The Cut of the Whip Read online

  “Then why did he say—”

  “Yes, about the cotton. The only contacts he’s had with cotton are some shady warehouse deals in which he’s been involved. They had to do with buying, hoarding, selling, with undercutting legitimate concerns in the buying transactions from farmers.”

  “Powell did this?” Port was surprised. “Doesn’t that take a great deal of money, buying on speculation?”

  “It wasn’t large scale. What money it did take came from someone else. Powell was just one of the underlings.”

  “Who else?”

  “Some local person, Joseph Flynn. He’s been involved in some border manipulations, dollar-peso transactions, wetback running, some minor black marketing during and after the war—”

  “Local where?”

  “I meant Galveston. I don’t know exactly how Powell got involved with him, though that wouldn’t be difficult. Any drifter around the Galveston docks usually runs one or two errands for that Flynn person at one time or another. All this, by the way, predates Powell’s marriage which occurred over eight years ago.”

  Powell made much more sense now. A thin kid in the windy plains country of northern Texas, shy of work, sick of the home town with one beer parlor and movies on Saturday, he runs to the big cities and starts hunting, like a scavenging dog. He starts with the filthy jobs that take no training or pull, but he’s hungry, always hungry for the big buck that comes for nothing. He finds company with that way of thinking. He worms himself into the dead-end orbit of some local operator, running errands, taking his gaff, living on promises.

  But the biggest deal, the easiest buck, comes from somewhere else and has nothing to do with the one thousand small plans Powell must have been making over those years. Unexpected! Like in the movies, and the way this sort of thing ought to be. He marries a woman with a permanent income, rich even, a simple woman with no mind of her own. She likes to drink wine and watch television. Or maybe Powell started her on the habits…

  End of the hassle, easy street. Except that kind of end never takes care of the inside greed. Powell feels big, as if all this was earned in some grand, special way, earned through his special qualifications, except he has never proven it. He sits in his automatic kitchen and knows what a hot operator he really is, but how to really prove it…

  And so the Heering bonanza.

  There was a knock on the door and the houseman came in. “Yes,” said Heering, “I’m ready. Mr. Port?”

  “I’ll eat in my room, if you don’t mind.”

  “Two places,” said Heering to the houseman.

  “Miss Heering,” said the houseman, “asked to be excused. She isn’t feeling—”

  “One place,” said Heering, and walked out of the door.

  The first phone call from Ebberhouse came at ten-thirty that night. Heering took the call at his desk while Port sat in the next room reading maps of the state and of some of the big cities. Heering called Port to his desk and gave him the phone.

  “Port?” said Ebberhouse. A deep voice, but mostly anonymous.

  “Yes, Mr. Ebberhouse.”

  “Mr. Heering says to report directly to you—”

  “I’m listening.”

  “The employee—”

  “What did you say?”

  “I’m talking about this Herbert Powell. The employee Mr. Heering talked about.”

  “Yes. Please go ahead.”

  “He left the Brandywine address at about eight this morning. This came from a neighbor. And he was carrying a bowling ball bag.”

  “With a ball in it?”

  “Seems not, and the next information bears that out. Checking all public transportation we find he bought a ticket—”

  “One ticket?”

  “One, yes. One ticket on a northbound Greyhound leaving Lubbock at ten-five A.M. That’s according to the ticket man’s seating chart, which ought to be verified by the driver’s chart and maybe his personal report. We haven’t got a hold of him yet. He’s still on the road.”

  “Going where?”

  “The driver?”

  “No. The employee.”

  “Ticket was made out to Fort Gander, changing at Amarillo. Now that in itself, Mr. Port, doesn’t mean—”

  “Where’s Fort Gander?”

  “Western panhandle. Last town of any size in that direction. In Texas, that is. Now, we weren’t instructed to check destination, Mr. Port, but if you want me to—”

  “Just tell me this. Do you know a town by the name of Dry Waters?”

  “You say Dry Waters?”

  “Do you have a large detailed map there? If it’s just a road map I don’t think it’ll do.”

  “Just a minute…”

  Port heard the turning of pages and then the phone being put down on the desk. Ebberhouse seemed to be walking across the room. His footsteps came back and he said.

  “I found it on the wall map we have. Just a burg, you know. Couldn’t have found it without the index.”

  “Where, Mr. Ebberhouse?”

  “About sixty or so miles from Fort Gander.”

  “Thank you. Now, if you’ll—”

  “Would you hold it a minute, Mr. Port? The other phone—” and Ebberhouse was inaudible again.

  “Mr. Port?”

  “Here.”

  “That was the report from my man covering the bus driver angle. The bus driver says he checked off Powell at Amarillo.”

  “Anybody else?”

  “Eight other passengers.”

  “All from Lubbock?”

  “Just a minute… Three from Lubbock. You want their names?”

  “Give me their names.”

  When Port said this he glanced up to see Heering. The man was now holding one lip in his teeth and his hands were very still on the edge of the desk. Heering, Port saw, was sweating blood. He had followed the conversation well enough to know that passenger names were going to be mentioned.

  “Mrs. J. Gomez, Mr. Herrick Ross, Mr. Saul Rostoff.”

  “Which one,” Port asked, “sat next to Powell?”

  “Ross did, by the chart. Now that doesn’t mean—”

  “Hold it a minute, Mr. Ebberhouse?” and Port looked at Heering. “Whom does Robert know by the name of Ross? Anyone?”

  “First one that comes to my mind,” said Heering, “is a Dr. Jacob Ross. For a certain time he was my son’s attending physician.”

  Port nodded and then he said, “Robert was with Powell on that bus. They both left at Amarillo.”

  “How do you—”

  “He gave a false name, so don’t worry. He picked Herrick Ross, his own initials reversed. Many people will do that. He picked the last name for familiarity.”

  “He did not like Dr. Ross.”

  “That’s all right,” said Port and turned back to the phone. “What else, Ebberhouse?”

  “Mr. Heering asked about his Mercedes Benz, where it had been found. That was, according to the police, half a block from the Lubbock Greyhound station.”

  “Fine. Do you know where Mrs. Powell is?”

  “At home. According to my man, Mrs. Powell was reluctant to answer the bell. He could see her through the window.”

  “Why? Reluctant, I mean.”

  “She was watching television.”

  “All right. Did you find out anything else, something about Powell’s associations in Lubbock, friends, that sort of thing?”

  “Not much, Mr. Port. Bowling club, poker friends in the neighborhood—maybe something will turn up by morning. I don’t think I can promise much more before then.”

  “You’ve done fine, Mr. Ebberhouse.”

  “I hope to be able to have some kind of rundown for you in the morning. Sometimes phone records tell a lot when it comes to leads, but we got our instructions a little late to do much before morning.”

  “You have access to telephone company records?”

  “Why of course, Mr. Port.”

  “One more thing. When did that bus get
to Amarillo?”

  “On schedule. Five in the afternoon. It wasn’t a direct bus. Had a lot of local stops.”

  And that was about the end of their conversation. It meant to Port that Robert and Powell were heading into the vicinity of Powell’s home town, not an uncommon decision when a man suddenly wants to hide. It also showed that Powell wasn’t very experienced with this sort of thing. And it meant that Powell’s letter to Heering had been dropped at the Galveston office building by someone unknown. Powell, it seemed, was willing to take the risk of letting someone else in on the caper. Or maybe he didn’t feel big enough to pull it alone.

  “There’s one more thing I’d like to do tonight,” Port said to Heering. “I need some bus information from the Lubbock depot.”

  “Please,” said Heering and waved at the phone, “help yourself.”

  A passenger arriving in Amarillo at five would miss the last bus to Fort Gander by forty-five minutes, Port learned. Such a passenger could catch the first bus to Fort Gander at seven A.M. and would get there at noon. Another bus that was strictly local and not Greyhound franchise. That same line had a scheduled run from Fort Gander to Cuevas, Dry Waters, and New Sevastopol at two in the afternoon. If that bus ran on that day it should reach Dry Waters at maybe five-thirty.

  “There’s time for tomorrow’s phone call,” said Port and then went to bed.

  Heering, at nine in the morning, had made one phone call to Galveston, but Ebberhouse hadn’t been in. Port and Heering sat in the same room, not talking, ignoring each other, which was how they played it.

  Port took out a cigarette and looked up.

  “Can you spare me a plane?” he asked Heering.

  “To go where?”

  “I can beat Powell to Dry Waters,” said Port. “It would make things easy that way.”

  “Can you fly?”

  “No.”

  “Then I can’t give you a plane.”

  “It’s a gamble by car,” said Port.

  “I have no holdings in the Dry Waters area. I could give the pilot no reasonable pretext for taking you there.”

  It was hard to tell, sometimes, what was most important to Heering: to get back his son as fast as possible or to observe his secretive habits.

  “I can get you a State trooper’s car,” Heering said. “With markings, light, siren. You can make the distance in five hours easily, traffic or no traffic.”

  “And let everybody in the Dry Waters area know I’m out hunting?”

  “I’m sure you can handle that some way,” said Heering, and then the phone buzzed.

  Ebberhouse’s men had been active. They knew that Powell shot pool for money, making small bets winning more often than not; they knew that everybody thought he was a retired cotton man and that he was liked well enough, mostly, it seemed, because he never tried to strike up any close acquaintances; that he doted on his wife and only talked about her in pleasant platitudes. They had also learned that he paid his bills regularly, that his monthly bills were from normal to low, with the exception of his electric bill. Port knew why that was. And, Ebberhouse’s men had found out, his telephone use had jumped suddenly.

  “He called Houston twice and then Galveston,” said Ebberhouse.

  “When?”

  “That’s it. All one after the other and in the middle of the night. That was night before last.”

  That was when Robert had gone there.

  “You know whom he called?”

  “The first Houston number was in the name of a Joseph Flynn. There was no answer. The second Houston number is listed as Antonio Martinez, realtor. We happen to know who that is.”

  “Who?”

  “He runs three whore houses. The call was person-to-person and Martinez answered.”

  “Would you know what was said?”

  “No. I’m sorry. We got this information from the records and the phone company doesn’t listen in.”

  “Maybe you know how long the call took?”

  “Yes. Twenty minutes. And the next call right after that, to a Galveston number. That call lasted just about half an hour.”

  “To whom?”

  “The Gulfboat Park. That’s a dance hall, sort of, with an all night restaurant right on the water and a golf link on the other side and a yacht harbor. This isn’t a country club, you understand, but more like—”

  “Who owns it, Mr. Ebberhouse?”

  “Joseph Flynn.”

  “Was the call person-to-person?” Port asked.

  “No. Just the number of The Gulfboat Park. We don’t know who answered.”

  Port thought he knew who had answered and had talked for half an hour: Powell’s old hero and one-time boss, the operator who was big with the bums at the docks, Joseph, Flynn.

  “Do you happen to know,” Port asked Ebberhouse, “when there’s a flight leaving Lubbock for Galveston?”

  “Two. Seven-thirty and eleven, all in the P.M. I’ve taken them often enough,” Ebberhouse added.

  But it didn’t fit.

  “Do you know how long a fast train takes to the same destination?”

  “Let me check,” said Ebberhouse, and it took almost five minutes. He came back and said, “The fastest is the one they call Black Crow, but you’d miss it, I’m afraid. It runs once a day only, ten A.M. Gets to Galveston at three in the afternoon. Practically nonstop.”

  “Thank you,” said Port, “I’ll try it tomorrow.”

  They hung up after that and now Port knew one more thing.

  “How far is your Galveston building from the railroad station?” he asked Heering.

  “A five minute walk, I’d say.”

  “That comes out right. I think I know how Powell got his letter into your mailbox while he was on his way to Dry Waters in the opposite direction. He sent it along with somebody who went to Galveston on the Black Crow, some acquaintance most likely, or a poolroom friend who got a bill out of the errand, and it’s likely that Flynn met the man at the station to see everything came off. The train gets to Galveston at three, your building is five minutes away, and the letter was dropped there, by your report, a while after three.”

  “Why,” said Heering, “this hurry to deliver the letter?”

  “Has nothing to do with hurry,” said Port. “The main thing was, Powell wanted to mail it from someplace where he wasn’t. That it got there so fast was chance, and our luck.”

  Heering nodded and said nothing else until he had reached for the phone.

  “I’ll arrange for the highway patrol car,” he said and picked up the phone.

  “Don’t bother,” said Port. “I’m going to Galveston.”

  Chapter X

  BUT BEFORE leaving, Port wanted to see Jane.

  It was part of everything Port was doing. It had nothing to do with love. The way Port had decided it when Heering had forced him, there was just one motive left, till it was over, and the old Heering was all of it.

  Heering stood in the big hall and looked up. He watched Port come all the way down the stairs and then said, “The car is ready.”

  “I know,” said Port and was looking elsewhere.

  “My daughter,” said Heering, “is no longer in the house. I’ll say good-bye to her for you—when I see her.”

  They looked at each other and Port held his teeth together, because he was thinking, You sonofabitch, you lousy sonofabitch, you got one jump ahead of me.

  “I thought it best,” Heering explained, “considering the damage you have done already.”

  Port came down the rest of the way and said, “I haven’t seen your daughter since you came back.”

  “I have. I saw her last night.” Heering picked up a coat he had lying on one of the chairs and then his hat. “My daughter and I have never been very close, however we haven’t been enemies. The car is waiting, Mr. Port,” and Heering stood by the door.

  She wasn’t in the house—no point staying. Fly to Galveston with the old bastard and do what you can…

  �
�You sent her away?” Port asked when he walked down the outside stairs.

  “Don’t bother trying to pump me, Mr. Port. You will have no further contact with her. Do your job, deliver my son, and then leave my family. You do that, Mr. Port,” Heering stopped beside the car, waiting for the chauffeur to open the door, “and I may well leave it at that.”

  What I’ll be leaving you is going to be more like a mine field, thought Port. He kept thinking about this while Heering got into the car, and it helped.

  But when Port started into the car the chauffeur suddenly slammed the door. Port, it seemed, would sit with the help.

  Heering was inside the car and Port and the chauffeur stood outside, close together. The chauffeur talked low and fast. “There’s a mineral springs resort fifty miles from here. Blackwell. You should call her there, any time. Blackwell Hotel—” and then the chauffeur opened the door again, apologized audibly, and the rest of the trip—from the house to the airstrip, from the airstrip to the Galveston field, from the Galveston field to Heering’s building—was silence between Heering and Port, each with his own plans.

  There was a parking space in front of the building reserved for Heering’s car. They stopped and got out.

  “Wait in the basement garage,” said Heering, “until word is sent down to furnish you with a car. And as I see it, there is no point in your calling me before tomorrow.”

  “I’ll call you when I’ve got something,” said Port.

  And with the organized logic which made Heering the man that he was, he accepted this, keeping apart in his mind the man Port whom he hated and the man Port who had said he would deliver his son and therefore would do so.

  Joseph Flynn wore a cheap suit which didn’t fit his big body and the striped shirt he had on showed a frayed edge on the collar. Because Flynn was fat he kept the collar open and the necktie was pulled down which made it show the wrong side.

  But his shoes cost sixty-eight dollars and he wore silk underwear with a monogram in it. Since none of that showed, it was all right, and when Flynn wasn’t in Galveston he didn’t wear the same clothes.

  He sat like that at his old desk in The Gulfboat Park, said nothing. He had a can of beer next to him on the desk and the beer had been standing there going flat. There was a long line outside the room, an especially long one which went all the way to the end of the corridor and the last man in line could look down the stairs. He could see the big dance hall, the floor-waxing machine going back and forth, then only the cord which snaked across the big hall; and the man was still standing there when the lights went on down there and the waxing machine was turned off.