That Night at the Palace (33 page)

Stumpy bit down hard on his cigar as he looked out the window at the Plymouth sedan that passed the front of the farm store and circled around back. He’d had enough of the Crawford brothers. He had taken them in when they got out of prison because they’d come well recommended. Of course, they were recommended by another con, and a con wasn’t exactly the best reference. Stumpy had made a mental note to not make that mistake again.

Gambling, though not a particularly respectable business, was still a business, and like all businesses it required a certain amount of work. The degenerates who threw their money away on thousand to one odds sometimes needed coaxing. Money didn’t simply jump out of their pockets. Stumpy’s better runners, the ones who brought in the best money, could easily make a handsome living selling something more legitimate like cars or real estate. They not only had the knack, they also put in the effort to get the job done. Those two Crawford fools couldn’t sell water in the Sahara. They spent more time chasing whores than taking bets. The brothers dressed and strutted around like Cary Grant, but when it came to bringing in a dollar, they were next to useless.

Then the younger one showed up at the back door one night with a bullet in his gut. Stumpy should have left him to bleed out, but then someone would start snooping around, and before long the whole state would know how Stumpy Coldwell really made a living. So for two weeks Richard Crawford had been laid up in the back of Coldwell’s. Stumpy had a doctor on call for such a thing. It wasn’t unusual for one of his runners to get into a little scuff, but they usually were smart enough to go home and call for help, keeping Coldwell’s out of it.

Stumpy had an angry scowl on his face as Peterson Crawford came into the back of the warehouse section of the farm store.

“I want him out of here today,” Stumpy ordered.

“Did the doctor say he’s okay to leave?” Peterson replied.

“I don’t care if he is or isn’t. Get him out of here today.”

Peterson led as they walked past the stacks of feed to a small storage side room under a glassed-in office. Inside, Richard was lying on a makeshift cot on some burlap sacks of feed. He was wearing a sleeveless undershirt and a pair of slacks. He managed to sit upright when he saw his brother and Stumpy walking in.

“How ya feelin’ Rich?”

“Like hell. I still vomit after I eat.”

“Well, we got a problem,” Peterson began as he leaned against the wall and lit a cigarette. “Sarah’s disappeared.”

“Who’s Sarah?” Stumpy asked.

“She’s the whore that shot me,” Richard replied.

“Nobody’s seen her since that night.”

“You two idiots didn’t kill her, did ya?”

“She was alive when we left. I hit her and kicked on her some, but she was alive,” Peterson answered.

“Was anybody else there?” Stumpy asked.

The two brothers looked at each other.

“Good god you fools,” as he reached in his pocket and pulled out a roll of dollar bills. “Here,” he said as he handed some money to Peterson. “Get him on the next train out of town. I don’t want to see his face for at least a year. No, make it two years. You listen to me and you listen good. Don’t you come around here ‘til this mess is cleaned up. If this thing comes back to my door, my boys won’t just kill ya, they’ll run ya through a cotton gin first.”

“I’ll take care of it, Stumpy,” Peterson replied.

“You make sure you do,” Stumpy said as he stormed out of the room. He’d put up with enough of this foolishness. The last thing he needed was to have those two fools blow his entire racket because they couldn’t keep their hands off an ex-prostitute.

“I can handle the kid. I’ll get him to tell me what happened to Sarah. She’s probably just run off,” Peterson said to his brother once they were alone.

“What if she ain’t? What if she’s dead somewhere?” Richard asked.

“I tell you, she ain’t dead.”

“Then where is she?”

“I don’t know. I’ll find out from that kid.”

“There were two kids,” Richard said.

“Two? I thought there was just the one.”

“No, there were two. And an old colored man.”

“Colored man?”

“Yeah, he was a cripple. He was hobbling on a crutch.”

Peterson leaned against the wall and thought for a moment.

“You know who he is?” Richard asked.

Peterson thought for a moment and then answered, “Yeah, I’ve seen him around town.”

“You’ve got to do somethin’ about them.” Richard insisted. “Because if somethin’ did happen to Sarah, they’ll pin it on us.”

Peterson took a long drag on the cigarette while thinking about the situation. He didn’t think he had kicked on Sarah hard enough to kill her. Even if he had, what had happened to the body? The kids knew something, but what was he going to do? He couldn’t just threaten those kids; they were likely to talk. Besides, they were always hanging out by the police station. That chief wasn’t the brightest cop in the world, but if one of those kids said something to him, this whole thing could send them both back to prison. The old man was the key. Peterson could put some heat on him. If necessary, he’d kill ‘im. If he had to, he could kill the old man and the kids. Killin’ couldn’t be all that hard. It would probably put ‘im in good standing with Stumpy, too. The fat man needed people who weren’t afraid to get things done.

“I’ll take care of it. Let’s get you to the train station.”

#

TEXAS HIGHWAY 82,

ANDERSON COUNTY TEXAS

10:35 p.m., December 5, 1941

Chief Hightower pulled his prowler into the crowded parking lot of the County Line Roadhouse. Actually, he had no idea what the name of the place really was. It had no sign, but everyone in Cherokee county knew about it. Cherokee was a dry county, meaning that alcohol could not legally be bought or sold, although bootleg hooch was made and sold all over. But if someone wanted to have a good time at a roadhouse or honky-tonk, they had to drive over to Anderson County or down to Lufkin where the alcohol prohibition laws didn’t exist.

The County Line Roadhouse was exactly that – the closest place to get legal hooch. Nestled in thick woods, it sat no less than three feet across the Anderson County line and was by far the closest roadhouse to any city in all of Cherokee county. In fact, it was so close to the county line that the entire parking lot was in Cherokee county. Jefferson didn’t want to admit it to Ranger McKinney, but in his younger years he and his buddies had spent many a Saturday night dancing and drinking at “The Line” as it was called by almost everyone.

When Hightower found a place to park, the two lawmen sat in silence looking around the lot. McKinney was certain that Richard Crawford was in the place, but the chief wasn’t so sure. Crawford had all but disappeared. They learned that he was a regular at the pool halls in both Jacksonville and Rusk. McKinney had talked to his Ranger in Tyler and learned that Crawford ran numbers in that area and that “The Line” was the only roadhouse, so it made sense that he’d be there since he hadn’t been seen around the two cities.

A “runner” as the bookies called them, took the bets at saloons and pool halls and then took the cash to the bookie. The next day when the winning number was revealed in the racing forms, the runner would return to pay off any winners and take bets for the next game. Of course, with the odds that the bookies laid, it was rare that there was a winner. Most of the time, when a gambler actually got lucky, the “winner” lost it all on the next bet. For a bookie, a numbers racket was nothing but a way to print money.

Crawford was obviously trying to lay low. But McKinney had busted enough bookies to know that they survived on cash flow from their runners, which meant that Crawford had to keep working or risk the wrath of an angry bookie. If there was one thing McKinney knew, the thing low-life runners feared most was getting on the bad side of a bookie, and the best way to do that was to show up empty handed.

“Red ‘41 Chevy Coup,” McKinney said pointing. “KJ4. I can’t see the rest.”

The Chief pulled a slip of paper out of his pocket. “3239,” he replied. “I think that’s our man.”

The chief was amazed at how sure of himself McKinney always seemed to be, and how he also always seemed to be right.

“A runner in a car like that,” McKinney remarked with a headshake. “Our boy’s not a genius. Smart runners try to keep a low profile.”

“Well, now we found him, what do we do? We can’t arrest ‘im.”

“We wait a while to see where he goes.”

Looking to the right, Chief Hightower noticed an old black pickup pull into the lot and park. He started to mention that Model-AA’s were becoming rare when he saw Cherokee-One-Leg climbing out of the cab.

“What is that old Indian doin’ here?”

“Is that the old man Jesse was stayin’ with?”

“That’s him. Cherokee-One-Leg.”

The two watched as the old man pulled his crutch from the truck. He was wearing a long blue U.S. Cavalry coat that reached well past his knees. When he got his balance, he adjusted his coat and then reached in under the coat and adjusted a cavalry holster that he had concealed.

“Is that old man carryin’ a gun?” the chief asked.

“It looks that way.”

“We have to stop him! He’s goin’ to get himself killed!”

“From what I’ve read about him, I suspect he’s the one who’ll do the killin’. But I ‘spect we should stop ‘im.”

The two law officers got out of the prowler and approached the old man from behind as he was slowly making his way to the front door of the roadhouse.

“Cherokee, what are you doin’?” Jefferson asked.

The old man glanced over his shoulder. “The job the two law officers are supposed to be doin’.”

“Cherokee, stop,” the chief said as he put his hand on the old man’s shoulder.

Cherokee stopped and turned with a fiery look in his eye. “They’re gonna put that boy on the chair if we don’t stop ‘em,” he said with a glare at the chief.

McKinney had seen the look in Cherokee’s eye on other men before. It was the look of a man who was prepared to go to battle and was not afraid to die. The lawman instinctively unbuttoned his coat and slipped his hand under it.

Cherokee looked at McKinney and asked, “Are you expectin’ trouble?”

The two men stared at one another as the chief argued, “Cherokee, you goin’ in there and getting’ yourself shot isn’t goin’ to help Jesse.”

“I ain’t goin’ to get shot,” the old man replied without taking his eyes off McKinney.

“We’ll take care of this,” McKinney said.

“You’re just now figurin’ out who we’re after. If you had acted when I told you to, that Stoker gal would still be alive.”

“You’re right. But damn-it, Cherokee,” the chief began, still not recognizing the standoff between the lawman and the soldier, “you go in there, you’ll be the next one killed.”

“We can handle this,” McKinney said, sensing trouble.

In the years to come Corporal McKinney would think back on that moment and wonder how it had transpired. Perhaps he had underestimated the man because of his age. Or perhaps he was the one succumbing to the effects of age himself. All he knew was that before he’d had time to get a grip on the .45 under his coat, the Indian fighter had his old army Colt revolver pressed squarely against Brewster’s forehead.

The chief froze. Across the parking lot a man and woman had just stepped out of a car and were headed into the roadhouse when they looked over to see the spectacle of an old one-legged black man leaning on a crutch and holding a gun to the head of a much younger white man. The couple immediately darted into the building.

“Cherokee, please put that gun away and let us handle this,” Jefferson pleaded.

The old man, still staring at McKinney, slowly pulled the gun away from the Ranger’s head and slid it into the holster under his coat.

“I’m going in there,” Cherokee said as three men came running out of the building. Two of the three were carrying baseball bats, but the one in the lead had a shotgun pressed against his shoulder.

“I don’t know what this is about, but take it off my property,” the lead man said as he stopped about ten feet away.

The chief’s heart was pounding. A moment before Cherokee had a gun against Corporal McKinney’s head, and now some bartender had a gun pointed at him. For a policeman who in ten years of service had never once pulled his gun out of the holster, this turn of events was a bit nerve-wracking.

McKinney calmly pulled his coat back, revealing his badge, “I’m a Texas Ranger, everything’s under control. You three go back inside.”

“I don’t care if you’re J. Edgar Hoover, take it off my property.”

McKinney then glared at the man. The new breed of Ranger would politely explain that they had business there, and then he’d request that the bartender cooperate. McKinney wasn’t the new breed.

“We have business here,” McKinney said with a scorching fury, “and we will be here as long as we need to be. Now you will put that shotgun down and leave us be or I’ll shut this place down.”

“Shut me down? On what grounds?”

“Well, for starters there’s a bookie operating in there. And if this house is like every other roadhouse I’ve ever raided, you have a back room where there’s a craps game, and if it’s not craps, you’ve got a couple of prostitutes workin’ in there. If it’s both you’ll be shut down for at least a month. Now, what’s it going to be?”

The man was clearly angry but lowered the shotgun and slowly turned around to face his two companions. “Go back in,” he ordered.

“You’re not gonna to let that Ranger push you around are ya, boss?” One of the men protested.

“Shut up and get inside,” the leader ordered as the three walked away.

McKinney turned and looked at Cherokee. “You weren’t plannin’ to shoot Crawford, were you?”

“No,” Cherokee said as he turned and headed toward the door. “You boys better hurry before he hightails it out the back.”

The chief looked at McKinney for explanation as they followed the old man.

“The bartender’s warning Crawford that we’re out here,” McKinney explained.

“Then we better hurry,” the chief answered, his heart still pounding.