Andrew Vachss: Two Trains Running

“That’s after they get you to the jail,” the driver said. “Sometimes, their plans don’t work out.”

The black man stepped back a pace, but kept his pistol leveled.

“Look, man. Like I said, it was on the drums. Killer on the road, coming to town. Everybody knows there’s a gang war coming. That’s ofay business, got nothing to do with me, one side wants to bring in some outside talent. But if you kill a cop, even one of those blue-coated thieves that works for this town, that’s gonna bring heat like an oil-field fire. That happens, you call the number you got for me, nobody’s gonna answer. This big car of yours, it’s gonna get butchered like a hog, man. Cut up so small its own mother wouldn’t know it.”

The driver looked at the black man’s chest, expressionless.

“Whisper didn’t say nothing about dusting no po-leece,” the black man said, his voice feathering around the edges.

“Whisper didn’t say anything,” the driver said. “All he did was make a deal. And here I am, holding up my end of it.”

“I-”

“If you don’t want to go through with it, now’s the time to say so.”

“I didn’t say nothing about-”

“You take the deal, you take it the way it was laid out,” the driver cut him off. “What I do, that’s not your business. What you do, that’s not mine. But if I call that number and there’s no answer, there’s another number I can call, understand?”

“Whisper ain’t gonna side with no gray boy against his own-”

“You took this deal, and you don’t know Whisper?”

“I know him,” the black man said, capillaries of resentment bulging on the surface of his voice.

“You never met him,” the driver said, confidently. “You know him the same way everyone else in the game does, by reputation. That’s all he’s got, his reputation. Whisper vouched for you. You come up wrong, nobody’s going to want to deal with him anymore. Not until he fixes the problem. Sets an example.”

“You saying Whisper would do something to me?”

“Get it done, yeah.”

“That supposed to scare me?”

“What it’s supposed to do, it’s supposed to get you to make a phone call. Ask him yourself. I’ll wait right here while you go and do it. You call Whisper. After you speak to him, you still think you can go back on our deal no matter what happens, I’ll just take my car and go. No hard feelings.”

The black man’s face tightened. “You must think I’m a stone fucking chump, Wonder Bread,” he said. “I tell Whisper I’m even thinking about not holding up my end, that’s the last business I ever get from him.”

“Up to you,” the driver said, making an “It’s all the same to me” gesture. “One of us is going to be driving my car out of here. Who that is, that’s up to you.”

1959 September 29 Tuesday 00:04

“Every time that sister of his comes into the room, the show’s over, huh, Sammy?” Harley said to the broad-faced man as they were walking toward their cars in the lot.

“Roy knows what he’s doing,” the broad-faced man said, a faint thread of warning in the blend of his voice.

“Yeah? I don’t see what Cynthia’s got to do with anything, myself. The way she acts sometimes, it’s like she’s the boss, not him.”

Sammy kept walking, silent.

“You don’t think it’s a little strange, Sammy?” Harley persisted.

“What I think is, nobody ever got themselves in trouble minding their own business.”

“I was just saying-”

“Harley, you’re a comer. Everybody knows that. The man himself has his eye on you.”

“So?”

“So listen to an older hand for a minute, son. There’s a lot more to Royal Beaumont than a big set of balls.”

“You saying-what?-people don’t think I got the brains to run my own-?”

“I’m not saying that, Harley… although, when you pull kid stuff like coming late to meetings, you make folks wonder. Look, I know you’ve got a head on your shoulders. But having something’s not the same as using it, you follow me?”

“Sammy…”

“I came up with Roy,” Sammy said. “We go back. All the way back. You know what the smartest thing you can say about his sister is?”

“Nothing?”

Sammy reached over and squeezed the younger man’s shoulder. “See how smart you can be when you work at it?” he said.

1959 September 29 Tuesday 00:12

“There’s three toggle switches right under the dash,” the driver said, pointing with his forefinger. “Just slip your hand under there, you’ll feel them.”

The black man deliberately turned his back and reached under the dash, tacitly acknowledging that the pistol he had been holding hadn’t been the protection he first thought it was.

“First one kills all the interior lights; in the trunk, too,” the driver said. “You push it forward, they won’t go on, no matter what’s opened. The second one-the one in the middle-that’s the ignition kill switch. Push it forward, and you can’t start the car, even with the key. The last one is the muffler cutouts. Okay?”

“I got it,” the black man said, stepping back out of the car.

“Then let’s go get that Ford of yours.”

“I don’t think so, man. You just wait here, we’ll bring it to you. An hour, no more. Man like you, I’ll bet you an ace at killing time.”

“You’re a funny guy,” the driver said.

1959 September 29 Tuesday 00:21

“You’re really sure we need an outsider in on this?” the tall, red-haired man asked. He had moved his chair so that it was alongside Beaumont’s desk, canting his lean body at an angle to create a zone of privacy.

“An outsider’s exactly what we need, Lymon,” the man in the wheelchair answered. “You know how men like Dioguardi work. Before they make a move, they always count the house. They think they know every card we’re holding. This man, he’s going to be our sleeve ace.”

“Where do you find someone like him, anyway?” Lymon asked. “The mobbed-up guys, they’ve got a whole network. They want a job done in, I don’t know, Chicago, the boss there, he makes a call, and the boss in… Miami, maybe, sends him someone to do it. But that’s not us. I mean, we know people, sure. But they’re independents, like we are. They’re not with us.”

“That’s true.”

“You trust Red Schoolfield enough to use one of his guys? I heard that he wasn’t going to be able to hold out much longer himself. Maybe he already made his deal.”

Cynthia walked over to the liquor cabinet, opened two small, unlabeled, brown glass bottles, and carefully shook a pill from each. She expertly tonged three ice cubes into a square-cut tumbler, added water from a carafe, and brought it over to Beaumont. He plucked the pills from her open palm, put them in his mouth, and emptied the tumbler.

“More?” she asked.

“Please.”

Without another word, Cynthia fetched the carafe and refilled Beaumont’s glass. She returned the carafe to the liquor cabinet unhurriedly, clearly intending to remain in the room.

A silver cigarette box sat on Beaumont’s desk. He opened it, turned it in Lymon’s direction. Lymon shook his head “no,” completing the ritual. Beaumont took a cigarette from the case, fired it with a table lighter. He adjusted his position in his wheelchair, blew a perfect smoke ring at the ceiling.

“This guy-Dett is what he calls himself, Walker Dett-he didn’t come from Red. I knew Red had used him on a job. All’s I did, I gave Red a call, asked him how it had worked out. Like a reference.”

“So where did you find him?” Lymon persisted.

“You know Nadine’s roadhouse?”

“Everybody knows Nadine. She-”

“This isn’t about her,” Beaumont said, the “Pay attention!” implicit in his tone. “You go out there, to her joint, once in a while?”