Andrew Vachss: Two Trains Running

“Not really. Only when-”

“When they’ve got certain bands playing, am I right?”

“Yep,” Lymon said, enthusiasm rising in his voice. “They get some real corkers out there, sometimes.”

“Like Junior Joe Clanton?”

“That’s one for sure!”

“Absolutely,” Beaumont agreed. “Now, Junior Joe, he’s no Hank Williams. But who is? What I mean is, Junior Joe was never on the Opry. And you’re never going to hear one of his songs on the radio. But when word gets out he’s coming to town, you know there’ll be a full house somewhere that night.”

“Yeah. I don’t understand why he never got… big. That boy’s got a voice like… well, like nobody else.”

“Maybe that’s the way he wants it,” Beaumont said. “All men pretty much want the same things-the same kind of things, anyway-but different men, they go after it different ways. I know what Nadine has to shell out to get him to work her place. If he does that good everywhere he plays, Junior Joe’s making more money a year than some of the big stars.”

“And he gets paid in cash, right?”

“That could be part of it,” Beaumont conceded. “But I don’t think it’s the whole story. Maybe… You remember Debbie Jean Watson? Hiram Watson’s daughter? That girl won every beauty con-test in the whole damn state. Far as a lot of folks were concerned, she made Elizabeth Taylor look like a librarian. Remember what happened to her?”

“She went out to Hollywood…”

“And never came back. You know why? Not because she couldn’t act. Hell, there’s all kinds of movies where the girls don’t have to do anything but look good. You’d think she could at least get some of that kind of work. Face like hers, body that could wake the dead, she walks in a room, she owns every man in it. But the thing is, Lymon, the camera didn’t see her the way men do in real life. The way I understand it, those movie cameras, they don’t work the same as a man’s eyes do. You need a special look to make them love you. And Debbie Jean, she didn’t have it.”

“So maybe that’s Junior Joe, what you’re saying? He’s got the voice for honky-tonks, but not for records?”

“I don’t know,” Beaumont said. “All I’m saying, there’s reasons for everything.”

“What’s this got to do with-?”

“This Walker Dett, he’s kind of like Junior Joe. A honky-tonk man, moving from town to town. You want him, you call this number. They give you another number-that one’s always changing-and you just leave a message. Somebody calls you back-maybe somebody calls you back-and you make a deal. Like booking an act, see?”

“So how do people even know about him?”

“Same way they do about Junior Joe. Word of mouth. Which is why I asked Red Schoolfield, was he as good as people say? And Red, he said he was.”

“It seems like a lot of trouble just to hire a gun,” Lymon said. “There’s always been plenty of freelance firepower around. Even more, since Korea ended.”

“Plenty of horses get foaled every year, too,” Beaumont said. “But how many of them end up in the Kentucky Derby? This guy, he’s in a different class from anyone we could find around here.”

“But what if the outfit guys really aren’t planning-?”

“Don’t kid yourself,” Beaumont said, scornfully. “You think they’re just talk? They already made it clear-they’re going to get a taste of what we got. And once they get that taste, you know what happens next.

“Look, Lymon, they’re all businessmen. Just like us. They want our action. What we have to do is make it so costly for them that it’s not worth it. And this guy I’m bringing in, he’s just the man for that.”

“Beau…?” his sister said.

“All right, Cyn. I know.” Turning to Lymon, he said, “Doc says, I don’t get some sleep after I take those damn pills, they’re not going to do the job.”

As he got up to leave, Lymon asked, “Whatever happened to her?”

“Who?”

“Debbie Jean Watson. Like you said, she never came home.”

“Oh, yeah. Well, it seems there’s all different kinds of cameras. Movie cameras, she couldn’t do a thing with them. But she was good enough for the other kind.”

1959 September 29 Tuesday 01:19

The big house was quiet. The man in the wheelchair rolled himself down the hall to a master-bedroom suite, where flames in a stone fireplace cuddled rough-hewn logs. A triple-sized tub in the attached bathroom was surrounded by handrails. He backed his chair against the wall, and sat in darkness until his sister lit a thick red candle in the opposite corner.

“I suppose you’d like one of your awful cigars,” she said.

“Sure would.”

“You don’t have to always have one before-”

“There’s a lot of things I do have to do, Cyn. Some of them, I wish I didn’t. I get the chance, do something I like to do, doesn’t matter that I don’t have to do it, right?”

“You could just try something else, for once.”

“Why?”

“Because you might like it better.”

“I couldn’t like it any more than I already do.”

“You might, Beau. You used to…”

“That was when I still could-”

“Try one of these, instead,” she said, walking over to his wheelchair, a red-and-gold box in her hand. “Special cigarettes. From Turkey.”

“I… ah, what the hell, Cyn. You know I always give you what you want.”

He reached for the box of cigarettes. Cynthia took a step back. “After,” she said, caressingly. Then she knelt before the wheelchair.

1959 September 29 Tuesday 02:04

“These are good,” Beaumont said, exhaling a powerful jet of smoke.

“See?”

“Yeah. But they won’t last as long as a good-”

“So you’ll have another,” the woman said. “If you want one.”

“I just might,” Beaumont said. “Now, tell me, what’s your read on the meet we just had?”

“Red Schoolfield is a moron,” his sister said.

“I know that, Cyn. You think I didn’t get word from other places on this guy I’m bringing in? Red’s the only name the boys need to hear, that’s all.”

“Lymon’s shaky,” she said. “But that’s nothing new-he’s been weak for years. Of all the men, he’s the least likely to go the distance, should it ever come to that.”

“Yeah,” the man in the wheelchair agreed. “And I think we could be walking close to that line now. That’s why I called him aside at the end. He’s been talking to the Irishers.”

“Roy! How could you know that?”

“I know,” he assured her.

“So this stranger, you’re really bringing him here for Lymon?”

“No. What I told the men he was for, that was the truth. We talked about this, Cyn. Dioguardi’s already putting some of our accounts in a cross. Look at the jukeboxes. Every joint in the county knows they have to use the machines we send them. Now Dioguardi’s outfit’s coming around, telling them they have to use theirs. And if they don’t want to do that, they have to pay a tax to use ours. The squeeze is too tight.

“It’s our town,” the man in the wheelchair said, “so it’s our play. And that’s when this guy I’m bringing in earns his money.”

“What about Lymon?”

“I was thinking of Harley. That boy’s sharp. And he’s good with his accounts, too. But he’s never shown his stuff, not that way.”

“He’s awfully young, Beau. I don’t know…”

“Everyone who started with us, they’re my age now, Cyn. If we’re going to keep this going… after, we need a younger man. I know I’m right about Harley, he just needs more seasoning.”

“I can’t see men like Faron and Sammy-”

“-following a kid like Harley? It’s not them we have to worry about, honey. They’re old pros. And they’re not going to be working forever, either. It’s the next wave, men like Udell and Roland, that Harley’s got to win over. And all the smarts in the world won’t be enough for that-you know what he has to do.”