Andrew Vachss - Two Trains Running

1959 October 05 Monday 23:06

“I didn’t mean to just… let go like that,” Tussy said, her voice muffled in Dett’s chest.

“It’s okay,” Dett said. Knowing it was, trusting the knowledge.

“You really want to hear all this?”

“More than anything.”

Tussy pulled back slightly. She examined Dett’s face in the moonlight for a long minute, making no secret of what she was doing. Finally, she nodded to herself, swallowed, and went on with her story: “I got three rides, one after the other. By then, it was already afternoon. I knew I wasn’t going to get anyone to pick me up on the side roads-I didn’t even see anyone for a long time-so I walked. It was almost dark by the time I got there.

“Mr. Beaumont’s house, it’s like a castle. All stone. I never saw anything like it before, even in a book. There’s a gatehouse at the entrance to the property. Not a fence, a little house, like, where you have to stop before you can go in.

“The man there, the guard, I guess he was, he was very nice, but I told him I would only talk to Mr. Beaumont. Like I was insisting on it, isn’t that ridiculous? But, finally, he told me to move away. Not get off the property, just step back. Then he picked up a phone thing and he talked into it. After he hung up, he told me someone would be out to get me.

“I just stood there. A man came up. He was one of those… slow ones. I don’t like the names people call them, but I don’t know the polite thing to say. He just said to come with him, and I did.

“Inside the building, it was just like the outside. I mean, like a palace or something. I don’t even have the words to tell you how… stupendous it was. The foyer, where I waited, it was bigger than my whole house.

“The man who brought me, he said to just sit down-there was a hundred places you could do that-and somebody would come and get me.

“I guess I expected it would be Mr. Beaumont himself, I don’t know why. But it was a lady. She told me her name was Cynthia Beaumont, and she was Mr. Beaumont’s sister. I went with her into this place like an office, and she sat behind a desk and told me to tell her everything I came to tell Mr. Beaumont.

“That’s what I did. She had a hard face, Miss Beaumont did. Not a mean one, but hard. Like policemen have. I never saw her smile, not once, all the time I was talking. But I guess I didn’t tell her anything to be smiling about. I was crying. A lot.

“When I was all done, she said, ‘Mr. Beaumont will set things right for you, young lady.’ Then she just got up and left. In a minute, that man, the one who you could see was kind of slow, he came back, and he took me outside.

“There was a car sitting there. A big black car, like you see in gangster movies. The slow man, he said to get in. So I did. And the man in the car-a different man-drove me straight to my house, like he knew exactly where it was.”

“That’s some story.”

“That’s not even the end,” Tussy said. “After that, everything stopped. No more Welfare people, no more truant officer, no more talk about a foster home. I got my job at the diner, working for Armand. And I still did babysitting-I didn’t work nights then. One of the other girls, she was a few years older than me, she had a car, and I rode to work with her.

“I only made sixty cents an hour-fifty for the babysitting-but I got my meals free. And the tips were very good. The mortgage is thirty-seven dollars and forty-nine cents a month, so I could pay it with plenty left over, for the electricity and the oil man and everything.”

“Why do you think this Mr. Beaumont did all that for you?” Dett asked.

“Oh, I think he does it for everybody. Not the same thing, of course. But everyone in Locke City knows Mr. Beaumont is the man you go to if you have a problem. There’s only one thing that makes me sad, every time I think about it.”

“What’s that?”

“I never had the chance to thank him. Oh, I wrote him a letter, of course. But he never answered it. I never even met him. People say he’s a cripple, in a wheelchair. I wish I could do something for him. Fix him, like he fixed me. But that’s just being silly. What could someone like me ever do for a man like him?”

1959 October 05 Monday 23:12

I don’t know her, Holden Satterfield thought. I don’t know him, neither. And I never seen that car before. I have to write it down, so when Sherman- Holden’s forest-trained ears picked up the sound of another car pulling in, just on the other side of the embankment. They’re not going to do nothing. They’re just talking. I better go see who else is here…

1959 October 05 Monday 23:14

“All right, tell me,” Kitty’s voice floated out the car window.

I know this one, Holden said to himself. She’s been here before. In that pretty red Chevy. But it’s a different car tonight. A Cadillac. She must be one of those girls who…

“Wednesday night, there’s going to be a rumble. In that big lot on Halstead.”

“Harley, what Uriah does has nothing to do with me. With any of our family. He hasn’t lived at home for-”

“You know people call him ‘Preacher’? You know he’s the President of the South Side Kings?”

“Yes. Yes, we all know. Everyone in town knows. Every family has its disgrace. That’s why my father-”

“This won’t be one of those kiddie rumbles they’re used to having, Kitty. Not this time.”

“What are you saying?”

“The Golden Hawks, the ones your brother’s gang is going to clash with, they have guns. Real guns.”

“You mean like the army?”

“No. Pistols. But real ones. Your brother, he’s the leader. He’s got to go first. Walk right up to the leader of the other side and start throwing. Only, your brother, he’s going to be expecting bicycle chains and tire irons and baseball bats… stuff like that. If he walks up on a man holding a pistol-a real pistol, Kitty, not a little zip gun-he’s going to get killed.”

“Oh my God.”

“You see why I had to tell you? I know you and your brother don’t-”

“Uriah got shot once. In one of those rumbles. He didn’t even have to go to the hospital, he said.”

“That was with a zip gun, Kitty. They only take twenty-two shorts, and most of the time they don’t even-”

“I don’t want to know about guns! I hate them. I don’t… Why do you even know how they… how gangs fight, and everything?”

“That was me, once,” Harley said. “I didn’t know it then, but gangs, they’re like the minor leagues. In baseball, I mean. The big boys, they have scouts. They know what they’re looking for. And when I got picked, that’s when I got my chance. The chance for everything I’ve been telling you about, Kitty.”

“But you work for Royal Beaumont. How could he-?”

“It doesn’t matter. Not now, anyway. What matters now is, you’ve got to tell your brother.”

“What good would that do?”

“Do? It would save his damn life, if he called this off.”

“Harley, sometimes I don’t know where you were raised. If you were in a gang yourself, you know my brother could never do anything like that.”

“Then he should use different-I don’t know-tactics.”

“Like what?”

“Maybe, while the Hawks are going over to the lot, your brother’s gang sneaks over to their clubhouse and waits for them. Then, when they come back, ambush them or something.”

“Wait around in that neighborhood? They’d all end up in jail.”

“So? That would be the best thing, wouldn’t it? Let someone call the cops, and say a lot of… Negroes are congregating. If your brother and his boys have to spend the night in jail, it’s a lot better than being dead.”

“I… I’ll tell him. About the guns. I can cut lunch tomorrow and go over there. But I don’t know if he’ll-”