'Y'all get on out of here until we're done,' said Earl.
'Hey, buddy, I'm Captain Gilmartin and I?'
'I don't give a fuck who you are,' said Earl, ramming his chest square against the fat man's gut, 'I got six tommy guns that say you get the fuck off my operation till I let you on it, and if you don't like that, then there's some woods over there and whyn't you and I go discuss this a little further?' He fixed his mankiller's glare against the cop and watched the man melt and fall back.
'Take it easy, Earl,' said D. A. 'The police can control the crowd and look at the bodies when we're gone.'
Earl nodded.
But someone else came up to the mute Becker, one of his assistants.
'Fred, the press guys are really getting difficult. I can't hardly contain 'em. They want to come back here and see what we bagged.'
'Shit,' said Becker. Then he turned to D. A.
'So you tell me what to do. You promised me this wouldn't happen. Now we got a situation where we've killed two innocent men. Unarmed men.'
'Well, we don't know nothing about 'em yet,' D. A. said.
Earl was so disgusted with Becker's panic that he turned and walked away, over to where Frenchy knelt in the grass with Henderson more or less holding him. He knelt too.
'You saw them make a move?' he asked.
'He ain't talked yet,' said Henderson.
'Short. Short! Look at me! Snap out of it, goddammit. You saw them make a move?'
'I swear to Christ they did,' Frenchy said, swallowing.
'They ain't armed.'
'I know they were going to try something. I saw his hand move.'
'Why would his hand move? It had nothing to move toward.'
'I? I?'
'Did you panic, Short? Did you just squeeze down on 'em because you was scared?'
'No sir. They made a move.'
'Son, I want to help you. Ain't nobody here going to do it. That Becker, he'll throw you to the wolves if it makes him the youngest governor in the state of Arkansas.'
'I? I know they moved. They were trying something.'
'Is there any evidence? Did they say anything? I mean, give us something to work with. Why did you fire?'
'I don't know.'
'Did you see anything, Henderson?' Carlo swallowed. He decided not to mention Frenchy's cursing the dead bodies, his state of lost anger.
'He was just standing there with the smoking gun. They were dead. That's all.' 'Shit,' said Earl.
But someone was standing over him. Peanut, the biggest man in the unit, a former detective from Adanta, loomed over them. 'Whaddaya want, Peanut?'
'Well sir,' said Peanut, 'I may be wrong, but I don't think I am.' 'What?'
'Them boys. The boys Short bushwhacked.' 'Yeah?'
'I looked 'em over real careful.' 'They're a couple of salesmen from Tulsa.' 'No sir. B'lieve one's Tommy Malloy, out of Kansas City, and the other's Walter Budowsky, called Wally Bud. Bank robbers.' 'Bank robbers?'
'Malloy's number one on the FBI's most wanted list. Wally Bud is only number seven. But that's who it is, killed deader'n stumps over there.'
'Jesus Christ,' said Frenchy. 'I'm a hero!'
Chapter 19
Cleveland was on the phone. Owney didn't want to take it and you never could be too sure about the security of the phones, even if Mel Parsons, who ran Bell Telephone in Hot Springs, maintained that no one could eavesdrop without his knowledge.
Still, Owney knew he had to take the call.
He had a martini, and a Cubano. He sat in his office in the Southern. One of the chorus girls kneaded the back of his neck with long, soothing fingers. Jack McGaffery and Merle Swenson?neither with a club to manage?sat earnestly on the davenport. F. Garry Hurst smoked a cigar and looked out the window. Pap and Flem Grumley were also in attendance, though as muscle slightly exiled to a further circle.
'Hello, Owney Maddox here.'
'Cut the English shit, Owney. I ain't one of your stooges.'
'Victor? Victor, is that you?'
'You know it is, Owney. What the hell is going on down there? My people tell me some cops knocked off Tommy Malloy and Wally Bud. I'm supposed to tell Mr. Fabrizzio that? Mr. Fabrizzio liked Tommy very much. He knew his dad back in the '20s when his dad legged rum across Superior for him.'
'It's nothing. I got some pricks who?'
'Owney, Jesus Christ, this is serious shit. There are people unhappy all over the goddamn place. Tommy was down there because you said he'd be all right. Send your boys down, you said; I rim the town, the town welcomes visitors. What the fuck, now I got two dead guys?'
'I'm having some trouble with a local fuckin' prosecutor, It ain't a big thing.'
'Oh, yeah? It was pretty fucking big to Tommy Malloy. He's fucking dead, if I recall.'
'I got some kind of rogue cop unit. These guys, they're like another mob: they just open fire and to hell with anything else. It's like the Mad Dog is runnin' them. I will take care of it. Mr. Fabrizzio and his associates have nothing to worry about. It's safe for Cleveland, it's safe for Chicago, it's safe for New York. Ask Ben Siegel, he was just down here. He saw the town. Ask him.'
'Owney, it was Bugsy called Mr. Fabrizzio. That's why I'm on the phone right now.'
'That kike fuck,' said Owney.
Now it was official. Bugsy was talking against him. That was tantamount to a declaration of war, for it meant that Bugsy was lobbying for permission from the commission to move against him. Whatever was going on with goddamned Becker, it was helping Bugsy no end.
'Look, Vic, we go way back. You know me to be a man of my word. I'm fuckin' dealing with this. I will take care of it. A week, maybe two, that's all, then we're back exactly doing what we've been doing since '32.'
'Bugsy says, once he gets his joint up and running, that's the kind of shit would never happen. He guarantees it. Gambling's legal out there.'
'Yeah, but it's a fucking desert. It's full of scorpions and lizards and snakes. Great fan. I can see what you'd be telling Mr. Fabrizzio after a snake bit him onna ass!'
'Well, you got a point there, Owney. Just get it taken care of. And this is advice from a friend. Imagine what your enemies are saying.'
Owney hung up, only to get a new call. It was from the lobby, saying that Mayor Leo O'Donovan and Judge LeGrand were here, they had to see him.
'Send them up.'
This was troubling. By time-honored fiat, meetings with Hot Springs officials were conducted on the sly, never in observable public spots, particularly a casino. This meant that the two men, who more or less administered the town under his benevolent guidance, were seriously spooked.
He turned to the girl, whose face was pretty but vacant.
'Honey, you go now. You come visit Owney later tonight.'
She smiled a bright, fake smile, so intense that he thought he might already have had her. Maybe he had. He couldn't remember.
In any case, as she ducked out, the two town officials ducked in, and didn't even notice Pap and Flem
