Darktown (32 page)

Rake tried to puzzle this out. “Why would they kill him? If they used him to insulate them from a murder, why commit another one?”

“We don't know. We're sure as hell trying to find out, from the outside. Maybe you can dig around on the inside.”

With that, the bald man reached back into his pocket and took the pliers out. “Here, I'll get you out of those cuffs.”

“How about using a key instead of those?”

“I don't have one. Stop being a pussy about it.”

He heard metal on metal and felt the tug as the man pulled one of the cuffs apart, then another tug and the cuffs fell. Rake tried not to sigh with relief too obviously.

“Thanks,” he said. Then he stepped forward and, with his uninjured left hand, punched Chet square on the nose.

Rake spun around, hoping to knock down the bald one, too, but the fellow had already backed up a step and had dropped the pliers in favor of Rake's revolver. He thumbed back the hammer.

“Why'd you go and do that?” the ex-cop asked.

Rake looked at Chet, who was out cold and already bleeding heavily from his nose. “He and I are square for the finger now.”

“Once he wakes up, he ain't gonna feel you're square.”

“Then he's free to come after me, but this time I'll see the son of a bitch coming.”

“You're something, Rakestraw. You just might survive your job.” He looked at Chet and shook his head. Blood was pumping out of Chet's nose but he still appeared to be breathing.

Rake asked, “You mind not pointing my gun at me anymore?”

“Why, so you can break one of my fingers to make
us
square?”

“Don't worry, I like you better than him.”

The revolver's hammer was rethumbed and lowered, but the fellow held on to it. Then he walked over to the shotgun and picked it up. More heavily armed now, he walked over and placed Rake's revolver on the passenger seat of Rake's car.

“So,” Rake asked, “how do I find you if I learn something that might interest you?”

“Drive up to Norcross and look me up at Second Baptist.”

“So we can swap notes between hymns?”

“Careful there. I'm a man of God now. That's where I preach.”

“You're serious?”

“Yes. I'm an ordained minister, and I don't take part in the nonsense of my past.”

Rake held up his hand. “You just broke my fucking finger.”

“I will pray on my knees for forgiveness tonight. But some things just need to be done.” He nodded toward Chet. “Now buck up and help me get him in the truck.”

“Hellfire. Do it yourself,
Reverend.
And don't waste any prayers on me.”

Rake walked back to his car, thinking about which emergency room he should choose for resetting his finger.

The reverend replied, “I don't believe I will.”

29

MAMA DOVE WAS
halfway down the stairs after her customary afternoon nap when one of the girls told her there was a man here for her. Said in a very different tone than if this particular man was a john.

The fans were blasting in the windows yet still it felt too hot as she walked through the foyer. It was hard to predict the impact of weather on her business. Men were funny about the heat, and though they hardly lost their sex drive, there were times when they were just too lazy to leave their stuffy houses and get in their stuffy cars to drive out to Mama Dove's for some stuffy sex. Some of her girls had only had a couple of men a night lately, and she'd been thinking of letting them go, too many mouths to feed for too little income.

The door to the kitchen was open, the better for air to circulate. She immediately recognized his big old feet, kicked up on one of the chairs like they owned the place.

“I told you never to call my house, Marla.”

“So nice to see you,” she said, her voice flat. “Why don't you come in.”

Dunlow was sitting at the table with a tumbler and an unmarked bottle of whiskey he'd helped himself to.

“You look fatter in your civvies.”

He smirked at her and was unable to come up with a quick enough retort. He stood, not so much sucking in his gut as giving it more length to spread itself across.

“Janisse keeps me well fed I guess.”

She motioned to the bottle. “Little early for that. You want any coffee instead?”

“What I want is for you to tell me why you called my house. At least twice that I know of.”

“Well, my telegraph's busted and the smoke signals don't work so well anymore. How else am I supposed to tell you I need to talk?”

His eyes were colder now. He didn't need to say,
You're supposed to just wait your black ass until I choose to come here.

She walked over to a carafe of lukewarm coffee. She drank it that way whenever it wasn't winter, adding some sugar that always sank to the bottom.

“I thought it was important enough to break your rules. You know all about breaking rules, remember, Lionel?”

And like that he was beside her. It always surprised her how fast he was, man that big. She hated herself for flinching.

“Suppose I do,” he said. She could feel his belly against her own, and though he was still holding the whiskey he let his right hand help itself to her hip. She was wearing a white nightgown, cotton and thin, but even that was too much in this heat, and his palm felt even warmer against her. Her rubbed her, moving down and slowly around behind. “And I know you do, too.”

She was pinned against the counter and could smell the alcohol on his breath (exactly how long had he been down here drinking?). Then he was kissing her. It was familiar even if it had been years. He was rough and needed a shave. His hand was acting like it owned her, because it had once and it believed things never changed.

When he stopped, she said, “You thought I called you for
that?
”

Slapping him wouldn't have been nearly as effective. He stepped back and the hunger in his eyes that makes even aging men look like puppy dogs was gone, replaced by the all-too-familiar pall of acceptance and defeat.

“Why don't you tell me why you were calling before I get even angrier and take it out on one of your girls.”

“I figured you'd want to know that other officers have been by to ask about
your
girl.”

“My girl?”

She slanted her head, practically eyeing him sideways. Did he really not know what she was talking about? What would be sadder, his stupidity or the fact that Lily Ellsworth meant so little to him as to be not worth remembering?

“The one who ain't alive no more. The one I took in for your friend Underhill.”

“What cops came by?”

“Officer Boggs. Preacher's son.”

“Don't you worry 'bout those YMCA cops. They can't hurt you, I'll see to that.”

“Why you so sure
I'm
worried about being hurt? Maybe I was concerned that
you
had gotten yourself into trouble.”

He smiled. At moments like this, fleeting though they were, the layer of fat faded, as did the years, and she caught a glimpse of the man he'd been, the confidence, the casual ease with which he used that smile and his body and the jokes that had seemed funny once, though never quite as funny as he'd thought them to be.

“Now, Marla, you don't need to be worrying about me.”

“Who was she?”

“I haven't the foggiest idea.”

“I don't believe that.”

“Well, believe it. I don't mean to lower your opinion of me, but some things Underhill does, I don't get told any more than you.”

“You mean to say you didn't even
ask
him what her story was?”

“Did you?” He stepped back to the table, pouring a couple more fingers into his glass.

“It's not my place. All he told me was she needed to be removed from a situation.”

She wondered whether some of her girls were in the hallway or maybe around the corner in the parlor, straining to hear every word.

“Then that's the truth.”

“Well, I don't appreciate having your fellow officers showing up and insinuating that I'm going to be arrested for helping your friends. It certainly seems to me there's things I deserve to know about.”

“I'm sorry to hear that.” Big sip.

“Why don't you just call him up and ask him what it was she'd done?”

“Because he's dead.”

The ceiling above started creaking, quickly, so at least someone was making her some money right now. The sudden noise may have covered up her shock at his remark, but probably not.

“What happened?”

“Got himself shot.”

“What the hell is going on?”

“Nothing you need worry about.”

The girl was dead and so was the man who had demanded Mama Dove take her in, get her the hell away from the family for whom she'd been working and causing so much misery.
Just keep her in here, at all times. She ain't allowed out until we give you the word. Put her to work and let her see what that's like, Lord knows she can use it. But watch her close because she's a damned thief and she's got a particular taste for white people's money.

Then why on earth are you giving her to me?
she'd asked.
Put her ass in jail.

Can't do that. Gentleman she stole from ain't the type to press charges. Ain't the type to like attention.

It had been explained to her that if this girl managed to extricate herself from Mama Dove's, many a foul consequence would ensue, and they would all fall on the madam's head. Lily was being put under house arrest, and Mama Dove was to provide the house. And the handcuffs, if the johns wanted that and paid extra.

“You know I don't worry easy, Lionel, but two dead bodies is enough to make my heart rate tick just the slightest bit up.”

The ceiling stopped squeaking. The faster they were, the better.

“She's caused all the damage she's gonna cause.”

“Then why are you drinking so much?”

He eyed her, then put the glass down. The bags under his eyes seemed about twice as big as usual, as if most of what he drank settled there rather than in his gut.

“You don't know who shot him, do you?” she said. “Or her?”

“Officer Dunlow's on the case.”

That cocksure attitude had gone from grating to exasperating. “You . . .
men
really think women don't talk to each other? You don't think she might have opened her mouth and told me a few things, Lionel? You don't think she may have con
fided
in me?”

He stepped closer. “We know damn well how women talk. Hear your voices in our sleep.”

“I'm glad you notice.”

“And if I didn't know better, I'd say it sounded for a second there like you were threatening me.”

Like before, his hands retook “his” property. One at the small of her back and the other at her neck. Not tightly but not gently either.

“I'm not threatening you,” she said. “I'm just saying there are things I wish I didn't know.”

He wasn't squeezing, yet. “The best thing to do in those circumstances, which you should know very well by now, is pretend you don't know, and pretend you don't know, and pretend you don't know. And then, eventually, you forget.”

She could tell he was enjoying this, holding her this way, letting her wonder whether he was going to strangle her or grab her ass again, kiss her or slap her. All of which he'd done before, and never had she been able to predict it.

“And the next time a white cop comes by asking questions?” she asked.

“White cops?”

“Did I forget to mention that? One time it was Officer Boggs, the colored one. Another time there was a white one, Rakestraw.”

He released her and backed up a step. “Rakestraw?” She had meant to hit some nerves before and hadn't. But now, with this name that had been meaningless to her, he looked like he'd gone sick to his stomach.

“Yes.”

“Describe him to me.”

“White. Dark hair. Your height, big. Not so hard on the eyes. In a way, he reminded me of you, minus a whole lot of long and tangled road.”

Why had he needed her to prove who it had been? Who was Rakestraw to him? She decided not to ask. It was good to see him so unmoored.

He walked back to the table, shaking his head. He muttered, but she couldn't hear what.

Then he threw the tumbler against the cupboards not more than a foot from where she was standing. She screamed and raised her hands to her head too late, the feel of something glancing against it, glass everywhere in the room now, always so many more pieces than you'd think
could come from something that had once been whole. She rubbed the side of her face and hoped she would not see blood on her palm when she pulled it away, but other than that she was standing there stock-still and barefoot in a sea of shards as Dunlow's boots crunched their way out of her house.

30

DRIVING HIS FATHER'S
green Buick, Boggs pulled in front of the apartment building where Smith lived and tapped the horn. He'd never visited his partner's neighborhood before and he did not fail to notice the general disrepair of the street, the bits of trash strewn on the ground, the worn-out laundry hanging from clotheslines, the drunk old lady on the opposite side of the street, muttering to herself.

After less than a minute, Smith walked out, his white short-sleeved shirt ironed and tucked into gray pleated slacks. More noticeable was the jumbled blanket laying across his arms. Boggs reached over and opened the door for him.

The blanket was (barely) concealing a rifle. The gun was so long, part of it poked into Boggs's right leg as Smith sat down. He'd studied the maps that morning and guessed it would take them ninety minutes if they didn't get stuck at any train crossings.

“Don't shoot my leg, please.”

“That's the handle pointed at you.”

Boggs had borrowed the car under false pretenses, inventing some story about errands he'd needed to run. He was not accustomed to lying to his father, and it added to the sense of disquiet he felt as he drove beyond Atlanta.

After twenty minutes they were passing through a quiet interval between towns—it did not take long for one leaving that city to feel like they were already in the country. Now that they weren't at risk of being observed, Smith rearranged his belongings, the blanket falling to the floor. He held in his lap a Winchester rifle. The metal confidently gleamed from a recent cleaning.

“Cover that up again and put it in the backseat.”

“That's too far away. It stays here.”

“Then cover it again.”

Smith shook his head, but a moment later he pulled the blanket back onto his lap.

In the glove box was a .45 revolver Boggs had bought after the war and had barely used in the first two years he'd owned it. Then, after he'd sent in his police application, he'd used it regularly for target practice in the vast backyard of family friends who lived down in Clayton County. He'd trained there for hours over the three-month application process, annihilating countless Coca-Cola bottles, hoping his lack of combat experience wouldn't doom his chances.

Smith opened the glove box, nodded at the weapon as if they were old friends, and added his own .38. The box, now crowded with firearms, could barely close.

They had packed sandwiches and canteens for water rather than risk not being able to find a lunch counter that would cater to Negroes. The guns would stay in the car, Boggs had insisted. Smith was right: he had delayed this trip because he was scared of the Georgia country. Scared of its people and their ways. The only other time he'd ventured this far from Sweet Auburn had been that awful training camp in South Carolina, the three worst years of his life.

He drove five miles under the speed limit lest he find himself in a rural cop's doghouse. The windows were down, but all that did was blow sweltering air in their faces. Smith seemed to mind it more, playing with his pomaded hair a few times. They both wore darkened glasses yet Boggs was squinting in the sun and gripping the wheel at ten o'clock and two o'clock. This would be the longest drive he'd ever attempted.

With every passing mile he felt less safe. He'd read
Heart of Darkness
at Morehouse and he felt he was on that boat in the river, venturing deeper and deeper into the wilderness of white men, the same effect if the opposite colors of Conrad's racist views.

They passed a Congregationalist church whose hand-lettered sign advised that they pray for their weak president.

“Don't like it out here, do you?” Smith asked.

“What gives you that idea?”

“I don't think you could be holding that wheel any tighter if you tried.”

“Do
you
like it?”

“No. But I don't see how it's worse'n downtown.”

He was right. Boggs, through his family connections and their car, had been able to live most of his life by avoiding downtown, the insulting buses, the company of whites. Smith hadn't been so fortunate. For all Boggs's education, it was his partner who was more schooled in dealing with white people.

They passed hog farms and silos, endless fields of cotton. Boggs had read in the papers that the summer's unusually persistent rains were wreaking havoc on Georgia crops, and more than a few times the sun glinted off stagnant water that lined the rows between crops. That year the peaches were all enormous and plump with water, but tasteless as cotton.

Two white men in a red pickup behind him were unimpressed by Boggs's adherence to the speed limit. Boggs stuck his left hand out the window and waved the truck to pass. It did so, engine roaring, and he saw an old man in the passenger seat eye him with what looked more like pity than hatred,
These damned Knee-grows and their cars not working right.

“I have an aunt and uncle down in Clayton County,” Boggs said. “He's a carpenter, has a good plot of land and grows vegetables, watermelon. He likes it down there. We visit now and again. And I can always see my daddy exhaling just a bit when we get back home.”

They drove past a billboard proclaiming opposition to the United Nations.
Keep America safe from foreigners!
it warned, against an outline of other flags in flames. A hand-drawn sign on the other side of the street advertised an upcoming religious revival and pig picking.

“You've proven yourself good at keeping secrets, so I'll tell you another. I was born out here.”

“Whereabouts?”

“Small town, Dunsonville.”

“Why is it a secret?”

“The part that's a secret is my daddy was lynched.”

Boggs was not remotely confident in his driving ability, but he
turned his head to see the look on his partner's face. There was nothing to see but pursed lips and those featureless sunglasses.

Boggs turned his eyes back to the road and Smith told the story, his father the returning veteran, the parade, the end of one life and the derailing of his mother's, and then his own.

“Wasn't a secret so much as something nobody likes to talk about. Especially my uncle. But it's a secret now because I didn't mention it when I applied to the Department. I listed my uncle as my father, which is legally true, since he adopted me when I was a baby.”

Smith was right, there was no way the city would have hired as one of its first Negro officers a man who'd lost a parent to white hands. During their battery of psychological tests, Boggs himself had been asked countless variations of “How do you feel about white people?” or “Tell me more about your family's experiences with officers of the law.”

Boggs couldn't tell if he was sweating more now because of the story or if it was just the heat and the stress of the drive. “I'm sorry to hear that.”

“S'awright. I didn't even know it 'til I was sixteen. I was raised thinking my aunt and uncle were my parents. Don't remember a thing about my real folks. Then my mom—I mean, my aunt—passed away when I was thirteen, and things didn't go so well with me and my uncle then. Fought a lot, and he picked a bad time to drop that little truth on me.”

The road bent around a curve and down a hill and then it stretched out long and straight, the Piedmont shimmering before them and gradually giving way as they drove deeper into Georgia.

Smith added, “Though I suppose there ain't no delicate way of saying it, is there?”

They knew the address, but it didn't show up on the one map of Peacedale that they'd been able to find at the Auburn Avenue library, the only branch in Atlanta they were allowed to use. The Peacedale Police Department's files, which they'd been shown by McInnis, gave them only a rough idea of where the house was. Lucius had even visited his brother Reginald's insurance office to pore through their files—­municipal rec-ords of Negroes were so haphazard and incomplete, Negro insurance
companies were the true source of accurate information about the community. But the company hadn't done much business in Peacedale, so they weren't any help.

When they finally reached Peacedale—twenty minutes later than Boggs had expected—they drove down the small, one-stoplight Main Street, observing the surroundings while trying not to look too curious. A post office, a Methodist church, a soda fountain and pharmacy. A general store. A rebel flag hanging outside the greengrocer's. Several windows proudly advertising Coca-Cola and ice. A tiny town square with a stone obelisk memorializing the Confederate war dead (Boggs couldn't read the inscription, but he'd seen an identical one in his aunt and uncle's town). Hardly anyone was out, as it was nearing noon and the sun had a serious agenda that no sane person wanted to get involved with. Two older white men walking out of the post office appeared to gaze at these car-driving Negroes for longer than Boggs would have liked, but he couldn't be sure as he wasn't looking directly at them. Smith meanwhile had his right arm casually dangling out his window, like he was going out of his way to display as much colored skin as possible. Boggs considered asking him to pull his arm back in but could already anticipate Smith's reaction, so he didn't bother.

The post office might have been able to help find the address, but the clerks might tip off the local cops that two black Atlantans were in town, so Boggs drove past it without stopping.

Figuring that Negro farmers were less likely to be spies for the local police—a supposition they knew was risky indeed—they pulled into a long driveway when they saw two colored men rolling a wheelbarrow behind a small dilapidated house. More like a shack, the wood old and warped in places, a lone window in the front.

The farmers wore overalls without T-shirts and seemed on their way to the front porch, where a small overhang offered only a sliver of midday shade. They looked up as Boggs drove toward them. He left the engine running and Smith stayed in the car.

“Morning,” Boggs said, though it wasn't anymore. “I'm having trouble finding the Ellsworths' place.”

He saw now that this was a father and son, one of them a lanky
teenager and the other thin and grizzled, both of them sweaty and rank. The father asked, “You kin to them?”

He didn't want to lie, so he dodged the question. “I wanted to pay my respects.”

It was so quiet and bright out here. Boggs's running auto may have been the only one for miles.

“That ain't right what happened,” the man said.

“You know anything about it?”

“You his brother? Cousin or something?”

“I knew Lily.”

The man paused, then told his son, “Go on and fetch the water.” After the teenager had walked out of earshot, the man said, “It ain't no secret. Ever'body knows. Sheriff don't like him, want to say he killed his girl even though he was miles from where she was, so sheriff gets two no-counts to say he
said
he done it one night when he was drunk. And ever'body know Otis ain't never take to liquor.”

Boggs nodded along like he knew all this. “Why did the sheriff have it in for him? Could it have happened to anyone, or they take a special dislike to Otis?”

“I don't know what he was thinking buying that truck. It's a damn shame.”

High above, three vultures were looping in vaguely concentric circles through a sky bleached white by the heat.

“Didn't know things had gotten so bad in this town.”

The farmer looked offended by that, as if insulting the local white people was only acceptable if you lived here. “Most of us know how to get along.”

Boggs's city accent and car were marking him an outsider. He asked again where the Ellsworths lived, realizing as he asked it that there couldn't be too many Ellsworths left alive.