Andrew Vachss - Two Trains Running

Tussy went through the swinging doors, picked up the phone, said, “Walker?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to come over after I-?”

“I can’t,” he said. “I’m a long way out of town. But I thought maybe you’d like to go for a drive with me tomorrow.”

“A drive?”

“Yes. A long drive. I thought we could maybe find a nice place, have a picnic all to ourselves.”

“Oh, I’d love that. I’ll pack a-”

“No, I didn’t mean for you to have to do anything. We can pick up some-”

“Oh, don’t be silly,” Tussy said. “Just tell me what time you’re picking me up. I can be ready anytime after nine.”

1959 October 08 Thursday 04:14

“He’s going to go for it,” Lymon said, shielding the telephone receiver in one cupped hand.

“You’re sure?” Shalare said.

“He told me so. Late last night. A few hours ago.”

“Just you?” Shalare asked, glancing over at Brian O’Sullivan.

“No. He called a meeting. Faron was there, too. And Sammy. And-”

“Okay.”

“But he’s going to wait for-”

“I know,” Shalare said, and cut the connection. He turned to face his friend. “The curtain’s coming up, Brian. Now it’s time for the Italian to show everyone how good he can play his role.”

1959 October 08 Thursday 09:29

“Where are we going?” Tussy asked, brightly.

“I hear there’s a lake not so far from here…?”

“You mean Carver Lake? Did you want to go out on it?”

“Go out on it?”

“In a boat, silly. You can rent them there.”

“I wasn’t thinking of doing that.”

“Oh, good!”

“You don’t like the water?”

“I don’t mind it myself,” Tussy said. “But we’d never get Fireball into a boat.”

1959 October 08 Thursday 10:13

“Those pills really did the job,” Preacher said. “I slept like I was dead.”

“Don’t get used to them,” Darryl told him, not unkindly. “Use them on pain, real pain, and they work just fine. Use them for anything else, you end up a junkie.”

“I won’t need any more of them,” Preacher said, resolutely.

“Just make sure nobody punches you there,” Darryl said, touching the young man lightly. “Or even gives you a hug. Cracked ribs, they heal by themselves, so long as you keep them taped. But you can’t be jumping around, not even with a woman, understand?”

“Sure.”

“Just rest,” Darryl said. “We get you back home after it gets dark tonight. But, first, Brother Omar wants to talk to you.”

1959 October 08 Thursday 10:15

“What did you see?” Harley asked Lacy.

Lacy leaned over the pool table, sighted down his cue. “There was a little light, from the street, but when they closed on each other, it was like they all stepped in a puddle of ink. You couldn’t tell black from white. But one of the Hawks had a pistol, all right, a real one. We heard the shots.”

“Anybody get hit?”

“Oh yeah. We saw him fall. Then everyone started running.”

Harley picked up the orange five-ball and the black eight-ball, one in each hand. He placed them together on the green felt so that they were angled toward the corner pocket, then tapped them down with the cue ball. “Sometimes,” he said, “a combination shot, it’s the easiest one of all. It looks hard, but when everything’s lined up right, all you have to do is hit it, hit it anyplace, and it goes. You know what they call it, when the balls are lined up like that?”

“Dead,” Lacy said. “They call it dead.”

“That’s right,” Harley said. Without taking aim, he casually slammed the cue ball into the five-the eight drove straight into the corner pocket. “Just that easy.”

1959 October 08 Thursday 10:41

“I know you’re not responsible for my recent losses,” Dioguardi said. “So I wanted to tell you this personally. I’m pulling up stakes.”

“What does that mean?” Beaumont said, into the phone.

“What’s it sound like? I thought you were expecting this call.”

“It sounds pretty complicated,” Beaumont said. “And it sounds like business, too. Not the kind of business we discuss on the phone.”

“So come on over, and I’ll tell you to your-”

“It’s not exactly that easy for me to get around,” Beaumont said, stiffly. “You don’t have any problem coming out here one more time, do you? I mean, since we’re going to be partners and all.”

“Nobody said anything about partners.”

“Not until now, maybe. Is it worth an hour of your time to hear more?”

1959 October 08 Thursday 10:48

“I think one of our investments is going sour,” SAC Wainwright said.

“Which one would that be?” asked the bland-looking man seated on the other side of Wainwright’s bird’s-eye maple desk. Only the thick weal of a repaired harelip rescued his features from total anonymity.

“The Führer.”

“Him? He’s a nothing. Just some freak who likes to dress up and play Nazi.”

“No,” Wainwright said. “No, he’s not. Maybe he has only ten, twelve ‘followers,’ but he’s got something else, too. Something we helped him get. He’s got a platform.”

“I thought that was what we wanted him to have.”

“That’s right. But the chain of command is now… rethinking the whole scenario. If he does go ahead and announce he’s running for office, where do you think he’s going to get votes from?”

“Mohr? What’s he going to run for, state rep? He’ll get the… I don’t know what you’d call it, the votes from people who hate the coloreds. And the Jews, I guess.”

“Don’t forget the Catholics. They’re on Mohr’s list, too.”

“So? Those kind of people wouldn’t be voting for our guy, anyway.”

“That’s what we thought, what everyone thought, when the operation was launched. But that’s not what we’ve been hearing lately.”

“I don’t understand,” the man with the harelip said, a faint sprinkling of hostility edging his words.

“It’s the chickens coming home to roost,” Wainwright said. “During the war, men like Mohr, they were very useful, especially in dealing with union problems. Instead of focusing on things like wages and hours and working conditions-you know, stuff the Commies could organize around-they had the men ready to riot if they had to work next to coloreds on the assembly lines.

“But some people fell asleep at the switch. What our intelligence says now is, if a man like Mohr ran for office, he’d be pulling his votes from some of the same people-the same white people-who would have voted Democrat.”

“Our intelligence? Or do you mean-?”

“In-house,” Wainwright said, carefully enunciating each syllable. “And our… friends don’t know any more about it than they do about you working for us.”

“Why don’t you just tell Mohr to-?”

“We can’t tell him anything. He’s not on our payroll. And all the money we spent on his group just made him worse.”

“Then…”

“Can’t do that, either,” Wainwright said. “The last thing we need is another Jew conspiracy. We don’t want to make him a martyr. We need him neutralized. Discredited.”

“How the hell can you discredit a guy who runs around calling himself a Nazi? What’s left?”

“This,” Wainwright said, sliding a blue folder across the glossy surface of his desk. Clipped to the outside of the folder was a photograph of Carl Gustavson.

1959 October 08 Thursday 11:17

“It’s so beautiful,” Tussy said. “I was never out here before except in the summer.”

“If you’re cold…”

“Not me,” she said. “I’m pretty well insulated. Or haven’t you noticed?”

“I…”