pointed the way to nearby Harris Park, which fronted the river. The day was warm, but not hot, and a gentle breeze riffled the leaves of the elms, maples, oaks and sycamores shading the quiet park paths. After a while, we bought some popcorn from a stand, found a bench and fed ourselves, and the pigeons.
“He told me he was going to take me along,” she said.
“What?”
“To Washington. To the Senate. I was supposed to be his secretary. But then he hired a
“Alice Jean,” I said, tossing a kernel of popcorn toward the birds, “seems to me he’s trying to do some good things for people. His style may be a little unorthodox, but at least he’s not afraid to take on the rich bastards that…”
“Rich bastards,” she snorted. “With the exception of Standard Oil…and Huey’s got it in for them for purely personal reasons…there’s not a politician in the country that has cut more deals with rich men than Huey P. Long. He’s no friend to labor-or to the colored, either….”
Maybe I let her have one beer too many.
“And you know what? He ain’t much in the sack, neither.”
“Alice…”
“You’ve seen him eat! Fast and sloppy and not particular…not to mention stealin’ off of other folks’ plates. That’s his
“Then what in the hell do you see in him, Alice Jean?”
She seemed to be staring at the birds, but she wasn’t. “I don’t know. Don’t rightly know. Maybe…maybe I see a farm boy turned patent-medicine drummer who was so smart, so dedicated, he mastered a three-year law course in seven months.”
She was talking to me, but it was like she’d forgotten I was there. Her words were for her own benefit.
“Maybe I see a self-made lawyer fightin’ for the little guy in court, a little guy himself who got pushed around by big business and ran for office to do somethin’ about it-for himself, and for all the little guys.”
She sat quietly for a while; I didn’t say anything-I just watched. Suddenly her thin line of a mouth hardened.
“Or maybe I’m just a woman who likes to rub up against a powerful man.”
We sat quietly for perhaps another half hour, and then I walked her back to the train station, where before long Huey’s entourage returned, piling onto the St. Louis train. Added to the group were an editor from the
In what seemed like a blink, I was standing outside another compartment in another train, keeping guard over the woman who used to be Huey Long’s mistress. The afternoon seemed to have skipped dusk and gone straight to night-the windows outside poured in nothing but darkness.
Seymour Weiss found me. “Gonna be a long night.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Huey and that publisher decided, for the book to be out as soon as Huey wants, they gotta cut two hundred pages of what he dictated, before. We’re going to be hackin’ away at it, ’til dawn and then some.”
“Are we getting off at St. Louis?”
“Just to catch the train to Oklahoma City. Huey speaks there, tomorrow afternoon. Labor Day at the fair. He wants to be done with the book by the time we catch that train, tomorrow morning. You gonna be okay? You need me to have Messina or McCracken relieve you at any point?”
“No. I’m fine.”
Seymour nodded, then rolled his eyes, shook his head, and walked back toward the adjacent car, and Huey’s compartment.
A few seconds later, the door to Alice Jean’s compartment cracked open. She was wearing the feathered pink dressing gown again. The dark curls framed her round face perfectly; her lipstick was fresh and cherry red, and her hazel eyes weren’t bloodshot in the least. She smelled like Chanel Number Five.
“I heard you and Seymour talking,” she said.
“Really.”
“You don’t think you need to be relieved, huh?”
“No.”
“I think you’re wrong.”
She took me by the wrist and tugged me into her compartment. This wasn’t a sleek, modern train, like the Broadway Limited, but one of the older-fashioned-and better-Pullman Standards. Fresh cut flowers in wall vases. Wood paneling; dark furniture. No foldout berths, but a single bed, with the sheet turned down.
I heard the click of the door locking behind us, and when I turned, she took me into her arms, and I gathered her in mine, eagerly, lowering my lips to hers.
There was nothing hard about that mouth, now; it was a soft kiss, at least at first, but before long it turned yearning, then finally, as her tongue flicked its way between my teeth, demanding.
I drew away, gasping for breath, and watched as she gave me a burning look that would have done any silent-movie vamp proud, dropping the pink robe to the floor, revealing again that beautifully rounded little body, like a young teenage girl’s-wasp waist, wispy pubic triangle, slender legs, but a woman’s generous bosom with aureoles so pale they almost disappeared, the tips erect and pointing up at me, accusingly, scolding me for what I had in mind.
Then we were on the bed, and I was kissing every part of her while she was loosening my tie, working at my buttons, her other hand on the front of my trousers, gripping me through the cloth; my hands found the incredibly firm globes of her breasts, their tips hard as diamonds, so much of them my hands were filled to overflowing. Already the bed was rocking with its own rhythm, the train tracks be damned, and then somebody knocked at the door.
It startled us both.
She hid herself under the covers, almost demurely, and I stood and straightened myself, snugged my tie, fixed my buttons, minimized my erection, found a handkerchief to rub off the lipstick, checking the mirror over the basin to see if I’d done the job.
Then I answered the door, just cracking it open.
Huey’s face-like him, larger than life-stared at me, eyes bulging.
“Heller,” he said, “this is the first I could get away.”
“Really. How’s the work going?”
“Fine. Jest wanted to check up on you, son. I know things went a little tough last night, with Alice Jean. She can be a handful.”
“Oh, I know.”
“So how are you two gettin’ along?”
“Better,” I said.
Huey smiled, nodded. “Well, I got work to do. These sumbitches say my book’s too long, and this is the only way I can get ’er out in time to do me any good. Take care, now.”
And he was gone.
I shut the door, and took several deep breaths. Then I locked the compartment, turned off the light, and took off my clothes.
6
For a twentieth-century capital city in the United States of America, downtown Baton Rouge had a surprising
