Max Collins - Blood and Thunder

I replaced the smirk with an easygoing smile. “Mr. Hamilton, please understand. The things that are happening down here are difficult for folks up North to grasp.”

His eyes were scolding. “That’s the point I’ve been tryin’ to make. Don’t feel so smug about it. Huey’s already in Washin’ton, and he’s knockin’ at your door. He’ll smile and grin and guffaw his way into America’s house and steal off with the Bill of Rights and the Constitution and every man, woman and child’s immortal soul.”

That all seemed pretty arch to me, and perhaps my expression showed it. Hamilton sat forward, leaned his elbows on the desk and looked at me, wearily.

“You see, Mr. Davis, after our impeachment efforts failed, and when Long began pushin’ through his ‘special legislature sessions’ in 1934-there have been six such sessions in the past thirteen months-well, it created a sort of… wildness in the air.”

“‘Somebody oughta kill that guy’ became more than just a wisecrack, you mean?”

Sitting back, Hamilton nodded gravely.

I asked, “Is ‘a wildness in the air’ why three hundred armed Square Dealers stormed and occupied the East Baton Rouge courthouse, last January?”

He winced at the memory. “You must try to understand, Mr. Davis…. Long sneaked a bill through that gave his stooge O.K. Allen leeway to appoint new members to the governing board of our parish-our last vestige of representative government had been stolen from us.”

“I thought storming the courthouse had to do with one of your people being arrested.”

He nodded slowly. “Yes, that did fuel the ill-advised episode.”

“So Huey sent the militia in, and the Square Dealers folded.”

He shook his head, quickly. “No. We received word that our arrested member had been released, and we went home. The irony is, that ‘member’ was an undercover agent of Huey’s all along. In fact, during his ‘arrest,’ he was probably reportin’ in, deliverin’ names and phone numbers. That would certainly explain the airport debacle.”

The morning after the seizing of the courthouse, a hundred armed Square Dealers had arrived at the Baton Rouge airport, where they were greeted by five hundred national guardsmen with machine guns and teargas.

The sorrowful eyes took on a haunted aspect. “Most of the Square Dealers were gassed, and one was shot. Half a dozen were hospitalized. No fatalities, thank God. Some of us made it to our cars, or into the woods, before anything serious happened…other than abject humiliation, that is.”

“What possessed you to send a hundred of your men to the airport, anyway?”

His laugh was short, deep, humorless. “That’s the most humiliatin’ part. Even those of us in leadership capacities didn’t know why we were there! We all received urgent anonymous phone calls, urgin’ us to get out to the airport.”

“Phone numbers provided by Huey’s spy?”

He sighed. “I can only assume so. At any rate, that was the end of the Square Dealers, for all intents and purposes. A while later Huey banned the organization, officially. Martial law wasn’t lifted in Baton Rouge until only just last month.”

“When you say the Square Dealers are ‘officially’ dead, do you mean…?”

A brave smile formed on that lived-in face. “That unofficially, the anti-Long movement is very much alive? Oh yes, Mr. Davis. Yes indeed.”

“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.