Two Trains Running

1959 September 28 Monday 21:22

A candy-apple-red ’55 Chevy glided down the rain-slicked asphalt, an iridescent raft shooting blacktopped rapids. Behind the wheel was a man in his mid-twenties, with a wiry build and a narrow, triangular face. His elaborately sculptured haircut was flat on top, long on the sides and back, ending in carefully cultivated ducktails.

The Chevy’s headlights picked up an enormous black boulder, standing sentry in a grove of white birch. The driver pumped the brake pedal, then blipped the throttle as he flicked the gearshift into low. He gunned the engine, kicking out the rear end in a controlled slide through a tight S-curve. As soon as the road straightened, he eased off the gas and motored along sedately.

A quarter-mile later, the driver pulled up to what looked like a miniature cottage. A lantern-jawed man slowly rose from his seat on the one-man porch. He held a double-barreled shotgun in his right hand like an accountant holding a pencil.

“It’s me, Seth,” the driver said, out his side window.

“I knew that a few minutes ago, Harley,” the man with the shotgun replied. “Heard those damn glasspacks of yours a mile away.”

“Come on, Seth. I backed off as soon as I made the turn,” the driver said.

“You’re getting way too old for that kid stuff,” the man said reproachfully. He stepped closer to the Chevy. The driver reached up and flicked on the overhead light. The man with the shotgun glanced into the back seat, then shifted his stance slightly to scan the floor.

“Let’s have a look out back,” he said.

The driver killed his engine, took the keys from the ignition, and reached for the door handle.

“I’ll do it,” the man with the shotgun said. “You just sit there, be comfortable, okay?”

“Are you serious?” the driver said.

“You been here enough times, Harley.”

“Exactly,” the driver said, with just a hint of resentment. “So what’s with all the-?”

“Ain’t my rules.”

“Yeah, I know,” the driver said, sourly. “Let’s go, okay? The boss said nine-thirty, and it’s getting close to-”

“Next time, come earlier,” the man with the shotgun said, taking the keys.

He walked behind the Chevy and opened the trunk with his left hand, leveling the shotgun to cover the interior. He pulled a flashlight from his belt and directed its beam until he was satisfied. Finally, he closed the trunk gently, walked back to the driver’s window, and handed over the keys.

“See you later, Harley,” he said.

1959 September 28 Monday 21:29

The darkened house was a featureless stone monolith, the color of cigar ash. Harley ignored the horseshoe-shaped brick driveway that led to the front door; he drove carefully past the big house, his engine just past idle, until he came to a paved area clogged with cars. He slid the Chevy into a generous space between a refrigerator-white Ford pickup and a gleaming black ’56 Cadillac Coupe de Ville, and climbed out, not bothering to lock his car.

A short walk brought him to a freestanding single-story building. Its wooden sides had been weathered down to colorlessness, but the roof and windows looked newly installed.

As he approached, Harley saw his reflection in the mirrored finish of a small window set at eye level. Before he could knock, the door was opened by a short, bull-necked man wearing a threadbare gray flannel suit. The man’s perfectly rounded skull was covered by a thick mat of light-brown hair, roughly trimmed to a uniform length. His facial features were rubbery; his mouth was loose and slack.

“It’s me, Luther,” Harley said.

The short man nodded deliberately, as if agreeing with a complex proposition. His slightly protuberant eyes were as smooth and hard as brown marbles, reflecting the moonlight over Harley’s shoulders. Wordlessly, he tilted his head to the left.

Harley stepped past the slack-mouthed man into what looked like a modern two-car garage. A charcoal-gray Lincoln sedan was poised on the concrete slab, its nose pointing toward a wide, accordion-pattern metal door. Conscious of the other man somewhere behind him, Harley opened a door in the back wall, and followed a passageway to his left.

He paused at the threshold of a large, low-ceilinged, windowless room. One wall was lined with file cabinets, another with bookshelves. Various chairs and a pair of small couches were scattered about, all upholstered in the same dark-brown leather. Most of them were already taken. A few of the seated men glanced expressionlessly at the new arrival, the youngest man in the room.

The far end of the room was dominated by a lengthy slab of butcher block, laid across four sawhorses to form a desk. Behind it sat a massive man in a wheelchair, like a stone idol on a gleaming steel-and-chrome display stand. He had a large, squarish head, with wavy light-brown hair, combed straight back without a part, going white at the temples. His ears were small, flat against his skull, without lobes. Heavy cheekbones separated a pair of iron-colored eyes from thin lips; his nose was long and narrow; a dark mole dotted the right side of his jaw. The man was dressed in a banker’s-gray suit, a starched white shirt, and a midnight-blue silk tie with faint flecks of gold that occasionally caught the light. On the ring finger of his right hand was a blue star sapphire, set in platinum.

The man glanced at his left wrist, where a large-faced watch on a white-gold band peeked out from under a French cuff, then looked up at the driver of the Chevy.

“I was held up at the gate,” Harley said. “Seth took about half a day to…”

Nobody said anything.

Harley took a chair, and followed their example.

1959 September 28 Monday 21:39

“Procter!” a sandpaper voice blasted through the half-empty news-room.

All eyes turned toward a broad-shouldered man hunched over a typewriter. “What’s up, Chief?” he shouted back, without breaking his hunt-and-peck rhythm, eyes never leaving the keyboard.

“Get the hell in here!”

The broad-shouldered man kept on typing.

A pair of night-shift reporters at adjoining desks exchanged looks. One scrawled “2” on a piece of paper and held it up; the other crossed his two forefingers to make a “plus” sign. Each man reached for his wallet without looking, eyes focused on four large clocks on the far wall, marked, from left to right: Los Angeles, Denver, Chicago, and New York.

In perfect rhythm honed by long practice, a dollar bill was simultaneously slapped down on each man’s desk.

The second hands of the clocks swept on. One full revolution, then another. Two minutes and seventeen seconds had elapsed when…

“Procter, goddamn it!” rattled the windows.

The reporter who had made the “plus” sign plucked the dollar from the other’s desk as Procter slowly got to his feet. His hair was as black as printer’s ink; raptor’s eyes sat deeply on either side of a slightly hawked nose. Wearing a blue shirt with the cuffs rolled above thick wrists, and a dark-red tie loosened at the throat, he stalked through the newsroom holding several sheets of typescript in his right hand like a cop carrying a nightstick.

Procter ambled into a corner office formed from two pebbled-glassed walls. Behind a cigarette-scarred, paper-covered desk sat a doughy man wearing half-glasses on the bridge of a bulbous nose. His bald scalp was fringed with thick mouse-brown hair.

“Chief?” Procter said innocently.

“How many goddamn times have I told you not to call me that?” the doughy man snapped, his scalp reddening. “You’ve got a lot of choices in that department, Jimmy. ‘Mr. Langley’ will do. So will ‘Augie,’ you like that better. Save that ‘Chief’ stuff for your next editor.”

“So I’m fired?” Procter said, his voice not so much empty as without inflection of any kind.

“I didn’t say that!” the doughy man bellowed. “You know damn well what I meant. This isn’t one of those big-city sheets you’re used to working for. We do things differently around here.”

“I’ve been around here all my life,” Procter said, mildly. “Born and raised.”

“You like playing word games, maybe you want to take over the crossword. You haven’t been around this newspaper all your life. You came home, that’s what happened.”

“Came home after being fired, you mean.”

“I say what I mean, Jimmy. You’re a great newshound, but this is your fourth paper in, what, seven years? We both know you wouldn’t be working for the Compass if there was still a place for you with one of the big-city tabs.”

“I-”

“And we both know, soon as a job on a real paper opens up again, you’ll be on the next bus out of here.”

“I can do what I do anywhere.”

“Is that right? For such a smart guy, you do some pretty stupid things. What happened up in Chi-Town, anyway?”

“The editor spiked too many of my stories,” Procter said, in the bored tone of a man retelling a very old story.

“So you went behind his back and peddled your stuff to that Communist rag?”

“That exposé never saw a blue pencil, Chief. They printed it just like I wrote it.”

“Yeah, I guess they did,” the doughy man said, fingering his suspenders. “And I guess you know, that’s never going to happen here.”

“I’ve been here almost three years. You think I haven’t learned that much?”

“From this last piece of copy you turned in, I’m not so sure. Your job is to cover crime, Jimmy. Crime, not politics.”

“In Locke City-”

“Don’t even say it,” the editor warned, holding up one finger. “Just stick to robberies and rapes, okay? Shootings, stompings, and stabbings, that’s your beat. Leave the corruption stories for reporters in the movies.”

1959 September 28 Monday 21:52

“You sure he’s the guy we need for this?” a thin man with a sharply receding hairline and long, yellowing teeth asked.

“Red Schoolfield says he is,” replied the man in the wheelchair.

“Yeah, but that’s Detroit. We’re just a-”

“You ever been to Detroit, Udell?” the man in the wheelchair asked. He waited a three-second beat, then said: “Okay, then, how about Cleveland? You ever been there, either?”

“I was there one time,” the thin man said, his voice wavering between resentful and defensive.

“Good. Now, that’s a big city, too, am I right?”

“It is, Mr. Beaumont. They got buildings there you wouldn’t-”

“We’re not arguing,” said the man in the wheelchair. “In fact, you’re right-Cleveland is a big city.” He shifted his position slightly, so that his glance took in the entire room. “But here’s the thing, boys. Detroit and Cleveland, they’ve got one thing in common. You know what that is?”

“A lot of niggers?” a jug-eared man sitting in the far corner ventured, grinning.

“Yeah, Faron,” Beaumont acknowledged. “But you know what else they’ve got? They’ve got a whole ton of folks just like us. White people.”

“That don’t make them like us,” Harley ventured. He twirled one of his ducktails, a nervous habit.

“Now you’re using your brain, Harley,” Beaumont said, approvingly. “Being white’s just a color. Doesn’t make us like them, or them like us. There’s things inside color. Even the coloreds themselves see it that way. Look who they pick for their preachers and their politicians. It’s always the light-skinned ones, with that processed hair. The ones that got white in them, you don’t see them mixing much with the ones look like they just got off the boat from Africa.

“And it’s the same with us. With white people. Inside that color, we got all these groups. Like… tribes, all right? You’ve got the Italians, you’ve got the Irish, you’ve got the Jews, you’ve got the-”

“Jews?” a man with long sideburns, wearing a leather aviator’s jacket, piped up, somewhere between a question and a sneer.

“Sure, Jews,” Beaumont said. “What did you think, Roland? They weren’t in our business?”

“I thought they was all… I mean, maybe in the business, but not at our end. Not like the stuff we-”

“You should read a book once in a while,” Beaumont said, “it wouldn’t hurt you. Wouldn’t hurt you to pay attention to what goes on in the world, either. You go back far enough-and, trust me, it’s not that damn far-you find Jews started the same way we did. With this,” he said, knotting a fist and holding it up to the faint light from the desk lamp, like a jeweler checking a gem for flaws.

“I never heard of a kike with the balls for muscle work,” Udell said.

“Udell,” Beaumont sighed, “you never heard of a lot of things.”

“What’s this got to do with Detroit and Cleveland, Roy?” asked an older, broad-faced man with eyes so heavily flesh-pouched that it was impossible to tell their color.

“That’s getting to it, Sammy!” Beaumont said, nodding his head for emphasis. “Look,” he said, slowly turning his massive head like a gun turret to cover each man facing him, “there’s neighborhoods in both those cities where there’s mostly people like us, understand?”

“Hillbillies?” a tall redhead with long sideburns said, chuckling. He was wearing an Eisenhower jacket over a thick sweater, despite the warmth of the room.

“You know I don’t like that word, Lymon,” the boss said. He didn’t raise his voice, but his words carried easily, seeming to echo off the walls. “We’re not hillbillies, we’re mountain men. And this town, it’s our mountain, understand?”

There was a general hum of agreement from the assembled men, but no one spoke.

“People like us, we’re clannish,” Beaumont continued. “We want to live among our own kind, even when we’re feuding amongst ourselves. You go to any city, even as big a one as Chicago, you’ll find a section where our people live. That’s no accident. Those pieces of the city, it’s just like this town here. You understand what I’m telling you? Red Schoolfield, he’s in a bigger city than this one, sure. But only a little piece of it belongs to him. What we got here, it’s all ours. Not just some slice-the whole thing.”

The man in the wheelchair paused, individually eye-contacting each man in the room before he went on:

“You all know how it works. Remember when we were kids? You got yourself a candy bar, what happened? Some guys, they’d want a little piece for themselves, right? And if they were your pals, well, you were supposed to cut them in. But there was always this one guy, what he wanted was the whole thing. Am I right?”

Nods from around the room. The broad-faced man added a grunt of assent.

“Now, if this guy is bigger than you, or tougher, what do you do then? Well, you got choices. You can stand and fight, make him take it, but all that gets you is a beating.

“So the thing you do, if you’re like us, you give up the candy, and you wait for your chance. Then you ambush the guy, maybe bust up his head with a brick. And next time he sees you with candy, well, he keeps walking. Or, even better, you get a few of your pals-the same guys you would share with-and you mob the motherfucker, pound him so bad he don’t want any more, ever.

“You can’t change a bully. The best you can ever do is make him work, make it cost him something. They don’t like that, so they go and pick on someone else. That’s where all this started, boys, what we have now.

“And the first rule is, always, you make sure you control your own territory. Maybe it’s only a tiny little piece, but it’s yours. Now, once you got land, a piece of ground that’s really yours, you can’t just let it sit there, you got to do something with it, am I right?”

More nods.

“Sure, I’m right! And I’m not talking about naming it after yourself, the way Old Man Locke did back when he opened the first mill, before any of us were born. I’m talking about making your living from it. Land is money. You can farm it, or you can brew mash on it, or you can open a little roadhouse, or… well, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that you get something going.”

Beaumont’s iron eyes swept the room, a seismograph, searching for the slightest tremor of inattention. Satisfied, he went on:

“You can see it happening, everywhere you look. The Irish, the Italians, they can run a whole city, but not by themselves. When they want to do business with people outside their tribe-and you know, they have to do that-they need… branch managers, I guess you’d call them. And, sooner or later, those managers, they see how things work, how much money there is to be made, they want to go into the business for themselves.

“That’s what we did. That’s how we got started here. We built up a beautiful thing for ourselves. We got the gambling, we got the girls-not just the houses, the strip joints too-we got the jukeboxes, we got the punch cards, we got the liquor, we got money out on the street, working for us… And when dope hits this area hard-the way it has up in the big cities-we’ll have that, too.

“But, remember, every time you got that candy, here comes some big guy who wants it all for himself. You understand what I’m saying?”

“Those wop bastards don’t have a chance,” the broad-faced man said, with the calm assurance of a man stating a known fact.

“It depends on what they want to put into it, Sammy,” the man in the wheelchair said. “They know we’ve got the cops and the judges, but they also know those people aren’t with us-they’re just whores, charging us for every trick. When this jumps off, they’ll stand on the sidelines, and climb into bed with the winners.”

Beaumont looked around the room, using his eyes to lock and hold each man individually before he continued:

“Now, you know, they’ve already been around, the Italians. Sat down with me. Very nice, polite. They just want a little taste, is what they say. But it would never stop there. When they come for us, they’re going to come hard.”

“You really think one guy’s going to make that much of a difference?” Lymon asked.

“You mean, do I think we need him?” Beaumont said. “Hell, no. What Sammy said is the truth. The outcome’s not in doubt. But being a good general isn’t just about winning wars; it’s about keeping your men safe, too. And if this guy’s half as good as I’ve been told, he’ll get it over with quick.”

1959 September 28 Monday 22:09

A battleship-gray ’56 Packard sedan purred down the interstate, past the exit marked LOCKE CITY. A few miles later, the driver pulled into a service area. He drove to the pumps, glanced at the dash, noted the gas gauge read just below the halfway mark, and shut off the ignition.

“Fill it up with high-test, and check the oil and water, please,” he told the young man wearing a blue cap with a red flying-horse emblem who came to his rolled-down window.

As the pump jockey went to work, the driver walked over toward the restrooms, hands swinging free at his sides. As he turned the corner of the building, he encountered a pay phone. The man slotted a coin, dialed a number, and waited, his back to the wall.

“I was told you’d be expecting a call. About your garage,” he said into the receiver. His voice was flat, using neither volume nor inflection to communicate.

He listened for a few seconds, then said, “I can find it. Inside of an hour, all right?”

The man listened again, then hung up.

“Took almost twenty gallons,” the pump jockey said when he returned. “Man, you were empty. Oil’s okay, though.”

The man paid his bill, got behind the wheel. He noted approvingly that the pump jockey had cleaned his windshield.

1959 September 28 Monday 22:30

At the next exit, the driver circled back and re-entered the highway, heading back the way he had come. As he turned off at the Locke City sign, he pushed a button set into the gauge cluster. The four-digit row of numbers reset itself to 0000. A trip odometer began to click off the miles, the rightmost numerals, in red, indicating tenths.

From an inside pocket, the driver took a hand-drawn map, which he taped to the padded dashboard. He followed County Road 44, keeping the big car at a subdued pace, watching the odometer. When the mileage reading hit 013.4, the driver slowed slightly, his eyes another pair of headlights.

The dirt road was unmarked, barely wide enough for two cars. The driver turned in cautiously, pulled as far over to the side as possible, and extinguished his headlights. He rolled down his window, plucked a nearly full pack of Lucky Strikes from the seat next to him, and turned it around in his right hand, over and over, breathing shallowly through his nose.

Several minutes later, the driver tossed the pack of cigarettes back onto the front seat. With his left hand, he thumbed the fender-mounted bullet spotlight into life.

The big car crawled forward cautiously as the dirt road narrowed, became rougher. The spotlight picked up the remnants of a tar-paper shack. It had no door, no glass in either of its two windows, half its roof, and only three of its walls.

The driver steered into the clearing behind the shack. He stopped the car and stepped out, leaving the door open and the engine running. He circled the car, opening each of the other doors in turn. The overhead interior light was intense, illuminating the seats and floor of the Packard as brightly as if it were in a showroom. He then unlocked the trunk, activating still another light.

The driver stepped away from his car and lit a cigarette, holding it in his left hand. His right dangled at his side, empty. He stood utterly still. Not tense, motionless.

The night-sounds merged with the barely discernible throb of the Packard’s engine, its power muted by a set of highly restrictive mufflers.

The driver raised one foot, ground out his cigarette on the sole of his shoe, and deposited the butt in the pocket of his dark-blue sport coat.

“Whisper said you was one careful motherfucker.” A voice came out of the darkness, seemingly pulling a man along in its wake. A barrel-shaped black man wearing denim overalls and an egg-yolk-yellow T-shirt emerged: He was holding a long-barreled revolver in his left hand, pointed at the driver’s midsection.

“Careful for me; careful for you,” the driver said, nothing in his voice but the words themselves.

“You right about that,” the black man said, moving closer, “if Whisper was right about you.”

The driver shrugged, to show that decision was out of his hands.

“You know how the garage works?” the black man asked.

“I leave my car with you. You give me another one to use. When I’m done, I call you, and we trade back.”

“Uh-huh. And Whisper, he told you, it costs a grand, right?”

“Five hundred is what he said.”

“Price of everything’s going up,” the black man said. “That’s the way it is, everywhere you go.”

“Whisper said that, too.”

“Prices going up?”

“No. That you’d try and hold me up for more. He under-estimated you-he was guessing an extra C-note.”

A flash of white scythed across the black man’s face. It might have been a smile. “You know what I mean, I say I been listening to the drums?”

“Grapevine.”

“Right. People know you coming, man. They don’t know your name, don’t know your face. And I guess you don’t want them to know your car, either.”

The driver shrugged again.

“Sure,” the black man said. “So what that means is, I got extra expenses.”

The driver watched, silently.

“You ain’t holding up your end,” the black man said, the thin slash of white back in his mouth.

“The money’s-”

“Of the conversation, man. This is what men do, they got a dispute. They talk about it, right?”

“We don’t have a dispute.”

“Sure, we do. I don’t mean we enemies or nothing like that. Just trying to get you… involved, see?”

“In what?”

“In my problem, man. What I been telling you.”

“Your ‘extra expenses.’ ”

“Now you paying attention. I don’t know you. Don’t want to know you. But I know what you here for. So I got to figure at least some possibility I may never get that phone call from you, understand where I’m going?”

“That you won’t get your car back.”

“That’s right! Now you getting with the program. I got a real nice… rental for you. You can drive a stick, right?”

“Yes,” the driver said. He took out his pack of cigarettes, held it toward the black man.

“No thanks, man. Appreciate it, though. Anyway, what I got for you is a sweet little ’49 Ford. But it’s not running no flathead-got a ’54 Lincoln mill with a lot of work into it. All heavy-duty: brakes, shocks, clutch, everything. Floor shift, Zephyr gears. Some wild-ass kid built it for drag racing. It don’t have a lot of top end, but it’ll walk away from any cop car in this town. Get you good and gone, you need to.”

“Sounds fine.”

“She is fine, man. What I’m telling you, she don’t come back, I’m out a lot of coin, see what I’m saying?”

“No. No, I don’t. I see you coming out ahead. My car’s worth a lot more than some kid’s hotrod.”

“Yours is newer, sure. But that don’t-”

“Mine’s running a punched-out Caribbean engine,” the driver interrupted. “Dual quads, headers, triple-core radiator, cutouts for the pipes. The whole chassis has been redone, and it’s got a belly pan, too. You could drive it through a cornfield at thirty and it wouldn’t get stuck. Got a second gas tank in the trunk: extra twenty-five gallons. Steel plate behind the back seat-”

“Damn!”

“There’s more. Go look for yourself, you don’t believe me. Cost you seven, eight grand, minimum, to build anything like it.”

The black man’s eyes narrowed. The pistol in his hand moved slightly. “Must make you worried, then. Leaving a valuable ride like that with a stranger. I mean, what if you called and I never came?”

“I’m not worried,” the driver said. “Whisper vouched for you.”

“Man can always be wrong.”

“Whisper told you about me,” the driver said. It wasn’t a question.

The black man nodded.

“Well, he wasn’t wrong about that,” the driver said.

1959 September 28 Monday 23:39

Only Sammy, Lymon, and Harley remained behind after the others had been dismissed, their chairs drawn up close to Beaumont’s desk. The men spoke in low, but not guarded, tones.

“We already lost one man,” Beaumont said. “Hacker never came back with the casino collection. It’s been over three weeks, and nobody’s heard from him.”

“That was a lot of money,” the broad-faced man said.

“Meaning what, Sammy?” Beaumont asked, swiveling his imposing head in the speaker’s direction.

“Everybody knows Hacker’s route,” Sammy said, unruffled. “It’s no secret. All our collectors work alone. We never have anyone riding shotgun. Everybody knows that, too.”

“You’re saying-what?-we don’t have any proof that it was Dioguardi?”

“I’m saying, it could have been Dioguardi, sending a message, sure,” Sammy said. “But it could have been a hijacker, too, Roy. A freelancer, I mean. We got no shortage of those coming through here. Most of them, they’ve got enough sense to come to our town to spend the money they made off their jobs, not to pull one… but every deck always has at least one joker in it.”

“Can’t say it wasn’t,” Beaumont mused. “But Hacker was always a ready man. He wouldn’t go easy… not unless he went willingly. And, you know, if you’re going to take down something big, like an armored car, say, the best way is to have an inside man.”

“Hacker wouldn’t steal from us,” the redheaded man put in, sure-voiced.

“I don’t think so, either, Lymon,” Beaumont agreed. “It was a good piece of change, all right, but not enough to live on for the rest of your life, if you had to stay hidden. When the cops came out here, they said nothing in his house had been touched. There’s things a man wouldn’t leave behind if he had time to plan his run.”

“Hacker would know that, too,” Sammy said, cautiously.

“He would,” Beaumont said, nodding his head. “But you know what else the cops found when they went to his place? They found that hound of his, Ranger. Dog didn’t even have food laid out for him.”

“That does it for me,” Sammy said, in a tone of finality. “Hacker loved that old dog. He expected to come home that night. Yeah.”

“So what’s our first-?” Harley asked, as a woman entered the room from the door behind Beaumont. She was of medium height, but looked shorter because of her stocky frame-an impression enhanced by her low-heeled shoes and boxy beige jacket worn over a plain white blouse. Her hair was the color of tarnished brass, worn short, with moderate bangs over her high forehead. She had Beaumont’s iron eyes, but long lashes and artfully arched eyebrows banked their fire.

At her entrance, the assembled men all rose to their feet and started for the exit.

“Lymon, you mind hanging around a few minutes?” Beaumont said.

By way of response, Lymon sat down.

1959 September 28 Monday 23:52

As if by prior assent, the two men walked across the clearing to the waiting Packard. The driver reached into the trunk, removed a pair of suitcases, stood them on the ground.

“Watch this,” he said, quietly. He lifted the heavy pad of felt that lined the floor of the trunk, revealing a flush-mounted keyhole.

“Now watch me,” the driver said, emphasizing the last word. He reached-slowly-toward his belt, carefully removed the tongue of the belt buckle, extracted a metal rod with a single notch at one end, and held it up for the other man’s inspection. He inserted the rod into the keyhole and turned his wrist-a shallow compartment was revealed. Filling the compartment edge-to-edge was a black, hard-shelled attaché case.

The driver removed the case, added it to the luggage on the ground, closed the compartment, pulled the felt back into place, and closed the trunk.

“Why you showing me all this?” the black man asked, more curious than hostile.

“I didn’t want anyone tearing up the car looking for… whatever they might find. So I thought I’d show you where the tricks were myself.”

“Pretty slick. But what’s the story with that key in your belt, man? Strange place to keep it.”

“It doesn’t just open the compartment in the trunk. It’s a speed key… for handcuffs, understand?”

“Yeah,” the black man said, shaking his head slowly. “But when they bring you down, first thing, they take away your belt and your shoelaces.”

“That’s after they get you to the jail,” the driver said. “Sometimes, their plans don’t work out.”

The black man stepped back a pace, but kept his pistol leveled.

“Look, man. Like I said, it was on the drums. Killer on the road, coming to town. Everybody knows there’s a gang war coming. That’s ofay business, got nothing to do with me, one side wants to bring in some outside talent. But if you kill a cop, even one of those blue-coated thieves that works for this town, that’s gonna bring heat like an oil-field fire. That happens, you call the number you got for me, nobody’s gonna answer. This big car of yours, it’s gonna get butchered like a hog, man. Cut up so small its own mother wouldn’t know it.”

The driver looked at the black man’s chest, expressionless.

“Whisper didn’t say nothing about dusting no po-leece,” the black man said, his voice feathering around the edges.

“Whisper didn’t say anything,” the driver said. “All he did was make a deal. And here I am, holding up my end of it.”

“I-”

“If you don’t want to go through with it, now’s the time to say so.”

“I didn’t say nothing about-”

“You take the deal, you take it the way it was laid out,” the driver cut him off. “What I do, that’s not your business. What you do, that’s not mine. But if I call that number and there’s no answer, there’s another number I can call, understand?”

“Whisper ain’t gonna side with no gray boy against his own-”

“You took this deal, and you don’t know Whisper?”

“I know him,” the black man said, capillaries of resentment bulging on the surface of his voice.

“You never met him,” the driver said, confidently. “You know him the same way everyone else in the game does, by reputation. That’s all he’s got, his reputation. Whisper vouched for you. You come up wrong, nobody’s going to want to deal with him anymore. Not until he fixes the problem. Sets an example.”

“You saying Whisper would do something to me?”

“Get it done, yeah.”

“That supposed to scare me?”

“What it’s supposed to do, it’s supposed to get you to make a phone call. Ask him yourself. I’ll wait right here while you go and do it. You call Whisper. After you speak to him, you still think you can go back on our deal no matter what happens, I’ll just take my car and go. No hard feelings.”

The black man’s face tightened. “You must think I’m a stone fucking chump, Wonder Bread,” he said. “I tell Whisper I’m even thinking about not holding up my end, that’s the last business I ever get from him.”

“Up to you,” the driver said, making an “It’s all the same to me” gesture. “One of us is going to be driving my car out of here. Who that is, that’s up to you.”

1959 September 29 Tuesday 00:04

“Every time that sister of his comes into the room, the show’s over, huh, Sammy?” Harley said to the broad-faced man as they were walking toward their cars in the lot.

“Roy knows what he’s doing,” the broad-faced man said, a faint thread of warning in the blend of his voice.

“Yeah? I don’t see what Cynthia’s got to do with anything, myself. The way she acts sometimes, it’s like she’s the boss, not him.”

Sammy kept walking, silent.

“You don’t think it’s a little strange, Sammy?” Harley persisted.

“What I think is, nobody ever got themselves in trouble minding their own business.”

“I was just saying-”

“Harley, you’re a comer. Everybody knows that. The man himself has his eye on you.”

“So?”

“So listen to an older hand for a minute, son. There’s a lot more to Royal Beaumont than a big set of balls.”

“You saying-what?-people don’t think I got the brains to run my own-?”

“I’m not saying that, Harley… although, when you pull kid stuff like coming late to meetings, you make folks wonder. Look, I know you’ve got a head on your shoulders. But having something’s not the same as using it, you follow me?”

“Sammy…”

“I came up with Roy,” Sammy said. “We go back. All the way back. You know what the smartest thing you can say about his sister is?”

“Nothing?”

Sammy reached over and squeezed the younger man’s shoulder. “See how smart you can be when you work at it?” he said.

1959 September 29 Tuesday 00:12

“There’s three toggle switches right under the dash,” the driver said, pointing with his forefinger. “Just slip your hand under there, you’ll feel them.”

The black man deliberately turned his back and reached under the dash, tacitly acknowledging that the pistol he had been holding hadn’t been the protection he first thought it was.

“First one kills all the interior lights; in the trunk, too,” the driver said. “You push it forward, they won’t go on, no matter what’s opened. The second one-the one in the middle-that’s the ignition kill switch. Push it forward, and you can’t start the car, even with the key. The last one is the muffler cutouts. Okay?”

“I got it,” the black man said, stepping back out of the car.

“Then let’s go get that Ford of yours.”

“I don’t think so, man. You just wait here, we’ll bring it to you. An hour, no more. Man like you, I’ll bet you an ace at killing time.”

“You’re a funny guy,” the driver said.

1959 September 29 Tuesday 00:21

“You’re really sure we need an outsider in on this?” the tall, red-haired man asked. He had moved his chair so that it was alongside Beaumont’s desk, canting his lean body at an angle to create a zone of privacy.

“An outsider’s exactly what we need, Lymon,” the man in the wheelchair answered. “You know how men like Dioguardi work. Before they make a move, they always count the house. They think they know every card we’re holding. This man, he’s going to be our sleeve ace.”

“Where do you find someone like him, anyway?” Lymon asked. “The mobbed-up guys, they’ve got a whole network. They want a job done in, I don’t know, Chicago, the boss there, he makes a call, and the boss in… Miami, maybe, sends him someone to do it. But that’s not us. I mean, we know people, sure. But they’re independents, like we are. They’re not with us.”

“That’s true.”

“You trust Red Schoolfield enough to use one of his guys? I heard that he wasn’t going to be able to hold out much longer himself. Maybe he already made his deal.”

Cynthia walked over to the liquor cabinet, opened two small, unlabeled, brown glass bottles, and carefully shook a pill from each. She expertly tonged three ice cubes into a square-cut tumbler, added water from a carafe, and brought it over to Beaumont. He plucked the pills from her open palm, put them in his mouth, and emptied the tumbler.

“More?” she asked.

“Please.”

Without another word, Cynthia fetched the carafe and refilled Beaumont’s glass. She returned the carafe to the liquor cabinet unhurriedly, clearly intending to remain in the room.

A silver cigarette box sat on Beaumont’s desk. He opened it, turned it in Lymon’s direction. Lymon shook his head “no,” completing the ritual. Beaumont took a cigarette from the case, fired it with a table lighter. He adjusted his position in his wheelchair, blew a perfect smoke ring at the ceiling.

“This guy-Dett is what he calls himself, Walker Dett-he didn’t come from Red. I knew Red had used him on a job. All’s I did, I gave Red a call, asked him how it had worked out. Like a reference.”

“So where did you find him?” Lymon persisted.

“You know Nadine’s roadhouse?”

“Everybody knows Nadine. She-”

“This isn’t about her,” Beaumont said, the “Pay attention!” implicit in his tone. “You go out there, to her joint, once in a while?”

“Not really. Only when-”

“When they’ve got certain bands playing, am I right?”

“Yep,” Lymon said, enthusiasm rising in his voice. “They get some real corkers out there, sometimes.”

“Like Junior Joe Clanton?”

“That’s one for sure!”

“Absolutely,” Beaumont agreed. “Now, Junior Joe, he’s no Hank Williams. But who is? What I mean is, Junior Joe was never on the Opry. And you’re never going to hear one of his songs on the radio. But when word gets out he’s coming to town, you know there’ll be a full house somewhere that night.”

“Yeah. I don’t understand why he never got… big. That boy’s got a voice like… well, like nobody else.”

“Maybe that’s the way he wants it,” Beaumont said. “All men pretty much want the same things-the same kind of things, anyway-but different men, they go after it different ways. I know what Nadine has to shell out to get him to work her place. If he does that good everywhere he plays, Junior Joe’s making more money a year than some of the big stars.”

“And he gets paid in cash, right?”

“That could be part of it,” Beaumont conceded. “But I don’t think it’s the whole story. Maybe… You remember Debbie Jean Watson? Hiram Watson’s daughter? That girl won every beauty con-test in the whole damn state. Far as a lot of folks were concerned, she made Elizabeth Taylor look like a librarian. Remember what happened to her?”

“She went out to Hollywood…”

“And never came back. You know why? Not because she couldn’t act. Hell, there’s all kinds of movies where the girls don’t have to do anything but look good. You’d think she could at least get some of that kind of work. Face like hers, body that could wake the dead, she walks in a room, she owns every man in it. But the thing is, Lymon, the camera didn’t see her the way men do in real life. The way I understand it, those movie cameras, they don’t work the same as a man’s eyes do. You need a special look to make them love you. And Debbie Jean, she didn’t have it.”

“So maybe that’s Junior Joe, what you’re saying? He’s got the voice for honky-tonks, but not for records?”

“I don’t know,” Beaumont said. “All I’m saying, there’s reasons for everything.”

“What’s this got to do with-?”

“This Walker Dett, he’s kind of like Junior Joe. A honky-tonk man, moving from town to town. You want him, you call this number. They give you another number-that one’s always changing-and you just leave a message. Somebody calls you back-maybe somebody calls you back-and you make a deal. Like booking an act, see?”

“So how do people even know about him?”

“Same way they do about Junior Joe. Word of mouth. Which is why I asked Red Schoolfield, was he as good as people say? And Red, he said he was.”

“It seems like a lot of trouble just to hire a gun,” Lymon said. “There’s always been plenty of freelance firepower around. Even more, since Korea ended.”

“Plenty of horses get foaled every year, too,” Beaumont said. “But how many of them end up in the Kentucky Derby? This guy, he’s in a different class from anyone we could find around here.”

“But what if the outfit guys really aren’t planning-?”

“Don’t kid yourself,” Beaumont said, scornfully. “You think they’re just talk? They already made it clear-they’re going to get a taste of what we got. And once they get that taste, you know what happens next.

“Look, Lymon, they’re all businessmen. Just like us. They want our action. What we have to do is make it so costly for them that it’s not worth it. And this guy I’m bringing in, he’s just the man for that.”

“Beau…?” his sister said.

“All right, Cyn. I know.” Turning to Lymon, he said, “Doc says, I don’t get some sleep after I take those damn pills, they’re not going to do the job.”

As he got up to leave, Lymon asked, “Whatever happened to her?”

“Who?”

“Debbie Jean Watson. Like you said, she never came home.”

“Oh, yeah. Well, it seems there’s all different kinds of cameras. Movie cameras, she couldn’t do a thing with them. But she was good enough for the other kind.”

1959 September 29 Tuesday 01:19

The big house was quiet. The man in the wheelchair rolled himself down the hall to a master-bedroom suite, where flames in a stone fireplace cuddled rough-hewn logs. A triple-sized tub in the attached bathroom was surrounded by handrails. He backed his chair against the wall, and sat in darkness until his sister lit a thick red candle in the opposite corner.

“I suppose you’d like one of your awful cigars,” she said.

“Sure would.”

“You don’t have to always have one before-”

“There’s a lot of things I do have to do, Cyn. Some of them, I wish I didn’t. I get the chance, do something I like to do, doesn’t matter that I don’t have to do it, right?”

“You could just try something else, for once.”

“Why?”

“Because you might like it better.”

“I couldn’t like it any more than I already do.”

“You might, Beau. You used to…”

“That was when I still could-”

“Try one of these, instead,” she said, walking over to his wheelchair, a red-and-gold box in her hand. “Special cigarettes. From Turkey.”

“I… ah, what the hell, Cyn. You know I always give you what you want.”

He reached for the box of cigarettes. Cynthia took a step back. “After,” she said, caressingly. Then she knelt before the wheelchair.

1959 September 29 Tuesday 02:04

“These are good,” Beaumont said, exhaling a powerful jet of smoke.

“See?”

“Yeah. But they won’t last as long as a good-”

“So you’ll have another,” the woman said. “If you want one.”

“I just might,” Beaumont said. “Now, tell me, what’s your read on the meet we just had?”

“Red Schoolfield is a moron,” his sister said.

“I know that, Cyn. You think I didn’t get word from other places on this guy I’m bringing in? Red’s the only name the boys need to hear, that’s all.”

“Lymon’s shaky,” she said. “But that’s nothing new-he’s been weak for years. Of all the men, he’s the least likely to go the distance, should it ever come to that.”

“Yeah,” the man in the wheelchair agreed. “And I think we could be walking close to that line now. That’s why I called him aside at the end. He’s been talking to the Irishers.”

“Roy! How could you know that?”

“I know,” he assured her.

“So this stranger, you’re really bringing him here for Lymon?”

“No. What I told the men he was for, that was the truth. We talked about this, Cyn. Dioguardi’s already putting some of our accounts in a cross. Look at the jukeboxes. Every joint in the county knows they have to use the machines we send them. Now Dioguardi’s outfit’s coming around, telling them they have to use theirs. And if they don’t want to do that, they have to pay a tax to use ours. The squeeze is too tight.

“It’s our town,” the man in the wheelchair said, “so it’s our play. And that’s when this guy I’m bringing in earns his money.”

“What about Lymon?”

“I was thinking of Harley. That boy’s sharp. And he’s good with his accounts, too. But he’s never shown his stuff, not that way.”

“He’s awfully young, Beau. I don’t know…”

“Everyone who started with us, they’re my age now, Cyn. If we’re going to keep this going… after, we need a younger man. I know I’m right about Harley, he just needs more seasoning.”

“I can’t see men like Faron and Sammy-”

“-following a kid like Harley? It’s not them we have to worry about, honey. They’re old pros. And they’re not going to be working forever, either. It’s the next wave, men like Udell and Roland, that Harley’s got to win over. And all the smarts in the world won’t be enough for that-you know what he has to do.”

“Yes,” Cynthia said. “But… Oh, never mind that for now, Beau. When are we expecting this man you sent for?”

“Tomorrow, the next day, sometime soon. He’s on the road right now, heading this way. Soon as he checks into the Claremont, he’s going to call.”

1959 September 29 Tuesday 03:55

“Can’t sleep, Beau?”

“I don’t need much, Cyn. You know that.”

“Yes, but you need some. It’s very late. Do you want-?”

“No, thank you,” the man in the wheelchair said, almost formally. “I just… wanted to think some things through, I guess. You know how people tell you, when you got a problem, you should ‘sleep on it’? Well, that’s the coward’s way. The right way is, you grab on and wrestle with it.”

“You always were a great wrestler, Beau.”

“Used to be, honey. Used to be.”

“I don’t think there’s a man in this town who could take you at the table, right this minute,” Cynthia said, shaking her head as if to dispute any doubters.

“I guess I should be strong, all those exercises you used to make me do.”

“You had to do them, Beau. The doctors said… this would happen, someday.”

“You can say ‘wheelchair,’ Cyn. The word doesn’t scare me. Not anymore, anyway. When I was a kid, I hated those braces I had to wear. Now I wish I had them back.”

“Beau, we don’t have to… do any of this. We could go somewhere else. Florida, maybe. We have enough money…”

“How long you think all that money would last us, we did that? Most of what we have, it’s not hard cash, Cyn. It’s tied up, in all kinds of things. The money that keeps you safe is the money that keeps coming in. Like an electric fence-the minute you turn off the power, anyone can just walk right through it.” Beaumont looked at the glowing tip of his cigarette. “Power,” he said, quietly. “That’s what keeps us safe. And money, money coming in, that’s only a piece of it. The men, my men, the men who stand between me and everyone else, you think I could buy that with money?”

“Of course not. Even if you were down to your last penny, Luther would never-”

“Yeah, I know, honey. But Luther’s our own, like Sammy and Faron are. You can buy a man’s gun, but that doesn’t mean you bought his heart. Bodyguards, they’re nothing but bullet-catchers-and they know it. One day, you pay them to stand in front of you; another day, someone else could pay them to stand aside.

“You look at some of those countries in South America. Every time you turn around, they got a new guy in charge. You think, how could that happen when the boss, he’s got a whole army on his side? Easy. Somebody in that same army decides he wants to be the boss. You read between the lines, you can see it clear. The difference between a bodyguard and a hit man, it’s whose money he’s taking, that’s all.”

“Is that why Lymon-?”

“Lymon? No. He doesn’t have it in him to even think about taking over from me. He’s the kind of man who’s got to be with someone stronger. That’s why he’s always been with me. And that’s why he’s talking to the Irish guys, too. Hedging his bets.”

“But why would they trust someone like him? If he’d sell us out, why wouldn’t he-?”

“-do the same to them? He would. And they have to know it. Once a man betrays his own, no one else can ever trust him again. Lymon was a good man, once. But even back then, he never knew how to plan ahead.”

“Nobody can plan like you, Beau,” his sister said.

1959 September 29 Tuesday 11:53

“Welcome to the Claremont,” the desk clerk said, glancing down at where the guest had signed the register. “We have you in 809, Mr. Dett. That’s a corner room, deluxe, with shower and bath, for two weeks, is that correct?”

“Two weeks, that’s right,” the guest agreed.

“Let me get you some help with that luggage,” the clerk said, hitting a bell and hollering “Front!” simultaneously.

“Appreciate it,” Dett said.

“Would you like me to send a boy out to take care of your car, too, sir? We have parking around the back, complimentary for hotel guests.”

“No thanks,” Dett replied. “I didn’t drive. Came in on the plane from Cincinnati, then I grabbed a cab. I figured I’d rent a car while I’m in town. That’s the way I always do it.”

The desk clerk prided himself on being a superb judge of humanity, able to size up any new guest in minutes. He often regaled his mother with his Sherlockian deductions at the end of his shift. As he filled out the registration card, he covertly took stock.

The man on the other side of the counter was clean-shaven, the facial skin stretched tightly over sharp cheekbones. His dark-chestnut hair was cut almost military-short. His hands were well cared for, but two knuckles of his right hand were flattened, marked with white keloid starbursts. A simple steel watch with an expansion bracelet constituted his only jewelry. His dark-blue suit, although clearly well fitted, was what the clerk’s mother would have dismissed as “decent.” A gray felt fedora, a plain white shirt with a spread collar and button cuffs, and a black tie-a little wider than was currently fashionable-didn’t help with the diagnosis. Nor did the man’s luggage, an unmatched set of two suitcases, a Pullman and a smaller job, plus a generic attaché case.

A traveling salesman working the circuit would have made conversation about the weather, like a boxer sparring to keep in shape. A confidence man would be either flashier or more richly conservative in dress. A gambler would carry cash in the buttoned breast pocket of his shirt. A gunman would be wearing a shoulder holster. An itinerant preacher would have a Bible somewhere in sight. The clerk glanced down at the register, saw that Mr. Walker Dett had listed his business as “real estate,” whatever that meant.

Under other circumstances, the clerk would have asked a couple of questions-friendly questions, of course. But there was something about this man, some… stillness to him, that made the clerk nervously finger the single pearl anchored precisely in the center of his plum-colored necktie.

“Rufus will show you up to your room, sir,” the clerk said, as a handsome mahogany-colored man in his early thirties approached the front desk, dressed in a resplendent red bellhop’s uniform, with rows of gold braid across the chest and “Claremont” spelled in the same material on his round cap. “We hope you enjoy your stay with us. If there’s anything you need, just let us know.”

“Thanks,” said the guest. He picked up his attaché case, and pointed with his chin to the two suitcases on the floor. The bellhop hefted the two suitcases, said, “This way, sir,” and started toward the elevator.

In response to the bellhop’s ring, the elevator cage slowly descended. It was opened by an elderly man whose teakwood complexion was set off by a skullcap of tight gray curls. He was wearing a red blazer with the “Claremont” name and crest on the breast pocket.

“We need eight, Moses,” the bellhop told him. “The top floor,” he added, unnecessarily.

“Sure thing,” the elderly man said. “Welcome to the Claremont, suh,” he told the guest.

“Thank you,” Dett replied.

The cage came to a dead-level stop on the eighth floor, the operator working the lever so smoothly there was no sensation of movement.

“Very nice,” the guest said, touching the brim of his hat.

“Yes suh!” the operator said, flustered. He had been driving that elevator car for more than twenty years, and this was the first time anyone had ever taken note of his dextrous touch, much less complimented him on it.

The bellhop led the way down the hall. When he came to the last door on his left, he put down one of the suitcases and withdrew a key from his pants pocket in one fluid motion. He unlocked the door, pushed it open, stood aside for the guest to precede him, then picked up both suitcases and followed.

The bellhop opened the door to the bathroom, turned on the taps, opened the medicine cabinet. Then he walked officiously to the windows and drew back the curtains, clearly on a tour of inspection.

“This here’s one of our very best rooms,” he told the guest. “Over to the front side, it can get real noisy, with all the traffic in the street. Back here, it stays nice and quiet.”

“It’ll be fine,” the guest said, handing over a dollar.

The bellhop’s smile broadened. Most professional travelers generally thought a quarter was generous. The action men, the gamblers and the hustlers, they always went for halves. Only Hoosiers and honeymooners tipped dollars. Rufus, who knew an omen when he saw one, resolved to play 809 when the numbers runner came by that afternoon.

“If there’s anything you need, sir, anything at all, you just ask for Rufus. Whatever you might want, I get it for you.”

“This a dry town?” the guest asked.

“No, sir. Truth is, folks comes here, they want to get themselves a taste.”

“Appreciate your honesty,” the guest said, handing over a ten-dollar bill. “This’ll buy me a fifth of Four Roses, then?”

“With plenty to spare, sir,” the bellhop confirmed. “I’ll be right back.”

On his way over to the liquor store a block away from the hotel, the bellhop congratulated himself on not lying about the easy availability of liquor in Locke City-the guest had asked the question as if he already knew the answer. Whoever he is, Rufus thought, he ain’t no Hoosier.

The man who had signed the register as Walker Dett tossed his two suitcases onto the double bed, gave the room a thirty-second sweep with his eyes, then picked up his attaché case and walked out into the corridor. He rang for the elevator.

“Going out already, suh?” the operator said, as the guest stepped into his car.

The man held up his hand in an unmistakable “Wait a minute” gesture. “I don’t want to go anywhere. Just want to talk to you for a couple of minutes, Moses.”

“Me, suh?”

“Yes, if you don’t mind.”

The operator turned his head, looking squarely at the man standing behind him. Waiting.

“My name’s Dett,” the tall man said, extending his hand to the operator. “Walker Dett.”

“It’s my pleasure to know you, Mr. Dett,” the operator said, palming the five-dollar bill as smoothly as he handled the elevator car. “Anything you need around here, you just-”

“You had time, size me up yet?”

“No, suh. It ain’t my place to be-”

“You’re a man who keeps his eyes open, I can tell.”

“Now, I don’t know nothing about that, suh. All I can see, you some kind of a businessman. A serious businessman,” the operator said. He kept his hand on the lever, ears alert for the buzzer which would summon the car.

“That’s right,” Dett said. “I’m here on business. And in my line of work, you know what’s really valuable?”

“No, suh.”

“Information. Every workingman needs his tools. And information, that’s a tool, isn’t it?”

“Sure could be, suh.”

“Some people, they think, in a hotel, it’s the desk clerk that knows everything that goes on. Others, they think it’s the bellhops. Some, they read too many paperback books, they think it’s the house dick. But you know what I think?”

“No, suh,” the elderly man said, evenly. “I don’t know what you think.”

“I think it’s not the job you do, it’s how long you’ve been doing it that makes you the man in the know. I think, a man gets to be a certain age, instead of people having respect, instead of them listening to him, they talk around him like he’s not even in the room. Like he’s wallpaper. A man like that, he gets to hear all kinds of things. You think I could be right?”

“Yes, suh. I believe you could be.”

“And a man like that, he’s not just worth something for what he knows; he’s worth double, because people don’t know he knows. Could I be right about that, too?”

“You surely could, suh.”

“You know what a ‘consultant’ is, Moses?”

“No, suh. I never heard of one.”

“Well, a consultant is a man you go to for advice. You ask him questions, he’s got answers. You ask him how to solve certain problems, he’s got the solutions. Man like that, he could make a good living, doing what he does.”

“Is that what you do, suh?”

“I think,” Dett said, tucking another five-dollar bill into the breast pocket of the operator’s blazer, “that’s what you do.”

The buzzer sounded. The two men exchanged a quick look. Dett stepped out of the elevator car, and the operator slid the lever to the “down” position.

1959 September 29 Tuesday 12:25

The knock on the door of Room 809 was that of an experienced bellhop-firm and deferential at the same time.

“Come on in,” Dett called from behind the partially opened bathroom door. He had positioned himself so that the medicine cabinet’s mirror gave him a clear view of the doorway. As the bellhop closed the door behind him, Dett slipped the derringer he had been holding into the pocket of his slacks and came out, giving his hands a finishing touch with the washcloth he carried.

“Here’s your liquor, sir. I don’t know how you takes it, so I brought you some ice, just in case,” the bellhop said, holding up a small chrome bucket.

At a nod from Dett, the bellhop placed the bottle and the ice bucket on top of a chest of drawers. Next to it, he ostentatiously deposited the change from the ten dollars he had been entrusted with.

“There’s too much there,” Dett said.

“Too much? But, sir, you said a fifth.”

“Too much money, Rufus,” Dett said. “You’re about a dollar heavy, the way I see it.”

“Thank you, sir,” the bellhop said. “I could tell you was a gent from the minute you checked in. You want me to pour you one now?”

“Just about so much,” Dett said, indicating a generous inch with his thumb and forefinger. “Over the rocks.”

“There you go, sir.”

“Thanks.”

“Yes, sir. If you need anything else…?”

“What hours do you work?”

“Me? Well, my regular shift is six to six. But I never mind putting in no extra time, if it’s needed. Everybody got to do that, even Mister Carl-that’s the deskman.”

“I got it,” Dett said, carrying his drink over to the room’s only easy chair and sitting down. It was clearly a dismissal.

The bellhop started for the door, then turned slightly, his eyes on the carpet. “Sir, what I said about needing anything else? That don’t have to be from the hotel, sir.”

“I don’t want any-”

“No, sir, I understand. Man like you, he don’t want no colored girl. But I got kind of an… arrangement, like. Make one phone call, get you anything up here you might want.”

“I’ll remember,” Dett said.

1959 September 29 Tuesday 12:36

As soon as the bellhop left, Dett closed the curtains. Then he opened the smaller of his two suitcases, took out a wooden wedge, and walked over to the door. He kicked the wedge under the door, then turned the knob and pulled it toward him. Even against strong pressure, the wedge held securely.

Turning his back on the door, Dett moved to the window, parted the curtains a slit, and peered outside. He glanced at his watch, then carried the untouched bourbon into the bathroom and emptied it into the sink, ran hot water over the ice cubes, and returned the unwashed glass to the top of the bureau. Moving methodically, he filled a second glass with fresh ice cubes and added tap water.

From the larger suitcase, Dett took a box of soda crackers. He drank a little of the water, then began eating, alternating the slow, thorough chewing of each bite with a sip of water.

Finished, he took a series of shallow breaths through his nose, pressing the first two fingers of each hand hard against his diaphragm as he exhaled.

Dett closed his eyes. A nerve jumped in his right cheek, so forcefully that it lifted the corner of his mouth. He continued the breathing, going deeper and deeper, until he fell asleep.

1959 September 29 Tuesday 17:09

When Dett opened his eyes, the room was dark, but it was the artificial darkness of closed curtains. The luminescent dial on his wristwatch told him it was just past five; his body told him that it was afternoon. Dett got up, used the bathroom, and drank another glass of water.

Crossing over to the far wall, Dett again parted the curtains. He tried both windows, found they opened easily but only went up less than halfway, held in place by metal stoppers in the channels. Behind the hotel was an alley, on the other side of which was the back side of an undistinguished brick building.

Dett took a street map from his suitcase, turning it in his hands until he was oriented to his own location. Office building, he said to himself, looking out the window. Probably goes dark after they close for the day.

Dett picked up the phone, dialed “0,” and told the hotel operator he wanted the front desk.

Connected, he asked the foppish clerk if he could get a sandwich sent up to his room.

“Certainly, Mr. Dett,” the desk clerk said, pridefully. “At the Claremont, our kitchen is always open until one in the morning, for anything from a snack to a full-course meal. And you can get a breakfast order anytime after six as well. Just tell me what you’d like, and I’ll have it sent right up.”

“I’d appreciate that,” Dett said. He ordered a steak sandwich, a side of French fries, and two bottles of Coke. Then he undressed, took a quick shower, and put on fresh clothes.

When the knock came, twenty minutes later, Dett wasn’t surprised to see Rufus on the other side of the threshold.

“You do all kinds of work around here, don’t you?” he said to the bellhop.

“I tell you the truth, sir. They got a boy in the kitchen, supposed to deliver meals to guests. But I got this…”

“Arrangement?” Dett said, smiling thinly.

“Yes, sir. I see you know how things work in hotels.”

“How much of a piece does that Nancy-boy take?”

“Mister Carl? The way he work it, end of my shift, every dollar I get, he supposed to get a dime.”

“He must do all right for himself, then.”

“You mean, he got the same deal with all the boys? Yes, sir. He sure do. Man like him, he in a powerful position around here.”

“Knows what’s going on, huh?”

“Knows it all, sir. I swear, sometimes I think he got secret passageways or something. We had this little game going in the basement,” the bellhop said, miming shaking a pair of dice in his closed hand. “Just a few of the boys, on our break, you know? Well, one day, I come into work, Mister Carl, he tells me there’s a toll due. You see how he is?”

“Not yet, I don’t.”

“I don’t follow you, sir.”

“How much of a toll was he charging?”

“Oh. Well, he said it would cost a dollar.”

“For every game.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So you stopped playing down there.”

“That’s right. How you know-? I mean, I apologize, sir. I didn’t mean no backtalk. Just surprised, is all.”

“Remember you asked me, did I see how he was? The desk clerk? Well, now I see how he is. Dumb.”

“Dumb? No, sir. Mister Carl, he a pretty slick-”

“If he charged you a quarter for every game, how much would he have made?”

“Well, we used to play every day, so…”

“Right. And how much is he getting from your games, now?”

“He ain’t… Oh, I see where you coming from, sir. Mister Carl, maybe he not so smart after all.”

“Let’s see if you are,” Dett said, handing the bellhop two one-dollar bills. “If Carl gets a piece of this, I’ll be real disappointed in you, Rufus.”

“You ain’t gonna have no cause to ever be disappointed in me, sir. My momma only raised but one fool, and that was my brother.”

1959 September 29 Tuesday 18:19

The guest in Room 809 opened the steak sandwich carefully.

He removed the lettuce and tomato, examining each in turn. Dett rolled his right shoulder-a small knife slid out of his sleeve and into his hand. He thumbed the knife open, then meticulously trimmed the outer edges of the lettuce, cored the slice of tomato, and removed every visible trace of fat from the meat before he reassembled the sandwich.

Dett picked up all the discarded pieces, carried them to the bathroom, and dropped them into the toilet. He flushed, checked to see if everything had disappeared, then washed his hands.

It took him almost forty-five minutes to eat the sandwich and French fries. He spaced sips of Coke evenly throughout, taking the final one after he swallowed the last of the sandwich.

Dett poured approximately three shots of the Four Roses into a glass. He carried it to the bathroom, emptied the contents into the toilet, and flushed again.

Then he sat and waited for darkness to bloom.

1959 September 29 Tuesday 21:09

Walker Dett washed his hands again, put on a tie, pocketed his room key, and walked out into the corridor.

“Evening, suh,” the elevator operator said, as he slid back the grillework for Dett to enter.

“Evening, Moses,” the man said. “I think I’ll take a little walk, help me digest my dinner.”

“Yes, suh,” said the operator, sliding the lever toward the “down” position.

Dett stepped close to the operator, holding out his palm and tilting his head in a “Wait a minute” gesture. The operator’s hand stopped the lever a fraction short of engagement.

“This elevator, it goes all the way to the basement?” Dett said, quietly.

“No, suh. Only the service car goes there.”

“But there’s no operator for that one, right?”

“That’s right,” the elderly man said, not surprised this quiet-voiced stranger would know such things.

“Can anyone just get in and run it, or do you need a key?”

“Used to be, like you say, anyone could just use it. But when Mister Carl took over-that was a few years after the war, if I remember right-he said that wouldn’t do. So now, you want to use the freight car, you got to ask Mister Carl, and he loans you the key.”

“But he’s not the only one who has one?”

“Oh no, suh. Nothing could run if things was like that. Plenty folks got keys. They has one in the kitchen, the maintenance man has one, the maids-they don’t like them riding the same cars as the guests, you know-the house cop… lots of folks, I bet. Me, I got one myself.”

“Thanks, Moses,” Dett said, moving his head slightly. The operator moved the lever a notch, and the car began to descend.

1959 September 29 Tuesday 21:59

Dett left the elevator car and walked over to the front desk.

“Everything satisfactory, Mr. Dett?” the clerk asked.

“It’s fine,” Dett assured him. “I was just going to take a little walk, work off my dinner.” He patted his stomach for emphasis. “A little fresh air never hurt anyone.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” the desk clerk said. “In fact, I’m somewhat of a physical-culture enthusiast myself.”

Dett nodded slightly, as if acknowledging the obvious. “This area,” he asked, “it’s safe at night?”

“This part of town? Absolutely! Now, there are some sections I certainly wouldn’t go myself, even in broad daylight. I’m sure you know what I mean…?”

“Sure.”

“So long as you stay within, oh, a ten-block radius, I’d say, you’ll find Locke City a wonderfully quiet town,” Carl said, smoothly.

1959 September 29 Tuesday 22:28

Dett strolled the broad avenue at a leisurely pace, his eyes on the passing traffic. In the time it took him to cover a half-dozen blocks, he spotted two police cars-black ’58 Ford sedans with white doors and roofs-blending unaggressively with the traffic flow. Guard dogs, big enough to send a message without barking.

A message received, Dett noted. The wide, clean sidewalk was devoid of loiterers. No hookers looking for trade, no teenage punks leaning against the buildings, no panhandlers. Nothing but respectably dressed citizens, mostly in couples, and very few of those.

Dett stayed in motion, all the while watching, clocking, measuring. He walked down a side street, then turned into an alley opening. When that dead-ended, he retraced his steps, noting how deserted the whole area had suddenly become. He glanced at his watch: ten-fifty-seven. Somewhere in this town, action was probably just getting started, he thought. But not around here…

Relying on his memory of the street map, Dett found his way to the office building he had observed from his hotel window. Positioning himself so that he could view the back of the hotel, he noted the absence of fire escapes. He turned a corner and checked again. Sure enough, each floor had a fire exit at the end of the corridor, on either side, leading to a series of metal staircases that formed a Z-pattern all the way down to the second floor. The final set of stairs would have to be released manually.

Dett turned slowly, scanning the area. His eyes picked up another alley opening, halfway down the block. They can’t all dead-end, he thought to himself, moving deliberately through the darkness, eyes alert for trail markers.

As Dett entered the alley, blotchy shadows told him that a source of light was somewhere in the vicinity. Maybe a streetlight positioned close to the other end? As he neared what he sensed to be the exit, the red glow of a cigarette tip flashed a warning. Dett took a long, shallow breath through his nose, sending a neural message to his neck and shoulder muscles to relax, deliberately opening receptor channels he trusted to watch his back.

He slowed his pace imperceptibly, and casually slipped his right hand into his pants pocket.

Two of them, Dett registered. As he got closer, his sense-impression was confirmed. They were in their late teens or early twenties; one, the smoker, sitting on a wooden milk crate, the other leaning against the alley wall, arms folded across his chest. Jackrollers, Dett said to himself. Must be a bar just around the corner, and some of the drunks use this alley as a shortcut.

Twenty yards. Ten. Dett kept coming, not altering his pace or his stance. His ears picked up the sound of speech, but he couldn’t make out the words. The man on the milk crate got to his feet, and the two of them moved off in the opposite direction, just short of a run.

Either they only work cripples, or they’re waiting for me just around the corner, one on each side of the alley, Dett thought. He spun on his heel and went back the way he had entered, still walking, but long-striding now, covering ground. At the alley entrance, Dett turned to his left, walked to the far corner, then squared the block, heading back toward where the alley would let out.

The sidewalk was dark except for a single streetlight only a few feet from the mouth of the alley-it seemed to know it was surrounded, and wasn’t putting up much of a fight. Dett crossed the street and walked on past. Not a sign of the two men.

He was nearly at the end of the long block when he noticed a faded blue-and-white neon sign in a small rectangular window. Enough of the letters still burned so Dett guessed at “Tavern,” but the rest was a mystery he wasn’t interested in solving.

Dett spent the next hour walking the streets, noting how many of the buildings seemed empty and abandoned.

1959 September 30 Wednesday 07:06

“He came back in around one in the morning,” Carl said. He was in the breakfast nook of a modest two-story house that occupied the mid-arc plot of a gently curving block, seated at a blue Formica kitchen table on a chair upholstered in tufted vinyl of the same shade.

“Your shift-your extra shift, I might add-was almost done,” a woman said, over her shoulder, focusing on her breakfast-preparation tasks. She was tall, fair-skinned, with sharp features and alert eyes, her white-blond hair worn in a tight bun.

“Not really,” Carl said, bitterly. “You know how Berwick is. Expecting him to come in on time…”

“Well, Carl, he may not last. They all seem to come and go.”

“He’s been there almost two years.”

“Still…”

“Mother, you don’t understand. It’s not just that he’s always late, it’s that he’s so… arrogant about it. As if he knows I’d never say anything to the manager about him.”

“Well, that’s not your way, Carl. You were not raised to be a talebearer.”

“Well, still, there’s plenty I could tell Mr. Hodges about Berwick, if I wanted to. It’s not just his lack of… dignity; he’s a filthy slob, Mother. You would not believe the state he leaves the desk in.”

“I know,” the woman said. “But that’s the way the world is, son. Some people act correctly, some people don’t. We are not responsible for anyone but ourselves.”

“I know he says things about me. Some of the colored boys, I can tell, by the way they look at me.”

“Are they disrespectful to you?”

“Well… no. I don’t mean anything they say. It’s just… I don’t know.”

“Carl,” the woman said, sternly, “there are always going to be people with big mouths and small minds.”

She brought a pale-blue plate to the table. On it were two perfectly poached eggs on gently browned toast, with the crusts removed.

“It isn’t like that everywhere,” Carl said.

“Oh, Carl, please. Not that again.”

“Well, it isn’t,” the not-so-young-anymore man insisted. “In some of the big cities-”

“You have roots here,” his mother interrupted. “You have a place, a place where you belong. A fine job, a lovely home…”

“I know, Mother. I know.”

“Sometimes, I get so worried about you, Carl. Every time you go on one of your vacations, I can’t even sleep, I’m so terrified.”

“There’s no reason to be frightened, Mother,” Carl said, resentfully. “I know my way around places a lot bigger than Locke City will ever be.”

“Oh, Carl,” the woman said, “I know you can take care of yourself. I raised you to be a competent man, a man who knows how to deal with whatever situation may come up in life.”

“Then why do you always get so-?”

“I worry… I just worry that, one day, you’ll go on vacation and you won’t come back.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Why is it so ridiculous, son? With your experience, you could get a job in a place like Chicago very easily.”

“Not Chicago,” Carl muttered.

“What?”

“I said, ‘Not Chicago,’ Mother. If I was going to live someplace else, it would be far away. New York. Or maybe San Francisco.”

“I couldn’t bear that,” she said, fidgeting with the waistband of her apron.

“Don’t be so dramatic, Mother. You know I would never leave you here alone. We could sell this house, and find a perfectly fine place somewhere else.”

“Carl, if I had to leave Locke City, I would just die. All my friends are here. My own mother, your Grandmother Tel, is an old woman now. How many years could she have left? Without me driving over to her place to do for her, why, she’d end up in one of those horrible old-age homes. And there’s my church. Our church, if you still went with me. My bridge club. My gardening group. I was born and raised only a few miles from this very house. There’s some flowers you just can’t transplant; they wouldn’t survive. And your father-”

“Yes, I miss him, too,” Carl said, sullenly.

“There is no reason to be so spiteful, Carl. I know you and your father had your differences, but he’s been gone a long time. And I always protected you, didn’t I?”

“You did,” Carl said, blinking his eyes rapidly. “Come on, Mother. Sit down with me. I want to tell you all about the mysterious Mr. Walker Dett.”

1959 September 30 Wednesday 08:11

Sun slanted through the partially drawn curtains of Room 809. Dett opened his eyes, instantly awake. He was on the floor, the double bed between him and the wedged door. Before going to sleep, he had balanced a quarter on the doorknob, and positioned a large glass ashtray beneath it. Had anyone tried the door while he slept, the coin would have dropped into the glass, alerting Dett but not the intruder.

Between the carpeted floor and the blanket and pillows he had removed from the bed, Dett had been quite comfortable. He was positioned on his side, back against the wall beneath the window. The derringer in his right hand looked as natural as a child’s teddy bear.

Dett got to his feet, pulled the tightly fitted sheet off the mattress, then deposited it at the foot of the bed, along with the blanket and the pillowcases he had removed to construct his sleeping quarters. He plucked the quarter from the doorknob, returned the ashtray to the writing desk, and lit a cigarette. While it was burning, he emptied some more of the Four Roses into the sink.

After a shower and shave, Dett telephoned room service and ordered breakfast and a newspaper, specifying the local. While he waited, he dressed-another plain dark suit, another carefully knotted tie, this time a sober shade of blue.

Three eggs, yolks broken and fried over hard, four strips of bacon, a side of hash-brown potatoes, two glasses of orange juice, and a basket of biscuits took him more than an hour to consume.

Dett carried the breakfast tray outside his room and left it on the floor, next to his door. He went back inside and sat down to read the paper, turning first to the personals column-in case Whisper had a message for him.

A few minutes later, the door opened and a cocoa-colored young woman in a white maid’s smock walked in.

“Oh! I’m sorry, sir!” she said, her amber eyes alive with anxiety. “I saw the tray outside, and I figured you was out. I’ll come back later and-”

“That’s all right,” Dett said, sliding the derringer back into his pocket, shielded by the newspaper. “Might as well get it done now; I won’t be in your way.”

“Yes, sir,” the young woman said, pushing her service cart ahead of her. “If you want to… stay in late, any day, all you have to do is put the sign up, and I’ll know-”

“I’ll know better next time,” Dett said, mildly, lowering his newspaper. “Thank you.”

“Yes, sir,” the young woman said, still nervous over having blundered into the room without knocking. It was just the kind of mistake that Mister Carl would report to the manager, if the guest complained. At the Claremont, maids had been fired for less. She entered the bathroom, skillfully removed and replaced the three tumblers she found there, exchanged the roll of toilet paper for a new one, replaced the towels, added a fresh bar of soap. Even moving mechanically, she noted how clean and neat the guest had left everything.

“All right if I do the bed now, sir?” she asked, stepping back into the main room.

“Sure,” the guest replied. “And my name is Dett, Walker Dett.”

“Yes, sir. I mean, yes, Mr. Dett, sir.”

The young woman’s large amber eyes met the guest’s pale-gray ones. She felt her face flush.

“And your name is?” the guest asked.

“Rosa Mae, sir.”

“Rosa Mae…?”

“Rosa Mae Barlow, sir.”

“Thank you, Miss Barlow.”

“You welcome, sir,” the woman said, not sure of anything except that the man was making her… well, not nervous, but…

The maid bustled about the room, a model of efficiency. “I come back and do the vacuuming later, sir,” she said. “It’s a big old noisy thing, and you-”

“I’d appreciate that, Miss Barlow,” the man said. “Starting tomorrow, I’ll remember about the sign, all right?”

“Yes, sir. Anything you say all right with me, sir. Thank you.”

1959 September 30 Wednesday 09:51

Dett waited several minutes after the maid left his room, standing with his ear to the door. Satisfied, he quickly stepped outside and hung the “Do Not Disturb” sign over the doorknob. He locked the door behind him, kicked his wedge under it, and then closed the window curtains completely.

Taking a small key from his pocket, Dett unlocked his attaché case, removed some papers, pens, and a road map, then lifted the false bottom to reveal a pair of.45-caliber automatics, bedded in foam rubber. He carried the pistols over to the easy chair, turned on the floor lamp, and worked the slide on the first one. He looked down the barrel, using his thumbnail to reflect light. He unwrapped a soda straw and used it to blow out the barrel, then repeated the process with the other pistol.

Dett opened four small unmarked boxes, each containing thirty-six cartridges. He upended the boxes and examined each cartridge with great care, inspecting the primer, checking the fit between the casings and the slugs. Some were hardballs, others had been converted to dum-dums with a carefully carved “x” on each lead tip.

Dett dry-fired each weapon before he filled a magazine with seven cartridges and inserted it into the tape-wrapped butt of one of the pistols. He racked the slide, then ejected the magazine and replaced the chambered round. He did the same with the other pistol, flicking the custom-made extended safety off and on with his thumb.

From the larger suitcase, Dett removed an over-and-under 12-gauge shotgun. The stock had been replaced with a pistol grip, the barrels sawed off so deeply that the red tips of the double-0 buck shells were visible.

One of the pistols went into a shoulder holster, rigged to carry butt-down. The other went into the inside pocket of a long black overcoat. The coat looked like wool, but it was made of a lightweight synthetic fiber, with a network of leather loops sewn under the lining, accessed by long vertical slits. The shotgun slid perfectly into its custom-tailored pocket.

Dett filled the left outside pocket of the overcoat with six magazines for the.45s, and the right-hand pocket with shotgun shells. He knew from both practice and experience that he could walk around for hours in the heavily loaded coat without revealing a hint of its contents.

After carefully arranging the coat over a wooden hanger in the closet, Dett took off the shoulder rig and removed the pistol. Then he relocked the attaché case and returned to the easy chair. He turned off the floor lamp, poured some more of the Four Roses into a fresh tumbler, and let the drink sit there as he smoked a cigarette through.

When he was finished, he emptied the bourbon into the toilet, tossed in his cigarette, flushed, and returned to the easy chair.

After a few minutes, he reached for the telephone.

1959 September 30 Wednesday 11:22

“So he a big spender, what’s that to me?” the cocoa-colored young woman in the maid’s uniform said to Rufus. “He may put some money in your hand, but he ain’t leaving no dollars on his pillow for Rosa Mae Barlow, that’s for sure.”

“Don’t some of those traveling men leave you something, when they check out?” Rufus asked.

“I heard of that,” the young woman said. “But I haven’t seen it for myself. Everybody in this place got a hustle going except the maids. People work in the kitchen, you know they take home plenty of extras. A man with your job, he got lots of ways to make money. Guest wants some liquor, wants a woman, wants… anything, you always got your hand out. Mister Carl, too. When they have those big card games up in one of the suites, you know he’s got to be getting something for himself.”

“I heard the girls who clean up after those games, they get thrown some.”

“Some what?” the young woman said, tartly. “I got to work that shift, once. All night long, picking up after all those men. You know what I got thrown? A few pats on my behind, that’s what. One of the men, he said it brought him luck, do that. Didn’t bring me no luck, I tell you that.”

“It will, honeygirl. Swear to heaven. A woman put together like you, got to bring you luck, someday.”

“You got me mixed up with those whores you bring up to the rooms, Rufus,” she said, pridefully. “All I ever got out of looking the way I do is some fancy man with a ten-dollar conk and a flash suit and a big car he ain’t paid for telling me what a ‘star’ I could be. Man I’m looking for, he’s not going to want me for that kind of thing. That’s why I go to church.”

“Little girl, listen to someone who’s telling you the truth. I don’t care if he’s a saint or a sinner, if he’s a man, he’s gonna want what you got, because, Lord knows, you got all of it.”

“What do you want, Rufus?”

“Me?”

“You, boy,” she said, tartly. “What do you want with me? Or are you just practicing your lines, in case some country girl comes to work here?”

“Right now, what I want is for you to be a little curious about that man in 809.”

“What for?”

“I got a feeling about him, that’s all.”

“I got a feeling, too,” Rosa Mae said, smiling. “I got a feeling that Rufus Hightower thinks there might be some green on the scene.”

“Where you learn to talk like that, girl?” Rufus said, an undercurrent of anger in his voice.

“I been around men think they slick since I first grew these,” she said, putting two fingers under her left breast and pushing up just enough to make it bounce sightly. “And I’m a real good listener.”

“Rhyme ain’t worth a dime,” Rufus told her, winking. “But I got a pound I could put down, you want to look around.”

“You so cute.” Rosa Mae giggled. “But I can’t buy new shoes with a promise.”

She held out her hand, palm-up. Rufus handed over a five-dollar bill, watched it disappear into her bra.

“Either the man had some friends come and visit, or he’s a big drinker,” Rosa Mae said. “That bottle of whiskey he’s got in his room’s been hit plenty. But he don’t keep himself like a drinking man.”

“What do you mean?”

“A drinking man, specially one that drink in the morning, he don’t keep himself nice. This one, all his clothes hanging up in the closet, neat as a pin. I got nothing to do in his bathroom, either. Most of the time, a man checks into a hotel, it’s like he thinks he got a wife with him, mess he leave everyplace. Not this one. It’s like he cleans up behind himself.”

“Next thing, you gonna tell me he makes his own bed.”

“He don’t make the bed, but he sure do strip it down,” Rosa Mae said. “Right down to the mattress. Takes the pillowcases off, too.”

“Yeah? Well, what’s in his suitcases?”

“I don’t be opening nobody’s suitcases, Rufus.”

“No, no, girl. I meant, he leave them open, right?”

“He left one of them like that,” the young woman acknowledged. “Nothing in there but clothes. I didn’t look in the bureau, but he got all his shaving stuff and the like in the bathroom.”

“The man say anything to you?”

“This morning, he did. There’s no sign on his door, it’s after eight, I figure he’s out working so I let myself in. He’s just sitting there, in the big chair, reading the paper. I tell him I can come back later, when he’s out, but he tells me, just go ahead.”

“I know you-all said something besides that, Rosa Mae.”

“He just… polite, is all. A real gentleman. Some of the men that stay here, they like watching me clean up their rooms. I bend over to make the bed, I can feel their eyes. This man, he wasn’t nothing like that.”

“Maybe he’d like old Carl better than you,” Rufus said, grinning.

“You believe that, you three kinds of fool, Rufus,” she said, turning to go.

Rufus watched Rosa Mae walk down the hall. The exaggerated movement of her buttocks under the loose-fitting uniform was a lush promise, wrapped in a warning.

1959 September 30 Wednesday 11:45

“Yes?” Cynthia’s voice on the phone was clear and clipped, just slightly north of polite.

“May I speak to Mr. Beaumont, please?”

“Who should I tell him is calling?”

“I’m the man he sent for. I believe he’ll-”

“Call back in ten minutes,” the woman’s voice said. “This same number.”

1959 September 30 Wednesday 11:50

Rufus ambled over to the pay phone in the basement, dropped a slug in the slot, and dialed a local number.

“What?” a male voice answered.

“This be Rufus, sir,” Rufus said, thickening his long-since-outgrown Alabama accent and introducing a thread of servility into his voice. “I calling like you said.”

“Yeah?”

“The man, he a drinker, sir. Big drinker.”

“Can he hold it?”

“Seem so, sir. But ah cain’t say fo’ sure, ’cause he might be one of those, sleeps it off.”

“What’s he driving?”

“Got nothing out back in the lot, boss. And there ain’t no plate number on the books from when he signed in.”

“He didn’t come in on the bus,” the voice said, brawny with certainty. “I need to know what he’s riding, understand?”

“Yes, sir. You know Rufus. I got peoples all over the place. I finds out for you.”

“All right. He ask anyone to bring him anything?”

“Not no girl, if that what you mean, sir.”

“Stop fucking around,” the voice said, “and just tell me what I’m paying you for, understand?”

“Yes, sir. I wasn’t… I mean, no, sir, the man don’t ask me for nothing. Not none of the other boys, neither. ’Cept for a bottle of whiskey.”

“Get me that car, understand?” the voice said.

“I-” Rufus started to reply, then realized the connection had been cut.

Yassuh, massah, Rufus said to himself, twisting his lips into something between a snarl and a sneer.

1959 September 30 Wednesday 11:56

“He wants to see you,” Cynthia told Dett on the phone. “Do you have transportation?”

“Yes.”

“What kind?”

“A car.”

“Yes,” the woman said, without a trace of impatience. “What kind of car? Year and model. And the license plate, too, please. The guard at the gate will need this to pass you through.”

“A 1949 Ford, kind of a dull-blue color. The plate is: Ex, Oh, Bee, four, four, four.”

“All right, let me give you the directions. Please be here by two.”

1959 September 30 Wednesday 12:11

Dett slid the locked attaché case under the bed. From inside his Pullman, he removed a sculpture made of gnarled roots wrapped around a pair of doll’s hands, clasped together in prayer by a single strand of rusty barbed wire. He placed this so it would greet anyone who opened the suitcase.

Dett shrugged into his overcoat, worked his shoulders in a slight circular motion until he was satisfied with the kinetic fit, then left the room.

He answered, “Good afternoon to you, too,” to the elevator operator, deposited his key with the desk clerk, and walked out into the fall sunlight, eyes slitted against the glare.

Two blocks away, Dett hailed a passing cab. It deposited him in front of a seedy pawnshop just over a mile away.

Dett entered the pawnshop, pretended to examine a display of rings in a glass case while a man in a green eyeshade completed a transaction. As the customer moved off, clutching a few bills and a pawn ticket, Dett caught a nod from the proprietor and moved toward the end of the long counter. A buzzer sounded. Dett lifted the hinged portion of the counter and walked past a half-open bathroom door to a large storeroom, stocked floor-to-ceiling with goods: musical instruments, appliances, rifles, and hundreds of smaller items. The back door opened into a narrow paved lot, surrounded by a gated chain-link fence, topped with concertina wire.

Dett closed the door behind him, took a set of keys from his coat pocket, and walked over to a faded blue ’49 Ford with a primered hood and chromed dual exhausts. The coupe had a slight forward rake, because the rear tires were larger than the fronts. Dett opened the door, climbed behind the wheel, and started it up, frowning at the engine noise.

He slipped the lever into first, let out the clutch, and pulled out of the lot.

1959 September 30 Wednesday 12:56

“He should be here pretty soon, Beau,” Cynthia said.

“Good,” Beaumont grunted, concentrating on shaving, using a pearl-handled straight razor against the grain.

“Beau…?”

“What?” he said, carefully rinsing off his razor.

“This is the first time we ever did anything like this.”

“You mean, use a contract man? You know we paid-”

“An outsider, is what I mean. We paid… different people to do different things, but they were always local men. If they didn’t… do what they were supposed to, we would always know where to find them.”

“Find their families, too, is what you’re saying.”

“That is what I’m saying. This man, he’s not just a stranger, he’s like a ghost. You make some calls, and he magically appears.”

“So?” Beaumont asked, patting his face with a towel.

“I was just thinking… If we’re big enough to attract so much attention… from people who want to move in on us, I mean, maybe we’re attracting attention from the law, too.”

“The law? In Locke City? They’re all on our-”

“Not the ones around here,” Cynthia said, pacing nervously behind her brother. “I’m talking about the state police. Or even the FBI.”

“That’s what you’re worried about? That this guy’s some kind of secret agent?”

“I’m just trying to help,” Cynthia said, hurt.

“You always help,” Beaumont said, soothingly. “I wasn’t making fun of you, honey.” He spun his wheelchair so that he was facing his sister. “Remember, when we were kids, how you’d jump on anyone ever called me ‘crip’? If I hadn’t had you-”

“I had you, too, Beau,” she said, a hand on his shoulder. “Do you remember Billy Yawls?”

“I do,” Beaumont said, a broad grin breaking across his craggy face. “That was when I still had the braces.”

“Yes! And when you challenged Billy, for… grabbing at me… he had to agree to make it wrestling. Otherwise, he would have looked like a-”

“Sure. And I was a couple of years younger than him, too. But once I took that skinny little weasel to the ground…”

“They never knew how strong you were, Beau. Not until that day.”

“Yeah, I… Look, I’m sorry, honey. In fact, I already thought about what you’re thinking right now. But the only way the law could ever stick a pin in our balloon is from the inside, and they could never pull that off.

“You think if the FBI could plant its own men inside the big mobs they wouldn’t have done it a long time ago? But they can’t. The Italians, the Irish, the Jews… they’re all related, some kind of way. And can you even imagine the feds trying to get a man inside one of the colored gangs?” he said, chuckling. “What would they do, dye one of their guys black?”

“I don’t know, Beau. If the Mafia is really as big as everyone says, how could they all be related to each other?”

“Well,” Beaumont said slowly, “you’re probably right. But we’re not like them. Not like any of them. We may not all be related, but we know every single man, all the way back.”

“We don’t know this man you just hired, Beau. Not like that.”

“That’s true,” Beaumont said, nodding to show his sister he had thought deeply about her concerns before making his decision. “But he’s just a contract man. It’s not like we’re making him one of us. He’s never going to get inside.”

Beaumont wheeled himself back to the specially constructed sink, slapped an astringent on his face, then spun again to face his sister.

“One thing we know about the feds, Cyn: they got unlimited funds. Money, that’s power. It can buy things. It can buy people. The way it’s told, that’s how they got someone to give up Dillinger-the reward. But, still, John was way ahead of them.”

“Ahead of them?” Cynthia said, almost angrily. “Beau, they killed him. Gunned him down right on the sidewalk.”

“That wasn’t John Dillinger,” Beaumont said, a true-believer, reciting an article of faith. “It was a fall guy. A patsy. The guy they killed, I heard he didn’t even have the right color eyes. Didn’t have any bullet scars on him, either. No, honey, Dillinger’s somewhere south of the border. He’s not dead,” Beaumont repeated, devoutly.

“But if what you say is true, then they know.”

“The FBI? Sure, they know. What difference does it make to them? They got Public Enemy Number One. Big heroes. So long as Dillinger stays missing, everybody’s happy.”

“But what if he ever-?”

“John Dillinger, everybody admired him for his moxie. He’s the stand-up guy of all time. Busting his boys out of jail, carving a gun out of a bar of soap-can you believe suckers actually bought that one?-he’s like a legend. But what people didn’t appreciate about him was how smart he was. He never worked for any of the outfits. He stayed independent, worked with guys he knew he could trust, not guys some boss told him he could trust.

“John was a genius,” Beaumont said, lost in idolatry. “He knew it’s not about the truth of anything; it’s always about what people believe. The papers, they played him up like he was a god. Hoover doesn’t get Dillinger, it makes it look like the outlaws are stronger than the cops. So they make a deal. Hoover’s boys kill a patsy, and Dillinger walks away.”

“You don’t know any of that, Beau.”

“The hell I don’t, girl. Those guys who write the newspaper stories, they’re just like the people who write ads, like for toothpaste, or beer, or cars. It’s their job to sell you something, not to tell you the truth.”

“Even if it is so, people do inform,” Cynthia said, hotly. “They do it all the time. Look at all those Communists.”

“Sure. But those guys, they were… members. Real insiders, I mean. With this guy we’re bringing in, you’re not talking about one of us. He’s nothing but a hired gun.”

“But couldn’t an FBI agent pretend to be the same thing? Like a spy?”

“Not a chance, girl. There’s a line no undercover cop can cross, and this guy, he lives over it, see?”

“No,” she said, adamantly. “I don’t under-”

“The feds, let’s say you’re right, and they actually get one of their men inside one of the big mobs. Naturally, they’d have to let their guy do stuff, so nobody would get suspicious. If he had to steal, or hand out a beating, okay. But how is the FBI going to let one of their men kill someone? And this guy we’re bringing in, he’s put more bodies in the ground than an undertaker.”

“If that’s enough reason to trust him, then Lymon-”

“Exactly!” Beaumont cut her off. “Lymon’s pulled the trigger himself, more than once. So if he tried to hook up with another mob, he might tell some of our secrets-what he thinks are secrets-to grease the skids. But he can’t ever go to the law about us, not with what’s on his own plate.”

“But if all we know about this Dett person is rumors…”

“We got better than that, girl. A lot better. An actual eyewitness. Red said this guy walked into a nightclub, shot the bouncer, tossed a grenade into the crowd, and walked out, like he was delivering the mail.”

“Why would Red want him to-?”

“It was war,” Beaumont told his sister. “And this guy, he’s a soldier. Only not like for a country, for whoever pays him. But Red says that grenade thing, it was Dett’s own idea.”

“God.”

“Yeah. And that squares with what else I heard. Walker Dett, he’s not just a shooter. He plans strategy, like a general or something.”

“What kind of a man would do that?”

“That’s not our worry, Cyn. All we care about is what kind of man wouldn’t do it, understand? We don’t know what this ‘Dett’ guy is, but we know what he’s not. Whatever he is, he’s no lawman.”

1959 September 30 Wednesday 13:27

Dett drove the back roads gingerly, experimenting with the Ford’s reaction to various maneuvers. Piece of crap, he said to himself, as he muscled the coupe around an unbanked curve. The steering was rubbery, and the brakes were a joke-even with skillful pumping, the stopping distances were way too long, and the car always nosedived to the right.

He wasn’t lying about how it scoots, though, Dett thought. He had to balloon-foot the gas pedal to avoid spinning the rear wheels aimlessly in first gear, and even the first-to-second shift caused the tires to bark against the asphalt.

And the car had been delivered clean, inside and out. The only indication of prior human presence was the registration slip in the glove compartment.

“This is the guy you borrowed the car from,” the black man in the yellow shirt had told him. “Police call the number I gave you, somebody say, ‘Sure, I loaned my car to Mr. Dett.’ Describe you good, too.”

“Very nice,” Dett had said.

“I know my business, Chuck,” the black man replied, choosing to resent the compliment.

Dett followed the directions he had been given, keeping the Ford in second gear in case he needed the extra braking power on unfamiliar roads. Every time he eased off the gas, the dual exhausts crackled, announcing his oncoming presence. Makes no difference, he thought to himself, noting a dozen spots where a sniper could roost along the way, it’s not like I’m sneaking up on them.

He spotted the black boulder, proceeded as directed until he came to the guardhouse. Dett slowed the Ford to a near crawl as he approached, his window already rolled down.

Seth stepped out, shotgun in one hand, and gestured with the other for Dett to get out of his car. Dett turned off the engine and climbed out of the Ford, tossing the keys underhand at Seth, who caught them smoothly without shifting his eyes.

“Your spare’s about bald,” he said, glancing into the trunk.

“Thanks,” Dett said.

Seth placed the car keys on the Ford’s roof, then stepped back to let Dett reclaim them.

Dett started the Ford, and motored along slowly until he came to the horseshoe-shaped driveway. He parked just beyond the entrance to the house, leaving the key in the ignition.

The door was opened before he could knock. A bull-necked man held his gaze for several seconds before he said, “You can’t come in here with guns.”

Dett nodded, holding his hands away from his body.

“Put them on that table over there,” the man told him, his marble eyes unblinking.

Dett took off his overcoat, held it by the collar to indicate it was heavy, and draped it carefully across the table.

“That’s all,” he said, not offering to remove any of the weapons within the coat.

The marble-eyed man nodded. “Go down that way, there,” he said. “I’ll be right behind you.”

1959 September 30 Wednesday 13:59

If Dett was surprised to see the man who hired him sitting in a wheelchair, it didn’t show on his face.

“My name is Royal Beaumont,” the man in the wheelchair said. “Have a seat.”

Dett took the indicated chair. The marble-eyed man positioned himself at a sharp angle, so that Dett would have to turn his head to see him.

“Sorry about all the precautions,” Beaumont said. “The times we live in…”

Dett nodded silently, his face impassive.

“Red Schoolfield says you did a hell of a job for him.”

“I don’t recognize the name,” Dett said.

“Hah!” said Beaumont, more of a bark than a laugh. “This one doesn’t put his cards face-up, huh, Luther?”

“No, Roy,” the marble-eyed man said, mechanically.

“You’re wrong,” Dett said, not a trace of aggression in his tone.

“How’s that?” Beaumont asked-curious, not annoyed.

“Some other man’s name, that’s not my card to play. Not even to hold.”

“Huh!” Beaumont grunted. “That’s cute.”

“That’s true,” Dett said, leaving the multiple interpretations of his response hanging in the air between them.

Silence like a fine mist dropped over the three men.

Beaumont studied the man seated across from him, making no secret of it. Dett never dropped his veiled eyes.

“There’s a lot of work I need doing,” Beaumont finally said.

“Okay.”

“Just like that, ‘okay’?”

“If you called a bricklayer out to your house, told him you needed some work done, that’s what he’d say, right? I mean, you’d have to tell him what kind of brickwork you wanted done, but, if he was good at his trade, whatever kind you wanted, you asked him, he’d say ‘okay.’ ”

“You’re no bricklayer.”

“You’re the one who put word out that you wanted me; you know the kind of work I do.”

“I don’t actually know anything,” Beaumont said. “I heard things. I’ve been told things. But I don’t know anything for myself.”

“I don’t do auditions,” Dett said, opening his antenna for tension from Luther, picking up none.

“What’s that mean?”

“If you want to see a sample of a bricklayer’s work, you go look at a wall he’s built for someone else. If that’s not enough to convince you to hire him for a big job, maybe you ask him to build you something first. But a small job. Like a barbecue pit, say.”

“So?”

“So, the kind of work I do, I don’t make samples. You ask me to build you a barbecue pit, just to see how good I am, it costs you the same as a brick wall.”

“You always talk like this?” Beaumont said. “In big circles?”

“Talking’s not what I do,” Dett answered him.

Beaumont, no stranger to edged ambiguity, nodded without changing expression. He reached for his cigarette box, tapped out a single smoke, and lit it with a gunmetal Zippo.

Not like some, snap their fingers for a flunky to light their smokes for them, show you what a big shot they are, Dett thought, appraisingly. And the other one, he calls him “Roy,” not “boss” or “chief.”

“You don’t smoke?” Beaumont asked him.

“I wanted to keep my hands where Luther could see them.”

This time, Beaumont’s laugh was genuine. “You know what, Mr. Dett? You know more about Luther in ten minutes than some of the boys I’ve had working with me ten years. All they ever hear out of Luther’s mouth is ‘Yes, Roy,’ or ‘No, Roy.’ So they think he’s…”

“Dumb.”

“Right,” Beaumont said. “But…?”

“He’s a professional,” Dett answered promptly. “No, wait. He’s more than that. More than just that, I mean. He’s kin, isn’t he?”

“Not by blood. You understand what that means?”

“By what he’s done.”

“Yeah. By what he’s done. By what he’d do. And what I’d do, too.”

“I understand.”

“I believe you do,” Beaumont said, exhaling a thick stream of cigarette smoke.

1959 September 30 Wednesday 15:03

“I could get myself killed, talking to a goddamned reporter,” the man in the moss-colored coat said to Procter. His eyes were wary behind the thick lenses of his glasses; his hands gripped an aluminum clipboard.

The two men were in the front seat of Procter’s ’54 Hudson Hornet, a rust-wormed brown coupe that was on its ninth owner and last gasp.

“All I want to know is where the new interstate is coming through,” Procter said. “That’s not too much to ask.”

“Not too much to ask! Information like that’s worth a-”

“It’s worth whatever Beaumont paid you for it,” Procter cut him off.

“I never said-”

“You know what, Yancey? You’re making me tired. You and me, we’ve had a deal. A working relationship. I’ve held up my end of the bargain, haven’t I?”

“I’m not saying you haven’t,” Yancey said, sullenly. “But when am I done paying that off?”

“Ever borrow money from a loan shark?” Procter asked him, smiling without showing any teeth.

“No. Why should I-?”

“It’s the principle I’m trying to make you understand, Yancey. That’s a play on words, you get it? The principle of principal and interest. A six-for-five man makes his living from when you don’t pay him off. He doesn’t want his money back; he wants you to keep paying the juice.”

“You’re saying I’ll never get those letters back?”

“Right, Yancey. That is what I’m saying.”

“That’s blackmail.”

“It was blackmail the first time I did it,” Procter said. “Now it’s just a habit.”

“Jesus, Jimmy; we went to school together!”

“Lots of guys went to school together. You, me, Carl Gustavson…”

“It’s not what you think it is… was. Those letters, they don’t mean what you-”

“I’m tired,” Procter repeated. “You think I’m bluffing, go ahead and call my hand.”

Yancey pulled up the top sheet from the clipboard, revealing a road map with a number of red lines hand-drawn across it. “Yeah, you’re the great investigative reporter, Jimmy,” he said bitterly. “Big crime-buster. You know what? You’re no better than the people you’re going after.”

“That’s what it takes,” Procter said.

1959 September 30 Wednesday 15:40

“I’m not doing nothing like that, Rufus Hightower. Stealing is no different than whoring; you can’t do no ‘little bit’ of it.”

“Did I ask you to take anything, honeygirl? Did I? No, I sure didn’t. And I wouldn’t. I know what kind of woman you are. Kind of woman a man marries, he gets lucky enough.”

“Kind of man wants a fool for a wife, you mean,” Rosa Mae said, not mollified.

“You supposed to be in the man’s room, Rosa Mae. That’s your job. You said you had to come back, do the vacuuming, right?”

“I supposed to be cleaning his room-not searching it, like some thief.”

“It’s not thieving if you don’t take nothing. There’s no crime in looking.”

“Why you so interested in this man, Rufus? I know he never did nothing to you.”

“Now who’s playing someone like a fool, girl? You know it ain’t me that’s interested in that man. What I’m interested in is-”

“-money. Pastor Roberts says-”

“Think I give a damn what some high-yellow, straight-hair pretty-boy says? Every man got to have a hustle of some kind. You know how the song goes: if you white, you all right; if you brown, stick around; but if you black, get back. That’s me, Rosa Mae. I don’t have that nice paper-bag complexion; I ain’t got good hair; and my nose is spread all over my face. So I don’t apologize for none of what I do. I may be about money, but I got a good use for it.”

“And what’s that?”

“Someday, I’ll tell you, girl. I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time. But, for now, I tell you what it’s not for-it’s not for no big white Cadillac, like your jackleg preacher got.”

“You just jealous, Rufus.”

“You want to say I’m jealous because that man get you all big-eyed, you be telling the truth, girl. When I see you sometimes, just standing there, I say to myself, ‘Damn, I wish that woman was waiting for me.’ But I don’t care nothing about that nigger otherwise.”

“Rufus!”

“What you think he is, to all the white people, Rosa Mae? You think a colored man ain’t always a nigger to them? Doctor, lawyer, preacher-don’t make no difference.”

“That’s all changing now. If you went to church sometimes, you might learn about it.”

“If you went to… Never mind.”

“Rufus, you are the most downright… confusing man I ever met.”

“Rosa Mae, if I was to tell you taking a look around that man’s room, it would be doing something for our people, would you believe me?”

“For our people? You mean, like for integration?”

“For our people, girl. Not for mixing. I ain’t about that.”

“You… what? Rufus, why shouldn’t we have the same rights as any-?”

“That’s not what I meant,” Rufus said. “Someday… maybe, I’ll talk to you about all this. But not now. This ain’t the time. This is the time to make some money.”

“Well, I’m not going to-”

“That’s all right,” Rufus said, shrugging his shoulders. “You only work six days.”

“Of course. I wouldn’t work on-”

“I know. But you think the man don’t want his room cleaned, just because it Sunday? Don’t worry about it no more, girl. I’ll get Big Annie to do what I need.”

Rosa Mae stepped back a pace from Rufus, widening her lively amber eyes. “You’ll get caught, Rufus,” she said. “Annie’s like a cow in those rooms. The man will know as soon as he-”

“Then I guess I lose my job, pretty Rose. Because I got no choice. I got to do this.”

He looked Rosa Mae full in the face for a long moment. “I’m sorry I asked you,” he finally said.

Rosa Mae closed her eyes and stepped close to him, her voice just above a whisper.

“You be here at five-thirty,” she said.

1959 September 30 Wednesday 15:59

“I guess what I need is an outside bodyguard,” Beaumont said.

“I don’t understand what that means,” Dett replied.

“I mean, not a bodyguard who stands right next to me. Only Luther does that. A bodyguard who works… at a distance. Let’s say, just to be talking, there was this guy who, I don’t know, threatened to kill me, all right? Now, the kind of bodyguard Luther is, a thing like that was happening, he would never leave my side. You couldn’t make him go. But the other kind of bodyguard, the one I’m talking about here, he might go out and look for the guy who was making the threats.”

“I get it.”

“But what I need done, it’s a lot more than any one single job. You were in the service, right?”

Dett didn’t answer, his face as blank as a career criminal’s in a police interrogation room.

“Never mind,” Beaumont said. “I was never in the army”-he rapped his heavy ring against the steel of his wheelchair-“but I always liked reading about military tactics and strategy.”

Beaumont shifted position in his chair, but his iron eyes never left Dett’s face. “We’ve got a good-sized operation here,” he said. “Been here for a long time. But now there’s some who want what my people have. We know they’re already on the march. So what I need isn’t any one single job. It’s more like a… campaign.”

He leaned forward to grind out his cigarette. When he looked up, his head was tilted at a slight angle, his tone almost professorial. “Now they’ve got more men than we do-not right here, but access to them, no more than a phone call away. A long-distance call. But it’s our territory they’re invading, so they have to come to us. And in a million years, they’ll never know the terrain the way we do.

“Still, it’s not that simple. Some of what we do, it’s out in the open. Easy to find means easy to take. Which is what they think. You know what makes a big army just give up and go home?”

“When there’s no end in sight. Like Korea. A war like that, all it does is drain you dry.”

“Right! Winning a war’s a lot easier than trying to occupy the territory you take. If we wanted, we could make it too expensive for them, cost them too much. But there’s something else we have to consider, something even more important. Locke City is a wide-open town, everyone knows that. We’re right on the border of two other states. This is where people come, they want to have a good time. But if we start drawing too much attention, that could all go away.”

“Attention from who?”

“Well, the papers, that would be the biggest problem. We’ve got everything covered locally, but the statewide paper, or, worse, the wire services, that’s another thing.”

“They had gang wars in plenty of cities, and they still kept their operations going. Look at Detroit, Chicago, New York…”

“Sure. Towns that size, there’s plenty of legitimate businesses to keep them running. But Locke City’s only got one way to make a buck. And if people don’t feel safe anymore, coming here to have a good time, they’ll stop coming, period. That happens, there’ll be nothing to fight over.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Do? Well, like I said, you’re the strategist. Maybe you can put up that barbecue pit we talked about?”

1959 September 30 Wednesday 16:21

“Front!” Carl’s waspish voice rang more sharply than the desk bell.

Rufus materialized. Despite his overwhelmingly intrusive curiosity about everything that went on within the borders of his domain, Carl had long since abandoned his efforts at discovering how Rufus never seemed to be around, yet was always present.

“Mr. Travis will be staying with us, Rufus,” Carl said, indicating a chubby man in a madras sport jacket.

Good thing you told me, faggot, Rufus thought to himself. I never would have figured out why a man comes into a fucking hotel carrying a suitcase. He smiled at the guest, said, “I’ll take that for you, sir.”

“Mr. Travis will be in 412,” Carl said to Rufus, thinking fat men shouldn’t wear madras plaid, never mind with a tab-collar shirt. He had already sized up-No pun intended, he thought to himself, smugly-the guest as a salesman even before he had seen his business card. A cut above a traveler who carried samples in his suitcase, but a step below the “detail men” who hawked new pharmaceutical products to local doctors and druggists.

Rufus had done his own quick evaluation, and was later rewarded with a quarter for providing the directions to a “high-class” house of prostitution. You that kind of big spender, good thing you don’t be trying your luck picking up a woman on your own, Porky, Rufus thought behind his dazzling smile and grateful bow.

“You seen Rosa Mae around?” he asked Moses, as he climbed into the elevator car for the return trip.

“She be working somewhere, one of the rooms,” was the noncommittal response.

“What’s up with you, man?”

“Don’t know what you mean.”

“With the attitude, man. I just asked you a simple question, you get all huffy with me.”

“Rufus, you know Rosa Mae. Her shift starts, she starts. That’s a hardworking young gal.”

“Too good for the likes of me, huh? Just because she call you ‘Daddy Moses’ like the young girls here do, that don’t make you her father for real.”

“Might be lucky for your sorry ass that I’m not,” Moses said, unperturbed.

Rufus burst out laughing. “Our people need more men like you, brother. Square business.”

1959 September 30 Wednesday 17:28

“I just want to talk,” Procter said into a telephone receiver.

“No, you don’t,” a man’s voice answered. “What you want, you want to listen.”

“That’s my business, Chet. Listening.”

“Mine, too. Only you, you get a paycheck for it.”

“And you get cash. That’s nicer. No taxes.”

“Paycheck’s better. Regular is always better. Something you can count on.”

“There was a time when you counted on me,” Procter said.

“You don’t forget nothing, do you?”

“I don’t tear up IOUs, either,” Procter said. “I’ll see you tonight. By the water tower.”

1959 September 30 Wednesday 17:31

“Rosa Mae, what is wrong with you, girl? You look like you seen a ghost.”

“Not a ghost, Rufus. A mojo. A powerful one.”

“What you-?”

“In the gentleman’s room.”

“Eight oh nine?”

“Yes! I finished cleaning his room, just like I’m supposed to. And then, like the fool you made me be, I opened his big suitcase. It wasn’t locked or anything. And the second I opened it, I could see why. You know what a mojo is, Rufus?”

“Yeah. Hoodoo nonsense is what it is.”

“No, it’s not,” the young woman said, vehemently, almost hissing the words. “It’s like one of those conjure bags you wear around your neck, to keep evil spirits off you. Only this one, it was real powerful. I could tell.”

“I thought you was a Christian woman, Rosa Mae,” Rufus scoffed, trying to soften her fear.

“I am,” she said, staunchly. “I have been baptized, and I have been saved. But that doesn’t mean I don’t know things. Things my granny told me when I was just a little girl, before I ever come up here. I never saw one myself, not before. But I know about the barbed wire around the hands. That’s a protection mojo, Rufus.”

“So you saw this thing and-”

“And? And I slammed down the lid so quick I scared myself! I got my cleaning things and I got out of there.”

“You didn’t put it back where you-?”

“Rufus, are you crazy? I never touch it.”

“Probably just some souvenir the man picked up somewhere. He’s a traveling man, could have been anywhere.”

“I never heard of a white man having anything like that. You could only get them way down in the Delta, my granny said. Or over to Louisiana. Special places, where they know how to work roots. Places like that, they wouldn’t be selling no souvenirs, Rufus.”

“Maybe he stole it, then.”

“You can’t steal a mojo! You know what happens if you do that?”

“What?”

“I… I don’t know, exactly. But I know you can’t do it.”

“Rosa Mae, did you find out anything?”

“I done told you what I found,” Rosa Mae said. “And I promise you, Rufus Hightower, I’m never doing nothing like that again, not ever.”

1959 September 30 Wednesday 18:29

Dett circled the block three times, marking the pattern of the streets, weighing the odds. He was in his shirtsleeves, suit jacket next to him on the front seat; his heavily armed coat was locked in the trunk. Full darkness was a couple of hours off, and Beaumont had told him the man he wanted only showed up much later in the evenings, in the seam between the dinner crowd and the nighthawks.

Dett turned onto Fourteenth Street, a black asphalt four-lane, divided by a double white line. As he pulled up to a light, a candy-apple ’55 Chevy slid alongside. The driver revved his engine in neutral, a challenge. Dett nodded in satisfaction at the assumption that the Ford he was driving belonged to some kid. He pressed down the clutch, slipped the floor shift to the left and down, and accepted the offer.

The Chevy took off a split second before the light turned green, but Dett’s Ford caught up before the first-to-second shift… which Dett deliberately missed, his engine roaring impotently as the Chevy went through the next light on the green.

To avoid having the Chevy’s driver offer him a rematch, Dett quickly turned off the main drag and made his way back to the pawnshop.

Just like the man promised, Dett said to himself, absently patting the dashboard of the Ford.

1959 September 30 Wednesday 19:31

“Good evening, Mr. Dett,” Carl greeted him an hour later. “It’s been amazingly warm for this time of year, don’t you think?”

“Well, I couldn’t say,” Dett replied. “I’m not from around here. Were there any messages while I was out?”

“I’m not sure, sir,” Carl said, lying. “Let me check.” He retrieved the key to 809, said, “Were you expecting anything in particular, sir?”

Dett answered with a negative shake of his head.

“Well, if there’s anything you want me to keep an eye out for…”

“I don’t think so,” Dett said. “Thanks, anyway.”

“Is there anything I can tell you about our town, Mr. Dett? I’ve often said that an establishment like the Claremont should have a proper concierge, but our manager always says he could never find anyone who knows Locke City the way I do,” Carl said, permitting himself a self-deprecating little laugh. “Of course, we have a wonderful kitchen, quite first-class, but the menu isn’t as… varied as some more sophisticated travelers seem to prefer. Especially if you’re going to be with us for-”

“Do you have any Korean restaurants in town?”

“Korean? Well, I must say… that’s the first time I’ve ever been asked that one. I’m sorry to say no, Mr. Dett. We have a number of decent Chinese restaurants, and one Japanese place that just opened, if you are partial to Oriental cuisine, but…”

“How about French?”

“French?” said Carl, ever alert for double-entendre. But an instinct honed over a thousand encounters convinced him there hadn’t been a trace of it in Dett’s question. “I should say so. Chez Bertrand is a lovely place: four stars, without a doubt. Would you like me to make a reservation for-?”

“That doesn’t sound like the sort of place a man goes to alone,” Dett said.

“Well, one never knows,” Carl said, raising an eyebrow a millimeter.

“You’re right about that,” Dett said.

“Very good, sir. You just let me know.”

1959 September 30 Wednesday 19:41

Dett ordered dinner from room service. The steak came medium-rare, as he had requested. The green beans were firm, with a little snap to them as he bit down. The baked potato was in its skin, slit down the center, slathered with butter.

It took Dett more than an hour to finish his meal, washing down each fully masticated mouthful with a measured sip from one of the three Cokes he had ordered.

Dett got to his feet and stood by the window, watching the night. He smoked two cigarettes, spaced twelve minutes apart, cupping his hands each time he struck a match, shielding the red tip in his palm whenever he took a drag.

Glancing at his watch, he emptied what he estimated at about four more shots of the Four Roses into the sink, running hot water behind it. He opened his Pullman, carefully removed the mojo, and transferred it to his smaller suitcase.

Dett put his tray outside the door, hung the “Do Not Disturb” sign over the knob, and turned off all the lights in his room. In the darkness, he removed all the weapons from his overcoat and returned them to their custom housings. He slipped his derringer into the side pocket of a blue denim jacket, worn over a black-and-red lumberjack shirt and faded jeans. On his feet were heavy, rubber-soled electrician’s boots.

Turning the radio dial until he found a station with a mature-sounding DJ, Dett adjusted the volume down to bedside level. He cracked the door, then stepped out into the empty corridor and headed for the staircase.

Dett stepped out the side door on the first floor and into the night. He walked to the pawnshop in under thirty minutes; there he stood in line behind a tired-looking woman and a young man with pronounced hand tremors.

“How late are you open?” he asked the man behind the counter, after the place had cleared.

“Midnights, except for Fridays and Saturdays.”

“You close early then?”

“Don’t close at all then,” the man said, adjusting his eyeshade. “We do some of our best business in that slot. Always got at least one other man with me, sometimes two.”

“If you’re closed when I want to bring the car back…”

“Just park it right out front. Or as near as you can get to it. I live upstairs. And I don’t sleep much.”

“I’m not worried about somebody stealing it, I just-”

“-don’t want it on the street,” the pawnbroker said. “I got it. I’ll take care of it.”

“I only have the one set of keys.”

“I can take care of that, too,” the pawnbroker said.

1959 September 30 Wednesday 22:07

The diner was a chrome-and-glass rectangle, standing in its own glow like a frontier outpost. The parking lot was almost empty, randomly sprinkled with a few cars and a single pickup. Dett backed the Ford into a remote corner, outside the spray of light from the windows.

“He always covers the same route,” Beaumont had told Dett. “But not always in the same order. Thursday nights, he’s going to hit Armand’s place; that’s one we know they’ve cut in on for sure. He’s also got-”

“When you say ‘cut in,’ you mean your people have been cut out?” Dett had interrupted.

“No,” the man in the wheelchair said. “Everyone has to get their jukeboxes from us. That’s the way it’s been ever since… for a long time. Dioguardi’s people, they’ve been collecting a ‘maintenance fee,’ or a ‘service charge,’ or whatever they think is cute. This particular punk, Nicky Perrini, he tells them it’s ‘rent.’ Don’t ask me why.”

The interior of the diner was a reflection of the parking lot-very few people, no two together. The long counter had only three stools occupied. In the booths strung along the windows, two men were working on solitary meals; one was reading a newspaper, the other staring into some private abyss.

No one looked up at Dett’s entrance. He quickly scanned the interior, noting a sign for the restrooms at the extreme left, and took a counter stool a little more than halfway down the right side. A hundred-record Wurlitzer jukebox sat by itself in the corner, a squat chunk of pulsating neon, waiting for an injection of coins to bring it to life.

Dett took a menu from between a pair of chrome napkin dispensers and laid it flat on the counter in front of him. He let his eyes go out of focus, tuning in to his surroundings.

“What’ll it be?”

Dett looked up, saw a short blond woman in a pink waitress’s uniform with a round white collar and matching white bands on the short sleeves. She had a pert face with plump cheeks, her jaw saved from squareness only by a little sheath of flesh. Her eyes were a startling ocean green; they seemed almost absurdly large on either side of her button nose. Below her right eye was a crescent-shaped scar, dull white against her creamy skin, trailing like a permanent tear. Her mouth was small and lightly lipsticked, her lower lip heavier than the upper.

I’ve got much better clothes than these, leaped unbidden into Dett’s mind. Before he could chase the thought, the counter girl said, “What you want is the lemon pie, I bet.” Her smile sunbursted over him. “It’s what everybody comes here for. At least that’s what I tell Booker-he’s the cook, but I’m the one who makes the pies.”

“The lemon pie sounds perfect,” he said, looking down.

“Money back if not satisfied,” the girl said, nodding her head for emphasis. Her tousled blond curls bounced. “A cup of coffee with that?”

“Yes, please.”

Dett watched her as she walked away. Her arms are so round, he thought, but not fat. They look strong. I’ll bet her legs are-

The sound of the door opening behind him broke his reverie. He shifted his position on the stool, covering the movement by reaching for his cigarettes. Dett immediately dismissed the new arrival-an elderly man in an engineer’s cap-and put the pack of cigarettes back into his jacket pocket.

“See if I’m lying,” the counter girl said, sliding a substantial wedge of pie on a heavy white china plate in front of him.

“I know you wouldn’t lie,” Dett said, before he could clamp his mouth down on the words.

“How could you know something like that?” the girl asked, cock-ing her head and putting one hand on her hip. “Are you one of those people who think they can look in your eyes and-?”

“No. I don’t have any… powers, or anything,” Dett said. “Not like that. I mean… I could just tell.”

“You don’t even know my name,” the girl said, smiling. “We used to have these nameplates,” she said, red-tipped fingers lightly fluttering over her left breast, “but the pins tore up the uniforms something terrible.”

“My name’s Walker,” Dett said, holding out his hand.

The girl hesitated a second, then reached over and shook his hand, formally. “You have nice manners, Mr. Walker,” she said.

“Way I was raised.”

“Then you weren’t raised around here,” she said, flashing her smile again.

“No…”

“What?”

“I was… stuck, I guess. I was going to say, ‘No, ma’am,’ but I couldn’t call… I mean, you’re way too young to be called ‘ma’am,’ but you’re too old… I mean too grown for me to be calling you ‘miss,’ so I was just…”

“My name’s Tussy,” she said, flashing her smile.

“Tussy?”

“Well, that’s not my real name, but people have been calling me that since I was a little girl.”

Dett stared at her until he realized his mouth was slightly open. He tightened his lips, said, “Where did you get a name like that?”

“When I was little, I was a tomboy. My mother didn’t know what to do with me. One day, she was telling my dad he’d have to spank me himself because hers weren’t doing any good. But he just said, ‘There’s nothing wrong with our Carol. She just likes a good tussle, that’s all.’ From then on, that was my name, Tussy. Even my teachers at school said it. Tussy Chambers, that’s me.”

“It’s a beautiful name.”

“Well, I like it. But I never heard anyone call it ‘beautiful’ before.”

They must have called you beautiful, Dett thought, then smothered his thoughts as firmly as he had tightened his lips. “It’s… unusual,” he finally said. “Different.”

“Pick up!” came a good-natured bellow from the kitchen.

“Milk or cream?” she said, ignoring the noise.

“Black’s fine.”

“Be right back,” the blonde said, over her shoulder.

1959 September 30 Wednesday 22:19

Dett stared at the slice of lemon pie, examining it minutely, as if it could explain what was disconcerting him.

The counter girl came into his field of vision and his thoughts at the same time. “You did say black, right?” she asked.

“Thank you, yes,” said Dett. He drank coffee only occasionally, preferring Coke with every meal except for juice at breakfast. When he did take coffee, he always laced it heavily with sugar. He was about to explain… something, when he felt the air behind him compress.

“You got the rent?” a voice said. A man’s voice, young and trying too hard.

“Just a minute,” Tussy said. “I’m serving a customer.”

“Yeah? I could use a cup of coffee myself.”

“Then have a seat. I’ll get to you.”

Out of the corner of his left eye, Dett saw a man in his mid-twenties take a stool near the register. He was wearing a one-button gray sharkskin suit, cut too tight to conceal a weapon. Dett’s eyes went to the man’s camel’s-hair overcoat, which he had carefully folded on the stool next to him. Right-handed, Dett thought.

“Here you go,” Tussy said, expertly sliding a cup of coffee onto the countertop in front of Dett.

“Thanks. I-”

She was already in motion, moving toward the man in the sharkskin suit. He said something to her Dett couldn’t make out. Whatever it was didn’t earn him a response, much less one of her smiles. She punched two keys on the register simultaneously, took out a couple of bills, and handed them over. The man in the sharkskin suit pocketed the cash.

“You’re not going to try my pie?” she said, as she walked back toward Dett.

“I was just… looking at it,” he told her.

“What good is looking at a piece of pie?” she said, smiling to show she wasn’t being critical.

“It’s part of… I don’t know, exactly. You’ve picked flowers, haven’t you?”

“Well, sure I have.”

“But first you looked them over, right?”

“That was to make up my mind,” she said. “There’s lots of flowers, but there’s only that one piece of pie.”

“I-”

“Oh!” she said, blushing. “I’m so dumb. You’re making up your mind, aren’t you? Deciding if it looks good enough to-”

“No!” Dett said, more sharply than he had intended. He mentally bit down on his tongue. “I’m not good at explaining things, sometimes. I was trying to say… I was trying to say that it looks so good, I wanted to have that, too. Not just the taste. The whole… thing.”

“I think I-”

“Hey!” the man in the sharkskin suit called. “What about that coffee, doll? I got other places I need to be tonight.”

Tussy turned and walked toward the man. But she strolled right past him and into the kitchen. As Dett saw the man’s face darken, he felt his heartbeat accelerate. It’s not supposed to do that, he thought. Not when I’m-

The waitress came back through the swinging doors hip-first. As she passed the man in the sharkskin suit, she quickly placed a cup and saucer on the counter and kept moving, until she was standing in front of Dett again.

“You’re never going to eat that,” she mock-pouted.

“I… can’t.”

“Well, why in the world not?”

“Because you can’t talk to a lady with your mouth full.”

The waitress stepped back, as if the changed perspective would give her greater insight into the man before her.

“You’re some piece of work, Mr. Walker. One minute, you’re all tongue-tied; the next, you’ve got a line as slick as that boy’s hair oil,” she said, tilting her head in the direction of the man in the sharkskin suit.

“It’s not Mister Walker,” Dett said. “Walker is my first name. My name is Walker Dett.”

“Uh-huh…” she said, but her lips were beginning to turn into a smile.

“If I start eating, you’re going to go away?”

“Well, I have to-”

“Oh, I know, you must have a lot to do, being the manager here and all.”

“Manager? Me? Managers don’t wear uniforms like this.”

“I’m sorry. I just thought, with you paying the landlord, this must either be your place or you’re running it for someone.”

“Oh! That guy, he’s not the landlord. He just collects rent for the jukebox.”

“Rent? I thought you bought those things.”

“Well, you do. But you have to pay for the space. It’s… a little complicated.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be nosy. I was just… interested, I guess.”

“You better eat that pie!” she said, sternly, and went back to the kitchen.

1959 September 30 Wednesday 23:09

By the time Dett was done with his pie, the man in the sharkskin suit had been gone for over a half-hour. The waitress had removed his cup and saucer, plucking a single bill from underneath. As she walked back toward Dett, she held up the five-dollar bill for him to see.

“Big shot,” she said.

“He always tips like that?”

“Meg-she works the same shift as me; we take turns behind the counter-Meg says he does, but it’s always a dollar, not a five. This, this is ridiculous.”

“It made you mad?”

“Mad? Why would you think… Oh, damn! I’m blushing, right?”

“You’re a little pink.”

“You mean I’m a lobster! I know what I look like when I get mad. You don’t have to be nice.”

“Why did it make you mad, what he did?”

“Some of the girls, if they know a guy’s a big tipper, they’ll give him a little… extra. You know what I mean. Meg knows you’re a big spender, you get a real floor show!”

“And you think that’s what he expected?”

“I don’t know what he expected, but… whatever it is, he’d better come around when Meg’s behind the counter.”

“The pie was perfect. It was the best I ever had.”

“You’re very nice to say that.”

“It’s the truth. But now I don’t know what to do.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not like… him,” Dett said, tilting his head in the direction of the register. “I wouldn’t want you to think I’m trying to be a big shot. Or that I thought I could buy anything-from you, I mean.”

“I already know that.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. You’re a man with manners. Nicky, he’s a pig.”

“Nicky, that’s the guy who gave you the-?”

“Yes. He walks around like he’s some kind of gangster. Did you see those clothes? Hah! He’s nothing but an errand boy, and everybody knows it. If Armand ever stopped paying the rent, it wouldn’t be Nicky they’d send around.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Never mind. It’s not important.”

Dett looked down at the empty counter.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to… snap at you like that. It’s just that I’ve been here since three this afternoon, and I kind of run out of gas. Let me get you another cup of coffee.”

“Thank you,” Dett said.

1959 September 30 Wednesday 23:54

Probably has it laid out so he can get it done the quickest, like a kid with a paper route, Dett thought, glancing down at the red-penciled marks on the street map Beaumont had given him. He drove slowly past a two-tone blue ’58 Mercury hardtop splayed arrogantly across two parking spaces directly in front of Penny’s Show Bar. Dett found a pocket of shadow between streetlights, positioned his side mirror so he could watch the door, and settled in.

As he waited, Dett added up what he had learned so far. As a collector, Nicky Perrini was an amateur. He spent too much time in each place, talked too much, drove a car easy to spot, called attention to himself. Somebody’s nephew, Dett thought.

It was almost twenty-five minutes by Dett’s watch before his target finally emerged from the bar. As Perrini opened his car door, the interior light went on. Unless he had someone lying across the back seat, or crouched down in the front passenger compartment, the collector was alone.

Perrini drove off, the Mercury’s distinctive canted-V taillights marking his trail. Dett followed, varying the distance every few blocks, checking his mirrors to make certain he wasn’t being boxed.

After a few minutes, the Mercury slowed, and Dett pulled closer behind. Perrini drove past a single-story building with CLUB MIDNIGHT on its marquee. The street was lined with cars on both sides, every spot taken except for a large space directly in front of the entrance.

The Mercury turned left at the next corner, and slowed to a crawl. Dett did the hunter’s math: He’s not collecting from that joint-he’s going there for fun. And he hasn’t got enough clout to use that VIP spot, so he’s looking for a parking place.

Gambling, Dett brought his Ford to a halt, then backed it into a narrow alley. He quickly put a red felt cap with tied-at-the-top black earmuffs on his head, slipped on a pair of deerskin gloves, and left his car. He flattened his back against the alley wall, then cautiously peered in the direction Perrini had driven. He spotted the Merc’s taillights as it reversed into a spot between two cars, parallel-parking. Probably at a fire hydrant, Dett thought, stepping out of the alley and walking briskly in that direction.

Dett watched as Perrini locked his car, adjusted the lapels of his camel’s-hair coat, and ran a comb through his hair. Perrini crossed the street, heading back toward the nightclub, moving with overcooked self-assurance.

Approaching his target, Dett began walking with a limp, his right hand held stiffly at his side for balance. He looked down at the sidewalk, as if ashamed of his condition.

The gap between the two men closed. Dett felt a familiar calmness radiate from his center. His heartbeat slowed, his blood pressure dropped, and his senses sharpened like a safecracker’s sandpapered fingertips. He unclenched his right fist; a length of lead pipe dropped into his gloved hand.

As they were passing each other wordlessly, Dett pivoted on his left foot and slammed the lead pipe into the back of Perrini’s head.

The motion of his strike carried Dett down to one knee. He quickly scanned the street, then smoothly rolled Perrini over onto his back. The man’s nose was flattened, and his front teeth had penetrated his upper lip-he had been unconscious before he fell, meeting the sidewalk face-first.

A quick search produced an alligator wallet from Perrini’s inside pocket. Dett shifted position so he could check the street in both directions. Thirty seconds, he told himself, as he removed a driver’s license before replacing the wallet. Adjusting Perrini’s left hand so that it rested on the sidewalk, palm-down, Dett used the butt of the lead pipe to shatter the collector’s expensive wristwatch, and maybe his wrist.

Dett walked back across the street, got into his car, and drove out of the alley. A few blocks away, he pulled over and tossed the lead pipe into a vacant lot. It didn’t make a sound.

1959 October 01 Thursday 01:02

The diner was too packed for Dett to see whether Tussy was still at work as he drove by. He moved on, through the darkened streets, learning the city. It took him almost two hours to return to the pawnshop. Dett left the Ford in the street, locked it, and opened the trunk, where he traded in the denim jacket for his armed overcoat.

The dull metal shim Dett had left in the side door of the hotel was still in place. He let himself in, made it to the stairs undetected, and was in bed before three-thirty.

1959 October 01 Thursday 07:07

“When do you think he might be able to tell us something, Doc?” Detective Sherman Layne asked the stoop-shouldered man in a white lab coat.

“Maybe in ten minutes,” the doctor replied, looking down at the body of Nicholas Perrini, “maybe never. He’s in a coma.”

“Yeah, I can see that for myself,” Layne said. He was a tall, heavyset man, a human mass of ever-encroaching bulk who gave the impression of standing very close to whoever he spoke to. His voice-patiently insistent-reflected his personality. “What I want to know is, what’s the odds?”

“Medical science isn’t a horse race,” the doctor said, haughtily, favoring the detective with his patrician-nosed profile.

“Too bad it’s not. I could handicap a race a lot better than what you’re giving me now.”

“Sorry,” the doctor said, making it clear he wasn’t-apology had deserted his language repertoire the moment he had finished his internship, more than thirty years ago.

“Doc, I’m not trying to bust your chops, okay? In a case like this, there’s a dozen possibilities. If I thought it was even money this guy would wake up and tell us who slugged him, I could save myself a ton of work digging into his life.”

“That’s important, saving work?” the doctor asked, archly. He had a high-domed forehead and thinning dark hair, carefully combed to minimize that fact.

“You got any idea how overstretched we are for something like this? An assault investigation, most of the time, you don’t have to look any further than home, if you understand what I’m saying.”

The doctor nodded absently, as he made some notations on the injured man’s medical chart.

“Only, in this case,” the detective continued, “this guy’s home isn’t a place where we want to be asking a lot of questions. Not without more information.”

“I don’t understand,” the doctor said, stifling a yawn.

“He had his wallet on him. And the car was registered to him, too. Plenty of ID. We know who he is.”

“So ask his-”

“He’s got no family around here. No blood family, anyway. But we knew his name. He works for Dioguardi.”

“I don’t know who that is,” the doctor said, his tone maintaining the distance between his world and the cop’s.

“He’s a gangster, Doc. Set up shop here a while back. We’ve been watching him, but, so far, he hasn’t tried to move in on any of the local people.”

“What does any of this have to do with-?”

“Anytime we find a guy lying in the street with his head bashed in, first thing we do is check to see if he’s still got his wallet. That neighborhood, you have to figure he was rolled for his money. There’s a club a couple of blocks away. Guy staggers out of that joint, drunk, there’s men in this town would be on him like vultures on a corpse.”

“But he still had his wallet…” the doctor said, drawn in despite himself.

“An empty wallet,” the detective said.

“So maybe he was robbed.”

“Who’s going to brain a guy, snatch his wallet, remove all the money, and then put the wallet back?”

“People do strange things,” the doctor said, returning to the disengaged distance he preferred.

“Yeah. And one of those things is gamble. He wouldn’t be the first man to walk out of a club Tap City.”

“Tap City?”

“Broke.”

“Yes. I understand there are a couple of places around here where it’s possible to gamble.”

“Yeah. Just the way you want it,” the detective said, reacting to the doctor’s snide tone.

“The way I want it?”

“That’s right. You, the good citizens of Locke City. You want folks to be able to play cards, have a drink, have a good time with a girl who isn’t going to tell anyone about it. And what you want from us, from the police, what you want is for us to keep the animals in their cages. You don’t want them breaking into your houses, stealing your cars, raping your wives. And we do that. We do it good.”

“Is that so?”

“You know it is. Locke City’s a border town. If you were in my business, you’d know what that always means. There’s things people want to do, they’re going to do them. And they’re going to come to wherever they can do them. The factories closed up a long time ago. And they’re not coming back. But we’ve still got good roads to drive on. We’ve got nice schools for our kids. The crime rate-the real crime rate-is one of the lowest in the state.”

“You sound like you should be running for office.”

“People like you make me tired,” the detective said. “You like to pretend you don’t know what fuel this town runs on. But you’re happy enough that your taxes are so low.”

The doctor raised an eyebrow theatrically. “So, if the tax rates were increased, then the sort of… vice you’re describing would all go away?”

“Go away? No. Move away, maybe, but never disappear. Every time the government tries something like that, they just make things worse.”

“Enforcing the laws would make things worse?” the doctor baited the detective, enjoying himself. This would make a wonderful story for his wife’s dinner party on Saturday.

“You think medical school’s the only place they teach sarcasm?” the detective said, dropping the temperature of his voice. “It takes money to run a criminal organization. I don’t mean Bonnie and Clyde stuff, I mean a business. A business that owns a lot of busi-nesses. Did you watch the Kefauver hearings? A criminal organization can’t go to a bank for financing. And they can’t rob enough of them, either. Prohibition, that was their financing. And that was when they started to organize, branch out, take over things.”

“We haven’t had Prohibition in this country for-”

“Prohibition doesn’t have to be booze, Doc. It just means something you’re not allowed to do. See, there’s two kinds of crimes. There’s the ones everyone agrees you shouldn’t do: murder, rape, arson… And there’s the ones everyone says you shouldn’t do, but they don’t mean it. I’m talking about fun, Doc. And not everybody’s got the same idea of what fun is. One guy spends his money deer-hunting, another spends it in whorehouses.”

“And because of your limited resources…”

“We have to concentrate on the crimes the citizens really care about, sure. But even if we had a force five times the size we’ve got now-”

“A better-paid police force, I trust?”

“You have a point you’re trying to make?” Sherman Layne said, his voice hardening perceptibly. “I must be missing it.”

The doctor suddenly remembered some of the things he’d heard about Sherman Layne around the hospital. Buying time to craft his retreat, he took off his glasses and fussily polished the lenses on a monogrammed white handkerchief. “The only point that matters here is that there is no way to predict the course of an insult to the brain.”

“Are you trying to-?”

“An ‘insult,’ Detective,” the doctor said, twisting his upper lip. “As in ‘insult and injury.’ We can’t look inside this man’s head and determine the extent of damage to the brain, much less whether it will be permanent. He experienced extreme blunt-force trauma to the skull. This caused what is known as a contrecoup injury. The blow caused the brain to move forward at high speed, and impact the cranial wall. Some patients recover completely. Some recover physically, but they experience short-term memory loss. If that’s the case here, this man would recall who he is, but would have no memory for the period of time in which the attack occurred.”

The doctor took a professional breath, then said, “Some never come out of a coma. They remain in a persistent vegetative state, dependent on medical personnel and machines to keep them alive. Some die. Their internal systems simply shut down. This man is breathing on his own, which augurs in his favor. Beyond that, there is nothing I can tell you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have rounds to complete.”

1959 October 01 Thursday 15:33

“What are we supposed to do with this?” Beaumont asked Dett, holding up the driver’s license of Nicholas Carlo Perrini.

“Not ‘we,’ me. I’m going to mail it to the people who’ve been sending that punk around to collect from your accounts.”

“Why just the license?” Beaumont asked, genuinely interested.

“A town like this one, the cops are going to say he was robbed anyway.”

“Because his wallet-”

“-will be empty, once they get done with it, right? That’s why I smashed his watch. If I hadn’t done that, the cops might have taken that, too.”

Beaumont shifted position in his wheelchair, reached for his cigarette case. “When Dioguardi gets the license, what’s he going to think?”

“He won’t know what to think,” Dett answered, “but he’ll know for sure it wasn’t any mugging. Getting the license in the mail, he’ll know it’s a message, from someone who knows what this Nicky boy was doing last night. And who he was doing it for.”

“What’s the point of that? He already knows we’re on to him; you can’t keep collections a secret.”

“Right. So, when he started edging in, that was sending you a message, wasn’t it?” Dett said.

“You’d think so,” said Beaumont, “but you know what he’s tapping? Nickel-and-dime action. Armand’s, that diner where you saw him? They’re paying him twenty dollars a week. Some of the clubs, maybe a little more. Place like Fat Lucy’s-that’s a candy store, where the kids hang out-probably no more than a ten-spot. But then there’s that business with Hacker, I told you about it. If all that adds up to some kind of message, I can’t read it.”

“Yeah, well, when he gets the license, he won’t know how to read that, either. Not until it gets explained to him.”

“Our operation, we can afford to send the collectors out with cover,” Beaumont said. “But with Dioguardi’s penny-ante action, he did that, it would cost him more than he’s bringing in. So he’s either got to step up or step back.”

Dett opened his hands in a “Well?” gesture.

“Oh, he was coming anyway,” Beaumont said, calmly. “He probably would have tried another sit-down first, see if there wasn’t some way I’d let him have a slice, peaceable. Like he did before, when he came out for a visit. But even if I went along, it would never have stopped there, and he knows I know it.”

“That’s why, after he gets the license, he gets a phone call,” Dett said, watching understanding slowly fill the other man’s eyes.

1959 October 01 Thursday 20:21

“There has to be more than that,” Procter said to the jowly plainclothes cop standing beside him at the base of the water tower.

“If there is, we don’t know it,” the cop said. His hair was snow white, worn in a stiff brush cut, its precision and neatness a stark contrast to his cratered face, which was the color of old mushrooms.

“One of Sally D.’s men takes a baseball bat to the head, and you’re playing it like he was some stewbum who fell off a barstool?”

“If you’re asking, did we get a lay-off order, the answer is no,” the cop said. “Besides, it doesn’t look in-house. If that punk was dipping into the till, he might have caught himself a beating, sure. Maybe even worse. And, yeah, they might have left his head on a stake, make sure the troops get the word. But this…”

“How could you tell?”

“Well, for one thing, it was too clean.”

“Clean? The guy’s in a goddamn coma.”

“Very clean,” the cop said, reluctant admiration clear in his voice. “You hit a guy with a bat in the face, it’s instant mess. Splat! You got blood spurting everywhere-including all over the guy holding the bat. But whoever did this, he was like a doctor, operating. One shot to the back of the head. Perfect. Little Nicky never saw him coming, I bet. And he sure as fuck didn’t know what hit him. Still doesn’t, from what I hear.” The jowly man snorted.

“Maybe he doesn’t, but I do,” Procter said.

“Yeah?”

“Perrini got his arm up in time to block at least one of the blows. So it had to be a couple of men, one in front, one behind.”

“You get what you pay for,” the cop said, chuckling snidely.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means, one of your stooges down at the station house gave you a look at the report, Jimmy. You saw that his watch was busted, so you figure he threw up his arm, tried to block the bat coming at his head, right?”

“But…?”

“But you weren’t on the scene. I was. Me and the great Sherman Layne. Whoever busted that watch, he did it on purpose. After Nicky was laid out, face-down.”

“Huh! I never heard of that one. What did Layne say he thought it meant?”

“Sherman? He don’t share his observations with the rest of us,” the jowly cop said. “Me, I think it was like saying time’s running out, or something like that.”

“You read too many detective magazines,” Procter said.

1959 October 01 Thursday 22:16

“Who the fuck is this?” The voice was hoarse with what the speaker believed to be intimidating menace.

“It’s the boogeyman, genius. Now, I’m going to ask you just one more time, so listen good. I got something I need to mail to your boss. It’s something he wants. Something that could help him with his business. I need an address where I can be sure it’ll get to him.”

“Listen, pal, you think I’m stupid? How’s Mr. D. gonna know you didn’t mail him a fucking bomb or something?”

“Because he’ll get a stooge like you to open it for him,” Dett said.

1959 October 02 Friday 10:17

“My plans have changed,” Dett said to Carl.

“I’m sorry to hear that, Mr. Dett. Does this mean you won’t be staying with us as long as-?”

“Oh, I’m staying, all right,” Dett said, shaking his head. “In fact, I may be stuck-well, that’s not exactly the right word-I may be staying longer than I thought.”

“Of course,” Carl said, agreeably. “Does that mean you would prefer a smaller-?”

“I’ll be fine where I am,” Dett said, “but I can’t keep getting around on foot. I think it’s time to rent that car.”

“Oh, we… I… can take care of that for you, sir. Is there any particular sort of car you would like?”

“Something… respectable,” Dett said. “Good-quality, but not flashy. I’m sure you know what I mean.”

“Absolutely,” Carl assured him. “Would dinnertime be soon enough?”

1959 October 02 Friday 11:44

“I don’t know what he driving right this second, but I know what he goan be driving tonight, boss.”

“Well?”

“Be a brand-new Chevy Impala. Four-door sedan,” he said, emphasizing the first syllable of the last word. “Nice dark-green one.”

“Plate?”

“Ain’t got that yet, boss. But that ride I jest tole you ’bout, that’s the one the deskman ordered for him from the rental company. It goan be delivered tonight; I get you the plate number then, okay?”

“Don’t call this number tonight. Tomorrow’s soon enough.”

“Yessir. I-”

Rufus stopped in mid-sentence when he heard the line go dead.

1959 October 02 Friday 20:13

“When you first came in, you looked so different, I almost didn’t recognize you.”

“I’d recognize you if all you did was just change clothes.”

“You did more than that,” Tussy said, tilting her chin up as she regarded Dett, her big green eyes luminous. “I just can’t tell what it is yet.”

“This is the real me,” he said.

“I-”

“Pick up!” came from the kitchen.

“I’ve got to run. This is our busiest time. That’s why there’s no space at the booths.”

She whirled and moved toward the opening in the kitchen wall. Dett admired the way she snatched a pair of trays, pirouetted smartly, and swivel-hipped her way around various obstacles to a booth where a young couple was sitting. She off-loaded the two trays, chattering to her customers as she worked. Then she strode back toward the delivery slot to exchange the empty trays for three loaded ones, which she stacked onto a little cart and wheeled off in the opposite direction.

It was twenty minutes before she returned to where Dett was sitting.

“What’ll it be?” she said, her pad at the ready.

“The lemon pie.”

“That’s not dinner; that’s dessert.”

“Well, I’m not really hungry.”

“Then you shouldn’t go near my lemon pie,” Tussy said, smiling.

“I don’t always say things as good as I want. I meant to say, even though I’m not hungry, your lemon pie is so good I still want some.”

“You know what,” she said, leaning on the counter and dropping her voice, “all we have left is one piece, and it’s really yesterday’s-I didn’t get a chance to bake today. You don’t want that piece. You come back tomorrow, earlier, if you can, and I’ll cut you the first slice. It’s always the best.”

“I will come back. But that’s not why I came. I wanted to-”

“Tussy, damn it!” bellowed from the kitchen.

“I’m sorry. Can you…?” she said, and trotted off.

Dett sat quietly for a few minutes, eyes on a menu. When Tussy didn’t return, he got up, went over to the jukebox, and invested a few nickels in Jack Scott.

By the time he returned to the counter, the stool he had been using was occupied, along with the three closest to it. High-school kids, in blue-and-gold varsity jackets with “Locke City Eagles” in block letters across the backs. Dett tapped one on the shoulder, a deep-chested young man with a knife-edged crewcut and a practiced curl to his upper lip.

“You’re in my seat,” Dett said, mildly.

“Your seat? I don’t see your name on it, man,” the youth said. His buddies laughed on cue, a practiced bully-sound, pack-rehearsed since childhood.

Dett’s right hand slipped into his pocket, fingers coiling through a set of brass knuckles. He stepped closer, angling his left shoulder to shield his right arm from the target’s view.

The hinge of his jaw. While his mouth is open…

A flash of pink in the corner of his eye. Tussy. Standing by the register. She pantomimed smoking a cigarette, pointed at the big clock high on the wall, then held out her palm, fingers spread.

Dett stepped back. Nodded his head “yes.” He watched as she pointed behind her, nodding again to show he understood.

“Hey, man,” the youth said, mockingly. “Didn’t you have something you wanted to say?”

“No,” Dett told him, looking away.

He turned and walked out of the diner, their laughter behind him like wind in a sail.

1959 October 02 Friday 20:45

The back door to the diner opened, and Tussy stepped out into the warm, starless night. She looked to her left and to her right, then put both hands on her hips and said, “Well!”

“I’m over here, Tussy,” Dett said, separating himself from the shadows. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to think-”

“Oh!” Tussy jumped slightly, then recovered her composure. “I was just playing,” she assured him. “Having fun. I knew you had to be around someplace.”

“You’re really good at it.”

“At… what?”

“At playing. You mean, like playing a role, right? Acting. You’re terrific, the way you do it. When you told me you would be taking a break out here-in five minutes, to have a smoke-it was like you wrote me a note. It was so clear, and you never said a word.”

The waitress regarded Dett appraisingly. “I never heard that one before,” she said, smiling to take the edge off her words.

“Nobody ever noticed how good you- Ah, I get it. You mean, you never heard that line before, huh?”

“I was just teasing,” she said, quickly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

“You didn’t-” Dett began, then stopped himself as he realized that his feelings had been hurt. The knowledge stunned him, like an amputee who first experiences phantom pain in a missing limb.

“It’s a zoo in there tonight,” she said, taking a pack of Kools from her apron. “Do you have a-?”

Dett already had a wooden match flaming, cupped in his hands. He held it out to her by extending his arms, not stepping any closer.

“Thanks,” she said, leaning forward.

“You’re welcome,” Dett replied, lighting a Lucky for himself with the same flame.

“Did you just move in around here?” she asked.

“Me? No, I didn’t move in at all. I’m just in town on business.”

“What do you do?”

“I’m in real estate,” he said, suddenly disgusted with the vagueness of the lie that sprang so naturally to his lips.

“You mean, like houses? Or bigger stuff?”

“Well, it’s pretty much just land. I work for some people who buy up big parcels when they think the land will be worth a lot more someday.”

“Like if the state builds a highway through it?”

“That’s kind of what I mean,” he said. “But not through it, exactly. Next to it, that would be best. If the government wants your property, they can just take it.”

“Without paying you?” she said, horrified.

“Oh, they have to pay. But they only pay what they say it’s worth.”

“That’s terrible.”

“It’s one of the risks. The bigger risk is when you assemble a parcel and then you try and package it, so you can sell it to a developer. One little zoning change and you could end up with a worthless vacant lot instead of a shopping center.”

“Oh. So you’re on the road all the time?”

“Pretty much. But, sometimes, I get to stay in one spot for a while. It depends on what’s going on.”

“Nothing’s going on here,” she said, dragging on her cigarette. “Well, actually, there’s plenty that goes on here. I guess you already know about it, being a…”

“Being a… what?”

“A man. A traveling man. Locke City’s not exactly a tourist attraction, but we get a lot of men just passing through. Usually it’s just for a few hours, though.”

“This is a gamblers’ town?”

“You didn’t know? Where are you staying?”

“At the Claremont.”

“That real-estate business of yours must pay pretty well,” she said. Dett couldn’t tell if she was actually impressed, or making fun of him. Maybe some of both. “I’m surprised you could even check into a place like that without the bellhops touting you on one of the fancy joints we’ve got here.”

“Like casinos?”

“I’ve never been to a real casino, but we’ve got places here that sure look like what I imagine they’d be,” she said, her voice a parody of civic pride. “Roulette wheels, blackjack dealers, slot machines, dice, the whole works. If there’s one thing Locke City’s famous for, it’s gambling. We’ve got all kinds, everywhere you look.”

“The police…?”

“Are you some kind of detective?” she suddenly asked, stepping back.

“Me?” said Dett, honestly shocked.

“Well, you… you’re not from around here. One night, you’re dressed like a working guy, but tonight, you’re all fancy. And you were asking all those questions-”

“No, I wasn’t,” Dett protested. “I was just… I was just talking with you. I’m not very good at it.”

“Talking? You seem to do just fine with it.”

“Not that kind of talking. Talking to say what I mean.”

“I don’t understand.”

Dett took a deep breath. Let it out. Said, “The question-the only question I wanted to ask you was, would you go out with me? I mean, to a movie or… or to a club, if you want. We could-”

“Dinner,” she said, smiling.

“Dinner? I-”

“That’s what I’d really like. Have somebody wait on me for a change, see what it feels like.”

“I would be very… I would like that very much. Is there a nice place you know about?”

“Well, there’s actually a lot of nice places in Locke City. You’d be surprised.”

“I… I don’t know. I don’t go out to dinner much. I mean, I always go out, to eat, I mean, but not to-”

“There are some very nice restaurants,” Tussy repeated. “And they don’t really cost much more than-”

“No, no,” Dett said, holding up his hand as if to pardon his interruption. “This is my fault. I’m not saying what I mean. I want to take you to the nicest place in town. Really. I just don’t know if what I was told is right. Have you ever heard of Chez Bertrand?”

Tussy’s green eyes flashed behind the smoke from her cigarette. “Everybody’s heard of Chez Bertrand,” she said. “But a place like that costs the earth. And you’d have to have reservations, and-”

“That’s where I’d like to take you. Please.”

Tussy paused a beat, then nodded her head. “All right, then,” she said, holding out her hand to shake, as if sealing a deal, “it’s a date. My nights off are Monday and Tuesday. Which would you like?”

“Monday,” Dett said instantly.

Tussy snapped her cigarette into the darkness of the parking lot. “This is my address,” she said, carefully printing something on her order pad. “And my phone number, in case you have to change your plans.”

“I won’t,” Dett said, as she tore the page from her pad and handed it to him. “Would seven o’clock be okay?”

“Perfect. I have to get back to work now, before Booker blows a gasket. Bye!”

Dett stood in the same spot long enough to smoke another cigarette, never taking his eyes off the back door. Then he slipped into the shadows.

1959 October 02 Friday 22:50

The ’51 Mercury was a custom job: black with red-and-yellow flames on its de-chromed hood, chopped top, spinner hubcaps on whitewall tires, rear wheels hidden behind bubble skirts.

It was parked in a clearing off a narrow dirt road, surrounded by woods on all sides. A river ran somewhere nearby, close enough to be heard.

From the Mercury’s partially open windows came the doomed voice of Johnny Ace, “Pledging My Love.” In the front seat, brief flashes of color, signs of movement, sounds of sex.

“They never know you’re here, do they, Holden?”

Holden Satterfield didn’t jump at the whispered voice behind him. He didn’t flinch at the hand on his shoulder. He knew his friend Sherman would never hurt him. He sure could hurt me if he wanted to, Holden thought. Sherman’s a big man. And he’s a police officer, too. A detective. But Sherman knows I wouldn’t ever do nothing to people. I just watch them.

Wordlessly, the two men retreated from Holden’s watching place, their soundless movements as choreographed as tango partners’. When they got within sight of Sherman’s unmarked car, the big man said, “You got your logbook with you, Holden?”

“Sure,” the watcher said. “I always carry it, just like you said, Sherman.”

“You got anything in there about a different Merc? A newer one; a ’58, two-tone blue?”

“No, sir,” Holden said.

“You’re sure?”

“Sure I am, Sherman,” Holden said, in an injured tone. “You know I never forget a car once I see it.”

“I know,” Sherman said, reassuringly. “But even the best detectives, they write things down. To keep a record, like I explained to you.”

“Sure, Sherman. I know. Here,” he said, “look through it yourself.”

“That’s all right,” the cop said, waving away the offer. He knew Holden’s compulsive watching imprinted itself on the damaged man’s brain-the notebook was just to make things “official.”

“Most of them, I know them, right away,” Holden said. “They come back, over and over. But you have to watch close. Some of them, they bring different people in them sometimes.”

“Is that right?” Sherman said, absently. He understood that Holden believed the cars to be independent creatures, visiting the Lovers’ Lane of their own volition, carrying random cargo.

“Tonight, we had a ’56 Buick Century-you can tell by the extra porthole; ’57 Olds 98-they’re a little longer in the back than the 88; ’54 Ford, ’53 Studebaker, the Starliner; you can always…”

Sherman Layne stood in the night, oddly soothed by the sounds of Holden’s litany. Anyone who parks where Holden patrols, they might as well be signing a hotel register, he thought, proudly.

“… a beautiful ’55 Chevy, a Bel Air hardtop,” Holden went on. “I almost didn’t recognize it at first. The Bel Airs are all two-tones, you know. This one, it had the chrome tooken off the sides, except for one little strip. And it was this special red, all over. It looked like those apples you get at the carnival. You know, all shiny and-”

Harley Grant, sounded in Sherman’s mind. “You sure it was a ’55?” he asked.

“Oh, it was a ’55, Sherman,” Holden said, with absolute conviction. “They can’t fool me. I always know how to tell. Like, there’s a ’56 Ford that comes here all the time. Only, what it did, it swapped the taillights for a ’56 Mercury’s. Did you know they screw right in? You don’t have to do nothing to make them fit. So, if you just get a quick look at it, from the back, you can make a mistake. Now, the ’55 Chevy, the grille is different from a ’56; it doesn’t go all the way across. And it didn’t have fins, like a ’57.”

“You ever see it before?”

“No, I never did. I would’ve remembered it. That paint job, it was so beautiful, like the moon shined down on it special.”

“What did the girl look like?”

“You know I never-”

“Sure, Holden. I know,” Sherman said, gently. “I meant, did you notice anything about her? I mean, she was in this special car, so you’d think…”

“She had a kerchief on her head,” Holden said, stopping to think before each word. Usually, he tried to speak quickly, to make people forget that he had spent his whole life being called “slow.” But Sherman wasn’t like those other people. Sherman was his friend. Sherman called him “Holden,” not… other names.

“A white kerchief,” Holden went on. “But, underneath, her hair was dark. And she never once took it off. They just sat there. Together, I mean. He was smoking, but she wasn’t. I didn’t stay long.”

What the hell was Harley Grant doing in Lovers’ Lane? He’s one of Beaumont’s top men. He could afford a motel. And he’s got his own place, too. “Thanks, Holden,” Sherman said aloud. “You’re the best agent I’ve got.”

1959 October 03 Saturday 00:19

“He’s a pimp,” Rufus said, flatly.

“So?” one of the men seated around a makeshift wood table in the back room of a garage challenged. “Who here don’t have some kind of a scuffle going for him? This is a white man’s-”

“Everybody here sings that tune, K-man,” a tall man with a cadaverous face interrupted. “Omar doesn’t say things just to be talking.” He turned his head toward Rufus, expectantly. “Come on with it, now.”

Rufus nodded to the cadaverous man. “Thank you, brother. When I hear my true name-any of our true names-said out loud, it fills me with power. I don’t know where my father’s father’s father came from,” he began, “but I know, wherever it was, they didn’t have no names like ‘Rufus.’ The slavemasters branded us deep, brothers. And not just with their names. So we have to be two people-the one Mister Charlie sees, and the one he don’t. Here, with my own people, I’m not Rufus anymore. I’m Omar.”

As the others nodded approval, Rufus got to his feet, taking command. His voice was muscular but modulated, a high-horsepower engine held against a firm brake pedal.

“A black pimp is the white man’s living proof. They see a nigger with money, how did he get it? He stole it, they think. Or he sold some pussy. Or some dope. Doesn’t matter-the thing they know for sure, he didn’t work for it, right? And when the colored man scores some coin, what’s the first thing he does with it? Come on, brothers, tell the truth. He plays right into Charlie’s game. Gets him the biggest ride he can, drapes himself in the finest vines, and goes looking for a place to show it all off.”

Rufus held his hands at waist height, palms-down, creating a podium from the empty air in front of him. His eyes took in each man in the room, individually, before he spoke again.

“Stupid, ignorant motherfucker thinks he’s on top of the world, right? Got everything a big black ape could ever want, including a white woman. But does a pimp own anything? Does he have a legitimate business? Or even a damn house he can call his own? Where’s his money in the bank? Where’s his land? Where’s his power?

“Whitey goes like this,” Rufus said, snapping his fingers, “and it’s all gone. One day, this pimp, he’s king of the block. Next day, he’s down to the prison farm, digging in the dirt, while a man stands over him holding a gun. In some places I’ve been, that’s a black man, the one holding the gun.”

“A bank robber could end up the same way,” said a somber-looking man in a neat brown business suit two shades darker than his sepia complexion.

“Sure!” Rufus agreed, readily. “But… let me show you some pictures, okay?” he said, pointing at an imaginary photograph on the wall of the garage. “There’s one of some nigger in a suit with sparkles sewn into it, diamonds on his fingers, driving a big Cadillac. Now, over there, you see a picture of a black man with a gun, aimed right at the face of some bank teller. You’re a white man, which picture do you like? That one,” he said, gesturing, “you turn up the heat, he’s going to kiss your ass. But this one”-he pointed-“you get in his way, he might just take your life.”

“We’re not in this for the image,” said a bespectacled young man in a putty-colored corduroy sport coat.

“Not our images, Brother Garfield,” Rufus said, skillfully transforming dissent into ammunition, “images for our children. Who are their heroes now? Some baseball player? Or a singer, maybe? People like that, you can dream about them, but you never get to see them up close. They’re not real. But the pimp, the numbers man, the hustler-they’re right out there, every day.

“Our children need another path,” Rufus said. That’s what we’re in this for, brothers. That’s why the New Black Men came to be.”

“And it’s not just the children,” the cadaverous man echoed. “Plenty of our people haven’t come to consciousness yet. Maybe a pimp can’t be one of us, but there’s no law says a pimp must stay a pimp.”

“That’s the truth, Brother Darryl!” Rufus said, deftly accepting the passed baton. “We know two things: One, this ‘Silk,’ he came to us. Two, him being a pimp, that means he got eyes and ears out there, hearing things we never would. A pimp, he gets to see the truth. A trick does things with a whore he’d never do with his wife… and he also tells a whore things he’d never tell his wife.

“That’s how we made our connection for the guns, remember? One of Silk’s women has this regular customer who’s in the business. He told her, she told him, he told us… and it all came together sweet. They may hate us, brothers, but no white man ever minded making money off us. Mister Green always going to be the boss.”

“Maybe there’s something in it for Silk,” Garfield said. “We’re paying a lot of money for every shipment. Maybe he’s getting a little commission for himself.”

“If he is, that’s a betrayal,” Rufus agreed. “Because Silk says he’s one of us. Wants to be one of us, anyway.”

“Every man here has been tested,” Darryl said, his voice barely audible. “His turn will come.”

Rufus held up a lecturer’s forefinger. “Like I said before, brothers: he’s a pimp. Nobody’s ever going to suspect a man like that could be with us. So, if he’s down for real, he could be worth a lot to our cause. And if it turns out he’s not, nobody’s going to miss him when he’s gone.”

1959 October 03 Saturday 01:01

Tussy clothespinned her just-washed stockings to a cord strung from the shower-curtain rod, then padded into the living room in her bare feet. She was wearing a man’s red flannel pajama top as a nightshirt; it came down almost to her knees.

The furniture was all pre-war, except for the radio and a console TV. Substantial woodwork, heavy fabrics. A working-class living room, it had been designed to be used only for “best,” with normal social activities relegated to the kitchen.

On the mantelpiece was a stiffly posed photograph of a young couple. A short, powerfully built man in his early thirties, with a face already going fleshy, dressed in a dark, awkward-fitting suit, stared straight ahead. The woman next to him came only to his shoulder, even in high heels. She was smiling shyly-for her husband, not for the camera.

Tussy turned on the radio. The sad-but-not-surrendering voice of Patsy Cline followed her as she went into the kitchen to make herself a cup of coffee.

1959 October 03 Saturday 01:20

“This job I’m on, you ever do business with that guy before?” Dett spoke into a pay phone.

“I’m just a messenger,” Whisper said, in the broken-larynx voice that gave him his name. “I don’t read the messages; I just deliver them.”

“I wasn’t trying to insult you.”

“I know,” the softly harsh voice said. “Just remember our deal: keep it clean, keep it green. Right?”

“Right,” Dett answered.

1959 October 03 Saturday 01:51

The maroon-lacquered Eldorado Brougham glided away from the curb, its stainless-steel roof reflecting the cold-fire wash of neon from the darkened windows of a backstreet bar. The man behind the wheel was dressed in a powder-blue suit, custom-tailored to his slender, athletic frame. Diamonds glittered on both hands and circled the face of his wristwatch. He checked his image in the rearview mirror, patting his stiff, processed hairdo back into perfection: he smiled at the reflection of his exquisitely featured face, perfect white teeth gleaming against his dark-parchment skin.

The pimp drove slowly past a street corner and came to a stop. A skinny girl in a short, tight red dress and matching high heels trotted toward the Eldorado as its window slid down. She leaned into the car for a minute. Dett could see her head nod vigorously under a luxuriant auburn wig. Then she ran around behind the car and got into the passenger seat. In less than five minutes, she got out, and the Eldorado pulled away.

Checking his traps, Dett said to himself. Just where the old man said he’d be.

Dett shadowed the Eldorado as it meandered. Mostly, the driver contented himself with just cruising by certain corners. Occasionally, he would pull over and pose, deliberately putting his status on display. Twice, hookers came to the car and got in, but neither stayed for longer than it would take to transfer recently earned cash.

“Silk don’t go out in daylight,” Moses had told Dett. “Like one of those vampires you see in the movies. Behind what he do, that make sense to me. Darktown, it’s not like around here, suh. Man wants to get a haircut, get his car fixed, stuff like that, he can get it done even when the sun’s way down.”

“So he pretty much stays in…?”

“Can’t stay over in Darktown all the time, suh. A pimp, he’s got to hawkeye his women while they working the street. And, you want to make money, you got to put your merchandise out where white men don’t be afraid to come. Got plenty of men around here like a taste of what Silk sells, but…”

“He doesn’t run any white women?”

“I think that’s all he runs, suh. Word is, he’s even got girls in some of the high-class houses. ’Course, you listen to any pimp, he’ll tell you he got nothing but racehorses in his stable.”

“So maybe the ‘word’ is just him, bragging.”

“You mean, to build himself up? That wouldn’t be Silk’s way, suh. A man in his job, he’s got to show a lot of flash, sure. That’s how he pulls girls. But the last thing he want to do is attract attention from the wrong boys.”

“The cops?”

“The Klan.”

“This seems pretty far north for the Klan, Moses.”

“That’s ’cause you ain’t colored, suh.”

I have to take him while he’s still on this side of the border, Dett said to himself, watching as the Eldorado positioned itself near a corner, just past the dull spray of an anemic streetlight. Halfway down the block, a sign hung suspended from a building front, the words STAR HOTEL barely illuminated by a surrounding rectangle of pale blue bulbs.

The Brougham was a pillarless four-door hardtop, the rear doors set “suicide” fashion, so that they opened out from the center. The pimp had all the windows lowered, creating a vista of white-leather-covered luxury for all who passed. He was leaning back, left hand on the mink-wrapped steering wheel, his right idly caressing a custom-made white Stetson.

“I want a girl.”

The pimp twitched his shoulders, startled. Despite his pose, he had been on full alert, consulting his side mirrors constantly, his eyes never at rest. Where had this white man come from?

“I don’t know nothing about no girls, man. Why don’t you-?”

Suddenly, the white man was in the front seat next to him, a.45 in his lap, aimed waist-high.

“Drive,” Dett said.

“Look, man, you don’t got to-”

Dett gestured with the.45. Moving with deliberate slowness, the pimp turned the ignition key. His left hand never left the wheel.

1959 October 03 Saturday 02:11

“He asked a lot of questions, Beau.”

“He’s supposed to ask questions, honey. That’s his job.”

“I thought his job was to fight.”

“Strategy is fighting, Cyn. I told you that, a hundred times. That’s why we got him, remember?”

“Why did he need all that information about the… houses?”

“Probably figures, all the people using them, some of them have to be people we might want to know where they are, sometimes.”

“You told Ruth to tell him whatever he wants to know?”

“Sure.”

“But, Beau…”

“Ruth knows what I meant by that, Cyn.”

“Because she understands men so well?”

“What’s the matter, honey?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? I know you better than that.”

“I guess I just don’t understand men and whores. Why anyone would want to… do things with someone they didn’t love. Didn’t even know. It’s… ugly.”

“And you’re beautiful.”

“Beau.”

“You are, Cyn. You know you are. If you hadn’t been stuck with a cripple baby brother to take care of, you could have-”

“I love you,” she said, fiercely. “I never wanted…”

“Me, either,” Beaumont said, torquing his powerful wrists to move his wheelchair in her direction.

1959 October 03 Saturday 02:40

In the secrecy of his room, the desk clerk angrily tore up a sheet of notepaper covered with neat, precise script.

Weak! he thought, contemptuously. Is that the handwriting of a warrior? No!

He returned to his task, starting with a fresh sheet. Save for the cone of light cast by the desk lamp, the room was in darkness.

It took him an hour to finish his letter. He read and reread the closing line: “Pure Aryan love.” Finally, the clerk nodded in satisfaction and signed his name at the bottom.

Karl

1959 October 03 Saturday 03:52

In three different parts of town, Procter, Sherman, and Rufus each watched a different house, shielded by darkness.

In another, a pimp drove slowly through a maze of streets toward the warehouse district.