Blood and Thunder

But I had no idea in hell what the Square Deal Association was.

Much as I wanted to take Huey’s $250 a day, not to mention a chance at that ten-grand bonus, I was beginning to sense just how far in over my head I was.

I spread my hands. “What do you expect me to do? I don’t know Louisiana. I’m a goddamn outsider….”

His grin was nasty. “That’s what I like about ya. You I can trust. Easiest way somebody like me gets taken down is if somebody on the inside, somebody I trust, some dog-faced son of a wolf Judas Ice-carry-it betrays me.”

“Okay. Okay. Three main possibilities, then. But how would I go about looking into it?”

“You’re the detective. You tell me.”

“No,” I said. “You tell me-where to look. Who to talk to.”

He pointed a manicured finger at me. “Tell you what. I’m gonna give you three names outa my private son- of-a-bitch book. Each one of these names’ll represent one of them three groups I mentioned. You figure yourself a way to check up on jest these three individ’als, and in one hell of a hurry, we’ll have a damn good idea whether there’s any dang ‘murder plot’ or not.”

The Kingfish looked at his watch, shambled to his feet. I had a feeling I was about to be dismissed.

He said, “That fella from the Harrisburg paper oughta be here, long about now. You best run along.”

I stood. “Huey, if I’m going to do this job for you, I’m going to need an in-depth briefing….”

He shook his head, no. “Not from me, you ain’t. Far as the rest of the boys go, far as even Seymour Weiss and my aides and all are concerned, you’re just another bodyguard. Got it?”

I nodded. “But I still need…”

He took me by the arm, leading me toward the door. “You’ll ride back on the train with my party. I’m takin’ Alice Jean along, takin’ her back home where she can’t cause me no trouble. You can talk to her. She’ll fill ya in on any background you might need.”

I couldn’t believe what he was saying. His spurned mistress would be my background contact?

He answered my unasked question.

“Don’t misjudge that little gal. Alice Jean may look like Clara Bow, but just ’cause she’s built like a brick shithouse, that don’t make her no goddamn floozy. She’s got the mind of a college professor.”

What, in a jar?

“But, Huey-I need to ask you about that FDR hotel conference…how does that fit in?”

“Ask Alice Jean.”

Then he was opening the door, and I found myself leaving even as the little bespectacled man with the briefcase was brushing eagerly past me. The publisher’s rep was taking his four-in-the-morning meeting with the Kingfish, and being greeted in a typically warm, typically demented Huey Long manner.

“Howdy do, Mr. Telegraph Man-never mind the money. We can talk ’bout that, second. First question is, can you boys get my book on the stands by next month? I need that sucker in print now, fer out on the stump….”

And the door shut behind me.

On the way back to my room, all I could think of was two things: Alice Jean’s pale, bare, curvaceous body…

…and that she made a likelier suspect than information source.

5

The phone rang me awake to a still-dark room, and again I fumbled for the receiver and the lamp switch. I ignored the second ring, plucking my wristwatch from the nightstand.

It was a few minutes past five a.m. I’d slept maybe an hour.

“Yes,” I said into the phone, cutting the third ring in half.

“Get your things packed.”

Seymour Weiss’s voice.

My response was typically articulate: “Huh?”

“We’re leaving in ten minutes. We just have time to catch the Broadway Limited to Harrisburg. The meeting’s just breaking up now…. Huey’s gonna make a deal with the Telegraph to publish his book.”

“Doesn’t that S.O.B. ever sleep?”

“Occasional naps. That’s about the extent of it. Shake a leg, Heller…oh, and collect Miss Crosley, would you? She has her phone off the hook.”

There was no time to bathe; I threw some cold water on my face, quickly shaved, nicking myself a couple times, threw my things in my valise, got into the white suit, snugged on my Panama. Within three minutes of Seymour’s call, I was at Alice Jean’s room, knocking.

I knocked quite a while.

Finally something clattered against the door, on the other side, startling me. A shoe she’d tossed, perhaps.

Raising my voice, I said, “Miss Crosley! The Kingfish is leaving-you want to come?”

I stared at the door and it stared back at me. Then I heard the squeak of bedsprings; some rustling around in there. Finally the door cracked barely open and one large, long-lashed, very bloodshot hazel eye peeked out at me.

“The Kingfish has a train to catch,” I said. “Can you throw yourself together in one hell of a hurry?”

The eye studied me. Then it narrowed, uncertainly. From the slice of her I could see, she’d slung on a pink satin dressing gown.

“Did I throw up on you last night?” she asked.

Her voice carried no embarrassment, no regret-just curiosity.

“Yeah.”

“Suit looks none the worse for it.”

“Different suit.”

“Oh.”

She shut the door.

Then it opened again, a little wider, just enough for me to see both eyes and the generous curve of one breast peeking out from what I could now confirm was indeed a pink dressing gown, with pink ostrich-feather trim.

“You mind waiting for me?” she asked. “I have two bags and could use some help.”

“Not at all.”

“Your name was…?”

“Nate Heller.” I risked a little smile. “Still is, in fact.”

She was too hungover to be amused; the door closed, and I waited for perhaps three minutes, and then suddenly she was next to me in the hallway, ready to go.

For a little past five in the morning, considering she hadn’t even had time to sleep it off yet, Alice Jean Crosley didn’t look half bad. Actually, she didn’t look bad at all.

A flower-trimmed navy blue bandeau hat with an angled brim set off the short, flapperish hairdo framing her round cutie-pie face; her bosomy frame was tucked into a mannish lightweight suit-tan waistcoat with navy buttons, navy blue skirt. A navy-and-white print silk scarf was arranged at her throat.

I took her traveling bag and walked her down the hall.

“How did you manage it?” I asked her.

“What?”

I raised an appreciative eyebrow and set it down. “Would’ve taken most women two hours to put themselves together like this. You look like you stepped out of a band box.”

The hard little mouth traced a faint smile, but only momentarily.