Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned (Socrates Fortlow 1) (23 page)

“Whatever he did that got those people killed?”

Socrates stood up and hefted two boxes of fruit cocktail in his arms.

“I’ont know. It was just some magazine article I read,” Socrates said. “Come on. Let’s move some boxes.”

{4.}

Denther’s Bar and Grill was a cop café on Normandie. It had wood frame windows, old-time metal venetian blinds, and a cursive neon sign that said Café in blue and Open in red. Only cops, and the women who desired them, went to Denther’s. You could smoke in there, kick back and relax. Anything you said was among cops, safe.

Nobody robbed Denther’s. Nobody worried about building codes or closing hours—or drugs, or sex.

They had a jukebox that was free and three young waitresses who wore hot pants and thigh-high patent-leather boots. Among the waitresses there was a white girl, a black one, and a Latina.

Denther’s was a cop paradise, or so Folger claimed.

Socrates entered the door at nine-thirty exactly. He was still wearing his Bounty blue-and-green T-shirt but that wasn’t enough to fool those cops.

The jukebox was playing disco but the conversation nearly stopped. Socrates waded through the dense crowd of men. A couple resisted his advance but Socrates was a strong man, he bulled his way through, cautiously, not pushing hard enough to start a row.

At the bar he asked, “Kenneth Shreve in here?”

The bartender, a small man, didn’t answer.

Socrates asked his question again.

“What do you want?” a white man seated at the bar asked Socrates.

“I want Kenneth Shreve.”

“What for?”

“You his mother?” Socrates asked, almost pleasantly.

“You better watch it …” The unspoken word dangled at the end of the white man’s sentence. It was an integrated bar. Black cops and white ones patronized Denther’s. You couldn’t call a man a nigger unless you were a nigger yourself.

The white man didn’t use the word but he would have liked to use his fists.

Socrates wondered why he didn’t feel afraid.

“You know where I can find Kenneth Shreve?”

“I’m Shreve,” a tall black man said. He had come up behind Socrates.

Socrates turned around. “Folger Wile sent me.”

Kenneth Shreve was wide as well as tall. His shoulders could have borne Socrates’ hefty two hundred and sixty-two pounds. His hands were small but so, Socrates remembered, were Joe Louis’s hands.

“What’s that old fool want?” Kenneth asked. He could see the long history of felony trailing in Socrates’ shadow but he didn’t care.

“He want them to extend retirement age at the dispatcher’s so that he could have somethin’ to do,” Socrates said.

That got a laugh out of Shreve.

“Come on,” the cop said. “Let’s sit over at that booth.”

The booth had three black cops and two black women crammed on the bench. One woman had a hand in the lap of the man on either side of her. She was looking back and forth at them—wide-eyed. The men were looking into each other’s eyes.

All that broke up when Sergeant Shreve came by. He didn’t even say anything. He just walked up and the men hustled the women out of the stall.

“Hey,” one of the young women said. “What’s wrong?”

They sat and the quiet bartender brought beers. Socrates downed his with one swallow.

“What’s your name?”

“Socrates Fortlow.” The ex-convict’s jaw clamped shut after his name. He wanted to start talking but he found that he couldn’t.

“Well?” Shreve asked. “What’s Shorty want?”

“Excuse me?”

“Shorty. That’s what we called Folger.”

“Oh.”

Socrates looked up into the crowded, smoky den. Shreve anticipated him and waved for another beer.

“I got things to do, man. So if you got somethin’ for me from Shorty lets hear it.”

Socrates looked at Shreve until the beer came. The big cop wanted to move but he didn’t. Socrates thought that the policeman knew somehow that the most important thing in that room was what Socrates had to say.

“I been up in prison,” Socrates said after downing the second brew.

“What for?” the sergeant asked. His face had gone blank. His eyes were all over Socrates.

“Homicide.”

Shreve gave a slight nod to show that he’d already known the answer.

“What you got to do wit’ Folger?”

“I’ont even hardly know the man. I know his cousin.”

“And what you want with me?”

“I don’t want ya,” Socrates said. “Shit, man. I’m a jailbird. You know I was made in a prison cell. I don’t talk to cops.”

An evil grin formed on Shreve’s face. He was a dark brown man with little scars and nicks on his forehead, neck, and jaw. “Don’t fuck with me, Negro,” he said.

“I’m just sayin’ that I’m not used to talkin’ to cops. It’s not easy bein’ in this here room.”

“This is the only place you’re gonna see me,” Shreve said. “Unless you wanna go back down to a jail cell.”

“That don’t scare me,” Socrates said. “Ain’t nuthin’ could happen to me that ain’t already happened. Nuthin’.”

“What do you want, man?”

“Back in the joint, man didn’t talk to no screw. They find you doin’ that and there was a knife for you.”

“You want to tell me something, but you’re scared?” Shreve asked.

“I’m way past scared,” Socrates said. “Way past that. I’m the one enforce the rules, an’ I ain’t never broke it.”

“But you gonna break it now?” Shreve waved for two beers this time.

“Sometimes,” Socrates said, “you might get to know a guard an’ he ain’t so bad. I mean, he could be there for you, you know what I mean?”

The beers came and Shreve pushed them both in front of the ex-con. Socrates emptied both of them in less than a minute.

“You want something?” Shreve asked.

“Yeah.” There was a pleasant blank feeling at the back of Socrates’ head. It really wasn’t enough beer to get him high but he’d forgotten to eat that day.

“I don’t want your money, man,” Socrates said. “I don’t want that. What I want is you.”

“Say what?”

{5.}

“A man is innocent until he’s proven guilty,” Socrates quoted. “Do you believe that?”

“If a man did a crime then he’s guilty,” Shreve said. He took a deep breath and looked over each shoulder. “If he didn’t he’s innocent. That’s what I believe.”

“But the law says that a man is innocent unless he is judged otherwise by a panel of his peers. I learnt that up in jail.

“Everybody was guilty up there; didn’t matter if they’d done the crime or not. They were guilty because they were found guilty by a panel of their peers.”

“Hey, Kenny.” A drunken black man had staggered up to the booth. He was supported by a young woman under each arm. One of them had a blouse cut so low that Socrates could make out the tops of her nipples. When she saw Socrates looking she smiled and angled her body for him to see better.

“Kenny,” the drunken man said again. “Let’s go on upstairs.” The man cocked the top of his head toward the back door and winked.

Shreve glanced at the door and then at the low-cut girl.

“You go on,” he said. “I’ll be up in a little while.”

“Ooooh,” the women complained in unison.

As they were leaving Shreve said, “You better cut out this shit and tell me what you got to say, brother.”

“I was just sayin’ did you believe that a man is innocent …”

“What man?” Shreve asked. “What man? What the fuck are you talking about?”

Socrates’ jaw snapped shut. His teeth ached from the pressure.

“Come on, Fortlow. Talk to me.”

“Fire,” Socrates whispered.

“Say what?”

“Fires. Fires.”

Shreve froze like a stalking cat.

“Them fires,” Socrates said and then the bottom fell out of his diaphragm sucking all his words back down with it.

“The fires in Watts?”

He could still nod.

“You know who’s doin’ ’em?”

“I don’t know nuthin’ for sure. Man’s innocent, innocent.”

Shreve sat back and rubbed his scarred face.

“It’s the reward, right?”

“What reward?”

“Come on, brother. You cain’t pull that shit on me. They announced it this morning; fifteen thousand dollars for information leading to the arrest of …”

Socrates was up and out of his chair before Shreve could finish his sentence. He was moving fast toward the door; no
excuse mes
, no being careful as he pushed people out of the way.

Outside he walked quickly down the street.

“Uh-uh,” Socrates Fortlow kept saying to himself. “No, no. They not gonna catch me with that.”

“Fortlow!”

“Uh-uh. Uh-uh, no.”

“Fortlow! Halt!”

The command took over the convict side of Socrates’ brain, bringing his legs to a full stop.

“What’s wrong with you, man?” Sergeant Shreve said as he caught up with Socrates. He was breathing heavily. “I’ve been calling you for three blocks.”

Socrates just shook his head in stubborn denial.

“What’s wrong?” Shreve asked again.

“No,” said Socrates as if that answered any question Shreve could ask.

The street downtown was empty, except for a line of homeless men and women reclining against a wall across the street. The traffic lights kept changing color but there was no traffic to heed them.

“No what? Do you know who the South Central firebug is?”

“You cain’t buy me, man,” Socrates said. “I ain’t your slave.”

“I don’t want the money, Fortlow. You could have it. All I want is the man. He’s out there killing people. That’s why you came here, right? You don’t want to turn in a man ’cause you’re an ex-con but you still don’t want people to die.”

The flames in Socrates’ mind seemed to flare on that dark street. Ira Giles swinging his homemade knife while his flames were crawling right up his back.
Screamin’ devil right outta hell
, somebody had said. They all laughed and spat and said that the guards should have known better than to give Ira biscuits and water for an extra day. It was their own fault. You can push a man only so far and then you’ve got to let up—or kill him.

“Let’s go down to the station, Fortlow. Let’s make a report.”

“Wait up,” Socrates said. “Wait up.”

“What?”

“He’s innocent right?”

“If he is then why are you talking to me?”

“I want him treated like a man, officer. I want you,” Socrates jabbed his finger into Shreve’s chest, “to tell me that you gonna go down there and make sure that he’s treated like a man. I don’t want him beat, or cursed, or cheated. Folger told me that you do a fair deal with Negroes and whites too. I want a fair deal for the man I give you or so help me God I’ll be out there in the streets burnin’ just like he done.”

Shreve put a hand on his bruised chest.

“I’ll be there, you can bet on that. And he’ll get as fair a deal as I can give.”

{6.}

Socrates told Sergeant Shreve his story at the downtown police station after signing a document that stated he was giving evidence about the South Central firebug.

There wasn’t much to say.

Socrates had seen Ira Giles through his cell grate after Ira had stabbed those men. He’d been beaten and stomped. His right arm was raw from fire. But Ira was grinning. His face was slick with sweat and his eyes were big enough to scare a wild animal from its den. He was gibbering and laughing; he would have danced if the guards hadn’t kept punching him and making him walk straight ahead.

Socrates had been out walking on the night of the last fire, the fatal one. He heard the fire engines and smelled the smoke. The overweight Negro who capered toward Socrates didn’t even see the ex-con. He was at his own little party. His chunky legs switched in their work pants.

“It was the smell at first,” Socrates told Shreve. “Then it was the way he was sayin’ words that didn’t make no sense. He was sweatin’ heavy too but it was the dancin’, it was the dancin’ made me follow him home.”

“That’s all?” said Andrew Collins, Shreve’s patrol partner. “That’s what you got us down here for?”

Socrates told them how he waited for Ponzelle Richmond to leave his house again.

“I looked in the windah an’ seen gasoline cans with a lotta bottles an’ rags around,” he said.

He didn’t tell them how he pried the lock off the back door. He didn’t tell them about the diary.

“Let’s check it out, Andy,” Shreve said to his shaggy white partner. “We’ll get back to you, Mr. Fortlow.”

{7.}

“I tried to talk to’ em,” Socrates was telling Stony Wile after it was all over. “I thought that maybe I could make a difference. You know if I said I wouldn’t cooperate unless they promised to play fair?”