Collins, Max Allan - Nathan Heller 08 (7 page)

“All gathered to discuss the Huey Long problem?”

“It was a political caucus, sir, plain and simple. The business at hand was to select anti-Long candidates to run in the comin’ primary election.”

“What about Huey’s claim of having a transcript of the conference taken from a dictaphone his men planted?”

“Ludicrous.”

“Maybe so, but colorful as hell.” I checked my notes from my briefing by Alice Jean. “Among the tidbits Huey reported on the Senate floor was one unidentified speaker’s offer to ‘draw straws in a lottery to go out and kill Long. It would only take one man, one gun and one bullet.’”

“Please, sir, don’t dignify—”

“Another unidentified voice supposedly said, later, ‘Does anyone doubt that President Roosevelt would pardon anyone who killed Long?’”

He was shaking his head, slowly, his smile one of frustration. “Mr. Davis…how often do you suppose someone in Louisiana says ‘Somebody ought to kill that Huey Long’?”

“Every thirty seconds or so?”

“Precisely. It doesn’t mean they’ll do it, or even that they’re thinkin’ serious of it. It’s just a kind of…wish. A daydream.”

He made it sound wistful.

“Mr. Hamilton,” I said, “I have an admission to make.”

He looked at me sharply.

“My name isn’t Davis,” I said, “and I’m not a reporter. Name’s Nate Heller—I’m a bodyguard on Senator Long’s staff.”

He almost lost his balance in the swivel chair; he tried for indignation, but his fear was showing, as he said, “This is outrageous, sir! I must ask you to—”

My hands patted the air. “Whoa,” I said, “settle down. I said I was a bodyguard, not a spy….”

He stood. Pointed at the door. “Leave. Now.”

“I really am from Chicago,” I said pleasantly, crossing my legs, smiling up at him, ignoring his commands. “The Kingfish took a shine to me back at the Democratic Convention in ’32, when I was his police bodyguard. I came down on an errand, and he offered me a position….”

“What is your point, Mr. Heller?”

I arched an eyebrow, smiled half a smile. “My point is that I’m from Chicago, and I’m on the inside of the Kingfish’s personal staff…and did I mention I’m willing to do just about anything for money?”

He sat, slowly, studying me carefully. “I was just beginning to gather that.”

I shrugged. “So…if there’s any information you, or any of your Square Dealer or DeSoto conference pals, might need…anything you might need
done.
…Catch my drift?”

“I’m beginning to.”

The attorney swiveled in his chair and faced the window behind his desk, looking somberly out at the city the Kingfish had taken away from people like him.

“Just over a year ago,” he said very quietly, “a goodly number of ‘law-abiding citizens’ were gathered in this very office…most of them armed. We seriously discussed stormin’ Long’s suite in the Heidelberg Hotel…just a few blocks away…bravin’ the nests of machine guns and such to rid the world of a tyrant.”

“What made you change your mind?”

Hamilton shrugged. “Cowardice, perhaps. Reason, possibly. At any rate, we didn’t resort to assassination then, and I seriously doubt we would do it today…much as we might like to.”

“I see.”

“We are not barbarians, Mister…Heller, was it? We are civilized men in the grasp of a barbarian.”

That would’ve seemed arch, too, if Hamilton’s expression hadn’t been so tragically grave.

“Well,” I said, as I stood. “I appreciate your time.”

He nodded noncommittally, numbly.

I went to the door. “And I apologize for the deception. But if you change your mind, or talk to any of your friends who might see things…differently…well, don’t hesitate to contact me.”

“In that unlikely event,” Hamilton said, “where are you staying?”

“At the Heidelberg,” I said, at the door. “Just down the hall from the machine-gun nest.”

And I left him there, to ponder the possibilities.

Industrial sites were nothing new to a Chicago boy like yours truly; the steel mills and factories of the South Side, and of Gary, Hammond and East Chicago, Indiana, were like a foul-smelling forest just beyond my backyard.

But approaching by car, after dark, heading north from Baton Rouge, I felt overwhelmed by the sprawling otherworldly Standard Oil refinery. Appearing at first like some modern artist’s semi-abstract, geometrical vision of a metropolitan skyline, the vast facility soon filled the horizon, blotting out the world of woods and bluffs it emerged from, dwarfing even the Mississippi along whose banks its shadows fell. Security spotlights and billowing flares adding soft-focus radiance, scaffolding clinging like exoskeletons, the turrets of cat-crackers and the cannon-barrel towers of white-smoking chimneys loomed over a Paul Bunyan’s playground of baseball spheres and bullet tubes and cake-pan storage tanks.

The guard in the booth at the chain-link gate looked at my business card (or that is, Hal Davis’s card) and checked his clipboard. I was expected. He threw a switch and the gate slid open with a metallic whine that seemed only appropriate, and I guided the Buick into this city of steel and flame and smoke.

Louis LeSage—chief lobbyist for Standard Oil, and vice president of public relations—was waiting out in front of a three-story brick administration building. He rocked on his feet, hands clasped behind him, a tiny, balding man with a round cheerful face on a slender body. His wispy waxed mustache, like his cream-color suit and crisp red bow tie, somehow underscored his air of confidence.

When LeSage spotted me, he lighted up as if we were old friends—we had of course never met—and he walked over quickly to the side parking area where I was climbing out of the Buick. His arm was thrust out like a spear as he offered me his hand.

“Mr. Davis,” he said, exuberantly, his voice high-pitched and only faintly Southern, “I’m so very pleased to meet you. We don’t often get representatives of the Northern press down to have a look at our little facility.”

I let him pump my hand for a while, then dug out my notebook, looked up at the towering smokestacks and columnlike cat-crackers. “Just how ‘little’ is this facility?”

He gestured. “Shall we stroll?”

“Why not? It’s a pleasant enough evening. I’m surprised the air isn’t fouled by all that smoke.”

He established an easygoing pace as we walked down a cinder street; but he was holding back—he was in the energy game.

“You don’t see any black fumes, messin’ up the sky, do you, Mr. Davis?” he asked, but it wasn’t a question. “We’re a clean business, here at Standard. Oh, you may get a nasty little whiff of this or that…but for the most part, we pride ourselves at not foulin’ our nest. As for how ‘little’ we are, this is the biggest refinery in the world. Even bigger’n Bayonne.”

I didn’t doubt it. Right now we were strolling past a row of steel stills that could have kept Kentucky in moonshine for decades.

“We process 110,000 barrels of crude oil, each and every day, day in day out…am I talkin’ too fast for ya, Mr. Davis?”

“No. But, frankly, this isn’t the kind of information I’m after….”

He smiled; the ends of the mustache pointed upward, emphasizing the smile’s smugness. “I know. You indicated on the phone your primary interest was in Senator Long.”

“That’s right.” I glanced around at the monumental spires of industry rising into the night sky; the smoke really was white—as if they were a cloud-making factory. “And seeing all this, it’s frankly hard to understand why Huey Long would make an enemy out of such a boon to his state.”

LeSage stopped. “Have you met the Senator, Mr. Davis?”

“No.”

“Well, if you’re able to get an interview with him…and you probably will be—he likes to show off for the ‘lyin’ press,’ ’ specially likes to play monkey for the Northern papers, keepin’ you folks off your guard…but when you get to talk to him, you’ll find out that logic is not one of his stronger suits.”

“I understand he’s a brilliant man.”

“He’s a brilliant
child,
Mr. Davis. Yes, I would say Standard Oil is a boon to this state, you’re correct. At this facility alone, we employ five thousand workers…several hundred more in management positions.”

Actually, I hadn’t seen more than a handful of workers, in their hard hats and jumpsuits; but that was deceiving. With a place as expansive as this one, it wouldn’t take long for handfuls of workers to add up to a number like five thousand.

LeSage began to stroll again; I fell in alongside him. His smile seemed mildly amused as he said, “Do you know why Huey Long has it in for Standard Oil?”

“For the same reason he has it in for Wall Street, I suppose. He thinks ‘robber barons’ should be stopped, and the wealth should be shared with the little guy.”

LeSage chuckled; it made his bow tie bobble. “Huey’s feud with Standard Oil has nothing at all to do with helping ‘the little guy’ and takin’ on the evil rich.”

“It doesn’t?”

“No. Not in the least.” He paused for effect. “It’s about Huey Long not gettin’ rich himself.”

LeSage stopped again; he gestured gently, with a lecturing forefinger, waving it like the laziest flag in the world. “When Huey was a young lawyer in Shreveport, he used to take payment for legal services in royalty shares and acreage allotments.”

“I don’t understand….”

“Oil had been found in the Pine Island area, nearby, and there was a boom on, y’see. Huey figured he’d be joinin’ the ranks of oil millionaires by the time he was thirty.”

“But he didn’t?”

LeSage shook his head, kept smiling that knowing little smile under that tiny twitchy mustache. “Not when the only available pipeline belonged to the Standard Oil Company.”

“And owning the pipeline made Standard the only game in town?”

“An astute observation, Mr. Davis.”

“And they weren’t exactly paying top dollar.”

The smile kept going. “If you don’t mind, since you
are
takin’ notes, and presumably plan to quote me…I’ll allow you to draw your own conclusions. But it would be fair to say, the shares and allotments Huey dreamed would make him so very wealthy were, in fact, next to worthless.”

This was all new to me—Alice Jean had filled me in on none of the facts behind Huey’s feud with Standard.

Despite her bitter outbursts, Alice Jean still retained some admiration for Huey’s defense of the common man and his interests. Now, as I strolled with Standard’s own lobbyist through the bowels of the fire-breathing dragon St. Huey so frequently battled, I finally understood what motivated the crusade.

“Revenge, Mr. Davis,” LeSage was saying. “Revenge, not public concern, fueled Huey Long’s Holy War against Standard Oil.”

“Didn’t you come close to getting him impeached, in ’29?”

“You know what they say about ‘close’ only countin’ in horseshoes, Mr. Davis.” LeSage shrugged. “Huey bought himself enough votes to stave off impeachment, more or less permanently. Ever hear of the Round Robin? You cover
that
story, up North in your papers?”

“Not that I know of.”

We were walking, again.

LeSage said, “He got fifteen senators to sign a document pledgin’ that no matter what Huey ever did, they’d never vote to impeach him; just enough votes—actually one extra—to block impeachment, no matter what the charges. He rewarded ’em with cushy jobs and patronage spoils. Like Huey says, he plays the legislature like a deck of cards.”

“You sound like you know Huey, personally.”

His laugh was barely perceptible. “Of course I do. I’m a lobbyist, Mr. Davis—I spend the majority of my time over at the capitol building, swimmin’ in that particular slough. I know Huey well. We get along just fine.” He grinned; so did the mustache. “You know where they say Huey used to hide that Round Robin document of his, for safe-keepin’?”

“Where?”

“In his girlfriend Alice Jean’s brassiere.”

Well, it wasn’t there now.

“What were the grounds of impeachment?” I asked.

“Huey tried to push through an exorbitant five-cents-a-barrel crude oil tax, in one of his ‘special sessions’ of the legislature. While obviously we didn’t get his behind tossed out of office, the fuss was enough to block the tax…for a while. Then—just last Christmas—he finally snuck it through.”

“That’s what got the Square Dealers so riled up, isn’t it?”

LeSage nodded; he gestured to the industrial landscape surrounding us. “Baton Rouge is a one-company town, Mr. Davis. We have thirty thousand inhabitants in our fair capital city—and some twenty-five thousand of them depend on Standard Oil’s payrolls. It’s not just our employees, you understand…it’s banks, retail businesses….”

“And, because of Huey’s tax, your company threatened to pull out of Baton Rouge.”

“Exactly.”

“Which led to armed insurrection in the streets of two American cities.” I shook my head. “Hard to picture, in this modern age.”

Now the cheery little man revealed a streak of cynicism.

“There’s nothing modern about the Huey Long approach, Mr. Davis,” he said. “It’s a technique that dates back to Genghis Khan, or Julius Caesar. Tyrants are as old as civilization.”

“Doing something about tyrants goes way back, too.”

He stopped; frowned at me. “Doing something?…”

“For every Caesar, there’s a Brutus.”

His mouth twitched with irritation. “Mr. Davis, are you fishin’ for some provocative comment, to titillate your readers? Because I’m afraid I have to say, as a representative of Standard Oil, I would only deplore any extralegal tactics that might—”

“The only law in Louisiana, it seems to me, is Huey Long.”

Only the sounds of fluid pumping and metal wheels turning filled the silence. A whiff of sulfur drifted through; was a deal with the devil about to be struck?

“There are those,” he said, “who would agree with you.”

I shrugged with my eyes and mouth, and said, “And I would imagine your company would be favorably disposed toward a ‘repeal’ of that law.”

“Mr. Davis…”

“My name isn’t Davis.”

LeSage’s affability and confidence evaporated; he was standing out in the midst of this snarl of pipes and tanks and tubes, in a darkness broken only periodically by security lighting and billowing flames above, at a location in one of the most chaotic states of the union, in the presence of an individual who had misrepresented himself and was talking murder.

“I’m afraid I don’t under—”

“My name is Heller. Nate Heller. I’m a bodyguard for Huey Long.”

He began to back up, in more ways than one. “I never said a word against Huey! If anythin’, you were puttin’ words in my mouth!”

I caught him by the arm; he was trembling. For a lot of people in Louisiana, it seemed, fear was always nearby.

“Take it easy,” I said. “I’m no reporter, but I
am
from Chicago.”

I gave him the same spiel I’d given Hamilton, about meeting Huey in Chicago, and recently landing this job as one of Huey’s inside men, and so on.

He was getting my drift; and he was settling down. His expression was sly as he said, “You say you’re willin’ to do just about anything for money?”

“Now you got it.”

His eyes narrowed to slits of suspicion. “How do I know you’re not an
undercover
agent for the Kingfish? He’s been known to do this very kinda thing….”

I gestured with open palms. “Hey, any meetings we have will be one-on-one-in locations like this one, that can’t be bugged with a dictagraph or whatever.”

He seemed to be considering that.

I shrugged one shoulder. “Try me out. You’re a lobbyist—one of the things you traffic in is information, right?”

He nodded slowly.

“Well, if there’s any information you need, just say the word. Or anything you need done.
Anything.”

He said nothing.

“You’ll get value for your dollar,” I assured him.

He turned and, with no particular sense of urgency, headed back toward the administration building where my car awaited. I walked alongside him. Our shoes scuffed the cinders. For perhaps a minute he was silent, as if mulling over my proposition.

Then, suddenly, he stopped and faced me. “It’s an interestin’ offer, Mister…Heller was it?”

I nodded.

He nodded, too. “But I’m afraid I’ll have to pass.”

“Okay, but don’t ‘pass,’” I said. “Pass it
along.”

He said nothing, studying me.

I continued: “If you, or your bosses, need anything done—
anything
—you can get in touch with me at the Heidelberg.”

“Really? Now that is convenient.”

“You mean, because that’s where the Kingfish stays, when he’s in town?”

The smile under the tiny mustache turned enigmatic. “No. Because that’s where
I
live, too…. Good evening, Mr. Davis, uh, Heller.”

He disappeared into the brick building and I returned to the Buick, wondering who had thrown who the curve.