I frowned in thought. “Isn’t there a government directive about the use of profanity by agents?”
“Nate,” Irey said, ignoring the floor show, “our investigation into Long and his Longsters has reached a point where an indictment is imminent.”
“Really?”
“Really,” Irey said. “Although, frankly, we’re focusing as much on Seymour Weiss as the Kingfish himself.”
“Seymour? I take him for a glorified gofer.”
“Only around Huey Long,” Wilson said.
“To everyone else in Louisiana,” Irey said, “Weiss is a mover and shaker. That hotel you’re staying in? The Roosevelt? He owns it.”
That was some hunk of real estate.
“This is news to me,” I said, and it was: Alice Jean had told me next to nothing about Seymour.
“He used to manage the Roosevelt barbershop,” Wilson said, “before he hooked up with the Kingfish. Few years later, he buys the place.”
“Owns the New Orleans Pelicans baseball team, too,” Irey said, “and a soda pop company, and…well. Let’s just say he’s a very well-heeled gent.”
“But does he pay his taxes?”
Irey grinned like a skull; I knew the way to make an IRS agent smile, didn’t I?
“Louisiana is honeycombed with graft,” Irey said, savoring his own words. “It’s the shakedown capital of America-puts Chicago to shame. One contracting firm alone paid the Long machine graft in excess of half a million.”
“But can you track the money to Huey?” I asked. “Huey’s like Capone-he’s got one hell of a lot of buffers….”
“He
He had a point.
“Trust me,” Irey said, “Weiss and all the others will take a very big fall…including the Kingfish. We’ve put a lot of man hours in….”
“Going back to 1930,” Wilson said wearily. “That was when the letter campaign started.”
“Letter campaign?” I asked,
Irey nodded. “Thousands upon thousands of letters from respectable citizens in this state, wanting us to do something about Long’s brazen thievery.”
“Organized, you think?”
“Perhaps. But what’s the difference? They were real letters, from real citizens, with real concerns.”
“If you’ve been at this since ’30,” I said, “and if Long’s such a ‘brazen’ crook, why haven’t you nailed him yet?”
Irey’s expression darkened, and Wilson sighed heavily.
“The investigation was shut down for a time,” Irey said quietly.
I grinned. “I get it! You started lookin’ into Huey’s finances when the Republicans were in office, then when FDR came in, you shut it down! After all, Huey helped get Roosevelt the nomination-it was payoff time.”
Irey’s shrug was barely perceptible; Wilson was looking at the floor.
“But now that Huey’s making noises about running for the presidency himself,” I said, “and hangin’ FDR in effigy in every public speech he makes, you guys are back in business!”
Neither of them spoke; but they didn’t deny it, either.
I stood, and the chair scraped the floor. “Hey-you guys want to nail Huey, Capone-style, that’s your business. But he strikes me as a tough prospect.”
“Oh?” Irey said.
“Like he said to me, he prefers doing business ‘cash on the barrelhead.’”
“That’s certainly true,” Irey admitted. “Huey and his boys have collected millions in graft…but finding a receipt or a canceled check in this case is about as easy as finding an honest man in the Long administration.”
“Hey, I’m in the Long administration.”
“And you’re probably the most honest man in it…and isn’t that saying something?”
Another good point.
“So, I take it, you’ve found something?” I asked, wandering to the door.
“Let’s put it this way,” Irey said, with a tiny enigmatic smile. “Big crooks shouldn’t commit little crimes.”
“Then you are ready to indict?”
“We are,” Irey said, “but you’ll understand, I’m sure, my reluctance to share the details with one of Huey Long’s personal bodyguards.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “But like I told you-I’m working a specific investigation. I don’t see that what you’re doing has anything to do with what Huey hired me to do. I’m prepared to keep it to myself.”
“Good,” Wilson said.
Irey lifted a warning forefinger; the professor’s expression and tone were scolding. “Foul us up,” he said, “and I’ll personally guarantee you and the A-1 Detective Agency an annual audit.”
“Mum’s the word,” I said, half-out the cubbyhole door. “How about a ride back to the Roosevelt, Frank?”
“Hoof it,” he said. “It’s not that far, and I don’t want to be seen with you.”
Irey called out to me: “Oh, and Heller?”
Not “Nate”-Heller.
“If Huey’s paying you in cash,” Irey said, waggling a parental finger, “don’t forget to declare it…”
10
I spent several uneventful days back in Baton Rouge, in my room at the Heidelberg, waiting for the phone to ring. None of the bait I’d tossed out to the Square Dealers, Standard Oil or the Syndicate had as yet produced a nibble. So I shifted my undercover efforts to Alice Jean’s bed; her suite was just a few doors down from mine. Tough way to earn $250 a day.
By Friday afternoon, Alice Jean having stayed behind in Baton Rouge, I was again at the Roosevelt Hotel in New Orleans, this time in the Kingfish’s twelfth-floor suite, where the man himself-in his uniform of green-silk pajamas-was entertaining a steady stream of advisers, ward-heeler types and influential citizens. The joint was also crawling with bodyguards, and the scene was even more chaotic than what I’d witnessed on Huey’s birthday at the New Yorker.
At one point, Seymour Weiss tried to corner Huey with a fat handful of papers, saying, “Huey, we’ve only got seven days to get these income taxes filed.”
Huey, who was pacing at the time, frowned as if a pesky gnat was buzzing his ear. “You got all the necessary papers-bills and canceled checks and such like?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“Well, then you deal with it. Fill everythin’ out and I’ll sign it when I get back here from Baton Rouge on Monday or Tuesday.” His expression softened; he put a hand on Seymour’s shoulder. “Then you know what we’ll do? We’ll go on a vacation together, just you and me-no bodyguards or anythin’. Be like old times.”
“That would be nice.”
“We’ll just climb in the car and go wherever we want to, and not make one single, solitary, slivery plan in advance.”
This moment indicated a depth of friendship between the two men that I hadn’t picked up on before. I found it oddly touching, although I wasn’t touched enough to tell these two friends, in the midst of their income-tax discussion, about Elmer Irey’s “vacation” plans for them. I’d rather have a root canal than an IRS audit.
In the midst of all this, Huey was going over his notes for a speech he was going to give, via that Weiss- controlled radio station in the Roosevelt that Frank Wilson had mentioned.
So I’d had no opportunity to get Huey alone long enough to fill him in, properly, about what I’d been up to.
