CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“You did your best, Virgil,” Jim Rutherford said. It was an hour later and we were once more having coffee in his living room. The old man’s eyes under his bushy brows were world-weary and tired.

“I’m sorry, Jim,” I said.

He sighed and drained his cup. “Madeline was always nervous and flighty. And she had trouble taking instructions.”

“How about her parents?” I asked.

“I talked to them a little while ago. They’re shattered. Just absolutely shattered.”

“Was she an only child?”

He shook his head. “She had one older brother. He’s a high school football coach up at Lufkin.”

“That’s merciful,” I said. “When’s the funeral?”

“I’m not sure. I just know that it’s going to be a graveside service. Are you going?”

“Of course. I feel obliged to give her parents an opportunity to chew me out for doing such a rotten job of taking care of their daughter.”

He shook his head. “There won’t be none of that. They’re grateful that you tried. But would you mind coming by here to take me with you? I just don’t drive anymore if I can help it.”

“Sure. I’ll be happy to. Leave a message at the desk at the Creole when you find out when it’s going to be.”

Just then the phone rang. Rutherford lifted the receiver and listened for a few moments, then said, “I’ll tell him.” He turned to me with a cold smile on his face and said, “That was Charlie.”

“Yeah?”

“Right. He said you’d left my number with the switchboard girl at the hotel. He wants you to meet him there at the hotel coffee shop about seven this evening.”

“What’s brewing?”

“The governor has finally given the word. It’s time for Mr. Salisbury to go back to Louisiana.”

*   *   *

I’d been waiting ten minutes when Klevenhagen and Grist entered the room. I signaled the waitress to bring them coffee.

“The time has come, the walrus said,” Grist announced as he took a seat. His face was as grim as ever, but there was a happy light in his eyes I’d never seen there before.

“Anything new on Madeline?” I asked.

He shook his head. “No. And we’re not liable to get anything either.”

“It had to be Salisbury,” I said.

“Maybe and maybe not. We can sure as hell put the question to him, though. But nothing we get out of him would stand up in court and you know it as well as I do.”

“You’re right,” I admitted. “But I don’t like it. These people always walk on the real stuff. If they get ’em, it’s always for some Tinkertoy crap like when they nailed Capone on tax evasion.”

“I know,” he said with a sigh. “And I have my own remedy for problems like Salisbury, but in this case they won’t let me use it. So this is the best we can do.”

*   *   *

The Grotto was busy that night. Salisbury wasn’t in his office, and we had almost an hour’s wait during which we cooled our heels and drank coffee. At last he entered with two of his henchmen. Once again the bartender whispered in his ear, and once again he glided off toward his office without so much as a glance in our direction. We gave him a couple of minutes, then followed along. This time the bartender didn’t even look up at us. At the end of the corridor Grist tapped on the office door. A moment later the smaller of Salisbury’s two bodyguards swung it open and motioned us inside. Salisbury was in his big, thronelike chair behind his desk, and both guards were standing. The smaller man was rat-faced under oily blond hair; the big man was bald and stolid and looked slow. Grist pushed the door shut behind us. Klevenhagen had his eye on the two thugs and his hand was comfortingly near his sidearm, so I left them to him and turned my attention to their boss.

“So what’s up?” Salisbury asked without much interest.

“For one thing Madeline Kimbell is dead,” I said.

“Yeah, I heard about that,” came his laconic response. “Tough break.”

“I thought you guaranteed her safety,” I said.

“I guaranteed it from me. But I can’t control what other people do. But hell, you take a ditzy broad like that, it’s no telling who got crosswise with her.” He gave me a dismissive jerk of his head and then turned to Grist. “What’s on your mind, old-timer?” he asked.

“I’m glad you asked,” Charlie replied. “As it happens the governor sent me down here with a message for you.”

“Who?” Salisbury asked, an expression of mild puzzlement on his face.

“Governor Stevenson. He wanted me to give you a message.”

“You don’t say … The governor, huh?”

“That’s right. You’re getting all sorts of attention these days. Didn’t you know that?”

Salisbury gave him a disinterested shrug, the bare wriggling of his shoulders as he fitted another cigarette casually between his lips. “So let’s have it,” he said.

I knew exactly what was about to happen, and it was going to happen because Charlie Grist was Charlie Grist. He smiled calmly at Salisbury for a moment, then his upper body exploded into action, his right arm coming around in a vicious backhand arc, the long, lead-loaded sap that had been hidden under his jacket now in his gnarled old hand. It caught Salisbury on the side of the face with the sickening splat of a fastball hitting a wet catcher’s mitt, and the blow knocked the man’s chair over backwards and spilled him onto the floor. I got a quick glimpse of the young hood on his hands and knees, his eyes wide with fear and surprise, his mouth a bloody hole from which one tooth hung by a thread. Then the old man closed in on him like the Grim Reaper, but by that time Klevenhagen and I had our own hands full with the bodyguards.

Both men reflexively grabbed for their guns, even though we were cops. But I’d had the advantage of knowing what was about to happen and had my Colt out and in their faces before they could get a grip on their pieces. Klevenhagen wasn’t far behind me with his big revolver. In a matter of seconds we had the pair searched and disarmed and backed up against the wall. While we were frisking them, I could hear Grist behind me, stomping Marty Salisbury to mush. Finally the beating stopped. I looked over at Klevenhagen and raised my eyebrows. “Be my guest,” he said with a shrug.

I handed him my Colt and reached into my pocket and slipped my fingers into the heavy pair of brass knucks I’d brought from home. I shucked off my coat and tossed my hat onto the desk and turned and faced the two bodyguards with a happy smile on my face. “Your turn, boys,” I said and buried my fist up to the wrist in the bigger thug’s belly.

*   *   *

An hour later the three of us stood watching the taillights of Salisbury’s big blue Cadillac convertible as they gradually dwindled into the cold, misty darkness of the Louisiana night.

“An old boy just don’t never get over a beating like that,” Grist mused philosophically. “Down the way he starts to think he’s a man again, and maybe he even begins to strut a little. Then the memory of it pops up in the back of his mind, and he sees himself lying on the floor in a puddle of his own puke begging you to stop. From that moment on, he’s yours and he knows it. It’s kinda like the relationship between a woman and her first lover. You’ve taken something from him he won’t never get back.”

An hour earlier we’d pushed the trio out the rear door of the club and stuffed them into the backseat of Salisbury’s car. Salisbury and the bigger hood could barely walk. I’d gone easier on the smaller man so he would be able to drive. I took the wheel of the Cadillac with Grist beside me while Klevenhagen followed in Grist’s Ford. We crossed the Sabine River bridge into Louisiana and pulled over to the side of the highway a few miles shy of the little town of Vinton. Grist and I got out and extracted the smaller hood and placed him behind the wheel. Then the old man leaned back into the car and shined his flashlight into Salisbury’s face, which was so badly beaten that it was barely recognizable. “Can you hear me, boy?” Grist asked. “You understand what I’m saying?”

Salisbury nodded weakly.

“Your days here are over. Don’t come back.”

The man nodded again, then coughed and leaned forward to vomit on the floor of the car. Both front teeth were missing and his nose had been flattened like a road-killed skunk. Grist slammed the door. “Go,” he told the driver.

After stalling the engine twice, the man finally managed to get the car back up on the highway and headed eastward.

“How about Madeline?” I asked.

Grist pushed his hat back and turned to look at me. “I don’t believe they had anything to do with it,” he said. “After all, what did he have to gain by killing her with Arno and Luchese both dead?”

“Maybe so,” I said. “But if it wasn’t Salisbury, then who do you think it was? Nolan Dunning?”

“Could be. We may have been looking at the wrong motive.”

“You’re thinking of a jilted lover rather than a gangland killing?”

“Right. But no evidence.”

“And the Jefferson County cops are never going to make a big deal of investigating the case,” I said.

His tired old eyes were sad. “You’re right about that, and that’s the worst thing about this kind of corruption.”

I shook my head bitterly.

“And as for you,” he said, patting me on the back, “I must admit I admire your energy.” He put his tough old hand on my shoulder and gave me a friendly squeeze. “Maybe I ought to talk to Colonel Garrison about getting you a regular Ranger commission.”

“No thanks, Charlie. When this mess is over I’m going back home to manage La Rosa.”

“If that’s the way you want it,” he replied with a sigh. “But it’s a waste.”

“Where now?” Klevenhagen asked after we were back in the Ford.

“Let’s go get something to eat,” Grist said. “I’m hungry.”