CHAPTER 42

“You boys have dug yourselves into a deep hole,” Jefferson Davis the fourth said to his two clients. “Ballot stuffing went out with two-dollar whores and nickel cigars. Lyndon Johnson did it in Texas back in ’48, but, unlike you, he got away with it.” Davis popped a mint into his mouth. “It always gives me a bad taste when the federal government meddles in a state’s affairs.”

“Couldn’t chance losing,” Johnston mumbled behind his grand desk.

Overstreet, who had an Adam’s apple the size of a horse’s eye, sat stiffly under a portrait of Davis’s Confederate grandfather generations removed. He straightened his paisley bow tie and brushed imaginary lint off a tweed sleeve. “When you’re close to the wire and behind, you don’t pull the reins.”

Davis wondered if perhaps he should have boarded the train home this morning instead of sitting here, talking to these pompous featherweights. As he was standing on the station platform, Doc Little had shuffled up to him, huffing and puffing. He claimed to represent the Defiance City Council and persuaded him to stay and defend these “esteemed citizens.”

“I talked to Clyde Tolson at the bureau,” Davis said. “He’s second to Hoover. We went to George Washington University together back in ’twenty-seven. He agreed to put the brakes on this thing--for now.”

Johnston and Overstreet exchanged nods.

“Don’t breathe too easy,” Davis snapped. “You’ve been like minnows swimming through razorblades. The feds didn’t set you up to help you get rich in the racetrack business.”

“Set us up?” Johnston blurted, bouncing in his seat. “What in tarnation does that mean?”

“They’d been watching you boys for two years.”

Overstreet’s Adam’s apple took a ride up and down. “Two years!”

Johnston shifted in his chair. “The hell you talkin’ about?”

“Tolson said he has proof of you both having ties with the Chicago Outfit. He also believes there’s someone local working with you, but he doesn’t know who.”

Overstreet’s voice hardened. “That’s absurd.”

“I’m telling you what the man said.” Davis narrowed his eyes at Johnston: and don’t-you-start. “The Outfit has been fixing horse races for years, and now they’ve been caught muscling into the racetrack operation itself. Through phone taps, the feds learned of your partnering up to operate the track’s pari-mutuel betting system.”

Johnston put his palms on the desk and rose a foot off his chair. “Tolson actually told you this?”

“Only because the bureau had just indicted the Chicago bunch. The feds hadn’t planned to move this soon. They wanted to wait until you boys got your racetrack business going, but something pushed up their schedule, and Tolson wouldn’t say what.”

Johnston stared blankly at Overstreet, then to Davis. “I don’t follow.”

“Since the racetrack wasn’t built yet, they had no case against you.” Looking at Johnston, Davis added, “That’s why they maneuvered you into committing voter fraud.”

Johnston winced.

“They had to charge you with something. They knew all about the political machinations you’d pulled to get the racetrack built in Tulsa County. And they knew it was imperative for you, Mr. Overstreet, to win the mayoral election. The feds wanted you two to believe with certainty that the governor was backing the mayor and preparing to build the racetrack here in Garfield County.”

Johnston stared at his gnarled hands for several moments. “It was that blueprint fella.”

Davis nodded. “An agent pulled in from New York with stage experience and a knack for eccentricity. He’d behave outlandish enough that folks would pay attention to him, take note of his blueprints, and spread the word. They picked Councilman Alsop’s car dealership to set it up. An outside female agent added to the ruse.”

Johnston removed the wet cigar from his mouth and studied it. “The governor in on this?”

“The feds had asked him to state publicly that he would veto the bill. He declined, inferring that it would depend on the election’s outcome. But later, he agreed to tacitly support the mayor by attending the anniversary celebration.” Davis wiped his glasses with his crumpled tie.

Johnston grabbed three cigars from his desk drawer. He passed them around and everyone lit up. He leaned back in a fog of smoke. “So, Mr. Davis, how do you intend to pull us out of this hole?”