Andrew Vachss - Two Trains Running

“We always had gambling, Beau. Here, in Locke City, I mean. Even when we were kids, there was always places where you could find-”

“That was low-level stuff, honey. Not organized, the way we have it now. There’s a mountain of difference between a crap game on a blanket in an alley and a professional dice table, with a man in a tux raking in the bets and pretty girls walking around with trays of drinks. What makes Locke City special isn’t the games. Or the girls. It’s not just what you can get here; it’s the quality of it.

“Look, there’s places all along the river where you can buy a drink, dry county or not. And there’s no town where you can’t find a dice game, or a whorehouse. But those are rough places, where you’re just as likely to wake up in a back alley with your wallet missing. A man comes to Locke City, he knows he’s going to be protected, if he comes to the right places. Our places. We don’t water the booze, and we don’t serve Mickey Finns. Our houses don’t get raided. If you bet on a horse, or a football game, or whatever, and you win, you will get your payoff. That’s what we’re really selling here. Not sin, safety.”

“There must be plenty of places in the big cities where you could get the same-”

“Sure, if you’re rich. There’s always high-class places, with everything nice and protected. But Locke City, we built it for the workingman. The regular, average guy. The folks who live here now, they all make their living from the people who are passing through, see? Everyone’s invested, one way or the other. That’s why the water has to be calm on the surface. From the time we took over from Maddox, we’ve kept it that way.”

“But now you bring in this… I don’t know what to call him.”

“Because we need him, Cyn. The prettier the flower, the more people want to pluck it. If Dioguardi was just going to keep nibbling at the corners, we could deal with him on the quiet. Do the kind of thing to protect ourselves that never makes the papers. But he’s coming hard now, and we have to put him down for good. Close him up.”

“Beau…”

“Cyn, I can smell danger like a mine-shaft canary. Dioguardi’s just a gangster. And not even a smart one; he’s like the guy who gets to run the family business because he married the boss’s daughter. Whoever gave him this territory, they knew he couldn’t do anything big with it. He’s been around, what, three, four years? What’s he ever had, that two-bit protection racket of his? I’m surprised he can even cover his payroll with what he takes in. Now, all of a sudden, a couple of months ago, he starts moving in on our places. Jukeboxes, punch cards… still just little stuff. What for?”

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t know, either. Like I said, he’s a stupid man. So, maybe, it could be no more than that. But Mickey Shalare, he’s not stupid. Not even a little bit. Something’s coming. And we’re not going to sit here and wait for it. Hacker was the last one of us who’s going to be taken by surprise.”

“What are we going to do?”

“We’re going to adapt. Find other ways. That’s what we did with the… doctors, right?”

“You mean the-?”

“A girl needs an abortion-I don’t just mean in Locke City, I mean anywhere-what’s she supposed to do? Go visit one of those coat-hanger guys? Risk getting crippled for life, or even dead? Now we’ve got it all in one place: clean, safe, sterile. And never a whiff from the law. It’s been a real moneymaker, too.”

“And it all started with me,” Cynthia said, choking back a sob.

“It didn’t have to, sweetheart. I never wanted you to-”

“I had to, Beau! There was no way we could have-”

“Yes, we could,” Beaumont said, clenching his jaw as he bit off the words. “Here in Locke City, in our town, there’s nothing we couldn’t do, Cyn.”

“No,” she said, firmly. “There’s some things we could never do.”

The man in the wheelchair closed his eyes, nodded his head a couple of times. His sister walked behind his desk and stood next to him, her hand on his shoulder.

“It was just you and me, from the beginning,” he said. “You remember when Dad would come home? Stinking drunk? Remember when he used to think it was real funny, kick the braces out from my legs, watch me crawl?”

“Beau…”

“How many beatings did you take for me, Cyn? How many times did you throw your body over me when he came at me with the belt?”

“It didn’t matter. I-”

“I never knew about the rest. Not until I saw-”

“I don’t want to talk about… about that, Beau. You know I don’t.”

“You told Mom,” he said, bulling through her refusal. “And what did she do, the dirty bitch? I wish they hadn’t been asleep when I did it.”

“Beau!”

“The cops never even took a second look,” he said. “Why should they? A couple of drunks like them, falling asleep with a lighted cigarette, cans of kerosene right there in the house for the heater. The paper said you were a hero, carrying your little brother out of that fire just in time.”

“You were the hero.”

“I wish I could kill them both again,” Beaumont said, unaware his hands had turned to claws. “For what they did.”

“They were poison, Beau. That’s why I could never-”

“Not because the baby would have maybe been-?”

“No. I could bear that. Look at Luther. He’s not right. He never will be. But he’s a lovely little boy.”

“Luther’s not a little boy.”

“You know what I mean, Beau. I could have lived with a… damaged baby. But I could never carry on their seed. It would have been like spreading a filthy disease. I couldn’t…”

Beaumont took a deep, slow breath, then said, “I’m sorry I said what I did, Cyn. You were right-you were right then, and you’re right now. I’ll never speak of it again.”

“Beau, do you think we’ll… Do you think we’ll go to hell?”

“Into the fiery pit? That’s where they went, sweetheart. God wasn’t around to save us, so we saved ourselves. I don’t think there’s anything after… this. But if there is, there’s no hell for you. Not for you, Cyn. Everything you did, everything you ever did, it was only for love.”

“You, too, Beau.”

“Killing those animals? Sure, that’s true. But there’s been a lot marked down on my ledger since then.”

“Wherever you go, I’m going with you.”

“Then it doesn’t matter where it is,” the man in the wheelchair said, closing his eyes again.

1959 October 04 Sunday 16:04

When the phone in the back office of the restaurant rang, it was Dioguardi himself who picked up the receiver.

“Who are you?” he said, without preamble.

“I’m a businessman, just like you. I want to do business. So I sent you my card, and a sample of my work.”

You’re a very cute guy, Dioguardi thought to himself. “Okay,” he said aloud, “what kind of business do you want to do?”

“The kind where I get paid.”

“Paid how much? And for what?”

“Well, that’s really your choice. You can either pay me for what I sent you a sample of, COD, or you can pay me to take my business elsewhere.”

“Uh-huh. And how much payment would we be talking about?”

“For deliveries, it’s a sliding scale, starting at a grand a head.”

“Starting?”

“Starting. But if you want to make a deal for me to move my operation to another city, you can pay a onetime noncompetition fee. That’d be ten large.”

“Just to go away?”

“Far away. And not come back.”

“You, uh, ever do this other places?”

“Lots of other places. It’s what I do.”

“Maybe I don’t want to do business at all.”