The Neon Rain Part 7

5. The crushed hull of a n.a.z.i submarine, depth-charged off Grand Island in 1942, still drifts up and down the continental shelf. At a certain spot on a calm night, shrimpers out of Morgan City can hear the cries of drowning men in the fog.

6. A Negro rapist was lynched outside of Lafayette and his body put inside a red wooden box and nailed up in a pecan tree as a warning to others. The desiccated wood, the strips of rag, the rat's nest of bones hang there to this day.

7. The .45 automatic was designed as a result of a Filipino insurrection. The insurrectionists would bind up their genitals with leather thongs, which would send them into a maniacal agony that would allow them to charge through the American wire while the bullets from our Springfields and .30-40 Kraigs pa.s.sed through their bodies with no more effect than hot needles. The .45, however, blew holes in people the size of croquet b.a.l.l.s.

There is usually a vague element of truth in all mythology, and the basic objective truth about the .45 automatic is simply that it is an absolutely murderous weapon. I had bought mine in Saigon's Bring-Cash Alley, out by the airport. I kept it loaded with steel-jacketed ammunition that could blow up a car engine, reduce a cinder-block wall to rubble, or, at rapid fire, shred an armored vest off someone's chest.

The darkness of my own meditation disturbed me. My years of drinking had taught me not to trust my unconscious, because it planned things for me in a cunning fas.h.i.+on that was usually a disaster for me, or for the people around me, or for all of us. But by this time I also knew that I was involved with players who were far more intelligent, brutal, and politically connected than the kind of psychotics and losers I usually dealt with.

If I had any doubts about my last conclusion, they were dispelled when a gray, U. S. government motor-pool car stopped on the dock and a redheaded, freckle-faced man in a seersucker suit who could have been anywhere from fifteen to thirty years old walked down the gangplank onto my houseboat.

He flipped open his identification and smiled.

"Sam Fitzpatrick, U. S. Treasury," he said. "You expecting a war or something?"

FOUR.

"It doesn't look like you believe me," he said. "Do you think I boosted the ID and a government car, too?" He wouldn't stop grinning.

"No, I believe you. It's just that you look like you might have escaped from 'The Howdy Doody Show.'"

"I get lots of compliments like that. You New Orleans people are full of fun. I hear you've been taking a little heat for me."

"You tell me."

"Are you going to offer me some iced tea?"

"You want some?"

"Not here. You're too hot, Lieutenant. In fact, almost on fire. We need to get you back on the sidelines somehow. I'm afraid it's not going to be easy. The other team is unteachable in some ways."

"What are you talking about?"

"They have fixations. Something's wrong with their operation and they target some schmoe that's wandered into the middle of it. It usually doesn't do them any good, but they think it does."

"I'm the schmoe?"

"No, you're a bright guy with stainless steel b.a.l.l.s, evidently. But we don't want to see you a casualty. Let's take a ride."

"I'm taking a lady to the track tonight."

"Another time."

"No, not another time. And let's stop this business of Uncle Sam talking in his omniscience to the uninformed local flatfoot. If the s.h.i.+t's burning on the stove, I suspect it's yours and it's because you federal boys have screwed things up again."

He stopped grinning. He looked at me thoughtfully for a moment, then wet his lips. He suddenly seemed older.

"You have to have faith in what I tell you, Lieutenant," he said. "You're a good man, you've got courage, you've never been on a pad, you go to Ma.s.s on Sundays, you treat the street people decently, and you put away a lot of the bad guys. We know these things about you because we don't want you hurt. But believe me, it's dumb for the two of us to be out here in the open talking to each other."

"Who's this 'we' you're talking about?"

"Uh, actually the 'we' is more or less just me, at least right now. Come on, I'll explain it. Trust me. Somebody who looks like Howdy Doody has got to be a straight shooter. Besides, I'll buy you a poor-boy sandwich on my expense account."

So this was the state of the art down at the Federal Building, I thought. We didn't see much of the federal boys, primarily because they operated on their own as a rule, and even though they said otherwise, they looked down upon us as inept and uneducated. On the other hand, we didn't have much liking for them, either. Any number of television serials portray the feds as manicured, dapper altruists dressed in Botany 500 suits, who dispa.s.sionately hunt down the oily representatives of the Mafia and weld the cell door shut on them. The reality is otherwise. As Didi Gee would probably point out, syndicate gangsters have little fear of any police agency or court system. They own judges, cops, and prosecutors, and they can always get to a witness or a juror.

The Treasury Department is another matter. Law enforcement people everywhere, as well as criminals, consider Treasury agents incorruptible. Within the federal government they are to law enforcement what Smokey the Bear and the U. S. Forest Service are to environmental integrity. Even Joe Valachi, the Brooklyn mob's celebrity snitch, had nothing but admiration for the T-men.

Fitzpatrick drove us across town to a Latin American restaurant on Louisiana Avenue. We sat at an outdoor table in the small courtyard under the oak and willow trees. There were electric lights in the trees and we could see the traffic on the avenue through the scrolled iron gate. The banana trees along the stone wall rattled in the wind. He ordered shrimp and oyster poor-boy sandwiches for us and poured himself a gla.s.s of Jax while I sipped my iced tea.

"You don't drink, do you?" he said.

"Not anymore."

"Heavy sauce problem?"

"You not only look like a kid, you're as subtle as a s.h.i.+thouse, aren't you?" I said.

"Why do you think I brought us to this restaurant?"

"I don't know."

"Almost everybody working here is a product of our fun-in-the-sun policies south of the border. Some of them are legals, some bought their papers from coyotes."

"That's only true of about five thousand restaurants in Orleans and Jefferson parishes."

"You see the owner over by the cash register? If his face looks out of round, it's because Somoza's national guardsmen broke all the bones in it."

He waited, but I didn't say anything.

"The man running the bar is an interesting guy too," he said. "He's from a little village in Guatemala. One day the army came to the village and without provocation killed sixteen Indians and an American priest from Oklahoma named Father Stan Rother. For kicks they put the bodies of the Indians in a U.S. Army helicopter and threw them out at high alt.i.tudes."

He watched my face. His eyes were a washed-out blue. I'd never seen a grown man with so many freckles.

"I'm not big on causes anymore," I said.

"I guess that's why you went out to Julio Segura's and put a hot plate under his nuts."

"This dinner is getting expensive."

"I'm sorry I've been boring you," he said, and broke up a bread stick in three pieces and stood each piece upright. "Let's talk about your immediate concerns. Let's talk about the three guys who gave you gargling lessons in the bathtub last night. I bet that'll hold your interest."

"You don't hide hostility well."

"I get a little emotional on certain subjects. You'll have to excuse me. I went to Jesuit schools. They always taught us to be up front about everything. They're the Catholic equivalent of the jarheads, you know. Get in there and kick b.u.t.t and take names and all that stuff. I just think you're a lousy actor, Lieutenant."

"Look, Fitzpatrick-"

"f.u.c.k off, man. I'm going to give you the scam and you can work out your own options. I'm surrounded by indifferent people and I don't need any more of them. I just don't want you on my conscience. Also, as a matter of principle I don't like another guy taking the heat for me, particularly when he blunders into something he doesn't know anything about. You're d.a.m.n lucky they didn't blow out your light last night. The girl's, too."

He stopped talking while the waiter put down our plates of oyster and shrimp sandwiches, then he took a bite out of his sandwich as though he hadn't eaten for weeks.

"You don't like the food?" he said, his mouth still full.

"I lost my appet.i.te."

"Ah, you're a sensitive fellow after all."

"Tell me, do all you guys have the same manners?"

"You want it straight, Lieutenant? We've got some firemen and pyromaniacs on the same side of the street."

"Who was that bunch last night?" I said.

"That's the easy part. The one named Erik is an Israeli. He's somebody's little brother back in Haifa and they keep him around to clean up their mess, change toilet-paper rolls, stuff like that. The one you called Bobby Joe in your report is a real cut-up. That's Robert J. Starkweather of Shady Grove, Alabama. The state took away his kid from him and his wife for the kid's own protection. They think he fragged an NCO in Vietnam but they couldn't prove it, so they eased him out on a BCD. How do you like that tattoo about killing them all and letting G.o.d sort them out? He's sincere about it, too."

"How about the guy in charge?"

"He's a little more complex. His name is Philip Murphy, at least we think it is. We've run this guy all kinds of ways and we come up with some blank spots-no addresses, no record of earnings, no tax returns for a couple of years here and there. Or he shows up owning a shoe store in Des Moines. With this kind of guy it usually means protected witness or CIA. He's probably one of those that bounces in and out of the Agency or freelances around. I suspect he's off their leash right now. But it's hard to tell sometimes."

I picked up my poor-boy sandwich and started to eat. The shrimp, oysters, lettuce, onions, tomato, and sauce piquante tasted wonderful. The shadows of the oak and willow leaves moved in etched, s.h.i.+fting patterns across our table.

"I still don't understand the connections. What have these guys got to do with Segura's wh.o.r.es and dope?" I said.

"Nothing directly." Then he started grinning again. "Come on, you're a detective. Give me your opinion."

"Are you sure these guys aren't after you because of what you fancy is a sense of humor?"

"Maybe. Come on, give me your opinion."

"I have a hard time believing you're a Treasury agent."

"Sometimes my supervisor does too. Come on."

"You're with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms."

"Good."

"Are we talking about guns?" I said.

"Excellento."

"Nope, not excellento. I still don't see it, and I already told you this meal has gotten expensive."

"It's simple. I think Segura is putting his dope money back into military equipment for the Contras in Nicaragua. It explains these other guys. The Israelis supplied arms to Somoza for years and they still sell to right-wing guys like Pinochet in Chile. From what we know about Buffalo Bob, who almost pinched your head off at the shoulders, he's cowboyed for the CIA down on the Honduran border when he wasn't mixing up his phallus with an M-16, and I'll bet Philip Murphy is the tie-in to some arms contractors and military people here in the States. There's nothing new or unusual about it. It's the same kind of unholy trinity we had working for us down in Cuba. Look, why do you think the CIA tried to use some Chicago wiseguys to whack Castro? The mob had a vested interest. They got along very well with Batista, then Castro shut down all their casinos."

"How did you get onto this current stuff?"

"We had our eye on a paramilitary training camp in Florida and one in Mississippi, then Buffalo Bob left a submachine gun in a Biloxi bus locker. We could have picked him up, but instead we let him keep ricocheting off the walls for a while. Philip Murphy showed up and it got a lot more interesting."

He paused a minute, then looked me flatly in the face again with those washed-out blue eyes that seemed to be immune to both protocol and insult.

"Have you ever had to dust anyone?" he said.

"Maybe."

"Be straight."

"Twice."

"How'd you feel about it?"

"They dealt the play."

"The next time you see Murphy or Buffalo Bob and Erik, they're going to take you out. You know that, don't you?"

"You said you're an up-front guy. Let me tell you a couple of my own meditations. I don't think you're an upfront guy."

"Oh?"

"I don't think you want me out," I said. "I think you want a partner. I've already got one. He's paid by the city, just like I am."

"You're a pretty slick cop."

"I don't like somebody trying to use me."

"I can't blame you. There's something I didn't tell you. The American priest that was killed in Guatemala was a friend of mine. Our government is into some real bulls.h.i.+t down there, buddy, but everybody who works for the government isn't necessarily on the same team. Some of us still believe in the old rules."

"Good for you. But if you're into the Boy Scout Manual, don't try to run a game on another cop."

"n.o.body's asking you to sign a loyalty oath. What are you so afraid of?"

"You're genuinely starting to p.i.s.s me off," I said.

"I didn't write this script. You got into it on your own. I'll tell you something else, too: you're not going to walk out of it easily. I guarantee it. Guys like Segura and Murphy are just functionary j.a.c.k.o.f.fs for much bigger people. Here's another question for you, too, Mr. Clean. What were you thinking about while you were oiling your guns out on your boat deck? Maybe blowing bone and cartilage all over Buffalo Bob's walls?"