The Thomas Berryman Number

The number of Nashville city detectives assigned to Jimmie Horn had always fluctuated between two and six, but when Horn announced his intention to run for the Senate, the number went up to eight … Eight detectives meant a 3-2-1 breakdown over each twenty-four hours, seven days a week. Usually, the single detective worked the eleven to seven shift.

On July 3-4, the single detective was Horace Mossman, and he was late.

“Mr. Mossman’s right on his schedule,” Ruocco flashed his gold-banded Timex at his partner. “Quarter hour late’s just about right for Horace.”

Mossman, who was in his late twenties and just recently married, smiled broadly. “It’s my woman,” he grinned. “She cries when I leave the house.”

“Excuse me while I go throw up.” Ruocco leaned over toward the young detective. Then he got out of the Polara to stretch.

Mossman shrugged, tugged on the brim of his white hat, switched on a strong penlight. He began to read the day’s log on Horn.

“Anything here?” he mumbled.

J.B. Montgomery was finishing off the last of three homemade meatloaf sandwiches he’d started the night with. Montgomery’s nickname among the other detectives was “Dagwood.”

“He’s gone to three dinners tonight,” Montgomery said. “Miz Horn at six. Ne-groes worryin’ about what the whites up to at eight. Whites worryin about the Ne-groes at nine. Same old shit, Horace.”

Mossman grinned. He continued through the handwritten log with a red pencil ready to underline anything that struck him as abnormal.

He underlined the name

Lynch

the second time he saw it. “Who’s Lynch?”

“Five foot eight or so. White hair down over his collar. Wears movie star sunglasses. Some friend of Santo Massimino.”

The red pencil stopped a second time.

“And what’s this 4:35?” Mossman asked.

“Hippie shakes hands with Mr. Horn.

That mean something?”

“Oh yeah … yeah. Add uh … add

unidentified long-haired man pretended to uh, jab Mr. Horn in stomach.

A little fake punch, you know the kind …”

Mossman had stopped writing. “Nut, J.B.?”

“Nah … Jimmie just laughed. Seemed to know him from somewhere. He did one of those things off the boy’s chin. Chip off the old block things … We’ll check it with him tomorrow, though.”

“I’ll make a note,” Mossman said.

“You better make the note, Horace. I should’ve clarified that one better.”

The young black detective rewrote the note and underlined it with his red pencil. He gave it to J.B. Montgomery and the detective initialed the change.

The following evening the initialed note would appear in the

Nashville Citizen-Reporter.

So would the obituary of J.B. “Dagwood” Montgomery.

The first time I saw the UP photographs of Joe Cubbah I thought of the book

The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight.

In a close-up, Cubbah looks like the author James Breslin. He looks like he should be tending bar someplace. He has an impish grin.

I bought a print of one of the UP photographs for $7.50. I’m just letting it stare up at me now. It’s a weird feeling, especially the glossy gagman smile.

Cubbah got off the Eastern flight shortly after nine. A big man in a rodeo shirt met him at the gate and hand-delivered a manila envelope. Inside the envelope were sketches of Berryman that had come up from New Orleans. Cubbah examined the artwork as he rented a sports car from Avis. And because he was a cocky, foolhardy man—the antithesis of Berryman—Cubbah signed for the car with his own name.

It’s incongruous, but

under good circumstances,

Joe Cubbah would crack up most people. He has a lot of comical stories about Mafia people, and he tells them in eight or nine different accents and voices. He does the Godfather very well, but he says everybody does the Godfather. He does Carlo Gambino, and he says nobody does Gambino.

Lieutenant Mart Weesner met Cubbah under bad circumstances. At about midnight they had coffee and eggs together in a Nashville Burger Boy. Cubbah had followed the burly young trooper inside.

Weesner was in town to work the Fourth of July parade and rallies the following morning. He told Cubbah he was having trouble sleeping at the Holiday.

Joe Cubbah figured the trooper was actually out scouting up city women. Trying to score off some sympathetic waitress.

“I saw that Holiday Inn sign myself,” Cubbah said.

“Welcome, B.P.O.E.,

it said. Might just as well have said

Goodbye, Joe Cubbah.

No way I was going to stay there after seeing that. Those silly bastards be practicing trumpets when the maids show up.”

Weesner laughed out loud.

“What are they up to now?” Cubbah asked. “Breaking cocktail glasses in the swimming pool?”

One of the Burger Boy waitresses remembered Cubbah afterward. She remembered seeing the hefty state trooper leading him outside to show him the way to Ireland’s Bar. Then she’d seen them both drive off together in the trooper’s patrol car.