Streets of Fire

FORTY-FIVE

The early morning darkness had only begun to lift as Ben drew his car over to the curb not far from the house. He got out quietly and tucked the envelope he’d picked up at an all-night drugstore into his trouser pocket. Then he walked to the back of the car and opened the trunk. The short black tire iron was nestled in a bed of oily rags, so he wiped it carefully before tucking it securely into the back of his trousers. Then he took off his jacket, tossed it into the trunk and closed the door.

The man on the porch got to his feet quickly as Ben made his way up the cement sidewalk. He stood, his legs spread, and peered down at him, waiting.

‘I was expecting Gaylord,’ Ben said lightly.

The man did not speak.

‘Doesn’t Gaylord usually keep guard around here?’

‘Gaylord d-don’t keep nothing,’ the man said in a voice that was deep, faintly musical, and which Ben recognized instantly even without the stammer.

‘Who are you?’ Ben asked.

‘Name’s D-douglas.’

‘Mine’s Wellman,’ Ben told him. ‘I came to see Mr Jolly.’

‘’B-bout what?’

‘Business.’

‘Well, he don’t usually see n-nobody this time of night.’

Ben smiled coolly. ‘He might want to see me,’ he said.

The man laughed. ‘Why’s that?’

‘Because I’m replacing Teddy Langley here in Bearmatch,’ Ben said in a lean, vaguely threatening voice. ‘And I figured it would be a good idea if I met the man that everybody says runs this part of Birmingham.’

‘So you is with the p-police, that right?’ the man asked.

‘That’s right,’ Ben said. He patted his shoulder holster. ‘That’s why I’ve got this.’ He smiled. ‘I’m supposed to wear it, on duty or off.’

‘Well, the thing is, Mr Jolly d-don’t allow no guns ’round him.’

Ben shrugged. ‘I can understand that,’ he said. He lifted his arms. ‘Take it.’

The man stepped forward and snatched the pistol from Ben’s holster. He lifted it lightly up and down in his hand. ‘Got good balance.’

‘I’m pretty good with it, too,’ Ben said lightly. ‘But I don’t think I’ll be needing to use it very much in Bearmatch.’

The man smiled happily. ‘Well, now, that’s go-good to hear. Mr Jolly, he gon’ be glad to know that. ’Cause them Black Cat boys, they been giving him a lot of shit.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ Ben said. ‘That’s a shame, too. But they’re not around anymore.’

‘Mr Jolly, he be glad to know that, too.’

‘I figured he would be,’ Ben said. ‘And I reckon I can understand that, too.’ He shifted slightly on his feet. ‘Course we need to have a little talk first.’ He stared around casually. ‘And I sort of figured this time of day was better than broad daylight.’

‘Yeah, you right ’b-bout that,’ the man agreed. He smiled broadly, his white teeth gleaming in the porch light. ‘Well, you stay right here. I’ll tell Mr Jolly you waiting on him.’

Ben stepped up to the porch as the man disappeared into the house. Quickly, he checked for the tire iron, keeping his fingers wrapped loosely around it until the man returned.

‘Okay,’ the man said as he came back through the screen door. ‘Mr Jolly say he see you now.’

‘Thanks,’ Ben said.

The man stepped to the side, waiting for Ben to pass in front of him.

‘After you,’ Ben said politely.

The man nodded quickly and turned toward the house.

The tire iron hit him exactly where Ben had intended, and he went down hard, his body slamming against the plain wooden floor, a wave of blood spreading down his neck, soaking his shirt collar. Ben straddled him immediately, then cuffed him. The man groaned slightly, but remained unconscious. His breathing was shallow but rhythmic, and as he stepped over him and headed toward Jolly’s office in the back of the house, Ben half-hoped that there’d be no breath left in him at all when he came back.

Roy Jolly was sitting behind his desk when Ben entered. He was dressed in a bright-red smoking jacket that looked two sizes too big. An enormous gilded mirror hung on the wall behind him, and as he stepped up to the desk, Ben caught his own reflection in it, worn, bedraggled, a face that suddenly seemed so old and broken that he could hardly recognize it.

‘Douglas tell me you come in place of the Black Cat boys,’ Jolly said.

Ben nodded.

‘They been pushed aside, that right?’

‘Yes.’

Jolly did not smile. His voice remained almost expressionless, a dry wind blowing through dry reeds. ‘How come you wants to see me?’

‘I hear you run Bearmatch.’

‘I in business,’ Jolly said modestly. ‘A businessman, he got to keep his ear to the ground.’ One eyelid drooped slightly. ‘Got to keep his eye on the sparrow, ain’t that right?’

Ben said nothing.

‘Ain’t nothing took from nobody that they ain’t let it go,’ he said. ‘That’s the truth, ain’t it?’

‘Except life,’ Ben said. ‘I’m not sure Daniels wanted to let his go.’

Jolly’s head tilted to the right slightly. ‘What you want, Mr White Man?’ he asked.

Ben stared at him silently.

‘People do for me, I do for them,’ Jolly said. ‘That’s the way it is in this world. Ain’t no paradise.’ He laughed softly. ‘More like Hell, you wants to know the truth of it. More like Hell.’ He leaned forward slightly, his small brown eyes bearing down on Ben. ‘How come you got Bearmatch?’

‘I wanted it,’ Ben said.

‘So did them Black Cat boys,’ Jolly said. ‘They come in here, starts messing around. I say, “Okay, I lets you mess. I don’t fuck with you.”’ He waved his finger at Ben menacingly. ‘For a time, I do it. For a little time, I lets you get it out of your system. Least till you figures it out. Then we makes a deal.’

‘What kind of deal?’ Ben asked.

Jolly grinned boyishly. ‘One thing for another.’

‘But the Langleys wouldn’t make any deals.’

‘No, them boys wouldn’t make no deal,’ Jolly said. ‘You know why? ’Cause nigger money, they wouldn’t have none of it.’ He laughed at their stupidity. ‘Now money, it’s jes’ one color. It ain’t white. It ain’t black. It jes’ green, that’s all.’ He waved Ben forward gently. ‘Step over to the light,’ he said. ‘I seen you before.’

Ben stepped toward him, his face now bathed in the red-tinted lamplight that came from Jolly’s desk.

‘Oh yeah,’ Jolly said lightly. ‘You come in here before. You come looking in on that little gal.’

‘That’s right.’

‘You settle that one?’

‘I think so,’ Ben said. He waited a moment, then added, ‘Collins Avenue.’

Jolly stared at him, unmoved. ‘You was there tonight.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Was you in it with Daniels?’

‘No.’

‘What you there for, then?’

‘I was looking into something else,’ Ben said.

Jolly shrugged. ‘It don’t matter to me what you seen,’ he said. ‘You come to me like you should have done. I ain’t going to let you go away mad.’

Ben stared at him silently.

Jolly leaned back slightly. ‘What you wants from Roy-Joy, huh? You wants a little gal for yourself? I got plenty of them. Sweet as candy.’

Ben did not answer.

‘Money, maybe,’ Jolly said. ‘Got plenty of that, too.’

‘When I was here last time,’ Ben said, ‘you told me how you like to see a man face to face when you make a deal with him. Do you remember that?’

‘Don’t have to remember nothing,’ Jolly said. ‘The whole world already in my head.’

‘That’s what you did late one Sunday afternoon,’ Ben told him. ‘You met Harry Daniels on Collins Avenue.’

Jolly stared at Ben calmly.

‘You met face to face with him, like you always do,’ Ben went on. ‘You thought you’d be alone. But a car came by. It was a dark-blue Lincoln. There was a deep rut in the road, so it had to slow down quite a bit as it passed. There was a little girl in that car. You saw her, but what mattered is that she saw you. She was from Bearmatch, so she must have recognized you.’

‘She wave at me,’ Jolly said almost tenderly. ‘Sweet little thing. Big smile on her face.’ His eyes shifted over toward the door, as if looking for Douglas. ‘It surprise you, don’t it? It surprise you that I come right out and say it?’ He laughed. ‘But it don’t matter now. ’Cause you come to me, and ain’t nobody going to go home mad.’

Ben watched him icily.

‘Daniels was a fool,’ Jolly said. ‘He say he just want this and that. But in his eyes, he want everything.’ He smiled. ‘You look different to me. You look like I could do my business with you.’

Ben remained silent.

‘That’s right,’ Jolly went on. ‘Your eyes, they tell me we going do business, you and me. And when you do business with somebody, you got to come clean about things. You can’t have no secrets. In Bearmatch, we don’t have no lies. Ever-body know ever-thing. Ain’t a living soul don’t know how ever-thing work.’ His hand lifted up gracefully. ‘They all know who bring in the whiskey and the whores. They wants them.’ He laughed. ‘Daniels, he want to be a big shot. He want to be Chief of something. But the old Chief, he still around.’ He shook his head, chuckling to himself. ‘Can’t kill him. That wouldn’t do no good. Got to get rid of him in some other way. Got to embarrass him.’

‘By killing Martin Luther King,’ Ben said.

Jolly released a high, piercing cackle. ‘They be a terrible uproar over that, now,’ he said. ‘Ain’t no Chief going to still be around when the smoke clear on that one.’ He shook his head. ‘And that little shit Daniels, he think he going be Chief after that.’ His face curled into a snarl. ‘He ain’t got enough sense for that. He don’t even know how to show respect. He like them Black Cat boys. He hate Bearmatch.’ He lifted his head grandly. ‘But I loves Bearmatch. I knows what it need the most.’

Ben said nothing.

‘Relief,’ Jolly said loudly. ‘A little relief that a man can get from a drink of whiskey and a gal.’

‘You killed Doreen,’ Ben said.

Jolly smiled. ‘Done for me.’

‘Did Douglas rape her, too?’

Jolly scowled. ‘The ole fat boy done that,’ he said, ‘not Douglas. He don’t need no little girl. He got a good-looking woman for his own self.’ He waved his hand. ‘’Sides, Doreen already dead when Bluto climbed on her. Douglas say, “She want you, boy. She your wife. Go ’head.”’ He shrugged. ‘That Bluto, he never was worth nothing to me till right then.’

Ben said nothing. He could see it all as if it were a film unrolling in his head. He saw Doreen’s small body shudder as Bluto ravaged her, then Bluto’s own body slump forward as Douglas fired the pistol a few inches from his head.

Jolly smiled coolly. ‘We took off that ole ugly ring and stuck it in the girl’s dress,’ he said. He leaned back slightly. ‘Now see what I mean, I didn’t have to tell you that. But I wants you to know that I ain’t kept nothing back. You and me, we works together.’ He drew a single envelope from some papers on his desk and slid it toward Ben. ‘This for you,’ he said. ‘I ain’t greedy.’ He smiled knowingly. ‘This be nothing to you down the line.’ He shoved the envelope a little further across the desk. ‘But you can take it anyway.’

Ben did not move. ‘Langley was only half the deal,’ he said, ‘The other half was King.’ His hand crawled toward the tire iron. ‘Are you going to try again?’

Jolly smiled. ‘The folks in Bearmatch, they think he can give them what I do,’ he said. ‘But they wrong ’bout that. He come in and whoop them up, then he fly off to the next place. But me, I here forever.’

Ben could feel his fingers as they touched the steel rod at his back. ‘Are you going to try again?’ he repeated.

Jolly said nothing.

‘You missed him this time,’ Ben said.

Jolly grinned. ‘But they’s always another one. And the Chief, he ain’t out yet.’

Ben drew the tire iron from behind his back and slapped it loudly in his hand. ‘Leave King alone,’ he said resolutely.

Jolly smiled cheerfully. ‘Why? You gon’ do it your own self?’

Ben lifted the tire iron and heaved it toward the mirror. It crashed into it only a few inches above Jolly’s head, sending a shower of glass over him, filling his lap, gathering on the shoulders of his smoking jacket like a thin layer of sparkling snow.

‘I don’t know how all this is going to turn out,’ Ben said in a hard, utterly determined voice, ‘but I’ve come to tell you this. Whatever happens to King, happens to you.’

Jolly’s body jerked left and right as he slapped the glass from his jacket. ‘Douglas!’ he screamed. ‘Douglas!’

Ben reached across the desk, grabbed the wide lapels of the smoking jacket and pulled Jolly forward. ‘Whatever happens to King, happens to you,’ he repeated. Then he dragged him over the desk and tossed him sprawling onto the floor. ‘I don’t have time to argue with you,’ he said in a voice that had suddenly grown strangely calm in its iron resolution. ‘I just have time to stop you.’