Читать книгу Long Fall from Heaven - George Wier - Страница 14

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Longnight never knew why he chose the Texas Coast. Not that he cared. Nor did he know why he chose Galveston, but as it turned out it was a perfect choice. He had recovered his money less than a week after staging an escape from the clinic. It was in a bus station storage locker he’d rented when he began to suspect the government might be close behind him—the last vestige of his inheritance, a cool seventy thousand dollars. It had been good thinking to stash it away somewhere safe. The Ohio murders had made national headlines, and he’d gotten himself caught. But then the Feds had found his research notes in his apartment, the Army had stepped in and he had been moved to Virginia and put in with the loonies.

His car, a very clean two-year-old Packard convertible coupe, had been purchased in Memphis. In Little Rock he picked up an expensive elk hide suitcase at a department store and three off-the-rack suits in one of the town’s better men’s shops. He also bought a shaving kit, some other needed toiletries, several white dress shirts and a dozen pair of underwear. He spent the night in Texarkana, not bothering to sample the delights of the town’s famous bordellos. The next morning he was up early and on the road. He pulled into Beaumont at a little past two in the afternoon and drove around a little, getting the feel of the town. It was not to his liking.

After a quick lunch, he drove along the coast to the west, stopping only when the highway came to a dead end at a big sign that said “Galveston Ferry.” He had heard of the town and found the name intriguing. The wait for the ferry was only about five minutes, and the ride over to the Island but a couple of miles. When the boat docked, he drove off and followed the road across a narrow strip of barren land that marked the eastern extremity of the island. The road dead-ended at a broad, four-lane street that was named Seawall Boulevard. He turned right. A mile and a half later, almost as if by instinct, he pulled up in front of the great Hotel Galvez, the town’s most regal hostelry.

He checked in under Randall Talos, a phony name, and slipped the desk clerk a five to get a small suite at the front of the building overlooking the Gulf. The desk clerk rang the bell and a young Negro bellhop of perhaps fifteen appeared from around the corner and began helping him with his bags.

On the way up the elevator, Longnight made it a point to get the bellhop’s name: Tad Blessing.

Up in his fifth floor room, he gave another five to the bellhop and said, “Where’s the action, Tad?”

Tad Blessing was a brash-looking kid with a quick manner and a feral gleam in his eye. The kid didn’t even bother to size his guest up. Galveston was that kind of town. “What kind of action you want?” he asked. “Women? Gamblin’?”

“Maybe later on the women.”

“Well, if you do need some female company, Post Office Street is the place. There’s some fine lookin’ girls on Post Office Street. Some really nice houses there. If you don’t want to leave your room, just have the desk clerk send me up and I can have one of the ladies come and visit a spell.”

“I may do it. How about the gambling?”

The kid took him by the arm and led him to the window and pointed directly across the street to a large building situated at the end of a pier that stretched a hundred yards or so out over the Gulf. “Ya see that?”

“Yeah. I wondered what it was when I drove up.”

“That there is the Balinese Room. Finest nightspot between Brownsville and Miami.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. That enclosed catwalk makes it awful tough to raid—not that anybody’s gonna to be trying to raid it. There’s a trinket shop in the land end of the catwalk, and that’s where you have to get approved. No problem. Just wear a tie and coat or a tux and you can get into the nightclub without any problem. Artie Shaw and his band are playin’ there this week. Sinatra was there a month or so ago.”

“How about the gambling?”

The kid shrugged. “The casino is in back of the nightclub. Last room out over the water. But it’ll be tougher to get into. Act reasonable and don’t push it if they say no. That could be...dangerous. Just come back again the next night and ask all over again. Quietly keep at it, that’s the ticket. It’ll help a little if you tell ‘em you’re staying here at the Galvez.”

“Is the casino honest?” he asked the kid.

The kid laughed a cynical little laugh. “What’s honest? The odds is so much in favor of the house in casino gambling that only fools would cheat. But there’s no rigged tables or shaved dice or any of that crap at the Balinese Room.”

“Who runs it?”

“The Maceo brothers.”

The name was vaguely familiar to the man. He nodded and slipped the kid a couple more bucks.

The boy smiled and said, “If you want something, call downstairs and ask for me.”

He riveted the boy with his eyes and spoke in a silky voice that held a hint of challenge. “About sending that girl up...Are you a pimp, Tad? Is that how you think of yourself?”

The kid laughed again, and this time it was an honest laugh, one free of cynicism. “It’s a rough world, and a fellah’s got to get by. So I just think of myself as whatever I need to be whenever I need to be it.”

The man winked. “I feel exactly the same way. How about bringing me up a bottle of good Canadian whiskey and some ice?”

“Sure ‘nough.”

“I’ll be in the bath. Just set it on the table and we’ll settle up tomorrow. Will that do?”

“Right as rain.”

“You’re a good lad, Mr. Blessing,” he said with a hearty laugh. “May your life be long and prosperous.”

• • •

He dressed with care, donning one of his white dress shirts, a tie of mottled gold and burgundy, and a dark blue double-breasted suit of all-weight worsted wool pinstripe. He turned off all the lights except for one small table lamp and sat beside it enjoying a whiskey over ice. At precisely eight he arose and left the room. Down in the lobby he paused for a moment to take a single white carnation from the bouquet on the grand piano. Out in the street he threaded the carnation’s stem into his lapel. He crossed the street.

An older couple came up to the door of the catwalk just as he approached. He swept the door open for them and stood to one side. As they entered, they smiled gratefully and nodded their thanks. What they saw was a tall, slim, handsome man with brown hair, a shy smile, and a diffident manner, which was exactly what he wanted them to see.

Before he followed, he took one last deep breath of the cool air, relishing the salty, earthy odor of the island. He looked around him. Far out on the Gulf, hundreds of lights glittered where vessels from half the nations of the earth stretched to the horizon, riding the swells, each awaiting its entry to the Houston ship channel. Heavy cars whisked up and down the street, stopping to let out their richly dressed passengers at the casinos and nightclubs that dotted the seawall. The soft strains of Shaw’s Begin the Beguine drifted out above a moonlit beach while palm trees rustled softly in the gentle breeze. Could there be a more glamorous time and place? He thought not. The whole world was mad with war, and the night was alive with promise. He might have a few glasses of champagne. He might strike up an interesting conversation. He might even come across an alluring young woman who wanted to dance. He might...

He smiled happily and walked down the catwalk toward the famed Balinese Room.