Andrew Vachss - Two Trains Running

“Some men just like women who’re… hefty,” she said, hands on hips. “Gloria told me-”

“Gloria may know a lot about men,” Dett said. “She might even be an expert, maybe. But she doesn’t know me. She doesn’t know anything about me.”

1959 October 08 Thursday 11:22

“So they’re both fruits,” the man with the repaired harelip said, putting down the dossier. “What can we do with that?”

“That’s a good question,” Wainwright replied. “After all, Mohr says he’s a Nazi, and they marched fags into the ovens right along with the Jews. We’ve got a tape of a speech he made. Mohr said there’s no room in the party-that’s what he calls that collection of pathetic misfits he’s got, a ‘party’-for fags. ‘A man that can’t fuck can’t fight,’ is what he said. So you’d think, we threaten to release what we’ve got, he backs off, plays along like he’s supposed to.”

“Only…?”

“Only we’ve got men inside, like I told you. Sometimes, I think all of these freak-show organizations would dry up and die if we pulled our informants out-they’re probably the only ones who ever pay their dues on time. Anyway, we had one of our assets get into a conversation with Mohr about it. The subject, I mean. Nothing confrontational, just sounding him out.

“This asset of ours, he spent time in prison-that’s like a credential to those people-so it was a natural subject for him to bring up. What our man did, he admitted butt-fucking some boys while he was doing time. But he didn’t say it like a confession; he said it like, what would you expect a real man to do when there were no women around?

“And Mohr never blinked. In fact, he said he’d do the same thing himself. He said a true member of the master race is a master of his situation, too. Fucking a man doesn’t make you a fag, only getting fucked.”

“But Mohr’s… relationship with this Gustavson fruit, that’s not because he’s in prison,” the man with the harelip protested.

“Mohr’s got a line that covers that, too. He has this whole long story about ancient Greek warriors-”

“Greeks aren’t Aryans.”

“You know that, and I know that,” Wainwright said, smiling thinly. “But these homegrown Nazis don’t. Anyway, Mohr told our guy that part of being a real man is doing whatever you want. He didn’t come right out and say he was doing… that with anyone, but it’s easy to see how he expects it to come out someday. And he’s ready for it.”

“So where’s our edge?”

“Our boy Carl. He’s not a fraud like most of them. He’s the real thing. A true believer.”

“So?”

“So that’s where the finesse comes in,” Wainwright said. “And that’s why I sent for you.”

1959 October 08 Thursday 11:29

Tussy bent at the waist and scooped a flat piece of slate from the ground in the same motion, as agile as a gymnast.

“Want to see something?” she said, holding the stone with her forefinger curled around its edge.

“Sure.”

“Come on,” Tussy said, tugging Dett toward the water’s edge with her free hand. Fireball followed at a judicious distance, eyeing the water distrustfully.

“Watch,” she said. She stood sideways to the water, her right arm extended. Then she took a step forward, twisting her hips as she whipped her arm across her body, releasing the flat piece of slate. It hit the water, skipped, flew through the air, skipped again, and continued until it finally sank, a long way from shore.

“Damn! That must have gone a couple of hundred feet,” Dett said.

“I can do long ones with just a couple of skips, or I can make it skip a whole bunch of little ones,” she said, grinning.

“Where did you learn how to do that?”

“My father taught me. I was watching him do it one day, when I was just a little girl, and I wanted to do it, too. Mom told me girls didn’t throw rocks, and I told her, well, I sure did, every time boys threw them at me. She said she’d better not catch me doing that. Then my dad said we’d make a deal. He would show me how to skip stones, the way he did, and I wouldn’t make my mother frantic by throwing them unless we were at the lake.”

“That sounds fair.”

“It was. And I kept to it. I never threw any more stones. I did throw a dish once, though.”

“At someone?”

“I sure did. At the diner, one time, this man-well, a boy really, he probably wasn’t old enough to vote-he put his hand right under my dress and kind of… squeezed me. I dumped a bowl of hot soup on him. It didn’t scald him or anything, just got him mad.

“I was going back behind the counter to tell Booker when I heard someone yell. I turned around, and he was coming right at me.

“Later, they told me he had just been coming over to apologize. But that’s not what it looked like to me then, so I just picked up a dish-a little one, like you serve pie on-and slung it right at him.”

“Did you hit him?”

“Right in the head. Or, anyway, it would have been right in his head, if he hadn’t put his arms up. He was real mad. I guess I was, too.”

“What happened?”

“Well… not much of anything, really. His friends started razzing him, and he just stalked out.”

“He never came back?”

“I never saw him again,” Tussy said. “Wanda took over my table-the one where he had been sitting. They gave her a good tip, too. I remember, because she wanted to give it all to me, but I made her split it, instead.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Walker, what’s wrong?”

“With me? Nothing. I was just-”

“Your face, it got all… I don’t know, scary. Your eyes went all… black. Like someone turned off the light behind them. It was years ago, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Let’s eat some of the sandwiches I made,” she said. “That’ll make you feel better.”

“I hope they’re tuna.”

1959 October 08 Thursday 11:36

“It’s coming to an end, Cyn.”

“What, Beau?”

“All of this. I can feel it.”

“But why? Everything’s going just like-”

“Like what, honey? Like we planned? It doesn’t feel that way to me. Not anymore. We’re riding the train, all right. But we’re passengers, not the conductor. The best we can do now is hang on and keep from falling off.”

“You’re just tired, Beau. You’ve been working so much…”

“I am tired, girl. But not from work.”

1959 October 08 Thursday 11:44

“That’s such a lovely place,” Tussy said, from the front seat of the Buick. They were parked on a slight rise, looking down the slope toward a three-story brick house surrounded by a terraced garden. A turquoise ’57 Thunderbird with a white hardtop and matching Continental Kit was visible at the side of the property, at the end of a long driveway.

“It’s pretty big, all right.”

“It’s too big,” she said, firmly. “Unless they have about a dozen kids, who needs a place like that? I wonder who lives there.”

1959 October 08 Thursday 15:09

“There’s no way to do it,” Dett said. “The house is too big. They probably have a nursemaid living in, and I’m guessing the baby sleeps on the top floor, too. We’d have to have people watching for weeks even to find an opening. Plus, it’s a long run from where they live to anyplace safe.”

“That’s it, then?” Beaumont said.

“Maybe not. Do you own any local cops?”

“We have… friends on the force,” Beaumont said, concentrating. “Men who would do us a favor, men who owe their jobs to the organization…”

“The chief?”

“Jessup? He’s a sideline man, like most of them are now. Chalk players, watching to see who’s the favorite before they make their bets.”