Andrew Vachss: Two Trains Running

Dett closed the door behind him, took a set of keys from his coat pocket, and walked over to a faded blue ’49 Ford with a primered hood and chromed dual exhausts. The coupe had a slight forward rake, because the rear tires were larger than the fronts. Dett opened the door, climbed behind the wheel, and started it up, frowning at the engine noise.

He slipped the lever into first, let out the clutch, and pulled out of the lot.

1959 September 30 Wednesday 12:56

“He should be here pretty soon, Beau,” Cynthia said.

“Good,” Beaumont grunted, concentrating on shaving, using a pearl-handled straight razor against the grain.

“Beau…?”

“What?” he said, carefully rinsing off his razor.

“This is the first time we ever did anything like this.”

“You mean, use a contract man? You know we paid-”

“An outsider, is what I mean. We paid… different people to do different things, but they were always local men. If they didn’t… do what they were supposed to, we would always know where to find them.”

“Find their families, too, is what you’re saying.”

“That is what I’m saying. This man, he’s not just a stranger, he’s like a ghost. You make some calls, and he magically appears.”

“So?” Beaumont asked, patting his face with a towel.

“I was just thinking… If we’re big enough to attract so much attention… from people who want to move in on us, I mean, maybe we’re attracting attention from the law, too.”

“The law? In Locke City? They’re all on our-”

“Not the ones around here,” Cynthia said, pacing nervously behind her brother. “I’m talking about the state police. Or even the FBI.”

“That’s what you’re worried about? That this guy’s some kind of secret agent?”

“I’m just trying to help,” Cynthia said, hurt.

“You always help,” Beaumont said, soothingly. “I wasn’t making fun of you, honey.” He spun his wheelchair so that he was facing his sister. “Remember, when we were kids, how you’d jump on anyone ever called me ‘crip’? If I hadn’t had you-”

“I had you, too, Beau,” she said, a hand on his shoulder. “Do you remember Billy Yawls?”

“I do,” Beaumont said, a broad grin breaking across his craggy face. “That was when I still had the braces.”

“Yes! And when you challenged Billy, for… grabbing at me… he had to agree to make it wrestling. Otherwise, he would have looked like a-”

“Sure. And I was a couple of years younger than him, too. But once I took that skinny little weasel to the ground…”

“They never knew how strong you were, Beau. Not until that day.”

“Yeah, I… Look, I’m sorry, honey. In fact, I already thought about what you’re thinking right now. But the only way the law could ever stick a pin in our balloon is from the inside, and they could never pull that off.

“You think if the FBI could plant its own men inside the big mobs they wouldn’t have done it a long time ago? But they can’t. The Italians, the Irish, the Jews… they’re all related, some kind of way. And can you even imagine the feds trying to get a man inside one of the colored gangs?” he said, chuckling. “What would they do, dye one of their guys black?”

“I don’t know, Beau. If the Mafia is really as big as everyone says, how could they all be related to each other?”

“Well,” Beaumont said slowly, “you’re probably right. But we’re not like them. Not like any of them. We may not all be related, but we know every single man, all the way back.”

“We don’t know this man you just hired, Beau. Not like that.”

“That’s true,” Beaumont said, nodding to show his sister he had thought deeply about her concerns before making his decision. “But he’s just a contract man. It’s not like we’re making him one of us. He’s never going to get inside.”

Beaumont wheeled himself back to the specially constructed sink, slapped an astringent on his face, then spun again to face his sister.

“One thing we know about the feds, Cyn: they got unlimited funds. Money, that’s power. It can buy things. It can buy people. The way it’s told, that’s how they got someone to give up Dillinger-the reward. But, still, John was way ahead of them.”

“Ahead of them?” Cynthia said, almost angrily. “Beau, they killed him. Gunned him down right on the sidewalk.”

“That wasn’t John Dillinger,” Beaumont said, a true-believer, reciting an article of faith. “It was a fall guy. A patsy. The guy they killed, I heard he didn’t even have the right color eyes. Didn’t have any bullet scars on him, either. No, honey, Dillinger’s somewhere south of the border. He’s not dead,” Beaumont repeated, devoutly.

“But if what you say is true, then they know.”

“The FBI? Sure, they know. What difference does it make to them? They got Public Enemy Number One. Big heroes. So long as Dillinger stays missing, everybody’s happy.”

“But what if he ever-?”

“John Dillinger, everybody admired him for his moxie. He’s the stand-up guy of all time. Busting his boys out of jail, carving a gun out of a bar of soap-can you believe suckers actually bought that one?-he’s like a legend. But what people didn’t appreciate about him was how smart he was. He never worked for any of the outfits. He stayed independent, worked with guys he knew he could trust, not guys some boss told him he could trust.

“John was a genius,” Beaumont said, lost in idolatry. “He knew it’s not about the truth of anything; it’s always about what people believe. The papers, they played him up like he was a god. Hoover doesn’t get Dillinger, it makes it look like the outlaws are stronger than the cops. So they make a deal. Hoover’s boys kill a patsy, and Dillinger walks away.”

“You don’t know any of that, Beau.”

“The hell I don’t, girl. Those guys who write the newspaper stories, they’re just like the people who write ads, like for toothpaste, or beer, or cars. It’s their job to sell you something, not to tell you the truth.”

“Even if it is so, people do inform,” Cynthia said, hotly. “They do it all the time. Look at all those Communists.”

“Sure. But those guys, they were… members. Real insiders, I mean. With this guy we’re bringing in, you’re not talking about one of us. He’s nothing but a hired gun.”

“But couldn’t an FBI agent pretend to be the same thing? Like a spy?”

“Not a chance, girl. There’s a line no undercover cop can cross, and this guy, he lives over it, see?”

“No,” she said, adamantly. “I don’t under-”

“The feds, let’s say you’re right, and they actually get one of their men inside one of the big mobs. Naturally, they’d have to let their guy do stuff, so nobody would get suspicious. If he had to steal, or hand out a beating, okay. But how is the FBI going to let one of their men kill someone? And this guy we’re bringing in, he’s put more bodies in the ground than an undertaker.”

“If that’s enough reason to trust him, then Lymon-”

“Exactly!” Beaumont cut her off. “Lymon’s pulled the trigger himself, more than once. So if he tried to hook up with another mob, he might tell some of our secrets-what he thinks are secrets-to grease the skids. But he can’t ever go to the law about us, not with what’s on his own plate.”

“But if all we know about this Dett person is rumors…”

“We got better than that, girl. A lot better. An actual eyewitness. Red said this guy walked into a nightclub, shot the bouncer, tossed a grenade into the crowd, and walked out, like he was delivering the mail.”

“Why would Red want him to-?”

“It was war,” Beaumont told his sister. “And this guy, he’s a soldier. Only not like for a country, for whoever pays him. But Red says that grenade thing, it was Dett’s own idea.”