Room To Swing

I crossed Fulton's name off. The trouble was, there wasn't much “else.”

“Nothing about it here, but I suppose Thomas was on the lam from the draft too. Was he drafted?”

“I don't know. What next?”

She sounded like we were playing a quiz game. I put the TV stuff back in my pocket. “That's about it. Are you certain nobody—I mean, anybody who really knew Thomas— hasn't left town in the last month or two?”

“People don't leave Bingston or come to it. Dad would know if anybody has left recently or— Oh, I forgot, the McCall sisters, a couple of old-maid school teachers. They sold their house two months ago and moved to California, but you wouldn't be interested in them. Although when Porky was about ten he was supposed to have pinched Rose McCall's behind.”

“He was an all-round cut-up. Look, can you remember anybody Thomas ran around with, or anybody who hated him?”

“Hated? Plenty of people disliked him. I did, he was such a mean cuss, but I don't think most people paid enough attention to him to hate Porky. But this fellow we'll see tomorrow, he can tell you more about that. What else?”

“That's about it, until we see this fellow. Don't look so disappointed—I wish I had more to go on, too.”

“Me and my TV mind. I thought we'd be out taking fingerprints and... and stuff like that.” She started the Jag, drove very slowly. We made a turn in the rough road and there was a house and a barn silhouetted against the moonlight. She turned the ignition off. “Touie, I don't want to tell you your business, but I think you should get rid of your car. Not many people have seen it, but it's sure to be a sensation in Bingston. This is my Uncle Jim's farm. Suppose I was showing you the countryside and your car broke down?”

“Fine. But how do we get back to Bingston?”

“I'll borrow one of his rattletrap cars. Your Jaguar will be safe here. And don't forget, you're Mr. Jones.”

“I won't, Miss Detective.” I took a small wrench out of the dashboard compartment, reached under and behind the dash and disconnected the ignition wires, careful not to lose any screws and nuts.

We walked up to the dark house, which proved to be a two-story, ramshackle affair. A couple of dogs came at us, barking. Frances said, “Stand still, they won't hurt you.” She began talking to the dogs, baby talk, and they wagged their long tails furiously and gave me a good sniffing over.

A light appeared in an upper window, a nickering lantern light. The window opened and a shotgun barrel appeared, followed by the large head of an elderly brown man who asked, “Who's out there?”

“It's me, Uncle Jim, Frances.”

“Oh, Lord, something wrong at home? I'll be down in a jiffy.”

He shut the window and I heard him shout, “Frances is outside!” and the house filled with sounds and flickering lights.

“Hasn't the electrical age reached here?” I asked, like it was my business.

“That's the big battle in their house. Old Jim is tight, has money's Mammy. He believes what was good enough for him is good enough for the family and the rest of that old—”

The light went on in the room before us, the door opened, and a whole gang of people started out at us. A short stocky old man wearing thick glasses, his bald dark head fringed with gray curls. He was wearing work pants over an old-fashioned suit of heavy underwear. Next to him stood a plump woman with a fat brown face, holding a worn robe about her. Behind them were a husky young fellow in a T-shirt and work dungarees and a bronze-coloured, pretty young girl in shiny blue pajamas and blue mules—the rest of them were barefooted. They stared at me in surprise as the woman asked Frances, “Child, what's wrong? Who's dead?” She had a gold tooth in the front of her mouth.

“Nothing's wrong, Aunt Rose,” Frances said as we walked in. “This is Mr. Jones, a musician on his way to Chicago. He's stopping at our house. I was showing him the countryside when his car broke down.”

“Riding at this hour of the night?” the old lady asked.

“Shoot, ain't no law against taking a ride at any hour,” Uncle Jim said, his voice deep, his handshake rough. He introduced me around. The young fellow was his son Harry and the girl in blue Harry's wife.

The old lady said she'd make coffee as Frances asked if they would keep my car in the barn until I got new parts, and could she borrow one of their old struggle-buggy s?

Uncle Jim said it was nothing. Harry put on shoes and a worn army jacket with an anti-aircraft shoulder patch, went out with me to push the Jag into the barn. Soon as he saw the car he sighed, “Hot damn!” Then yelled, “Ruth, Ma, Pa, come and look at this here job!”

I smiled in the darkness. It was like a hillbilly cartoon come to life. The entire family trooped out—in shoes—and looked the Jaguar over in the moonlight. I had to make my usual little speech about what a Jag cost new, how many miles per gallon, what speed she could do. Then Harry and I grunted and sweated as we pushed the car up the rough driveway. Frances walked alongside and steered. It was hard work, the barn up on a small hill. Finally Uncle Jim opened the door and we rolled the Jag in. There was a fairly new Dodge in the barn and in the yard behind the barn I saw five or six old cars standing around like wrecks. We were both sweating and puffing and I wiped my face, got my pipe going. Harry was still gazing at the Jag and I said, “Thanks for helping me. Where did you serve in the army?”

“I had it good, never left the States. Stayed mostly in California. Met Ruth there, and brought her back to the farm. She didn't take to it much—at first.”

He had it “good.” I wondered what he'd think of the farm, of Bingston, if he'd been lucky enough to have been sent to Europe. As he started toward the house I asked, “Did you know this Robert Thomas I was reading about?”

“I used to get along with old Porky pretty good. What's he done now?”

“The papers say he was murdered up in New York City.”

“Ole Porky got hisself killed? We haven't been to town to see a paper in days and I didn't hear nothing about it on the radio. Usually not much worth reading in the papers, but this—”

“I thought you knew. You said you used to get along with him.”

“That was when we were kids. I'd say I ain't seen Porky in around... ten years. After I beat him up once, he wasn't no trouble.”

“The papers said he was a rough character,” I said, stopping to relight my pipe, pack it down—stalling before we reached the house.

“He wasn't real bad. A white kid like old Porky, he ain't got nothing, so it make him feel good bossing coloured kids. I'd see him in the woods a lot; he was always roaming around, even stealing eggs. To eat, you see. First time I seen him stealing some of our peaches, he called me a name. I was always big for my age, so I slapped him around and he begin to bawl. I never forget him bawling. I told him I don't mind him snitching fruit but he had no call cussing me out. After that, he'd come around now and then and I'd sneak him out some hot food. He always had cigs on him. We'd sit and smoke in the fields and shoot the gas. Of course when he got older I didn't see much of him. You say he's dead? Jeez!”

“You think anybody in Bingston had it in for him?”

“Naw. Who'd remember him or—”

We were caught in a dim flood of light as the back door opened. Aunt Rose called out, “Harry, what you standing out there in the night cold for? I got food on.”

We walked into a huge kitchen with an old pump beside the sink, an old-fashioned round kitchen table, and the largest coal stove I've ever seen. Coffee was brewing, eggs frying, and Ruth was cutting a pan of hot cornbread. I had the feeling this was the first time the family had been up past midnight in years, were making it an event.

Harry said, “Mr. Jones here says he read that old Porky Thomas was killed. It's in the papers.”

Frances gave me a bored look and Uncle Jim said, “Guess people are satisfied now. They always said he'd come to a no-good end. Hit by a car?”

“He was murdered, Pa. Up in Chicago.”

“New York, the paper said,” I said.

Ruth, busy setting the table said, “If we had electricity here, we could have a TV set and everything. Know what's going on.”

“Now Jim said he'd think about it after the summer. Let's just sit and have no arguments,” the old lady added, ending the conversation.

We finished off a tremendous amount of food as they questioned me about New Orleans and Chicago, would I have to send to England for parts for the Jag, and the old man fingered my suit and wanted to ask how much it cost but didn't. All this small small-talk, the kerosene light flickering overhead, gave everything an air of unreality. Especially the way the old woman was looking me over— with frank disapproval—as if I was Frances' boy friend.

We left about an hour later, Frances driving an old Chevvy with busted upholstery and smelling of chickens. I said I'd be out in a day or two to call for the Jag and everybody shook hands as if we'd finished one hell of a big night.

Frances said, “I'll be at the house for you tomorrow, at lunchtime. I'll take you to see Tim; he can tell you all you want to know about May Russell and Porky. He's May's brother.”

“Then he's white.”

“Of course.”

“I thought we were going to see a friend of yours?”

“Tim is my friend.”

I shook my head. “The way you were talking on the way out here, I thought you avoided ofays like the plague.”

“Nonsense, there's good whites. Trouble is the bad ones are so bad.”

“I'll have to explain why I'm asking questions. Suppose I'm a reporter, doing a story on the Thomas killing? No, too soon for that. Think I'll stick to this musician kick— I'm doing the musical scoring and sort of getting the feel of things for the TV show, so I'd be—”

“Stop worrying, you don't have to tell him anything. I told you, Tim's all right.”

Her voice sounded sharp. I didn't know what “all right” meant and didn't ask. When we reached the Davis house we saw a light downstairs. Frances said in a weary voice, “Wouldn't you know, Mom is waiting up for me.”

“Well, spin around and show her there's no hay on your back.”

She drew in an angry breath, glared at me. Or maybe she was startled. I said, “I didn't mean to talk out of turn. Merely a joke, and not very funny.”

She laughed, her solemn face coming alive. “I think it's a good gag. Remember about tomorrow, sleep late. I won't be back for you until noon.”

“Fine. How far did you say Kentucky is from here?”

“Depends. On the main road, about twenty miles. Why?”

“Okay if I borrow this car?”

“Sure. What's there in Kentucky for you?”

“I'll phone a friend in New York, find out what's playing. In case the call is traced, I don't want anybody to think of Bingston,” I said, and it sounded stupid—any map would show the cops how far Kentucky was from Bingston.

We went in and Mrs. Davis was dozing in a stuffed leather chair, didn't hear us. There was a strong resemblance to the old woman on the farm—if she was sporting a gold tooth Mrs. Davis could be taken for a twin sister. I waved good night to Frances and went upstairs as I heard her shake the old lady awake, tell her, “Come on now, Mama, get your sleep. I'm home—all safe and sound. We stopped at Uncle Jim's place for a snack. Mr. Jones' car broke down.”

“I always tell you anything flashy isn't any good,” the old lady mumbled.

I undressed and stretched out on the bed, feeling wide awake. I lit my pipe and thought what an odd place Bingston was—South and yet not really South. That cop ready to break my head over a simple thing like a cup of coffee, yet when he asked about the Jag he had sounded as friendly as could be. And a chick like Frances, bitter and tough in her own way, yet sticking her neck way out to help me. Why? What was her why? That farmhouse—a little world of its own. And how did a young girl like Harry's wife take to living way out in the country, without electricity, probably no plumbing? Or Harry, how could he return to nothing after seeing California, the big cities, while in the army? If he'd seen Paris, London, Rome—would he still have returned? Sybil would raise hell at the very idea of living there. Me too, probably. Yet, in a way it was a far cleaner world than Harlem, or a big city. There wasn't any Mrs. James being dunned and cheated, or TV programs capitalizing on someone's misfortune to sell drugs. Kay and Bobby, they would seem like people from another planet— out on the farm.

In a sense Uncle Jim was smart—no papers, TV, probably the battery radio didn't work most of the time. Hardly ever saw a white face either. Maybe that was worth kerosene lamps and chicken smells. They reminded me of a Negro couple I once met, middle-aged schoolteachers. They had— maybe still have—an old apartment up in the Bronx. Every summer they both went to Paris and during the winters, the moment they entered their apartment, they spoke only French, ate French food, read Paris newspapers.... Soon as they entered their apartment they were no longer Negroes in the Bronx, but back in Paris. Without realizing it, Uncle Jim had done the same thing on his farm, had...

Then it hit me—like when you miss a hard tackle and the earth comes out and pounds everything out of you. I was lying here and thinking about the farm and Bingston as if I was a tourist, a spectator... as if Z wasn't wanted for murder!

Fear gripped me so hard I had a cramp. What was I really doing here in Bingston, playing detective to the killing in this sleepy town? In fact, was there an answer? Damn, if only I hadn't hit that cop. Suppose I'd let him take me in, told my story—after all, what motive did I have for killing the jerk? With their labs and men, the police would have found the real killer. At least there would be pros working on the case.

But would they have worked on it? Hell, they could say I was sore at Thomas for that coffeepot stuff, came back to kill him. Anything made sense—to whites—when a coloured man was involved. A jury wouldn't take my word either.... Hell, what was the point in all this if thinking? No one stands still for a pistol whipping. I had belted a white cop, and I was in this strange little Jim Crow town, with a few bucks, wasting precious time being philosophical about a lousy farm. I was doing nothing for myself. The trouble was I didn't know how I could do myself any good. I was a busher playing in the big league.

To my surprise I dozed off, had a good night's sleep. The next thing I knew the sun was hitting my face. It was nine o'clock and I felt full of pep. I washed up, considered shaving with the mailman's old-fashioned straight razor hanging beside the medicine chest, then dressed and went downstairs.

Mrs. Davis was in an old print dress, dusting, some sort of crazy lace cap on her gray head. She told me Frances and Mr. Davis had been gone for hours. “We don't sleep our lives away here.” I could have told her she didn't know how much she slept away her life but instead I stashed away one of those big country breakfasts—about a million calories in sausages, eggs, and wheat cakes swimming in syrup and butter. The old lady politely grilled me about my family, my busted nose, how long was I staying, had I ever been married. She had coffee with me, telling me the trouble she had with Frances. “That child has such queer ideas, I mean, the way she won't do a thing with her hair, or use powder.”

She wanted somebody to talk to and told me about her first child, who had died because she had waited too long to stop working, how she hoped the son at college would enter medical school after he did his army time.

When I finally pushed myself away from the table at ten, she told me, “I expect money in advance for room and board. Since I owe you a dollar, that will be three dollars for today and tonight.”

I gave her three bucks, said I was going to see the countryside and would be back by noon.

“I'll have lunch waiting. Please be careful, Mr. Jones. Remember the customs down here. You know.”

I said I knew. The ancient Chevvy shook like a baby's rattle and still stunk, but the motor sounded okay. I stopped “downtown” for a paper, a change of underwear, a razor and toothbrush, then took off for ole Kentucky. There wasn't anything new in the paper, a rehash of yesterday's account. That didn't mean a thing, the police only give out the news that suits them.

It was a clear day, almost warm, and like a moron I was full of good spirits. I took off my burberry, brushed it with my hand, tried to brush the dirty seat with the newspaper, and gave the Chevvy gas. I drove for about a half hour, passing some pretty country. I passed through a few wide-spots-in-the-road, one-store villages, wondered where I was. When I saw a gas station I drove in, asked a young white fellow, “Can you tell me how to get to Kentucky?”

He stared at me; maybe he was looking at my Countess Mara tie. He said, “You must be new around here, boy.”

“Yeah—sir.” I almost gagged on the last word. Was it as bad as this for guys in the army to “sir” me?

“You're in Kentucky now. Where you going to?”

“Why... Louisville.”

“Better gas up, boy, you got a long ride ahead of you,” he said, and started giving me directions. He put in five gallons, told me it was $1.65.

As I took out my wallet I glanced back at the pump meter and his long face flushed as he asked, “What's wrong, boy, don't you take my word?”

I damn near ripped the wallet, I gripped it so hard. Then I gave him a sickly grin as I handed a five-buck bill out the window, said, “I was only looking around to see if you had a pay phone here, chief.” I could see a phone booth next to the office; I would have had to be blind not to see it.

“Oh,” he said, relieved. As he gave me my change he added, “Keep going down this road a piece; you'll see a dirt road on your right after about a mile. Make a left on that for couple hundred yards. There's a coloured store there.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said, and drove off.

The “coloured” store was an enlarged shack with dusty windows that looked like a mild wind would take it apart. Inside there were several rows of canned goods behind a wide counter, a juke box, a wall phone, two homemade tables, and against the rear wall bottles of beer and soda were floating in a washtub full of ice.

A slim fellow with a small sharp face, light brown skin, and wearing worn overalls was leaning on the counter, playing with an empty pop bottle. Behind the counter there was a joker about six-five and at least 350 pounds of fat. But it was fairly well distributed and he carried it so well he looked like an overpadded football player. His face was the size of a pumpkin, dirty tan in color, with a knife scar down one cheek. His oily hair was plastered on his big dome under a stocking cap, and the wool plaid shirt and dungarees he wore must have been made of iron—to withstand the strain of his fat.

When I came in, Slim merely glanced at me out of the corner of one eye, while Fat-stuff asked, “New around here, ain'tcha, boy?”

“Yeah, I'm new and I've heard all the boying I want for the morning. Give me a dollar's change, I want to use your phone.”

He ran his eyes over me and didn't move. After a second he said, “I don't like no dark boys come busting into my store, asking me to do this and that.”

For a second I wanted to reach over the counter and take this fat joker apart, then I relaxed, thinking: Sure, I'd be talking big at the front gate because he's coloured. But I kept my mouth going like Charlie McCarthy sirring that white jerk at the gas station. Be too easy, too ofay, taking it out on this tan slob. I put a dollar on the counter, told him, “Heavy, I don't know you, you don't know me—so don't give me a hard time over nothing. I only came in to make a call. Or don't you have a dollar's change?”

“Sure I got a buck's change. I can change a hundred-buck bill too—any day of the week. Can you?”

“No,” I said, patiently.

“That's what I thought. Never saw a man in fancy clothes that had a full pocket.” He decided he'd made whatever point his fat head was bent on proving, dug into his pocket and slapped four quarters on the counter. I walked over to the phone, taking out all my loose change. I had the phone deal figured—I'd reach Sybil at the public phone in the employee's lounge, the way I usually called her to say I'd pick her up. Seemed to me there was no chance of it being traced. With Fatso and Skinny not even making a pretense of not listening, I gave long distance the number, talking in as low a voice as I could. It hardly seemed a second before a girl answered. When I asked for Sybil the girl said she was working. I asked if I could reach her and the girl said to hold on, she'd see.

Another few seconds and the girl said she was still trying to find Sybil. I waited a couple of minutes. The operator told me to signal through. The tub of lard back of the counter remarked to nobody, “Sure an expensive call you making, Slick. I never seen a man talk so little.” He chuckled like a jackass. “All that nothing for so much money.”

Finally I heard Sybil's sharp, “Who is this?”

“Hello hon. How's things?”

In a voice low, mad, and hysterical she said, “Touie Moore, you're going to cost me my job! The police came to my house last night!” She gulped as she said the word “police.”

“And I'm sure a police car followed me to work this morning! Trooping into my house... and if the company learns—”

“Slow down, honey. What did the boys say, what did they want?”

“They asked if I knew where you were, when I'd last seen you. That's all.”

“That's all? Didn't they say anything more? Did they say what—that is—why—they were interested in this fellow?”

“What are you double-talking about? I told you all they said. I was never so embarrassed in my life. I thought it might be you and I was still undressing when I opened the door—you should have seen the way they looked at me.”

“What did you tell them?”

“The truth! That I hadn't seen you since the day before, had no idea where you were. Touie, I don't know what you're mixed up in but if you had a normal post-office job—”

“You don't know? Honey, haven't you been reading the papers, watching TV as usual?”

“You louse, are you checking up on me? You have your—”

“No, no, I—eh—didn't mean it like that.”

“What's wrong with you? You're talking in riddles.”

“I'm at a public phone.”

“When am I going to see you?”

“I don't know. Soon, I hope. I'll be in touch.”

“You listen, Touie Marcus Moore, you pay me back my money. All of it! I must have been crazy letting you take that money. God knows what you're doing with it.”

“I'm buying an oil well for Kim Novak, what else would I be doing with the money? I'll call again. Now take it easy and don't worry.”

“I have ninety-four reasons why I worry—!”

“So long for now, honey.” I hung up and didn't know what to make of things. Why hadn't the police said anything about the murder, why wasn't it in the papers or on the air? If they visited Sybil they knew about me, then why the big secret? Damn—if Sybil had been able to think of anything but her money I might have got some news from her. But she didn't know a thing. And how did the cops identify me so damn quick? Kay? Hard to say which side she was on. It had to be the same cat who set me up for the police.... Three little letters: w-h-o that could mean my life. K-a-y, three more interesting letters. Although the three letters I really needed were SOS.

The operator rang back to drawl politely that I owed another eighty-five cents. They were slipping down here; hadn't worked out any way for the operators to know if they were talking to coloured, so they could drop the politeness. I told her I'd have to get more change.

I put another buck on the counter and Fatty, who was leaning across the counter, asked, “How you know I got any more change, fancy boy?”

“Your phone. I can walk out and forget the whole thing,” I said calmly—I wasn't going to let this fat jerk bug me.

He finally got into motion, made change. As I dropped the coins in and hung up, he said, “Lot of money for just talk. A hot gal, worth—?”

“That was my mother,” I said, making for the door.

Lardy was comical as his fat face changed and he said, “Sorry, boy, I shouldn't have run my mouth like that. No hard feelings.”

I waved as I shut the door. Driving back to Bingston I couldn't make any sense out of what Sybil told me. Of course, if they were keeping it out of the papers, the police wouldn't tell Sybil they wanted me for murder. But from what she said they sounded so damn casual, like they wanted me for skipping a traffic ticket. Maybe they weren't after me for the murder? Nuts, they'd certainly want me for slugging the cop, probably want me worse for that than for a murder. And how could they know “a” Negro was me so damn fast? Who was masterminding all this, if it wasn't Kay? After all, I only had Bobby's word that she had picked me, not Kay.... Bobby would say anything to protect Kay. But even if it was Kay, what possible relationship could she have had with a punk like Thomas? And I didn't have time to check on her boss, this B. H.... That out-of-town alibi could be bunk. But again, what would a big TV executive be doing with a two-bit guy like Thomas?

I reached the Davis house before noon, washed and shaved. Frances knocked on my door. She looked very fresh in form-fitting slacks, a simple Italian-style striped blouse cut square across the shoulders—and she had real shoulders, not just bones. She was wearing red ballerina shoes and her hair was in a tight bun, with a kind of pearl necklace around it, the pearls in sharp contrast to her black hair.

Her lips were carefully painted a faint red. I watched the lips as she asked, “Did they make you a Kan-tuck colonel?”

“They gave me a citation for wearing out my gums saying 'sir.' We seeing this Tim Russell?”

“Soon as you're ready. I'll wait for you in the car.”

As I put on my tie and coat I heard Mrs. Davis downstairs asking why she was wearing her new outfit and Frances telling the old lady to please keep still. When I walked out, she was waiting behind the wheel of the Chevvy. As I got in beside her, Frances started the heap, asking, “Find out anything new?”

“No.”

“I spoke to Dad. No one has left town recently.”

As we came out of the driveway, a tall slim fellow in work pants, polished boots, and a plaid mackinaw waved at Frances. His hand seemed suspended in mid-air, and his light brown face with the carefully trimmed mustache showed shocked surprise. She waved back as we turned into the street. He shouted, “Say, Frances, I— Hey, wait!”

“No time now,” she called back, speeding down the street. “That's Willie.”

“The boy friend?”

“My, aren't we the detective. Well, he isn't. I go out with him sometimes—I have to go out with somebody. Matter of fact, because I play hard to get—I suppose—Willie's hinted he might consider marrying me.”

“Handsome fellow.”

“Willie is the big deal for coloured girls in Bingston; quite a catch, and he knows it. He was a paratrooper, the only one in Bingston, so that makes him something, and he has a steady job driving a coal truck, makes good money. He thinks all he has to do is ask and a girl will roll over and wag her tail like a dog begging. I don't think I could stand marrying him. But sometimes... When you're twenty-five Willie can look like all the excitement in the world... from here.”

I didn't want to get into her business so I asked, “What am I to tell this Tim? I mean, what am I supposed to be?”

“You don't have to tell him anything. He understands you're in a jam—without asking questions. He was one of the few whites who helped us in the fight to sit in the orchestra of the movie house. He's... I guess you'd call him the town radical. He's a very good guy. At one time I dreamt I was in love with him.”

I turned to stare at her. “Then what happened?”

“Nothing. I—we—never did anything about it. He's married now. I soon realized Tim was merely a girlish daydream, I had confused admiration for love.”

“This dawn come before or after he was married?”

“Before. Stop teasing me!” She snapped it out the way Kay had told me never to make fun of her.

“Sorry.”

We drove through the main street and after a few minutes turned into a muddy field that could have been a baseball diamond. There was a small weather-beaten grandstand we passed as she drove for a group of trees on the other side of the field and stopped next to a parked pickup truck. The guy behind the wheel was about twenty-three, crew-cut yellow hair that reminded me of Thomas', and a lean rugged face with sharp blue eyes. He looked like a middle-weight pug. He was wearing a work shirt and a dirty suede windbreaker. Frances said, “Hello, Tim. This is Mr. Jones.”

He said hello and reached out of the truck window, shook my hand. Maybe he was a pug; he had a dent in his short nose, and a scar over his left eyebrow. “What is it you want to know about my sister?” His voice was dry and plain.

“About the trouble she had with Porky Thomas.”

The eyes hardened. “I never called him that. He wasn't a— You're not one of these TV people that were here a month or two ago?”

“No.”

“I told them at the time I wouldn't rake up any mud for them. That still goes.”

“What was your sister May's reaction to the TV people?”

He ran a stubby hand through his short hair. “Look, Mister, I don't agree with May's ideas on most things, but I try to understand her. May—oh they buttered her up. Called her a promising young singer—she always wanted to be one. They made a recording of her doing a song, said she'd be on TV screens all over the country. She co-operated with them—I'm told.”

“You see May much?”

“No. It isn't that we're unfriendly. We're just not friendly any longer. There's a difference.”

“Did she leave town a few days ago?”

“No. She's never been out of Bingston, except to go shopping in Cincinnati.”

“But since you don't see her, she could have left—?”

“I know she didn't. I thought you wanted to ask about Bob Thomas?”

“I am. Do you know anybody here who might have reason to hate him?”

“Not enough to kill him. After all, he hasn't been around in years. He was forgotten more than hated.”

“What was your reaction when you read about his being killed?”

“Me? I don't know. I suppose most of all I felt sorry. We used to live in a shack at the end of town, place called the Hills. Bob lived there with his mother—I never saw or knew his father—and some other poor families. It's a garbage dump now, was then too, but unofficially. The junk heap gives it the name Hills. There was about seven or eight families lived there, white and coloured.” He looked across me at Frances. “Fran, you talk to Mrs. Simpson recently?”

“Not for a week or so.”

He toyed with his hair again. “Damn health hazard for her. Mrs. Simpson still lives out there. We've been trying to have her move.... But you want to know about Bob. He is—was—two years older than May, five years older than me. But we three hung out together, hunting rats with slingshots, building shacks... all that kid stuff. Sometimes when his Ma didn't show up for a few days, he'd eat at our place. My mother died when I was a baby and my father was a drunk. I guess he tried to raise May and me the best he could, only it was too much for him, and he kept losing himself in a bottle. What I'm trying to say is—we were a wild bunch of kids, hungry and ragged all the time. When I was nine an uncle came to live with us. He worked as a mechanic, taught me most of what I know about cars. More important, we started eating regularly—until he left a few years later. He liked to move about and—I'm giving you this in detail only because Fran said you wanted a complete picture.”

“That's exactly what I need,” I said, wondering if lover boy Willie called her Fran.

Tim studied me for a second, as if about to ask why, but he didn't. He said, “Bob used to eat with us a lot. His Ma was staying away more and more. She was a waitress in a dive over in Cincy. It was the end of the depression then and she had a hard time keeping herself fed. May was growing up a real beauty. She was fifteen when our uncle took off and—Mr. Jones, this is damn hard for me to say; I have to make it short. Pop died of exposure that winter and we kids raided farmers' fields, lived like animals. When May began bringing home money I was too young to even suspicion how she got it. Bob was crazy about her and by then they were—well—going steady, I guess you'd call it. Guess you know he did time at reform school after his Ma disappeared and—”

“What happened to his mother?”

“Later we learned she'd been killed in a car wreck over in West Virginia. We stopped a lot of the wild kid stuff. I even started going to school more and when Bob came back from the reform school, he always had a few bucks on him, and told me he was working for a dairy farmer. Of course May was giving him the money. And I knew what she was doing by then, I had to know. I tried to stop her. I left school and got a job, but how much can a kid make? Bob, he wanted her to stop, too, but he never held down a job for long. And what could he make? You understand, May wasn't any silly oversexed kid out for thrills. Way she saw it she was—well—she was selling her body, but then what does a factory girl do but sell her arms and legs?”

He paused, perhaps waiting for an answer. I said, “Guess that's one way of looking at it.”

“I don't know,” Tim said, as if thinking it over. He shook himself slightly. “In '50, when she was nearly nineteen, May found herself pregnant. She wanted Bob to marry her. He was willing but insisted she give up—what she was doing. She couldn't see that. Whenever Bob worked, he only picked up dimes at odd jobs and May had enough of poverty. He refused to marry her. May was getting big and upset about the kid not having a 'name.' Other people were getting worried too. May's 'work' was still pretty much of a secret, even in a small town like Bingston; only a few men were supporting her. Things came to a head when Bob was due to be drafted. She had to do something about her pregnancy—she had him arrested for rape. It was a lousy thing to do but she only did it because she thought it would scare him into marrying her. Needless to say the so-called respectable citizens who were keeping her liked the idea. It was an out for them. You probably know the rest—Bob was released on low bail, to give him a chance to marry May. He beat her so badly she lost the kid, and nearly died. Nobody has seen him here since.”

I took out my pipe, lit it. “Did you ever see Thomas again, look for him?”

He shook his head. “If I'd found him that day I would have killed him. I was carrying a hunk of pipe in my pocket to beat his brains out. But I didn't have time to do much looking, I was busy taking care of May. A year later, when I was in the army, I'd try to find him—in whatever town I came to—but I never saw him.”

“What would you have done if you had found him?”

He patted his hair nervously. “I don't know. By then, even though I was sending her an allotment, May was working openly—at her—trade. I think by then I realized it wasn't his fault. He'd been as trapped by circumstances as May. Although he shouldn't have whipped her. I've never forgiven him that.”

“Maybe, in his own way, he loved May so much he lost his head,” Frances suddenly said.

“Maybe. But I hate violence—for any reason,” Tim said. He took out a pack of butts, asked Frances if she wanted one. She said no and he puffed deeply on his, almost savagely.

We were all silent for a moment, then Tim asked, “Have you got a picture of Bob Thomas now, Mr. Jones?”

“Yeah, a pretty good one.”

“Odd what you remember about people. Bob always realized his lack of education. When my uncle was living with us, all Bob could do was talk about learning a trade, being a somebody. But then, when he had a little money, I mean May would have put him through a trade school, he never bothered with it.”

“In a world of nobodies we all want to be a somebody,” I said, almost to myself, thinking Porky Thomas had the desire for a trade till he died.

“What did you say?” Frances asked.

“Just a would-be clever crack from a would-be clever character I know in—eh—Chicago.” I turned back to Tim. “Did Thomas have any other brothers or sisters?”

“Nope.”

“Was there ever an English teacher employed in the Bingston school named Barbara? Sort of a washed-out-looking woman, probably be between thirty-five and forty now?”

“I never heard of any teacher like that. Matter of fact, Mr. Kraus has been teaching English for as long as I can recall.”

“Thomas ran off about six years ago. In all those years hasn't anybody in Bingston seen or heard of him?”

“No. I think they would have told the police, if they had. Not only was there a lot of feeling about the beating he gave May, but most people still think he was the one that got her into trouble.”

“But these other admirers of May, suppose they'd come upon Thomas, perhaps tried to take him in and—”

“I don't know a one of them who has left town in years. They all have families here. I think this is about all I can tell you.”

“Okay. Would it do any good to see your sister?”

“She'd scream for the police. Her measure of respectability now is being anti-Negro.”

“I see. One more question. When the TV people were here, interviewing and taking pictures, didn't that start a lot of talk and renewed interest in Thomas?”

“Damn right there was plenty of talk,” he said bitterly. “There still is—everybody waiting to see themselves on the screen. And they were happy to be paid for the interviews —Judas money.”

“After you got out of the army, why did you return here?”

He looked surprised. “Why not? It's my town. One of these days May will fall—she's still my sister; I want to be around to pick her up.”

I couldn't think of anything else to ask—and he hadn't added much to what I already knew. He started his truck, said, “I hope I've been of some use—for whatever you wanted, Mr. Jones. I'm past due at work.” We shook hands and he drove off. At the edge of the clump of trees, where the ground wasn't muddy, he stopped his truck and called Frances. She drove the Chevvy up, got out and they whispered for a moment, then Tim Russell drove on.

As Frances got back in the Chevvy, she said before I could ask, “He wanted to know if you were a cop. I said you weren't.”

She waited until his truck was out of sight down the road before starting the Chevvy—I knew they'd met like this before. I asked, “Has Tim got any other brothers, any other relatives in Bingston, or anyplace else?”

“No. Except for his uncle—I vaguely remember him, a stooped old man. I don't think Tim has seen him since he was a kid.”

“Can you see Tim again, find out if he knows where the uncle is now, his name?”

“I'll ask him. Do you think the uncle might have done it?”

“Honey, I don't think anything. I'm like the bear—nowhere. Tell me, do you see Tim around, I mean every day?”

“Yes. I told you, he owns a small garage.”

“Are you sure he was in Bingston three days ago?”

She looked away from the road to stare at me with solemn eyes for a second. “He's not the killer, Touie. And I know he was here. He comes into the bakeshop every afternoon on his way home to buy bread and cake, so— I'm due at the shop right this minute. What are you going to do now?”

“I don't know.” I didn't have idea one about where to turn. I was standing still while time was rushing by me, running out.

“If you want, I can call in sick, help you.”

“Thanks, but I'd better drop you off, then I'll go back to the house, try to think. Does Tim see May now?”

“Very rarely. When he came out of the army he wanted her to give up her—business, move away and start life over again with him. He'd saved up a thousand dollars and he figured he could buy a little garage anyplace. May laughed at him. She offered to set him up in a gas station that cost ten thousand. That was the lick with them.”

She stopped in front of a small frame building with an apartment over a bakeshop with a large window, everything painted white, looking very clean. When Frances got out, I shoved over behind the wheel, feeling her warmth still on the seat. She asked, “Will I see you at supper?”

“Yeah. Look, when you speak to Tim, also ask about Thomas' father. I gather he was a no-good, but find out if Tim has any idea who the father was, where he lived, and if he thinks Thomas ever knew him.”

“I'll ask, but I'm sure Porky never knew his father. Anything else?”

“Yes—thanks for giving me your lunch hour.”

She smiled as she waved, and I watched her walk into the store. I drove to the Davis home, turned into the driveway and parked. The old lady came to the window, pulled back the lace curtains and nodded at me. I tipped my hat at her, then took out the TV data on Thomas, went over it again. Bingston was adding up to a large zero. As a real detective I was another bust. I kept staring at the papers the way I'd seen detectives do in the movies. I didn't have a smell of a hint, much less a clue. God, how I wished this were all a movie!

Still, unless it was one of these sudden dumb killings, there's always a hell of a good reason for murder, and that reason had to be someplace on this list. Thomas was on the loose for half a dozen years but was killed when the TV people got interested in his case, so... So what? For all I knew Thomas could have had something going for him in New York. Could have had a fight with his girl friend and she conked him? Only how could she have known about Kay, about me? But Ollie said a girl had phoned—could it have been her? Only she didn't look like a killer—as if I knew what a murderer looked like, as if anybody does. Suppose Thomas took her up to his room, made a pass, and she grabbed the pliers? But that didn't explain how she could know about me and Kay. I kept coming back to Kay. For all I knew the whole TV thing could be a lie... she'd paid me in cash, I didn't even know for sure that she actually worked for Central, or any TV studio. No, no, there was a TV program, they'd interviewed people here.

I kept trying to think things out and only came up with a headache and one sad fact that was for true—as a detective I was a pitiful amateur. And as the old saying goes, I sure had a damn fool for a client. I'd been crazy to think I ...

Mrs. Davis opened the front door. “Want your lunch, Mr. Jones?”

I nodded and climbed out of the car, brushed my coat with my hands. The old lady said, “I suppose Frances took you to a garage to see about fixing your car?”

“Yeah. They're sending to Cincinnati for parts,” I said, following old nosey to the kitchen.

“I have some nice hash I've just made, or you can have a slice of ham, fresh rice pudding, coffee or tea. Do you want a towel? You can wash up at the kitchen sink.”

The old lady spooked me; all this small talk about lunch as if this was just another afternoon, as if I wasn't wanted for murder. I had nothing on my mind but to decide between hash and ham! But what could I do, where else could I look? Somehow I had expected this Tim would give me a lead. I always read that when a cop was stuck he started digging into the case again. But everything was so open in this, where could I dig? Where...?

“If you like, you can have a hash and some ham, Mr. Jones.”

“I'll... eh... just a glass of milk, Mrs. Davis.

“Oh come on, a man as big as you needs more than milk to carry him. Still two dollars a day for meals, so you might as—”

“I'm full of breakfast. A glass of milk, if you have it.”

“As you wish.”

The only thing left was to see some of the people who had been interviewed. Start with people who knew Thomas as a child. What was the name of the old gal Tim said still lived on the garbage dump? I reached for the data sheets in my pocket, remembered Mrs. Davis was around. Sipping the cool milk I said, “Noticed an old shack out by the garbage dump. Anybody living there?”

“Crazy Ma Simpson. Only thing that will ever force her to move from that filth will be death.”

“White woman?”

“I'm ashamed to say she's one of our people. I declare, she could have easily moved long ago, they even found another place for her, but like I said, she's so old, she isn't all there.”

I put the empty glass on the table. “Think I'll take a drive.”

Mrs. Davis rubbed her hands together, as if she'd heard good news, gave me a knowing smile. “I once saw a show on the television about you musicians, but I never really believed you were all so restless. The music beat must get into your blood, I suppose, like an electric current.”

I started for the door. “Guess you're right,” I said, wishing she'd stop talking about electricity in my blood—it could so easily come too true.

I drove toward the main street, then turned right, toward the side of town I hadn't seen yet. There were a few cars on the road and as I reached the end of town I could see the “Hills” of garbage ahead of me. A truck passed me, cut in sharply and came to an abrupt halt. I almost put the brake pedal through the floor as the Chevvy swung around, headed for the road shoulder. I wrestled with the wheel, praying the car didn't turn over, and it was a happy prayer. For I knew it all had been deliberate, and if I couldn't find the killer... at least he was finding me.

7

AS THE Chevvy hit the soft shoulder, tires and brakes screaming, I got the wheel under control, swung sharply toward the road. The old car seemed to shiver and dip, then skidded another few feet to a stop. The truck driver was a bold cat. He'd stopped a few feet down the road and was watching me in his fender mirror. I jumped out of the car and ran toward the truck—and slowed to a walk. Lover boy Willie jumped down from the truck, hitched up his pants, and came toward me, the high shine on his boots sparkling in the sun.

I cursed him for being the village idiot under my breath, knew before he opened his silly mouth all this had nothing to do with Thomas—he was jealous of my being with Frances. I asked, “What do you think you're trying to do, junior?”

His tan face flushed at the “junior,” but his eyes had the sullen cast of a pug. Not that I was worried. In a ring maybe Willie might take me but in a free-for-all I was too much for him. He said, “Watch your fat tongue, heavy. You ought to know how to drive. I hear you're a hot rod with a foreign racing heap.”

“One of us doesn't know how to drive. If this is meant to be a big joke, I'm not for laughs.”

His smile showed even, very white teeth. He was a joker who gave the mirror a lot of time. “Maybe I was trying to see if you can take it. I don't go for no cat moving in on my time. Especially a stooge in fancy clothes. Frances may—”

The word stooge hit me where I lived. I was a prize dummy—there was somebody else in on the Thomas publicity deal I hadn't even thought of! Kay had said something about having a “stooge planted” to blow the whistle on Thomas after his case appeared on TV. That meant the stooge had to be in on things, that he—or she—either knew all about me, or was in a position to find out easily. Suppose he had crossed the TV people, tried shaking Thomas down, and it had ended in a fight? But that didn't add. Thomas didn't have dime one. Hell with why; main thing was to find out who the stooge was and then see ...

I was watching Willie without seeing him, my mind racing, and now he was hitting me on the shoulders and neck with the side of his right hand, yelling, “Knew you'd chicken out!”

The “blows” didn't hurt and I thought he was having a fit, at first, and then I got it; this clown was giving me the side of his hand as a Judo chop—which can break a bone, even kill you, if done right. It must have been something he'd learned as a paratrooper, only never learned right. I kicked his right boot above the ankle hard as I could. As he howled and bent over to grab his right leg, I kicked the left ankle out from under and he sat down hard, moaning, trying not to scream.

“There you are, Willie, no hands. Not that it's any of your business, but Frances is merely showing me the town. Keep polishing your boots and out of my hair, or I'll really work you over, maybe even dirty your boots—with you.” I walked back to the Chevvy and drove on, keeping an eye on him via the rear window for a moment. I hoped I'd put the proper fear of God into Willie. A jerk behind a wheel is more dangerous than if he had a gun.

I left him sitting at the side of the road, still holding his ankles. I was feeling high about the stooge idea, then it fell down hard. One thing was for positive, I couldn't learn who the stooge was in Bingston. It meant returning to New York, seeing Kay, and she made me uneasy. There were too many unexplained coincidences pointing toward her. I might try phoning her, but that would be a hell of a risk. I let the stooge idea remain in the back of my mind, for more thinking. In a sense it was reassuring, proved I had to keep digging into the case, that I would come up with something. Or was I merely being a fool and digging my own grave?

Bingston burned its garbage, and the Hills was a smouldering field of great heaps of tin-can skeletons, broken bottles, and other unburnable objects. Every couple of months a bulldozer probably stacked the current garbage into a new pile. There was an odd, musky odor you smelled as soon as you neared the dumps, the mysterious stink of decay and death.

About a hundred yards off at right angles from one of the old garbage heaps—some sort of green weeds were growing on it—stood this small wooden shack, bleached by the sun and weather, unpainted for the last hundred years, if it ever had known paint. The windows were covered with newspaper and cardboard; a faint trickle of smoke was coming from the cockeyed brick chimney sagging against the back of the house. A broken step took me to a small porch with two busted rocking chairs on it. From the porch the garbage heaps seemed to be inching toward the shack like a glacier of waste.

Mrs. Simpson was a surprise, very cheerful and neat. She was a butterball of an old woman, her gray hair in tiny thick braids all over her head, not a wrinkle in her plump dark face, but a ragged faint white mustache over the toothless mouth and a foggy cataract over one eye. Her sweater and plain dress were clean and newly ironed and she padded around in new sneakers. The room I opened the door on— most likely the only room in the shack—was a museum of broken furniture, a coal stove, a working fireplace, bundles of junk, an oil lamp, and a spotless wide bed with a very white spread. Of course the garbage stink was everywhere.

Mrs. Simpson, who could have been eighty, ninety, or a hundred, spoke in a thin drawl as she said, “Come in. Long time since I've had such a fine strapping man call on me. Come in, boy.”

She nodded toward a chair held together by wire and rope and which fooled me by not collapsing as I cautiously sat on it. “My name is Jones, Mrs. Simpson. I'm a writer and—well, I'm trying to do a true-fact crime story on this Thomas killing. You know, while it's news. I thought you might be able to tell me something about Porky Thomas.”

“I know about you, the musician man staying at the Davis house,” she squeaked, sitting in a rocker and fixing her good eye on me. “Seems like they paying too much attention to Porky, now. Had people down here with lights and cameras asking about him. Took movie pictures of me and my house. Too bad they didn't pay him all that mind when he was younger.”

“Tell me, what sort of a man was he?”

“Man? I never knew Porky as a man. I knew him as a child, a white child.”

“How did he get along with coloured people?” I asked, trying to get her talking. “I know you all lived together here at one time.”

“Used to be houses not a stone's throw from here. We all used the same pump and outhouse. Now they want me to move. Why? I ask 'em. I'm too old to move. My children are dead or gone, I'm alone, why should I uproot myself? Nobody said move when I was younger. Do you know I was born a slave?”

The old gal must have witnessed half the history of our country in her lifetime, but I had no time for history now. “What about Thomas, did he—”

“Don't be impatient, boy. Ain't often I get the chance to talk to people. Why, many is the time, in the old days, when young Thomas slept right in this room, on a mat before the fire. Many is the meal I gave him. He used to get me wood from the dump, build a fire for my washing. He only became mean when he got older, when things turned so bad for him.”

“How was he mean?”

“White-mean. About the last I seen of him, maybe a few months before he got hisself in all that trouble with May, I awoke in the night to find the one window I had was busted. There he stood, outside my house, another rock in his hand. He was drunk back. He used to try to be a hard drinker, but he never was. Most times he was acting drunk because I know a few drinks made him sick. I stood in the doorway and asked why he'd busted my window and he says, 'What are you going to do about it, you ole nigger?' So I said nothing, just looked at him hard. He come closer, this wild whiskey look in his eyes. I wasn't scared of him, I never was. Walked right up to me he did. Then he drops the rock and begins to bawl. Cried like a child. He says, 'Ma Simpson, can I please have a glass of water?' Always called me Ma. I got him water and he took out a handful of money, give me five dollars to fix the window, says how sorry he is. That's the last I ever did see of him. Crying like a child.”

“What about the troubles he got into? I mean, before the business with May?”

The old woman pulled out a tin snuffbox, put some under her lip. “They was real nice children, the Russell kids. Tim still drops by. After me to move, but he means well. Porky wasn't in any real trouble, never. Before he beat on May. He did a lot of things young boys do, but seemed he was always caught. If he stole it was only because he was needing things so bad. Ask me, he was meaner when he come out of that reform school than before he went in. I do recall how—after he come out of this reform place—he slapped Mamie Guy and her husband beat Porky up something terrible. Of course none of that got to the police. He'd stole some shirts from Mamie and was angry because she accused him to his face.”

“Who's Mamie Guy?”

“Lives out on Beech Road. Shucks, when I was a girl coming along, wasn't even a house or road there, just woods and woods. Nice for picnics and—”

“Mamie Guy still live there?”

She sighed. “You just won't let me finish a sentence. I had to give up my washing; pains in my legs and shoulders was getting fierce. I gave her my customers. Porky, he was helping me, delivering and calling for the laundry on an old beat-up bicycle he'd put together. So he begins helping Mamie; her boys was too young to help her then. He took these expensive silk shirts, tried to say Mamie had done it. But it was all straightened out.”

“Where does Mamie's husband work now?”

“Last I hear he was doing porter work in one of them big stores downtown.”

“Who else did Porky ever have a serious fight with? Is there anybody else who hated him?”

“Sam Guy never hated him. Nobody did, just didn't pay no attention to Porky.”

“Did he ever knife or pistol-whip any one, seriously hurt somebody? Even another kid?”

“No siree. Porky wasn't real bad. I seen plenty young ones wild like him who settle down to a good life. Ask me, I think May made a mistake in not marrying him. I mean, before she had to.”

I couldn't think of any more questions. I stood up. She rocked back and forth as she said, “A welcome sight to see a black man dressed good like you. All the washing and ironing I done, I know expensive duds.”

I thought, “Yeah, I'll be the best-dressed man in the hot seat,” as I said, “Well, good day, Mrs. Simpson. Thank you for your time.”

She got to her feet. “A coloured writer, my how times have changed. Now, like I told those other people, don't make Porky out a bad one. It wasn't he was good nor bad, just so hungry poor. Now that he's dead I know the Lord will give him a better time up there.”

Out on the porch I asked, “Does Tim Russell come to see you every day?”

“Oh my no. Maybe once or twice a month. Matter of fact I ain't seen him for couple weeks now. He drives me to town, helps me shop.”

“Does he leave Bingston often?”

“Tim leave here? I should say not, except for the time he was a soldier.”

I said good-by again and headed for town. My brain was going in circles. I was still wondering who the “stooge” might be, what motive he could have for killing Thomas. And for some reason I was amazed at Mrs. Simpson being so hale and full of cheer despite all the hard work she must have known. I couldn't remember if the local paper had two editions, so I parked on the main drag and went into the tobacco shop. It was the same paper I'd read in the morning. As I stepped back into the Chevvy, the cop I'd run into when I first hit this burg, and maybe Bingston's only cop, called from across the street, “Hey there, boy, I want to see you.”

I knew a “wanted” flier had finally reached him and my stomach started churning—until I saw the lazy way he was ambling across the street. He said, pleasantly, “Hear that pretty car of yours broke down. Puzzles me: America makes the best darn cars in the world, like this old Chevvy still gets you places.... Like I told the wife, why should a body buy a foreign car and pay so much more money?”

“I got a buy on mine, secondhand.” Bingston was a damn goldfish bowl. I had to clear out of here fast. It was, or could be, as dangerous for me as New York. At least in New York I could be checking on this stooge angle. In Bingston I was a sitting duck.

“Me, I don't even hold much with the new cars coming off the Detroit assembly lines today. Too much fancy stuff on 'em. Waste of money.”

“I suppose so,” I said, wanting to say something about Thomas, that I'd read about it in the papers. But I didn't have the nerve. The N.Y.C. police must have some kind of contact with Bingston, and the last thing I wanted was to get this hick cop interested in me. He asked, “Think you can get your car fixed soon?”

“Expect to... sir. I'm having a part sent here air mail.” I waved and he nodded, as if dismissing me, and I drove off.

I parked outside the bakery. Through the window I watched Frances waiting on a customer, the pleasant contrast of her white worn jacket and her warm brown skin. When the customer left I honked the horn. Frances waved at me, then said something to the elderly white woman camped on a high stool behind the cash register. They argued for a moment, then Frances came rushing out, asked, “Did you learn anything new, Touie? I can only stay a second.”

“Nothing, except that I have to leave Bingston.”

“Why?”

“Far as the killing goes, I'm running in circles here, going no-place. Bingston isn't even a good hideaway; everybody in town knows I'm here, even about my car 'breaking down.'”

“Where will you go?”

“Back to New York, I guess. I've thought of something that needs looking into there.”

“But they're looking for you in New York. Touie, why leave at all? People know about you here because you're a stranger. If you remained here and found a job, as Jones, you'd soon be forgotten—I mean, wouldn't stand out. As you said, the New York police are looking for 'a' Negro. Once you became a part of the community here, you'd be safe. They certainly aren't looking for 'a' Negro in Bingston.”

The woman in the bakeshop knocked on the window.

“No dice. I phoned somebody in New York this morning; the police already know I'm the Negro. In time they're sure to contact Bingston, if they haven't already. Main reason I came here was to find the killer. All I've found was that Thomas was a mixed-up kid.”

“If the police know about you, then to go back to New York seems—“ She turned sharply and nodded at more knocking on the window. “When are you leaving?”

“Thought I'd go out to the farm and pick up my car, leave now.”

“Touie, at least wait until I come home at five-thirty. Let's talk about this. All right?”

“Okay.”

“Tim should be in soon, and I'll ask about his uncle, and Thomas' father. I have to run now. Not a customer in the store and she's wearing her knuckles out on the window. See you at the house in about an hour.” She went back into the shop.

I headed for the Davis house but I was too nervous to sit around. I turned off at the nearest side street, drove aimlessly. I'd better get rid of the Jaguar. Take it from the farm, so they wouldn't get into any jam, if I was caught, ditch it in some river or lake. Although it would break my heart to do that. In New York I could get a room in the coloured section of Brooklyn, or the Bronx—although I didn't have much money, in fact no money if I took a train back to New York. Maybe I could get a job, anything, that would keep me eating for a week or two, while I checked on the stooge, Kay's boss, and Thomas' girl in the cafeteria. Damn, if I could only sell the Jag, be enough dough to keep...

I passed a dirt road and a dirty white sign on a metal post that read: beech road. Backing up, I turned into the road. It seemed to be all woods until I passed a few new and neat-looking ranch houses, and after another couple hundred yards a weather-beaten shack with a new tarpaper roof, the remains of a fence. A coloured kid about twelve was sitting in the yard with his back to me. I stopped the Chevvy and walked back to the yard. Suddenly there was a coughing sound, exactly like a mortar shell going off. I looked around wildly, was so startled I nearly hit the ground.

The kid was watching a bright red rocket about a foot long hissing up through the air. It went a few hundred feet high, did a cockeyed somersault, then came spiraling down to the ground at the boy's feet.

“What's that?”

He jumped as he turned to stare at me, a solemn-faced youngster in a worn sweater and torn dungarees and patched shoes. “Whatcha think it is? It's a rocket.” He touched a small plastic stand. “This is my rocket launcher. Pip, isn't it?”

It was a crazy scene: the shack that probably hadn't changed since it was built before the Civil War, and the sleek little rocket.

He opened a paper bag, showed me some white powder. “I put a charge of this atomic fuel in the launcher, add water, and when the reaction reaches its prime I release the rocket. Came in the mail today. Cost me four bucks but— Hey, Mister, you live around here?”

“No. Does Mrs. Mamie Guy live on this road?”

“You bet. Keep going and you'll see a house on the other side of the road. Be lot of clothes hanging on the lines.” He lowered his voice. “You know my folks?”

“No.”

“Well, if you should meet them, don't say anything about this rocket. I worked extra hard and saved to buy it, but my Pop would whale me if he knew. Someday I'm going to build a big one, take me to the moon.”

“What's so special on the moon?”

He looked at me with disgust, then sat down with his back to me, said, “Blast off, Mister.”

I headed toward the car. In a minute there was the slight cough again and the rocket shot high into the air, flying in an arc. It came down several hundred feet away in the leaves of a tall young tree. The kid ran over and started throwing stones at it.

“Why don't you climb up after it?” I called out.

“It's Pop's new pear tree. May break and then I'd really get it. Mama's due home in half hour. I got to work fast.”

I walked over to him. The tree was about a dozen feet high, the trunk a few inches thick. I grabbed the trunk and shook it. The rocket fell to a lower branch. I shook it again but it didn't budge. “How much do you weigh?”

“Sixty-three pounds.”

“Think you can hold yourself straight if I lift you?”

“You bet.”

“Now hold yourself rigid, or you'll fall and break both our necks.” I squatted, grabbed him around the waist and took a deep breath—as if getting ready to jerk and press a bar-bell. I got the kid up to my chest, then held him up at arm's length. He reached up and pushed the rocket out of the branches. I dropped him to my chest, then to the ground.

“Gee, you're strong, Mister.”

“Launch that in a field the next time,” I said, brushing my coat, wiping the sweat from my face.

He followed me back to the car and as I drove off he asked, “What's your name?”

“Captain Video,” I called back and had to grin. Big deal: the murderer was captured knocking a rocket ship out of a pear tree.

The Guy house wasn't far down the road, and a copy of the other shack except it was bigger and in better condition. Clotheslines zigzagged all over the yard, with a few sheets swaying in the wind like sails.

A thin dark woman came to the door. Her hair was uncombed and her face sweaty. She could have been thirty, or forty-five, the work-worn look all over her. “My name is Jones. Mrs. Simpson told me you knew Porky Thomas,” I said, going into my pitch about being a true-crime writer.

“I have nothing to say. I told them television people once, I ain't got time to made mud fly. I don't believe in snooping into other people's lives.” She shut the door.

At least she didn't know I was staying at the Davises' or that I had a Jaguar. “Mrs. Guy, I'm not with any TV studio. I only want to ask a few questions.”

“Ask somebody who has time for loafing. I have work to do.”

“Can I talk to your husband?”

“That's up to him. He ain't home now.”

I stood there for a moment, lit my pipe. Walking back to the car I saw the rocket kid watching me. He said, “Aunt Mamie is cross on the days when she does her heavy washing. You want to talk to her real bad, Mister?”

“Yeah.”

He called out, “Aunt Mamie.” She came to the door a moment later. “What you want, Kenneth? You know I'm rushed today.”

“This is a nice man, Aunt Mamie. I was stuck up in a tree and he stopped his car to help me. Yes he did.”

She wiped her wet hands on her gray dress. “I'm wasting more time not talking to you. All right, come in, if you want.”

The kid winked at me. “Guess I'd best go home and hide my rocket good. So long, Mr. Video.”

The kitchen of the shack had several irons heating on the big coal stove, and smelled of damp starch. She pointed to a chair between two wicker baskets of clothes, said, “You can sit there. Only reason I'm talking to you is because you're coloured. That's the truth. I didn't even open the door to those TV people. Ought to mind their business, that's what. I hear Porky was killed.” Her voice was as thin as her body.

“That's what I want to ask about, Mrs. Guy.”

“You wasting my time. He used to deliver laundry for me, but that was a long time ago, when my Edward was born, and he's going on ten now. I ain't seen hide nor hair of Porky since then, and just as well.”

“Mrs. Simpson told me he stole some shirts from you, slapped your face.”

“That old talking machine. Yes, he did take two silk shirts from a bundle he was delivering. And he did slap me when I accused him of it. But my husband took him down a peg, and that was all. Porky even continued working for me for a time, then he quit me.”

“Did he have any enemies in Bingston—before the business with May Russell?”

She shrugged her bony shoulders. “None special. What you driving at, Mr. Jones?”

“I thought someone from around here might have gone to New York and killed him.”

“Folks here got more to do with their time than that. Lot of people didn't like him. I never trusted him, myself. But nobody would kill him. That's all I know. I got ironing to do. All these damn sheets got to be ironed so my husband can take them over to Kentucky after supper.”

I stood up. “Thanks for your time. People come all the way from Kentucky to give you laundry?”

“Shucks, all the way is less than twelve miles. I got all the work I can handle. Nobody does clothes like Mamie Guy. Especially delicate things. I never tore anything in my life. Them silk shirts Porky took a liking to, they was from a Kentucky family. Tell you the truth, the shirts was too small for him. He took 'em out of spite and meanness, get even with his cousins. It was McDonald shirts.”

“I didn't know he had any relatives,” I mumbled, the name McDonald hitting me like a Joe Louis left.

Not many people know the McDonalds is sort of distant cousins to Porky, on his mother's side, of course. I never heard about it myself, till he took them shirts. They never had no use for either him or his mama, never would even recognize 'em. Shame too, because they always been well off, might have helped the boy when he was running around hungry and raggedy. McDonalds been having a big store over in Scotville far back as I can recall.”

“Is one of the McDonalds named Steve?”

“There's Stephen and Ralph, and the girl, Betty. They all left except Ralph. He took over the store when his daddy had a stroke.”

“What's Stephen doing?”

“Now, mister, how would I know? I only do their washing, don't have tea with 'em. They all went off to college. Betty is married and living someplace out West. Like I said, Ralph, he's married and running the store. Stephen, he ain't been around since after the war. Look, I got to catch up on my work. I got supper to make, too.”

“I won't keep you, Mrs. Guy. Is there a phone around anyplace I can use?”

“Take a right at the next fork. Come to Mr. Jake's gas station. He lets coloured use his phone.”

I thanked her again, sincerely thanked her, then sped toward the gas station like that well-known bat. As Ollie would say when a horse came in for him, I was getting “well.”

“Mr. Jake” turned out to be an old white man with liver spots on his face, and a game leg. When I asked if I could use his phone, he nodded toward a wall phone inside his office, said, “That's what it's there for, if you got a dime.” I told him to fill the tank, see if I needed any oil—to keep him busy. Scotville was only a fifteen-cent call, and when I got the McDonald store I asked for Stephen and a man said, “I'm Ralph McDonald, his brother. Who is this?”

“I was with Steve in the army—during basic training. I happened to be driving through and wanted to say hello to him.”

“Steve hasn't been home in several years. He's a writer in New York city, doing very well.”

“Come to think of it, he always talked about wanting to write. Happens I'm on my way to New York—how can I get in touch with Steve there?”

He told me to call him care of Central TV and wouldn't I like to drop over to his house now for a drink and supper? I said I'd take a rain check but was in a big rush at the moment, and nearly laughed out loud thinking what would happen if I should stick my dark face in the McDonald doorway!

I said good-by and hung up. He hadn't even asked my name. I was singing as I raced back to the Davis house. If I left at once, I could be in New York by tomorrow afternoon, but in the Jag I'd be as conspicuous as if I were wearing a red suit. A train would be faster and safer. When I solved things I could come back for the car, and if I didn't, I sure couldn't take the Jag with me.

Mr. Davis was sitting in the living room, feet in slippers, smoking a cigar and reading a magazine. I told him, “I've phoned Chicago and they have to send to England for the pan to my car. So I'm leaving now. I have a supper-club job set for Chicago, and I'll return in a few weeks for the car, when I get the parts. What do I owe you?”

“I'll have to ask Mama. Maybe we owe you; she tells me you've hardly eaten here. All rested up now, Mr. Jones?”

“Rested? Sure, sure. Is there a bus leaving here soon?”

“The Cincinnati bus leaves downtown at six fifteen. Should be plenty of trains from there to Chicago.”

I went upstairs and took a shower. Then I straightened up with the old lady, who insisted I have a fast supper. I bulled with Mr. Davis about working as a mailman—he seemed to think it was the most useful job ever made. Around five thirty I was getting jumpy and then Frances came home and said she'd drive me to the bus station. One of these mild and pointless family arguments started, the old lady saying Frances should eat supper first and Frances saying she wasn't hungry and Mrs. Davis asking if she was sick. Finally the mailman said to let Frances go but to stop driving around in that rattletrap that belonged on the farm, to take their car, which turned out to be a '52 Dodge with only eleven thousand miles on it. I said good-by and Mrs. Davis suddenly asked where my bags were and I said I'd sent them ahead.

Frances seemed to be in a bad mood. She told me Tim had no idea who Thomas' father was, nor where his own uncle was. We parked across the street from the drugstore, which was also the “bus station,” and had twenty minutes to kill. For a while we didn't talk but I was bubbling over with the McDonald thing and told her about it.

She said, “Suppose I drive you to Cincinnati, Touie?”

“How far is it?”

“Seventy-four miles.”

“Means you'll have to drive 150 miles.”

“I don't mind.”

“No, honey, it's too much.” She was staring straight ahead and I stared at the dark profile of her face, which seemed strong and pretty—and angry. “Look, I want you to know, no matter what happens, I won't forget what you did. You're a wonderful girl.”

“Thanks.” Her mouth was a pretty, thick red line, and the dashboard light did things to the high cheekbones, lighting the skin to a delicious brown. “Don't worry about your car, it will be safe. When do you think you'll come back for it?”

“Soon as I can.” When I came back I'd bring her a pair of big silver loop earrings. She had the face to carry them.

“Are you sure this McDonald did it?”

“I'm not sure of anything. There's also another angle I have to look into, but this is a hell of a lead, the best offer I've had. It's too much of a coincidence not to mean something.”

“But why should he kill his own cousin?”

“I don't know the motive, but I'll soon find out.”

“How?”

“Don't know that either.”

“You might be walking into the arms of the police.”

“If I do; you have yourself a Jaguar.”

“I don't see the joke, Touie,” she said sharply.

“Fran, I'm a long way from home yet on this. It can still add up to nothing, but it's all I have to work on. And if I'm joking—as the saying goes, I'm only laughing to keep from crying. I'll be careful....” A bus was coming down the street. “This mine?”

“Yes.”

“Do I have to sit in the back?”

“No.”

We walked over to the bus and I squeezed her hand and thanked her again, then I got on, bought a ticket, sat down toward the rear. I waved to Frances, blew her a corny kiss. She seemed about to say something, then she turned away and stared at the drugstore window.

As the bus started I looked back and she was waving. In the split-second last look I had, I thought she was crying.

8

I REACHED New York early in the morning feeling good. I'd slept most of the way, sometimes dreaming of Mrs. James and Sybil and Frances. I also had a plan of operation.

I breakfasted at a luncheonette in the station, bought up all the morning papers, retired to a pay booth in the men's room to read them. There wasn't a thing about the killing. A guy has to be rich, or a big shot, to last more than a brace of days in the headlines. Or a woman—for some reason people are interested in reading about dead women.

Of course that didn't mean the cops weren't working like beavers looking for me. At nine I left my tile office, played with the idea of phoning Sybil, but didn't want to hear her wailing about money again. I had a lot of hours to kill and being out on the street made me uneasy. I took a subway up to the Paramount and got in for the early-show price. They lost money on me; I was still there at four in the afternoon. I knew the lines in the movie better than the actors, and was stuffed with popcorn and soda. At four I took a cab to Ted Bailey's office, planted myself across the street. Fortunately Ted came out alone, on his way home. I hailed another cab and picked him up before he reached the subway. Ted was dressed in his usual drab style: a gray suit that didn't fit him, an old overcoat, and a new striped tie he wore like a medal. I told the cabbie to keep driving around the block.

Ted said, “What's wrong with that jazzy car you had, Toussaint? You crashed it?”

“Having it checked. What's new?”

“Same old stuff. Mrs. James came through with the money. You must be doing well, cruising around in a cab.”

“It isn't the salary but the tips that keep me going,” I said, a kind of inside joke Ted didn't get. “I'm on a big divorce case with an expense account a yard wide.”

“Money involved, huh?” Ted grunted. He was acting very natural, but I couldn't risk it being an act. I looked upon Ted as a friend, but when it comes to murder how friendly can you get?

“Enough money. Anybody in your office.”

“No. Why?”

“I need your help. Maybe I'll hire you.”

“Can your client afford me? I charge too much to be padded into an expense account.”

“That's what I want to talk over.” I stopped the cabbie, paid him off. We walked down the block toward Ted's office. We passed a squad car stuck in the traffic. Ted didn't do anything. I had to test him but it was rough on my nerves. Main thing, he didn't know I was wanted.

Once in his office I said, “It's like this, Ted, I want to rent one of your bugs, get checked out on it. Kind I can carry around on me. I'll need a record of a conversation with a guy tonight.”

Ted belched and rubbed his pot belly. “I don't know; if you lose the bug or bust it, runs into folding money.

Besides, that isn't worth a bad dime as evidence, only your word against his. Better tell me what you got in mind, Toussaint.”

“Will you rent the stuff to me or not?”

“Now don't get huffy. I been learning about this tape stuff, and I'm trying to help you. If you really want to nail down evidence, it's best to have two men listening in. What you got in mind?”

I suddenly changed my plans, took a deep breath and plunged in—trusting a white man with my life. “I'll level with you, Ted, I'm jammed up. I want you to do me two favors. I'm going to tell you something. If you don't like the way it sounds, forget I told you a word. If, after you hear me out, well, if you want to help me—that's the second favor.” If Ted backed out it wouldn't be much of a fight tying him up for the night, then doing the obvious— beating the truth out of Steve.

“You mean I'll be a little accessory to something?” he said, smiling wisely.

“The something happens to be murder.” The smile turned false and sickly, his whole face went gray. But since I had my feet wet I had to go in all the way. Ted listened as I told him everything that had happened from the second Kay walked into my office. I talked for a long time and when I was finished Ted took a cigar from a desk box, broke off a hunk and started chewing on it, thinking. I sat on the edge of his desk, right on top of him, watching and ready for any move he might make.

Finally he said in a weary voice, “All right, sit down, Toussaint, I'm not going to tangle with you. You got me on a hell of a spot. It'd be different if you hadn't slugged the cop. I don't have to tell you a private badge can't operate unless he keeps on the good side of the police, and helping a cop fighter—Geezoo!”

“Will you buy this: I came up here, slugged you, took a tape recorder and tied you up for the night?” I asked, wondering what difference it made if he agreed or not.

“I didn't say I was turning you down. I'm in. Can we see this Kay babe on the quiet and—?”

“Wait a minute, let's play open poker—why are you sticking your neck out for me?”

“Well,” Ted grunted, “it ain't because I like you or any of that slop. I mean, friendship doesn't go for murder raps. If you knocked off Thomas I don't picture you hanging around New York, or telling me about it. So I got to go along with your being innocent. Toussaint, I'll level with you: that's an important contact you have and if we can break this my agency will be all over the papers and up and down Madison Avenue. It's worth the gamble.”

“And if it turns out McDonald has nothing to do with anything?”

Ted rubbed his square hands together, as if drying them. “Then I'm messed up. I said it was a gamble—bet nothing, you win nothing. Now sit down and let's talk. I wish you'd come earlier; I could call a credit house and get a complete rundown on McDonald, Kay, the others. But now I'll have to wait till tomorrow, and way I see it we have to act tonight. If the cops get us before we come up with anything —I'm too old to take a beating. We have to talk this Kay into helping us.”

“Why her?” I asked, moving into a chair but still watching him, ready to jump on him. “I figured I'd see Steve, accuse him, and get everything down on tape. I don't trust Kay.”

“But she's the only one who can give us any information on this stooge you mentioned. As for her being in on the murder, I can't see that. No motive. True, we don't know McDonald's motive either, but being a relative he can have a dozen motives we can't possibly know of. Also, if Kay was the big mind behind this, she wouldn't have had you up to her house to meet her friends. We have to talk her into going to McDonald's apartment tonight, or getting him up to her place. She plants a bug and we can be a block away in a car, getting it down. She'll come right out and accuse him of killing his cousin. Even if he didn't do it, I bet his answers will give us a lead, make damn interesting listening.”

“If Steve's our boy, he'll knock her off, too.”

“She gets him up to her apartment, we'll be in the next room, ready to take him. Nice, we have three witnesses to his story.”

“Suppose Steve and Kay are in this together?”

“Naw, that doesn't figure. As I just said, if she had anything to do with this, she would have kept you a secret, not invited you up to see her friends. No, it has to be Kay, it even looks right. Being they were working on the same TV show, etcetera, she'd be the one to suspect him. Main point is, will she have the courage to work with us?”

“And if she turns us down?”

“We're in a bad way.”

“I still think I should see him, plant a bug, and you be down in the car, recording what he says.”

Bailey sent a stream of brown tobacco juice into the waste basket. “Toussaint, if he is the killer, and has set you up, why should he admit a thing to you? Been my experience that criminals like to brag, especially these one-shot amateurs. Talking is a form of confession for them, and he'd love to shoot off his trap in front of her.”

“But they were lovey-dovey the last time I heard.”

“If she's a career gal, she won't want to be playing house with a killer.” He glanced at his watch. “Think she'll be home now? We can't risk phoning; we'll barge in. Faster we see her, the better; probably take a lot of talking to convince her she has to take a chance.”

He got up and I jumped and he said, “Relax, Toussaint, this ain't the time for jumpy nerves.” He unlocked a cabinet, brought out a tape recorder about the size of a portable typewriter, and some other gadgets. “In this holster there's a Minifone recorder, with the mike on your wrist, like a watch. Now this,”—he held up something the size of an old-fashioned pocket match box, with a pin sticking out of it—“is a little broadcasting station. You ought to see the inside; got transistors—that's like radio tubes— big as beans and batteries no larger than a dime. It's really something. My engineer showed it all to me once. You pin this under a chair or on the back of a couch and it will broadcast about 150 yards. Good for 30 hours.”

“Looks like a toy,” I said, examining the little box. Didn't weigh more than a box of matches either.

“Don't juggle it; my heart can't take the strain. If you knew what these 'toys' cost... I keep telling you this racket has become for engineers. I buy 'em, but you think I know what it's all about? My engineer showed me enough so I can work 'em, that's all I need to know. Ready?”

“Yeah,” I said, feeling like an ingrate. I didn't like Ted's plan but couldn't think of anything better.

As he dropped his gray Homburg on his head, Ted said, “There's one condition, Toussaint. If we should be stopped by the cops, don't run for it or put up a fight. You'll have to let them take you in, trust they believe your story. I don't think they'll even start to believe it, but—I'm willing to gamble, but not with my life. Carrying a gun?”

“No.”

He bent over the small office safe, opened it, and took out two guns. I said, “I never even applied for a permit.”

Ted grunted softly. “Nuts. With what we're stepping into, a Sullivan Law rap won't matter much. Since I have a permit, let me carry both rods until we go into action.”

For a fearful second, as he was busy locking the safe up, I had the feeling I was trapped. But I kept telling myself he would have thrown a gun on me right now if he was crossing me.

As he opened the door and turned out the lights, I stepped into the hallway. Ted said, “I know what you're thinking. Sure, I'd get some publicity for turning you in. But what would it prove, except I was lucky because you dropped in to see me? Who would I be selling, the police? Don't worry, Toussaint, I'm not a rat nor a noble character.... I'm in this simply to convince Madison Avenue what a hot investigator I am—not police headquarters. We understand each other?”

“Perfectly,” I said, trying to believe him.

Ted kept his '53 Buick in a nearby garage and I carried the recorder as we walked to the car. At first I was a little steamed, his telling me to carry it like I was his servant or something, but I calmed down when I realized it was almost a form of disguise on the street—as though I was a part of the routine of the city.

We kept circling Kay's block, looking for a place to park. When I asked why he passed up a spot on Third Avenue, Ted said, “Too far. Just in case we decide to do the recording in the car, I want it ready to pick up the bug. That means not more than a block away, or less.”

As we were turning into her block, on our tenth lap, a Caddy pulled out across the street from Kay's house. Before we could get there, a New Jersey car stopped and started to back in as Ted cursed. I ran over and flashed my badge fast, said, “Police. Park elsewhere, we need this spot.”

A thin guy in a tux was behind the wheel and he rubbed his sharp nose with one finger as he repeated, “Police?”

“Didn't you see the badge?” I asked, a growl in my voice. “Come on, get going.”

“Well.... Yes sir, officer. I always co-operate with the police. Raiding somebody?”

“Don't ask questions about police business.”

“Of course, you're right,” he said, driving away. Ted parked and got out, locking the car. The New Jersey guy was waiting at the corner for a light, looking back at us. It was okay, we looked like detectives, burly, and Ted dressed like one. I told Ted to wait. When the guy finally turned the corner, we crossed over to her house, rang her bell. When the door buzzed open I said, “Two of us can't fit in this elevator. I'll walk up, you give me a minute's head start.”

“Good, but wait until I get there before you show yourself.”

I sprinted up the cement stairs, then waited, panting, until the elevator came and Ted stepped out. He walked over to the door, held his gold shield against the peephole and said, “Detective.”

As the door opened he pushed in and I ran in behind him, shut the door. Wearing a pale blue Chinese housecoat over a slip, Kay was standing by the door. Barbara was sitting at a table set for supper, an apron over her gray-knit sheath dress.

They both screamed: small yells of fear and surprise. Then Kay wailed, “Touie, they have you!” That was a confusing sound too, sort of a hysterical sigh.

Bobby jumped to her feet, ready to scream again, or burst into tears. Ted said, “Now ladies, things will be fine if you'll relax, no screams, don't run to the phone or—”

I cut in with, “This is Ted Bailey, a friend of mine. He's a private detective.”

The real relief I saw on both their faces was a shot in the arm—neither Kay nor Bobby had blown the whistle on me. Kay hugged me. “I've been so worried about you, Touie. I felt at fault for involving you in all this.”

I held her for a moment, asked, “You two alone?”

“Yes. Oh Touie, are you all right?”

“I don't know,” I said, pushing her away—gently. “The police been asking about me?”

“No.”

“No?”

“Of course, when we read about the murder the office was thrown into a first-rate gasser. It was immediately agreed to drop the Thomas story from You—Detective! Then—”

“Kay, you mean Central hasn't told the police about me?”

Kay gave me her tight smile. “Of course not. Very few people knew of the publicity stunt, and in view of the murder any news of it would now be in extremely poor taste. Of course we had no way of knowing what you would say, and that had us worried. Naturally I discussed it with B.H.

He had a chat with a member of Central's legal staff who happens to be a personal friend of somebody high up in the police department. In an off-the-cuff talk with the police, our lawyer was told the police knew all about you, that is, knew your identity. It was agreed Central would be kept out of the case as far as possible.”

“How would Central be kept out? By making sure a trigger-happy cop killed me if I should be collared!”

“Don't be nasty, Touie. We decided that if you were caught, we would see you had the best lawyers. There would be a slight change in our story, something you couldn't possibly object to: I had hired you merely to recheck the facts on Thomas. After all, you can't blame Central—they have millions invested in their network.”

Their millions and shame on this brown boy! I thought.

Kay smiled again. “I wouldn't let them throw you to the dogs. This way we'd covered ourselves and it turned out fine. The police weren't too interested in you or—”

“I don't get this about the cops,” Ted cut in.

“The cops aren't interested in me, only in framing me into the electric chair!” I got it all right: if I said anything about the publicity deal, Central would claim I was nuts.

“There!” Bobby said, as if making a profound statement. “I told Kay you didn't do it.”

Kay waved a slim hand in the air. “Now I never said— My God, what did happen in that room, Touie?”

“A setup. Somebody claiming they were you phoned my office, left a message I was to be in Thomas' room at midnight. He was dead when I got there. Moment later a cop came busting in.”

“Claiming I was calling?” Kay began. “I don't see how anybody could know—”

“That's what I'm here for, to find the answers to a few questions. I'm still under the frame. Two things I want to know. You said after the Thomas case was televised, you— Central—had a stooge set to turn him in to the police. Who is the stooge?”

“Because of the secrecy, we hadn't told the—eh—stooge yet. There's a pensioned watchman who worked for Central we planned to hire. Either he or his wife, they could use the money.”

“Okay, we'll forget that angle. Now, what's playing between you and Steve McDonald?”

Kay flushed. “What has my—?”

“There's nothing between them!” Bobby said loudly, rushing over to place a protective arm around Kay. “She was home the next morning. She's finished with him.”

Kay broke away from Bobby, took her pipe out of a pocket in the Chinese coat, calmly lit it as Ted's eyes got large. “I really don't see what my personal affairs have to do with all this, Touie.”

“Kay, I'm not asking to keep up with the local gossip. I have a damn good reason.”

Kay blew a whiff of smoke at me. “I'm smoking that brand you recommended. About Steve, it isn't worth talking about. I admit, I was silly. Steve isn't anything... a... caterpillar. So terribly dull that actually all that happened was I got very drunk at his place.”

“And passed out?”

“How did you know? We started out late in the afternoon and he acted so cocky, and over nothing, why, it became boring. I drank too much, did a loop-the-loop early in the evening. Now that I've confessed my all, I still don't get the bit about Steve.”

“He is—or was—Thomas' cousin.”

“Honest?” Kay asked, as if we were playing kid games.

I nodded.

Kay chuckled as she dropped on the couch. “Oh, this is simply priceless. His cousin! And the way the smug louse ate up the white-haired wonder-boy role. This explains how he was able to come up with a complete script on Thomas overnight. It was his speed that nailed down the writing assignment for the rest of the scripts and—”

“Did McDonald know about your publicity idea?” Ted cut in.

Kay gave him a long look. “I see you do, too.” Then she sent an accusing glance at me.

“For the love of Mike, Kay, snap out of it. Sure I told Ted. What about Steve, was he in on things?”

She ran a hand over her cropped copper hair, as if fitting it on her head. “The morning after I hired you, when I was telling B.H. about it, long distance, he suggested letting Steve in on it. He seemed such a buster of an idea boy we thought he might come up with—God, you think he did it?”

“I don't know, but I'm going to find out tonight—if you'll help me.”

“What's Kay got to do with this?” Bobby asked. “I'm certainly not going to chance her getting hurt or involved in—”

“Be still, Butch. What is it you want me to do?”

I told her what we had in mind and Ted added, “You see, Miss, he'll shoot off his mouth to you, to a girl. Me or Toussaint confronted him he'd clam up. If we beat it out of him, it wouldn't stand up in court.”

Kay touched her hair again, nodding as she puffed on her pipe. She seemed only interested in watching the smoke going up toward the ceiling. Bobby said, “Surely you aren't asking Kay to risk her neck with a murderer!”

“Ted and I will be in the next room. We'll take care of Steve before he can do—”

Kay went through the slim hand-waving routine again. “Now shut up, the two of you. I want to think. It has its points. Trouble is, if I'm involved the publicity angle might come to light. That would be disastrous for the network.”

“The hell with the network, my life is at stake!”

Kay showed me her tight little smile once more. “Touie, I realize that, but don't be melodramatic. Career is another word for life and my career is at stake.”

“Kay is right,” Bobby said. “Suppose Steve isn't the killer, or won't admit a thing, where does that leave Kay?”

Kay shook her head. “Bobby, I'm not worrying about that cockroach. No, suppose he is the murderer, where does that leave Central and the show?”

“Damn you, Kay, this is murder, not a goddamn show!” I said, trying not to shout.

Like somebody in a hammy play, she puffed on her pipe for a moment, and the silence in the room seemed ready to explode. Then she stood up. “I'm going to chance it!”

“Oh, Kay,” Bobby said.

“I'm counting on the sponsor being a crime fan, that he'll buy it. The way I see all this, assuming Steve is our boy, we switch the Thomas sequence to the opening show —we'll be all over the papers for the next eight days. I'll see to that. We open to nation-wide headline publicity. The show will be watched by everyone in the country. Yes! Bobby, you know I have a special sense about publicity, and this hits me exactly right. A natural. Of course the publicity angle can't be exposed.... Touie was merely hired to check on Tutt really being Thomas. Don't you see it? A show which caused a Central writer to murder... and the network boldly solves it, cleans its own house in the name of law and order. This can't miss!” Her voice actually came alive, full of excitement.

“Now, Kay, honey,” Barbara said, “hadn't you better check with B.H. first? Call him and—”

“No, no,” I cut in. “No phoning anybody. If McDonald is warned I'm sunk.”

Barbara said, “You don't think we'd—”

“Look, for all I know B.H. can be the killer, or in on it with McDonald.”

Kay said, “Stop all the talk. I'm not calling B.H. I'm doing this solely on my responsibility. It'll amount to more if I pull it off.”

“Sure, it will amount to my life—if anybody is interested in that besides me,” I said.

“Oh stop the self-pity,” Kay told me. “Now what is it you want me to do—in detail?”

Ted said, “First off, can you hire my agency? Officially. I want to be in on this.”

“Damn it,” I said, boiling over, “give her the pitch some other time. Now listen, here's the deal.” I told her about the bug and the recorder and getting Steve up to her place. When I finished Kay didn't hesitate a second to say, “Fine. I'll phone Steve right now.”

But Bobby got to the phone first. “Kay, why can't I be the one? He knows I'm familiar with all the details of the publicity project, so it would be logical for me to suspect him.”

“That's terribly sweet and brave of you, Bobby-boy, but you see it has to be me because I'm representing Central in all this mess. I'll phone him now, hint something has come up concerning the studio—that should bring him on the run. How soon should I tell him to come?”

“Right away,” I said. “There's one more piece of business before we start. I've socked a cop. Now, if we pin anything on Steve, I want you three to stick with me all the time I'm with the cops, even at the precinct house. I'm not going for any beating.”

“Don't worry,” Ted told me blandly, “we give them the real killer and they'll be happy.”

“Maybe, but I want you around for insurance.”

“Touie is right. We all know why the cops may want to beat him up, and I have a better idea,” Kay said, knocking the ashes out of her jeweled pipe. “Let me phone a reporter friend, have him stand by. If we get anything on Steve, we'll phone the reporter before calling the police. Publicity-wise it will be fine, because this fellow works for one of the big wire services. Okay, Touie?”

I nodded and she dialed some guy and, after the small talk and assuring him this wasn't merely another news plant or publicity release, he agreed to wait for her call. We were wasting time and I had her call Steve, the tenseness inside me coiling tighter with each turn of her phone dial. After a moment Kay hung up, said there wasn't any answer. The letdown must have shown on my face; she said, “He's probably out for supper, Touie. It isn't seven yet. I suggest we finish eating. Hungry, Mr. Bailey?”

Matter of fact, I was starving, and damn if we all didn't have supper as though we were waiting to go on a party instead of hooking a killer. Kay kept trying Steve's number every fifteen minutes, and in the meantime we had to watch TV. Kay wanted to “catch” certain shows and commercials. Ted phoned his wife to tell her he was working, and then he sat and stared at Bobby and Kay, his eyes bewildered. I had the same feeling I had in Bingston hanging around the Davis house: I began to wonder if all this was real or a nightmare.

Ted went down to check his car, kept worrying somebody would steal the equipment. Bobby had a kettle boiling in the fireplace and served hot rums. By ten I was a jumpy wreck, certain Steve had flown the coop. Kay was sipping too many rums and I snapped, “Don't get crocked.”

“I'm too excited for that. But I do need a few belts from the bottle of courage, as the non-A.A. people romantically call it. Rum doesn't relax, Bobby. Butch, you look tired, why don't you take a sleep pill?”

At five to eleven she finally got Steve, and I almost melted away with relief. Kay asked, “Steve, can you come up to my place at once? What? Don't be an ass, this is strictly business. I've found out something at the office that will make you drool. Oh, don't hand me any creative-mood junk. You can write later: this is important. No, no, I can't discuss it on the phone. Okay, stay with your typewriter, Hemingway.” She winked at us over the receiver. “But I have the inside dope on a new show—biggest thing in your career—a full net series, twice a week. Oh, I'm not kidding. You'll have to get on your horse and bring in a sample outline by tomorrow afternoon. Bighearted? Listen, I want a straight twenty per cent cut if you land the scripting.... I don't see why you can't come over. What? I'm offering you a big deal on a silver platter and you're playing coy....”

I tapped her shoulder, said in pantomime, “Tell him you'll go to his place.”

She nodded. “Steve, this is really big; suppose I come up to see you. You're damn right I'm money-hungry... when it's upper-bracket money. I'll be over within the hour. I have to dress and— All right, all right, cut the sex talk. I'm serious. I'll be up as soon as I can.”

As she hung up, Bobby cried, “Kay, don't, don't!”

“Oh, Bobby, relax. Take your pill and go to sleep.”

“No! I won't let you go alone!”

I said, “You can't go with Kay—louse up everything.”

“I insist. I won't let Kay face that creature alone!”

Ted said, “Since we'll have to do the tape in the car, let her stay downstairs with me. Another witness won't hurt.” He pulled the matchbox transmitter from his pocket, showed it to Kay. “This is important, so listen. You carry this in your bag, and make sure it don't get stuck to the bag. You have to play this smart and careful; if he sees it we're sunk. When you sit down, pin this under a chair, or on the back of a couch—anyplace where it isn't covered up and can't be seen. And you got to do it soon as you get inside his apartment.”

Kay poked a finger at the box. “This tiny gadget really broadcasts?”

“Yeah, I'll set it as soon as you're ready. And be careful with it. It costs like crazy, too.”

Kay pinched the Chinese robe, said almost to herself, “I ought to get into a bitchy dress—something real seductive.”

“Kay!” Bobby said.

“My God, the very last thing I want is Steve McDonald. I'll be a moment.” She went into the bedroom.

I called after her, “What sort of house does he live in?”

“One of these remodeled deals, but larger than this house.”

“Sport a doorman?”

“No, I don't think so.”

“Does he live in the front or back?”

“I don't remember. He has one large room and kitchenette. Fantastically decorated.”

“Is it on a fire escape?”

“Really. How would I know?”

Ted and I got our coats while Bobby slipped into a tailored cloth coat and bebop cap, which didn't look at all mannish on her. Kay walked in wearing spike heels and a light silver strapless gown. Her face wasn't made-up, the copper-colored hair carefully—but casually—brushed around her head. The gown and hair set off her thin shoulders and all of it added up to sex. Tossing a mink cape on her shoulders she said, “Now I'm prepared. I always said I'd wear this mink till the day I died.”

“Kay, please!” Bobby whined.

Ted held up his thick hands. “Let's get things straight. I'll let you women out on the corner, in case this McDonald is the suspicious type and looking out his window. When we find a parking space, Bobby here will walk down to the car. Kay, you wait in front of McDonald's house for Toussaint, who will go up and get on the fire escape, be set before you enter the apartment. That may not be easy.” He glanced at me and we were both thinking the same thing: a Negro seen on the roof or fire escape in a white neighborhood would bring a dozen frantic calls to the police. “If a fire escape is out, I think Toussaint should plant himself outside McDonald's door, batter it down when the time comes.”

“How can I hear through a door?” I asked. Loitering in a hallway would be dangerous as the devil—for me.

“Planned that,” Ted grunted. “It's late and quiet out. Soon as Kay plants the bug, I'll give three short blasts of the car horn—meaning the bug is sending okay. If it ain't working, if you don't hear the horn within five minutes after you set the bug, get the bug back and leave. You tell him, Kay, you have a headache or—”

“It has to be tonight,” I cut in.

“The main thing it has to be done right,” Ted went on. “You don't hear the horn—here, better yet. If I'm not receiving, Bobby will phone; that will give Kay an excuse to leave. Now, if things go okay, I'm hearing everything, I'll give another three blasts of the horn if Kay seems in danger. Toussaint can then come through the door and window, and I'll be on my way up.”

“That sounds good,” Kay said.

“If Touie can't be outside a window, we can't go through with it,” Bobby said. “It'd only take Steve a second to do... something.”

Ted shook his big head. “Don't worry, ma'am. Once he hears somebody at the door, he'll only be doing one thing —trying to get out of there. And Toussaint will be armed.”

“I can handle Steve. I've kicked a few men in the right place before,” Kay said. “Let's go.”

Bobby and Ted went down first while Kay and I waited for the elevator. “Are you nervous, Touie?” she asked calmly.

“Wish I knew more about the location of his apartment in the building.”

“It's a walk-up and he's on the third floor, but that's all I remember. I'm really sorry I got you into this mess.”

I shrugged. “Risks of the job, I guess.”

Steve lived in the Sixties, east of Madison Avenue. Ted gave Kay the transmitter, making sure it was working, and she slipped it into her bag as she and Bobby got off at the corner. Ted said, “Now watch yourself, don't leave your bag when you take off your cape.”

We turned into Sixty-fifth Street, which was empty of people but full of cars. There was only one open space, in front of a large apartment house, with no parking lettered across the curb. I told Ted to park there and he said the doorman would raise hell. I told him to park.

This old man dressed like a foreign general came rushing out and before he could say a word I shook his hand, said, “It's important we park here for about a half hour.”

“You can't—” He saw the ten bucks I'd palmed in his hand, added, “Raise the hood of your car, like you're broken down. Only a half hour. What's this all about?”

“Divorce raid. Not in your house.” We were in a good spot, on the same side of the street and less than a hundred feet from Steve's place.

I raised the hood as Ted fooled with the tape recorder. Then I stepped into the shadow of the nearest building. Bobby came down the block first, got into the car, while the old doorman stood in the doorway of the building, watched us with suspicious eyes. As Kay walked toward the house, I walked up the street, stepped into the small lobby of Steve's house right behind her. I said, “No fire escape on the front. Ring the bell and walk up. Wait at least ten minutes before you put the question to him, but hook up the bug soon as you can. Understand?”

She nodded and rang his bell, apartment 3D. When he buzzed the door open we both stepped inside and she walked up. I stood in the hallway, wondering what I'd do if anybody came in, asked what I was doing there, or gave me one of those looks, which would be the same as a question. There was more than an even chance the moment they reached a phone they'd call the police: “There's a burly Negro in the lobby of...”

I heard Steve open the door, say something impatiently, then the silence of the house again as he closed the door. I waited a second, then went up the stairs, moving softly, almost walking in slow motion. Passing the second floor I saw the “D” apartments were in the rear, on the left side. The halls were fireproof ed, with a window at the rear of the hall—-must be a fire escape there. When I reached the roof, sweating heavily, I lit a match. The door looked okay, no Holmes alarm. I unlocked it and stepped out into the cool air, my darkness swallowed in the black of night.

I shut my eyes, then opened them slowly, looked around at the cemetery of TV aerials like weird crosses. It was simple. An iron ladder went down the back of the roof to the fire escape. There was a small rear yard and then the back of other houses, lights showing in many rooms. There was only one fire escape. They must have smeared an inspector to get away with it. Taking off my shoes and tying them around my neck, I started down the ladder. Passing the top hall window I was silhouetted like a target. Target... I'd forgotten something... Ted's gun.

9

I NEVER had much use for pistols; the war had taught me to love a carbine. Still I felt kind of naked without Ted's pistol right now, and if I couldn't get the window open a hunk of lead could. So shame on me for being stupid and it was too late to worry about it.

In its tenement days there must have been two railroad flats to each floor, with front and rear entrances. These had been broken up into four large one-room apartments, and the two in the rear had wide windows on either side of the fire escape. The light was on in one of the top-floor apartments and I saw a man sprawled on a couch, reading a paper, as I went down the roof ladder to the fire escape. That didn't worry me: unless a person was looking directly out at the fire escape, and that meant looking through the window at an angle, I was safe. What made me nervous was passing the lighted hall window on each floor—anybody glancing out of a window across the back yard would have to see me.

On the fourth floor a dog barked as I went down the iron steps, which felt like ice through my woolen socks. Happily the mutt let it go at one bark and on the third floor I got another break: Steve's light was on, of course, but the apartment on the other side of the fire escape was dark, the window opened slightly for air. Steve had an air-conditioning unit sticking out of the bottom half of his window. Leaving my shoes on the steps I got up on the railing, hoped the air-conditioning box would hold me as I faced the building and tried to get a grip on the rough brick with my big fingers. I put one foot out on the air-conditioning box. It seemed pretty firm. With the other foot on the fire-escape railing I was okay—if I hadn't been seen from across the back yard—lost in the shadows outside the hall window. I had a fair view of his room and the window wasn't locked. I could open the window and step right into the room.

The room was something out of the 1890s. The wallpaper was a mess of big roses and little cupids dancing around, the chandelier was a clumsy affair of cut glass, the furniture was all stuffed plush and leather chairs, with a narrow four-poster bed in one corner. Even the pictures had old heavy gold frames and on the tables and bookcases I saw old bric-a-brac vases and china. I don't know, it was so obviously affected it stank.

Steve was wearing a red satin smoking jacket, a cigarette dangling from his thin lips. Kay was sitting in what seemed like half a chaise longue, lying back on it, her feet on the floor. The chaise was made of a horrible cream yellow and damn if the transmitter wasn't hanging from the bottom of it, under the slight curve her backside made. Her skirt neatly hid it from Steve. She seemed completely at ease. I had to admire her for being real cool when it counted.

With different furniture it would have been a nice apartment; the room was large, and through two open doors I saw the John and a small kitchenette. There seemed to be a window in the kitchen, probably opened on an air shaft. By stretching my neck I could see an old-fashioned roll-top desk, opened, a typewriter and stacks of manuscript. Next to the desk stood a small marble top table with gold legs, holding up a couple of bottles and an ice bucket, and a huge milk-glass lamp. I could hear them talking and they were both calm. Steve asked if she wanted a drink and Kay said no. Then he asked if it was true about some dame who was said to be living with one of Central's vice-presidents and Kay said that was old hat.

The bottom of my feet were numb with cold, my hands ached from holding on to the brick wall—and I suddenly felt blue, real lousy blue. The whole deal seemed ridiculous —what would a nut like Steve have to do with a murder? Why should these two white people help me? Here I was, standing spread-eagled, expecting a slug in the back any minute, a killing fall under me. I had this terrible feeling I was wasting time, that it was all helpless, I was doomed.

The three horn blasts from the street made me snap out of it. The bug was sending okay. Steve held his ears. “That goddamn joker I Every morning around eight some jerk honks his horn, too lazy to get out and ring a bell. Wonder a cop doesn't give him a ticket. By God, if I had a front apartment, I'd toss a bottle down on him. Grates my nerves.” He shook himself to show how it all grated. “Well, darling, what's the big deal you're in an uproar about?”

“My, my, aren't we impatient now,” she said coyly. “When I phoned you acted as if you couldn't care less.”

“That wasn't it. I'm finishing the tenth script for You— Detective! and once the juices start flowing I dislike being disturbed. What's the big flash?”

She even smiled as she said, “I've been thinking about the killing of Tutt... Thomas.”

Steve flicked his cigarette ash into a glass. “What kind of a show can be made out of that?”

“That's what I'm asking you,” Kay said softly, staring up at him. “Came to me that only three people knew about the publicity angle on Thomas—myself, B.H., and you.”

Steve was a cool one too. “And one more—that private eye you hired. The black eye, if you'll excuse the pun, or did I crack that once before? What has the publicity stunt to do with Thomas' death?”

“I don't know, but it hit me that maybe it has some connection. That's why I was thinking about Thomas— although the police think Touie did it, what possible motive could he have?”

Steve made his eyes big. “Dear, if you've cut into my work just to play detective... Who knows why Moore did it? Perhaps Thomas caught him snooping and put up a fight. In a moment of anger anything can happen.”

“What can happen in a moment of truth?”

“Darling, you're far too deep for me tonight. What's this all about?”

“That fight bit doesn't fit, Steve. That's been worrying me because I told Touie he didn't have to keep a tight tab on Thomas until after the program was aired, so...”

“Kay, have you heard from your Othello?”

“Of course not, but I suppose we're all detectives at heart, so I've been doing some thinking about it tonight. Certainly B.H. didn't have a reason to kill Thomas; he wasn't even in town. I know I didn't.”

The big eyes again, mocking her. “And then there was one little Indian left... me?”

She giggled. “It did seem odd he should be killed on the very day you were let in on the publicity secret.”

Steve laughed, real deep laughter. “Lord, why should I kill Tutt. He was the best break I've ever had.”

“Exactly, Steve. I remembered how you came up with a script on Thomas overnight. How did you do the research so quickly? The local newspaper morgues would be useless.”

“All women have lousy memories. Did you forget that I had a similar show in mind, that I'd already done a rough audition script on Tutt?” He flashed his big eyes at her again, as if proving something.

My right foot was so numb I shifted my weight slightly to the foot resting on the fire-escape railing. When I put weight back on the right foot the damn air-conditioning box groaned and my heart froze.

But Steve was too steamed to hear it. “I don't mind a gag. However I resent this ridiculous accusation, this scummy knife in the back. Now get out of here!”

“Stevie, don't make a speech. I did more than kick this around in my bird brain.... I made a few calls to Kentucky.”

I could feel the heavy silence of the room out on the fire escape; then he split it with a thin scream. “You bitch!” His long thin face flushed a deep pink, then went deadly white.

Kay didn't even jump; she was enjoying this. She made her tight smile, then said, “My, that cut through the veneer of coolness, didn't it? Now suppose you cut the dramatics and in basic English tell me about Cousin Thomas.”

He didn't say a word, stood there very straight, his face a mixture of pain and anger.

She put the knife in deeper, turned it. “Stevie, you don't understand the bit. I'm giving you a break. For the sake of the show I'm giving you a chance to talk to me—before I talk to the police.”

“How... how... did you find out?” His voice was in hoarse pieces now.

“It's too late for how. You're always so glib, do some fast talking now. Why did you kill him?”

He fell back against a table, seemed actually to shrink and wrinkle up. Then he pulled himself together, took a deep breath, and was under control again. Even made his big eyes as he walked over and sat on the edge of his desk, relit his cigarette. “Of course I'll talk—it's a story you can understand. I killed him. But wait till—”

There was another scream, a tiny muffled scream of joy and relief that stayed in my throat.

“—you hear it all. It wasn't murder. Thomas is a distant cousin of mine, the family black sheep, our skeleton in the closet. He was a lump, his mother a common slut. You see my situation; I wrote my novel and nothing happened. I had to make it as a writer or be stuck in a goddamn hick store the rest of my life, a drunken failure. I gassed around Hollywood for a time, couldn't get in. I returned to New York and tried TV. I worked like a dog. For two lousy years I wrote on spec, was in on a dozen package deals that ended in nothing. I was desperate—I'm thirty-six years old. I can't keep asking my sick Dad for eating money!”

“And then you heard about You—Detective!” Kay added, reaching over to the table for one of his cigarettes.

He lit it for her as he said, “I'd been stooging around Central for a long time. This was my in. While I'd only seen Porky a few—”

“Porky?”

“Bob Thomas' nickname. He had the manners of a pig, I suppose. As I was saying, I'd only seen him a few times when we were kids, but family gossip gave me a rundown of his crimes. Frankly, I'd forgotten all about him until I saw him in Times Square, going to work. I didn't let him see me. It would only have meant a touch. I was thinking of doing a fast paperback on him... when I heard about the show. It was a snap for me to bat out a script during the night. It worked, flung the doors wide open for me.... Suddenly I was a success boy. The world was bright and sunny. I figured there was little chance of Porky being caught as a result of the show. It would be forgotten with the next twist of the dial. Anyway, he was a nobody, didn't matter. Sooner or later he'd end up in jail again. It was perfect for me.”

Kay nodded, puffing on her cigarette slowly. She either was a fine actress or actually thought all this was the most normal thinking in the world.

Steve crushed his cigarette and lit another—all in one practised motion. “When you told me Porky had been picked for the publicity bit, I panicked. Offhand, the chances were a thousand to one that he'd even see the show, much less catch the titles—see my name. But once he was arrested, all the publicity and news stories, well, he'd have to know about me. He had nothing to lose. He'd be angry, and he'd most certainly tell of our family relationship. My TV career would have been kaput. I went down to see him that night, told him what the play was, offered him five hundred dollars to take a powder. He blew his lid, there was a fight.... Then I was holding a bloody pair of pliers in my hand and he was dead. If I hadn't killed him, he would have done me in.”

“Self-defense,” Kay said, almost sympathetically.

“Obviously. Of course now there would certainly be a scandal and... I don't have to repeat the old saw about the law of survival. I had to think damn fast. I went out and disguising my voice phoned your black dick, said I was you. A simple thing; I've done a little acting. Had a bad moment when he wasn't home, but whoever answered was positive he could contact Moore. The rest was a matter of timing, phoning the police the moment I saw Moore enter the house. I was watching from a corner store. For what it's worth, I didn't enjoy it, but he fitted so nicely into things, and I had little choice. What the devil, I had my life's work in the balance, he would get a few years for manslaughter. What's a few years out of a nigger's life? So, now you have my story, the final installment, all up to date, my sweet.”

“Aha.”

He stood up, made his comical big eyes. “I'm sorry it has to be this way, Kay, because you're a lot of mixed-up fun. I sincerely mean that. And of course, it means getting in deeper, but again, I have no choice. Every action has a reaction—I have to kill you.”

“I'm glad you said you did a little acting; you enjoy hammy dramatics, Stevie.”

I heard three nervous blasts of the horn from the other side of the house.

He shrugged. “Dear, don't give me the business about I can trust you, that you'll never, never talk. I can't trust you.”

“You're so right.” Kay was terrific, not even a nervous twinge. Steve stepped out of character; like any other street-corner punk he whipped a large switch blade from his back pocket like an expert, the knife snapping open with the motion.

Kay's eyes were on the knife, but she still seemed to be enjoying things. He said, “As you know, I've never lacked ideas. This will fit: we had an unsatisfactory affair, which I'm sure isn't exactly a secret around the office, and now you've come up for another try. Certainly dressed for it. Again it didn't come off, you feel it's your fault, upset. I shall get drunk and pass out while you take an overdose of sleeping pills. Messy headlines, but otherwise safe.”

I started to go into action, but Kay's calm voice asking, “That cheese sticker is going to make me do all this?” held me back. She seemed so cool, as if she hadn't finished playing out her role.

Steve nodded. “Come, my sweet, you're aware of the many... eh... parts... of a woman that can be slashed. I'm offering you a painless out. I can change the script— you slashed yourself before taking the pills. Fits in with the suicide bit.”

“Stevie, you should have stayed at poppa's crossroads store; you're still a hick. This is all on tape. The joint is surrounded by detectives.”

He laughed, short shrill laughter. “You can come up with better than that, Kay. I thought you were going to bluff me with a gun-in-my-bag routine.”

“Steve, drop that knife, you're only making matters worse for yourself. There's a tiny transmitter pinned to the bottom of this chair. I placed it there myself. Look.” She raised and opened her legs—a flash of silver skirt and stockinged thighs—so the bug was visible.

I stepped off the fire-escape railing. With my full weight on the air-conditioning box for a second, it started to sag.

I felt myself going backward. With a frantic lunge, hands in front of my face, I pitched forward, crashing through the window. I hit the floor with a thud that jarred me dizzy, cut in a dozen places.

Shrieking, Steve turned and charged at me. I rolled over, jumped to my feet, slipping in my blood. I feinted with my right. He slashed at the forearm— I was cut in so many places I didn't know if he'd knicked me or not. I had a solid left winging toward his gut. It landed high, on his chest, and he stood stock-still, then crumpled to the floor.

“Are you all right?” I asked Kay. She nodded and I said, “You heard his confession. Of course that... self-defense is out. Thomas' blood was still wet when I got there.... Steve killed him after he phoned me. Probably stunned him, then finished him when— Where are you going?” Outside I could hear Ted pounding up the stairs.

Kay was at the phone. “Calling that reporter before— Touie, look out!”

Steve, this skinny, rugged slob, was back on his feet, without the knife. As I turned to face him this bag of bones nailed me on the chin with a wild right that sent my legs into a rubbery dance. If he'd clouted me again I might have gone out. Instead, he came at me, clawing, knees digging into my thighs. I put my arms around him in a bear hug and squeezed. His face went sallow white, the eyes really popped. When I let go he slid to the floor—no trouble for a lot of minutes.

Either because of the punch, or from loss of blood, after that things moved fast and jerky, like in an old-time movie. Ted and Bobby came busting in when I finally got the door unlocked—and Ted's two-pants suit seemed the only real thing in sight, somehow made me think of that farm back in Bingston.

In a matter of seconds, or so it seemed, there were a fat reporter and a young kid photographer, and a dozen cops filled up the room. I was getting blood over one of Steve's plush chairs, trying to answer a million questions and not saying anything clearly. Finally I simply sat there and watched the others talking and rushing about. A little runty ambulance doc appeared and ripped off what remained of my clothes, gave me a shot of something that left me hovering in midair. I knew he was cleaning my cuts, stitching here and there, and then I was insisting I could stand okay and a cop gave me a blanket to wear.

Maybe I dozed. Now we were in the local precinct house, with the police brass and more reporters, flash bulbs going off in salvos. Steve must have decided to go for insane; he was gibbering and screaming until they carried him out of the room. I was watching things like a spectator, but two things I remember clearly.

Kay—the photographers had a holiday with her dress —was the busiest person in the police station, but she got me off in a corner and shoved a piece of paper and a pen in my bandaged hands, said, “Sign this, Touie. We're going to re-enact everything on film, to show after You — Detective! premieres with the Thomas episode. Lord, Lord, there will never be a publicity splash like this! I couldn't do more with a million-dollar budget... it's a river and I'm squeezing every drop....”

Her face suddenly looked old and hard. “What's the paper about?” I asked, my voice thick from the dope shot.

“You're to act out your real-life role on film—for two thousand. Best I could get. Sign, Touie, I have a thousand things to—”

I signed, asking, “Am I still on salary, on the case?”

“Certainly.” She pointed to a box in one corner of the drab detective squad room. “I brought you a suit and shirt from wardrobe—biggest I could find. Put your torn clothes down on your expense sheet.”

“Thanks. Jeez, my shoes are still out on that fire escape. My wallet must be around someplace. I'll cab home and—”

“Yes, yes. Be at my office tomorrow—today—at two sharp. Now I have to get back on my horse.... Oh, you have no idea how big this will be.”

The other thing I remember was a beefy cop with captain's gold bars on his shoulders, a hard-featured face and eyes that said they hated my brown skin, telling me, “Don't think you were such a hot-shot detective, Moore. The papers will make you a hero and you'll be big time on Lenox Avenue, but we knew all about you, boy.”

“You mean you knew I was down in Bingston?” The “man” was talking; I was “boy” again.

“We didn't bother looking. A wino down the hall heard this stiff argument in Thomas' room, saw a white man leaving. His wine put him to sleep but in the morning he told us. We weren't looking for you—for murder. I ain't doing anything about you kneeing that beat cop.... But I'll give you some free advice: don't ever get into trouble, not even a traffic ticket. Because I ain't doing anything about you kicking a cop doesn't mean we're forgetting it.”

“What was I supposed to do, let him bust my head open?” I asked, but the captain had walked away.

As it turned light outside, Ted, who had been smiling and handing out his cards as if he'd been elected mayor, told me, “Come on, Toussaint, I'll drive you home.”

I finally got my wallet and stuff, and outside as I got into his car I said, “Let's get coffee. I'm empty-hungry.”

“You haven't any shoes on.”

“I don't drink with my shoes,” I mumbled, full of tiredness.

Ted actually doubled up with stupid laughter.

10

WE STOPPED in a cafeteria on Eighty-sixth Street that was jumping with sleepy people drinking a fast cup of coffee before taking off for work. My stockinged feet didn't attract any attention, although the suit Kay got me should have been a crowd-stopper—it was made of a dark blue stiff material that simply hung on me. It was either a gag suit or custom made for a giant. The shot the doc had given me was wearing off, I was starting to feel pain, and very tired.

Ted was just the opposite. Although his eyes were bloodshot with strain and the bags under them dark as storm clouds, he was full of pep and on a talking jag. He was going to be in on the re-enacting of the McDonald capture, of course, and he kept chattering about what a break this was for his agency. After a couple of hot buttered bagels washed down with several glasses of orange juice and milk, I felt better; maybe the liquids were already replacing the blood I'd lost. But I was still blue and beat.

Ted dashed out and got the morning papers. I was all over the front page of most of them, even a small column in the Times. The News had a full-page picture of me standing in Steve's apartment, the busted window in the background. I looked out of this world—my clothes ripped and hanging in places, blood all over them and my shirt. My eyes seemed glassy, perhaps from the belt Steve gave me on the chin. Crazy the way a slim guy could punch like that. There were more pictures inside; of Kay, of Steve being led up the police-station steps, and one of Ted pointing to the recorder in the back of his car. Ted even had his coat open, showing his shoulder holster. I tried reading a few paragraphs and lost interest.

Ted read everything in a hoarse whisper, grunting with joy whenever his name was mentioned. He said, “I'm going to buy a couple dozen papers. This is worth a thousand bucks in advertising to me.”

“You couldn't buy it for ten times a grand. Tell me, Ted, are you going to stop wearing two-pants suits now?”

“What's wrong with this suit? Needs pressing but—”

“Nothing. It's a beautiful hunk of cloth. Let's blow. I need my beauty rest before facing the cameras. What do you know, suddenly I'm an actor.”

“Listen, Toussaint, we got some business talking to do.”

“I'm exhausted. Let's chatter while you drive me home.” I was too tired to be surprised at Ted's trying to hold me up for a day's pay, or whatever he wanted.

As we headed uptown, Ted chewing on a fresh cigar, he said, “I been thinking hard these last hours. You—we— have a good thing in these Madison Avenue buffs, a salting-money deal if we act smart and fast. Remember me telling you about this industrial stuff I'm going after? TV is an industry too, a big one. They must need private dicks on a thousand deals: spying on other networks, hush up scandals, keep track of a star's drinking, protect him—or her—from babes and con men—plenty of work. By acting smart I mean this: you have the “in” and I have the outfit. I'm offering you a partnership. Bailey and Moore. You get forty per cent. How's that, Toussaint?”

I shook my head. My eyes half closed with sleep, I was watching a TV show. Once more I was seeing Steve's apartment framed by the window, all the cockeyed furniture. Steve was “explaining” again why he killed Thomas. Kay was sitting there, calmly listening to him... agreeing with him. Cockeyed furniture, cockeyed sick people. Both of them talking like...

“I'm not chiseling you. I'd give you a straight fifty per cent only I am bringing in the equipment, a going agency, so seems to me I—”

I opened my eyes. “You can have it all, a hundred per cent, Ted. I'm throwing away my badge. I'll plug you to Kay. You'll be a cinch, the life of her parties.”

We were stopped for a light. Ted turned to stare at me, the strong cigar almost in my face. “Toussaint, you know what your mouth is saying?”

“They'll be making fun of you at the parties, but it means a big buck. Actually it isn't too hard to take or—”

“After years of starving in this racket, now you're giving it up?”

“Aha. Now. When for the first time I feel I know my stuff, would make a good investigator. Also give you Sid's weekend jobs too. Only time I want to hear about cops and detectives is in a novel or a movie, and maybe not even then. I've had it. Before I go to the studio today, I'm stopping at G.P.O. to tell Uncle Sam I'm one of his new mail carriers.”

“Toussaint, I figure we can't do less than ten thousand a year each, as a starter. You're wrong if you think you can go it alone or— You have something else working for you? Say, you ain't taking this acting stuff seriously?”

“Ted, I'm sick of phonies. I want to be a mailman and mind my own business. Let somebody else be waiting to collar a babe shoplifting because she hasn't money to buy the clothes she needs. I don't ever want to dun an old woman into paying up on some goddamn sink on which she was screwed from the word go. Most of all I'm sick of being around people busy stepping on each other's backs, turning in their own relatives for a job, murdering them to keep the job,” I said, seeing Kay again listening to Steve as if what he was telling her was normal, understandable; as if any job was worth what he did. “In short, I'm sick to death of playing in other people's dirt.”

“You lost blood, you're excited, tired. Tomorrow you'll think differently about—”

“No, Ted. Maybe this has been in the back of my noggin for a long time, without me knowing it. I'm finished as a dick. You did a lot for me, Ted, and I appreciate the chance you took. I mean that. But you don't need me for this Madison Avenue rat race. I'll talk to Kay, you'll be in solid.”

“If you do that, Toussaint, I'll never forget you. I'll take care of you at Christmas. I'll... you are going through with this acting business, ain't you?”

“Sure. I'll need the money to get straight. But that's it, the end of my being a badge. I'm tired. There was a farm outside Bingston. I'd like to just sit around that for a week, resting. No, no, that would drive me nuts. My stop is somewhere in the middle of the line.”

“You sure need sleep.”

We pulled up in front of the house—I hadn't seen the old dump in almost a week. It still looked like a dump, but such a friendly one. It really looked like home. Getting out of the car I shook Ted's hand, told him, “Thanks again. I hope this pays off big for you. Ask Kay for a good publicity man, get as much out of this hoopla as you can.”

“Hey, that's good. A publicity man—sure—easily worth a couple hundred to me. Kay will show me the ropes.... Suppose she won't be in her office till noon or so.”

“Strike while you're hot. She's working there right now; phone her. See you this afternoon, Ted.”

The apartment looked the same, as shabby and comfortable as ever. Neither Roy nor Ollie was in. I opened my studio bed, undressed. A shower was out—my body looked like a weird crossword puzzle, the patches of white tape and bandages against my brown. I couldn't recall when I was to see the doc again, made a note to phone him. It was a few minutes after eight thirty when I set the alarm for noon, fell into bed.

As if the bed was wired for sound, the second I touched the sheets the phone rang. I placed the phone on the floor, got back into bed, and picked up the receiver. It was Sybil. “Touie, I've just seen the papers.... My God!”

“Hello, Sybil honey. I was going to call you later. I'll be able to pay back your money by tonight.”

“Who mentioned money? Are you all right?”

“Tired—and busy. You mentioned money the last time I called you—from Kentucky. You mentioned it a lot.”

“Oh, I was angry, you mixed up in all this crazy business. I mean, I thought it was nutty.”

“But now that it has turned out okay, it wasn't crazy?” I asked, wondering how I'd tell her.

“Touie, I've called in sick, thinking you'd come here. What are you doing in your place? I want to talk to you.”

“I have a little talking to do, too. Look, I'm in bed and pretty beat—can you come over here?”

“You know how I feel about going to your place.”

“How do you feel?”

“Come on, Touie, I've told you a hundred times.”

“But you never told me why, the true-blue why. Why?”

“Touie, are you drunk?”

“Only groggy. Sybil, it's important you tell me why.”

“Really, you know how it looks. I mean I don't want Roy or Ollie to think I'm... You know.”

“They aren't here. Yeah, I know, but what I know isn't what you know,” I said, wondering if I was afraid to say what I was thinking. “Honey, if I take the P.O. job today, would you marry me and move in here?”

“Touie, what's got into you? Why on earth should we live there?”

“Sybil, I'm saying this a little mixed-up, but... Babe, we have different standards, always have had, I guess. You want to marry me not because I'm me but because I've suddenly become a double income, a new apartment, a new car—the Harlem social swindle, which is even sillier than the Park Avenue monkey cage. You've been holding out—”

“Touie, I don't know what you're saying. You sleep and then come over this afternoon and we'll talk.”

“I have to work this afternoon and soon as I finish that I'm leaving for Ohio to pick up my car. Let's talk now, while I can say it. I don't want to talk about love like a schoolboy, but well... Maybe I can say it this way: you wouldn't marry me before because you were afraid you'd have to support me for a while. But I wasn't sitting around on my lazy rusty-dusty, I wasn't trying to establish myself. But you wanted to hold out for a sure thing. I'm not saying this very clearly.”

“You certainly aren't! I don't know what's wrong with you, Touie. As for supporting a man, I did that once and—”

“That's what I'm trying to say: I'm not talking about a man, or a situation, I'm talking about you and me.”

“Whatever you're trying to say is over my head. Here I lose a day's pay to wait around for you and you don't come here and when I call you, you give me a lot of silly stuff!”

“It isn't silly. I've been thinking about this the last couple of days. The high point of a marriage can't be a new apartment or a fur coat or—”

“Have you turned sappy? All this talk about 1-o-v-e. What's wrong with you?”

What was wrong was I didn't have the guts to tell her the truth. I tried to think of the right words and all I could think of was a line from a song: you always hurt the one you love.... But I didn't love Sybil and she never loved me. Then I kept thinking of what she'd said about when a man can't find himself he found her. That was true. I had found myself, didn't...

“Touie? Did you hear me?”

“Yeah, I heard you. Look, I can't say what I want. I'll... eh... I'll send you a check tonight.”

“Just be sure you do! When you come to your senses, when you come back from Ohio, perhaps I'll let you call me and we'll talk about this when you've calmed down.”

“Sybil, I want us to be friends—always—but I don't know if we'll ever talk about this....”

“All this publicity has gone to your head. Send me my money and good-by!”

She hung up and I put the phone down and stretched out in bed. I knew how it would sound: I was giving her the brush now that I had it made. But how could I tell her I didn't have it made moneywise, as Kay would say, but in my mind? In my peace of mind?

I was too tired to think about it. I felt lousy—but not too lousy. I'd been trying to tell her what I'd known for the last six or seven hours.... When I drove the Jag back from Bingston I wouldn't be driving alone... I hoped.