A World of Thieves

would mean anything.

“Just because it’s a world of thieves out there,” he said, “don’t mean there ain’t no rules to it.” It wasn’t the first time I’d heard him say it.

They figured nobody’d ever find Buddy in those boonies except by accident, and even if they did, they’d never know whose bones they had.

The next morning they’d read about the robbery in the paper and learned that the guard was dead. Then came the afternoon edition with Russell’s sketch in it.

“It was only a so-so likeness, I thought,” Buck said, “but Russell thought it was a little too like for comfort.”

They didn’t waste any time in removing themselves from Louisiana. They packed their bags and closed their bank account and didn’t take the time for anything else except to stop at Charlie’s to see if she wanted to go along—and to leave the notes for me at Brenda Marie’s and Jimmyboy Dolan’s.

They’d come straight to Galveston. They’d been here before and liked it. It struck them in some ways as a smaller version of New Orleans, and not only in the weather.

“It’s always been an easygoing town,” Buck said. “The cops’ll usually give a fella a break in appreciation of a cash contribution to their fight against crime.” He looked toward the kitchen, where Charlie was still keeping herself, then said in a lower voice, “When I first heard it’s got more cathouses than Narlens, I didn’t believe it, but it’s true. Most of the cats real young and sweet, too. Two bucks for your regular pussy, three dollars a throw for the best in the house. And every one of them so far real understanding about my, ah, deprived condition.”

“There’s no shortage of places to get laid, get drunk, or get a bet down,” Russell said. “They don’t call it the Free State of Galveston for nothing.”

“Seems just the place for some sharps I could name,” I said, grinning from one to the other of them.

“For relaxing, yeah,” Buck said, “but not for working, sad to say.” He said that all the big gambling joints and the local booze operations were run by a powerful pair of brothers named Sam and Rose Maceo who didn’t look kindly on outsiders trying to profit at their expense. Sharps who tried their trade at the Maceos’ tables, bootleggers who tried dealing their wares behind the Maceos’ backs—all such interlopers ended up going for a walk in the Gulf of Mexico in a pair of concrete shoes.

“You won’t believe how fancy their nightclubs are,” Russell said. “In the high-stakes rooms you get free booze while you’re playing. We saw the chief of police there one night, drink in one hand and dice in the other. We’ve had some good times in their places, but all told they’ve taken more of our money than we have of theirs. I’ve been tempted to use a trick or two but figured I’d best wait till I grow me some gills.”

“We saw them catch a dude playing card tricks at a poker table one night,” Buck said. “The strongarms were real polite. Would you come this way, please, sir? Got his coat from the checkroom and helped him on with it. Let him take his drink along. Right this way, sir. Week or so later somebody finds a leg on the beach. Just the bottom part. Still wearing a shoe. Florsheim, like this fella had been wearing. Of course, it could’ve been some other fella in Florsheims.”

“Or could be one kind of shark met another,” Russell said.

The same thing went for holdup men and thieves in general. The Maceos would not abide criminals in their midst to make citizens fearful and more demanding of stricter law enforcement. It was in the Maceos’ own interest that the locals feel safe enough to enjoy nights on the town. It was an open joke that Sam and Rose did a better job of protecting Galveston than the police department they paid off.

“In other words,” I said, “they got a monopoly on the thievery business in this town and mean to keep it that way.”

“In other words,” Buck said, “yeah.”

They’d come away from New Orleans with enough money to tide them over for a while, but between living expenses and gambling losses and Buck’s cathouse habit and Russell’s good times with Charlie, their stake had dwindled pretty fast. They started going up to Houston, where there were plenty of independent gambling joints. But as strangers they were everywhere suspect from the start and they’d had some close calls. Even where they were able to pocket their winnings without trouble, they were warned not to come back, and pretty soon they ran out of big-money games to sit in on.

So they’d gone back to holdups. Small stuff only—no banks. There’d been so many Houston banks robbed in the year before that the city and county both were now paying a bonus to any cop—and a reward to any private citizen—who shot a holdup man in the act. They paid bounties to manhunters who brought in wanted robbers, dead or alive. It wasn’t a policy ever made public, it hadn’t been in the newspaper, but the word was on the vine and everybody’d heard it.

“I tell you, kid, it’s some gun-crazy sonsofbitches in that damn Houston,” Buck said. “We ain’t real keen on hitting some bank where everybody in the place is packing a piece and praying for somebody to try a stickup.”

“Hell, I break a sweat robbing a grocery store anywhere near Houston,” Russell said.

Over the past few weeks they’d been taking it easy and talking things over, discussing possibilities, keeping their ears open in the speakeasies and gambling joints. And then last week they’d finally decided what to do. If I’d been a few days later in getting to Galveston they would’ve had to leave a different message for me with Miller Faulk.

They told me about it over supper at a bayside place overlooking the shrimp docks. We sat at a back corner table and between the four of us ate six dozen raw oysters and two big buckets of smoked shrimp, shucking the peels onto the newspaper the waitress had spread on the tabletop. We talked and talked as we ate, telling each other to keep our voices down, now and then snickering like a bunch of schoolkids.

West Texas was the place. Oil boom country.

“I don’t know why we ain’t gone out there before now,” Buck said. “It’s so damn right.”

East Texas had its share of oil towns, of course—hell, it’s where the business got started in this state—but according to Buck the boomtowns around here had mostly tamed down by now. There was still money to be made in them, but not by any Johnnies-come-lately like us. The way the Maceos had a lock on Galveston was how some bunch of big shots or other had a lock in every East Texas oil town—and with the same sort of cozy arrangement with the cops. No independent hustling allowed.

“But the way we hear it, out west it’s still wide open,” Buck said. “Every man for himself and devil take the hindmost. The cops all as crooked as corkscrews—except for the damn Rangers. But there ain’t all that many of them, praise Jesus.”

“All those towns full of boomers making money hand over fist,” Russell said, “and full of sharpies of every kind parting them from it.”

“But what they ain’t got enough of,” Buck said, “is somebody to part the sharpies from it.”

“In other words,” I said, “you’ve perceived a shortcoming in the economic system of West Texas. A shortcoming which presents lucrative possibilities to whoever might be bold enough to remedy it.”

“Exactly right, Mister smartass,” Buck said. “Lucrative possibilities. Especially since Bubber Vicente’s out there now. Our old job broker. Miller Faulk told us. He used to work for Bubber in Narlens till his wife left him and moved to Houston and he came out to try and get back with her. Anyway, a couple of months ago Bubber came to Houston and—”

“Poor old Miller,” Russell broke in. “Back in Narlens, Eula put the horns on him at least twice that I know of. Best thing ever happened to him was when she run off. But then the fool comes chasing after her. Buys that piece- of-shit filling station and tells everybody he’s turning a new leaf. I swear, some guys never learn.”

“He must love her is what it is,” Charlie said.

“I know it,” Russell said. “And look what it’s got him.”

She stuck her tongue out at him.

“If you all don’t mind,” Buck said, giving Russell and Charlie a look.

He turned back to me. “A couple of months ago Bubber shows up in Houston and tells Miller he had to cut out of Narlens in a hurry after a pair of sonofabitch cops who’d been shaking down everybody in the Quarter were found floating in the river and some other sonofabitches were trying to stick the rap on him. Said he was on his way to West Texas to go partners with a old pal, another job setup man. Wanted Miller to go with him but Miller said no,