Blood and Thunder

He smirked. “Yeah? Then who ‘done’ it?”

“You done it, Murph.”

He blinked. Laughed. “Me?”

“Not you alone, of course.”

He shook his head, laughed again, harshly. “Of course not! It was a conspiracy, right, Nate? And everybody in that crowded corridor was a conspirator!”

“Not everybody. Just you and Big George McCracken…who I’ve helped you conveniently remove…and maybe Judge Fournet.”

“Judge Fournet? Now you’ve completely lost your mind.”

“Well, maybe you can find me a padded cell next to Joe Messina-who wasn’t in on it, by the way. He truly loved the Kingfish. Seymour, of course, the master puppeteer, made sure he wasn’t in that hallway at all; he didn’t even come to town. As for Fournet, I’m honestly not sure about him. At any rate, there were enough people involved for a lawyer pal of Huey’s to warn him about a ‘murder plot.’” I managed a shrug. “Anyway, this is a case with many a loose end. But I’ve tied one hell of a lot of ’em up….”

“Really? Then, tell me-how’d we pull all this off?”

“It began with a phone call or two from a ‘friend’ from within the Kingfish’s inner circle to Dr. Carl Weiss. Getting that idealistic young doctor all riled up about the ‘nigger blood’ issue was the first step. Then Dr. Carl was contacted by this same ‘friend’-you, possibly McCracken, maybe even Fournet, or another party-and told to come to the capitol, and wait at a specific place, the corridor outside the governor’s office. Dr. Carl was told the Kingfish was willing to listen to him plead his case; this embarrassing subject was not one the young doctor would likely discuss with his family. This was something he had to do on his own. Now, Dr. Carl had to know he couldn’t stop the gerrymander of Judge Pavy…but he could appeal to Huey’s sense of decency not to defame his family with this racial slur.”

Murphy said nothing; he had stopped turning his hat.

“Somebody-probably Big George-held a parking place right out front for Dr. Carl…if the doctor had stopped on impulse, as he’s supposed to have, it’s highly unlikely he would’ve lucked into such a prime parking place right out front. The lot was packed, and the show inside was in full sway, with a full house.”

“Supposition,” Murphy muttered.

“Perhaps,” I said. “But Big George wasn’t in the House with the rest of us in the bodyguard contingent that night-he slipped away…though he did turn up later, in the hallway. Only he wasn’t carrying his usual toy: that submachine gun in the paper sack.”

“So what?”

“So, maybe he already knew there was going to be gunfire in that narrow passageway, and didn’t want to take his tommy gun into such close quarters.”

Murphy swallowed. Said nothing.

“As Huey stepped out of the governor’s office,” I said, “Judge Fournet attracted his attention, stopping him…and that’s when Dr. Carl Weiss stepped forward, thinking he had, essentially, an appointment with Huey. Huey, knowing nothing about it, probably brushed him off, rudely…and the doctor hauled off and slugged him-the perfect cue for you to go into your act.”

The brown eyes widened. “My act?”

“You dove forward, coming up alongside the doctor, shooting Huey point blank with your own.38, and tackling Dr. Carl, as if he were the assailant.”

The brown eyes narrowed. He was slumped in the chair.

“Then as you wrestled him down, you shot Dr. Carl in the throat, killing the poor ‘sumbitch,’ making him an instant dead patsy….”

He was looking at the floor. Turning the hat slowly in his hands.

“But you took a hell of a risk, didn’t you? Maybe you hadn’t figured on your trigger-happy brothers turning that hallway into a living hell. They almost blinded you, didn’t they, with their muzzle flashes, so anxious were they to help you drill that poor little doctor. In fact, one of ’em…probably Messina…accidentally nailed the Kingfish in the back, as he was fleeing.”

“Bullets were ricocheting,” Murphy said hollowly.

I tried to get more comfortable; it didn’t work, but I could see him better. “You obviously had a throw-down gun, the doctor had to be armed, but later…when Big George moved the doctor’s car around back, to a less suspicious position, he found the doc’s own weapon in the glove box. Since the word from the hospital mistakenly confirmed the notion that the bullet had gone through the Kingfish, this was perfect: after somebody fired a round or two out of it, you substituted Dr. Carl’s real gun for the throw-down piece.”

Silence hung in the room like a storm cloud threatening thunder.

Finally he said: “Finished?”

“Yeah.”

“Quite a yarn.” He stood slowly. His eyes gazed at me unblinkingly. “But can you prove it?”

“No.”

He laughed, once. “I didn’t think so.”

“Particularly not in this state. Besides, my sympathy’s with Mrs. Long. If I tell the insurance company this really was a murder, it’d just cost her ten grand.”

He squinted at me, trying to read me. “Can you live with that?”

“Sure. After all…you saved my life-you’re my pal.”

The sarcasm made him wince; at least he had that much humanity left.

“What I wonder,” I said, “is, can you live with it?”

His eyes tightened.

“With what you did to Dr. Carl Weiss,” I continued, “and his pretty widow and his baby son, and their whole goddamn family, and the Pavys….”

His frown had both irritation and frustration in it. “What else can I do? What’s done is done. Jesus, Nate. What do you expect me to do?”

“Go to hell,” I said.

He just stood there looking at me, for several long moments.

Then I pointed toward the door; the effort hurt, but it was worth it. “Get a head start, why don’t you?”

Murphy started to say something, thought better of it, put on the Panama and went quickly out.

26

The rest of that Monday, I slept, mostly. The only thing I accomplished was getting out of bed to use the bathroom; I also used the upstairs phone, in the hall, to call Mrs. Long. Not wanting to concern her, or muddy the waters, I didn’t let her know about the beating I’d taken. Or about my thoughts regarding Seymour Weiss and Murphy Roden and the murder plot. That’s what Huey had hired me to uncover, wasn’t it? And I finally had, hadn’t I?

‘I’m down with influenza,” I told her on the phone.

‘Oh dear,” she said. “I’m sorry. I hope it’s not too serious.”

“Just some sore muscles and stiff bones is all. But I won’t be able to show you my report before you leave for Washington tomorrow. Could I send you a carbon?”

“That would be fine. I’ll give you my address in Washington. Oh, and I have your thousand-dollar bonus here, in cash. Shall I have it messengered to your hotel?”

“Please,” I said, and called the hotel to ask them to put the envelope from Mrs. Long, when it arrived, in their safe.

And that was that.

By Tuesday I was up and around, and spent the morning sitting at Alice Jean’s dining-room table, using a typewriter she’d sneaked home from her office back in her capitol days. Referring to my little notebook from time to time, I plowed through the report to Hugh Gallagher at Mutual Life Insurance-policy number 3473640.