'Twenty hours or so, I get to Hot Springs. I check into the Arlington where I already have a reservation. I go to Owney. He of course has to have me up. I tell him I'm on a sort of a peace mission. Ben is worried that Owney will think he's shoehorning in on the Hot Springs business with this desert deal. I'm to assure him that that's not the case and that if Vegas even begins to look as if it might work, you, Ben, will invite him, Owney, out as a consultant and fellow investor. Owney is to consider Vegas his town as much as Hot Springs and as far as Ben is concerned, Owney will always be the father and Ben the son.'
'Yeah, that's good. You can do that?'
'In my sleep, sugar.'
'Okay, what's next?'
'Then I pressure him about the cowboy. Does he yet know who that cowboy is? Ben has been very embarrassed about what happened to him with the cowboy. It's gotten all around and Ben is being teased about it and being laughed at behind his back. Can Owney please hurry up and find out who the cowboy is?'
'Yeah.'
'Ben, I'm telling you, even if he tells me I am not going to tell you. I will not be part of anything against that guy. He was just a guy who lit a cigarette. You swung first. He didn't know who you were.'
'Virginia, how many times do I have to tell you? Forget the cowboy. It's got nothing to do with the cowboy. You don't have to protect the cowboy. But you have to put that move on Owney, because he will see through the father-son bullshit in a second, and will know you have a secret agenda. He will believe that's the secret agenda. We want him to believe that I'm obsessed with the cowboy, that I've sent you there to find out who the cowboy is. That way, he will discount what moves I'm making and consider me a noncompetitor, caught up in some grudge match that don't have nothing to do with business.'
'Okay,' she said, and took another toot on the martooni. 'Too much vermouth. Bartender, gimme another, easy on the vermouth. And two olives.'
'She likes fruit,' Ben said to Mickey. Mickey didn't say anything. He hardly talked. He just sat there, working on his fire hydrant impersonation.
'Now,' said Ben. 'What's next? It's very important. It's the point!'
'The painting.'
'Yeah, the painting. You might have seen it the first time, Virginia, if you'd been paying attention instead of rubbing your tits up against Alan Ladd.'
'He hardly noticed, believe me. His old lady was watching him like a hawk.'
'He noticed, I guarantee. Anyhow: look at it very carefully. Get its name. But remember exactly what it looks like. In fact, buy a little sketch pad and as soon as possible, sort of draw what it was like. Label the colors.'
'This is stupid. I ain't no fancy artist like Brake.'
'Braque, Virginia. It's French or something.'
'This is secret-agent stuff. What do you think, sugar, I'm in the OSS or something?'
'Virginia, this is important. It's part of the plan. Okay?'
'Okay.'
'We have to know all about that painting. Go back a second time, and check your first impressions, all right?'
'I can't stand that creep twice'
'Force yourself. Be heroic, all right?'
'Ty!' she suddenly shouted, rising.
A small, fine-boned dark-skinned man had entered the bar for his own bout of martoonis; Virginia waved, her voluptuous breasts undulating like whales having sex in a sea of the brand-new miracle product Jell-O.
Ben felt a wave of erotic heat flash through his brain as the two mighty wobblers swung past him, and turned to see the man toward which she now launched herself.
It was that movie star,Ty Power.
'Virginia,' he said, 'why, what a nice surprise.'
'Martooni, honey lamb? Join us. You know Ben.'
'Don't mind if I do, Virginia.'
'How's the new picture? I hear it's swell.'
Business. Ben sighed, knowing he had lost her for the time being. Then he retreated to his own private recreational world as Virginia pretended to be a movie star and Ty concentrated on her giant breasts and Mickey worked the fireplug routine. He thought about how he was going to kill the cowboy and enjoy every second of it.
Chapter 41
Carlo finally reached D. A. late that night from a phone booth in Washington National Airport. It took a pocketful of nickels before the connection was finally established and even then D. A. was only at this mysterious number rarely. But this time he was, though he'd clearly roused himself from a deep sleep.
'Where the hell have you been?' the old man demanded.
'I'm in Washington, D. C. I was checking on Earl's Marine records.'
'D. C.! Who the hell told you to go to D. C.?'
'Well sir, it's where the investigation took me.'
'Lord. Well, what did you find out?'
'Sir, I have to ask you. Suppose?' He could hardly get it out. 'Suppose there were evidence that suggested Earl killed his own father?'
'What?'
He ran his theory by D. A.
'Jesus Christ.'
'Sir, if ever a man needed killing, it was Charles Swagger. Heck, it may even have been self-defense and the reason Earl didn't turn himself in was 'cause he knew he'd get hung up in Arkansas and miss the trip to Guadalcanal.'
'You tell nobody about this. You understand? Nobody.'
'Yes sir.'
'If I find a chance, I may poke Earl a little bit on the subject. But that's all. Under no circumstances are we going to indict a man like Earl for something that can't be proven but by the circumstantial evidence in some forgotten Marine Corps file.'
'Yes sir.'
'Now you get on back here. We may be moving back into Hot Springs very shordy, and we need you.'
'Yes sir.'
Frenchy was gone. Carlo was still tending to a sick mother and would be back. Two others elected not to return, and after the heavy weapons were confiscated, Bear and Eff left the unit, saying the work was now too dangerous.
That left six men, plus Earl and D. A., no weapons, no vests.
'Y'all have to decide,' Earl told them, 'if you want to go ahead with this. We're operating on about two cylinders. You're young, you got your whole lives ahead of you. I don't like it any more'n the rest of you, but those are the facts and I ain't sending any man into acdon who don't believe in the job and his leaders. Anybody got any comments?'
'Hell, Earl,' said Slim, 'we started this here job, I sure as hell want to finish it.'
'I will tell any man here,' said Earl, 'that all he has to do is come to me in private and say, thanks but no thanks, and I'll have you out of here in a second, no recriminations, no problems, with a nice letter from Fred C. Becker. We ain't fighting Japs. We're fighting gamblers and maybe it ain't worth it for men with so much yet ahead.'
'Earl,' said Terry, 'if you could go through the war and come home and have a baby on the way, and still go on the raids, that's good enough for me.'
