Andrew Vachss - Two Trains Running

“God.”

“Yeah. And that squares with what else I heard. Walker Dett, he’s not just a shooter. He plans strategy, like a general or something.”

“What kind of a man would do that?”

“That’s not our worry, Cyn. All we care about is what kind of man wouldn’t do it, understand? We don’t know what this ‘Dett’ guy is, but we know what he’s not. Whatever he is, he’s no lawman.”

1959 September 30 Wednesday 13:27

Dett drove the back roads gingerly, experimenting with the Ford’s reaction to various maneuvers. Piece of crap, he said to himself, as he muscled the coupe around an unbanked curve. The steering was rubbery, and the brakes were a joke-even with skillful pumping, the stopping distances were way too long, and the car always nosedived to the right.

He wasn’t lying about how it scoots, though, Dett thought. He had to balloon-foot the gas pedal to avoid spinning the rear wheels aimlessly in first gear, and even the first-to-second shift caused the tires to bark against the asphalt.

And the car had been delivered clean, inside and out. The only indication of prior human presence was the registration slip in the glove compartment.

“This is the guy you borrowed the car from,” the black man in the yellow shirt had told him. “Police call the number I gave you, somebody say, ‘Sure, I loaned my car to Mr. Dett.’ Describe you good, too.”

“Very nice,” Dett had said.

“I know my business, Chuck,” the black man replied, choosing to resent the compliment.

Dett followed the directions he had been given, keeping the Ford in second gear in case he needed the extra braking power on unfamiliar roads. Every time he eased off the gas, the dual exhausts crackled, announcing his oncoming presence. Makes no difference, he thought to himself, noting a dozen spots where a sniper could roost along the way, it’s not like I’m sneaking up on them.

He spotted the black boulder, proceeded as directed until he came to the guardhouse. Dett slowed the Ford to a near crawl as he approached, his window already rolled down.

Seth stepped out, shotgun in one hand, and gestured with the other for Dett to get out of his car. Dett turned off the engine and climbed out of the Ford, tossing the keys underhand at Seth, who caught them smoothly without shifting his eyes.

“Your spare’s about bald,” he said, glancing into the trunk.

“Thanks,” Dett said.

Seth placed the car keys on the Ford’s roof, then stepped back to let Dett reclaim them.

Dett started the Ford, and motored along slowly until he came to the horseshoe-shaped driveway. He parked just beyond the entrance to the house, leaving the key in the ignition.

The door was opened before he could knock. A bull-necked man held his gaze for several seconds before he said, “You can’t come in here with guns.”

Dett nodded, holding his hands away from his body.

“Put them on that table over there,” the man told him, his marble eyes unblinking.

Dett took off his overcoat, held it by the collar to indicate it was heavy, and draped it carefully across the table.

“That’s all,” he said, not offering to remove any of the weapons within the coat.

The marble-eyed man nodded. “Go down that way, there,” he said. “I’ll be right behind you.”

1959 September 30 Wednesday 13:59

If Dett was surprised to see the man who hired him sitting in a wheelchair, it didn’t show on his face.

“My name is Royal Beaumont,” the man in the wheelchair said. “Have a seat.”

Dett took the indicated chair. The marble-eyed man positioned himself at a sharp angle, so that Dett would have to turn his head to see him.

“Sorry about all the precautions,” Beaumont said. “The times we live in…”

Dett nodded silently, his face impassive.

“Red Schoolfield says you did a hell of a job for him.”

“I don’t recognize the name,” Dett said.

“Hah!” said Beaumont, more of a bark than a laugh. “This one doesn’t put his cards face-up, huh, Luther?”

“No, Roy,” the marble-eyed man said, mechanically.

“You’re wrong,” Dett said, not a trace of aggression in his tone.

“How’s that?” Beaumont asked-curious, not annoyed.

“Some other man’s name, that’s not my card to play. Not even to hold.”

“Huh!” Beaumont grunted. “That’s cute.”

“That’s true,” Dett said, leaving the multiple interpretations of his response hanging in the air between them.

Silence like a fine mist dropped over the three men.

Beaumont studied the man seated across from him, making no secret of it. Dett never dropped his veiled eyes.

“There’s a lot of work I need doing,” Beaumont finally said.

“Okay.”

“Just like that, ‘okay’?”

“If you called a bricklayer out to your house, told him you needed some work done, that’s what he’d say, right? I mean, you’d have to tell him what kind of brickwork you wanted done, but, if he was good at his trade, whatever kind you wanted, you asked him, he’d say ‘okay.’ ”

“You’re no bricklayer.”

“You’re the one who put word out that you wanted me; you know the kind of work I do.”

“I don’t actually know anything,” Beaumont said. “I heard things. I’ve been told things. But I don’t know anything for myself.”

“I don’t do auditions,” Dett said, opening his antenna for tension from Luther, picking up none.

“What’s that mean?”

“If you want to see a sample of a bricklayer’s work, you go look at a wall he’s built for someone else. If that’s not enough to convince you to hire him for a big job, maybe you ask him to build you something first. But a small job. Like a barbecue pit, say.”

“So?”

“So, the kind of work I do, I don’t make samples. You ask me to build you a barbecue pit, just to see how good I am, it costs you the same as a brick wall.”

“You always talk like this?” Beaumont said. “In big circles?”

“Talking’s not what I do,” Dett answered him.

Beaumont, no stranger to edged ambiguity, nodded without changing expression. He reached for his cigarette box, tapped out a single smoke, and lit it with a gunmetal Zippo.

Not like some, snap their fingers for a flunky to light their smokes for them, show you what a big shot they are, Dett thought, appraisingly. And the other one, he calls him “Roy,” not “boss” or “chief.”

“You don’t smoke?” Beaumont asked him.

“I wanted to keep my hands where Luther could see them.”

This time, Beaumont’s laugh was genuine. “You know what, Mr. Dett? You know more about Luther in ten minutes than some of the boys I’ve had working with me ten years. All they ever hear out of Luther’s mouth is ‘Yes, Roy,’ or ‘No, Roy.’ So they think he’s…”

“Dumb.”

“Right,” Beaumont said. “But…?”

“He’s a professional,” Dett answered promptly. “No, wait. He’s more than that. More than just that, I mean. He’s kin, isn’t he?”

“Not by blood. You understand what that means?”

“By what he’s done.”

“Yeah. By what he’s done. By what he’d do. And what I’d do, too.”

“I understand.”

“I believe you do,” Beaumont said, exhaling a thick stream of cigarette smoke.

1959 September 30 Wednesday 15:03

“I could get myself killed, talking to a goddamned reporter,” the man in the moss-colored coat said to Procter. His eyes were wary behind the thick lenses of his glasses; his hands gripped an aluminum clipboard.

The two men were in the front seat of Procter’s ’54 Hudson Hornet, a rust-wormed brown coupe that was on its ninth owner and last gasp.

“All I want to know is where the new interstate is coming through,” Procter said. “That’s not too much to ask.”