Streets of Fire

TWENTY-ONE

Ben and Coggins moved down Fourth Avenue toward the Better Days Pool Hall through steadily thinning crowds. On both sides of the street, people were hurrying off the avenue and onto the side streets. Shopkeepers had begun removing goods from their display windows, and by the time the two men reached Better Days, almost all of them were empty.

When they stopped outside the door of the pool hall, Coggins turned to face the street, his eyes sweeping it north and south. ‘I’d say we have about twenty minutes before it starts,’ he said confidently.

‘You don’t know for sure?’ Ben asked.

Coggins shook his head. ‘This is a civilian demonstration, not a military operation. You can’t time things that well.’ He glanced up at the sign above the poolhall. It was written in thick red letters, and on either side of BETTER DAYS someone had drawn crisscrossed pool cues. ‘Nice,’ he said as he looked back at Ben. He smiled mockingly. ‘I mean, what’s law school compared to a classy place like this?’

Inside, the atmosphere was decidedly different from the poolhall down the street. There was the same smoky air, the same jukebox, soda and cigarette machines, even the same speckled linoleum over the cement floor, but the tone was darker, grimmer, and Ben recognized it immediately as being similar to the sort of white redneck bar where he’d seen violence erupt like a broken sore, spewing blood on all four walls.

Coggins appeared to see no difference at all, and as he stepped forward toward the first line of tables, he offered the men who were standing at them the same innocent grin. ‘How y’all doing, fellows?’ he asked cheerfully.

One of them lifted his cue slowly and massaged the tip. ‘What you want, dickhead?’ he asked in a voice as flat as steel.

Coggins’ smile vanished.

The man continued to finger the tip of the cue. His eyes squeezed together slowly as they moved back and forth from Ben to Coggins. ‘This is a nigger poolhall,’ he said when they finally settled on Ben.

‘Well, now, we… uh… we,’ Coggins sputtered.

The man’s eyes shifted over to Coggins. ‘I said a nigger poolhall,’ the man said menacingly, ‘and you don’t look black to me, Tomboy.’

Coggins offered a high nervous laugh. He glanced down at his arm and rubbed it smoothly. ‘My skin looks as black as yours,’ he said.

The man shook his head. ‘No, it don’t,’ he said. He looked around at the other men. Some of them began to move forward slowly, slapping their cue sticks in their hands. ‘No, you look like a cracker to me, boy,’ he said. He smiled coldly. ‘Don’t this boy look like a cracker to you?’ he called to the other men.

A thin, edgy laughter rippled through the room.

The man’s eyes remained fixed on Coggins. ‘What’s your name, boy?’ he asked.

‘Leroy Coggins,’ Coggins said tensely.

The man took a small, barely perceptible step toward him, and the group behind him seemed to move forward at his signal.

Ben glanced to the left and saw a tall, thin man circle over toward the wall, then stand stonily in front of the room’s only rear exit.

‘I’m here about a little girl,’ Coggins said quickly.

The man laughed as he took another small step. ‘You want a little dark meat, that it, cracker?’

Laughter broke through the room again, and as it faded away, a large man stepped through the front door, closed it behind him, and then stood, his arms folded over his chest, and stared lethally at Ben and Coggins.

Now there was no way out, and Ben felt his body tense suddenly, as if preparing for the worst.

‘She was murdered,’ Coggins said desperately, his voice all but breaking over the last word. ‘We found her body over in Bearmatch.’

The man’s eyes seemed to draw together. ‘We? Who’s we, Leroy?’

‘The police,’ Coggins blurted before he could stop himself.

A low murmur swept around them.

‘Police,’ the man bawled. He glanced back at the other men. ‘You hear that? This boy’s with the police.’

‘No, I’m not!’ Coggins cried. ‘I’m not with the police.’

The man took another small step, his hand crawling slowly toward the back pocket of his trousers. ‘Who the white cracker, Leroy?’ he asked mockingly.

Coggins looked imploringly at Ben, but he said nothing.

‘Who the white cracker, Leroy?’ the man repeated.

Coggins stared at him, terrified, but he did not answer.

‘What’s the matter, nigger, you deaf?’ the man asked. He took another step, and the men behind him surged forward. ‘Who this white cracker?’ the man screamed suddenly.

Coggins stepped back slightly, but the man was on him, a knife glinting in the light from the tables.

Instantly, Coggins’ hand snapped the pistol from his belt and pressed it hard under the man’s chin. ‘Drop that knife!’ he screamed, his hand trembling almost uncontrollably, his finger squeezing down on the trigger. ‘Drop it, motherfucker!’

The man at the front door lunged forward, and Ben turned and punched him hard in the stomach, then pulled him up by his collar and slammed him against the wall.

‘Now don’t move!’ Coggins squealed. He dug the barrel of the pistol deep beneath the other man’s chin. ‘You tell them not to move, motherfucker,’ he shouted.

The man lifted his arms slowly, then let them drop, and as he did so, the others moved back slightly.

Coggins glanced back and saw Ben pressing the man against the wall. He looked at him imploringly.

Desperately, Ben tried to come up with a next move. Then, suddenly, a deep sonorous voice broke over him from the rear of the room.

‘Now what you boys gone do?’

Ben’s eyes searched the room until they settled on a huge figure which stood in a small doorway on the right side of the room.

‘You remember me?’ the figure said.

Ben squinted into the thick gray light, trying to bring him into focus.

‘Gaylord,’ the man said. Then he stepped forward into a shaft of light and Ben saw the little purple stud-pin wink brightly in the shadowy darkness.

Gaylord walked to the front of the room. For a moment he looked very grim. Then a smile swept over his face. What you gone do?’ he asked Ben. ‘Strangle poor ole Jackie to death?’

Ben released his grip somewhat, and Jackie broke away, gasping.

Gaylord continued to watch Ben closely. ‘You sure do end up in the most ridiculous places,’ he said. ‘You still checking on that girl?’

‘Yes.’

Gaylord stared at him expressionlessly. ‘Why don’t you tell your buddy to let Albert go.’

Ben nodded to Coggins.

Coggins looked at him wonderingly. ‘You sure?’

‘Let him go,’ Ben said.

Coggins pulled the pistol from the man’s chin, and Albert stumbled backward against one of the tables.

‘Now we all can talk like nice folks,’ Gaylord said lightly. ‘Why don’t you come on back to my office.’

The men at the tables parted immediately as Gaylord walked through them. Ben and Coggins followed along behind him until they were in a small cluttered office at the back of the hall.

Gaylord closed the door, then took a seat behind a plain metal desk. ‘You shouldn’t pull something like this again,’ he said. ‘You could get yourself hurt real bad.’ He glanced at the pistol, which was still dangling from Coggins’ hand. ‘Why don’t you put that away, boy,’ he said.

Coggins glanced at the pistol, as if surprised to find it still in his hand. He quickly tucked it into his belt.

‘Now that’s a lot more friendly,’ Gaylord said cheerily. He looked at Ben. What’d Mr Jolly tell you?’

‘Nothing,’ Ben said. ‘He wanted money.’

Gaylord laughed. ‘He got more than he could spend in two more lifetimes, but he still want more.’ He leaned back slightly, and the springs in his chair squeaked painfully under his shifting weight. ‘He own this poolhall,’ he said, ‘but I runs it for him.’ He looked at Coggins. ‘Who you, boy? You don’t look like you from Bearmatch.’

‘Ensley,’ Coggins said in a whisper.

A sly smile slithered onto Gaylord’s lips. ‘Ensley? You a long way from home, son.’

Coggins said nothing.

‘You gone be the first nigger policeman, or what?’

Coggins pulled himself to his full height. ‘I don’t think the man who killed that little girl should go unpunished, he declared.

Gaylord didn’t buy it. ‘That right? Well, lemme see, what if I done it? How you gone punish me?’

Coggins did not answer.

Gaylord stared at him smugly. ‘You got a big mouth for such a little ole pecker, boy.’ He turned back to Ben. ‘Now you and me, maybe we can talk,’ he said.

Ben took out the ring and handed it to him. ‘Doreen had this in her pocket when we found her.’

Gaylord studied the ring. ‘Doreen? That the little girl?’

‘Yes.’

‘Doreen Ballinger?’

‘That’s right.’

Gaylord nodded and handed Ben back the ring. ‘She deaf, right?’

‘Yes.’

Gaylord shook his head. ‘That’s not right, kill a little deaf girl.’

‘No, it’s not,’ Coggins said loudly.

Gaylord ignored him. ‘I seen that ring before,’ he said evenly.

Ben leaned forward instantly. ‘Where?’

‘I know the guy that used to wear it,’ Gaylord said casually. ‘He made like it was something real nice, like it was a diamond or something.’

Ben reached for his notebook and opened it. ‘Who?’

‘Don’t know his real name,’ Gaylord said, ‘but I recognize the ring. Ugly, cheap ole thing.’ He smiled. ‘You looking for a big man,’ he said. ‘Even bigger than ole Gaylord.’

‘I know,’ Ben told him.

‘He big,’ Gaylord added, ‘but he harmless. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.’

‘But you don’t know his name?’ Ben asked.

‘It’s like I said before,’ Gaylord told him. ‘He ain’t got no regular name. But everybody call him Bluto, ’cause he so big and such.’

‘Where does he live?’

‘Well, I hear tell he ain’t got no house.’

‘He must live somewhere.’

Gaylord laughed. ‘Way I hear it, he live in a pipe.’

‘Pipe?’

‘One of them big old pipes around the rubber plant.’

‘A storm drain?’ Ben asked unbelievingly.

‘That’s right.’

‘When did you see him last?’ Ben asked.

Gaylord’s eyes rolled toward the ceiling. ‘He was in here late Sunday. He come in most everyday.’

‘And plays pool?’

‘That’s right?’

‘Where does he work?’

Gaylord laughed. ‘Aw, he don’t work. He do a few little errands over in Bearmatch. Little of this, little of that. But he don’t have no regular job.’

‘Well, where does he get the money to play so much pool?’

Gaylord looked as if it had never occurred to him.

‘He has to get it from somewhere,’ Ben said insistently.

‘Guess so,’ Gaylord said.

‘How about friends, relatives?’

‘Ain’t got none, far as I know.’

‘Then he must have a job.’

‘Naw,’ Gaylord said with certainty. ‘He couldn’t have no regular job.’

‘How do you know?’

‘’Cause he ain’t got enough sense for a regular job,’ Gaylord said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘He like a child,’ Gaylord repeated. ‘You know, in his head.’

‘Retarded?’ Coggins blurted suddenly. ‘You mean, mentally retarded?’

Gaylord looked at him. ‘Yeah, like that. He like a little bitty child. Ain’t a speck of meanness in him.’