23
3 The gate to the private estate was a self-consciously rustic affair constructed of wagon wheels; it yawned open: I was expected. I tooled the Ford down the gravel drive through a corridor of towering pines, the afternoon sun shimmering through, casting flickering shadows; a day or so later, the grounds of the estate opened up, as rolling, and carefully coifed, as any golf course. A sprawling but modern brick and brown-shingle building-a hunting lodge with aspirations-looked out on the gently rippling, mirrorlike surface of the Tchefuncte River, where a boat landing extended, a motor launch with cabin docked there.
Near the main lodge were kennels, breeding stalls, pens, exercise areas, for the dogs, sheep, Hereford cattle and thoroughbred horses raised here; barns and stables spread behind the lodge, connected by gravel roads and paths. And all the while, towering pines looked on, unimpressed.
Well, I was impressed. Governor Dick Leche, moderately successful attorney, former secretary to O.K. Allen, was doing all right for himself. In the heart of St. Tammany Parish’s Gold Coast, populated by retired financiers and company presidents and other affluent types, Leche had found not only an idyllic retreat, but another moneymaking enterprise.
I pulled the Ford up by several other vehicles parked in front of a triple-door brick garage; but my rental number was not in a league with the Lincoln and two Cadillacs I was joining. I’d barely got out of the car when Seymour Weiss was standing beside me, as if he’d materialized.
In his gray three-piece suit with black-and-white tie, he was as perfectly attired as a manikin in the men’s department at Marshall Field’s, only no department store had a dummy as homely as the iguana-like Seymour Weiss. On the other hand, Seymour was no dummy.
“The governor’s inside,” he said. “Make this brief.”
“I’m disappointed,” I said. “Aren’t you glad to see me, Seymour?”
He said nothing, his pockmarked puss staying blank; but his dead dark eyes were scornful.
“Last time I saw you,” I said, following him to a side door, “you were tossin’ money at me.”
He stopped, turned and said dryly, “That was so you would leave.”
“And I left,” I said. I smiled. “But I’m back.”
Seymour’s irritation hadn’t been as apparent on the phone this morning, when I’d reached him in his office at the Roosevelt Hotel. At least, not at first. He knew I’d been investigating the Long case, but said he didn’t know why. I told him I’d fill him in personally, if we could get together to talk, and he’d only said, “Certainly.”
But he had bristled when I said I also wanted to meet with the governor.
“I can drive over to Baton Rouge this afternoon,” I’d said, “to meet with Governor Leche, either at the capitol, or the governor’s mansion….”
“He’s rarely there,” Seymour had said. “He conducts most of the affairs of state long-distance, from St. Tammany.”
“Where’s that?”
There’d been a long pause before he replied, with obvious reluctance: “Across the lake from New Orleans.”
“Well, why don’t you set up a meeting. I’d suggest, as soon as possible.”
“Do I detect a threat in your voice, Mr. Heller?”
“I don’t know. Do you?”
So, now-just a few hours later-I was in the governor’s sprawling hunting lodge, following Seymour down a hallway with pelican-patterned wallpaper, decorated with framed photos of the governor and various dignitaries and celebrities. We moved into a cozy maple-paneled, open-beamed den with a large braided rug and an enormous, growling bearskin rug before a brick fireplace with a mantel crowded with stuffed ducks, beaver and geese. Though the back walls had built-in bookcases, looking on from every other angle were enough mounted deer heads to form a quorum of the Louisiana House of Representatives. A few long-dead fish swam the walls. The governor was apparently stuffing his taxidermist with cash.
Plump walnut-trimmed brown leather loungers with ottomans were angled toward, and at either side of, the fireplace; between them was a small matching sofa. Here and there, standing lamps wearing beige silk shades provided a woman’s touch, slightly off-kilter in this man’s man’s room. There apparently was a Mrs. Leche.
Big George McCracken was sitting at a card table, playing solitaire. McCracken, with his lumpy, former boxer’s face, still seemed to be buying his baggy suits from Hoodlum Haberdashery, Inc. His suit coat was over the back of the chair and he was in shirtsleeves and suspenders, blood red tie loosened; a stubby cigar smoldered in one corner of his mouth.
But at least he’d given up carrying a tommy gun in a paper bag. Unless it was under the table.
Huey Long’s successor rose endlessly from the leather lounge chair at right and strode across the den like Paul Bunyan to meet us. An enormous man, both tall and heavyset, Leche wore a red-and-black plaid hunter’s shirt and khaki pants and was in his stocking feet; black hair slicked back like George Raft’s, Leche’s facial features were pleasant, even boyishly handsome, though a little small for his bucket-sized head.
“I’ve wanted to meet you for a long time, Mr. Heller,” Leche said, almost bubbling, extending his hand. Then, pointlessly, as if I didn’t know who I was calling on, he added a self-introduction: “Dick Leche.”
“And why’s that, Your Excellency?” I said, shaking with him.
“Your efforts to get the Kingfish to Our Lady of the Lake are legend around here. Won’t you sit down?”
He took me by the arm over to the sofa; big as he was, he could have flung me there. I sat on the sofa, and he settled back into his lounge chair, putting his white-stockinged feet up on the ottoman. Seymour took the lounge chair at my right; he sat with his legs crossed, hands folded, slowly twiddling his thumbs. Glowering.
“My efforts may be legendary, Your Excellency,” I said, “but I obviously didn’t do Huey any good.”
“It was the effort, man! It was the effort. But please…call me Dick.”
“Why, thank you, Dick. And call me Nate, if you would.”
From an end table beside him, he took a pipe and relighted it with a kitchen match, as he said, “My pleasure. I understand you’ve been looking into the assassination.”
“That’s right.”
Puffing at the pipe, getting it going, he said, “I’m a little…fuzzy on the exact nature of your investigation. You know, we do have a Bureau of Criminal Investigation in this state.”
“But, with all due respect, Dick-you never did investigate.”
He shrugged, gestured offhandedly with the pipe. “It didn’t seem…our place, somehow.”
“I’m confused. You’ll have to excuse me…I’m an out-of-towner, you know.”
Leche’s smile was a dazzler; he had teeth like well-scrubbed bathroom tiles. “Certainly.”
“I’m told you ran on a ‘Murder Ticket.’ That you promised the voters you’d get to the bottom of the DeSoto Hotel conspiracy….”
The smile withered around the pipe stem.
“Those were emotional times,” Leche said somberly. “In the cool, reasoned light of day, it became apparent that the man who shot Senator Long was
Seymour said, “Besides, if the Long family wanted an investigation, Mrs. Long would have petitioned for one.”
“In a way,” I said, “that’s why I’m here.”
“It is?” Leche asked, surprised.
“I thought you were working for Mutual Insurance,” Seymour said.
“Why, Seymour,” I said, and give him a smile just as affable as Leche’s if less toothy, “I thought both you and Dick, here, were ‘fuzzy’ about what I was up to.”
“Are you trying to prove double indemnity,” Seymour said crisply, “or trying to save your bosses some dough?”
“I’m sort of a cross between an investigator and an arbitrator,” I said, settling back in the soft couch. “Both parties have agreed to abide by the findings of my inquiry.”
