CHAPTER SIXTEEN

After that night things moved fast. In midmorning of the next day I was awakened by the phone. It was Grist once again. “Hello, Charlie,” I said sleepily.

“We got their attention this time,” the old man said.

“Whose attention?” I asked, a little confused.

“Scorpino and that bunch. His top hand called me about fifteen minutes ago and asked for a meeting this afternoon at a little beer joint just the other side of the state line. I’ve got to go back to Austin later this evening, but I got time for this.”

“Why Austin?” I asked, dumfounded. “Did you get called back?”

“Yeah.”

“But what about the DeMour killing? What about the girl?”

“Hell, Virgil, the DeMour investigation is dead in the water, and you know it as well as I do. The killers are in the morgue and the man behind it is out of the state. As for the girl, even if Dunning killed her we got no way to link him to the crime.”

“Yeah, but—”

“I know what you’re going to say. Salisbury got away scot-free on DeMour. I don’t like it, and the governor don’t like it either, but there ain’t nothing we can do about it. Anyhow, I thought you might be interested in coming with us this afternoon and talk to this guy.”

“You bet I am,” I said.

“Then get yourself something to eat and we’ll come by to pick you up about three.”

“Okay.”

“And Virgil?”

“Yeah?”

“We scared ’em. This old boy told me that he wanted to assure me that I didn’t need to go to New Orleans to talk it over with the head man. And the way he said it gave me the feeling that Scorpino’s afraid we’ll come down there and do the same thing to him.”

*   *   *

The mist had turned to rain about sunup, a slow, steady downpour that showed no signs of abating, and the weather reports said a cold front was supposed to blow in about sunset. I waited under the awning in front of the hotel until Grist’s black Ford sedan rolled up with Klevenhagen at the wheel and Grist beside him. I climbed into the backseat and soon we were on our way. “Who’s this guy we’re going to meet?” I asked.

“His name’s Albert Gracchi,” Grist said. “He’s Scorpino’s chief advisor. Kind of an odd duck for a hood.”

“How so?” I asked.

“Well, for one thing, he’s a college man.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Honors graduate of Tulane. And he claims his family is descended from some bunch of bigwig Romans back about the time of Jesus. Of course I don’t buy that because I don’t think no family can go for more than three or four generations without somebody’s bull jumping the fence.”

“Charlie’s a little cynical,” Klevenhagen said. “I mention that just in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“Shit,” Grist snorted.

“Just because the bull jumps the fence doesn’t mean the cows are going to be interested,” I said with a grin. “I should know since I’m in the cattle business.”

“Enough of ’em are,” Grist said. “Anyhow, Gracchi came over on the boat from Sicily with Scorpino when they were just kids, and they’ve been friends ever since.”

“How did an educated man like him manage to get into the rackets?” Klevenhagen asked.

“Nobody really knows. I suspect that he was a hoodlum at heart before he ever went to college, so it was just a case of a dog returning to its vomit. When you boys meet him you’ll notice that he looks like somebody stabbed him in the face about forty times with an ice pick. That’s because somebody stabbed him about forty times with an ice pick.”

“How come?” I asked.

“It was back right after the first war when him and Scorpino were just getting started. A rival gang was trying to make him give up some information. They left him for dead without making sure. Bad mistake. What he and Scorpino did to the other gang is what began their rise to power. Their response was so damn savage that it scared about half their competition slap out of the business.”

The joint where the meeting was to take place was a little roadside tavern with a hilly, sloping floor, a half dozen booths, and a poorly adjusted gas heater that barely dispelled the damp chill of the day. We arrived first but didn’t have long to wait before the front door creaked open and three men entered. Two of them were younger, obvious bodyguards. But it was the third man who got my attention.

With an air of almost palpable corruption that hung about him like a cloud of gnats, Albert Gracchi looked like about a hundred and sixty pounds of spoiled meat in a fine suit and a five-hundred-dollar overcoat. His skin, which was deeply pitted and gouged from the long-ago ice pick attack, had an unhealthy, reddish purple tint to it. His eyes were two lifeless brown orbs set in irises the color of dirty dishwater, and his nose was thin and beaklike over a mouth that was a wide, lipless slash.

The two bodyguards took bar stools close to the door, while Gracchi walked slowly back to the rickety table near the rear where we sat. He didn’t offer to shake hands and neither did we. Instead, Grist said, “Sit down and say your piece.”

Gracchi stiffly eased himself into a chair across from the old man and turned to snap his fingers for the place’s single waitress. When she arrived he asked for a cup of coffee only to be told, “This is a beer joint. If you want coffee, go to a drugstore.”

Much to my surprise, he didn’t take offense. Instead he laughed and ordered a bottle of Falstaff. When he spoke his voice was rich and cultured, with an almost lighthearted ring to it, like the voice of a well-traveled and sophisticated man with an easy appreciation for the little ironies of life. That voice was the most disconcerting and spooky thing about the man. It was like hearing a cadaver singing a Verdi aria, and it made me shudder inwardly.

He turned back to Grist and said, “I appreciate your coming.”

Grist nodded in acknowledgment. “Let’s hear it,” he said.

“Mr. Scorpino wanted you to know that he got some very bad advice, and that this whole affair has been an unfortunate misunderstanding.”

“Go on.”

“And he wants to assure you that as things stand now he has no further interest in expanding his business into Texas.”

I decided to get into the conversation. “That’s fine,” I said. “But me and him still have some problems.”

He turned his dead, dishwater eyes toward me and asked, “And who are you?”

“Virgil Tucker.”

He gazed at me for a moment with an expression on his ravaged face that seemed like honest puzzlement. Finally he said, “I’m sorry, but that name means nothing to me.”

“I’m the fellow whose ranch was invaded by your hoods a few days ago.”

His eyes grew wide. “You’ve lost me.”

“Then try this. Have you ever heard of a guy named Lew Ralls?”

He gave me a slow, thoughtful nod. “I believe I’ve met the gentleman a time or two.”

“Well, you won’t be meeting him again for a while because he’s on his way to the Texas penitentiary.”

Another thoughtful nod and a little glimmer of understanding began to creep into his eyes. “Why don’t you just tell me the whole story.”

“Ralls and two other thugs broke into my house down in Matador County after a girl named Madeline Kimbell. My aunt killed one of them and one of my vaqueros killed another. We captured Ralls alive and—”

“But why were they after this Kimbell girl?”

“Because she’d seen a couple of guys named Johnny Arno and Paul Luchese murder a man named Henry DeMour who happened to be a highly respected attorney and a member of the Beaumont City Council. In case you didn’t know, Arno and Luchese worked for your boss’s nephew, Marty Salisbury. And now they’re both dead.”

“They are?” he asked in surprise.

“Yeah,” I said. “They were found floating in Lake Sabine shot to pieces.”

“This is all news to me. I haven’t heard a damn thing about any of it.”

“That’s strange,” Grist said. “Virgil here was able to persuade Ralls to talk, and he said they were hired by Carlo Tresca. And you know who he is just as well as I do.”

“Yes, I do,” Gracchi said, his eyes narrowing. He pulled a long, thin cheroot from an inner coat pocket, bit off the end without ceremony, and then lighted it with a Zippo. “And Ralls actually told you that Tresca had hired them?” he asked me.

“Yes, and I believed him.”

“Why?”

“Because we’d already been at him with a hot branding iron, and he didn’t want any more of it. But there’s more than that. Two nights ago Madeline Kimbell was found dead out on the Galveston highway.”

He stared down at the table for a few moments in thought. Then he lifted his eyes and said, “I assure you this is not the sort of thing we had in mind with our move into Texas. We expected it to be more in the nature of a merger, a trading of value for value. We were led to believe that the political climate had changed in such a way that our presence here would not be resented. Mr. Scorpino and I had long felt that there could be considerable expansion of the Maceo operation. With their expertise and our capital…”

He stopped speaking and looked at the three of us and shook his head. “Killing prominent citizens and invading homes?” He shrugged apologetically. “No. We had nothing to do with either.”

“I find it hard to take your word on that,” I said, “considering that I got personal assurances from Marty Salisbury that the girl would be safe just one day before she was killed.”

He puffed on his cheroot for a moment and then drained his beer. Finally he held up his hands in supplication. “All I can say is that we’re quits as far as Mr. Scorpino and I are concerned. And I’m sorry about the girl. I take it she was a friend of yours, and the loss of a friend is…” He stopped speaking and shrugged. “Regardless of what you might think of me, I promise you I’m no stranger to grief. So let’s end the matter here.”

“I’m willing,” I said. “I really don’t have any other choice. But if my family is bothered again there’ll be hell to pay. I promise you that.”

“You have nothing we want, Mr. Tucker,” he said. “You are safe from us. I give you my word on that, however meaningless it might be in your estimation.” He turned his head to look at Grist. “How about you?”

“I don’t intend to push it no further,” the old man said. “But you have to stay out of this state. There are some powerful interests here that just won’t tolerate your kind of operation.”

“Done,” Gracchi said and got to his feet. “As I said, it was an ill-advised venture, and we want nothing more to do with it.”

We rose and followed him across the room. Halfway to the door he stopped and turned to Grist. “Certain people are going to have some explaining to do once I get back to New Orleans,” he said. “I want you to understand that.”

His vehicle was a big custom-built Lincoln sedan. A few moments later we stood outside the little joint and watched as it glided off into the drizzle. As we were getting back into our own car, Klevenhagen asked, “What do you think he meant about people having things to explain?”

Grist stared thoughtfully at the Lincoln’s dwindling silhouette. “Sounds to me like they may have a palace rebellion going on down there,” he said.