'So the Bughouse has that to worry about before he worries about my little action down here?'
'That's what I hear. But Owney, I have to tell you the big guys do like him. They sent him out there. He has their ear. I'd look out for him. He thinks big.'
'Yeah, he thinks big, with my thoughts. I gave him his whole idea. He thinks he can fuckin' build a Hot Springs in the desert. There's nothing there but sand. Here, we got nature, we got mountains, we got lakes, we got?'
'Yeah, but in that state, gambling's legal, so you don't get raided. Remember that. That's a big plus.'
'We're not supposed to get raided here.'
'So you said. Owney, the guys, they always say, That Owney, he runs a smooth town. That's why they like to go there. The baths, some dames, some gambling, no problem, no hassles with the law. That's what they like. As long as you provide that for them, you will have no problems.'
'Yeah.'
'Owney. Best thing you can do is forget about Bugsy, and keep that town running smooth. That's your insurance policy.'
'Yeah,' said Owney. 'Thanks, Sid.'
It was on the way back that he had his big thought.
'Back home, sir?'
'No, no. Take me to the newspaper office. And then call Pap Grumley. Tell him to find Garnet Grumley's mother. Or someone who looks just like her.'
Chapter 16
'So tell me what happened up there Henderson,' Earl asked Carlo.
'I guess I screwed up. I thought I had it covered. I thought we done a good job.'
Earl nodded.
The raiders were headquartered in the pumping station of the Remmel Hydroelectric Dam, which blocked the Ouachita River and had thereby created Lake Catherine, and lay between Magnet and Hot Springs, on Route 65, not far at all from the Texaco station where Owney had gotten his call from New York. The pumping station, which was administered by theTVA and run out of Malvern, not Hot Springs, was a large brick building at the end of three miles of dirt road off U. S. 65; though most of its innards were taken up with turbines turning and producing electricity for Hot Springs, the upper floors had surprising space and provided room for fourteen cots, as well as hot showers and indoor plumbing. It was better than most places Earl had slept during the war. D. A. had thought all this out very carefully.
'Tell me what happened.'
'Well sir, we done our best. I am truly ashamed it wasn't good enough. But we got up there fast, we nabbed that bird McGaffery on the steps, there was a goddamned pissing drunk in the men's room, and we run him downstairs too, and we checked all the closets.'
'So Garnet Grumley could not have been up there?'
'I don't think so,' said Carlo. 'But if I missed him, then I missed him.'
'He was not up there,' said Frenchy. 'Mr. Earl, we went all through that place. I even beat the lock off the closet door in the ladies'.'
'See,' said Earl, 'I do not particularly care for having to shoot a boy dead, who was after all only doing his job and as it turned out had forgotten to load his shotgun. Either of you killed anyone?'
Both men shook their head no.
'I swear to you, Mr. Earl, that fellow did not come from up there,' said Frenchy. 'He must have snuck in from the outside. Or maybe he came up from the cellar.'
'Wasn't no cellar,' said Carlo. 'And we'd have seen him in the alley if he'd been lurking up there. Mr. Swagger, I do believe it was my fault and I am very sorry it happened. It wasn't Frenchy's. I was number one on our fire team, so the job was mine, and I muffed it. If you give me a next time, I will sure try hard to do a better job.'
'Jesus, Henderson,' said Frenchy. 'He wasn't up there. It's not your fault, it's not my fault. It just goddamned happened is all and everybody is lucky it was him that got killed, and not one of us.'
Earl pushed something across the table at them.
It was the Hot Springs New Era, the city's afternoon paper.
FARMBOY SLAIN IN COP 'RAID'
Locals decry 'Nazi' tactics
'He was a good boy,' Mom says.
'Christ,' said Frenchy. Carlo read:
Raiders from the Prosecuting Attorney's Office shot and killed a local man while invading a local nightclub.
The incident occurred at the Horseshoe Club, on Ouachita Avenue in West Hot Springs, late last night.
Dead was Garnet Grumley, 22, of Hot Springs, shot by a raider as he wandered in from the upstairs bathroom.
'Garnet was a good boy,' said his mother, Viola Grumley, of eastern Garland County. 'He did all his chores and milked his special cow, Billie. I wonder what he was doing in that downtown club. But I wonder why they had to shoot such a harmless, God-fearing boy.'
Fred C. Becker, Garland County Prosecuting Attorney, refused to talk to New Era reporters.
In a news release his office provided, he claimed that officers shot in self-defense while on a raid aimed at local gamblers.
See New Era Editorial,
'Boy, I'll bet that one's rich.'
'Oh, it is,' said Earl.
The two young men flipped pages.
New Jayhawkers?
In the era preceding the Civil War it was common for night riders to terrorize Arkansans in the name of a just cause, which was more a license to hate. Town burnings, robberies, lynchings and other malicious acts were the order of the day.
History remembers these brigands as Jayhawkers and under that same name it consigns them to evil.
Well, a new plague of Jayhawkers is upon us. Unlike their predecessors they don't ride horses and carry shotguns; no, they ride in modern automobiles and carry machine guns.
And, like their brethren from a century ago, they hide behind a supposedly 'just' cause, the elimination of gambling influence and corruption from our beautiful little city. But, as before, this is a clear case of the cure being worse?far worse?than the disease.
'Ouch,' said Carlo. 'Newspaper morons,' said Frenchy. 'Well, they do leave out the fact that the late Garnet spent fourteen months in the state penitentiary for assault and that he had a juvenile record that goes back to before the war,' said Earl. 'And D. A. says that Viola is no more his mama than you are, Short. He's an orphan Grumley, raised at the toe of a boot in the mountains, and pretty much your legger attack dog, and little else. So if a man had to die, better it was him than you or me.'
'Yes sir,' said Carlo.
'Okay, let me tell you two birds something. You are the youngest, but that don't bother me. You are probably also the smartest I got. I don't hold that smart boys ain't no good in combat, as some old sergeants do. But I do know your smart boy is easily distracted, and naturally doubtful, and has a kind of sense of superiority to all and sundry. So let me tell you, that if you want to stay in this outfit, you put all that aside. You put those smart-boy brains on the shelves and you commit to doing what you're told and doing it well and thoroughly. Elsewise, you're on your way back to where you come from, and you can tell your buddies there you were a bust as a raider.'
'Yes sir,' said Carlo.
'Now rack up some sleep. We're going again tonight.'
