The Heavenly Table

69

SUGAR HAD BEEN following the two brothers the entire time, and once they entered the McCarthy, he ran the three blocks back uptown to find the police chief. Although Malone and his patrol had passed on through with Chimney and Bovard on their way to the army camp, the crowd of onlookers continued to swell. Wallingford, irate that the sergeant had acted so uppity when he asked him what had taken place, was headed back to the jail with his other son, Luther, to call the general’s headquarters and make a complaint. He’d already sent Lester over to secure the Blind Owl before it was looted, and Pollard’s carcass before some sicko got hold of it. When he heard footsteps running up behind him, he flinched and closed his eyes. Jesus Lord, was this the end? It was one of the downfalls of being a lawman for so many years: having a great number of enemies. You never knew when someone might get the notion to do violence to you, just for trying to maintain a little bit of order in this world of chaos. Sure, nine times out of ten the assassin might only be planning to throw a pie in your face, or call you a dirty name or two, but then again, he might gun you down in cold blood, like what had happened to his friend sheriff Buddy Thompson, over in Athens County a couple of summers ago. Blasted clear out of his chair on a Sunday while reading the funny papers, by the family of a man he’d arrested for running a white slavery ring that catered to clients looking for Appalachian females endowed with the stamina of an ox and the woodsy know-how of a Davy Crockett. It was a lot of pressure, living on edge like that day after day, and that’s why, he figured, he ended up doing reckless shit like taking on mistresses he couldn’t afford. “Hey, Chief,” he heard someone say in a ragged pant. “Hey, Mister Police.”

When Wallingford opened his eyes, he saw before him the filthy black man Lester had arrested for cleaning out Pollard’s outhouse. “Jesus Christ, you again? Boy, you nearly give me a heart attack.”

“I saw ’em,” Sugar panted.

“Who?” Wallingford said.

“Them men on the paper hanging in your jail.”

“What the hell you talkin’ about?”

“The wanted poster,” Sugar said, sucking in another draft of air. “With the three men on it.”

“You mean the Jewetts?” Luther said.

“That’s them. I seen ’em just a couple of minutes ago. Well, two of ’em anyway. Them soldiers done caught the one.”

“Soldiers?” Wallingford said. “You mean the boy they nabbed at the bar for killing Pollard? He’s a Jewett?”

Sugar nodded his head rapidly. “Yes, sir. Sure as hell is.”

“And you know this for a fact?”

“I swear on my mother’s grave,” Sugar said.

“That reward’s over five thousand dollars, Daddy,” Luther said.

“Well, I’ll be goddamned. So that’s why that mustachioed bastard was so tight-lipped.” Five thousand dollars, Wallingford thought. He could solve all of his problems with that kind of money. Not only could he get out from under the bitch in Washington Court House, he could retire and never have to worry again about being assassinated. He’d swear off strange pussy and renew his marriage vows, maybe even—

“We gotta hurry ’fore they get away,” Sugar said urgently. “They’re not gonna stick around now.”

“Where did you see ’em last?” Wallingford said.

Sugar hesitated. “No, no, I can’t be playin’ it that way. You’d end up with the reward all to your own self.”

“Well, maybe we better talk about that then. How much are ye willing to settle for?”

“All of it.”

Wallingford laughed. “Bullshit. We’re the ones takin’ all the risk. Either cough up a figure that makes sense, or get your ass out of here.”

Sugar tried to calculate in his head. He wasn’t good with numbers, but he did know that half of five thousand still added up to a lot of cash. “All right then,” he said. “I’ll settle for half. But that’s as low as I’ll go.”

“Half! These fuckers have murdered a shitload of people already. Hell, we’ll be lucky if we don’t get killed.”

“Yeah, but—”

“One third,” Wallingford said. “That’s my final offer.”

“How much is that?” Sugar said.

“I reckon that’d be around sixteen hundred, wouldn’t it, Luther?” Wallingford said with a wink to his son.

“About that, yeah.”

Well, Sugar thought, even with only a third he could buy an automobile and a nice suit and a new bowler and a case of whiskey and still have quite a chunk left over. “Okay,” he said, sticking his hand out to shake on the deal. He could already see the look on Flora’s face when he pulled up in front of her apartment and tooted the horn. It would be even more satisfying than walking into Leroy’s with a new woman on his arm.

As Wallingford gripped the man’s sweaty hand, he asked, “So where they at?”

“Uptown.”

“Shit, that don’t tell me anything. Come on, boy, time’s a-wasting.”

“No, I’ll take ye there,” Sugar said. “That’s the only way I’m doin’ it.”

Wallingford sighed and turned to Luther. “Go back to the jail and get my shotgun and a couple rifles. Make sure they’re loaded. Then meet us up at Paint and Main.”

“I’ll need a gun, too,” Sugar said. “They already tried to kill me once.”

“No way,” Wallingford said. “Christ, son, I give you a gun people will think I’ve lost my mind. I just had you locked up this morning. Now come on, let’s go.”

When people saw the chief of police walking behind a black man who had shit stains on his tattered clothes, some, either out of curiosity or drunkenness or both, began to tag along. By this time, many of them had heard that the soldiers had captured one of the Jewett Gang, and since Wallingford refused to answer any of their questions, quite a few became convinced that they were hot on the trail of the other two outlaws. Some ran home to get their own guns, others slipped away to lock their doors or get another drink. By the time Luther showed up with the weapons and Sugar led the two policemen to the front of the Hotel McCarthy, there must have been fifty people behind them.

“So this is where they’re staying?” Wallingford said to Sugar quietly.

“I saw ’em go in there just ’fore I came lookin’ for you.”

Satisfied that the informant was telling the truth, the chief turned to Luther and said, “Arrest this man and take him back to the jail.”

“Who?” Sugar asked.

Luther pulled out his service revolver and pointed it at the black man. “You heard him. You’re under arrest.”

“For what? I showed you where they was.”

Wallingford looked back at the crowd of people milling about, many of them now armed. “Disturbin’ the peace.”

“You dirty sonofabitch,” Sugar cried. “I should’ve figured. Goddamn white bastards are all the same.”

“And verbally assaultin’ an officer,” Wallingford added. “Now get him the hell out of here.”

For Sugar, getting gypped out of his potential share of the reward money was the last straw in the series of crushing events over the past few days that had led to this moment. He realized that he couldn’t take it anymore, that he’d been beaten down too far. As Luther pulled out the handcuffs, he decided that the only thing that was going to make him feel any better about himself was to make a stand, to fight back, to cut the shit out of someone, regardless of the consequences. With all of his rage centered on the police chief, he took a step toward him, and someone yelled out, “Watch out! He’s got a knife!” Fortunately, for Wallingford anyway, his son didn’t hesitate to act. As is sometimes the case with those who go into law enforcement, Luther had been looking for a legitimate reason to kill a man ever since he’d taken his oath to protect people, and Sugar barely had time to snap his razor open before he was lying in the street with three bullets in his bony chest. Looking up at the crowd of white men gathering around to take a look at him, he thought one more time of many things, some of them good and some of them not: Flora’s big round ass, the bowler the first time he saw it in the shopwindow, the old white woman begging him not to hurt her, the way his mother used to sing him to sleep at night, and on and on, pieces of his life flying past before he could grab hold of them; and then, just before he took his last miserable breath, he turned his head a little to the left and spat on the toe of Sandy Saunders’s shoe.