Reach the Shining River (19 page)

“I don’t see him in Billy Christie’s.”

“He’d be ashamed to show his face there. He goes to the shebeens near the tannery. Where he gets the money for it I’ve no idea. Oh, Emmett, I just couldn’t put up with it. So I asked Nell.”

“Mickey never said a word.”

“I told him not to. And it’s only been a few days.”

She poured the tea. The spout of the teapot rattled against the lip of the cup. Below the table, so she couldn’t see, he took a hundred dollars from his wallet. Through the open window came the shouts of workers headed home for lunch and the grinding gears of passing trucks.

“The stories about the old country,” he said. “That fairy tale about the will.”

“The farm was never going to be his. But he couldn’t let go.”

“Talking about county Mayo like it’s across the state line. Like the whole business was yesterday. How did Harry put it? ‘Second-son syndrome’.”

“You never suffered from that.”

“No?”

“No, Emmett, you didn’t. Other things, maybe, but not that.”

The small kitchen, with its religious pictures and smells of gas and bacon grease, was the right scale for him today. Maybe for always. Alone in the house in Oakwood last night, waiting for the dawn to scatter his despair, he had felt like a lost child.

“Ma. About Fay.”

She raised a hand. “I don’t want to talk about that.”

“I’m not asking you to talk. I just want to say that it’s not as simple as it might seem. Like you and Da.”

“Ah, there’s nothing simple in this life, Emmett. You don’t have to tell that to an old woman.”

There was a loud rap at the door.

“Should I?”

“Nell will get it.”

He reached across and pressed the money into her hand. He gripped her fist so she couldn’t see how much it was.

“Now, Emmett.”

Before he could answer, Mrs. Mac appeared in the doorway. A slip of paper drooped from her hand.

“It’s Mickey,” she said.

“What?”

Her face was like chalk.

“He’s in St. Luke’s.”

32.

Mickey was in the surgical recovery ward. The ward sister brought Emmett to his bed.

He wouldn’t have recognized him. His face was puffy and discolored, his left eye swollen shut. His hair was matted with blood. He had a fractured collarbone, two broken teeth, and ten stitches in his neck. His leg was in traction.

“Jesus, Mick. What happened?”

“What the fuck do you think?”

The soft-voiced sister suddenly turned tough. “
Language
.”

“Sorry, sister.”

He fell into a coughing fit. She lifted his head, gave him a sip of water, wiped his mouth with a towel. He groaned. Above his head was a crucifix.

“You’re not to excite him,” she said to Emmett. “He needs his rest.”

“How can I rest, rigged up like this?”

Mickey’s words were as mangled as his body. Emmett examined the system of pulleys and weights that suspended his leg. “You really need this get-up? It’s like you’re being tortured.”

“If he doesn’t have the traction,” sister said, “he’ll end up deformed.”

“I’m already deformed.”

“He’s a lucky man. The police said he could have been killed.”

“The
police
?”

“Hey, sister, how about doing your rounds.”

Beyond her wimple Emmett could see the fair curve of her cheek, long lashes, a healthy color. Like Fay used to look. “Ten minutes,” she said to Emmett. “Then he’s having his lunch.”

“I’m not hungry. But I could use a drink.”

“I don’t think that would be a very good idea, Michael, do you?”

She gathered her skirts and left the ward.

“Why do the nicest broads become nuns?” Mickey said.

“The cops were around?”

“Don’t worry. I didn’t tell them jackshit. Did you bring it?”

“Bring what?”

“A pint. I told them to make sure Mr. Beam came with you.”

“The message didn’t get through.”

“Goddamn nurses. I’m parched.”

“Mickey, talk to me. What happened?”

He coughed again, and Emmett gave him water. The damage to his face was severe. Clouds of purple and yellow spreading beneath his skin. Lips split and clotted. The bad eye like a rotten plum.

“After I left you last night I went to Union Station and took care of some business. On the way home I stopped in at Billy Christie’s. Had a couple of pops with the boys.”

“What boys?”

“No one you’d know and no one that matters. Anyhow, I left at closing. Then kind of a blank patch. Did I call you?”

“Three-thirty.”

“That late? Jesus. On my way home, anyhow, and two guys jumped me from behind. On Grand. They had brass knucks and a crowbar. Crowbar did the damage.”

“Did you get a look at them? Did they say anything?”

“Not a word. And it was dark. But they knew what they were doing.”

“Could’ve been pluguglies looking to roll you.”

“They rifled my wallet but left the money. These guys were looking for something else. Or sending a message.”

With his good arm Mickey tried to shift his position. Another groan.

“And you think it was the cops,” Emmett said.

“Who else?”

“Like you always ask me: why? They beat you up at night and then come here in the morning asking questions. I don’t get it.”

“It’s a big department. Right hand doesn’t necessarily know what the left’s doing. But if they weren’t cops, they were on the city payroll, Emmo, believe me. Probably looking for the shell.”

“How would they know about it?”

“How do they know anything?”

Emmett had to ask. “Did they find it?”

Mickey raised his good eyebrow. “That all you’re worried about?”

“Hey, I’m sick about this.”

“Another reason to nail the bastard, right?”

“Mickey, that shell could make our case. Where is it?”

“That’s why I went to Union Station. I packed up everything from the scene and left it in a locker there. Idea was to go to the lab this morning.” He nodded at a drawer beside the bed. “The key is in my pants pocket. Take it before the sweet sister gets back. Her bite is worse than her bark.”

The pants were limp and blood-stained. He got the key.

“I’ll get everything to the lab this afternoon,” Emmett said. “Who do I see?”

“Go to the basement of the Sharp Building. Ask for Leo Gilligan. Don’t give the stuff to anybody else. Tell him what’s what – I didn’t have time to label the items.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“I’ll get you some protection.”

“Emmo, I’m safe. They got me where they want me. Now it’s up to you. Did you follow up with the Brotherhood?”

“Not yet.”

“Let’s say the shell leads to who we think it does. You still need a motive.”

“Not necessarily.”

“Goddamn it, Emmo, you’re a prosecutor. And aren’t you curious?”

“If he did this to you, I just want to get him.”

“Then go to the Brotherhood. Figure out what those guys were doing for Richie T.”

“Your Ma’s not too happy. I wouldn’t let her come.”

“Tell her I’m fine. And get me that goddamn pint. Actually, make it a quart.” Mickey winced and squirmed. “Call the nurse, Emmo.”

“What’s the matter?”

“The dope they got me on gives me the shits.
Call
the
nurse
.”

The sister arrived just in time.

Emmett slipped out of the ward and found a public phone. No answer at the house. Of course, she could’ve been standing in the hallway, listening to the ring, guessing it was him. It was ten days since she’d said a word to him. Spoke to Ophelia in a bright voice, gabbed on the phone to her friends to beat the band, but acted as if he wasn’t there.

After sitting in his chair for hours in the dark that morning, waiting for her, he had returned to the bedroom and searched her closet, secretary, dresser. At first he was careful to put everything back in its place. Then he found a locket he had given her, inscribed with the date of their engagement and the words
To
Fay
,
with
all
my
Love
. He fell into a rage, throwing her scarves and negligee about the room and spilling the contents of her purses and hatboxes onto the bed. More clothes than she could wear in a year. Perfumes and ointments, silks and lace, earrings and bracelets. Sitting on the floor, surrounded by her underwear, he buried his face in her stockings, then tore them into pieces, scattered them throughout the house.

If she had come home, that was what she faced. Did he really want to talk to her?

Walking back to the ward, he passed the sister carrying the bedpan down the corridor. Outside, the wail of an approaching siren. Shouts and the shuffle of feet.

Mickey lay panting in the bed. His tongue lolled. The ward stunk to the rafters.

“You OK, pal?” Emmett said.

“Couldn’t be better.”

“I gotta go.”

“Hang on a minute. There’s one other thing.”

“What’s that?”

Gingerly, Mickey touched his swollen lip. “There’s a few other things in Union Station. Including a roll of film.”

“What I think it is?”

“You’ll have to get it developed. But it will tell you what you want to know.”

“What do I want to know?”

“The truth.”

Emmett grabbed him roughly, and Mickey howled in pain.

“Goddamn it, Emmo!”

“Who is it?” he hissed.

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t lie to me, Mick.”

“I didn’t take the pictures.”

“Who did?”

“Nobody who knows you and nobody who cares. A guy from out of town.”

Emmett let go of him so that he fell back. The pulleys rattled and Mickey groaned more loudly than ever.

The sister returned. “Time’s up, Mr. Whelan. You’ll have to go.”

“Get ’em developed,” Mickey whispered. 

33.

Colored had a special waiting room. Same as at the movie house and the ballpark. It was at the back of the station, and the door was next to the ramp where the buses sat with their engines running. Clouds of exhaust puffed into the room. There were no windows. People coughed and waved away the flies.

Wardell and his mama had waited in line for an hour. The man behind the window bars wore a hat with a green brim and no crown. His bald head stuck through. He told them that they couldn’t buy tickets to Columbia until all the white folks had theirs. He gave them a piece of paper and said to go to the waiting room until they knew if there were enough seats.

His mama led him to the corner. Wardell carried a satchel of schoolbooks and a cowhide suitcase. At the bottom of the case, beneath his knickers and vests, was his baseball mitt. His mama wore her black wool dress and a hat with a feather in it. She spread a square of newspaper on the bench and gave him a biscuit with honey, slices of apple, and a bottle of warm milk. Opposite sat an old woman with a lump on her neck the size of an orange. He stared at the lump until his mama poked him in the ribs. He ate the apple slices and rubbed his forehead on her velvet collar. He tried not to think about where they were going and how she would leave him in the morning.

They got the last two seats, at the very back. They were the only black folks on the bus. The leather on the seats was torn and springs poked through the rips. There was a bad smell. The man sitting in front of them grumbled and spat on the floor and called them dirty niggers. Wardell’s mama held her head up and stared straight ahead.

The bus left Troost Street and passed through downtown and into the nice neighborhoods. The houses had huge lawns and tall trees and statues of black jockeys beside the mailboxes. Then the countryside. Cows and windmills and clumps of trees at the edge of wheatfields. Wardell thought he saw the farm where the rough men had brought him and his stomach felt sick. But it turned out to be a different farm.

After an hour or so the bus stopped at the train station in Odessa and sat there for a long time. Thunder rumbled overhead. Two women got on the bus, and the driver shouted something that Wardell didn’t understand. Then he came down the back.

“You listenin’?” he said to Wardell’s mama. “You and the boy have to get off here.”

“We’re going to Columbia.”

“Did I ask where you were going, gal?”

“No sir.”

“Go on and get your butts off this bus before there’s trouble.”

They stood in the rain outside the tiny stationhouse. The next bus to Columbia was in four hours. Wardell lifted his suitcase and followed his mama up the street. There was a fancy building that his mama said was the opera house and a big piece of stone with names of dead men carved on it. Wardell asked her who the dead men were, but his mama didn’t answer.

At the post office, a man in a blue uniform stopped them. “We’re closing shortly.”

“I need to send a telegram,” Arlene said.

“I said we’re closing.”

A white couple stepped around them and went in.

“Is there a Western Union in town?”

“Oak Grove,” he said, and closed the door in her face.

“Where’s Oak Grove, mama?”

She didn’t say, and he followed her back to the stationhouse. He had to pee, but there were no colored toilets. They were not allowed to use the waiting room, so they crossed the road and stood beneath an elm tree.

Wardell’s clothes were wet and his side hurt. “I have to go.”

“Shh.”

“Mama!”

But then she began to shift from one foot to the other. After a while she told him to hide the suitcase behind the tree. She brought him to a field of high grass beyond the railroad tracks. After he went she told him to stay where she could see him but to look away. He heard the rustle of her clothes and a long hiss. He didn’t look at her directly, but he could tell she was squatting, and for no reason he could work out he felt ashamed.

When they got back to the elm tree, a pick-up truck was parked outside the stationhouse. Two men sat in the cab. It was getting darker and Wardell saw their cigarette coals glowing beneath the brims of their hats. His mama told him not to get the suitcase and not to look at the men. The streetlamps came on and the rain stopped.

After a while a man in a suit and tie and shiny black shoes stopped as he was walking by. “What are you doing here?”

“We’re just waiting, sir.”

“Waiting for what?”

“The bus to Columbia.”

He checked his watch. “The next bus doesn’t leave until nine o’clock.”

“Yes sir.”

He put his hands on his hips and examined them. Then he looked at the stationhouse and the men in the truck. He stared at them until the engine started and the truck moved slowly up the main street.

His face was wrinkled and serious. “Do you have any bags?” he said.

“Behind the tree,” Arlene said.

He nodded at Wardell. “Go get them. Then come with me.”

He spoke to the man in the station and brought them to the waiting room. After a few minutes a woman brought them bowls of soup and dark bread. The nice man gave Wardell’s mama two dollars and told her that if there was any trouble she should tell the stationmaster to call him. Mr. Matthews, he said. To tell him to call Mr. Matthews.

Then he left and his mama started crying. She didn’t stop until the bus arrived two hours later.

*

They got to Columbia after midnight. The streetcars had stopped running, and Charlotte didn’t have a telephone, so they walked to her house.

Charlotte opened the door before they knocked. “Arlene, honey, I was worried to death.”

The women hugged. Charlotte’s husband, Alvin, carried Wardell’s suitcase to his room at the back of the house. There were dark stains on his overalls.

“You bring your mitt?”

“Mama told me not to.”

“But did you bring it?”

“Yes sir.”

Alvin laughed and poked him in the chest with a finger.

“Uncle Alvin, how long I got to stay here?”

“Long as you want. We gonna have a real good time.”

His mama was in the kitchen with Charlotte. She had started up crying again.

“Now that’s enough of that,” Alvin said. “Charlotte, what about that chicken you got goin’?”

He sat Wardell at the table and poured him a glass of milk. Charlotte fussed at the counter and his mama left the room.

“What we need here,” Alvin said, “is a little music. You think so, Wardell?”

He turned on the big Philco in the corner and fiddled with the dials. A scratchy voice came from the speaker. “
And
now
,
ladies
and
gentlemen
and
listeners
,
live
,
from
the
famous
Savoy
Ballroom
in
New
York
City
,
the
Count
Basie
Orchestra
.”

The music started, a big band sound like they played on Eighteenth Street. Alvin grinned and tapped his foot. The singer started. A woman singer, like his mama, but with a funny, gravelly voice. Charlotte hummed along with the tune.

When Wardell looked up next, his mama was standing in the kitchen doorway. Softly, she sang along with the lyrics.

The
way
you
hold
your
knife

The
way
we
danced
till
three

The
way
you
changed
my
life

Oh
no
,
they
can’t
take
that
away
from
me
!

“That a new singer, Arlene?” Alvin asked. “Ain’t heard that voice before.”

His mama wiped the tears from her eyes. “That’s Lady Day,” she said. “That’s Billie Holiday.”