Andrew Vachss - Two Trains Running

“It’s a beautiful place,” Dett said. “Must cost a lot to keep it up.”

“It does, for a fact. I wish your boss understood that a little better. Between what I pay the law and the things some of these girls get themselves into…”

“Yeah. So you can’t be making a living just taking care of one… group.”

“You’re not part of Mr. Beaumont’s organization,” she said, her suddenly icy eyes briefly drifting over Dett’s face.

“You were expecting me,” Dett said, without inflection. “Whoever you spoke to told you to cooperate with me.”

“And what you want is information about my visitors.”

“Yes.”

“You’re a camera guy?” she asked, an unmistakable hint of contempt in her modulated voice.

“No.”

“What are you, then?”

“A strategist.”

“That’s a big word.”

“If you say so.”

“I have to make a phone call,” the woman said. “You can wait right here, in my office, if you like. Or, if you want, I have a couple of girls who aren’t busy right now.”

1959 October 04 Sunday 14:19

“What’s he doing?”

“That’s Sherman Layne,” the stubby, mostly bald man in the passenger seat of the plain-Jane sedan said to the much younger man behind the wheel. “He’s a cop, local. And that’s a whorehouse. Ritziest one in the county, according to our briefing. Maybe he’s doing a surveillance on some guy they think’s holed up there. Or maybe he’s just taking down license-plate numbers.”

“Same as we are,” the younger man said, peevishly. His protruding Adam’s apple bobbed with each word.

“You think we can always be out chasing the Ten Most Wanted, Dave?” the older man said, chuckling. “This is just like the army-everybody’s got their job to do.”

“Our job must be KP, then.”

“No,” the older man said, idly tapping his asymmetrical nose with a thick forefinger, “although it may seem like it. We’re part of something, even if we don’t always know what it is.”

“I wish we did. I wish we could-”

“Observe and record,” the older man said. “That’s the job. That’s today’s job, anyway.”

“That’s a weird place to have a whorehouse.”

“You’re an expert, Davy?”

“Come on, Mack,” the younger man said, reddening. “It’s sit-ting down in that little clearing, all surrounded by woods. Anyone could just sneak up on it. That cop, where he’s parked, nobody inside would ever spot him.”

“Who’s going to sneak up on it?”

“I… I don’t know. Kids, maybe. To get a thrill.”

“Only if they had binoculars that worked at night, and what kids have the money for equipment like that? Come on, Dave. Look closer. See all that open ground? There’s no way anyone could move within fifty yards of that door without being spotted, day or night.”

“You really think there might be a guy hiding out in there?”

“Who knows?” the older man said, shrugging his shoulders. “It’s not our problem.”

“What if he was a bank robber, Mack? You know, we have jurisdiction if there’s been a-”

“We don’t have any ‘jurisdiction’ to do anything but what our orders are,” the older man said, firmly. “That’s how agents get themselves in trouble, freelancing. And… Hey, there he goes. I guess the cop saw everything he had to see.”

“You think maybe he’s coming back? With reinforcements?”

“Jesus H. Christ, Dave. This isn’t a goddamn gangster movie; this is real life.”

1959 October 04 Sunday 14:30

“All right,” the brunette said, re-entering the room where Dett waited, “what do you want to know?” Her voice was businesslike, just short of brusque.

“Who comes here in secrecy?”

“Secrecy?” she said, coolly. “You mean ‘privacy,’ don’t you?”

“No,” Dett said, watching her eyes. “I mean the man nobody sees. You bring a girl into the room he uses, put a hood over her head, bend her over, and tie her up. The man comes into the room. He doesn’t say anything, just does what he does. After he’s gone, you go in there and untie the girl. Everyone who works here knows they could be picked for the job, but they never know when their turn is going to come.”

“Who told you such a-?”

“Someone who doesn’t work here anymore, so don’t waste your time asking around.”

“No, I mean, who told you a story like that?”

“It’s not true, then?”

“Of course not. We cater to all kinds of… tastes here. And I’m not saying we wouldn’t put a girl in the position you described. Or even that we never have. But the idea that this happens all the time, for the same man-”

“I told Beaumont this was a waste of time.”

“Well, that’s all right. Surely you understand the way these girls exaggerate their-”

“I told him it was a waste of time,” Dett went on, level-voiced. “I told him you wouldn’t cooperate.”

“But I just said…”

“You’re lying,” Dett said, his voice as cold and flat as a glacier. “A woman as smart as you, you’re not owned by anyone. You pay Beaumont because he’s the powerhouse in this town. A business expense, like a lawyer, or an abortionist. But you couldn’t stay in business if you didn’t keep this place neutral. So this isn’t Beaumont’s house. Dioguardi’s men come here, too, right? And Shalare’s. And people who don’t work for any of them. People with money of their own. You don’t work for Beaumont, you pay him. That’s a big difference. If Beaumont was to disappear tomorrow, you’d just pay someone else.”

“You seem to have figured everything out,” the woman said, lighting a cigarette in what Dett recognized as a time-buying gesture.

“Except the man’s name.”

“What good would that do you?” she said, her tone implying she was actually interested in the answer. “So he likes the girls, so what? I could see it if he was a priest, or a-”

“I told you, this isn’t about blackmail.”

“What, then?”

“That’s not something you want to know,” Dett said.

“What if I told you I don’t know his name?”

“I’ll tell you what I told Beaumont.”

The brunette looked a question at Dett, not speaking.

“I told him that you were going to play your own game, for your own reasons. And I was right. So there’s only one thing to do.”

“Which is?”

“Put you out of business. Then the man I’m interested in will have to go someplace else for his fun. The next… manager will be glad to work with me.”

“Putting me out of business wouldn’t be such an easy thing to do,” she said, clipping her words to keep the sudden fear out of her voice.

“No harder than this,” Dett said, striking a wooden match on his thumbnail.

1959 October 04 Sunday 14:49

“I wish you didn’t have to do this.”

“Do what, honey?”

“All of this,” Cynthia said.

“We had no choice, girl. If I hadn’t started the-”

“Not at the beginning, I know. But now? What difference could it make, Beau?”

“You want to go back to the way we were before this all started? That can happen, Cyn. That can always happen, if I get weak.”

“You were never weak, Beau.”

“Neither were you. All we wanted was to live in peace, right? But would they let us?”

“Oh, Beau,” she said, despairingly.

“What?”

“You never wanted to live in peace,” she said, bringing her hands together in a prayerful gesture. “Never once. You and Sammy and Lymon and Faron and… all of you, you made enough during the war to start real businesses. But you-”

“We did start real businesses, damn it!”

“What, the bowling alley? That was just a place for you all to… meet, and everything.”