Streets of Fire

FORTY-TWO

Charlie Breedlove’s funeral was held late in the afternoon at a small graveyard outside Birmingham. Several neighbors gathered beside the grave, but only Daniels and Ben came from the department, and they stood side by side, perched beneath a maple tree, and watched as Mrs Breedlove and her son wept softly in the fading light.

‘Nobody’s safe,’ Daniels said mournfully after the service had ended. ‘Maybe it’s true, you know.’

‘What?’

‘About how the good die young.’

Ben did not answer. He could see Breedlove’s wife and son as they stood peering down into the grave. He wondered how much Breedlove had told them, how much they knew of what he really was.

‘You know what really bothers me about all the trouble we’re having down here now?’ Daniels asked suddenly.

Ben shook his head.

‘The fact that so many innocent people get drawn into it,’ Daniels said. ‘White and colored. I mean, you take all these little kids they got locked up downtown. Shit, Ben, the most of them don’t have the slightest idea what they’re doing.’ He bowed his head slightly and dug the toe of his shoe into the ground. ‘And as far as Charlie’s concerned, we may not ever know what he did, or if he did anything at all.’

‘Well,’ Ben said tentatively, ‘we do know what happened to him, though.’

‘But we don’t know why,’ Daniels said. ‘At least not for sure.’

Ben added nothing else, and for the rest of the service the two of them stood together, watching silently until the last prayer had been said. Then they walked over to Mrs Breedlove.

‘I’m real sorry, Susan,’ Daniels said quietly as he shook her hand. ‘And I just want you to know that we’re going to find out who hurt Charlie, and we’re going to make them pay.’

Daniels stepped aside quickly and allowed Ben to shake Mrs Breedlove’s hand. Then the two of them made their way across the cemetery to the plain dirt road that wound its way through it.

Daniels shook his head regretfully as he walked slowly at Ben’s side. ‘They sure did get him in the ground in a hurry,’ he said.

Ben nodded.

‘I hear the department made them,’ Daniels added.

‘How could it make them?’

‘Otherwise it wouldn’t pay for the funeral,’ Daniels said matter-of-factly. ‘And you know how it is, nobody has any money. They wanted a rush job, and so they put the pressure on.’

‘Why would they want a rush job?’

‘Well, any way you look at it, Ben, Charlie was sort of embarrassing to the department.’ He shrugged. ‘I mean, on one side you got an informer, and on the other, you got a victim, right?’

‘Victim? Of what?’

‘The people who wanted him dead.’

‘You mean the Langleys?’

‘Whoever didn’t want to be informed on,’ Daniels said. ‘It could have been anybody.’

They stopped at Daniels’ car, pausing for a moment to look back toward the city. Its stunted skyline was barely visible through the summer haze.

Daniels’s eyes drifted back toward Breedlove’s still-open grave. ‘Do you think Charlie really was an informer?’ he asked.

‘Somebody thought so.’

‘You got any leads?’

Ben shrugged. ‘Everybody seems to figure it must have been the Langleys.’

‘Do you?’

‘I guess.’

‘You got any evidence?’

‘Well, Breedlove’s ring had to have come from somewhere.’

‘Yeah,’ Daniels said sadly, as if mourning the fate of his fellow officer. ‘Yeah, I guess you’re right.’

‘Unless it was a plant,’ Ben added casually. ‘Like a throwdown, something like that.’

‘Is that possible?’

‘Anything’s possible.’

Daniels laughed bitterly. ‘Yeah, in this kinda work, that’s the truth.’ He grasped the door handle of the car. ‘Well, I got to get on back to town.’

‘You on duty tonight?’

‘Naw,’ Daniels said, waving his hand. ‘Since I was Charlie’s partner, they’re giving me the day off. What about you?’

‘I’m still looking into a few things,’ Ben told him.

Daniels opened the door and slid in behind the wheel. He leaned out the window, loosening his tie, and took in a long breath. ‘I’m going to be looking for a new partner,’ he said. ‘You interested?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Course nobody could replace Charlie.’

Ben smiled quietly and stepped back. ‘I guess not.’ He drew his eyes along the body of the car. Daniels had done a thorough job. If there had ever been any tiny white flecks on the car, they’d long ago been washed off with a power nozzle and a buffing brush. ‘Looks like you gave it a good polishing,’ he said lightly.

Daniels chuckled slightly. ‘Yeah, and it needed it. The funny thing is, Charlie was always complaining about that. He said I shouldn’t let it look so dirty and beatup.’

In his mind, Ben saw Breedlove’s own car, battered, caked with an oily city grime. ‘He didn’t exactly practice what he preached, did he?’

Daniels’ eyes flashed over to him. ‘What?’

‘Well, he never kept that old Ford of his looking very sharp.’

‘No, he didn’t,’ Daniels said. ‘That’s funny, I never thought about that.’ He smiled quietly. ‘I’ll miss him, though. We didn’t get together much after work, but on the job, Charlie was a good old boy.’

Ben nodded silently.

Daniels hit the ignition. ‘Well, take it easy, Ben.’

‘Yeah,’ Ben said. He stepped back once again, edging himself onto the grassy shoulder of the road.

Daniels revved the engine slightly, then threw the car into gear and pulled away.

Ben watched as the car moved forward. A cloud of red dust swam out from behind it, and he could hear the sounds of tiny bits of gravel as the rear tires threw them up against the bottom of the car. It was the same sound he’d heard the night he’d pulled out of the chert pit, and he realized that what he’d heard was the sound of hundreds of bits of moist white clay as they collided with the bottom frame of the car. Still wet from the drenching rains of the day before, they must have clung to the complex steel underbelly of the car as they struck it with tremendous speed. Only the most thorough washing could have gotten rid of them entirely, and a wax job would have done no good at all.

Patterson answered the phone immediately.

‘Leon,’ Ben said urgently, ‘I’ve been trying to get you all night.’

‘I was at a VFW meeting,’ Patterson said. ‘You’re a veteran, aren’t you, Ben?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You ought to think about joining.’

‘Listen, Leon,’ Ben said. ‘I want you to do something for me.’

Patterson did not answer.

‘It’s important,’ Ben added.

‘Is this official business?’

‘Yes.’

‘About what?’

‘Breedlove.’

‘Well, I don’t know, Ben,’ Patterson said, his reluctance still in his voice. ‘What is it?’

‘I want you to call up Harry Daniels. Tell him you have something on Breedlove that he might be interested in.’

‘Like what?’

‘I want you to tell him that you’ve come up with something that you don’t know what to do with. Tell him it’s about Breedlove, and that you don’t trust me with it, and so, since he was Breedlove’s partner, you’ve decided to come to him. Then you pick him up at his house. Make sure he goes with you. I want him to leave his car at his house.’

‘What if he won’t do that?’

‘Make sure he does.’

‘Just a second, Ben,’ Patterson said. ‘This is beginning to be a lot more than I think I’m up for.’

‘I don’t have anybody else, Leon,’ Ben said.

‘How about the Captain?’

‘Leon,’ Ben said pointedly, ‘I am talking about trust.’

‘You don’t trust the Captain?’

‘No.’

There was silence, and through the line, Ben could almost hear Patterson’s mind running through its accounts.

‘I’d really appreciate it, Leon.’

‘All right,’ Patterson said. ‘So I call Daniels up. What do I tell him? I need some land of bullshit story.’

‘Tell him about the gun we found in the storm drain,’ Ben said. ‘Tell him that you’ve found out it was Breedlove’s.’

‘Is that true?’ Patterson asked unbelievingly.

‘Yes,’ Ben said. ‘But it doesn’t matter. It’s just something to tell Daniels.’

‘Okay,’ Patterson said. ‘But what do I do when I’m finished with the story?’

‘Then you drive him back home,’ Ben said. ‘But be sure you stop off somewhere first and call me at Daniels’ house.’

‘You got his number?’

‘Yeah,’ Ben said. Then he gave it to him. ‘When you call,’ he added, ‘I won’t say anything. I’ll just pick up the receiver. You tell me where you are, then hang up.’

‘All right,’ Patterson said. ‘I got it.’

‘Good,’ Ben said quickly. ‘Now, before you pick him up, I’ll be parked near Daniels’ house. After that I’ll be in the house until you call me. Be sure you get there at eight o’clock. And keep him out for at least half an hour. You understand?’

Patterson did not reply.

‘Leon, do you understand what to do?’

‘Ben, am I in danger doing this?’

‘No.’

‘You sure?’

‘I’m sure.’

Patterson took a shaky breath. ‘All right,’ he said finally. ‘I’ll be there at eight.’

Patterson was right on time, and from his car only a block away, Ben could see Daniels as he walked across his small lawn, nodded quickly to Patterson, then got in the car.

Ben waited until the car had disappeared over a small hill before he headed slowly down the cement sidewalk, made a quick left at the fence and moved as casually as possible down the driveway to Daniels’ garage. He opened the door immediately and went inside. For a moment, he stood motionlessly in the darkness, waiting for his eyes to adjust. Slowly, the interior of the garage revealed itself, and Ben made his way through a snare of tangled water hoses and lawn chairs to the rear side of Daniels’ car. He didn’t bother to inspect the tires or fenders, but instead pulled himself immediately underneath, took a small flashlight from his jacket pocket and turned it on. In the yellow light beneath the car, he could see hundreds of flecks of white clay, and he quickly scraped a few samples into his hand, then brushed them into a plain paper bag.

A single door led from the garage into the house, and Ben had no trouble picking the lock. He stepped into the kitchen, closed the door and then walked into the living room.

Daniels had left a single lamp burning in the room. The telephone rested beside the lamp, and Ben tried to decide where to start looking first before Patterson’s call. He let his eyes wander about the room. There were pictures of Daniels in his World War II khakis, and several old photographs of what Ben took to be his mother and father. An ancient upright piano stood at one corner of the room and a small writing desk at the other. Everything looked ordinary, and more than anything, it reminded Ben of his own living room, the worn rug and Salvation Army furniture, all of it arranged haphazardly.

He was still glancing idly about the room when the phone rang. He snapped up the receiver and waited. For a brief moment there was no sound. Then, suddenly, he heard a deep, resonant voice, thick with the rhythms of Bearmatch. ‘Okay. Midnight, like we planned. Same p-place. Collins Avenue. After that, before dawn, GM, Thirty.’

Then there was nothing but a sharp click, followed by the dim buzz of the severed connection. Ben sat back in his chair, the voice still echoing in his mind.

The phone rang again a few minutes later, and again Ben picked it up.

‘I’m at Smith’s Cafe,’ Patterson said. ‘We’re leaving now.’

Ben said nothing.

‘I’m hanging up now,’ Patterson said nervously. ‘Smith’s Cafe. Downtown. I’m leaving right now. It should take about ten minutes.’