Reach the Shining River (26 page)
Read Reach the Shining River Online
Authors: Kevin Stevens
“What do you want?”
“What do you think?”
“Are you going to make me play guessing games?”
“I’ll do whatever I wish. And you’ll do whatever I tell you to.”
“And if I don’t?”
“The pictures go to the
Star
, the
Post
-
Dispatch
, and the
Chicago
Tribune
.”
“They wouldn’t be interested.”
“I think they would.”
“It could be anybody in those pictures.”
“It could be, but it isn’t. It’s you. You and my wife.”
“Keep your voice down.”
“That’s what she used to say to me whenever I accused her of what the pictures prove is true.”
“You mean whenever the two of you were at each other’s throats?”
“Talk like that and all deals are off. I go to jail and your career goes into the garbage can.”
“You still haven’t told me what you want.”
“All charges dropped, public recognition for what I discovered, and a police pension for Mickey McDermott.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Which part?”
“How can I get the Feds to drop charges for something I swore in an affidavit that you did?”
“That’s your problem.”
“It’s not a problem, it’s an impossibility.”
“What was it like?”
“What was what like?”
“Screwing my wife and then an hour later having a drink with me.”
“I don’t believe that specific scenario ever arose.”
“That’s just one scenario the papers will be detailing.”
“I am willing to work with you on this.”
“Is that right?”
“There are ways of getting you off the hook.”
“Give me an example.”
“You could testify against the men in question in exchange for immunity from prosecution.”
“The men in question?”
“Lloyd and his brother.”
“I don’t think that would work.”
“Why not?”
“Tell me where I’m wrong here: you want me to pretend that I conspired to kill Eddie Sloan, pretend that Lloyd told me what to do, and then perjure myself so that you can solidify a false case against him.”
“There’s nothing false about it. You know what he did.”
“With your help.”
“You know well that nothing I did can be construed as a conspiracy to do anything other than solve two murders. There is no evidence.”
“Unlike your affair with Fay.”
“That was unfortunate.”
“Fuck you. Fuck you and the train you came in on.”
“Are we going to find a solution here or call each other names?”
“
You
are going to find a solution. By Monday at noon.”
“You’ve told me what I have to do. What do I get in return?”
“The pictures don’t go to the newspapers.”
“And I get the negatives.”
“No.”
“How do I know you won’t use them again?”
“You don’t.”
“How can I trust you?”
“You can’t. But you have no other choice.”
“I can choose not to be blackmailed.”
“Let’s get back to the real world here. You can choose to let me suffer for something I didn’t do. And bring disgrace upon yourself.”
“I’ll need all day Monday. At least.”
“The photos are ready to go. If you’re not here by five o’clock I pull the trigger.”
“I will be here.”
“I bet you will.”
As he was leaving, Roddy looked over his shoulder. Emmett pointed his forefinger at him, cocking his thumb like the hammer of a gun.
Roddy Hudson met the press on Wednesday afternoon in the mezzanine hall of Jackson County Courthouse. Word had leaked out that something was up, something big. The room hummed with the chatter of newspaper reporters and off-duty cops, politicos and gossipmongers. A hedge of radio mics bordered the lectern. Old Glory and the state flag of Missouri drooped on either side of the dais, swaying in the breeze of ceiling fans. An Indian summer had fallen on the city, and the hall was stifling.
From the back of the room, Emmett watched Roddy approach the lectern, buttoning his suit jacket and smoothing his tie. He was flanked by federal agents and assistants from state. His greased hair shone in the pale light and his eyes were crimped with self-importance. The murmur in the hall grew louder. Laura Hudson stood off to the side, gazing up at her husband and clasping her hands. She wore long white gloves and a gardenia at her breast.
Roddy scanned the hall, looking, Emmett felt certain, for him. He avoided his eye. The babble subsided as Roddy cleared his throat.
“Good afternoon,” he said into the microphones. “It is unusual, I know, to summon the press at a time when the golf courses beckon.” Light laughter. “But the state prosecutor’s office has been working closely with federal authorities for some time on a case of huge importance to the city and the nation. And we have had a major breakthrough.”
Oh, he was puffed up, all right. The guy could lay it on thick. And as the rhetoric swelled, Emmett fanned himself with his hat and looked through high windows at a hazy sky. It was hard to listen. He had only come to make sure Roddy honored their bargain. And as his mind wandered, he thought of Fay, holed up with her mother in an unidentified location while the Feds combed the Perkins house for evidence.
“…and indictments have been handed down this week for a number of men – including Lloyd Perkins, Robert Perkins, and other prominent members of the business community, as well as key operatives in the Jackson Democratic Club – charging them with conspiracy to murder, perversion of the course of justice, and insurance fraud so massive it beggars belief.”
The newsmen scribbled in their notebooks. The flashbulbs popped. Yes, Fay in hiding while Laura paraded with her white gloves in the limelight, watching her husband with eyes like a vixen’s. How much did she know? There was one mystery Emmett would never unravel.
“…could not have been done without the outstanding contribution of Assistant Jackson County Prosecutor Emmett Whelan. With the help of former Kansas City police officer Michael McDermott, Mr. Whelan conducted his investigation in strictest secrecy – in fact, his discretion was so thorough that he drew down suspicion on himself until such time as his critical role was clearly realized. So vigorous, so single-minded was Mr. Whelan’s pursuit of…”
Emmett slipped out of the room.
As he jogged down the courthouse steps, he heard a whistle. A hand waved from a Monarch cab parked on the corner. It was Mickey. Emmett joined him in the back seat.
“Say hello to Horace,” Mickey said.
The cabbie turned his head and smiled. The front passenger seat had been removed so that Mickey could extend his cast in comfort. He handed Emmett a bottle wrapped in a paper bag.
“No thanks,” Emmett said.
Mickey took a swig himself and slapped him on the shoulder. “You did it, you son of a bitch.”
“
We
did it.”
“Hudson still spouting bullshit in there?”
“Sticking to the script.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Mickey handed the cabbie a dollar. “Horace, old buddy, run across the street and get me a pack of Luckies.”
When Horace was gone, Mickey said, “I got the word from downtown. I’m back on the force.”
“No more than you deserve.”
He slapped the cast. “I’m even getting benefits until I’m back on my feet.”
“I told you, didn’t I?”
“So you did.”
The courthouse doors flew open and reporters galloped out to file before the afternoon deadline.
“Just so you know,” Mickey said in a low voice, “the negatives? Safety deposit box in First National.” He handed Emmett a card. “Those pictures were a fucking gold mine.”
Emmett looked away.
“Sorry, Emmo. You know what I mean.”
“I don’t disagree. I’m happy for you.”
“And me for you.”
“What are you doing today?”
“I’m going to have Horace drive me all over KC while I get shitfaced.”
“Not a bad idea.”
“Want to join me?”
“Not today, pal.”
*
Emmett drove his Packard slowly out to Oakwood, watching fallen leaves swirl in the wake of passing cars. The autumn sun spackled the windshield. He passed Penn Valley, Westport, and the country club. He crossed Brush Creek, cemented solid by the city a few years ago in a sweetheart deal with Pendergast’s concrete company. Mickey’s dad had worked on that project. The trees of Loose Park were turning red and yellow and a kite hung lazily above the tennis courts. The whole city seemed to be basking in late good weather and fine health. He wished he could lie in the sun and fall asleep for a month.
Outside the house a FOR SALE sign was stuck in the grass. A moving truck sat in the driveway. Two men were negotiating Fay’s vanity through the front door.
Ophelia was in the kitchen, wrapping dishes in tissue paper and placing them in a cardboard box. “Hello, Mr. Whelan.”
“Hello, Ophelia. Where’s this all going?”
“You axin’ the wrong person. Ophelia jus’ doin’ what she tol’.”
He sighed. “I know. How’s Fay?”
“Her mother sick.”
“Mrs. Perkins?”
“Yes sir.”
“And Fay?”
She didn’t answer.
Emmett wandered the rooms of the house, packing up his clothes and personal items and bringing them out to the car. He swept out the garage and got his golf clubs from the basement. His neighbor, Mr. Hollis, who’d been watering his lawn, went into his house without a word. A strange hush had fallen across the neighborhood, and a vague scraping sound rose from somewhere behind the trees.
Ophelia stood at the front door, hands on her hips. “What Ophelia spose do now, Mr. Whelan?” she said loudly. Kinky wisps of hair had escaped from her bun and quivered in the air.
He guided her back into the house. “You’re still here, Ophelia. You’re still working.”
“I get this here packin’ done and I’m gone.”
“Give me your telephone number.”
“I ain’t got a phone.”
“Your address then.”
She blinked her big yellowed eyes and returned to the kitchen.
After the moving men were gone, he found her sitting on the stairs, crying. He made her a cup of coffee and helped her finish the packing. She locked up and climbed into the Packard. He gave her a ride to the streetcar, and as she got out of the car he handed her fifty dollars.
He looped back to the house and sat in his car until dusk, watching the empty rooms grade into darkness and thinking of the night when he had sat there with the gun in his lap, waiting for Fay. A bad smell hung in the air. The scraping sound had grown louder, and a pair of squirrels ran back and forth across the road.
At eight o’clock, he started the engine and put the car into gear. Mr. Hollis peered at him through parted curtains.
Wardell heard a loud honk. He looked out the bedroom window. Mr. Watkins’s car sat in the sunshine. The front door slammed and Charlotte ran down the porch steps. A woman got out of the car and hugged Charlotte. It was his mama.
“Alvin! Wardell! Look who’s here.”
Mr. Watkins got out the driver’s side. He wore a straw hat and a red tie. He came around the car and shook hands with Alvin.
“Wardell!” Charlotte shouted. “Where are you, son?”
He left the bedroom and went out onto the front porch, and his mama ran up the steps and grabbed him tight. She smelled like flowers.
*
“It took us three hours,” his mama said.
They drank iced tea in the sitting room. “Straight out Route 40.”
“That some chariot you got there, Cal,” Alvin said.
“Oldsmobile.”
“They lettin’ black folks buy Oldsmobiles now?”
“Man I buy from, he only care about the color of my
money
.”
They men laughed. Wardell sat in a wooden chair by the door. His cowhide case, packed since early morning, was already in the trunk of the car. His mama’s wildflowers were in a clay vase on the coffee table.
Mr. Watkins sat on the edge of his seat. His elbows were on his knees, and his new hat sat on the floor beside his shiny shoes.
The adults went quiet. Mr. Watkins wiped his face with a checkered handkerchief. Charlotte brushed bits of fluff from her dress. Through the screen came the cackle of chickens from the Cooper house.
“So it’s safe now,” Alvin said to Cal. “That’s what you reckon.”
“All over.”
“Wardell,” his mama said, “put your suitcase in the car.”
“I did.”
“Go check your room,” Charlotte said, “Make sure you haven’t left anything behind.”
The sheets were stripped from his bed, and the bare mattress looked thin and lonely. The grown-ups murmured in the next room. He looked beneath the bedframe and found a nickel in the dust.
When he returned, Mr. Watkins had gone outside. His mama stood by the door. She saw Wardell coming and stretched out her arms. “I can’t thank you enough,” she said to Alvin and Charlotte. “But we have to go home now.”
He and his mama got in the car. Alvin and Charlotte stood on the porch and waved good-bye.
*
They drove along the new highway with all the windows down. His mama dangled her bare arm from the window. Her hair danced in the wind. She looked over her shoulder at Wardell.
“You’re going to miss Alvin, I suppose,” she said.
“Him and me, we played catch every night.”
“Did you want to stay there?”
“No. I want to go home.”
Mr. Watkins eyes looked at him in the rear view mirror. “Wardell. The Monarchs are playing again next week. How would you like to go?”
“Is Satch coming back?”
“No. But Jess Willard will be there. And Cool Papa Bell.”
“Yes sir.”
A flock of starlings rose from the field beside them. A cloud covered the sun.
“He wanted to come out himself,” Mr. Watkins said to his mama. “Said he appreciated everything the boy did to help on the case. Said he wanted to see you.”
“Not a very good idea, Cal. Not today, not tomorrow.”
“That’s what I told him.”
Wardell leaned forward in the back seat and touched his mama’s shoulder. She smiled and patted his hand and said, “We’ll be home soon.”
“Yes, mama.”
She sang:
Go
down
,
Moses
Way
down
in
Egypt’s
land
Tell
old
Pharaoh
To
let
my
people
go
Wardell closed his eyes and listened to her voice. It was like honey. He knew that Jesus should be in his mind, but he wasn’t. Satch was. He was pitching: high kick, little jink when he reared back, arm whipping so fast it was a blur. Pop of the catcher’s mitt and a called strike.
He tipped his hat and made for the third-base line. Walked across the diamond like he was walking on water. Caught Wardell’s eye and winked as he ducked into the dugout.
His mama said, “You all right, sugar?”
“Yes, mama. I’m all right.”
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Reach the Shining River
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