Two Trains Running - By Andrew H. Vachss Page 0,42
said.
“Look, man, you don’t got to—”
Dett gestured with the .45. Moving with deliberate slowness, the pimp turned the ignition key. His left hand never left the wheel.
* * *
1959 October 03 Saturday 02:11
* * *
“He asked a lot of questions, Beau.”
“He’s supposed to ask questions, honey. That’s his job.”
“I thought his job was to fight.”
“Strategy is fighting, Cyn. I told you that, a hundred times. That’s why we got him, remember?”
“Why did he need all that information about the . . . houses?”
“Probably figures, all the people using them, some of them have to be people we might want to know where they are, sometimes.”
“You told Ruth to tell him whatever he wants to know?”
“Sure.”
“But, Beau . . .”
“Ruth knows what I meant by that, Cyn.”
“Because she understands men so well?”
“What’s the matter, honey?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? I know you better than that.”
“I guess I just don’t understand men and whores. Why anyone would want to . . . do things with someone they didn’t love. Didn’t even know. It’s . . . ugly.”
“And you’re beautiful.”
“Beau.”
“You are, Cyn. You know you are. If you hadn’t been stuck with a cripple baby brother to take care of, you could have—”
“I love you,” she said, fiercely. “I never wanted . . .”
“Me, either,” Beaumont said, torquing his powerful wrists to move his wheelchair in her direction.
* * *
1959 October 03 Saturday 02:40
* * *
In the secrecy of his room, the desk clerk angrily tore up a sheet of notepaper covered with neat, precise script.
Weak! he thought, contemptuously. Is that the handwriting of a warrior? No!
He returned to his task, starting with a fresh sheet. Save for the cone of light cast by the desk lamp, the room was in darkness.
It took him an hour to finish his letter. He read and reread the closing line: “Pure Aryan love.” Finally, the clerk nodded in satisfaction and signed his name at the bottom.
Karl
* * *
1959 October 03 Saturday 03:52
* * *
In three different parts of town, Procter, Sherman, and Rufus each watched a different house, shielded by darkness.
In another, a pimp drove slowly through a maze of streets toward the warehouse district.
“Look, mister,” he said to the gunman seated next to him, “what-ever this is, it can be squared.”
“If I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead,” Dett said, conversationally. “I’ve got a silencer for this piece. I could have just walked by your car, popped you, and kept going. You never saw me coming. I could have put one right here.” The man tapped the pimp’s temple lightly with the tip of his .45. “You wouldn’t have felt a thing.
“I know where you live,” the gunman continued. “I know what car you drive. I know where you’ve got to be to do business. If I wanted, I could have taken you out, anytime.”
“Why you telling me all this, man?” the pimp said, plaintively. “I never did nothing to you.”
“I’m telling you so that you calm down,” Dett said. “We’ve got to go someplace where we can talk. I don’t want you thinking I need to get you alone so I can blast you.”
“What we got to talk about?”
“Soon as we get there,” Dett promised.
* * *
1959 October 03 Saturday 04:11
* * *
“This is good,” Dett told the pimp. “You can turn off the engine now. And the lights, too, please.”
“You making a mistake, man. Let me talk to you. I got money. Serious money.”
“I don’t want your money,” Dett told him. “I want to be your friend.”
“My friend? You got some way of making friends, man.”
“Have I talked badly to you?” Dett said. “Haven’t I been respectful?”
“Oh, yeah, man. You the most polite killer I ever met.”
“I already told you—”
“Yeah, I know. I got it.”
“Please don’t do something stupid,” Dett said, just short of pleading.
“Stupid? What I going to do that—?”
“You probably have a gun somewhere. At least a knife.”
“In my coat,” the pimp said. “The mink, on the back seat. But I got a permit for that piece, man. I’m a—”
“—professional.”
“Right! I—”
“You see what I mean? About respect? We’re both professionals. Businessmen. That’s why we can be friends.”
“How are we gonna be friends?” the pimp said, willing calm into his voice.
“Friends help each other.”
“What kind of help you—?”
“A man with a lot of ladies working for him is a man with a dozen pairs of eyes and ears.”
“My girls’ job ain’t to—”
“Whores gossip all the time,” Dett said. “He-say, she-say, that’s what they do, right?”
“You can’t be the law,” the pimp said. “Otherwise, I be