Hugh was speechless, so his buddies came to his rescue. “Great bet there, Hugh,” Keith said with a laugh.
“Hang out here often?” asked Denny.
“That wasn’t even a decent fight,” added Joey.
Hugh, always a good sport, raised both hands in surrender and said, “All right, all right, let me have it. You guys wanna show me how it’s done? Let’s do a side bet on the next fight. A dollar each.”
But they were too broke to gamble. They finished their beers as they enjoyed a few more fights, then headed back to the car. Their long weekend was over. They would tell no one of their visit to Arkwright’s, though Lance Malco would find out soon enough. He really didn’t care. Hugh was only sixteen but was mature for his age and could certainly take care of himself. He was showing no interest in college and that was fine with Lance as well.
The boy was needed in the family business.
Chapter 13
Two days after Thanksgiving in 1966, the body of Marcus Dean Poppy was found in an alley behind a brothel on Decatur Street in the French Quarter. He had been beaten with a blunt instrument and finished off with two bullets to the head. His pockets were empty; there was no wallet, no means of identification. Not surprisingly, no one inside the brothel would admit to having seen him before. No one heard a peep from the alley. It took the New Orleans police two weeks to determine who he was, and by then any hope of finding his killer was gone. It was a rough town with a lot of crime, and the police were accustomed to finding bodies in alleys. A detective poked around Biloxi and put together a brief sketch of the victim, who’d once owned Carousel Lounge but who hadn’t been seen in town for over three years. A brother in Texas was located, informed of the death, but had no interest in retrieving the body.
The story finally made its way to the Gulf Coast Register, but was easily missed on page three, bottom left-hand corner. The reporter did manage to link the murder to the one of Earl Fortier back in 1963. That one led to a trial in which Nevin Noll was acquitted.
Absolutely no one would comment. The people who knew both Poppy and Fortier back in the day were either long gone or hiding in the shadows. Those who read the story and knew the players in Biloxi’s underworld figured Lance Malco had finally settled another old debt. It was common knowledge that Poppy had outslicked him when he sold Carousel Lounge to Ginger Redfield and her gang, and it was only a matter of time before Lance got his man. Carousel had become an even more popular nightclub and casino, one that rivaled Foxy’s and Red Velvet, and one that Malco still coveted. Ginger was a tough businesswoman and ran it well. Along with O’Malley’s, she had added another club on the Strip and a couple of bars on the north side of town. She was ambitious, and as her empire expanded it was inevitably encroaching on turf that Lance Malco believed was rightfully his.
A showdown was looming. Tension was in the air as both gangs watched each other. Fats Bowman knew the streets and had cautioned both crime lords against outright warfare. Selfishly, he wanted more clubs, more gambling, more of everything, but he was smart enough to understand the need for a peaceful flow of commerce. If and when the shooting started, there would be no way to control it. Hell, they were all making money, and lots of it, so why get even greedier? An old-fashioned gangland shootout would only rile the public, bring in unwanted attention, and possibly provoke outside interference from the state police and the Feds.
* * *
Jesse Rudy read the story about Poppy’s murder and knew what had happened. It was another grim reminder of the lawlessness that was growing in his town. He had finally made the decision to do something about it.
Keith was home for the Christmas break, and after dinner one night Jesse and Agnes gathered their four children in the den for a family chat. Beverly was sixteen, Laura fifteen, and both were students at Biloxi High. Tim was thirteen and in junior high.
Jesse said that he and their mother had had many long conversations about their future, and had made the decision that he would seek the office of district attorney in next year’s 1967 election. Rex Dubisson, the current DA, was completing his second term and would be a formidable opponent. He was entrenched with the old guard and would be well financed. Most of the local lawyers would support him, as would most of the other elected officials. More importantly, he would be backed by the nightclub owners, mobsters, and other crooks who had controlled local politics for years. His children knew their children.