Andrew Vachss - Two Trains Running

1959 October 05 Monday 19:13

“This is a swell car,” Tussy said, touching the overhead sun visor of the Buick with a freshly painted fingernail.

“It’s not mine,” Dett told her. “It’s just a rental. For while I’m in town.”

“That must be fun, driving different cars all the time.”

“I… I guess it could be, if you did it only once in a while. But when you do it all time…”

“When you’re home, do you have a car there?”

“I don’t really have a home.”

“How could you not have a home? Everybody has to live someplace, don’t they?”

“I suppose most people do, but me, I’m like a high-class hobo. I sleep in hotel rooms instead of boxcars, and I eat good, but I don’t have a real home of my own.”

“Well, you have a hometown, don’t you? I mean, a place you’re from.”

“I used to live in Mississippi.”

“You don’t talk like you’re from the South.”

“I haven’t been back in a long time,” Dett said. “I guess I lost the accent. Besides, I wasn’t born there. I was born in West Virginia, and we moved to Mississippi when I was a kid. Then I went in the service, and when I got out, I never went back.”

“Wow. I’ve been in the same place my whole life.”

“Locke City?”

“The same house. I was born there. I mean, I was born in the hospital, but my folks always said they bought that house for me. As soon as Mom got pregnant, they went out and got it.”

“But when they-”

“Turn up ahead,” Tussy interrupted. “The road we want is just past the next intersection, on the right.”

1959 October 05 Monday 19:29

“See?” Wainwright said to the man in the alpaca suit. “He’s harmless. We know what he’s going to do. And every single man we’ve partnered him with has come to us with the same report.”

“So you think that’s a good test?”

“Don’t you? Now, if one of the rookies didn’t come to us with one of Mack’s famous stories, then maybe we’d have something to worry about.”

“What do you think turned him?”

“He’s not turned,” Wainwright said, forcefully. “He’s nuts. There’s reports on him going back to way before I signed on.”

“Fine,” the other man said, patiently. “What’s the read on why he started giving those little lectures of his, then?”

“The McCarthy business.”

“He was in on that?” the man in the alpaca suit said, tonelessly.

“Not in on the end-game, no. But he was… told certain things, during the briefings, when we were still in the process of selecting the… technicians.”

“Christ.”

“It’s nothing to worry about,” Wainwright said, making a flicking motion at his lapel. “He was a drunk then. Everyone knew it, but there was a lot of pressure to get things moving, and there was a personnel shortage. Anyway, Dressler’s been telling his wild yarns for so long, who’d ever take him seriously? As you just heard for yourself, he always sounds exactly like what he is-a crazy old man.”

“That’s the Bureau’s take on it? Officially?”

“From the top,” Wainwright said, firmly. “And there’s no reason for you people to look at it any differently. If Mack Dressler’s a problem, he’s our problem, not yours.”

1959 October 05 Monday 19:51

“That’s it,” Tussy said, pointing through the windshield to a château-style building standing at the top of a rise. “Even the cars in the lot are all foreign. It looks like it was transplanted right from France, doesn’t it?”

“I’ve never been there,” Dett said.

“Well, neither have I, silly! Don’t you ever just imagine the way things would be, things you’ve never seen yourself?”

“Sometimes I do,” Dett said, feeling the bluestone under his tires turn to pavement as they drove up to the entrance. He got out, leaving the engine running, and walked around to open the door for Tussy. A uniformed man beat him to the job.

Tussy put her hand on Dett’s forearm as he handed the uniformed man a folded bill.

They walked to the door together. Dett stood aside to open it for Tussy, regretting the loss of her hand on his arm the second it occurred.

Inside, a man in a tuxedo checked a register, confirmed the reservation Carl had called in Saturday afternoon, then personally showed them to their table, already set for two. It had banquette-style seating. Dett stood aside as Tussy slid in first, then he settled himself next to her.

“The sommelier will be with you momentarily, monsieur,” the man in the tux said.

“Is that French for ‘waiter’?” Tussy said, biting softly into her lower lip.

“I don’t know,” Dett replied. “I was never in a place like this.”

“In your whole life?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, for goodness’ sakes, how come you picked this one, then?”

“The hotel, the one where I’m staying, they said it was the best place in town.”

“Do you always do that? Go to the best places?”

“Me? I never do. What for?”

“I don’t under-?”

“I only wanted to come here because I was with you, Tussy,” he said, heavily conscious of her name in his mouth.

“You don’t have to put on a show for me, Walker.”

“I-”

“Our wine list, monsieur,” the red-coated sommelier said, presenting a grape-colored leather packet with a gold tassel.

Dett and Tussy looked at each other. The corners of her mouth lifted slightly. Even her eyes smile, Dett thought.

“Perhaps I might be of some assistance?” the sommelier said, unctuously.

“I don’t like wine very much,” Tussy said, speaking only to Dett. “I drank some at a wedding once, and it tasted like… I don’t even know how to say it, but it wasn’t… fun.”

“I don’t like it, either,” Dett said. Turning to the sommelier, he said, “I think we’ll pass.”

“Pass, monsieur?”

“Not have any,” Dett translated.

“Oh. Well. Votre garçon-pardon, your ‘waiter’-will be with you very shortly.”

“I think we made him mad,” Tussy said, giggling.

“At least we know how to say ‘waiter’ in French now,” Dett said.

1959 October 05 Monday 20:12

“This is what you got?” Dioguardi said, holding the list Rufus had concocted in one hand, reading with a flashlight.

“That’s what I wrote down, boss. But that be ’xactly what the man had on his own paper. I copy as good as a camera. Checked it over twice, just to be sure.”

“Where did you find the paper? The one you copied this from?”

“In his room, boss. Just like you-”

“Where in his room, goddamn it?”

“Oh, I see, boss. It was in the pocket of one of his suits,” Rufus said, patting his own chest. “Nice suits he got, like the one you wearing.”

“What made you look there?”

“ ’Cause I couldn’t find nothing nowhere else, boss. Looked in his shoes, too. Sometimes, people be hiding things there.”

“That was slick thinking,” Dioguardi said, soothing over any problem he might have caused by his earlier flash of temper. You have to watch the way you talk to these people, he counseled himself. They can get all sensitive on you, clam right up.

“Thank you, boss.”

“Let me ask you another question, Rufus.” They like it when you call them by their name, not “boy” and stuff like that. “When you were looking around, did you see anything that might give you a read on the man? You know, something about his personality?”

“Well, he didn’t have no magazines, boss. That tell you something, you see what some people be looking at. You be surprised what some people keep in they rooms. No letters, neither. Had him some whiskey, but I was the one that went out and got that for him. I tell you this, though. That one, he a serious man.”