Black Hornet (14 page)

“And they’re all avowed nonviolents. So from time to time on this or that job—just to protect themselves—they bring in backup.”

“Bodyguards.”

“More like contract soldiers. World’s changing, you know? Whatever your beliefs, you either change with it or you go under. Disappear like the dinosaurs.

“Anyway. One of the people they use most often, a marksman, calls himself The Sentry. That’s how they get in touch with him—run a personal ad for ‘The Sentry’ in
The Griot.
No one ever sees him. He responds with a similar ad of his own. Day before, he calls in from a pay phone for details. D-day, he signals his presence and position with a mirror flash.”

“A sniper.”

“You got it.”

“He ever had to shoot?”

“Not yet.”

“Good luck.”

He nodded.

“How does he get paid, once it’s over?”

“Post office box. Yeah: it changes every time. And the one time SeCure Corps staked it out, some kid on a bicycle came pedaling up to collect. They didn’t hear from The Sentry for a while after that. When they did, he wondered if SeCure Corps truly valued and required his services.”

“And?”

“They backed off.”

“So this is a long-term association.”

“It’s got history, yeah.”

“Pay well?”

“Expect so. From all I hear, these guys are going flat out, full throttle.”

“You have to wonder just where the support’s coming from.”

“Few others wondering about that right along with you.”

Chapter Twenty

“
Y
ES,
SIR,
HOW
MAY
I
HELP
YOU?”

“Personnel, please.”

“May I ask in regard to what?”

“I’m calling to inquire about employment with your firm.”

“Then it’s Mr. Bergeron you’d be needing. Please hold. I’ll see if Mr. Bergeron’s in his office.”

He was, but it took us both a while to find out.

I was calling from a pay phone facing a Frostop on St. Charles. Icy mugs of root beer and some of the best hamburgers in town inside. One of your more fascinating processions outside.

A white guy minced past in denim miniskirt and pink tights through which you could see whorls of leg hair. Baby-blue sleeveless blouse above, breasts like those castanet-size finger cymbals Indian dancers use. His Adam’s apple stuck out a lot further. He kept brushing at the blond wig and catching himself just before he fell off three-inch heels. Arms suddenly out at his sides like a tightrope walker’s.

A young woman in high-collared white blouse, oversize spectacles, and a dress that swept fastfood wrappers from the sidewalk as she passed. Walking beside a pure Marlon Brando type in T-shirt, jeans, and scowl, a foot shorter than she was.

Unshaven older guy in a baseball cap with belly arranged just so over the Texas-shaped buckle of his belt, belly and torso encased like sausage in a black T-shirt reading
Love a Trucker—Or Do Without.

“Hello? Are you still there? Please hold, I’m trying to track down Mr. Bergeron.”

At least she didn’t switch me over to Hawaiian music or an arrangement of “Mack the Knife” for strings. Just a dead line with ghost voices far back, unintelligible, within it.

A thirtyish woman with bleach-blonde hair, bright red lipstick, tight cashmere sweater and full skirt came by. The Marilyn Monroe look, I suppose.

When he came on, he was breathing hard. Maybe he spent every lunch hour working out. Maybe when the receptionist tracked him down he took a shot at her. Or maybe he was just fat off other people’s work. The world was what you made it. Sure it was.

“Bergeron here. Please. To whom am I speaking?” I told him.

“And you’re interested in employment, my secretary says. In what capacity, if I might ask?”

I sketched my background in paper serving, skip tracing, bodyguard and security work. Most of the last was pure invention, but set up by the rest, which
was
true, it sounded good.

“Well,” he said. “Ordinarily we wouldn’t consider accepting an application over the phone. I’m sure you understand. But as it turns out, we find ourselves in need of extra help tonight—unexpectedly. A good and regular customer. Else we would have declined. And you do seem to be the kind of experienced professional we’re always looking for.”

“Had a feeling this might turn out to be a good day,” I said.

“First name spelled L-O-U-I-S?”

I corrected him, then went ahead and spelled my last name too.

“And you’re currently employed … ?”

“I’m not—though not for lack of trying, I assure you. Generally I work freelance. Bodyguard work, collections, like I told you. And I walk a lot of paper for Boudleaux & Associates. But things have been getting thin for a while now.”

“Frankie DeNoux?”

“Yeah.”

“I know him. Everybody knows him.”

“Seems like it.”

“Your training?”

“Military.”

No reason to tell him I’d gone from civilian to MP back to civilian in a hop and a skip. More skip than hop, come to think of it.

“Address?”

“Wouldn’t do you much good. I move around a lot.” I had my fish, I could slack off now.

“I understand. Some place you can be reached, then? Since the law requires it.”

I gave him Verne’s address.

“Social Security number?”

“Let’s see …” I tried a couple of three-digit sequences. “Sorry. Can’t remember it just this minute.”

“No problem. Happens all the time. Just bring it in when you come by for your check.”

“Then I have work?”

“Are you free from seven to around twelve tonight?”

“I can be.”

“Then you have work. Pays four dollars an hour, four hours guaranteed, probably run between five and six. You’ll need to be at Esplanade and Broad by seven at the latest. Report to Sam Brown. Big guy, hair and beard completely white. You can’t miss him. He’s front man on this, and whatever he says, goes. Checks will be ready to pick up here by four tomorrow afternoon. We can cash your check on the premises, if you want. Sam likes you, puts in a good word, we’ll be using you again.

“Thank you for getting in touch with us, Mr. Griffin. Any questions?”

“Only one. What am I going to be doing?”

“Of course. I did fail to mention that, didn’t I. You’ll be working crowd control.”

Chapter Twenty-One

“
G
ENTLEMEN,”
S
AM
B
ROWN
SAID.

Bergeron was right, he looked like a fullback. Hell, he looked like two fullbacks. You could land fighter planes on his shoulders. He wore a black suit skillfully tailored to downplay his size, but man’s ingenuity only goes so far.

“Most of you here, I’ve worked with you before. And
work,
for those new to SeCure Corps, is most definitely the operative word. We pay good money, we expect good value. You take care of business, we’ll take care of you.

“Tonight’s business is crowd control, people. You are intelligence, and intelligence only. You’ll be teamed in pairs, given walkie-talkies and specific watches. You’ll report in each fifteen minutes. You do not, repeat
not,
take any action. See anything unusual, anything suspicious, any sign of trouble, you get away from there and report back to me. And that’s
all
you do. Is that understood?

“Officially the city anticipates that about three hundred people will show up tonight; they’re prepared to handle twice that. Police estimates are running higher, maybe as many as a thousand, they say, before it’s over, and the department has placed officers accordingly.

“The affair’s sponsors, however, have reason to believe attendance may be well in advance of expectations. And you, gentlemen, we, are their insurance.

“I repeat: intelligence only. Circulate, observe, reconnoiter, report. Police officers both in uniform and plainclothes will be on watch for legal violations or for any possibility of violence. Federal agents are also present. We are here expressly as their helpmates, an early warning system. And the lower profile we keep, the more effective we can be.”

Walking up Broad on my way here, I’d seen stragglers as far back as Canal, then as I approached Esplanade, more and more, until they were everywhere: stapled to telephone poles, abandoned storefronts and boarded-up houses, impaled on ironwork fences, stuck beneath the wipers of cars sitting on bare wheels at curbside.

CORENE DAVIS

TONIGHT!

COMMUNITY HALL OF

REDEEMER BAPTIST CHURCH

8 P.M.

HEAR THE TRUTH

“Who’s Corene Davis?” I asked the guy I got paired with. He was as thin as Sam Brown was broad. He could lie down, you’d think he was the horizon.

He shrugged with shoulders a sparrow would fall off. “Big shot in Black Rights, I guess. From up North somewhere. Man said your name was Louis?”

“Lew.”

“James. You worked this before?”

“Not for SeCure Corps. Usually work on my own—freelance.”

“Oh yeah? You ever need help?”

“Only finding customers.”

“I know what that’s like. Used to do sales, myself. Fine men’s clothing. Only trouble was, no fine men ever came in to buy it, and I was on straight commission.”

“What about you?”

“What about me.”

I gestured around us.

“Oh. Yeah, I score a job with them a couple, three times a month. SeCure’s good people. Pay a decent wage, never try to hold back on you. I’ve been trying to get on as a regular, but it’s a long list.”

The community center had already filled. Earlier in the day speakers had been set up outside, and now a huge crowd was forming, spilling off the sidewalk into the street and sidewalk opposite. It looked like Carnival had touched down. Most had brought food: bags of fried chicken, picnic baskets and cardboard boxes, coolers, poboys in white butcher paper.

“Brown did say federal agents, am I right?”

We had our backs to the wall across the street, keeping watch on new arrivals.

“Word is,” James said, “there’ve been threats.”

“What kind of threats?”

“The death kind.”

“Against Corene Davis.”

He nodded. “They’ve kept it quiet. One of the regulars I worked with before told me.”

“Who made the threats? How were they made?”

“That’s been kept even quieter. Someone said by letter—white ink on black paper. I don’t know. Yoruba’s been mentioned. So has the group that wears purple shirts and berets. The Black Hand seems to be a current favorite.”

Around the corner to our right came a group of young men, sixteen of them marching in formation, four-by-four. They wore black jeans and shirts and their heads were shaved. The leader, front left, called out the rhythm as they advanced. They executed the turn in finest drill form, at crowd’s edge made a perfectly coordinated right-face and marked time as the leader counted down cadence. Then they stood erect and still, feet slightly apart, hands clasped in the small of their back, eyes forward.

“Don’t you just love watching the little childrens play soldier?” a voice said to my left. As I turned that way, Leo Tate stepped up grinning, Clifford close behind.

“Yeah, get themselves some cool hats like yours, they’d really look sharp.”

“Such a romantic soul, Lewis.”

“I try. Had no idea you guys were interested in Corene Davis, though.”

“We’re interested in anyone who tries to tell the truth about being black in this country.”

“You happen to know anything about threats against her life?”

The two of them exchanged glances. Clifford shrugged, shoulders moving maybe a quarter-inch. Leo nodded back in kind.

“We heard that, yeah. Mostly why we’re here.”

“Any idea who could be behind it?”

“You want the long list or the short one? Short one’s almost as long as the long one—know what I’m saying?”

“Of course, there may be nothing to it all,” Clifford said.

Static crackled on the walkie-talkie, and Leo looked down at my hand.

“Man,
everybody’s
playing soldier today. They give you your official decoder badge too?”

“Friends of yours, I take it,” James said after they had stepped off into the ever-thickening crowd. I looked at him. He just shook his head. “Takes all kinds.”