Hot Springs / Жарким кровавым летом (by Stephen Hunter, 2000) - аудиокнига на английском

Hot Springs Stephen Hunter Part One Wet Heat Chapter 1 Earl's daddy was a sharp-dressed man. Each morning he shaved carefully with a well-stropped razor, buttoned a clean, crackly starched white shirt, tied a black string tie in a bow knot. Then he pulled up his suspenders and put on his black suit coat--he owned seven Sunday suits, and he wore one each day of his adult life no matter the weather, all of them black, heavy wool from the Sears, Roebuck catalogue--and slipped a lead-shot sap into his back pocket, buckled on his Colt Peacemaker and his badge, slipped his Jesus gun inside the cuff of his left wrist, adjusted his large black Stetson, and went to work sheriffing Polk County, Arkansas. But at this particular moment Earl remembered the ties. His father took pride in his ties, tying them perfectly, so that the knot was square, the bows symmetrical and the two ends equal in length. "Always look your best," he'd say, more than once, with the sternness that expressed his place in the world. "Do your best, look your best, be your best. Never let up. Never let go. Live by the Book. That's what the Lord wants. That's what you must give." So one of the useless things Earl knew too much about--how to clear the jam on a Browning A-3 when it choked with volcanic dust and the Japs were hosing the position down would be another--was the proper tying of a bow tie. And the bow tie he saw before him, at the throat of a dapper little man in a double-breasted cream-colored suit, was perfectly tied. It was clearly tied by a man who loved clothes and knew clothes and took pleasure in clothes. His suit fitted him well and there was no gap between his collar and the pink flesh of his neck nor between his starched white shirt and the lapel and collar of his cream jacket. He was a peppy, friendly little man, with small pink hands and a downhomey way to him that Earl knew well from his boyhood: it was a farmer's way, a barber's way, a druggist's way, maybe the feed store manager's way, friendly yet disciplined, open so far and not any farther. "You know," Harry Truman said to him, as Earl stared uncertainly not into the man's powerful eyes behind his rimless glasses, but at the perfect knot of his bow tie, and the perfect proportioning of the twin loops at either end of it, and the one unlooped flap of fabric, in a heavy silk brocade, burgundy, with small blue dots across it, "I've said this many a time, and by God I will say it again. I would rather have won this award than hold the high office I now hold. You boys made us so proud with what you did. You were our best and you never, ever let us down, by God. The country will owe you as long as it exists." Earl could think of nothing to say, and hadn't been briefed on this. Remarks, in any case, were not a strong point of his. On top of that, he was more than slightly drunk, with a good third of a pint of Boone County bourbon spread throughout his system, giving him a slightly blurred perspective on the events at which he was the center. He fought a wobble that was clearly whiskey-based, swallowed, and tried to will himself to remain ramrodded at attention. No one would notice how sloshed he was if he just kept his mouth closed and his whiskey breath sealed off. His head ached. His wounds ached. He had a stupid feeling that he might grin. "Yes, sir, First Sergeant Swagger," said the president, "you are the best this country ever brought forth." The president seemed to blink back a genuine tear. Then he removed a golden star from a jeweler's box held by a lieutenant colonel, stepped forward and as he did so unfurled the star's garland of ribbon. Since he was smallish and Earl, at six one, was largish, he had to stretch almost to tippytoes to loop the blue about Earl's bull neck. The Medal of Honor dangled on the front of Earl's dress blue tunic, suspended on its ribbon next to the ribbons of war displayed across his left breast, five Battle Stars, his Navy Cross, his Unit Citations and his Good Conduct Medal. Three service stripes dandied up his lower sleeves. A flashbulb popped, its effect somewhat confusing Earl, making him think ever so briefly of the Nambu tracers, which were white-blue unlike our red tracers. A Marine captain solemnized the moment by reading the citation: "For gallantry above and beyond the call of duty, First Sergeant Earl Lee Swagger, Able Company, First Battalion, Twenty-eighth Marines, Fifth Marine Division, is awarded the Medal of Honor for actions on Iwo Jima, D plus three, at CharlieDog Ridge, February 22, 1945." Behind the president Earl could see Howlin' Mad Smith and Harry Schmidt, the two Marine generals who had commanded the boys at Iwo, and next to them James Forrestal, secretary of the navy, and next to him Earl's own pretty if wan wife, Erla June, in a flowered dress, beautiful as ever, but slightly overwhelmed by all this. It wasn't the greatness of the men around her that scared her, it was what she saw still in her husband's heart. The president seized his hand and pumped it and a polite smattering of applause arose in the Map Room, as it was called, though no maps were to be seen, but only a lot of old furniture, as in his daddy's house. The applause seemed to play off the walls and paintings and museum like hugeness of the place. It was July 30, 1946. The war was over almost a year. Earl was no longer a Marine. His knee hardly worked at all, and his left wrist ached all the time, both of which had been struck by bullets. He still had close to thirty pieces of metal in his body. He had a pucker like a mortar crater on his ass--the 'Canal. He had another pucker in his chest, just above his left nipple-- Tarawa, the long walk in through the surf, the Japs shooting the whole way. He worked in the sawmill outside Fort Smith as a section foreman. Sooner or later he would lose a hand or an arm. Everyone did. "So what's next for you, First Sergeant?" asked the president. "Staying in the Corps? I hope so." "No sir. Hit too many times. My left arm don't work so good." "Damn, hate to lose a good man like you. Anyhow, there's plenty of room for you. This country's going to take off, you just watch. Just like the man said, You ain't seen nothing yet, no sir and by God. Now we enter our greatness and I know you'll be there for it. You fought hard enough." "Yes sir," said Earl, too polite to disagree with a man he admired so fervently, the man who'd fried the Jap cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and saved a hundred thousand American boys in the process. But disagree he did. He couldn't go back to school on this thing they called the GI Bill. He just couldn't. He could have no job selling or convincing. He could not teach because the young were so stupid and he had no patience, not anymore. He couldn't work for a man who hadn't been in the war. He couldn't be a policeman because the policemen were like his daddy, bullies with clubs who screamed too much. The world, so wonderful to so many, seemed to have made no place in it for him. "By the way," said the president, leaning forward, "that bourbon you're drinking smells fine to me. I don't blame you. Too many idiots around to get through the day without a sip or two. This is the idiot capital of the world, let me tell you. If I could, if I didn't have to meet with some committee or other, I'd say, come on up to the office, bring your pint, and let's have a spell of sippin'!" He gave Earl another handshake, and beamed at him with those blue eyes so intense they could see through doors. But then in a magic way, men gently moved among them and seemed to push the president this way, and Earl that. Earl didn't even see who was sliding him through the people, but soon enough he was ferried to the generals, two men so strong of face and eye they seemed hardly human. "Swagger, you make us proud," one said. "First Sergeant, you were a hell of a Marine," said the other. "You were one goddamned hell of a Marine, and if I could, I'd rewrite the regs right now and let you stay in. It's where you belong. It's your home." That was Smith, whom many called a butcher or a meat-grinder, but who breached the empire on Marine bodies because there was no other way to do it. "Thank you, sir," said Earl. "This here thing, it's for all the boys who didn't make it back." "Wear it proudly, First Sergeant," said Old Man Schmidt. "For their sakes." Then Earl was magically whisked away again and, like a package at the end of a conveyor belt, he was simply dumped into nothingness. He looked around, saw Junie standing by herself. She was radiantly pretty, even if a little fearful. She had been a junior at Southeast Missouri State Teachers College, in Cape Girardeau, he the heavily decorated Marine master sergeant back on a bond drive before the big push for the Jap home islands. She was a beautiful girl and he was a beautiful man. They met in Fort Smith, at a USO dance, and got married that weekend. They had four days of delirious love, and then he went back to the war, killed another hundred or so Japs, got hit twice more, lost more men, and came home. "How're you doing?" he said. "Oh, Pm fine," she said. "I don't want anybody paying me any attention at all. This is the day for the hero, not the hero's wife." "I told you, Junie, I ain't no hero. I'm just the lucky sonofabitch who walked away from the shell that killed the ten other guys. They're giving me the medal of luck today, that's all." "Earl, you are a hero. You should be so proud." "See, most people, let me tell you. They don't know nothing. They don't know how it was. What they think it was, what they're giving me this thing for, see, it had nothing to do with nothing." "Don't get yourself upset again." Earl had a problem with what the world thought as opposed to what he knew to be true. It was always getting him into trouble. It seemed few of the combat men had made it back, but because he was a big hero people were always stopping him to tell him what a great man he was and then to lecture him on their ideas about the war, So he would listen politely but a little bolt of anger would begin to build until he'd be off and some ugliness had happened. "You can't be so mad all the time," she said. "I know, I know. Listen to me. You'd think the Japs had won the way I carry on. When is this mess going to be over?" He slipped around behind Junie and used her as cover, reaching inside his tunic to his belt line and there, where Daddy had carried his sap for putting down the unruly nigger or trashy white boy, he carried a flask of Boone County bourbon, for putting down unruly thoughts. He got it out smoothly, unscrewed its lid, and in seconds, with the same easy physical grace that let him hit running targets offhand at two hundred yards with a PFC's Garand, had it up to his lips. The bourbon hit like bricks falling from the roof. That effect he enjoyed, the impact, the blurred vision, the immediate softening of all things that rubbed at him. "Earl," she said. "You could get in trouble" Who would care? he thought. A young Marine captain without a hair on his chin slid next to them. "First Sergeant," he muttered, "in about five minutes the car will take you back to the hotel. You'll have a couple hours to pack and eat. The Rock Island leaves at 2000 hours from Union Station. Your stateroom is all reserved, but you should be at the train by 1945 hours. The car will pick you and your luggage up at 1900 hours. Squared away?" "Yes sir," said Earl to the earnest child. The boy sped away. "You'd think they could supply you with a combat fellow," said Junie. "I mean, after what you did for them." "He's all right. He's just a kid. He don't mean no harm." In fact the young man reminded him of the too many boys who'd served under him, and never came back, or if they came back, came back so different, so mangled, it would have been easier on them if they hadn't come back at all. "You should be happy, Earl. I can tell, you're not." "I'm fine," he said, feeling a sudden need for another gigantic blast of bourbon. "I just need to go to the bathroom. Do you suppose they have them in a fine place like this?" "Oh, Earl, they have to. Everybody goes to the bathroom!" A Negro servant was standing near the door, and so Earl made his inquiry and was directed through a hall and through a door. He pulled it closed behind him, snapped the lock. The toilet was of no use to him at all, but he unbuttoned his tunic and slid the bourbon out, and had a long swallow, fire burning down the whole way, rattling on the downward trip. It whacked him hard. He took another and it was done. Damn! He took a washcloth, soaked it in cold water and wiped down his forehead, almost making the pain there go away for a bit, but not quite. When he hung the washrag up, the pain returned. He dropped the flask into the wastebasket. Then he reached around and pulled out his .45 automatic. I carried this here gun on Iwo Jima and before that on Tarawa and Guadalcanal and Saipan and Tinian. He'd done some killing with it too, but more with his tommy gun. Still, the gun was just a solid piece on his belt that somehow kept him sane. The gun, for him, wasn't a part of death, it was a piece of life. Without the gun, you were helpless. This one, sleek, with brown plastic grips and nubby little sights, was loaded. With a strong thumb, he drew back the hammer till it clicked. He looked at himself in the mirror: the Marine hero, with the medal around his neck, the love of his country, the affection of his wife, with a full life ahead of him in the glamorous modern 1940s! He put the gun against his temple and his finger caressed the trigger. It would take so little and he could just be with the only men he cared about or could feel love for, who were most of them resting under crosses on shit-hole islands nobody ever heard of and would soon forget. "Earl," came Junie's voice. "Earl, the car is here. Come on now, we have to go." Earl decocked the automatic, slipped it back into his belt, pulled the tunic tight over it, buttoned up and walked out. Chapter 2 They walked out to the car in the West Portico of the White House. "Your last official duty as a United States Marine," said the young captain, who seemed a good enough kid. "You should be very proud. You accomplished so much. I should salute you, First Sergeant. You shouldn't salute me." "Son, don't you worry about it," Earl said. "You'll git your chance, if I know the world." They reached the car, an olive-drab Ford driven by a PFC. The captain opened the door for Earl and Junie. Suddenly Earl was seized with a powerful feeling. When he got in the car, the door slammed shut, then it was all over, forever--that part of his life. A new part would start, and where it would lead he had no idea. He was not a man without fear--he'd lived with fear every day for three years in the Pacific--but the fear he felt now was different. It wasn't a fear that threatened to overwhelm you suddenly, to drive you into panic, into letting your people down, that sometimes came under intense fire. It was deeper; it was fear down in the bones or even the soul, it was the fear of the lost. It came from faraway, a long time ago. He shook his head. The air was oppressive, like the air of the islands. The huge wedding cake of the White House office building rose on the left; around, the green grass and trees moldered in the heat. Beyond the gate, black fleets of cars rolled up and down Pennsylvania. Earl grabbed Junie. He held her hard and kissed her harder. "I love you," he said. "I really, truly do. You are the best goddamn thing ever happened to me." She looked at him with surprise, her lipstick smeared. "I can't drive back," he said. "I just can't. Not now. I don't feel very good. Tell the kid. I'll see you tonight in the room, before we leave for the train." "Earl. You'll be drinking again." "Don't you worry about nothing," he said with fake cheerfulness. "I'm going to take care of everything." If there was pain on her face, he didn't pause to note it. He turned, reached to his neck and removed the berib-boned medal, wadded it and stuffed it in his pocket. He reached the street, turned to the left and was soon among the anonymous crowds of a hot Washington late afternoon. REDS KILL 4 MARINES IN CHINA, a headline on the Star screamed. Nobody cared. "UNTOLD MILLIONS" LOST IN WAR FRAUD the Times Herald roared. Nobody paid any attention. NATS DROP TWO yelled the Daily News. OPA OKS 11% PRICE HIKE announced the Post. Earl pushed his way through it all, among anonymous men in straw fedoras and tan suits and women in flower print dresses with their own huge hats. Everybody seemed so colorful. In his years in the Marine Corps he had adjusted to a basically monochromatic universe: OD and khaki and that was it. Yet America was awaking from its long commitment to wartime austerity, the windows were suddenly full of goods, you could buy gas again, makeup on the women was expected, and the men wore gay yellow ties against their white shirts, as if to speak to a springtime of hope. The medals on Earl's chest and the darkness of his deep blue tunic excited no attention; everybody was familiar with uniforms and the medals meant little. They'd seen heroes. Many of them were heroes. He joined their anonymity, just another nobody meandering up Connecticut toward who knows what. Soon enough he came to a splurge of freedom, which was Farragut Square, with its trees, its benches, its stern admiral staring toward the White House. Pigeons sat and shat upon the naval officer and young men and women sat on the park benches, talking of love and great hopes for tomorrow. A low growl reached the park, and people looked up, pointing. "Jets!" A formation of the miracle planes flew high overhead, southwest to northeast, each of the four trailing a white feathery contrail, the sunlight flashing off the sleek silver fuselages. Earl had no idea what specific type of plane they were and found the concept of a silver airplane fairly ridiculous. In the Pacific, the Japs would zero a bright gleamy bird like that in a second, and bring it down. Planes were mottled brown or sea-blue, because they didn't want you seeing them until they saw you. They weren't miracles at all, but beaten-up machines for war, and there were never enough of them around. But these three P--whatever's blazed overhead like darts, trailing a wall of sound, pulling America toward something new. Pretty soon, it was said, they'd be actually going faster than sound. "Bet you wish you had them babies with you in Berlin," a smiling bald guy said to him. ' You'd have cooked Hitler's ass but good, right, Sarge?" "That's right," said Earl. He walked ahead, the echo of the jets still trembling in his ear. The walls of the city closed in around him, and the next exhibit in the freak show of civilian life was something in a window just ahead, which had drawn a crowd. It appeared to be a movie for free streaming out of a circle atop a big radio. On its blue-gray screen a puppet jigged this way and that. "Look at that, sir," said a Negro woman in a big old hat with roses on it and a veil, "that's the television. It's radio with pictures." "Don't that beat all?" said Earl. "Yes sir," she said. "They say we-all goin' own one, and see picture shows in our own homes. Won't have no reason to go out to the movies no more. You can just stay home for the picture show. They goin' show the games there too, you know, the baseball and that like. Though who'd stay home to see the Senators, I declare I don't know." "Well, ma'am," he said, "the president himself told me it's just going to git better and better." "Well, maybe so. Wish my Billy was here to see it." "I'm sorry, ma'am. The war?" "Yes sir. Someplace in Italy. He wasn't no hero, like you, he didn't win no medals or nothing. He was only a hospital orderly. But he got kilt just the same. They said it was a land mine." "I am very sorry, ma'am." "Hope you kilt a lot of them Germans." "No, ma'am, I did fight the Japanese, and I had to kill some of them." "Same thing," she said bitterly, then forced a broken smile upon him, and walked away. Billy's death on some faraway Neapolitan byway stayed with Earl. Billy was part of the great adventure, one of the hundreds of thousands who'd died. Now, who cared? Not with jet planes and the television. It was all going away. Get your mind off it, he told himself. He was feeling too much again. He needed a drink. He walked along until he found stairs that led downward, which he followed into a dark bar. It was mostly empty and he bellied up to the edge, feeling the coolness of the air. A jukebox blared. It was that happy one about going for a ride on the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe. That damn Judy sounded like she was about to bust a gut with pleasure. A train ride. A big old fancy train ride. Back in Ohio where I come from I've done a lot of dreamin' and I've traveled some, But I never thought I'd see the day when I ever took a ride on the Santa Fe. The only trains he remembered took him to wars or worse. Now he had a few hours that would take him back to a train ride to--well, to who knew what? "Poison, Sarge? Name it, and it's yours. One drink, on me for the USMC. Made a man out of my son. Killed him, but made a man out of him." It was the bartender. "Sorry about your boy," said Earl, confronting another dead man. "Nah. Only good thing he ever did was stand up to the Japs at Okinawa. You there?" "Missed that one." "Well, he was a bad kid, but he had one good day in his life, when he didn't run from the goddamned Japs. Marines taught him that. I never could. God bless the Marines. What'll it be?" "You carry Boone County?" "Never heard of it." "Must just be an Arkansas liquor. Okay, I'll try that Jim Beam. With a bit of water. Some ice." "Choo choo ch'boogie," said the barkeep, mixing and serving the drink. "Here's your train, right on time." Earl took a powerful sip, feeling the muted whack of the booze. It made his fears and his doubts vanish. He felt now he was the equal of the world. "No, he wasn't no good," said the bartender. "Don't know why he was such a yellow kid. I rode him but good, but he ran from everything. How he ended up in--" "Mister," said Earl, "I much appreciate this here free drink. But if you say a Marine who stood and fought on Okinawa was no good one more time, I'm going to jump over this bar and make you eat this glass, then the bar, then all the stools." The bartender, a very big man, looked at him, and read the dark willingness to issue endless violence in Earl's eyes, and swallowed. Earl was a big man too, made almost of leather from his long hard years under a Pacific sun. He was dark and glowery, with leathery pouches under his eyes from too much worry, but he had a bull's neck and those eyes had the NCO's ability to look through you and pin you to the wall behind. His jet-black hair was close-cropped but stood up like barbs of wire on his skull. Under his tunic, his rangy body, though full of holes, was well packed with lean muscle. His veins stood out. His voice didn't speak so much as rumble or roar along, like the Santa Fe. Heated up, he would be a fearsome sight and then some. When he spoke in a certain tone, all men listened, as did the bartender now. The bartender stepped back a bit. "Look, here's a twenty," Earl said, peeling off his last big bill. "You put the bottle on the bar, then you go be with some other folks. You can tell them how bad your son was. You can't say it to me." The bottle came; the bartender disappeared. Earl worked on the bottle; the bottle worked on Earl. By the time it was a third gone, he was happy: he had forgotten who he was and why he was there. But by the time he reached the halfway point again, he remembered. Choo choo ch'boogie, came another train song off the juke, driving rhythms, so full of cheer and hope it made him shiver. I just love the rhythm of the clickety-clack Take me right back to the track, Jack. Trains again. What he remembered about trains was they took him to ships and then the ships took him out into the sea. He remembered the 'Canal, that time it got to hand-to-hand, and he and his young boys on the ridge were fighting the Japs with entrenching tools and knives and rocks and rifle butts. There was no ammo because the planes hadn't come in weeks. The Japs were crazy then; they came in waves, one after the other, knowing the Marines were low on ammo, and just traded lives for ammo until the ammo was gone. Then it was throat-and-skull time, an exertion so total it left you dead or, if you made it through, sick at yourself for the men whose heads you'd split open, or whose bellies you ripped out, or who you'd kicked to death. And you looked around and saw your own people, just as morally destroyed. What you did for something called your country that night! How you killed! How you gave your soul up! Then, Tarawa. Maybe the worst single moment of the whole thing: oh, that walk in was a bitch. There was no place to go. The bullets splashed through the water like little kids in an Arkansas lake, everywhere. Tracers looped low overhead, like ropes of light, flickery and soft. You were so low in the water you couldn't see the land or your own ships behind you. You were wet and cold and tired and if you slipped you could drown; your legs turned to lead and ice but if you stopped you died and if you went on you died. You tried to keep your people together, keep them moving, keep them believing. But all around you, men just disappeared until it seemed you were alone on the watery surface of the planet and the Japs were a nation hell-bent on one sole thing: killing you. Earl blinked away a shudder, took another pure gulp of this here Jim Beam, as it was called. Fine stuff. He looked at his watch. He had a trip upcoming on the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe, but where it would take him and why, he couldn't remember. Iwo, in the bunker. That he would never forget. He killed his way along Charlie-Dog. His flamethrower people hadn't made it. The captain was hit. There was no cover, because you couldn't dig into the ash; it just caved in on you. He jumped into a nest, hosed it with his tommy. The bullets flew and bit into the Japs. It blew them up, tore them apart. Earl had blood on his face, Jap blood. But he kept going, nest to nest, shooting up the subsidiary positions until he'd finally killed his way to the main blockhouse. It was secured from within. On top of that he had no weapon, as the tommy had become so fouled with ash and blood it had given up. He could hear the Nambus working from the other side of the blockhouse. He raced back to the nest he'd just cleared, threw a Jap aside and pulled three grenades off his belt. The Jap things, you banged them to arm them. He grabbed them, ran to the metal blockhouse door, banged them hard and dumped them. He was back dragging the Nambu out from under more dead Japs when the triple concussion came. The next part was hard to remember, but also hard to forget. He was in the blockhouse. Give this to the Japs, goddamn were they soldiers. They fought to the end, pouring fire out off Charlie-Dog, killing every moving tiling they saw. They would die to kill: that was their code. Earl jumped from room to room, or rather chamber to chamber, for the place had a low, dark insect-nest quality to it, and it stunk: shit, blood, food, fear, sweat, old socks, rot, rice. He jumped into a chamber and hosed it down. But he didn't know the Nambu was loaded up with tracers. When he fired in the smoky darkness, the blue-white tracers tore through all, struck hard surfaces and bounced and bounced again, crazed and jagged. Each squirt on the trigger unleashed a kind of neon structure of pure light, blue-gray, flickery, flung out to embrace the Japs, far more power with the careening bullets than he'd have thought possible. It was like making lightning. He raced from chamber to chamber, pausing to change magazines on the hot thing in his hands. Odd gun: the mag locked in top, not on the bottom where it would make some sense. It was no BAR; only guys who dreamed up samurai swords and kamikaze planes and human-wave attacks would have cooked up such a silly, junky thing. It even looked slant-eyed. But it worked, always. In the last room, they waited for him with the predator's eerie calmness. They were out of ammo. He didn't care. They didn't care. What happened they expected, as did he. They faced him; one had a sword out and high, but no room to maneuver in what amounted to a sewer tunnel, illuminated by a gun slit. He sprayed them with light and they danced as their own 6.5s tore through them. When they were down, he changed magazines, sprayed them again, unleashing the lightning. Then he threw the hot little machine gun away. Earl looked at what he had wrought: a massacre. It was too easy. The Japs were committed elsewhere, their eardrums blown out by the shelling, and the gunfire, their sense of duty absolute. He merely executed them in a sleet of fiery light. He heard a moan from the last chamber and thought: one is alive. But then he heard a clank, meaning that a grenade had been primed, so out he spilled, maybe a tenth of a second before the detonation which shredded the last of the wounded. He returned to the surface, clambering for breath. Men from his platoon had made it up Charlie-Dog now that the blockhouse guns were silenced, but if they spoke to him, he didn't hear, for his ears too were temporarily ruined by the ringing. "Burn it out," he screamed. One of the flamethrower teams disinfected the blockhouse with a cleansing twothousand-degree ray of pure heat; the radiance drove them all back. The captain was saying, Goddamn he never saw nothing like it, except the captain was from something called Yale and so what he said in that odd little-girl voice of his was "I don't believe I have ever seen a more splendid example of field-expedient aggression." Or something like that. Earl and his bottle took one more dance. It hit him again, and drove the thoughts out of his head, but then the thoughts came back again. What was bothersome was the faces. They were vanishing. In one melancholy afternoon in the hospital on Guam after the bad wound on Iwo, he'd done the arithmetic, learned its savage truth. He had been a sergeant in the Second Marines, then a platoon sergeant also in the Second, and the company gunny sergeant in the Second. When the new Fifth Marine Division was organized in September 1944, he'd been assigned to its 28th Regiment and promoted to first sergeant of Able Company. He had a total of 418 young Marines under him and had been directly responsible to three lieutenants, a captain and finally a major. Of those, 229 had been killed outright. The rest had been wounded, including himself, seven times, three times savagely. None of the officers survived. Of his NCO friends with whom he served at the Marine Detachment in Panama on December 7,1941, he was the only survivor. Of the company professionals, including officers, from that day, he was the only survivor. Of his first platoon in the Second Marines, on Guadalcanal, he was one of ten survivors; of his company that went into the water off Tarawa, 232 men, he was one of thirty-three survivors; of his company of 216 men that hit the black-ash beach at Iwo, he was one of 111 survivors, but he had no idea how many of them had been wounded seriously. On Tinian and Saipan the numbers were a little better, but only by the standards of the Pacific war. He knew he should not be alive, not by any law of math, and that the medals he had been awarded were much more for the brute violation of the numbers than for any kind of heroism. Manila John Basilone, the bravest man he ever knew, won the Medal of Honor on a ridge on the 'Canal, stopping a Jap attack with a .30 water-cooled and a fighting spirit and nothing else; he made a bond tour, became a celebrity, married a pretty gal, and was blown to pieces in the black ash of Iwo that first day. Across from the bar Earl saw himself in a mirror, his eyes black as the black in floodwaters as they rise and there's no high ground left. His cheeks were drawn, and his gray lips muttered madly. He swallowed, blinked, and opened his eyes to see himself again. He saw an empty man, a man so tired and lost he hardly was worth the oxygen he consumed, or the bourbon he drank. He felt so unworthy. You ain't no damned goody his father's voice reached him, and he was in agreement with the old man. I ain't no damned good. Any one of those men was better than me. Why in hell ain't I with them? Earl took another whack on the bourbon, finished it, looked at his watch. His vision was so blurry he couldn't read it, but given the amount of alcohol he'd drunk, he'd probably missed the train back to Fort Smith, and there'd be all kinds of hell to pay. He stood up uncertainly, and walked across the bar, and found the men's room. He went in, pulled the door shut, locked the door, took a leak, took out his .45 and thumbed back the hammer. At no time in the war did he feel as disconsolate as he did now. It wasn't right that he was alive and so many others were dead, and that he had a medal in his pocket that certified him as a HE-RO and they had nothing but white crosses on islands no one would ever visit and would soon forget. He put the pistol to his temple, felt its pressure, circular. His finger touched the trigger, then pressed it. The gun didn't fire. It shivered as it snapped, the small vibration of a hammer falling on a firing pin that leaped forward to strike nothingness. He looked at it, then slipped the slide back a notch, saw that the chamber was empty. He removed the magazine, and found six .45 cartridges, but someone had very carefully taken out the mag and ejected the chambered shell, then replaced the mag. He knew he'd loaded it that morning. Did she do it? She didn't know nothing about guns. Who did it? Maybe he forgot to chamber it? What the hell was going on? He reloaded, this time threw the slide to fill the chamber and cock it, ease the hammer back to its seating. He stuffed the gun back in his belt, drew his tunic tight, and unlocked the door. The lobby of the Carlton Hotel was bright and full of swirling beauty. The light seemed to dance, as if the walls were made of glass. Maybe the VJ Day party was still going on. It was full of pretty young women and their swains, all of them so excited about television and jet planes they could hardly stand it. Earl slipped through the revelers; everyone was in a tuxedo or a formal gown and gay young things rushed this way and that, hungry for tomorrow to get here. The boys all were shaven and looked soft; he knew he shouldn't hate them, but he did, and he let that hatred bore through his blur and he felt he needed another drink. Not a fifth of bourbon, but just something to make the pain in his head go away, like a whiskey sour or a gin and tonic or a mint julep. He glanced at his Hamilton and discovered to his relief that he hadn't missed the train; it wasn't yet 7:00. He had time for-"Sergeant Swagger?" He turned. Two men stood beside him. One was a handsome, polished charmer, with a gloss of black hair and movie star teeth, somewhere in his thirties. The other was much older, a gloomy bag of a man, with a sad leathery face and a slow way of moving. He had long arms that his suit only partially disguised and the most gigantic hands Earl had ever seen on a man. His fedora was pushed back carelessly, and his white shirt was gray and spotted. But his eyes were so wary and quick they made Earl think of Howlin' Mad Smith's, or some other old, combat-hard Marine. Earl saw a strap across his chest, under the tie, that indicated the presence of a shoulder holster and from the strain it showed, he knew it carried a big gun. "Sergeant Swagger," said the first, in tones that Earl then related to his native state, "we've been waiting here for you. Your wife is upstairs packing. She said you'd be along directly." "What is all this, sir?" said Earl. "Sergeant Swagger, we've come to discuss a job." "A job? I got a job. I work in a goddamned sawmill." "No, a job in law enforcement." "Who the hell are you?" "My name is Fred C. Becker and a week ago I won a special election as prosecuting attorney for Garland County, Arkansas." "Hot Springs?" said Earl. "Now what would you want with me?" "Hot Springs is the wildest town in America. We have gamblers, we have gunmen, we have whores, we have more crooks than you can shake a stick at and many of them are wearing uniforms and carrying guns. All run by New York mobsters. Well, sir, I'm going to clean up Sodom and Gomorrah and I'm looking for a good man. Everyone I talk to says you're the best." Chapter 3 The city's tallest skyscraper was a spire of art deco, byzantine, glamorous, bespeaking the decadent pleasures of an empire. And from the apartment on the top floor, the empire was ruled. "It's very New York, eh? I mean, really, one must agree. It's very New York," our proud host said to his number-one guest. "You can say that again," said the guest. They were quite a pair. One, with the English accent, was in his mid-fifties, five foot ten, solid beef, with a handsome swarthy face. That was our host. He wore an elegantly fitted white dinner jacket, with a rose cummerbund. It fit him like a coating of thick cream poured by a delighted milkmaid. A carnation sparkled in his lapel. His hair was slicked back, and he smoked a cigarette in a holder. He wore a dapper little mustache, just a smudge of one, to suggest not merely masculinity but a certain savoir faire in affairs of business and, as well, the heart. In his other hand, he held a thin-stemmed martini glass. Onyx cuff links gleamed from his cuffs. "Me," said the other, "now I'm not saying nothing against this, you understand. It's beautiful. It's very beautiful. But I'm a homier guy. I got a place that's what they call Tudor. It looks like a king from your country could have lived there." "Yes, old man. I know the style. Quite appropriate, I would say. It's actually named for a king's family." "Yeah," said the guest, "that's me all the way. A real fucking king." He smiled, showing a blast of white teeth. He was ruddier. He glowed with animal vitality. He wore expertly fitted clothes too, but of a sportier nature, a creamy linen sport coat over a crisp blue oxford shirt, open at the collar. He wore mohair slacks and dazzlingly white bucks. An ascot, a little burst of burgundy silk, completed the ensemble, and in his strong fingers, he clutched a fine Cubano. "But this is okay," he said again. "It's real swank." He was shorter, more muscular, tanner, more athletic. He had big hands, wide shoulders, a linebacker's pug body. His eyes were especially vivid, as he gobbled the room up. He was not stupid, but he was not really smart either. "Do you know who did it?" asked his host. "Did it?" "The decor. You hire a decorator. You just don't do it yourself. One could never come close." "Oh," said the sport. "Yeah, a decorator." "Donald Deskey. The same fellow who did the interiors at Radio City Music Hall. Hence, the wood, the high gloss, the art moderne, the streamline. Why, Cole Porter would be comfortable here." He gestured with his cigarette holder, and his apartment gleamed before him, cherrywood walls dusky in the glow of muted golden lighting from torcheres and sconces, black-lacquered furniture supported by struts of gleaming metal that could have been pried off the 20th Century Limited. Silk-brocaded drapes billowed in the breeze from die terrace door, and outside the lights of the city sparkled, infinitely tempting. In the corner of the cherrywood cathedral, a small band played, and a Negro singer with marcelled hair crooned into a microphone. It was up-tempo, smooth as silk, very seductive, about the glories of Route 66 that you'd encounter on the way to Califor-ni-ay. Next to them, another Negro served drinks, martinis mostly, but the odd bourbon or Scotch, to a fast, glamorous crowd. The movie star Dick Powell was there, a craggily handsome head mounted upon a spindly body, a man who beamed beauty and good feeling, and his truly beautiful wife, a woman so unusually comely that in any normal room she would stop traffic. But not this room. Powell's screen girlfriend June Allyson stood off to a side, a small woman, almost perfectly configured but seeming more like a kewpie doll, with her fetching freckles and her spray of blond hair and her crinkly blue eyes. The other specimens were not so perfect. One was the writer John P. Marquand, surrounded by some admiring fans, all of them exquisitely turned out. Another was the football star Bob Waterford, a gigantically muscular man with a thick mane of hair. He was so big he looked as though he could play without pads. Walter Winchell was expected later. Mickey Rooney was also rumored to be planning an appearance, although with the Mick, one could never be too sure. The Mick burned legendarily hard at both ends of the candle, and he kept to his own schedule. That was the Mick. Then there were the usual assorted politicos, gambling figures and their well-turned-out, even high-bred women. But the center of attention was another beautiful woman. Her shoulders, pale in the golden light, yielded to the hint of breasts so soft and pillowy that an army could find comfort there, and were cupped as if for display by the precision of her gown, just at the crucial point, where there was but a gossamer of material between her nipples and the rest of the world. She had almost no waist at all, a tiny, insect's thing. Her ample hips were rounded and her buttocks especially firm. The red taffeta evening gown she wore showed all this off, but it was cut to reveal a hint of her shapely legs, made muscular and taut by the extreme rake of her high heels. Her face, however, was the main attraction: it was smart, but not intellectual, say rather cunning. Her features were delicate, except for that vulgar, big, luscious mouth. Her eyes were blue, her skin so pale and creamy it made everyone ache and her hair genuine auburn, like fire from a forbidden dream, a rapture of hair. "Hi, babe," called the Sporty Guest from across the room, for she was with him. She ignored him and continued to jiggle ever so seductively to the music, as if in a dream world of rhythm. Her dance partner smiled nervously at the boyfriend and Our Host. He was a small, pale boy, weirdly beautiful, not really a good dancer and not really dancing with the woman at all, but merely validating her performance by removing it from the arena of sheer vanity. He had thin blond hair; his name was Alan Ladd, and he was in pictures too. "I better watch her," said the sport to our host, "she may end up shtupping that pretty boy. You never know with her." "Don't worry about Alan," said Our Host, who knew such things. "It's not, as one would say, on Alan's dance card, eh, old man? No, worry instead about the blackies. They are highly sexualized. Believe me, I know. I once owned a club in Harlem. They like to give the white women some juju-weed, and when they're all dazed, give them the African man-root, all twelve inches of it. Once the white ones taste that pleasure, they're ruined for white men. I've seen it happen." "Nah," said the sport. "Virginia's a bitch but she knows if she fucks a schvartzer I'll kick her ass all the way back to Alabama." Our Host aspired to British sophistication in all things, and made a slight face at this vulgarity. But, unfazed and in his own mind rather heroic, he kept on. "Ben," he said. "Ben, I must show you something." He took his younger compere through the party, nodding politically at this one and that one, touching a hand, giving a kiss, pausing for an introduction, well aware of the mysterious glamour he possessed, and led his guest to an alcove. "Uh, I don't get it," said Ben. "It's a painting." "I understand that it's a painting. Why is it all square and brown? It looks like Newark with a tree." "I assure you, Ben, that our friend Monsieur Braque has never seen Newark." "You couldn't tell that from the painting. Looks like he was born there." "Ben, try to feel it. He's saying something. Use your imagination. As I say, one must feel it." Ben's handsome face knitted up as if in concentration, but he appeared to feel nothing. The painting, entitled Houses at UEstaque, depicted a cityscape in muted brown, the dwellings twisted askew to the right, a crude tree stuck in the left foreground but the laws of perspective broken savagely. When Our Host looked at it, he did feel something: the money he'd spent to obtain it. "It's the finest work of early Cubism in this hemisphere," he said. "Painted in 1908. Note the geometric severity, the lack of a central vanishing point. It predates Picasso, whom it influenced. It cost me $75,000." "Wow," said Ben. "You must be doing okay." "I'm telling you, Ben, this is the business to be in. You cannot lose. It's all here and the rule of numbers says over the long haul each day is a profitable day, each year a profitable year. It just goes on and on and on, and nobody has to get killed or blown up and sent for a swim with the fishies of the East River." "Maybe so," said Ben. "Come, come, look out from the terrace. At night, it is so impressive." "Sure," said Ben. Our host snapped his fingers and instantly black men appeared, one with a new martini and the other with a long, thick Cuban cigar, already trimmed, and a gold lighter. "Light it, sir?" "No, Ralph, I have told you that you don't hold the lighter right. I have to light it myself if I want it done correctly." The Negroes disappeared silently, and the two men slipped between the curtains and out into the sultry night. Pigeons cooed. "The birds. Still with the birds, eh, Owney?" said Ben. "I got to like them during Prohibition. A pigeon will never rat you out, let me tell you, old man." The pigeons, immaculately kept in a rack of cages against one wall, cooed and shifted in the dark. Owney downed his martini with a single gulp, set the glass on a table, and went over to the cages. He opened one, reached in and took out one bird, which he held close to his face, as he stroked its sleek head with his chin. "Such a darling," he said. "Such a baby girl. So sweet. Yes, such a baby girl." Then he put the pigeon back in the cage, plucked the cigar out of his pocket, and expertly lit it, scorching the shaft first, then rolling the end through the flame, then finally drawing the smoke through the thing fully, letting it bloom and swell, sensing each nuance of taste, finally expelling a blast of heavy gray smoke, which the breeze took and distributed over midtown. "Now come, look," he said, escorting the younger man to the edge of the terrace. The two stood. Behind came the tinkle of the jazz, the sounds of laughter, the clink of glasses and ice. Before them curved a great white way. lights beamed upward, filling the sky with illumination. Along the broad way, crowds hustled and milled, too far to be made out from this altitude, but in their masses recognizable, a great, slithering sea of humanity. The traffic had slowed to a stop, and cops worked desperately to unsnarl it. Beeps and honks rose with the exhaust and the occasional squeal of tires. Along the great street, it seemed the whole world had come to gawk at the drama of the place, and the crowd seemed an organism its own self, rushing for one or another of the available pleasures. "Really, it's a good place," Owney said. "It works, it hums, everybody's happy. It's a machine." "Owney," said Ben, "you've done a great job here. Everybody says so. Owney Maddox, he runs a great town. No other town rims like Owney's town. Everybody's happy in Owney's town, there's plenty of dough in Owney's town. Owney, he's the goddamn king." "I'm very proud of what I've built," said Owney Maddox, of his town, which was Hot Springs, Arkansas, and of the grand boulevard of casinos, nightclubs, whorehouses and bathhouses that lined it, Central Avenue, which curved beneath his penthouse on the sixteenth and highest floor of the Medical Arts Building. "Yeah, a fellow could learn a goddamn thing or two," said his guest, Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, of Los Angeles, California, and the organized crime confederation that had yet to be named by its investigators but was known by its members, in the year 1946, simply as Our Thing--to those of them that were Sicilian, "Cosa Nostra." Chapter 4 The bar of the Carlton was one of those rooms that made Earl immediately uneasy. It was full of shapes that had no place in nature, mainly circular ones-round, inscribed mirrors, a round cocktail bar, round little tables, rounded chairs with bold striping. It was the kind of a bar you'd expect on a rocket ship to the moon or Mars. It mi-IGHT as we-ELL be spa-RING some pretty boy sang over the radio, getting a strange upward twist into words where no such thing could logically be expected. Everyone was young, exuberant, excited, full of life. Atop the prow that lay behind the bar, stocked with enough bottles to besot a division, a young goddess and her pet fawn pranced. She was sculpturally frozen in Bakelite, the struts of her ribs showing, the struts of the fawn's ribs, all of it gleamy, steamy and wet, from the spray of water, somehow rigged to float across her tiny, perky breasts. "Hey, look at that," said the older man. "Don't that beat a World's Fair in St. Louie?" Earl hardly glanced at the thing. It seemed wrong. The sculpture was naked. He was drunk. The world was young. He was old. The three scooted to the last table in a line, nestled into the corner, under a mirror clouded with inscribed images of grapes, dogs and women. It was very strange. Nothing like this on Iwo. A girl came; Becker took a martini, the old man a soda water and Earl his regular poison, the Jim Beam he'd grown so fond of. "You don't drink, sir?" he asked the older man. "No more," said the fellow. "No more." "Anyhow," said Becker, returning to business, "I just won a special election that we got mandated because we proved that the poll tax was unjustly administered by the city administration. We being myself and twelve other young men, all of us veterans with overseas duty and a sense of mission. As of next Tuesday, I become the prosecuting attorney of Garland County. But of the twelve, I was the only one to win. So until the next election, in the late fall, let me tell you where that leaves me. Out on a limb. Way, way out." Earl appraised him. He was so handsome a man, so confident. In fact, he was oddly mated with the sad-sack old teetotaler with the watchful eyes and the big hands. Who were they? What did they want? "So I'm in a tough situation," Becker continued. "I'm getting death threats, my wife is being shadowed, it's getting ugly down there. Hot Springs. Not a happy place. Totally corrupt. It's run by an old gasbag mayor and a judge, but you can forget about them. The real power is a New York mobster named Owney Maddox who's got big-money boys behind him. They own everything, they have a piece of all the pies." "I still don't see where Earl Swagger fits in." "Well, what I'm getting at, Sergeant, is that Owney Maddox doesn't want anybody messing with his empire. But that's what I'm sworn to do." "You must think I'd be a bodyguard," Earl said. "But I ain't no bodyguard. Wouldn't know the first thing about that line of work." "No, Sergeant, that's not it. In order to survive, I have to attack. If I'm on the defensive it all goes away. We have a chance, a window in time, in which we can take Hot Springs back. They're complacent now, they don't fear me because the rest of the slate lost. What can one man do, they think. If we move aggressively, we can do it. We have to blitz them now." "I ain't no reformer." "But you know Hot Springs. Your daddy was killed there in 1942 while you were off fighting the Japanese." "You been lookin' into me?" Earl said narrowly. He wasn't sure he liked this at all. But then this man was the law, after all, by formal election. "We made some inquiries," said the old man. "Well, then you learned it wasn't Hot Springs. It was a hill town way outside of Hot Springs, closer to his home territory. Mount Ida, it was called. And I wasn't fighting the Japs yet. I was on a train with two thousand other suckers pulling cross-country to begin the boat ride out to the 'Canal. And I don't know Hot Springs. My daddy would never take us. It was eighty miles to the east, over bad roads. And it was the devil's town. My daddy was a Baptist down to his toes, hellfire and damnation. If I'd gone to Hot Springs, he'd a-whipped me till I was dead." "Yes, well," said Becker, running hard into Earl's stubbornness, which on some accounts just took him over, for no good reason. Earl took another hit on the bourbon, just a taste, because he didn't want his brain more scrambled. But he just didn't get a good feeling about Becker. He glanced at his Hamilton. It was getting near to 7:30. Soon he had to go. Where were these fellows taking him? He looked at the silent old man next to Becker. What was familiar about him? "Well, Sergeant--" But Earl stared at the old man, and then blurted, "Excuse me, sir, I don't know if I caught your name." "Parker," said the old man. "D. A. Parker." And that too had a ring somehow. "You wouldn't be related to--nah." "Who?" "You wouldn't be related to that FBI agent that shot it out with all them Johnnies in the '30s. Baby Face Nelson, John Dillinger, Ma Barker, Bonnie and Clyde. Went gun-to-gun with the bad boys of the Depression. Famous, for a while. An American hero." "I ain't related to that D. A. Parker one damned bit," said the old man. "I am him." "D. A. Parker!" "Yes, that's me. I'm not with the Bureau no more. And, no, I never shot it out with Johnny Dillinger, though I come close once or twice. I had nothing to do with Bonnie and Clyde. Them was Texas Rangers operating on the fly in Louisiana that caught up with that set of bad apples and did a day's worth of fine work. I tracked Ma and her boy Freddie to Floriday, but I don't think it was my burst that sent Ma to her grave. We believe she killed her own self. I did put eleven rounds into Freddie, and that finished his hash forever. And I did run into the Baby Face twice. We exchanged shots. I still carry not only a .45 bullet that he put into my leg, but the .45 he put it in there with." He leaned forward, letting his coat slide open. Earl looked and saw a staggripped .45, with a bigger set of sights welded into the slide. The gun hung close to D. A.'s body in a complicated leather shoulder holster and harness, well worn. It was even dangerously cocked, sure sign of a real pistolero. "Anyhow, Swagger," said Becker, trying to regain control of the conversation, "what we're going to do is raid." "Raid?" "That's it. I'm setting up a special unit. It's young, unmarried or widowed officers from outside of Arkansas, because I can't have them being tainted by the state's corruption, or having their families hunted. This unit will report only to me, and it won't be part of any police force, it won't be set up within a chain of command or anything. We will hit casinos, whorehouses, sports books, anyplace the mob is running, high-class or low. We will be very well armed. We will squeeze them. That's the point: to squeeze them until they feel it and have to shut down." Becker spoke as if he were quoting a speech, and Earl knew right away that only a part of what the young man planned was for the citizens of Hot Springs. It would be especially for one particular citizen of Hot Springs, namely Fred Becker. "Sounds like you'll need a lot of firepower," said Earl. "We do," said D. A. "I have managed to horse-trade for six 1928 Thompsons. Three BARs. Some carbines. And, since I spent the last four years working for Colt, I talked a deal up so we get a deal on eighteen brand-new National Match .45s. Plus we have over fifty thousand rounds of ammunition stored down at the Red River Army Depot, where we'll train for a while. Twelve men, myself, and the only thing we lack is a sergeant." "I see," said Earl. "We need a trainer," said Becker. "I'm too old, Earl," said D. A. "I been thinking about this for a lot of years. I've been on raids not only in the FBI but in the Oklahoma City Police Department before then. I been in twenty-eight gunfights and been shot four times. I've killed eighteen men. So what I know, I learned the hard way: it's my opinion that when it comes to gun work, the American policeman ain't got a chance, because he ain't well enough trained. So what I mean to do is put together a professional, well-trained raid team. Lots of teamwork, total backup, rehearsal, preparation, train, train, train. I include the FBI, especially now, when all the old gunfighters have been booted out. When the Baby Face went down, he took two fine young FBI agents with him, because they weren't well enough trained to deal with someone as violent and crazy-goddamn-bull-goose-brave as him. Lord, I wish I'd been there that day. They put seventeen bullets into him and he kept coming and killed them both. He was a piece of work. So I want this unit trained, goddamn it, trained to the eyebrows. But I need someone who can ramrod 'em. I get to be the Old Man. I get to be wise and calm. But I need a 100 percent kick-ass piece of gristle and guts to whip their asses into shape, to beat the lessons into them. I need someone who ain't afraid of being hated, because being hated is part of the job. I need someone who's faced armed men and shot 'em dead. I need a goddamned 100 percent hero. Now, do you see what this has to do with Earl Swagger?" Earl nodded slightly. "Earl," said D. A., "you was born for this job like no man on earth." "So it seems," said Earl, looking around at all the bright young gay things sipping champagne, dancing the jitterbug, laughing brightly, squeezing flesh, and thinking, Goddamn, I am home again. Chapter 5 West Virginia flowed by; or maybe it was Ohio. It was hard to tell at night, and the train rattled along forcefully. Earl sat in the private compartment watching America pass in the darkness, feeling the throb of the rails on the track. His head ached, but for the first time, after a day of heroic drinking, he felt as if he were more or less sober. The private compartment was a last kindness from his country for one of its heroes. No lumpy seats for the Medal of Honor winner, no sitting upright, unable to sleep because the metal in the ribs still hurt and his back ached. But he wasn't drinking. Junie slept in the lower berth. He could hear her breathing steadily. But he just sat in the leather seat before the little round table, feeling the rhythms and flowing onward toward what would be his new destiny. Then she stirred. "Earl?" "I thought you were asleep, honey. You should sleep some." "I can't sleep when you can't sleep, Earl. Are you all right?" "Yes ma'am. I'm fine." "Earl, you were drinking, weren't you? I could smell it on you." "I stopped for drinks while I was walking, yes. I was celebrating. I was happy. I met the president. I was at the White House. I got the big medal. I got my picture taken. Won't have many days like that." "Earl, the medal. It was in the pocket of your uniform slacks. The ribbon got all wrinkled. I put it back in the jewelry case. You should take care of it. Someday you will give it to a son." "Well, honey, if I ever have a son, I don't think I'll say to him, 'See what a big man your father was.' So I think if I ever have a son, I'll just let him grow up without me telling him how great I was, since I never felt great one damn day in my life." "Earl, you are so angry these days." "I will put it aside, I swear to you, Junie. I know this ain't been easy for you. I know I have become different than the man you married." "That Earl was handsome and proud and he looked so beautiful in his uniform. He looked like a movie star. All the girls loved him. I fell so hard in love with him, Lord, I didn't think I'd live till sunrise. Then he asked me to dance with him. But this Earl is more human than that one. This Earl is more man, more real man. He does his work, even though he hates it, and he never yells at anyone. He's a real man, and he's there every night, and some letter won't come telling me he got killed." "Sweetie, you are some peach. You are the best." He leaned over in the dark and gave her a kiss. She touched him, in a way that let him know that tonight would be a very good night for some intimacy. But he sat back. "I have to tell you something first." "Earl, I don't like that tone. What is it? Is it those two men who came to see you?" "Yes, it is." "That showboaty fellow in the nice clothes? And that sad old man. I didn't like the showboaty fellow." "I didn't really like him either, but there you have it. Becker is his name, and he'll be important someday. He's actually an elected official, a politician. Them two fellows offered me a job." "Did you take it?" "It means some more money. And it means I won't get my fingers chopped off by the band saw. They'll be paying me a hundred a week. That's more than $5,000 a year before taxes. There's a life insurance plan too, plus medical benefits from the state of Arkansas, so there won't be no worrying about having enough money for a doc. They even gave me a clothing allowance. I'm supposed to buy some suits." "But it's dangerous." "Why would you say that?" "I can tell it from your voice." "Well, it could be dangerous. It probably won't be. Mainly it's training." "Training?" "Some boys. I'll be working with young police officers, training them in firearms usage, fire and movement, generalized tactics, maybe some judo, that sort of thing." "Earl!" "Yes ma'am?" "Earl, you'll be training them for war." "Well, not exactly, honey. It's nothing like a war. It's for raiding gambling places. This fellow is the new prosecuting attorney down in Garland." "Hot Springs!" "Hot Springs. Yes. He's going to try and clean up the town." "We're moving to Hot Springs?" Well, damn him if he didn't just let it sit there for a while. He let her enjoy it: the idea of moving out of the vets village at Camp Chaffee, maybe getting a place with a real floor instead of wood slats that were always dirty, and that had walls that went straight up to a ceiling, and didn't arch inward or rattle and leak when it rained. The refrigerator would be big, so she wouldn't have to shop every day. The shower would be indoors; there'd even be a tub. The stove would be gas. "Maybe so," he finally said. "Maybe in a bit. We'd get a nice house, out of town, away from the commotion. It can get plenty hectic in that place." "I'm not coming, am I, Earl?" "No ma'am. Not at first. I have it worked out, though-You'll be fine. The paycheck will come straight to you. You can put a certain part of it in a state bank account, and I'll write checks from that for my spending money. You'll get a list of the benefits, and it won't be no time before we can move." Junie didn't say anything. She stirred, seemed to roll over and face the bunk atop her, and when she finally settled she seemed further away. "See, it won't work out, having you down there," he said. "Not at first. I'm going to be in Texas for a while, where we're going to train these kids, then we move up to Garland. But I ain't even going on the raids. I'm more the trainer and the sergeant. I have to ride herd on the younger fellows, just like in the Corps, that's all. And there's a security issue, or so they say, but, you know, it's just being careful." "I can tell in your voice. You'll go on the raids. It's your nature." "That's not the plan. They don't want a big fancy hero type like me getting shot." "That may not be the plan, but you have a nature, and you will obey it. It's to lead other men in battle and help them and prevent them from getting hurt. That is your nature." "They didn't say a thing about that. The reason we don't want the women down there is just some precautions. It's very corrupt in Hot Springs. Has been for years. All the cops are crooked, the newspapers are crooked, the courts and the judges are crooked." "I heard they have gangsters there, and whores. That's where A1 Capone went and Alvin Karpis and Ma Barker went to relax and take hot baths. They have guns and gangsters. It's where your father got killed." "My father died in Mount Ida, and he could have died anywhere on earth where there's men who rob other men, which is everywhere on earth. He didn't have nothing to do with Hot Springs. All that other stuff, you can't believe a lick of it. It's old hillbilly boys with shotguns." "Oh, Earl, you're such a bad liar. You're going off to a war, because the war is what you know best and what you love best. And you're going to leave me up in Fort Smith with no way to get in contact with you and I'll just have to wait and see if somebody doesn't come up with a telegram and say, Oh, Mrs. Swagger, the state of Arkansas is so sorry, but your husband, Earl, is dead. But it's okay, because he was a hero, and this here's another nice piece of plated gold for your trouble." "Junie, I swear to you nothing will happen to me. And even if it does, well, hell, you got $5,000 and you're still the most beautiful gal in Fort Smith and you don't have to stay in the hut, you could probably find an apartment by that time, when this housing mess is all cleared up. It'll all get better, I swear to you." "And who raises your son?" "My-- I don't have a son." "No, maybe it's a daughter. But whatever it is, it sure is getting big in my stomach." "Jesus," said Earl. "I wasn't going to tell you until after the ceremony, because I wanted the ceremony to be all for you. But then you went off and you didn't show up all afternoon." "I'm sorry, sweetie. I never would have guessed." "What do you think happens? You can't grab me four times a week without getting a baby out of it." "I thought you liked it when I grabbed you." "I love it. You didn't ever hear me saying no, did you?" "No ma'am, guess not." "But it doesn't make a difference, does it?" "I promised them. I said yes. It's more money. It's a better life." "Think about your boy, Earl." But Earl could not. Who'd bring a kid into a world where men fry each other with flamethrowers, machine-gun each other or go at it hand-to-hand, with bayonets and entrenching tools? And now this atom bomb tiling: turn the earth into Hiroshimas every-damn-where. He looked at her, indistinct in the dark, and felt her distance. He thought of the tiny being nestled in her stomach and the thought terrified him. He never asked to be a daddy, he didn't think he was man enough for it. He was scared. He had a sudden urge, almost overwhelming, to do what he'd never done in the Pacific: to turn, to run, to flee, to leave it all behind him. He saw his own melancholy childhood, that weary cavalcade of fear and pain. He didn't want that for his boy. "I-- I don't know what to say, Junie. I never thought about no boy or girl before. I just never figured on it." He had another feeling, one he felt so often: that he was once again failing someone who loved him. He wished desperately he had a gift for her, something that would make it all right, some little thing. And then he thought of it. "I will make you one promise," he said. "It's the only one. I will quit the drinking." Chapter 6 The kid was hot. The kid was smoking. His strawberry-blond hair fell across his pug face, a cigarette dangled insolently from his lips, and he brought the dice, cupped into his left hand, to his mouth. "Oh, baby," he said. "Jimmy Hicks, Captain Hicks, Captain Jimmy Hicks, Jimmy Hicks, Sister Hicks, Baby Hicks, Sixie from Dixie, sexy pixie, Jimmy Hicks, Baby Hicks, Mamma Hicks, oh, baby, baby, baby, you do what Daddy says, you sweet, sweet baby six!" A near religious ecstasy came across his face as he began to slowly rotate his tightly clutched fist, and sweat shone brightly on the spray of freckles on his forehead. His eyeballs cranked upward, his lids snapped shut, but maybe it wasn't out of faith, only irritation from the Lucky Strike smoke that rose from his butt. "Go, sweetie, go, go! said his girlfriend, who hovered over his shoulder. She looked about ten years older than he, had tits of solid, dense flesh, and her lowcut dress squeezed them out at you for all to see. Her lips were red, ruby red, her earrings diamond, her necklace a loop of diamond sparkle, her hair platinum. She touched the boy's shoulder for good luck. With a spasm he let fly. The dice bounded crazily across the table and Earl thought of a Jap Betty he had once seen, weirdly cart wheeling before it went in. The Betty had settled with a final splash and disappeared; the dice merely stopped rattling. He looked back at the kid, who was now bent forward, his eyes wide with hope. "Goddamn!" the boy screamed in horror, for the cubes read three and four, not the two and four or the three and three or the five and one he needed, and that was the unlucky seven and he was out. "Too bad, sir," said the croupier with blank professional respect, and with a rake, scooped up what the kid had riding, a pile of loose twenties and fifties and hundreds that probably amounted to Earl's new and best yearly salary. The kid smiled, and pulled a wad of bills from his pocket thick as Dempsey's fist. "He crapped out," Earl said to D. A., who stood next to him in the crowded upstairs room of the Ohio Club, watching the action. "And he's still smiling. How's a punk kid like that get so much dough to throw around? And how's he get a doll off a calendar?" "There's plenty more where that came from," said D. A. "You don't go to the pictures much, do you. Earl?" "No, sir. Been sort of busy." "Well, that kid is named Mickey Rooney. He's a big actor. He always plays real homespun, small-town boys. He looks fourteen, but he's twenty-six, been married twice, and he blows about ten thousand a night whenever he comes to town. I hear the hookers call him Mr. Hey-kids-let's-put-on-a-show!" Earl shook his head in disgust. "That's America, Earl," said D. A. "That's what y'all was fightin' for." "Let's get out of here," Earl finally said. "Sure. But just look around, take it all in. Next time you see this place, you may be carrying a tommy gun" The club was dark and jammed. Gambling was king here on the upstairs floor, and the odor of the cigarettes and the blue density of the smoke in the air were palpable and impenetrable. It smelled like the sulfur in the air at Iwo and the place had a sort of frenzy to it like a beach zeroed by the Japs, where the casualties and supplies have begun to pile up, but nobody has yet figured out how to move inland. And the noise level was about the same. At one end of the room a roulette wheel spun, siphoning money out of the pockets of the suckers. A dozen high-stakes poker games were taking place under low lights. In every nook and cranny was a slot and at each slot a pilgrim stood, pouring out worship in the form of nickels and climes and silver dollars, begging for God's mercy. But craps was the big game at the Ohio, and at even more tables the swells bet their luck against the tumble of the cubes and piles of cash floated around the green felt like icebergs. Meanwhile, some Negro group diddled out hot bebop licks, crazed piano riffs, the sound of a sax or a clarinet or some sad instrument telling a tale of lost fortunes, love and hope. Earl shook his head again. Jesus Christ, he thought. "We got to keep moving, Earl," said the old man. "They don't like baggage in a joint like this. You play or you leave." As they moved downstairs, they passed through the crowded bar. Five girls tended it, hustling this way and that to stay with the demand. Behind them, in the elaborate mahogany structure, ranks of dark bottles promised an exciting form of numbness. "You want a drink, Earl?" "Nah," said Earl. "I gave that shit up." Earl wore a new blue pinstripe three-piece suit and a brown fedora low over his eyes. He had a yellow tie on, and a nice shiny pair of brown brogues. He felt like he was wrapped in bandages but he looked like $50 worth of new goods, which is what he was. "Probably a good thing," said D. A. "I won sixteen gun-fights drunk, but, goddamn, there came a time when I was drinking so much I was afraid I'd wake up in Hong Kong with a busted nose, a beard, a tattoo and a brand-new Chinese family to support." "Happened to more than a few Marines I knew," Earl said. They walked out onto the street. Before them, on the other side of Central like seven luxury liners tied up in dockage, the town's seven main attractions-bathhouses--blazed against the night, and even now were crowded with people seeking the miracle power of the waters, which emerged from the unseen mountain behind them at a steady, dependable, mineral-rich 141 degrees. People had been coming to this little valley for centuries and so the city had acquired an odd clientele: it was for those in need. If you needed health and freedom from the cricks of arthritis or the rampages of the syph you came to Hot Springs and soaked for hours in the steamy liquid, which if nothing else numbed the pain and cleaned out your dark crevices. When you got out, you felt like a prime. Better? Well, possibly. At least you felt different. But as the years passed, the city grew to offer the fulfillment of other needs, all of them elemental, and its clientele by the year 1946 was not merely the old and the infirm but the young and the very firm: there was no human need that could not be satisfied in Hot Springs in a single evening, from sexual to financial to criminal to redemptive. The city the hot spigots nurtured was spread along the curve of a now-buried creek, the one side buttressed by the bathhouses, the other by the town's commercial strip, which was a hurdy-gurdy boardwalk: oyster houses, restaurants, shooting galleries, nightclubs, casinos, sports books and of course whorehouses. The street was a broad boulevard, and lit so well it appeared to be a kind of limited daylight. Only the mountain, which the U. S. government owned, was invisible, but every other damn thing was there to see. "It's like Shanghai in '36," said Earl, "except the whores' eyes ain't slanty." From their vantage point--across Central, standing on the sidewalk before the Fordyce Bath House and looking up and down the street, which ran between the mountains and seemed to be guarded at the north end by a gigantic gateway consisting of the vast Arlington Hotel on one side and the much taller Medical Arts Building on the other-- it seemed gigantic. The lights rolled away to either horizon, a mile of sin and hustle. Yet that was only Hot Springs' most visible self. From the main thoroughfare, other roads curved up into the hills, and each block had a whorehouse and a casino and a sports book, sometimes more than one each. Out Malvern, the color turned black, for in Hot Springs sin knew no racial barriers, and the action got even smokier and steamier out there, toward the Pythian Hotel and Baths, the only place in town where the Negroes who actually provided the labor for the place could sample the burning waters. "Boy, I don't see how Becker is going to close this place down with just twelve of us," Earl said. "It would take a division." "Well, here's the drill," said the old man. "There's maybe five hundred sports books in this town, and they're the heart of the operation. Everything feeds off of them. But of them, there's one that's called the Central Book, and all the other books feed off it. It's got all the phone wires and all the race data comes pouring into it; the geniuses in it chalk the odds, and call around town to the other book so that the bets can be laid right up to post time. Then they tab the results, and get them out, and the traffic goes on. It's a great business; the house edge is two percent and the house wins, win or lose. But its problem is it's vulnerable to a wire shutdown. It all depends on how fast they get info from the outside. That's the lifeline. See, here's the deal--if we can shut down that main book, man, we hurt 'em. We nail 'em." "Do we know where it is?" "Of course not. Lots of folks do, but they ain't gonna be telling us. What we're going to do is hit a variety of places, close 'em down, wreck the machinery, and turn the prisoners over to the cops. The cops won't hold 'em but a day, but the key is wrecking the machinery. You pull those slots off the wall, and you'll see that some of them have been tagged ten or twenty times for destruction by the Hot Springs PD. Somehow, it never gets done. So we smash the slots, wreck the gaming tables, confiscate the money and the slips, and look for financial records or anything that will tell us where the Central Book is. See, it's simple. It's like the war. We take out Jap headquarters and we win." They were drifting north up Central, and in most of the second-and third-floor windows of the buildings that lined its gaudy west side, girls hung out and called. "Hey, sugah pie. Hey, you come on up, and we'll teach you a thing or two." "Come on, baby. Here's where it's so sweet you gonna melt, honey." "We got the best gals up here, sweetie. We got the prime." "Care to get laid, Earl?" said the old man. "Nah. I'll get a dose for sure. Plus my wife has gone and gotten herself pregnant, so I don't need no complications." "Pregnant? When's it due?" "Hmm. Truth is, I don't know. She's been that way for a while, only I didn't notice." "Earl, if I'd a known you had a pregnant wife, maybe I wouldn't have signed you up. This could be scratchy work." "Don't you worry about it, old man. It's what I do best." "Shouldn't you be happier? I had a kid, and even though he died young, I never regretted it. Those were happy times. Anyhow, you're going to be a daddy. That's supposed to be a time of joy for every man." "Ah," said Earl grumpily. "You'll figure it out, Earl. Believe me, you will." They moseyed along, past the bathhouses on the right and the casinos and the whorehouses on the left. In time, the bathhouses gave way to a nice little park, where the city fathers had laid out flower beds and trees and the like. It was so pretty, and behind it rose the mountain which presented Hot Springs with its thermal liquids and turned it into a town like no other. The sidewalk was crowded, for in Hot Springs nobody stood still. The two undercover men slid through knots of the desperate who'd come to Hot Springs out of the belief its vapors could cure them and knots of the rich, who'd come to Hot Springs out of belief in fun. The former were shabby, scrawny and chalky; they looked half dead already, and they were invisible to the pleasure seekers, who were always sleek and in suits or gowns, with straw hats or veiled hats, usually pink and full, usually hearty and hungry and looking forward to the night's fun. Now and then an HSPD black-and-white would prowl the streets, with a couple of slovenly semi comatose officers looking out, watching the crowd for pickpockets or strong-arm boys. "We should tell them cops there's gambling going on here," said D. A. "Why, they'd be shocked," Earl said. At last they came to a magnificent structure maybe four blocks north of the Ohio Club, literally in the shadow of the Medical Arts Building and the gigantic Arlington Hotel, with its tiers of brightly lit rooms. But as magnificent as the Arlington was, it could not compete with the elegance of the place across the street. It was the Southern Club. Black marble porticos held up by marble columns announced its palatial ambitions; the whole thing was polished to gleam in the dark like something out of a Hollywood movie set in Baghdad. Inside the foyer, a chandelier glittered, sending slices of illumination into the street; the whole place was emblazoned with lights. Limousines pulled up slowly, letting out their moneyed passengers, and the tuxedo was the order of dress for the men, while the women, usually heavily jeweled, wore diaphanous white gowns that clung to their bodies. "This is where the high rollers go," said D. A. "This is Owney's masterpiece. Man, the money he makes in there." "What does he think he is, a king or one of them Egyptian fellows who had a tomb the size of a mountain?" "Something like that," said D. A. "He's got two casinos in there, three parlors for high-stakes poker, and a lounge where he gets the top stars to come in and perform. I think it's Perry Como this week. He even had Bing Crosby one week. Oh, it's the nicest place between here and St. Louis and here and New Orleans. It's a peach of a place. There ain't no place like it anywhere." "He's doing well, ain't he?" said Earl, watching the place carefully, as if laying plans for a night attack. "Let's camp here for a bit and see what we can eyeball." They found a bench on their side of Central, and watched the show progress, as the slow train of limos each dropped off a matched set of swells. It seemed to be some kind of swell convention. Even Earl in his new blue suit felt underdressed. "Now let me tell you a little story about where the Southern comes from. In 1940, a bridge washes out above little Rock, over the Arkansas. So the payroll for the big bauxite operation at the Hattie Fletcher Pit that comes down from Chicago won't be rolling that way, that once. Instead, Alcoa ships the money to Tulsa, and from Tulsa to the nearest railhead, which is Hot Springs. One shipment only, while they're shoring up that bridge over the Arkansas. These payrolls is special, down here in the South--see, in 1940, nobody has checking accounts, so it's got to be all cash money. Over $400,000. "Anyhow, she rolls into the train yard here at Hot Springs late one Friday night, and fast as you can say Jack Sprat, five very tough cookies hit the train in the yard. They know which car is the mail car and everything. They blow the lock with some kind of specially built bomb device, and climb in. One of the guards pulls a gun, and they shoot 'em all down. Tommy guns, four men shot to death in a second. There's four large vaults in the mail car and they know which one to blow open with nitro; they're out and gone with the payroll in less than three minutes. Of course the HSPD can't get its cars over here for love nor money; by the time the State Police get a team in it's practically the next morning, and even when the FBI joins up, whoever done it is long gone. Of course they throw up roadblocks, and roust local law enforcement in three states, and put bulletins on the radio and round up all the known armed robbers and shooters in those same three states. But that job was too slick for any local hoods. I don't think Johnny Dillinger himself could have done such a tiling, and of course the manhunt don't turn up a damned thing. They just foot away as slick as you can imagine. A Marine like you ought to admire it, Earl: it was a commando raid." "They had to have inside info," said Earl. "Clearly they did. Now here's the point: two weeks later, Owney Maddox buys the old Congress Hotel, tears it down, and begins to build on this here Southern Club. Where's he get the money? From outside sources? I don't think so; anyhow, Becker can't find no business records and the deed is entirely in Owney's name. Maybe he's tired of sharing with the big boys, maybe he don't want to be tied to them, maybe he sees an opportunity to take die town over lock, stock and barrel. Of course nobody can prove a thing, but there's four widows and a bunch of orphans who got nothing for the deaths of their husbands, except maybe a nice letter from the railroad. And Owney got the Southern Club." "I hate the kind who pays others to do die killing." "Well, well, well," said D. A., checking his watch. "Yep, right on time. Back from a nice steak at Coy's. Yes, sir, there's the man himself." Earl watched as the darkest, fanciest car he'd ever seen pulled down the line of limos. A Negro in livery came out with a whistle, and stopped traffic, so that the car could slide in without having to wait in line. "It's a bulletproofed '38 Cadillac," said D. A. "It's the biggest in Arkansas. Probably this side of Chicago." The car was $7,170 worth of black streamline, with its teardrop fenders and its gleaming silvery grille and the white circles of its tires. It was the Fleetwood Town Car Series 75, absolute top of the Caddy line, its V-16 engine displacing 346 cubic inches, its dark sleekness and rakish hood ornament suggesting a hunger to get into the future. The car slid directly to the place of honor, and immediately two more liveried black men rushed out to open the door for Mr. Maddox. "Just in time for Perry Como," said D. A. Owney got out, stretched magnificently, sucked in a breath of smoke from his cigarette holder, and ran his other hand over his slicked-back hair. He wore a creamy dinner jacket. "He don't look so tough," said Earl. "He looks kind of fancy." "He's British, did you know that? Or sort of British. He came to this country when he was thirteen, and now he puts on airs and calls everybody Old Man and My Dear Chap and Ronald Colman shit like that. But it's all a con. He was running a street gang on the East Side when he was fifteen. He's got a dozen or so kills. He's a tough little monkey, let me tell you." Hard to match that description with what Earl thought was a toff, a glossy little fellow who paid too much attention to the way he dressed. Owney leaned over gallantly, put in his hand, and took a long, silvery limb from a lady, and bent to escort her out of the car. She bobbed, then popped up in clear view. "Now there's a dame," said Earl. "That is a dame." "That is, that surely is," said D. A. "Now ain't that the goddamndest thing? I know that one and I bet I know our next guest." The woman stepped sideways, smiling, filling the night with the dazzle of her lips. She was all dessert. She was what all the gals wanted to be, but never could quite make it, and what all the guys wanted to sleep with. Her hair was an auburn cascade, soft as music. "What's her story?" asked Earl. "Her name is Virginia Hill. She's a mob gal. They love her in Chicago, where she was special pals with some of the wops that run that town. They call her the Flamingo, she's so long and beautiful. But again, don't let the looks fool you. She's a tough piece of work from the steel towns of 'Bama. She came up the hard way, through the houses. She's a hooker, or used to be one, and she's been around the life a long time. She's twenty-eight going on fifty-eight. And now, the last player. Now, ain't this interesting." Yes, it was. The third person out of the car was toasty brown, like some sort of football athlete or other kind of ballplayer. He wasn't in a tux at all, but some kind of tan linen, double-breasted, with a yellow handkerchief and a pair of white shoes on. His shirt was storm blue and he wore a white fedora. A cigar was clutched between his teeth, and even from across the street the tautness of his jaws suggested great strength. He radiated something, maybe toughness, maybe self-love, maybe confidence, but some other thing, well off the normal human broadcasting spectrum. "Who's the punk?" asked Earl. "That's Benjamin Siegel. Better known as Bugsy, but not to his face. He's a handsome nutcase from the East Side of New York, very connected to the top guys. He was sent out to L. A. a couple of years before the war, where he's been running the rackets and hanging out with movie stars. But it's very damned interesting. What the hell is he doing here, visiting with Owney Maddox? What are diem two birds cooking up, I wonder? Bugsy didn't come here to soak his ass in the vapors, I guarantee you." The three celebrities exchanged an intimate little laugh and pretended to ignore the gawkers around them, those who felt the power of their charisma. Abreast, they walked up the steps and into the nightclub. Earl watched them disappear. He squirmed on the bench, feeling a little dispirited. It seemed so wrong, somehow: all those boys dead in the shithole reefs of the Pacific, for "America"; and here was America, a place where gangsters in tuxedos had the best women and the swankiest clubs and lived the life of maharajahs. All that dying, all that bleeding: Owney Maddox. Bugsy Siegel. "Man," he allowed, "they dress too pretty. Would be a pleasure to git them all dirty, wouldn't it?" "That's our job," said the old man. "You and me, son. Don't believe they allow no tuxedoes in jail." Chapter 7 Virginia was in a foul mood, not in itself an unusual occurrence, but this morning she was well beyond her usual bounds of anger, "When are they going to get here?" she demanded. "I called them. They will get here as fast as they can," said Ben, staring at his favorite thing on earth, his own roughly handsome face in the mirror, as he tried to get his bow tie just right. It was a red number, with little blue symbols of something or other on it. He'd got it at Sulka's, the last time he was in London with the Countess. "Well, they better shake their asses," Virginia said. "They" were the squad of bellboys necessary to move the Virginia and Ben show from the Apollo Suite at the Arlington to a limousine to the Missouri-Pacific station for the 4:15, which would take them to St. Louis, where they would transfer to the Super Chief on its way back to Los Angeles. So many men were required because wherever Virginia went, she went in style, involving at least ten pieces of alligator luggage. Ben also traveled in alligator and in style, but he disciplined himself to a mere eight cases. So eighteen suitcases were stacked in the living room of the Apollo Suite, awaiting removal. But Virginia hated to wait. Waiting was not for the Flamingo. It was for the other 99.999999 percent of the world. She decided she needed a cigarette. She walked out onto the terrace and the blinding Arkansas sun hit her. Her sunglasses were already packed. For some reason the sun against her face infuriated her more. She stepped back into the room, nerves uncalmed by the cigarette. She didn't like to smoke indoors because the smoke clung to her clothes. She was in the mood for a fight. "This place is a goddamn dump," she said. "Why did we come here? You said I'd meet picture people." "Sweetie, you did meet picture people. You met Alan Ladd, Dick Powell and June Allyson." "You idiot," she said. "They ain't picture people. They are Hot Springs people. Don't you understand the difference?" "Alan Ladd is big in pictures!" protested Ben. "Yeah, but his wife manages him and she watches him like a hawk. And she ain't about to help a li'l of thang like me! I felt her staring at me! She would have ripped my eyes out, except that if she'd tried, I'd have belted her in the puss so hard she'd see stars for a fucking year. And that Dick Powell, he's like Mr. Bob who ran the company store. Just a big of politician, slapping the gravy on every goddamn thing! I know his type; big on talk, nothing on getting it done. He'll smile pretty as how-de-do, but he ain't one bit interested in me! I want to meet Cary Grant or John Wayne. I want to meet Mr. Cooper or Mr. Bogart! These are little people. You can't get nowheres in L. A. with little people." Ben sighed. When Virginia lit up like this, there was no stopping her, short of an uppercut to the jaw, which he had delivered a few times, but she was wearing him down. You can only hit a gal so many times. He wished he had the guts to dump her, but in bed, when the mood was on her, she was such a tigress, so much better than anyone, he knew it was impossible. "Well, I'm down here on business," he said. "I have a lot to learn from Owney. He has ideas." "That creep. He's about as British as my Uncle Clytell." "Sweetie, we'll be back in LA. in a couple of days. I'll buy you a new mink. We'll throw a big party. Stars will come. But let me tell you! This has been very profitable for me. It's going to get better and better out there. You watch and see Where the next ten years take us. We will be so big--" "You been saying that for six months and you're still the bughouse creep they sent to L. A. to get outta their hair and I still don't have a speaking part! Did you call your lawyer?" "Well, honey, I--" "You did not! You are still married to that bag Estelle! You're still Mr. Krakow! Mr. Krakow, would you like some eggs with your bacon and let's take the station wagon to Bloomingdale's, dear, they're having a sale! You ain't moved one step closer to no divorce. You bughouse kike, I knew you'd lie! You liar! You goddamn liar! She turned, and snatched a $200 lamp off a mahogany end table, lifted it and turned toward him. She advanced, nostrils flaring, eyes lit with pure craziness. But then his own sweet craziness skyrocketed out of control. "Don't call me bughouse/" Ben shouted back. Nothing got him ticked faster than that. A white-hot flash of lightning zagged through his brain, taking all thought and reason from him. He stood, balled his fist and began to stalk his adversary, who approached savagely. But a knock on the door signaled the arrival of the help, and with a snort, Virginia set the lamp down, opened the door and headed toward the elevator. Virginia stared stonily at Hot Springs as it drifted by through the Caddy's window. In the broad daylight, it was just another crappy burg, like Toledo or Paducah. "Virginia," asked Owney, "did you take one of our famous baths? Very soothing." "I ain't letting no nigger scrub me with a steel-wool mitt while my hairdo melts and my toes wrinkle up like raisins," Virginia said. "Ah, I see. Well, yes, there is that," Owney replied. Ben shot him a little look. It said, She's in one of "those" moods. Owney nodded, cleared his throat, and directed his gaze back to Ben. "It's a humming joint," said Ben. "You really got something going here." "So I do. It's called the future." Ben nodded; it was clear that Owney saw himself not merely as a professional but as some sort of elder wise man, with rare and keen insights. That's why a lot of New York people regarded him as a yakker and didn't miss his pontifications and fake Englishisms a bit. But Ben was curious and had his own ideas. "The future?" "Yes. Do you see it yet, Ben? Can you feel it? It's like that Braque hanging in my apartment. You have to feel it. If you feel it, its meanings are profound." Ben's placid face invited Owney onward, and also suggested that Ben was stupid and needed educating, neither of which was true. "The future. Ben, the wire is dead. The war killed it. It accelerated communications exponentially, old man. We used to control the wire because we controlled the communications. We were organized. We could get the race and sports data around the country in a flash, and no other organization, including the U. S. government, was capable of competing. Information is power. Information is wealth. But the war comes along and finally the government understands how important information is to running a global enterprise, and finally they begin to fund research. Once the genie is out of the bottle, there's no putting him back. The next few years will amaze you, Ben. This television? Huge. Person-toperson calling? Instantaneous, without operators or trunk stations. Super adding machines, to make the most arcane calculations the property of the common man. So our great advantage is gone, and with it the source of our wealth and power. We must change! Change or die! They couldn't see that in New York, but believe me, it is coming. Great change. One must ride it, not fear it, but be able to play it, don't you see?" Ben nodded sagely. Once in 1940 with the Countess he had stayed at Mussolini's summer retreat and heard that bombastic baldy talk in a similar vein. The future! Tomorrow! Fundamental change! What did it get him, but an upside-down ride on a meat hook at the end of a piano wire after the gunners got done stitching him, and old lady peasants spitting on his fat carcass? "Yeah, yeah, I see," said Ben innocently. "Ben, the future is in casinos. That is where the great wealth will come. A city of casinos, a city we own and operate. That is what I'm trying to build here, slowly and surely, with the long-term goal of making gambling-- gaming, we'll call it-legal in Arkansas. It's like a license to mint money. People will come in the millions. They can wander the trails in the afternoons, eat food that's cheap, see the shows--Perry Como and Bing Crosby are just a start--and that night enter a magic world and feel the thrill and the excitement that's formerly been felt only by high rollers and aristocratic scoundrels. They'll pay! They'll pay dearly! Ultimately we will become just another American corporation, like Sinclair Oil or Motorola or RCA. Ultimately, we will be America!" "Talk, talk, talk!" said Virginia. "You chumps, a Chicago mechanic could clip you and you wouldn't even see it coming. It ain't going to change, Owney. Them old bastards, they got too much riding on the way they do things. They'll kill you before they let you change the fucking rules, without batting an eyelash." They were talking so furiously nope of them noticed the black '38 Ford with two glum detectives following them a few car lengths back. The train lay like a fat yellow snake, huge and wide and imposing. Its diesel streamline seemed to yearn for a horizon, a plain to cross, a river to vault, a mountain to climb. The engine had a rocket ship's sensible sleekness, and a small cab twenty feet off terra firma. It issued noises and mysterious grumblings and was attended by a fleet of worshipful keepers. Conductors and other factotums prowled the platform, examining documents, controlling the flow into and off the thing. The crowds rushed by. Amid them, but indifferent, and smoking gigantic cigars, the two lords stood in their magnificent clothes, waiting imperially. It would take time for the boys to get the luggage into the compartment and now Owney and Ben were contemplating history. "This is where that train was jacked, isn't it?" asked Ben. "It is indeed, old man." "Nineteen forty-one?" "Nineteen forty." "What was the take?" "I believe over four hundred thousand in cash. The Alcoa payroll for the Hattie Fletcher bauxite pit. In Bauxite." "In Bauxite?" "Yes, old man. They named the town after its only product, which is bauxite. The bauxite of Bauxite rules the world, that is, when applied to aluminum by some alchemical process I couldn't possibly understand, and then built into lightweight ships, planes and guns. We won the war with aluminum. The miracle metal. The metal of the future." "Damn, sure is a lot of the future here in Hot Springs! It was at this station?" "Not in the station, per se. It was the mail car, and the train was over in the freight docks. You can't see it from here, but this is really a yard. There are several other tracks, controlled by the tower, and warehouses on the other side. You'll see when you get aboard." "The crew? They've never been caught?" "Never. They must have been out-of-towners. No local thief could operate at that level of perfection." "I heard they were Detroit boys, usually work for the Purples. Some done some time with Johnny D back in the wild times. Good people with guns. I heard Johnny Spanish himself." "I thought he was dead." "Nobody will ever kill Johnny Spanish. He's the best gun guy in America." "Well, if you say so. I thought I was the best gun guy in America. I could tell you some fabulous adventures I had back in New York before the Great War!" Both men laughed. Ben took a mighty suck on his cigar, a very fine Havana, and looked around in the late afternoon sunlight. It suddenly occurred to him: where was Virginia? "Where's Virginia?" he asked, instantly coming alert from his torpor. "Why, she was here a second ago," said Owney. "She was pesky this morning. She can get real pesky sometimes," he said, soothing his panic as he eyed the crowd. At last he saw her. She had wandered down the platform to get a cigarette while the boys loaded the bags. But--who was she talking to? He could make out a figure, someone strange, someone he didn't know, but hard to see through the crowds. But then the crowds parted magically, and he saw her companion. A tall, tough-looking gent in a blue suit with a fedora pulled low over his eyes and the look of command and experience to him. Ben smelled cop, and a split second later that little flare of rage fired off in his mind. "Goddamn her!" he exploded, his face white with fury, his temples pulsating, and he began to stride manfully toward his woman. They spent the morning examining gambling joints from the hundreds in the town, from the smallest, dingiest sports books in the Negro areas out Malvern to some of the more prosaic slot halls on the west side out Ouachita to the elaborate Taj Mahals of Central Avenue. Any one of them could be the Central Book, but how would they know? None of the eight or so they eyeballed, entered, dropped a few bucks' worth of quarters into, seemed remarkable in any way. Then they stopped at a Greek's and had a couple of hamburgers and coffee. "Is this what cops do?" asked Earl. "They just drive around and look at stuff?" "Pretty much," said D. A., taking a bite. "But when the shit happens, it happens fast. Just like in the war." "Okay, Mr. Parker. I believe you." "Earl, before this is all over, you'll look back on these early days with some nostalgia. This is about as good as it gets." Earl nodded, and went back to his burger. Finally, D. A. went off, dropped a nickel and made a call. He came back with a smile on his wrinkled, tanned prime of a face. "This snitch I got at the Arlington, one of the bellboys, he says Bugsy and the babe are moving out today and the boys are going upstairs to get their luggage and load it up for them. Let's go to the hotel and see if we can't pick 'em up." Earl threw down his cup of coffee, left some change at the counter and the two of them went out and got in the Ford. When they got to the Arlington and parked above it on Central, with the grand entrance in easy view, it didn't take long to pick up the caravan. The limo, which looked like it was thirty feet long, led the way out of the hotel's grand entrance. It was followed by a pickup, full of luggage and black men. And behind that, a third car, a Dodge, where six of Owney's minor gunmen and gofers--they were all from a hillbilly family called Grumley--sat dully, pretending to provide security. From a few car lengths back, Earl and D. A. followed, taking it nice and easy, and kept contact as the folks in the big limo talked on and on. Earl could see that Bugsy and Owney did most of the chatting. The woman just looked out the window, her features frozen in place. The cavalcade made its way through the heavy traffic up Central, and a traffic cop overrode the light to let it pass, while D. A. and Earl cooled their heels behind the red. By the time they got to the station, the black men had the luggage off the truck and loaded onto a couple of hand carts and were hauling it toward the big yellow train. "Is that the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe?" asked Earl, as D. A. pulled into a space on Market Street. "No, Earl, that is not. That is the Missouri-Pacific 4:15 for St. Louis, the first step on the trip back to L. A. Now let's get out and mosey over there and see what there is to see. Probably nothing, but for now I am sick of casing books in Niggertown." "I roger that," said Earl. The two split up, and drifted through the gathering crowd as the time of departure approached. Earl lit a cigarette, found a pillar to lean against far down the platform and commenced to smoke and watch. In time, he spotted the two gangsters talking animatedly near the station house, each smoking a gigantic cigar. The two fellows seemed to be having a good enough time. Other than that, nothing much was happening, though more and more people were boarding the train and the conductors seemed a little more frenzied. He glanced at his Hamilton, saw that it was just about 4:00 P. M. The all-aboard would come very soon. His leg hurt a little, as did his left wrist. He flexed his left hand, opening and shutting it, and shifted his weight, trying to keep his mind off of it. He wasn't used to wearing a tie all day, either, and it was getting on his nerves, but he wasn't about to loosen his, even in this heat, until D. A. did the same. He was thinking about a nice hot shower back in his cabin at the Best Tourist Court. Suddenly someone stood before him, and he cursed himself for his lack of awareness. It was the woman. Her hair was red, and pinned up under a yellow beret. She stood on white, strapped heels in a yellow traveling suit cut right at the knee that showed off more leg than was healthy for anybody. She was staring at him intently, her eyes dark. "Say, handsome," she said, "did you use your last match to light that butt or would you have one or two others left in the box?" Nothing shy about this one. And, she smelled great too. Her accent was sugardipped, like a fritter hot on a cool Southern morning, and he placed it as either from Georgia or Alabama. "I might have another one here, ma'am," he said. "Let me just dig through my gear and see." He stood, pulled the matchbox out from his inside pocket. He deftly opened it, took out a match, and struck it and cupped. He had large hands that protected the fragile flame from any gust of breeze. She came close, cupping his hands in hers, and drew his flame to her Chesterfield. "There you go," he said. "Thanks, I needed that." She stood back, inhaled deeply, then exhaled a zephyr of smoke. "Do I know you?" he asked. "Ain't you in the pictures?" "Been in a couple, doll," she replied. "But you had to look quick. It's a crappy business unless you know big guys and I just happen to know the wrong big guys. The big guys I know scare the hell out of everybody else. You wouldn't know any big guys, would you, handsome?" "No ma'am," said Earl, smiling. "I know a couple of generals, that's all." "Oh, a soldier boy. I thought you might be a cop." "I used to be a Marine." "Bet you killed a tubful of Japs." "Well, ma'am, you just never could tell. It was so fast and smoky." "My chump boyfriend stayed in L. A. running a sports wire. He's a real hero, the louse. He drags me all the way to this craphole town to meet picture people and they're all small potatoes. It took me ten years to get out of towns like this, and here I am, back again." "You from Georgia, ma'am?" "Alabama. Bessemer, the steel town. If you haven't been there, you ain't missed much, sugar. I--" Earl had the peripheral impression of flailing, of something hot and wild suddenly swarming upon him, animal like, so fast it was stunning. "What the fuck is going on?" It was Bugsy Siegel, his nostrils flaring, his eyes livid with rage. Two flecks of gray gunk congealed in the corners of his mouth. His body radiated pure aggression and his eyes were nasty little pinpricks. He grabbed the woman, roughly, by the elbow and gave her a powerful yank. The strength of it snapped her neck. He squeezed her arm hard until his knuckles were white. "What the fuck is this all about, Virginia?" he demanded. "Christ, Ben, I just got a light from this poor guy," she said as she pulled her arm free. "Sir," said Earl, "there wasn't nothing going on here." "Shut up, cowboy. When I talk to you, that's when you talk to me." He turned back to Virginia. "You fucking slut, I ought to smack you in the face. Get to the train. Go on, get your goddamn ass out of here!" He gave her a shove toward the train, and turned after her. But then he thought better of it, and turned back to Earl. His hot eyes looked Earl up and down. Earl gazed back. "What are you looking at, bumpkin?" "I ain't looking at nothing, sir." "You fucking dog, I ought to beat the shit out of you right here. I ought to smash you into the pavement, you little nobody. You nothing. You piece of fucking crap." His anger fueled the color of his language. "Ben, leave the poor guy alone, I started talking to--" "Shut up, bitch. Get her to the train, goddammit," he barked at two of Owney's Grumleys who'd shown up in support. Earl saw Owney himself with two others back a few steps and around them a cone of onlookers had formed. It was dead quiet. "Do you know who I am?" Ben said. "Ben, get ahold of yourself," said Owney. "He's just a guy on a platform," the woman yelled, pulling away from the two goons. But now the focus of Ben's rage was entirely upon Earl, who just stood there with a passive look on his face. "Do you know who I am?" Siegel screamed again. "No sir," said Earl. "Well, if you did, you fucking putz, you would be shitting bricks in your pants. You would be stinking up this joint. You do not want to fuck with me. You don't even want to be in the same state as me, do you understand that, you country flickhead?" "Yes sir," said Earl. "I only lit the lady's cigarette." "Well, you thank your fucking lucky stars I didn't decide to wipe your ass on the railway tracks, you got that, Tex? Do you get that?" "Yes sir," said Earl. Bugsy leaned close. "I killed seventeen men," he said. "How many you killed, you pitiful farmer?" "Ah, I'd say somewhere between 300 and 350," said Earl. Bugsy looked at him. "And see," Earl explained further, "here's the funny thing, the boys I killed, they was trying to kill me. They had machine guns and tanks and rifles. The boys you killed was sitting in the park or in the back seat of a car, thinking about the ball game." Then he smiled a little. At first Bugsy was stunned. No one had ever talked to him this way, particularly not in the face of one of his rampages. And then it struck him that this hick wasn't scared a lick. The guy smiled at Bugsy and--fuck him, fuck him, FUCK HIM!--actually winked. Bugsy threw his punch with his right. It wasn't a roundhouse, for he was a skilled fighter and knew that roundhouses were easily blocked. It was an upward jab, with the full force of his body behind it, and his reflexes were fast, his strength considerable and his coordination brilliant, all driven by his mottled fury. He meant to punch the cowboy right below the eye and cave in the left side of his face. He threw the punch and for quite a while--say somewhere between .005 and .006 second--felt the soaring pleasure that triumph in battle always unleashed in him, the imposition of his will on an unruly world, his ego, his beauty, his cunning, all in full expression. He knew important people! He hung out with movie stars! He fucked a countess, he fucked Wendy Barrie, he fucked hundreds of the world's most beautiful starlets! He was Bugsy, the Bugman, Bughouse, friend of Meyer and Lucky, he counted in this world. Then it all vanished. With a speed that he could never have imagined, the cowboy got a very strong hand inside his wrist to turn the blow, not so much block it, and with his other hand himself strike. Bugsy was not a coward. He had been in many street fights, and he'd won most of them. He was indefatigable in battle when he had a stake in the outcome, and his rage usually sealed him off from the sensation of pain until hours later. He had been hit many times. But the blow he absorbed took all that away from him. It was a short right-hand punch that traveled perhaps ten inches but it had a considerable education in mayhem behind it, and it struck him squarely below the heart, actually cracking three ribs. It was a hammer, a piston, a jet plane's thrust, an atom bomb. It sucked the spirit from him. The shock was red, then black, and his legs went, and he slipped to the platform, making death-rattle sounds, feeling bile or blood pour from his nostrils to destroy his bow tie. He urped and his lunch came up. He convulsed, drew his legs up to his chest to make the hurt go away, sucked desperately for oxygen and felt something he had not felt in years, if ever: fear. His antagonist was kneeling. "You know what?" he said. "I only hit you half as hard as I know how. If I see you in this town again, I'll hit you so hard it'll knock your guts out of your skin. Now you get on this train and you go far, far away. Don't come back, no more, no how, not ever." He stood and looked Owney square in the eye. "You or any of your boys want to try me, Mr. Maddox, you go right ahead." Owney and his crew of Grumleys took a step back. "I didn't think so," said Earl, smiled, winked at the pretty lady and slipped away. Chapter 8 After he regained his voice and his legs, but not his color, Bugsy turned his rage on Owney, demanding to know who the vanished cowboy was. Owney admitted he didn't know at all. As the crew of Owney's Grumley boys led him to the Pullman car and as he nursed the wretched pain in his side, Bugsy passed out what could only be an edict, with the full power of his associates back east behind it: You find out who that guy is. You find out where he lives, who he hangs with, what he does. You mark him well. But do not touch him. I will touch him. Touching him, that's for me, do you understand? Owney nodded. Virginia said, "Sugar, you're going to touch him with what now, a howitzer? An atom bomb? A jet?" She threw back her hair, flushed and victorious, and laughed powerfully, a laugh that emerged from a diaphragm as if coated in boiled Alabama sap and grits. "Honey," she said, "you ain't got the guts to face that kind of how-de-do again, let me tell you. Ha! He got you so good! You should have seen the look on your face when he poked you! You poor ol' thing, you done got the white beat off you!" "Virginia, shut up," said Bugsy. "You were the cause of all this." "So how was I supposed to know he was Jack Dempsey? Anyhow, you were the idiot that swung on him. Couldn't you see he was a tough guy? He looked tough. He stood tough. He talked tough. And, honey, he sure as hell hit tough!" "Do you want a doctor, old man?" Owney asked. "We could delay the train." "And let these hicks laugh at me some more? Let some hick sawbones pick at me? No thank you. Owney, you said you ran a smooth town. You said we'd all be safe here, you owned things, things ran great in Owney's town. And this happens. Some ringer. He had to be a pro boxer. I never saw no guy's hands move that fast, and I never got hit so fucking hard in my life. So maybe this ain't such a safe town and maybe you ain't doing such a good job." With that he limped bravely up the steps of the Missouri-Pacific and was taken to his Pullman stateroom by a covey of Negro porters. Virginia followed, but she turned for a last whisper to the befuddled Owney. "You tell that cowboy to watch out. The goddamn Bugman holds grudges. And tell that sugar boy if he ever comes to L. A. to look me up!" Shordy, the train pulled out of the station, and Owney hoped that he was forever finished with Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, who had come for a "vacation and a bath" at the urging of Meyer Lansky and Frank Costello, who were big in New York. "All right," he said when the train pulled out, addressing Grumleys present and elsewhere, "now you know what's going on. Find out who that guy is and find out fast. But don't touch him! Something's going on and I have to know what the fuck it is." He was troubled: change was coming, he knew, and to ride it out he had to keep things running smoothly down here. Hot Springs had to be a smooth little empire, where nothing went wrong, where boys from all the mobs could come and have their fun, and mix and get together, without problems from the law. That's what he was selling. That was his product. Everything he had was tied up in that. If he lost that, it meant he lost everything. "Mr. Maddox, he's long gone," said Rem Grumley, one of Pap Grumley's sons and the eldest of these Grumleys. "He just melted so fast into the crowd, we didn't get a fix on him. Who'd have thought a guy would have the balls to paste Bugsy Siegel in the ribs?" "Find him" was all Owney could think to say. They drove away from the station in silence. Earl stared glumly into the far distance. His hand hurt a bit. He figured it would be bruised up some in the morning. "Tell you what," said D. A. finally, "I never saw one man hit another so hard. You must have boxed." "Some" was all Earl said. "Pro?" "No sir." "Earl, you're not helping me here. Where? When? How?" ""Thirty-six, '37 and '38. I was the Pacific Fleet Champ, middleweight. Fought a tough Polak for that third championship on a deck of the old battlewagon Arizona 'm Manila Bay." "You are so fast, Earl. You have the fastest hands I ever saw, faster even than the Baby Face's. You must have worked that speed bag hard over the years." "Burned a few speed bags out, yes sir, I surely did." "Earl, you are a piece of work." "I'm all right," he said. "But I made a mistake, didn't I?" "Yes, you did, Earl." "I should have let him hit me?" "Yes, you should have." "I think I know that," said Earl, aware somehow that he had failed. He turned it over in his mind to see what the old man was getting at. "Do you see why, Earl?" "Yes sir, I do," said Earl. "I let my pride get in the way. I let that little nothing in a railroad station get too big in my head." "Yes, you did, Earl." "I see now what I should have done. I should have let him hit me. I should have let him smack me to the ground and feel like a big shot. I should have begged him not to hit me no more. Then he'd think I'se scared of him. Then he'd think he owned me. And if it was ever important, and he came at me again, he'd sail in king of the world, and I'd have nailed him to the barn door so bad he wouldn't never git down." "That is right, Earl. You are learning. But there's one other thing, Earl. You threw caution to the wind. That was an armed, highly unstable professional criminal, surrounded by his pals, all of them armed. You are unarmed. If you'd have hit him again, you'd probably be a dead man and no jury in Garland County would have convicted your killers, not with Owney's influence on Bugsy's side. So it was a chance not worth taking." "I'm not too worried about myself," Earl said. "No true hero really is. But the heroics are over, Earl. It's time for teamwork, operating from strength, careful, professional intelligence, preparation, discipline. Discipline, Earl. You can teach these young policemen we have coming in discipline, I know. But you have to also show it, Earl, embody it. Do you understand?" "Yes sir." "It's not a pretty nor a right thing for me to address a hero of the nation in such a way, but I have to tell you the truth." "You go ahead and tell me the truth, sir." "That's good, Earl. That's a very good start." They drove on in silence for a bit. "Now they know there's a new fellow or two in town," Earl finally said. "Yes, Earl, they do." "And that would be why we are not heading back to the cabins?" "That is it, exactly." They were driving out Malvern through the Negro section, and now and then the old man eyed the rearview mirror. On the streets, the Negro whorehouses and beer joints were beginning to heat up for a long night's wailing. Mammas hung from the window, smoking, yelling things; on the streets, pimps tried to induce those of either race or any race to come in for a beer or some other kind of action. Now and then a Negro casino, usually smaller and more pitifully turned out than the ones for the white people, could be glimpsed, but mostly it was just black folks, sitting, watching, wondering. "Tell me, Earl, what was in your room?" "Some underclothes for a change, some underclothes drying in the tub. Some socks. Two new shirts. A razor, Burma-Shave. A toothbrush, and Colgate's. A pack of cigarettes or two." "Any books, documents, anything like that? Anything to identify yourself?" "No sir." "That's good. Can you live with the loss of that stuff?" "Yes, I can." "That's good, because if I don't miss my guess, starting now them boys are going to turn that town upside down looking for the Joe Louis that pole axed their special visitor. I paid for the cabins through next Monday; if we check out today or make a big folderol about packing and leaving in a hurry, that's a dead giveaway as to who we are. It's best now just to fade quietly. They'll check everywhere for boys who've left suddenly, left in a lurch, left without paying up. So if we don't do anything to draw attention to ourselves, we'll keep them in the dark a little longer." "Yes sir," said Earl. "I guess I'm a little sorry." "Earl, in this work, sorry don't matter. Sure is better than sorry. Remember: the mind is the weapon. Think with the mind, not the fast hands." * * * Owney's Grumleys turned the town pretty much upside down. He had a gang of former bootleg security boys and did all the heavy hitting he found necessary. There were a bunch of Grumleys, all related, including several Lutes, more than a few Bills, and not less than three and possibly as many as seven Slidells, as well as a Vern and a Steve. The Slidell Grumleys were by repute the worst and they had to be kept apart, for they would turn on each other murderously, given half a chance. A Grumley visited every hotel, tourist court and campground to examine, sometimes sweetly, sometimes not so sweedy, the registration books. Another Grumley or two--usually a Bill and a Lute--traveled the whorehouse circuit. Madams and girls were questioned, and a few sexual adventures were worked in on the sly by this or that Grumley, but such was to be expected. Grumleys were Grumleys, after all. And still another couple of Grumleys checked the bathhouses. Other Grumleys tracked down numbers runners and wire mechanics and instructed them to keep their eyes open double wide. Owney even had some of his Negro boys--these were most definitely not Grumleys--wander the black districts asking questions, because you never could tell: times were changing and where it was once impossible to think of white people hiding among, much less associating with, Negro people, who knew the strangeness of the wonderful modern year 1946? Even the police were brought in on the case, but Owney expected little and got little from them. In the end, all the efforts turned up nothing. No sign of the cowboy could be unearthed. Owney was troubled. He sat late at night on his terrace, above the flow of the traffic and the crowds sixteen stories below on Central Avenue, in the soft Arkansas night. He had a martini and a cigarette in its holder in an ashtray on the glass table before him. Beyond the terrace, he could see the tall bank of lighted windows that signified the Arlington Hotel was full of suckers with bulging pockets waiting to make their contributions to Owney's fortune; to the right of that rose Hot Springs Mountain with its twenty-seven spigots of steamy water for soothing souls and curing the clap. He held a pigeon in his hands--a smooth, loving bird, its purple irises alive with life, its warmth radiating through to his own heart, its breast a source of cooing and purring. The bird was a soft delight. He tried to sort out his problems and none of them seemed particularly difficult in the isolate, but together, simultaneously, they felt like a sudden strange pressure. He had been hunted by Mad Dog Coll, he had shot it out with Hudson Dusters, he had felt the squeeze of Tom Dewey, he had done time in New York's toughest slammers, so none of this should have really mattered. But it did. Maybe he was growing old. Owney petted his bird's sleek head and made an interesting discovery. He had crushed the life out of it when he was considering what afflicted him. It was silently dead. He threw it in a wastebasket, gulped the martini and headed inside.* PART TWO Day Heat August 1946 Chapter 9 On the first morning. Earl took the group of young policemen out to the calisthenics field in the center of a city of deserted barracks miles inside the wire fence of the Red River Army Depot. The Texas sun beat down mercilessly. They were all in shorts and gym shoes. He ran them. And ran them. And ran them. Nobody dropped out. But nobody could keep up with him either. He sang them Marine cadences to keep them in step. I DON'T KNOW BUT I BEEN TOLD ESKIMO PUSSY IS MIGHTY COLD SOUND OFF ONE-TWO SOUND OFF THREE-FOUR There were twelve of them, young men of good repute and skills. In his long travels in the gardens of the law, D. A. had made the acquaintanceship of many a police chief. He had, upon getting this commission, called a batch of them, asked for outstanding young policemen who looked forward to great careers and might want to volunteer for temporary duty in a unit that would specialize in the most scientifically up-to-date raiding skills as led by an old FBI legend. The state of Arkansas would pay; the departments would simply hold jobs open until the volunteers returned from their duties with a snootful of new experience, which they could in turn teach their colleagues, thus enriching everybody. D. A.'s reputation guaranteed the turnout. The boys varied in age from twenty to twenty-six, unformed youths with blank faces and hair that tumbled into their eyes. Several looked a lot like that Mickey Rooney fellow Earl had seen in Hot Springs but they lacked Mickey's worldliness. They were earnest kids, like so many young Marines he'd seen live and die. After six miles, he let them cool in the field, wiping the sweat from their brows, wringing out their shirts, breathing heavily to overcome their oxygen deficit. He himself was barely breathing hard. "You boys done all right," he said, and paused, "for civilians." They groaned. But then came the next ploy. He knew he had to take their fears, their doubts, their sense of individuality away from them and make them some kind of a team fast. It had taken twelve hard weeks at Parris Island in 1930, though during the war they reduced it to six. But there was a trick he'd picked up, and damn near every platoon he'd served in or led had the same thing running, so he thought it would work here. He named them. "You," he said, "which one is you?" He had the gift of looming. His eyes looked hard into you and he seemed to expand, somehow, until he filled the horizon. This young man shrank from him, from his intensity, his masculinity, his sergeantness. "Ah, Short, sir. Walter R," said the boy, dark-haired and intense, but otherwise unmarked by the world at twenty. "Short, I'll bet you one thing. I bet you been called 'Shorty* your whole life. Ain't that the truth?" "Yes sir." "And I bet you hated it." "Yes sir." "Hmmmm. " Earl made a show of scrunching up his eyes as if he were thinking of something. "You been to France, Short?" "No sir." "Well, from now on and just because I say so, your name is 'Frenchy.' Frenchy Short. How's that suit you?" "Uh, well--" "Good. Glad you like it. All right, ever damn body, y'all say 'HI FRENCHY' real loud." "HI FRENCHY" came the roar. "You're now a Frenchy, Short. Got that?" And he moved to the next one, a tall, gangly kid with a towhead and freckles, whose body looked a little long for him. "You?" "Henderson, sir. C. D. Henderson, Tulsa, Oklahoma." "See, you're already a problem, Henderson. Our boss, his name is D. A. So we can't have too many initials or we'll get 'em all tangled up. What's the C stand for?" "Carl." "Carl? Don't like that a bit." "Don't much like it myself, sir." "Hmmm. Tell you what. Let's tag an O on the end of it. But not an S. That would make you a Carlo. Not a Carlos, but a Carlo. Carlo Henderson. Do you like it?" "Well, I--" "Boys, say Hello to Carlo." "HELLO CARLO!" In that way, he named them all, and acquired a Slim who was chunky, a Stretch who was short, a Nick who cut himself shaving, a Terry who read Terry and the Pirates