Shot in the Back (24 page)

Jesse was sitting on the front porch of his cabin on the river, reading the newspaper, when he saw a Cadillac convertible, its dark blue color flashing in the sun, pull up front. He didn't recognize the car, but he did recognize the driver when he got out. It was Frederic Faust.

“I had about given up on you,” Jesse said. “It's been two months.”

“I had agreed to do some work on a small film. There's not that much to the story; I don't know that it will actually go anywhere, but it stars Humphrey Bogart, and I do like him.”

“What is the name of the movie?”

“
Casablanca.”

“
Casa blanca?
White house?”

“I guess it does mean that, doesn't it? Actually, this is about a city, the largest city in Morocco. It's a French colony that is controlled by the Nazis. It's an interesting little film, but as I said, I don't believe it will go anywhere. Anyway, I decided to drive back from California, just to take a look at the country. I thought if I was ever going to make a cross-country drive, I had better do it before gas rationing starts.”

“Do you still want to do this book?”

“Oh, yes, definitely,” Faust replied. “I wouldn't have come back if I didn't want to do the book.”

“We'll have plenty of time to work on it,” Jesse said. “Nobody has called me yet, and this war is winding down.” He showed Faust the article he was reading. “Have you seen this? We bombed Japan and not a single airplane was lost.”
¹³

“Oh, I think the war will last a little longer,” Faust said. “At least long enough for us to finish the book.”

“Did you bring all your notes with you?” Jesse asked.

“I did. The last thing we spoke about was the raid on the Denver Mint. You and Billy got fifty thousand dollars apiece from that, which is an awful lot of money. Did you retire from the business after that?”

“I didn't exactly retire, but soon after that, the United States got into the Great War.”

“They're now calling that war World War One,” Faust said. “And they are calling this war World War Two, as if it is a sequel.”

“Damn, if they start numbering them, I guess that means we'll just keep having them,” Jesse said. “But to answer your question, we didn't do anything after the Denver Mint job. For one thing, we didn't have to; we got enough money from that one job to last us for several years, and for another, it just didn't seem right to be doing things like that during the war.

“It wasn't until after the war was over, and the government passed the prohibition law, that we got back into the business. Billy always did like fast cars.”

The still was in the Ozark mountains, and though it could be reached by automobiles, the road that led from the major road up to where the still was located was one that had been privately cut. It showed on no maps. The exit off the highway was concealed by shrubbery, which, from the road, looked as if it were growing from the ground. In truth the bushes were attached to a swinging arm that could be pushed open, disclosing the road beyond.

Billy hopped out of the car, a Marmon 34, the fastest production car money could buy. In addition, Billy had souped up the car with dual carburetors and twin exhausts. On a paved road the car could do more than eighty miles per hour.

Billy swung the gate open and Jesse drove the car through. Billy closed the gate behind them and hopped back into the car for the drive up to the still that was run by the Morris twins.

“Was there anybody on the road when you come through the gate?” Travis asked.

“Nobody saw us come through,” Billy said.

“They damn well better not have,” Troy said. “If the law finds our still because you blundered through it—”

“You want the money or not?” Jesse asked. “Because if you don't, there are a dozen other moonshiners who'll take our business.”

“Yeah, we want the money,” Travis said.

“Then quit your bitching about whether or not we gave away your still,” Jesse said. “I've been in this business a lot longer than you have.”

“How could you be? Prohibition didn't start until 1920.”

“There are more illegal things than drinking alcohol,” Jesse said. “Now, get the car loaded.”

The backseat had been taken out of the Marmon and was replaced by a one-hundred-gallon holding tank. Billy backed the car up to the two converted large oaken barrels that held the recently distilled liquor. Travis put the hose into the opening of the tank, and Troy began pumping.

“How much do you get for this up in Kansas City?” Troy asked.

“What does it matter to you?” Jesse asked. “You're getting paid fifty cents a gallon.”

“I heard once that it was sellin' in the speakeasies for a dime a shot. Is that right?”

“I don't sell in the speakeasies, I sell to the speakeasies,” Jesse said.

“The reason I ask is that we know there's about twenty shots in one quart, which is two dollars, and there's four quarts in a gallon, which means it's eight dollars a gallon,” Troy said. “You got yourself a one-hundred-gallon tank there, which means this is eight hundred dollars' worth of whiskey, but we're only gettin' fifty dollars.”

“You're just real good at math, aren't you?” Billy said.

“Well, does that seem right to you? I mean we're getting fifty cents a gallon, and we have to come up with the corn and the yeast and the sugar. And we're the ones takin' the chances on cookin' it.”

“Like I told you, we don't sell
in
the speakeasies, we sell
to
them,” Jesse said. “And we aren't bitching to them about what they pay us. Now, do you want to keep doing business with us or not?”

“Yeah, we got no choice.”

“Sure you do. You could shut the still down and go back to raising pigs.”

“Are you serious? We're makin' two hunnert dollars a week sellin' shine,” Travis said. “That's near ten times what we can make raisin' pigs.”

“Stop pumpin', Troy, the tank is runnin' over,” Travis said, withdrawing the hose.

“Here's your fifty dollars,” Jesse said.

“Be sure you check the road before you open the gate,” Troy cautioned.

 

 

Halfway between West Plains and Mountain Grove, Billy was driving and Jesse was taking a nap.

“Pa,” Billy said urgently. “Pa, I think there's law ahead, behind those trees.”

“What makes you think so?”

“I saw a flash of light, like someone was walkin' around back there.”

“Drive on by at a normal speed,” Jesse said. “But if they come out onto the road to try and stop us, go around them if you can.”

As they got closer, the trees began to reflect a flashing red light.

“It's the law, all right!” Billy said.

“All right, let's outrun them.”

Billy pressed the accelerator all the way to the floor, and the car leaped ahead. The police car tried to come out to intercept them, but it was too late.

Billy was doing over ninety miles an hour on a road that, though paved, was narrow and twisting.

The police car, with its siren and flashing red light, was unable to keep up. Jesse looked around, then smiled as he saw the car falling away behind them.

“We've got him beat,” Jesse said.

“They must have telephoned ahead,” Billy said. “Look!”

Ahead of them two police cars, nose to nose, were blocking the road.

“Damn!” Jesse said.

“Look, there's enough room to go behind that car on the left. The side of the road is wide enough.”

“It's barely wide enough,” Jesse said. “If you go too far, you'll put the left wheels down into the ditch, and we'll roll over.”

“Trust me, Pa, I can do it,” Billy said.

At that moment, Jesse realized that their roles had changed. Billy was now the one who assumed the initiative.

“We don't have any choice,” Jesse said. “Do it.”

There were two policemen behind the car on the left, waiting for the roadblock to cause the approaching car to stop. When the policemen saw that the car wasn't going to stop, their first thought was to pull their pistols. Then they realized they wouldn't have time, and they leaped, headfirst, into the ditch that ran parallel with the road.

The Marmon sped by, a silver flash that passed so fast one could almost think it was a specter had it not thrown up rocks to slam against the police car, breaking out windows and painfully striking the policemen.

Billy whipped the steering wheel back to the right, again onto the paved road, and the tires squealed in protest.

“Woowee! That was fun!” Billy shouted.

When they reached Kansas City, they knew the back roads and alleyways to take in order to reach the speakeasy that had agreed to take the load for four hundred dollars. They backed up to the back door, and the one-hundred-gallon tank was removed and the backseats were put in.

The owner of the speakeasy was a large black man named “Heavy” Hunt.

“You didn't have no trouble gettin' the hooch here, did you?” Hunt asked.

“Not really,” Billy said. “Halfway between West Plains and Mountain Grove the police got a little curious, but we outran them.”

“It ain't the police I'm talkin' about,” Hunt said. “I'm talkin' about the Costaconti gang. He sent me a message, told me I couldn't operate anymore unless I paid him two hundred dollars for every shipment of moonshine I got.”

“What kind of message?” Jesse asked.

“I'll show you.”

Heavy Hunt went into his office in the back of the speakeasy, then returned with a cloth bundle. When he opened the bundle, Jesse saw a severed black hand.

“This hand belonged to Tibbie O'Neal,” Hunt said. “He works for me, and Vernon Miller and Charles Arthur ran into him down in the park. They're the ones that brought me the hand. Tibbie damn near bled to death.”

“Are you going to pay Costaconti?”

“Hell no, I ain't goin' to pay him,” Hunt said.

“What if he, or one of his men, comes sneaking in here some day?” Jesse asked.

Hunt laughed. “Now, you tell me, Mr. Frank, how any white man is goin' to sneak into my place?”

Jesse laughed as well. “I see what you mean.”

“Far as I'm concerned, you 'n your boy are the only white faces that can come in here without gettin' your asses shot off.”

“Well I'm just real glad you think that well of me, Heavy.”

“Hell, Mr. Frank, I don't think nothin' of you. You just another white man, but you the one that brings me my hooch. So as long as you do that, you're welcome any time.”

 

 

Later that day, as Jesse and Billy were driving through downtown Kansas City, a police car pulled up behind them, flashed its red light, and sounded the siren. Jesse was driving, and he pulled over and sat patiently as two policemen approached.

“Did I run a stop sign, Officer? I know I wasn't speeding,” Jesse said.

“Would you and your passenger exit the car, please?”

“Is there something wrong?”

“Please, just exit the car.”

Jesse and Billy got out as the two policemen examined the car. They looked in the backseat, and one of them got under the car to look.

“Maybe if you would tell me what you are looking for, I could be of some help,” Jesse suggested.

“There was a Marmon, just like this one, that ran a roadblock last night,” one of the policemen said. “We suspect it was being used to transport illegal whiskey.”

“Well, as you can see, I have no bottles of whiskey in the car.”

The policeman laughed. “They don't transport it in bottles; they transport it in bulk.”

“Ah, I see. So you were looking for a big tank, weren't you? Something to haul the whiskey in,” Jesse said in as innocent a tone as he could muster.

“Harry, this isn't the same license number,” the other policeman said. “This is a Missouri tag; the one we're looking for is Arkansas.”

“All right, you can go,” the first officer said.

“You had changed the license plate, hadn't you?” Faust asked.

“Yes. If the cops had looked more closely, they would have seen a false top to the car. That was where I kept extra license plates. We had plates from Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Kentucky, Illinois, and Missouri. That's also where we kept our guns.”

“You were still carrying your Colt .44?”

“Yes. And I still have that gun. But by the twenties, pistols weren't enough. If you got into a gunfight, you had to have something more. Both Billy and I had Tommy guns. That was before they were banned.”

“What did you think about the submachine guns?”

“Other than the fact that they spit out a lot of bullets, they were as useless as tits on a boar hog. You couldn't hit a bull in the ass with the damn things.”

“That sounds like you actually had to use them.”

“Yeah,” Jesse said, “we had to use them.”

“Against the police?”

Jesse shook his head. “Anyone was a fool to go up against the police then. They were too easy to buy off. The real trouble came from people who were trying to horn in on your territory, or people who thought you were trying to horn in on theirs.”

“How did you determine what territory belonged to who?” Faust asked.

“There were no real lines. You just decided what belonged to you, or what you wanted to belong to you, and if you had the guts and the firepower to defend it, it was yours.”

The place could be called a graveyard for old cars, because there were at least ten rusted out, windowless, and mostly wheel-less cars out in the ravine.

Jesse and Billy had parked their car on the road alongside the old auto graveyard. The Marmon was no more. Ninety thousand really hard miles on the car had completely worn it out. They had gone back to driving a Packard, and it was waiting for them in the alley.

“Maybe we should have brought the Marmon here,” Billy suggested as the two of them got out of the car.

“No, I would no more put one of my cars here than I would sell an old horse to the glue factory,” Jesse said.

Both Jesse and Billy were holding what some people called Street Sweepers. They were actually Thompson submachine guns. Both guns were equipped with a drum magazine that would hold fifty rounds of .45 caliber ammunition. They had just bought the weapons and came out here to test-fire them.

They weren't the first people to ever have the idea of shooting guns at the cars; there were dozens of bullet holes in all the car bodies. One, an old Buick, had the fewest number of bullet holes.

“That one,” Billy said, pointing to the Buick.

“You go first,” Jesse invited.

Billy pointed the gun at the car and pulled the bolt back. That not only put the first round in the chamber, it also cocked the gun so that all he had to do was pull the trigger.

Billy pulled the trigger and the staccato sound of the firing gun echoed back from the surrounding hills. Smoke streamed from the barrel of the gun, and pieces of metal flew up from the Buick as the bullets punched holes in the car.

“Sumbitch! That's really somethin'!” Billy said excitedly when the last bullet had been extended. “Pa, did you see that?”

“How many bullets did you shoot?” Jesse asked.

“All of 'em. Fifty,” Billy answered.

“Look at the car. How many new holes did you put in it?”

“I put . . .” Billy started, then he looked toward the car. “Damn, looks like I only put about twenty new holes. That's less than half of the bullets I shot.”

“I know that you are a good shot, Billy.” Jesse held out the gun he was holding and looked at it. “That means these things aren't very accurate.”

“Ha!” Billy said. “They don't have to be all that accurate. As many bullets as they put out, some of them are bound to hit. Hell, it's like squirting a water hose!”

Jesse cocked his weapon, then, like Billy, fired it at the Buick. When the noise and the final echo were gone, he walked over to examine the car.

Like Billy, he had put less than half the rounds he fired into the target.

“We ain't goin' to be sellin' you no more liquor,” Travis Morris said.

“Why not?” Billy asked.

“We don't need no reason. We make the liquor, so I reckon we can do with it whatever we want. And that means we can sell to who we want, or not sell to whoever we don't want.”

“You've got to sell your whiskey to somebody. Who are you selling it to?”

“We're selling it to Costaconti, if you have to know,” Troy said.

“Costaconti? Come on, I happen to know that he pays ten cents less a gallon than we do.”

“Money don't matter none if you're dead,” Travis said.

“You've moved your still two or three times to hide it from the law. Why don't you hide it from Costaconti?”

“Costaconti is smarter'n the law,” Troy said. “It don't matter where we move it, he'll find it. You ain't gettin' no whiskey from us.”

As they drove away from the Morris still, Billy stopped the car just on the other side of the gate and started to get out.

“Leave the damn thing open,” Jesse said.

Billy laughed. “Yeah, serves them right.”

“They were pretty determined,” Jesse told Heavy Hunt later that same day.

“I've got to have product,” Heavy said. “You see the business I've got here. There needs to be some place for my people to go. Look over there at Leroy and Sally Mae. Can you see either one of them goin' to a white speakeasy?”

Leroy and Sally Mae were a young black couple who were so completely involved with each other they were not only unaware they were the subject of conversation, they were hardly aware of anyone else in the place.

“Nice young couple like that,” Heavy said. “They deserve a place they can come to where they can be sure they ain't goin' to be poisoned by bad hooch.”

“I'll look around and see if I can find someone Costaconti hasn't gotten to yet,” Jesse answered.

“Find me somebody, Mr. Frank. If you can give me a steady supply, I'll give you five dollars for every gallon you bring in. It ain't just the money, you understand. I'm providin' a service here.”

“We'll do what we can,” Jesse promised.

Jesse shook hands with Heavy, then with a wave to Nippy Jones, who was getting his band ready to play, he and Billy stepped out the back door.

Clyde and Arnold Butrum didn't have to take as elaborate measures to hide their still as the Morris twins did. That's because the nearest “town” wasn't a town at all. Eldridge wasn't incorporated; it had no mayor, no city government, and no police department. It consisted solely of a gas station, a grocery store, a feed store, and about twenty houses, which were built there because it was the only spot flat enough in this part of the Ozark Mountain range where one could actually build a house.

The still was three miles up a single lane so narrow that two cars couldn't meet on the road. Though, it could barely be called a road.

“Damn, looks like a traffic jam,” Billy said when they arrived.

Billy's comment referred to a Chevrolet that was sitting next to an old, dilapidated truck.

“Billy, I don't like the looks of this,” Jesse said. “When you get out of the car, have your gun in your hand.”

Billy knew better than to question Jesse, so as he stepped out from the driver's side of the car, he was holding his pistol down by his side.

There were four men standing near the still. Two of the men were wearing coveralls, and the other two men were wearing suits. It was clear to Jesse that the men in coveralls were the Butrum boys, and the men in suits were Constaconti's thugs. All four had heard the car coming and were now looking back toward Jesse and Billy.

“Pa, they're Costaconti men,” Billy said under his breath.

“Yes,” Jesse said quietly. Then, he called out to the others, “Well, this looks like a busy place.”

Suddenly, but not unexpectedly, the Costaconti men raised their hands and began firing. They were shooting Colt M1911 .45 automatic pistols, whereas Jesse and Billy were armed with revolvers, choosing them over the submachine guns because they couldn't use them without putting the Butrum brothers into danger.

Jesse felt the shock wave of one of the bullets as it snapped by his ear. The automatic cocked itself after each shot, so the two Costaconti men were able to get off three shots each. All six shots missed. Jesse and Billy got off only three shots between them, but all three shots found their mark and the two Costaconti men went down.

Jesse and Billy approached, still holding the pistols in their hands. Clyde and Arnold put their hands up.

“Put your hands down, boys,” Jesse said. “We aren't the law, and we aren't your enemies.”

With expressions of relief on their faces, the two brothers lowered their arms.

“Who were those two sons of bitches?” Arnold Butrum asked, pointing to the two bodies. “They said they was goin' to kill us if we sold our liquor to anyone but them. And they was only goin' to give us thirty cents a gallon.”

“They were Costaconti's men,” Jesse said.

“Costaconti? I've heard of him. He's some big shot in Kansas City ain't he? Some sort of mob guy?” Arnold asked.

“Yes. He controls most of the speakeasies in town. Not all of them, but most of them.”

“And he only wants to pay thirty cents a gallon? By the time we pay for ever'thing, gettin' only thirty cents a gallon means we won't hardly make no money at all,” Clyde complained.

“Actually these men weren't only cheating you, they were cheating their boss. He's paying forty cents a gallon, not thirty.”

“Forty cents? That's no good, either.”

“What about sixty cents a gallon?”

“Sixty cents? You'll pay sixty cents?”

“Yes.”

“I don't know. Didn't you say that this man Costaconti was running things in Kansas City?” Arnold asked.

“I said most things, not everything.”

“Will you be hauling the hooch?”

“Yes.”

“Who for?”

“A man named Heavy Hunt.” Jesse didn't tell the Butrums that Hunt was a black man.

The two brothers walked off some distance and discussed it among themselves, then they came back.

“We want to come into Kansas City and take a look at his operation,” Clyde said.

“Why?”

“According to these two men, if we didn't sell to them, they was going to kill us. I expect Costaconti may have the same idea. We just want to make certain that whoever you're selling to is stout enough to stay in business.”

“All right,” Jesse said. “I'll make the arrangements.” He nodded toward the two men he and Billy had killed. “Can you take care of them?”

“Yeah,” Arnold said. “About half a mile on up the road here is a thousand-foot drop-off into a real deep ravine. We can put 'em in their car and push it off, and there won't nobody discover 'em for a hunnert years or more.”

Jesse gave each of the men a one-hundred-dollar bill. “This is for your trouble.”

Clyde smiled. “This'll more'n pay for our trip to Kansas City.”