Max Collins - Blood and Thunder

Earl Long, despite being Leche’s lieutenant governor, remained standing, unscathed, when the old Long machine fell. Perhaps, in retrospect, he was grateful to Huey for not allowing him in the inner circle. His own three terms as governor were both colorful and checkered, but unlike Huey, whose shadow he never escaped, nor stopped resenting, he was content with Louisiana for his kingdom.

Alice Jean Crosley returned from California to make closed-session appearances before several federal grand juries during the various inquiries into the Longsters. She was active in campaign work for Earl, and married a man who had a high-paying job with the state. Childless, the couple remain happily married to this day, and live in a quiet, exclusive neighborhood in Baton Rouge.

Dr. Arthur Vidrine returned to his native Ville Platte where he lived quietly and well, founding a private hospital in 1937, which he ran until he retired in ill health. He died in 1955.

Yvonne Weiss left Louisiana. She went to New York with her young son, returning to school for a master’s degree in French. She remarried, became a librarian, and always spoke of her late husband fondly. When the rare journalist would track her down, Yvonne-who died in 1963-would gladly speak of Carl-but not of the shooting.

On the other hand, Dr. C. A. Weiss, Carl’s father, was vocal on the subject: whenever a national publication referred to his son as an “assassin,” he bitterly-and eloquently-demanded a retraction. He died in 1947, never losing faith in his son’s innocence.

Carl Weiss, Jr., only three months old when his father died, is a successful orthopedic surgeon in Long Island, New York, where his uncle, Dr. Tom Ed Weiss, also practiced.

After finishing out her husband’s Senate term, Rose Long never again entered public life; her later years were quiet and, due to the accomplishments of her son Russell, proud. Russell was elected to the United States Senate in 1948 and retired thirty-eight years later, a respected and powerful Senator. He seemed to devote himself on the one hand to praising and protecting the good things his father did; and on the other, to make up for the bad with good works and ethical practices. Along the way, he became exactly the kind of career politician his father abhorred.

The Reverend Gerald L. K. Smith never regained his national prominence, although he built a small empire in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, with a Bible college and a yearly Passion Play that attracted big crowds. He died, in 1976, a minor-league Oral Roberts.

I don’t know what became of Diamond Jim Moran, other than he was a high-profile presence in New Orleans throughout Mayor Maestri’s election-free six years in office. But Dandy Phil Kastel went on to build the Tropicana in Las Vegas in partnership with Frank Costello; in the late 1950s, Kastel was found with six bullets in him-it was ruled a suicide.

Kastel’s assistant, Carlos, went on from the rustic roots of his Willswood Tavern to be undisputed ruler of the mob in New Orleans. He was implicated in a later political assassination. His last name, incidentally, was Marcello.

Most of these people I kept track of casually, through the papers, chats with Eliot Ness, Wilson and Irey, and via sporadic correspondence and phone calls with Alice Jean. The only other one I ever had direct contact with again was, ironically enough, Seymour Weiss.

In 1955 I was in New York with a lady friend of mine for a long weekend of Broadway plays, shopping and fancy dining. On nostalgic impulse, I stayed at the Hotel New Yorker, and in the lounge, Seymour Weiss-looking like a fat, urbane lizard in his green-silk suit and narrow green-and-white tie-appeared at our table just after my female friend had gone to the powder room.

“Nate Heller?” he said, and that homely puss of his smiled; at age sixty or so, he didn’t look a hell of a lot older, but a little pudgier. Prosperous.

“Hiya, Seymour. Sit down.”

He did. “What brings you to New York?”

“Pleasure trip. Still hangin’ out in Huey’s hotel, after all these years?”

His smile was small and self-satisfied. “I own the hotel, Nate. I own a lot of hotels.”

“You must have invested wisely.”

“I did. I’ll buy you a drink….” He waved for a waiter.

“Swell. Just as long as it’s not a Ramos Gin Fizz.”

I had a rum-and-Coke, and he had some Dewar’s. Too casually, he asked, “You didn’t really believe that nonsense you told Murphy Roden, way back when?”

“How is Murphy?”

“Ailing. Did you, Nate? Do you?”

“What?”

“Believe that nonsense.”

I sipped my drink; smiled nastily. “Seymour, I’m at an age where I’m not believing in much of anything. You tell me something.”

“All right.”

“Way back when, why did you bring me here from Chicago, to deliver your damn birthday present to Huey?”

He shrugged; the dead eyes avoided me. “Because I was worried about him. I thought he’d listen to reason, coming from you.”

“I think it’s because Huey’d had a tip that somebody on the inside, somebody close to him, was gonna betray him. Maybe you just wanted him to think you were worried about him.”

The pockmarked face was immobile. “Is that any way to repay my hospitality?”

“I was just curious. Certain things, certain loose ends from cases long ago, can keep a detective up at night.”

He saluted me with his scotch glass. “I sleep fine.”

“I bet you do.”

He was looking past me now. “Is this your lady friend moving across the room? Very lovely.”

“Beautiful women are a habit I just can’t seem to break.”

“Tell you what, Nate,” he said genially. “For old times’ sake. To prove there’s no hard feelings…. Why don’t you and your young lady join me for dinner tonight in our restaurant. It’ll be my treat.”

“No thanks, Seymour,” I said. “I couldn’t properly dress for the occasion.”

He blinked. “It’s not formal. Just a tie and jacket.”

“Maybe. But I forgot my bullet-proof vest.”

I introduced him to Linda, and he was very suave, very charming, before leaving our table to stop by and chat with other guests.

“He seemed nice,” Linda said.

“Seymour’s a gracious host, all right.”

“Kind of ugly, though, don’t you think?”

I sipped my free rum-and-Coke-another Weiss lagniappe. “You don’t know the half of it.”

Seymour-who in his later years got involved with extreme right-wing political organizations and became close pals with J. Edgar Hoover-died in 1969 at age seventy-three.

Many of the others are gone, too: Murphy Roden, Joe Messina, Louis LeSage, Edward Hamilton, even Frank Wilson and Elmer Irey. Carlos Marcello died (as I write this) just a little over a year ago. On the other hand, the questions surrounding the shooting of the Kingfish are alive and well.

In 1985, the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination prompted the usual journalistic rehashes. But one of the articles inspired the public relations director of Mutual Life to look up his company’s policies on Huey Long.

My long-forgotten report was dredged up and its contents made available to the press; considerations of privacy were cast aside in the public interest. A flurry of publicity followed, when it was discovered that, in 1936, Mutual had paid double-indemnity on the accidental-death policy of a political figure that history had declared the victim of an assassin’s bullet.

By this time, I was retired, living in a condo in Coral Springs, Florida, with my second wife. I did a number of interviews for both print and electronic media, and reiterated the “accidental death” conclusion of my report, implicating the bodyguards, all of whom were dead and buried by now. It took about five minutes for my fifteen minutes of fame to lapse.