Andrew Vachss - Two Trains Running

“You didn’t see him,” she said, a rush of indescribable fears creating a vortex in her chest. “He’d do it.”

“Set this whole place on fire?”

“With everyone in it,” she said.

“And he said he worked for Beaumont?”

“Yes. And that’s what Beaumont himself said, too.”

“You called him?”

“I called him myself,” Ruth said, emphasizing the last syllable. “At a number I had, not one this man gave to me.”

“And you know Beaumont’s voice?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Are you saying Beaumont… knows?”

“No! Nobody ever did. Not about… you. But this man, he… he knows how it works. One of the girls who left, that’s who I think told.”

“It doesn’t matter,” the big man said, dead-voiced.

“It does to me!” Ruth said. “You know why I-”

“I just meant, it doesn’t matter how he knows,” Sherman said, his detective’s mind raising and rejecting possibilities. “He only knows about… what happens. He doesn’t know it’s me.”

“No.”

“And you didn’t…?”

Ruth lowered her face into her cupped hands.

“It’s all right,” Sherman said. “He hasn’t got any-”

“You bastard!” Ruth snarled, lifting her tear-streaked face to stare up at Sherman. “You thought that I… that I would ever…”

“Oh Christ, Ruth. I’m sorry. I was just trying to…”

“What? Make me feel better for betraying you? After all, what could you expect from a whore anyway, right?”

“I never-”

“Yes you did, Sherman,” she said, getting to her feet and moving over to where he stood against the wall. “You hurt me deep. You’re the only man on earth who can do that. The only man who can make me cry. I hope you’re proud.”

“I’m not proud, goddamn it! I’m… sorry, Ruth.”

“You should be sorry. Because I gave that foul man what he wanted, all right. A name. I told him it was Bobby Wyeth.”

“Hah!” Sherman chuckled, despite himself. “That was perfect. The last man in Locke City Royal Beaumont needs to blackmail is Mayor Bobby Wyeth. He already owns him.”

“And he does come here, Sherman,” Ruth said, eagerly. “Plus, he’s got his own… tastes. If a blackmailer just dropped a little hint-you know how they work; they’re very careful what they say-he’d probably even pay up!”

“That was really slick,” the big man said, admiringly.

“The man who came here, I wish you could have seen him, Sherman,” Ruth said, glowing under the big man’s praise despite herself. “He said he worked for Beaumont. But he said something else, too. He said he knew I didn’t.”

“Ruth, what are you talking about?”

“He said, this man, that he knew I was really in business for myself. Paying Beaumont was like paying tax. And if Beaumont was gone, I’d just pay someone else.”

“Seeing if you were loyal, you think?”

“No, Sherman. Telling me, I think telling me, that he was in business for himself, too.”

“That’s why you think his… source wasn’t Beaumont?”

“Yes. I’ve never seen him before. I don’t think he’s from around here, so I don’t know where he could have found out. But it was more like he was fishing than… I mean, I think he’s the kind of man who would hear a lot of things, but wouldn’t have any way of knowing if they were true. So, when he came here, I think it was really to see if whoever told him was lying.”

Dett, Walker, Sherman Layne thought, replaying the information he had vacuumed from the records of Ajax Auto Rentals. A gentle hint that someone who may have rented from them within the past month was a “possible suspect” in a bank robbery had been enough to get the clerk to turn over the ledger and step outside for a smoke that lasted a half-hour. Date of birth: March 3, 1920. Height: 6′1″, Weight: 175 pounds. Home address: Star Route 2, Rogersville, Oregon. No restrictions.

“I can never come here again,” he said aloud.

“I know.”

“Ruth, I apologize. Not for what I said, or even for what I was thinking… because I wasn’t. But if I hurt your feelings…”

“There’s another way,” she said, looking down.

“I-”

“If you want me, there is.”

“Ruth…”

“I’d do it for you, Sherman,” she said, tilting her face up to look at him. “I’d do anything for you.”

“I…”

“Yes you could,” she whispered.

1959 October 05 Monday 02:22

Carl stood under the shower in a cloud of steam, a safety razor in his hand. Everywhere! he repeated to himself, working with great care from the waist down.

When he finished, he rinsed off in an icy stream, shivering but determined. As a Spartan!

Carl turned off the shower spigot, parted the curtains, stepped out, and began to pat himself dry. While waiting for the mirror to defog, he worked baby oil into his skin with mechanical determination. Caressing his stiffened penis, Carl paused. Purity! he admonished himself, applying some of the oil to his swollen, hairless testicles. Then he coated his forefinger and penetrated his anus. I resist! By the time he was finished with his underarms and the soles of his feet, the mirror had cleared.

A cotton ball coated with a peroxide solution was Carl’s next tool. Years ago, before he learned, he had attacked any emerging pimples with such ferocity that he caused angry red blotches to appear against his fair skin. Now he cleansed with delicacy. If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right, he heard his mother’s voice in his head. He bared his teeth.

Perfect white teeth. Carl remembered the dentist, working the foot pedal of his drill during the excavation of a particularly deep cavity, pausing to compliment him. “You’d be surprised how a lot of big, strong men can’t take this,” the dentist had said. “They always want more and more novocaine. Now, you, young man, you’ve got the pain tolerance of a bull,” he had said, approvingly.

If you only knew, Carl had thought. Dr. Gottlieb was the best dentist in all of Locke City. The Jew has a natural capacity for intellect, just as the dark races have a natural capacity for strength. One would rule by insidiousness, the other by brute force. Only the Spartans bar the gates against them.

Carl gargled with mouthwash, then brushed his teeth for the second time since he had arrived home that evening. He inspected his nails. Why is it that a gangster can get a manicure without being thought… unmanly, but an Aryan warrior can never take such a risk? he thought, regretfully.

Normally, Carl wore only white silk boxer shorts and matching undershirts. But tonight, plain white jersey briefs and a sleeveless cotton T-shirt went on beneath a dark, tailored suit.

As he knotted his muted blue tie, Carl gazed longingly at the pair of black boots, polished to a brilliant shine, standing in the corner of his closet. He sighed and shook his head. Someday, he promised himself, settling for a pair of wingtips.

He walked down the short flight of stairs from his private, converted-attic suite to the second floor, his footsteps silent in the carpeted hallway as he passed his mother’s bedroom. Carl wasn’t concerned about waking her-she always retired within an hour after he came home from work, taking a sleeping draught with her glass of warm milk. If the neighbors heard his car start up in the middle of the night, they would just assume he was working an extra shift at the hotel-he often volunteered for such duty.

Carl opened the padlock and spread the doors of his garage wide. Inside sat his immaculately black ’57 Mercedes 190 sedan. It had originally been purchased in Germany, shipped home by a returning GI, and then offered for sale by a private party in Chicago. Fitting himself behind the wheel, Carl recalled that special trip. What a voyage of discovery that had been! My journey to myself.