Seven Silent Men (30 page)

“He looks more like an ape than a mule-fucker,” Jessup commented. He lowered his binoculars and stepped back from the window of the darkened stake-out room established the day before by Baton Rouge's FBI. “That's what they call him, you know. Mule Fucker.”

“We know,” Pete Kirkwood, a local Bureauman, answered.

Brew fixed his binoculars tighter on the man loping along the sidewalk three floors below. Mule appeared to have no neck. His hair was reddish and unkempt, his face narrow and long with a potato nose. When Mule stopped at the entrance of the Altmont Hotel, directly across the street, and glanced ferretlike back and around, Brew was able to focus in on an abrupt scar at the corner of the right eye.

Jessup headed for the refreshment table at the rear of the room. “Can you imagine being called Mule Fucker?”

“Apparently that's what he prefers,” Daughter said.

Vance Daughter was from headquarters' flying squad and like Jessup, Brew and Yates had just arrived in Baton Rouge. It was the first time in the investigation that Prairie Port agents had met a member of the squad designed to expedite all out-of-town aspects of the investigation. Daughter's ostensible mission in Baton Rouge, beyond observing, was to provide surveilling agents with background data on suspected gang members residing anywhere other than in Prairie Port … particularly to hasten photographs and descriptions by which the Bureaumen in the area could recognize and identify suspected bank robbers. Photos and data, sketchy as they were, had come in from Prairie Port on the men in its area—Marion “Mule Fucker” Corkel, Elmo “River Rat” Ragotsy and the deceased Willy “Cowboy” Carlson.

The out-of-town suspects the flying squad was responsible for were Bicki “Little Haifa” Hale, Reverend Wallace Tecumseh “Windy Walt” Sash, Thomas “The Worm” Ferugli, Lamar “Wiggles” Loftus and Lionel “Meadow Muffin” Epstein. The squad had revealed that none of these alleged bank thieves could be located at their last known addresses. The only dossier and photograph to have reached Baton Rouge were for Lamar “Wiggles” Loftus. The Baton Rouge Police Department had found a sixteen-year-old photograph of Bicki “Little Haifa” Hale in their files, but the picture was in poor condition.

The fear of the Baton Rouge and Prairie Port Bureaumen was that lack of identifying photos or descriptions had already enabled some gang members to enter and leave town under the surveillers' eyes without being recognized. Daughter seemed to have no such worry, seemed politely unrushed by pleas for expedition.

“According to the Kansas state police,” Daughter said, stepping up beside Jessup at the refreshment table, “Corkel has a long teen arrest record for sodomizing mules, goats and ponies. I noticed that wasn't in your report on him.”

“At least we sent in a report,” Jessup said.

“Who complained about the sodomizing,” Yates asked from the window, “a mule, goat or pony?”

“I would have expected a question like that from you,” Daughter replied.

“I would have expected you to be up on bestiality,” Yates countered.

Vance Daughter and Billy Yates sized each other up through the dim light of the long room. The pair of young agents had gone through the FBI training academy at Quantico, Virginia, together. Scholastically they had ranked number one and number two in their graduating class, with Vance finishing second to Billy. Yates, however, had been overlooked for the most exalted academic honor of that period, admittance to the small, private seminars conducted by Orin G. Trask, professor emeritus at Johns Hopkins University and the nation's, if not the world's, foremost authority on theoretic criminology. Vance Daughter was selected by Trask. Daughter also bested Yates in the hundred-yard dash and high jump. Yates beat hell out of Daughter boxing and at judo. They finished dead even on the gun ranges.

“He's going into the hotel,” Brew said, watching Marion “Mule Fucker” Corkel disappear across the lobby of the Altmont Hotel.

Kirkwood moved to the window, looked down at the Altmont. “If Corkel does what he did yesterday, does what the Altmont desk clerk says he'd done the last four days, he'll sit in the back of the lobby half an hour and leave. Yesterday Corkel went from the Altmont over to the playground beyond the corner. You can see the playground from the room next door. Yesterday Elmo Ragotsy was waiting for him in the park. Corkel and Ragotsy sat talking to one another about five minutes in the playground, then each went back to their own hotels. Ragotsy got into Baton Rouge the day before yesterday from what we can tell. Checked into the Packard Arms Apartment Hotel under the name of Eric Kenekee from Kansas. The Packard says the reservation was made under Kenekee's name four weeks ago; that would be before Mormon State came off. Corkel is staying at the Firestone Motel two blocks away. He showed up at the Firestone without a reservation and registered as Ted Hotchkiss from Cleveland. We've got the Packard and Firestone covered. We're keeping an eye on every hotel as best we can. We're shorthanded. New Orleans and the residencies have sent in men, but we could use more.”

“Personnel is en route,” Daughter assured him.

A young Baton Rouge agent, wearing a radio headset, stepped in from the command post in the adjoining room, “Sounds like another one is registering at the Clemments House right now, the one with the limp, Loftus.”

… Lamar Jonathan Loftus, aka Thomas Wile, John Lamar and Wiggles, according to the flying squad's summary report, was born 11 September 1924 in Dayton, Ohio, and received the equivalent of a ninth-grade education. His juvenile-arrest record began 22 October 1930 for the theft of candy. The case was “set aside.” Twenty-seven more juvenile offenses, all petty thefts, occurred before Loftus, at the age of fourteen, was sentenced to a state correctional facility for incorrigible children from which he escaped five times. On his eighteenth birthday he enlisted in the United States Army, where he was court-martialed twice for petty larceny and critically injured in combat at the Battle of the Bulge when a German Tiger tank rolled over his right leg. There were two different accounts of the incident. At first it was believed that Loftus had displayed cowardice and was running from the tank and slipped. It was later confirmed that Loftus had attacked the tank with a Molotov cocktail and was ground under the vehicle's treads. Loftus's right leg was mutilated but saved from amputation by a series of nineteen operations. He was denied the Silver Cross, for which he was recommended, due to his criminal record. In 1946 he was honorably separated from the military and left the Army hospital where he had been since his injury. From 1950 to 1967 he resided in the Paducah, Kentucky, home of his brother, had no known arrests, no known employment and seems to have subsisted solely on his Veterans Administration disability benefits. During April of 1967 he was employed as a deckhand on the
Mary G
, a Mississippi River tug owned and operated by Elmo Ragotsy, age fifty-eight. Ragotsy, known as “River Rat,” a convicted smuggler and fence of minor contraband, was reputed to have been a member of the Prohibition era's bootlegging Treachery Gang. While working on the
Mary G
, which was berthed at Cape Girardeau, Missouri, Loftus maintained a rural residence across the river in western Kentucky. Ragotsy during this same period resided in Prairie Port, Missouri, where he shared an apartment with Willy “Cowboy” Carlson, an alleged pickpocket and petty burglar. On 12 March 1968, Loftus, with Carlson, was arrested for the attempted armed robbery of a liquor store outside of Cairo, Illinois. It was the first known felony arrest for either man. Carlson was convicted and incarcerated at Statesville Penitentiary. Loftus, the accused driver of the getaway car, could not be positively identified, and charges against him were dropped. Loftus was believed to have given up his job on the
Mary G
and returned to Kentucky.

“Some desperado,” Yates commented as he finished reading the summary report on Wiggles Loftus. “Only one felony arrest out of almost three dozen collars and that one bungled. Hardly the crook of the century, this clown. Hardly ‘the cream of the crime world,' as NBC put it.”

“Corticun put it that way too. I saw it in three different press releases Corticun sent out this week.” Brew, seated at the desk of the hotel room being shared with Yates, was going through the balance of available data on the gang. “Get a load of what's here on Mule Fucker if you want to see how sour that cream is getting.”

“Mule's worse than Wiggles?”

“Worse and funnier. I mean this guy's outrageous, he's so penny-ante. He actually stole flowers off a grave. Got caught and fined for stealing flowers off a grave.”

Yates was pleased. “Picture the expression on Corticun's face when he finds that out.”

“He already found out,” Brew said. “Jez talked to Strom at Prairie Port. Strom said Corticun came down off the twelfth floor and looked over the stuff they were sending us and damn near died of heart failure when he read about Mule Fucker and Cowboy Carlson. I mean, they are really looney-toon. Billy, you think maybe Mule and Cowboy weren't involved with Mormon State?”

“It would be a neat bit of magic if they weren't. Nope, everything fits too snug.” Yates handed Wiggles Loftus's dossier to Brewmeister. “This ties Cowboy Carlson, Loftus and Ragotsy together tight as can be. Add that to what Sam Hammond's mother and widow said, and it's a lock. Loftus and Cowboy even got arrested together on a screw-up armed job. That's what sent Cowboy over to Statesville Penitentiary, that job.”

Brew said, “And that's where Cowboy met Bicki Hale. They were cellmates at Statesville.”

“Who told you that?”

“Jez,” Brew answered. “Jez said Strom said so. Strom found out yesterday with a lot of other information, but Corticun's holding everything up. Corticun's being a pain in the butt about jurisdiction. Strom thinks Corticun's nose is out of joint, that he's white-hot jealous we're breaking things so fast. Anyway, Corticun's pulling rank and playing by the book, insisting that information coming from beyond the city limits of Prairie Port go directly to the flying squad for dissemination. That's the worst idea yet, that flying squad,” Brew said. “Who the hell are they anyway? Who the hell is that guy Daughter you don't like?”

“Exactly what he appears to be,” Yates said. “A tight-butt junior Brass Ball who salutes the flag five times a day. He's so far right he thinks the Nazi party is a communist front organization.”

The phone rang. Brew picked up.

“It's Wiggles Loftus, all right,” Kirkwood's voice said. “He's left his hotel and is heading for the playground. If you want, I'll pick you up in our surveillance truck. A Good Humor truck.”

His right leg kicking out to the side and slapping rigidly onto the pavement at every other step, Lamar “Wiggles” Loftus crossed the street under the red light at the corner, crossed as Yates and Brew and Kirkwood watched from inside the Good Humor truck. Wiggles was five foot eight or nine. His large chest and head, in comparison with a frail lower torso, seemed enormous. Blond curly hair billowed out from around a Nordic good-looking face, a far handsomer face than had appeared on the file photograph.

“He checked into the Clemments House under his own name,” Kirkwood said as they surveilled. “He hadn't made a reservation. The Clemments House has you pay in advance. Guess how he paid? With an American Express credit card. I haven't had a debt in my life, have never been arrested and I get turned down three times for an American Express card. But they give a card to Wiggles Loftus, who has a mile-long pinch ticket …”

Wiggles paused at the playground, limped on across the next street and down the sidewalk, gazed into the empty lobby of the Altmont Hotel, hailed a waiting cab.

The ice-cream truck followed the cab to the Clemments House. Wiggles got out and went inside. Tailing agents, several minutes later, radioed that Wiggles had gone to his room. Agents at the Packard Arms Apartment Hotel and the Firestone Motel reported that River Rat Ragotsy and Mule Corkel could each be seen in their respective rooms … that neither had made any phone calls all day.

Twenty minutes later Jessup and Daughter were hurried through a back entrance at the Lafayette Inn and on into the manager's office, where they were met by a Baton Rouge Bureauman named Bass, who introduced them to A. L. Sonny Cole, a sixty-three-year-old, white-bearded, strappingly muscular man in an “Elvis Presley” cap.

“Mr. Cole is the night clerk here,” Bass explained. “Has been the night clerk here since moving down from Indiana a few years back. His aunt bought this place a few years ago.”

“August eleventh, 1967, is when I arrived,” Cole said firmly. “Haven't missed a day's work since.”

Bass displayed a reproduction of the faded sixteen-year-old photograph of Bicki Hale and explained, “Mister Cole may have seen Hale here last week.”

Jessup took the picture, sat opposite the slightly stern white-beard. “That so, Mister Cole? You think you saw this man?”

“Mighta been. Might notta been.”

“You're not sure?”

“Cain't hardly tell dark from light on that camera pict're thar. But the 'scriptions fit.”

“'Scriptions?”

“The description sheet we gave him,” Bass said.

“Seen lots of 'em come and go,” Sonny Cole volunteered. “Been clerking desks since my majority and all kinds come and go, and some, like him, make an etch. He had grips with him. Comes in the middle of the night with no reservation and five heavy grips. Leather and strapped grips with locks on the straps. I carry them up two flights to three-oh-two and don't get so much as a thank-you-boy from him. Not one thin dime from him. Says he don't want no disturbing. No telephone calls and no maid coming in in the morning or any time he's in there. Only time he isn't in there is late afternoon. From four to five. Larry Doyle, the day clerk, don't ever see him 'cept from four to five. Goes out at four. Goes up the street to the right. Comes back the same way at five, sometimes with a grocery bag. One day I come to work early … I start at six, 'cept Saturdays, like today, when I work the early shift too … but last Tuesday I come at four-thirty, and when I pass the Altmont Hotel I look in and there he is, Mister Jahad, sitting in the lobby.”