The Dying Crapshooter's Blues (2 page)

Willie could hear the frantic edge in Robert's voice, and he caught the rank scent that came off his body, all the more sour with fear. “What are you doin' out here?” he said. “What's wrong?”

“It's . . .” Robert's hand jerked. “It's Little Jesse.”

“What about him?”

“He's back there on the corner. Been shot.”

Willie heard the way Robert was shuffling his feet, ready to bolt. “Shot?” he said. “By who?”

“I don't know!” Robert said, too loud for the empty street.

“Is he dead?”

“Don't think so. Maybe.”

“Are you going for help?”

“I'm just . . . I'm just
goin'.
He . . . he's . . .” Robert threw up his thin arms and, jerking around, hurried off.

Willie listened to the footsteps patter into silence before turning to cross the intersection. He tapped the curb with his toe, then stepped onto the sidewalk and inclined his head a few degrees. “Jesse?”

A second went by and Jesse opened his eyes. “Hey, Willie,” he said, and coughed weakly.

Willie said, “What happened, boy?”

“Shot.”

“How bad is it?”

“It ain't good.” Little Jesse's voice was as dry as a leaf.

Willie paused, taking in the sounds and odors that inhabited the air around him. Jesse was drawing breath in pained little grunts. The smell of blood rose up from the wound, sickly sweet and heavy, overpowering a cheap cologne. Perking an ear beyond the corner, he heard the traffic up on Piedmont Avenue and the faintest rumble of thunder far to the west side of the city. Trains rolled on clacking wheels into Union Depot, three blocks farther south.

There were footsteps approaching, then a voice called, “Look at that!” The steps hurried away; someone else who didn't want any part of this mess.

Unwilling to leave Jesse there like that, Willie stayed put. Little Jesse gasped and grunted in pain, and Willie was trying to decide what to do when he heard the staccato click of heels on concrete. A woman's indistinct voice was followed by a sharper, deeper one.

“Willie?” the second voice called. “Is that you? What the hell's going on over there?”

The two Negroes, one standing, one in a slouch, turned toward the white man—his skin more a copperish tone, to be exact—who was standing a half block up Edgewood on the other side with a young lady on his arm, looking their way. The new arrival was just above short and almost slender, wearing a heavy overcoat over a decent suit that was a little out of style, with a driving cap pulled low over his forehead. The woman was taller than he by an inch or so and as lank as an
S,
her pale face stark against her black hair and dark painted lips and eyes. Bundled in a coat with a fur collar, she hinted at elegant, a contrast to her escort.

“Joe Rose,” Jesse said.

He and Willie watched the man break away from the girl to cross the street, moving with the gait of one used to prowling.
The girl followed at a grudging pace, stepping onto the sidewalk twenty paces away to stare at the bloody tableau that was arranged in the blue light of the corner streetlamp.

Joe greeted Willie shortly and stared down at Little Jesse. “Jesus and Mary,” he said. “What the hell?”

“Joe,” Little Jesse said softly. “Where'd you come from?”

“Lime Row,” Joe said. “Someone ran by, said a man got shot and that it might be you.” He knelt down and pulled Jesse's coat open to study the black hole and the crimson patch that surrounded it.

“How's it look?” Jesse said, his breath coming short.

“I've seen worse,” Joe said. It was true; the blood was seeping rather than gushing out, and the wound was low enough down that it appeared to have missed major organs. Willie laid a clean white handkerchief on Joe's shoulder and Joe took it and pressed it down.

Jesse flinched and said, “Shit.”

Joe knelt down the rest of the way, settling on his knees on the hard concrete. “Who did it, Jesse?”

Little Jesse didn't say anything for a few seconds. Then: “
Po
lice.”

Joe cocked his head. “What police?”

“It was the . . .” Jesse took a breath, let out another soft wheeze. “Sonofabitch name of Logue.”

“Why?” Joe asked. “You start something with him?”

“I didn't start
nothin',
” Jesse said. “I was only—” He closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, sighed. “He . . . he walked up and . . . put one in me. Just like that.”

It didn't make sense, and Joe stared at Jesse for a few seconds, then looked up at Willie and asked, “You find him like this?”

“It was Robert Clark found him,” Willie said.

“Yeah? Where's he at?”

“Gone.”

“Gone where?”

Willie shrugged. “Gone. Run off.”

“Guess he thought it was over,” Jesse wheezed.

“Joe?” The girl had edged closer and was staring at the colored man who was sprawled all bloody on the sidewalk. “What happened? Is he going to be all right?” This was not the way she expected her night to end. Still, even as her painted mouth curled in distaste, her eyes glittered with fascination at the sordid sight.

Joe ignored her for the moment and surveyed the crossing streets. Two men had appeared at the corner of Piedmont, peering their way. A Negro boy who looked too young to be out at that hour was shuffling across Courtland, staring with wide eyes. A Model T sedan passed by, slowing, and the face of the driver turned. Joe knew the streets well enough to understand that if they didn't do something, the word would travel that there was a man bleeding to death on the corner of Courtland and Edgewood, and there'd be a crowd of vultures in no time.

“We need to get him off the street,” Joe said. He stood, brushing the grit from his trousers, and beckoned the kid. “You want to earn a nickel, son?” The boy bobbed his head. “Run down to the Diamond Pool Room on Auburn and tell whoever's there that Joe Rose needs them up here. Tell them Little Jesse's been shot. You got it?” The boy nodded again and started off at a trot. “Tell them we need a hack to carry him home,” Joe yelled after him.

Willie grinned in spite of the grim business at hand. Joe Rose always seemed to fill the air around him, and without being one of those rough, bullying types, either. Though it was true that sometimes the man's mouth got him into trouble. The last time was down home in Statesboro, and Willie had to talk the both of them out of a rough corner.

The blind man spent a moment musing on Joe showing up like that. But then he usually did appear out of nowhere. Whenever the first snow fell on one of his Yankee haunts, he would
leave for a warmer clime. He never made an entrance that anyone noticed. Like tonight, when he stepped from the darkness and into the aftermath of a shooting.

And of course there was a girl at his side. That was the other thing about Joe: He collected all sorts of women. Willie had never figured it out. Maybe he was handsome, though Willie didn't think it was his looks. He was just one of those characters who trailed something that some females couldn't resist. So Willie knew that pretty much whenever he heard Joe's voice, he'd smell French perfume, too.

Though he could be loud, he was staying quiet now, watching over poor Little Jesse as the night crept toward dawn.

“Joe?” The woman pulled her coat tighter around her thin frame. “I'm cold.”

“Well, go on up to the hotel,” Joe said absently.

“By myself?”

“Go ahead,” Joe said. “It ain't but two blocks. Tell them you're with me. They'll let you in.”

She gave him a peeved look, then stared at Jesse for another moment before turning around and swaying up the avenue in the direction of Ivy Street.

From his slouch, Little Jesse watched her tail twitch away and sighed. “I guess I wouldn't mind if that was the last thing I ever saw.”

Joe and Willie snickered and Jesse stirred some more, groaning.

“Willie,” he said, sounding all mournful. “Promise you'll sing me a song over my grave.”

Joe treated him to a wry look. “You can hold off on that,” he said. “I believe you're too goddamn wicked for one bullet to finish you.”

Little Jesse coughed out a pained laugh. From the west came a slight rumble of winter thunder. “Listen,” he said. “Is that—”

“It's about to start raining, is all,” Willie said. “You stay calm.”

“Help's coming,” Joe told him.

Little Jesse moaned once more, hollowly, and Joe knelt down again and, removing the bloody handkerchief, pulled a clean one from his own pocket and pressed it on the wound. Jesse flinched from the pain, then closed his eyes and let out a long breath.

Whatever had happened on that cold, dark corner, Joe could see that the damage wasn't yet fatal. It appeared Little Jesse Williams would survive at least another day. Otherwise, he would have sent the kid for the hoodoo wagon instead of a hack.

 

Mayor John Sampson was on his way home from the Payne mansion, bundled along with his wife in the back of the Essex phaeton that was one of the fringe benefits of his office. The mayor and his spouse were spared the whip of the cold air by heavy overcoats, a horse blanket, and the precise engineering of the automobile. The phaeton was tight as a drum, and the heat of the twelve-cylinder engine was efficiently diverted into the passenger compartment.

The mayor felt the glasses of champagne he'd drunk swimming through his brain as he watched the city—his city—pass by the windows.

The Christmas charity marked the end of a sterling year. A dark-horse candidate, he had been elected on a platform of ridding Atlanta of police corruption so rampant that he often claimed that half of the city's criminals wore badges. He had pledged to root out the blight, and so he had, shocking the citizens by actually keeping his promise and demoting his chief of police and chief of detectives, both of whom were dirty, incompetent, or both. In that one move, he made an example of them and a statement that things were going to change.

This bold stroke was lauded from every corner of the city,
and there were whispers of a run for governor almost before he had rightly moved into his City Hall office. The crowd of wealthy patrons at the Payne mansion had greeted him like an untrumpeted Caesar back from the wars. He smiled as he recalled several of the lovelier ladies fawning over him, and the sight of their heavy bosoms jutting under the lights of the chandeliers as gay music swirled in the background.

He was jerked out of his reverie when a police sedan roared up alongside the phaeton with lights flashing. The passenger-side window was open and a uniformed officer was waving urgently.

“Pull over,” the mayor ordered, and his driver steered the Essex to the Irwin Street curb. The cop hopped out of the sedan and trotted to the rear window to whisper a message.

The mayor, a pious and God-fearing Baptist, uttered a rare curse before snapping at his driver to turn around and head right back to the mansion, where a cache of jewelry had been stolen even as at least a hundred of the city's most prominent business and political leaders were hailing the new mayor's crime-fighting triumphs.

 

It had taken less than a quarter hour for the boy to arrive back on the corner with a gang of sharps and rounders from the Diamond in tow. All rough types, they knew to bring clean towels from behind the counter to help stanch Jesse's wound. They stood in a circle, shoulders hunched against the chill, casting furtive glances and muttering oaths.

All of them knew Little Jesse Williams as a gambler, sometime thief, and all-around sport who had been working Atlanta's streets and alleys since he was a kid. Over the years, he had cheated them out of their money and jacked their women, but the man was in such bad shape, maybe even at death's door, that for the moment all grudges were laid aside.

Still, they were to a man deeply superstitious, so there was a collective sigh of relief at the sound of hack wheels on the
macadam and the ring of horseshoes on the streetcar rails. An ancient Negro named Henry had been roused from his bed in Thompson's Alley and had hitched his equally aged nag to his hack. The wagon, used daily to haul junk, creaked out of the Edgewood Avenue darkness and drew to a halt at the corner. Henry looked down at the man on the ground with his blank old eyes as the horse huffed little clouds into the cold air.

With Joe directing, the boys gathered round to lift a groaning Jesse into the bed of the hack. Joe and Willie climbed in with him, and Henry snapped the reins. The Negro boy and two of the rounders followed along behind. The rest of them watched the wagon roll off as the first drops of dawn rain began falling on the corner, washing away all traces of Little Jesse Williams's blood.

 

When Mayor Sampson stepped into the parlor to speak to the Paynes, his face was pink with chagrin. When he came out, it was crimson with anger. At times like this, he wished he was a tall man who could simply tower over a fiasco. He was especially dismayed to find that at least a dozen of the attendees, including some of the city's most energetic gossips, had not yet left, and that there would be no way to keep the word from spreading. He forced his legs steady as he crossed to the telephone set in the foyer. Snatching up the hand piece, he asked to be connected to the home of the chief of police.

Across town, Chief Clifton Troutman sat on the edge of his bed, listening to Mayor Sampson rail at him like he was some schoolboy. After the mayor had hung up the telephone, he sat numbly, trying to figure a way to fix the awful mess that had just been dropped in his lap.

 

A chilly drizzle was falling by the time they arrived at Schoen Alley, and Joe hopped down to supervise the clumsy business of getting Jesse up the wooden stairs, through the tiny kitchen, and
into the bedroom of the apartment that was kept surprisingly tidy by the string of floozies who had reason to be in and out. Willie followed along, his face grim.