a number of phone calls. For lunch he went to Coy's and had a fillet. On a whim, he stopped at Larry's Oyster Bar on Central and had a dozen fresh plump ones from Louisiana, with a couple of cold Jaxes. He went back and took a nice nap. At 3:00 a girl from Maxine's came over and he had his usual good time. At 4:00 he met Judge LeGrand at the club and they got in a quick nine holes. He shot a 52, best of the week. He was catching on to this damned game. At 6:00 he went to the Fordyce and took a bath, a steam session and a rubdown. At 7:00 he had dinner at the Roman Table restaurant with Dr. James, the head of surgery at the hospital, and Mr. Clinton, who owned the Buick agency; both were on the board of the country club, the hospital, and Kiwanis and the Good Fellows. At 9:00 he went to the Southern, caught some of Xavier Cugat's act, which he had seen a dozen times before, checked with his floor managers, his pit bosses and his talent manager to make certain that Mr. Cugat and his boys were being well taken care of. At 11:00 he walked back to the Medical Arts Building, took the elevator up, got into a dressing gown, and had a martini on the patio, while reading that morning's New York Mirror, just delivered from little Rock. That Winchell! What a bastard he could be.
Owney took a moment before bed and stood at the balcony. He had come a long way. He was unusual in his profession in that he had just a sliver of an inner life. He wasn't pure appetite. He knew he existed; he knew he thought.
Today had been such a good day, such a perfect day, yet such a typical day that he took a little pleasure in it all: how hard he had fought, how tough it had been, and how beautifully it had worked out. So many of them died, like the Dutchman, spouting gibberish as the life ebbed out of him, or Mad Dog, splattered with tommy gun fire in a phone booth, or Kid Twist, who went for a swim in midair after volunteering to rat the boys out; or went crazy, like Capone, down there in his mansion in Florida, a complete lunatic by reports, so hopelessly insane on the corrosiveness of his dose that nobody would even bother to visit him. He remembered Capone, the plump sensualist with a Roman emperor's stubby fingers and a phalanx of legionnaires to guard him everywhere, taking the Apollo Suite at the Arlington because it had two entrances, or, as Alphonse would think of it, two exits. A tommy gun legendarily leaned in a corner, in case A1 or a lieutenant had a sudden problem that only a hundred.45s could solve.
'Al, it's safe here. That's the point: it's smooth, it's safe, you can come down here by train and enjoy yourself. A man in your position, Al, he should relax a little.'
A1 just regarded him suspiciously, the paranoia beginning to rot his mind, turning his eyes into dark little peepholes. He didn't say much, but he got laid at least three times a day. Al was reputed to have an organ bigger than Dillinger's. Pussy was the only thing he really cared about and pussy, in the end, had destroyed him. He was afraid of the needles so he came to Hot Springs, under the belief the waters could cure him. They couldn't, of course. They could only stay the course of the disease a bit. All his soaking in 141 degrees had earned Scarface but a few extra hours of sanity in the end.
Owney finished his martini, turned to check that his pigeons had been fed, saw that they had, and started in, when he was surprised by Ralph, his Negro manservant.
'Sir. Mr. Grumley is here.'
'Flem?'
'No sir. The other Grumley. The one they call Pap. He's out of his sickbed.'
This alerted Owney that indeed something was up.
He walked into the foyer of his apartment, to find the ghost-white old Pap Grumley supported by two lesser cousins or sons or something.
'What is it, Pap?' asked Owney.
'A Grumley done been kilt,' said the old legger, a flinty bastard who'd fought the law for close to six decades and was said to carry over a dozen bullets in his hide.
'Who? Revenuers?'
'It's worse, Mr. Maddox.'
'What do you mean?'
'Your place done been raided.'
Owney could make no sense of this. One or two of his places were raided a year, but by appointment only. It usually took a meeting at least a week in advance to set up a raid. The police had to be told which casino or whorehouse to raid and when to do it, the municipal judge had to know not to get that drunk that night so he could parole the arrestees without undue delay, the casino had to be warned so that nobody would be surprised and nothing stupid would happen, the Little Rock newspapers had to be alerted so they could send photographers, and the mayor had to be informed so that he could be properly dressed for those photographs. Usually, it occurred when some politician in Little Rock made a speech in the state-house about vice.
'I don't?'
'They come in hard and fast, with lots of guns and wearing them bulletproof vests. And one of 'em shot a Grumley. It was Jed's boy, Garnet, the slow-wit. He died on the spot. We got him over at the morgue and we was?'
'Who raided?'
'They said they was working for the prosecuting attorney.'
'Becker?'
'Yes sir. That Becker, he was there. There's about ten, twelve of 'em, with lots of guns. They come in hard and fast and one of 'em shot Garnet dead when Garnet pulled his shotgun. Mr. Maddox, you got to let us know when there's going to be a raid. What am I supposed to say to Jed and Amy?'
'Where did this happen?'
'At the Horseshoe. Just a hour ago. Then they chopped up all the tables and the wheels with axes and machine-gunned the slots.' 'What?'
'Yes sir. They turned them machine guns loose on over thirty slots. Shot the hell out of 'em too, they did. Coins all over the goddamned place. Nickels by the bucketful.' 'They were working for Becker?' 'Yes sir. He was there, like I say. But the boss was some big tough-looking stranger. He was a piece of work. He shot Garnet. They say nobody never saw no man's hands move faster. He drew and shot that poor boy dead in about a half a second. Nailed him plug in the tick-tocker. Garnet was gone to the next world before he even begun to topple.'
The cowboy! The cowboy was back!
By the time he got there, reporters and photographers were already on the scene. They flooded over to Owney, who was always known for his colorful ways with the language, those little Britishisms that sold papers. There were even some boys from Little Rock in attendance.
But Owney was in no mood for quips. He waved them away, then called a Grumley over.
'Get the film. We don't want to let this out until we know what's happening. And send 'em home. And tell 'em not to write stories until we get it figured out.'
'Well, sir,' said the Grumley, 'there's already a press release out.'
He handed it over to Owney.
HOT SPRINGS, August 3, 1946, it was datelined.
Officers from the Garland County Prosecuting Attorney's Office today raided and closed a gambling casino in West Hot Springs, destroying 35 slot machines and much illegal gaming equipment.
The raid, at the Horseshoe, 2345 Ouachita also confiscated nearly $32,000 in illegal gambling revenues.
'This marks the first of our initiatives to rid Hot Springs of illegal gambling,' said Prosecuting Attorney Fred C. Becker, who led the raid.
'We mean to put the gangsters and the card sharks on notice,' said Mr. Becker. 'There's no longer a free lunch in Hot Springs. The laws will be enforced and they will be enforced until gambling and its vices have been driven out of our city.'
Operating on a tip that illegal activities were under way…
Owney scoffed as he discarded the sheet: maybe the thirty-foot-high neon sign on the roof of the Horseshoe that said 30 SLOTS?INSTANT PAYOUT! was the tip-off.
'Who the fuck does he think he is?' Owney asked the Grumley, who had no answer.
'Where's my lawyer?' asked Owney and in short order F. Garry Hurst was produced.
'Is this legal?' Owney demanded. 'I mean how can they just fuckin' blow down the doors and start blasting?'
'Well, Owney, it appears that it is. Becker is operating on a very tiny technicality. Because Hot Springs
