Owney. It was all to be covered up.
'What kind of investigation did they make at the crime scene?'
'It was never considered a crime scene, but an accident scene. The Hot Springs city police cordoned it off, and set about to provide medical help. Unfortunately, so well trained was your team that all the bullets were fatally placed. Seven men were declared DOA. It's been a very bloody summer.'
'You could pull that one to pieces with ten minutes' worth of investigation. Did they take up shell casings? Did they do forensics on the bodies? Did they talk to witnesses who heard different kinds of gunfire? Did they even find carbines in the area? Our carbines were taken away, along with every other long gun and our vests. How could we have shot each other with carbines if we didn't have no carbines?'
'I am assured that several carbines were recovered on site, Mr. Swagger. You had better get used to the idea that this is over, and that the best thing for you to do is leave the county and begin again elsewhere. I've spoken to Mr. Henderson. He's seen the wisdom in our suggestion.'
'I don't know why you bastards always turn on the men you pay to do your killing for you,' Earl said. 'But that's the way it happens.'
'You understand, you are also forbidden from making contact with Mr. Becker, from speaking to journalists or publishing an account of these events, of publicly identifying yourself as a member of what the newspapers called the Jayhawkers?'
Earl looked at him.
'You are also officially warned that any attempt at misguided vengeance against those you perceive as culpable in this case will be considered a willful violation of this agreement and the law as well, and you will be prosecuted aggressively and to the full extent of our resources. You are to leave town quickly, quietly and completely. You are never to set foot in Garland County again. Your ten minutes are almost over, sir '
Earl just shook his head.
'Mr. Swagger, this isn't merely the best deal you'll get, it's the only deal you'll get. I'd sign off on it, get out of town and get about my life's work, whatever that may be.'
'He's just going to write all them boys off?'
'Mr. Swagger, I have other appointments. If this document is not signed in the next three minutes, I will direct the city attorneys to begin legal proceedings against you. With a wife on the verge of a baby, I don't think you want to spend the next few weeks in jail while this thing is painfully sorted out. By the way, your badge, which was in your effects, has been confiscated and destroyed. Furthermore, as you are no longer a bonded officer of law enforcement, you have lost the right to carry a concealed weapon. Sir, I would sign and vanish as fast as possible.'
Earl's bull rage suggested to him that he ram the little man's skull against the wall, but he saw what paltry good that would do, and after he smoked a cigarette, he signed the goddamn thing, feeling as if he'd just sold out his oldest and best friends.
'Oh, and one last thing, Mr. Swagger. You will be billed seventy-five cents for the dry cleaning of your suit and tie and the laundering of your shirt and socks.'
Chapter 50
Becker would see nobody. He canceled all appointments. He sat alone in his office, contemplating his ruin. Of course he lacked the nerve for suicide, and he enjoyed the self-pity too much sober to blur it with alcohol, so he simply stared out the window, sucked on his pipe, and blew huge clouds of aromatic smoke into the air.
Why did I ever try this idiocy? he thought.
What possessed me?
Am I merely stupid or am I colossally ignorant?
The newspapers were really piling on. Even his nominal allies in Hot Springs were distancing themselves from him. He'd been made to look like a bloody buffoon and now Owney would be bigger than ever.
It had all vanished: governor in '48, the youngest ever in the state's history. Maybe the Senate then. Maybe the national ticket. There is nothing more intensely bitter than a fantasy that has sustained one for a decade suddenly being snatched away and crushed by reality. How could he daydream now? How could he settle back in the minutes before sleep and see himself exalted, vindicated, loved, propelled ever onward on good looks, charm and sheer affability? Postwar America was going to take off like a rocket; television was going to rule and that would give the advantage to handsome men; there would be change everywhere, as the young replaced the old, as a new order took over for an old one.
And he had lost.
He would not be part of it.
It seemed so unfair.
He loaded another ton of tobacco into his pipe and forgot himself in the intricacy of the ritual for a while, then finally got everything tamped and squashed in just right, and lit a match and drew in the firecrackly explosion of dense heat. In that alone there was pleasure.
The door opened.
'Mr. Becker?'
'I told you I didn't want to be disturbed.'
'It's your wife.'
'I can't talk to her.'
'It's the tenth time she's called.'
'I don't care. Leave me alone.'
'What about the two o'clock staff meeting?'
'Cancel it.'
'What about your meetings with the mayor and the chamber of commerce?'
'Cancel them.'
'What about the newspaper people? The waiting room is full of them. The columnists have tried to bribe me. They're annoying everybody and some of them don't flush the toilet when they're done with it.'
'I issued a statement. I have nothing further to add.'
'Yes sir. Would you like a glass of water or some coffee or something?'
'No.'
'Mr. O'Doyle is back.'
'I don't want to see him.'
'There are several matters that need?'
'Let the staff decide.'
'Yes sir.'
'Please go away.'
'Yes sir. Oh, this came. I'll leave it here for you, sir.'
Becker sucked in the pipe smoke, blew out still more ample clouds of smoke. He almost slipped off into his favorite fantasy, where he stands before a national convention, feeling the power of history as it approves him, and various people who denied him his specialness are seen below the podium, their faces crushed in bitterness. But then caught himself and returned to normalcy, and he was the one who was bitter and would be for a long, long?
This came. I'll leave it here for you, sin
Now what the hell did that mean?
He looked and saw a large manila envelope on the floor, face down.
What was this? Why would she leave it? What was..?
His curiosity momentarily overcoming his lethargy and self-hatred, he went to the doorway and picked the envelope up.
It was first-class, special delivery, from Los Angeles, California, addressed to him personally, and marked HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL. What the hell?
