Two Trains Running - By Andrew H. Vachss Page 0,27
you want to listen.”
“That’s my business, Chet. Listening.”
“Mine, too. Only you, you get a paycheck for it.”
“And you get cash. That’s nicer. No taxes.”
“Paycheck’s better. Regular is always better. Something you can count on.”
“There was a time when you counted on me,” Procter said.
“You don’t forget nothing, do you?”
“I don’t tear up IOUs, either,” Procter said. “I’ll see you tonight. By the water tower.”
* * *
1959 September 30 Wednesday 17:31
* * *
“Rosa Mae, what is wrong with you, girl? You look like you seen a ghost.”
“Not a ghost, Rufus. A mojo. A powerful one.”
“What you—?”
“In the gentleman’s room.”
“Eight oh nine?”
“Yes! I finished cleaning his room, just like I’m supposed to. And then, like the fool you made me be, I opened his big suitcase. It wasn’t locked or anything. And the second I opened it, I could see why. You know what a mojo is, Rufus?”
“Yeah. Hoodoo nonsense is what it is.”
“No, it’s not,” the young woman said, vehemently, almost hissing the words. “It’s like one of those conjure bags you wear around your neck, to keep evil spirits off you. Only this one, it was real powerful. I could tell.”
“I thought you was a Christian woman, Rosa Mae,” Rufus scoffed, trying to soften her fear.
“I am,” she said, staunchly. “I have been baptized, and I have been saved. But that doesn’t mean I don’t know things. Things my granny told me when I was just a little girl, before I ever come up here. I never saw one myself, not before. But I know about the barbed wire around the hands. That’s a protection mojo, Rufus.”
“So you saw this thing and—”
“And? And I slammed down the lid so quick I scared myself! I got my cleaning things and I got out of there.”
“You didn’t put it back where you—?”
“Rufus, are you crazy? I never touch it.”
“Probably just some souvenir the man picked up somewhere. He’s a traveling man, could have been anywhere.”
“I never heard of a white man having anything like that. You could only get them way down in the Delta, my granny said. Or over to Louisiana. Special places, where they know how to work roots. Places like that, they wouldn’t be selling no souvenirs, Rufus.”
“Maybe he stole it, then.”
“You can’t steal a mojo! You know what happens if you do that?”
“What?”
“I . . . I don’t know, exactly. But I know you can’t do it.”
“Rosa Mae, did you find out anything?”
“I done told you what I found,” Rosa Mae said. “And I promise you, Rufus Hightower, I’m never doing nothing like that again, not ever.”
* * *
1959 September 30 Wednesday 18:29
* * *
Dett circled the block three times, marking the pattern of the streets, weighing the odds. He was in his shirtsleeves, suit jacket next to him on the front seat; his heavily armed coat was locked in the trunk. Full darkness was a couple of hours off, and Beaumont had told him the man he wanted only showed up much later in the evenings, in the seam between the dinner crowd and the nighthawks.
Dett turned onto Fourteenth Street, a black asphalt four-lane, divided by a double white line. As he pulled up to a light, a candy-apple ’55 Chevy slid alongside. The driver revved his engine in neutral, a challenge. Dett nodded in satisfaction at the assumption that the Ford he was driving belonged to some kid. He pressed down the clutch, slipped the floor shift to the left and down, and accepted the offer.
The Chevy took off a split second before the light turned green, but Dett’s Ford caught up before the first-to-second shift . . . which Dett deliberately missed, his engine roaring impotently as the Chevy went through the next light on the green.
To avoid having the Chevy’s driver offer him a rematch, Dett quickly turned off the main drag and made his way back to the pawnshop.
Just like the man promised, Dett said to himself, absently patting the dashboard of the Ford.
* * *
1959 September 30 Wednesday 19:31
* * *
“Good evening, Mr. Dett,” Carl greeted him an hour later. “It’s been amazingly warm for this time of year, don’t you think?”
“Well, I couldn’t say,” Dett replied. “I’m not from around here. Were there any messages while I was out?”
“I’m not sure, sir,” Carl said, lying. “Let me check.” He retrieved the key to 809, said, “Were you expecting anything in particular, sir?”
Dett answered with a negative shake of his head.
“Well, if there’s anything you want me to keep an eye out