Streets of Fire

THIRTY-FOUR

Esther was sitting quietly on her porch when Ben pulled the car up in front of her house and got out. Several hours had passed since he’d left Luther’s office, and during that time, he’d simply driven around the city, trying to come to terms with what he’d done. At first it had been a relief, a sudden throwing off of the worries which had been accumulating during the preceding days. He had walked out of the headquarters with his head in the air, driven the streets of Birmingham in a spirit of exhilarating liberation, and then, as evening fell, found himself once again in Bearmatch. Esther sat up slightly as Ben edged his way past the little wire fence and stood at the bottom of the stairs, his hat in his hand, his eyes fixed on the dark, silent woman who watched him warily from her chair.

‘You don’t have to worry about me showing up at your door again,’ Ben assured her quickly. ‘I’m not on Doreen’s case anymore.’ He smiled. ‘Fact is, I’m not on any kind of case.’

Esther continued to stare at him mutely, her dark eyes trained on his face.

‘I sort of quit, I guess,’ Ben said. ‘Or got fired.’

‘From the police?’ Esther asked.

‘Yes.’

‘How come?’

‘They had me doing things that I didn’t want to do.’

Esther shook her head. ‘Lord, if everybody did that, there wouldn’t be a soul left working in Birmingham.’

‘I guess so,’ Ben said with a slight smile. ‘Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that I was off her case, and that’s all I came to say.’ He started to turn back toward the car, but her voice drew him around to her again.

‘Who’s looking into it, then?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Probably nobody.’

Ben nodded. ‘You could be right about that.’

‘So it’s all over then,’ Esther said. She fanned her face with a white handkerchief. ‘I didn’t think it’d come to much.’

‘I tried, Miss Ballinger,’ Ben said. ‘I surely tried.’

‘You think Bluto did it?’ Esther asked him pointedly. ‘You think he had the sense for it?’

Ben looked at her evenly. ‘Maybe the sense to do it,’ he said. ‘But not the meanness.’

‘So you don’t think he killed Doreen?’

‘I don’t know who killed her,’ Ben admitted. ‘I don’t have any idea at all.’ He shook his head mournfully. ‘I don’t guess you believe that,’ he said softly. ‘I don’t guess there’s any way to make you believe it.’

For the first time, her eyes seemed to embrace him gently, almost lovingly, as if to do the work her arms could never do.

Ben had been back in his house for several hours before he finally stopped trying to figure out all the things he wouldn’t have to do anymore. He wouldn’t have to fill out arrest sheets, sit for hours outside some courtroom, listen to the Chief’s speeches or drink coffee from the machine in the detectives’ lounge. He could hardly have been more willing to give up such things. But there were other parts of his job, as well, and there were a few he didn’t want to give up. He would not be able to search through Bearmatch anymore, or follow Bluto’s zigzag trail during the hours before he died, or pace the bare worn path which led from the torn storm fence to the cement drain where Doreen Ballinger had died. These things needed to be done, but they had been lost in the instant his badge had come to rest on Luther’s desk, lost with the coffee and the courtroom boredom. His badge was gone, and because of that, he seemed to weigh less now than before he removed it, to float from room to room, anchorless and without direction. The badge, his job, had served to hold him in place, guide him through the world’s confusion with a reliable set of duties and obligations. He had thought that it had only provided him with a living, but slowly, as the night wore on, he realized that it had also provided him with a reason to live, and that without it, he would have to improvise a certain part of his life until he could work out a new set of guidelines, hammer out a wholly different badge. He was making the first attempts at doing exactly that when, around midnight, Lamar Beacham knocked at the screen door.

‘I’m glad I found you awake,’ Lamar said, his face strangely gray and spectral behind the wire screen.

Ben smiled slightly and waved him inside. ‘Come on in, Lamar. What are you doing out so late?’

Lamar walked into the living room and stood awkwardly, his hands thrust deep down in his trouser pockets. He had the look of a misplaced farmboy, lank and slender, with blondish, windblown hair and skin that looked as if it had been toasted lightly by the fire.

‘I heard you quit the police today,’ he said.

Ben nodded.

‘How come?’

‘They had me doing stuff I didn’t want to do.’

‘Like what?’

‘Following King around, writing down what he said,’ Ben told him. He shook his head in mild disgust. ‘That’s not decent work for a man, Lamar.’

‘Well, spraying people with water hoses ain’t much better,’ Lamar said wearily. He walked over to the chair opposite Ben and sat down.

‘Want some ice tea?’ Ben asked, lifting his half-empty glass.

‘Tea? No. But I wouldn’t say no to a beer.’

‘All gone.’

‘Mine, too,’ Lamar said. ‘I went out to get another six-pack, but the package store was closed.’ He smiled. ‘So I just kept on driving around. Finally I ended up over here.’

‘Something on your mind?’

‘I’m thinking about quitting, too,’ Lamar said flatly. ‘You know, the same thing you did.’

Ben smiled. ‘Well, good for you,’ he said. ‘I hope everybody quits.’

‘I don’t think the landlords would feel that way.’

‘You’d get another job.’

‘I guess so,’ Lamar said. ‘What about you?’

‘I guess I’ll get another one too.’

‘You got much money to live on till then?’

Ben smiled. ‘Three hundred and seventeen dollars is what I’ve got in the bank.’

Lamar laughed. ‘Four dollars more than me,’ he said. Then, suddenly, the smile disappeared. ‘Charlie Breedlove was my cousin, did you know that, Ben?’

‘No.’

‘Did he ever talk to you much?’

Ben shook his head, his eyes suddenly focusing more closely on Lamar’s face.

‘You got any idea who killed him?’ Lamar asked bluntly.

‘No, I don’t,’ Ben said.

For a moment Lamar watched Ben intently. ‘You got any idea what he was up to?’ he asked at last.

Ben straightened himself slightly. ‘What are you getting at, Lamar?’

‘He wasn’t what he looked to be,’ Lamar said, his voice suddenly taking on a strange softness. ‘He was a lot better than he looked to be.’

‘Meaning what?’

‘He couldn’t trust anybody in the department,’ Lamar went on. ‘He couldn’t even trust you. At least not for sure.’ He stared at Ben warily. ‘Hell, Ben, I’m not even sure I can trust you, but when I found out you’d quit over this King thing, I figured I’d have to take a chance, and you were the only guy I felt like I could take it with.’

‘A chance on what?’

‘Telling a few things,’ Lamar said. ‘About Charlie.’

‘What things?’

Lamar hesitated.

‘You’ve gone too far to go back, Lamar,’ Ben said. He shrugged. ‘Besides, I’m just a regular citizen now.’

Lamar shook his head assuredly. ‘No, you’re not. If I thought that, I wouldn’t be here.’ He took a long slow breath, inhaling deeply, then holding it in for what seemed an impossibly long time while his eyes stared piercingly into Ben’s face.

‘Okay,’ he said finally. ‘I’ll let it fly. Once I’m done, it’s up to you.’

‘Go ahead,’ Ben said without hesitation.

‘I don’t know if it has anything to do with his death or not,’ Lamar began, ‘but whoever killed him got it right.’

‘Got what right?’

‘Well, that he was an informer.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes.’

‘Who’d he work for?’

‘I don’t know,’ Lamar said. ‘But he was gathering stuff on people, and he was going to let it all out some way.’

‘What kind of stuff?’

‘Racial stuff,’ Lamar said. ‘You know, about the situation here.’

‘You mean things about the Klan, things like that?’

‘Things in the department,’ Lamar said. ‘Police things. He was keeping an eye on what was going on in the department.’

‘But you don’t know who he was reporting to?’

‘No, I don’t, Ben,’ Lamar said. ‘I really don’t. But the way I see it, somebody could have found out about Charlie, and that’s why they did what they did to him.’

‘How do you know about this?’ Ben asked.

‘Charlie told me.’

‘Why?’

‘’Cause he was getting scared,’ Lamar said. ‘Real scared. But I’m not sure it was for himself, you know?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He was close to something,’ Lamar said, ‘and it was scaring him to death.’

‘When did you talk to him last?’

‘The night he died,’ Lamar said. ‘He called me up and said he’d sent Susan and Billy out of town for a while. He said he was checking up on a few things.’

‘But he didn’t say what?’

‘No, he didn’t,’ Lamar said. ‘But that night, the one he died, he was really on edge, and he did something he’d never done before. He called me up, he said, “Lamar, do you remember when we used to go caving together?”’ Lamar’s face softened. ‘We used to go caving up in De Kalb County. You know, just boys looking for danger.’

Ben nodded.

‘Anyway,’ Lamar said, returning to the subject, ‘Charlie said, “Well, you know how we used to let somebody know where we was going, just in case we got stuck?” I said yeah, I remembered that, and he said, “Well, this is where I’m going tonight,” and he gave me an address.’

Ben felt his bones grow hard within his flesh, stiffen, turn to steel. ‘What address?’

‘I wrote it down,’ Lamar said. He reached into his pants pocket and handed Ben a folded piece of lined paper. ‘Here it is.’

Ben opened the paper and looked at the address. ‘Have you taken a look at this place?’

Lamar shook his head. ‘No, I haven’t,’ he said quickly. ‘I’m not like Charlie was. I’m an ordinary-type guy. But Charlie, he was brave.’ He smiled quietly. ‘You’d have to be to think the things he did.’

‘What things?’

‘Against the Chief,’ Lamar explained. ‘Against the way things are.’

‘So you don’t think he was doing it for money?’ Ben asked.

‘Informing, you mean?’ Lamar asked. ‘For money?’ He waved his hand. ‘Oh, hell, no, Ben,’ he said. ‘Not Charlie. Whatever he was doing, he was doing it for his own self.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Let me tell you something,’ Lamar replied. ‘When Charlie was just a boy, he lived in a small town in the Black Belt. It was one of those one-horse towns — you know, the kind with one main street, unpaved.’

Ben nodded.

‘When it rained, the place turned to mud,’ Lamar went on. ‘And there was only one narrow sidewalk on each side of the street. And one time, after a rain, Charlie was walking down one of those sidewalks. An old colored woman was walking on it too, walking toward him, an old woman, with her arms full of groceries. And she stepped off into the mud and let Charlie pass by. Without a thought, she stepped right off that sidewalk and went down ankle deep in mud. Charlie never forgot that. So when this whole business started with the colored, he decided to do what he could for them.’

Ben watched Lamar silently while he thought about Breedlove again, about the things he said, the way he joked with the Langleys or slammed Leroy Coggins up against the wall.

Lamar’s right eye narrowed somewhat. ‘Did you see him, Ben?’ he asked after a moment. ‘His body, I mean.’

‘Yes.’

‘I heard it was real bad.’

‘It was.’

‘I hope something can be done about it,’ Lamar added, as if in conclusion. ‘It shouldn’t be left to rest.’

For a moment Ben saw Charlie Breedlove’s ravaged body as it hung lifelessly from the tree, the head slumped forward, concealing the blasted face. ‘It won’t be,’ he said.