Max Collins - Blood and Thunder

“I’m grateful to get any audience,” I said, “at such short notice.”

He was soaping one fleshy arm with a pink bar-no washcloth for such delicate skin. “Miss Crosley said you’re undertaking an investigation that may prove embarrassing to the curs who displaced from power both that fine young lady and myself.”

It was nice to know that this man of God held so high an opinion of the late Kingfish’s mistress. Who, incidentally, had reluctantly agreed to help me line up a few key interviews, like this one.

“Yes sir, I am undertaking just such an investigation,” I said with ludicrous formality; but sometimes the only way to deal with pompous people is to shove pomposity back at ’em. “I understand I’m lucky to catch you in Louisiana at all, these days.”

He squinted one eye; a fleck of stray bubbles gave him an extra, if foamy, eyebrow. “I’ve presently moved my headquarters to California. I’ve thrown my lot in with Dr. Townsend.”

Dr. Francis E. Townsend of California-a mild-mannered, far more benign version of Huey-was well known for his utopian ideals and notions of higher taxes and generous old-age pensions. His gentle approach seemed at odds with Reverend Smith’s rabble-rousing style, but I could well understand that Townsend would relish inheriting the millions of Huey’s Share the Wealth Club members.

The man of God’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Mr. Heller, before we speak further, I must ask you an…embarrassing, but necessary, question. I already asked Miss Crosley, and she gave me certain assurances. But I must ask you, sir.”

“Well, go ahead, Reverend. By all means.”

“Are you Hebrew? Your last name demands the question.”

“Yes, and it’s a fair one,” I said. “Most ‘Hellers’ are Jewish. My family on my father’s side is German and Catholic. My mother’s people were Irish Catholic.”

This was, of course, a lie, except for the part about my mother.

“Frankly, I would prefer Protestant,” he sighed. “But Catholicism is the far lesser of the two evils. I have a general policy of mistrusting Jews. Some consider this attitude anti-Semitic.”

“No, really?”

He nodded; he had a billy-goat soap-bubble beard. “It is, frankly, a political stand. A practical stand. Look at the Long organization-riddled with Jews! And like jackals smelling carrion, they have torn the flesh from the true supporters of that great man.”

“It’s very sad, sir.”

“And, of course, it’s no surprise that the assassin himself, this Carl Weiss, was a Jew.”

“Actually, he wasn’t.”

He sat up in the tub, sloshing; a few bubbles plopped onto the tile floor. “What are you saying, man?”

I shrugged. “‘Weiss,’ like Heller, is a German name. There are Weisses who are Gentiles, and Dr. Weiss and his family happen to be Catholics.”

This news disturbed him no end. “I find this difficult to believe.”

“Nonetheless, it’s true. Of course, he may not have been an assassin at all.”

Patches of bubbles decorating his pink chest, the Reverend frowned in confusion; for all his abilities-speaking before the public, scheming behind the scenes-Dr. Gerald L. K. Smith was just not very smart.

“What are you saying, man? The Kingfish is our martyred leader!”

“I didn’t say he wasn’t.”

But he was off and running. Gesturing, splashing, turning his bubble bath into a stormy sea, Dr. Smith delivered a brief sermon: “They called him a dictator, but it was the dictatorship of the surgical theater. Huey Long was a political surgeon, working for the welfare of the patient!”

“Right…”

“There are those who claim he was corrupt! I say he merely yielded on lesser principles to serve a greater one. Share the wealth! Every man a king, and no man wears a crown!”

Maybe so, but I was sitting on the throne.

“The point is, Reverend,” I said, hoping we could get back to it, “I believe those around Huey Long were responsible for his death.”

Fire flared in the pale blue eyes. “Yes…I can see it. A conspiracy. Surrounded by those vile Hebrews…. You’re saying the Jews killed Huey, just as they killed our Lord!”

“Well…no. I think it was probably an accident.”

“It was no accident that Jesus was slain by the Jews!”

“I was talking about the other slaying. What it’s starting to look like is Dr. Carl Weiss confronted Huey, about a racial slur against the Pavy family. I think Huey probably shrugged it off, and got belted by the doctor in return. Then those bodyguards started firing, and ...”

A gleeful grin had formed. “But don’t you see? Seymour and the others, they must have been in league with Roosevelt!” He swung a fist out of his soapy sea. “Yes! FDR and the Jews!”

“Well…”

“Don’t you grasp it, man? Seymour and the Long machine, they’ve been campaigning for Roosevelt all year! He’ll be reelected next month, in a landslide! Would such be the case if Huey were alive, and running for president himself? Would Huey Long have put his machine behind the reelection of that vile, crippled deceiver?”

“Of course not.”

“These evil fiends. Capable of anything. Do you know what they did to me?”

“What?”

The rack? The iron maiden? Crucifixion?

“They denied me my mailing list,” he said, soapy chin thrust out.

“Heavens.”

“Eight million followers, and I’m cut off from them, like the head amputated from the body.” A pointing finger rose from the bubbly waters and shook angry suds at the air. “But if Huey was a surgeon, I am a dentist!”

“A dentist?”

“A social dentist. Pulling the decayed teeth of social ills. No intelligent person questions his dentist, does he?”

“Of course not.”

“The patient must keep his mouth shut, and allow the tooth-puller to do his work!”

“If the patient has his mouth shut,” I asked, “how does the dentist pull the tooth, exactly?”

“It’s a figure of speech, man! Since Huey Long’s death, Louisiana is riddled with social decay. The money demons of Wall Street and the predatory corporations have found willing accomplices in the likes of Seymour and his stooge, Governor Leche. Think of it-to cut a deal with Standard Oil, after Huey’s blood had been shed in the capitol halls!”

I frowned. “What deal with Standard Oil?”

“It was in all the papers, man!”

“Not in Chicago. Catch me up.”

“Why, Governor Leche cut a deal with those hounds of hell. Huey’s five-cents-a-barrel tax was transmuted into a new, meager, one-cent-per-barrel tax. Of course, that’s no surprise, is it?”

“It’s a surprise to me,” I said. “I would have thought Long’s successors wouldn’t dare dilute something that’d been such a public crusade of Huey’s.”

He snorted a laugh. “You know that lobbyist fellow of theirs-Louis LeSage?”

“Yes.”

“Well, he and Seymour the Jew are old, dear friends.”

“Seymour and LeSage? Friends?”

He thrust an arm from the tub and pointed. “When the legislature isn’t in session, LeSage lives in a palatial suite down at the Roosevelt Hotel. Which, of course, Weiss owns. LeSage stays there free of charge.”

For a moment my mind reeled. One of the potential murder plotters Huey had sent me to see was a crony of Seymour’s? Was there something sinister in it? Or was it just good sleazy politics, keeping a lobbyist happy?

“Now, if there’s nothing else, Mr. Heller, I’m afraid this interview must come to a close,” he said. “I have a rally to prepare for….”

“Thank you, Reverend. Oh, there is one other thing.”

“Yes? Anything to help your good efforts.”