hundred is what he said.”
“Price of everything’s going up,” the black man said. “That’s the way it is, everywhere you go.”
“Whisper said that, too.”
“Prices going up?”
“No. That you’d try and hold me up for more. He under-estimated you-he was guessing an extra C-note.”
A flash of white scythed across the black man’s face. It might have been a smile. “You know what I mean, I say I been listening to the drums?”
“Grapevine.”
“Right. People know you coming, man. They don’t know your name, don’t know your face. And I guess you don’t want them to know your car, either.”
The driver shrugged again.
“Sure,” the black man said. “So what that means is, I got extra expenses.”
The driver watched, silently.
“You ain’t holding up your end,” the black man said, the thin slash of white back in his mouth.