Two Trains Running

“A steel mill? That’s what you think I’m going to do with my life, Kitty?”

“I didn’t mean-”

“Let me ask you something,” he interrupted. “Why are you going to that fancy college?”

“To get an education. It’s the only way I could ever hope to… to make something of myself.”

“Nobody just gets an education. You learn things so you can use them, don’t you? I mean, nobody takes Drivers’ Ed in school so they can learn all that crap about safety; they do it because they want to get a license. There’s a teachers’ college right over in-”

“I’m not going to be a teacher.”

“What, then?”

“I… I don’t know. But I know it’s going to be something. Maybe a doctor. Or a lawyer.”

“You?”

“Why not, Harley?” she said, her voice sharpening down to an ice-pick point. “Because I’m a girl? Or because I’m a-?”

A colored girl! flashed onto the screen of Holden’s mind. She talks just like a colored girl. He shifted his stance, a leafy branch reacting to a faint breeze, and leaned in closer, straining to listen.

“I… I didn’t mean what you think, Kitty. I just, I just know how people are.”

“People change.”

“No, they don’t,” he said, stolidly.

“I don’t mean individual people, Harley. I mean society. The whole world is changing. Not as fast as I would like. Not as fast as it should. But things are changing. If you looked anyplace but Locke City, you’d see it for yourself.”

“Things are changing here, too, baby. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. You want me to go someplace like Cleveland, where we could be together right out in the open, don’t you?”

“Of course I do. You think I enjoy sneaking around like I’m some kind of-”

“Cleveland, it’s different from here, sure. But not for the reason you think.”

“And what reason do you think I think?”

“Come on, Kitty. I drove up there with you once, remember? Sure, you can see couples, couples like us, walking around that little lake they have in the middle of the college. But a college, that’s not real life. Sooner or later, you have to leave, go out in the world.”

“There’s plenty of places where we could-”

“Oh yeah. Like Greenwich Village, I suppose.”

“What do you know about Greenwich Village, Harley?”

“My friend Sammy, he was there. During the war. I mean, he was on leave, in New York. Most of the guys wanted to go to Times Square, but a couple of them heard there was more action in Greenwich Village. So he went down there. Sammy said it’s all beatniks and stuff. Everything all mixed together.”

“Greenwich Village isn’t a town, Harley. It’s just a little part of a big city. New York. And my father says there’s places there where a Negro can’t even walk without some gang jumping on him. My father’s from down south. And he says, up here, it’s no better. It’s only that people talk different, not that they are different.”

“If you’re strong enough, it doesn’t matter what people say. Or even how they think.”

“Are you saying you’re ready to-?”

“Not yet, I’m not, Kitty. You think I’ve been stalling you. Not wanting to… I mean, like going to Cleveland. That’s not because I don’t want to work. I work. I work hard. But working in a mill, that means, every day you get up in the morning, you never know if you’re going to have a job to go to. It’s not anything you own.”

“Like your own business?”

“Exactly like that. And that, that’s where I’m going.”

“In Locke City? What could you possibly-?”

“Someday I’m going to be where Mr. Beaumont is, Kitty.”

“A gangster!”

“A businessman.”

“Some business,” she said scornfully. “Gambling dens and whorehouses and-”

“Those are just rumors. Mr. Beaumont, he’s in real estate. If you knew how much of the county he owns, you’d be shocked.”

“And that’s what you want? For yourself, I mean?”

“For us. I want it for us. You think if we lived in a big house like Mr. Beaumont’s, you think if I had all kinds of people working for me, people would say anything about you and me?”

“Of course they would! This is still-”

“Mr. Beaumont, he’s in a wheelchair. He can’t even stand on his own two feet. You ever hear of anyone calling him a crip, or a gimp?”

“I never did.”

“Right! Maybe they did when he was a kid, before he… before he made himself something. But now he’s a man that’s got everybody’s respect. Everybody wants to be Mr. Beaumont’s friend. You wouldn’t believe the people who come to his house. Like they’re visiting a king!”

“And you’re going to be a king, someday, Harley?”

“You’re going to be a doctor, aren’t you?”

Holden watched as the kerchief-covered head moved closer to the silhouetted flattop. He waited for the sex sounds, but they never came.

1959 October 04 Sunday 22:02

Dett drove slowly past a weak red neon VACANCY sign into a graded dirt clearing that housed a ramshackle collection of individual cabins. He parked the Impala in a patch of shadow and got out, a single suitcase in his hand. He walked toward a flat-roofed building with bilious lemony light spilling from its single window.

“Checkout’s at noon,” a wizened man in a stained blue vest worn over a faded-to-gray shirt said, placing a key on the countertop and palming the bill sitting there in the same motion. He studiously avoided eye contact.

Dett went back to the Impala, drove past Unit 11, into the unpaved darkness just beyond the parking lot. After taking a single suitcase from the trunk, he walked back to the empty cottage, turned the key, and let himself in.

1959 October 05 Monday 01:24

“He’s back.”

“Log him in, Dave.”

“I already did, Mack. I wonder what that cop wants this time.”

“Money,” the older man said.

“How can you know that?”

“See how he’s moving? Not parking where he did before. Not watching the house. He’s going around back.”

“Maybe he’s just scouting.”

“We know there’s nothing back there-not one car or person since we’ve been sitting here. Shouldn’t take him more than a couple of minutes to find out the same thing.”

“So?”

“So,” Mack said, “if he’s gone more than that, he’s doing business.”

1959 October 05 Monday 01:29

“He’s not going to hurt you,” Ruth said to Lola, as she fastened the last of the straps on the leather harness. The girl was on all fours, positioned on a raised platform that had been covered with a deep shag carpet, backed with a heavy layer of foam. “But I’ll be right outside the door. If there’s anything, anything, that gets you upset, all you have to do is say something.”

“You’re not going to-?”

“Those bitches never stop gossiping, do they? No, there’s not going to be any gag in your mouth. That’s a different trick. The men who like that, they know who to ask for. Like Brenda. She’s the one who told you, isn’t she?”

“She was just trying to-”

“-scare you out of this session,” Ruth finished for her. “You know why? Because she wants it for herself. When you’re all done, you’ll be hoping your card comes up next time, you’ll see.”

“Okay…”

“I’m going to put this on real loose,” Ruth said, gently draping a black muslin hood over the girl’s head. “You can breathe right through it, see?”

“I… Yes.”

“I’m going to turn out the lights as I leave. You won’t see him come in. And you won’t hear him, either. He’s not going to say a word.”

“Do I have to-?”

“No, you don’t have to say anything, either. I told you, he’s not that kind of trick. All you have to remember is to relax. Don’t tighten up. You cleaned yourself out, with what I gave you to take, yes?”

“Yes.”

“All right, Lola. You be good, now,” Ruth said. She patted the girl gently on her framed-and-displayed bottom, and left the room.

1959 October 05 Monday 01:54

“Can’t sleep, Beau?”

“I tried, honey. But even with my eyes closed, I kept seeing things. Things I should be doing.”

“What you should be doing is sleeping. It’s almost two o’clock in the-”

“I thought I’d work on my charts, Cyn.”

“You and those charts,” she snorted, affectionately. “It’s a good thing we’ve got so much room on the walls here.”

“You want to help?”

“What could I do, Beau? I don’t know any of the-”

“You help just by being here, Cyn. With me. Every time I have something to figure out, you just being there, it helps me. Makes things clear. Come on, what do you say?”

“I’ll make us some coffee,” Cynthia said, smiling.

1959 October 05 Monday 02:12

As Dett was eating directly from a white carton of chicken chow mein, chewing each mouthful slowly, Rufus was prowling Room 809 of the Claremont Hotel. In his hand was a flashlight, its face taped so that only a sliver of the beam shone through. He had left the door slightly ajar. Every other guest on this floor already in his room, he recited, comforting himself. This hour, they all asleep. Any man get off that elevator at two o’clock in the morning, got to be Mr. Dett. And got to be drunk, too.

Outside the room, two men waited, both dressed in what would pass for the maintenance coveralls issued by the hotel. If a white man, any white man, emerged from the elevator, one of them would alert Rufus. Then they would walk toward the man, waving their arms in silent, heated argument, blocking his view and delaying his passage. They were large, bulky men, so similar in appearance they could pass for brothers. Anyone getting off the elevator was not going to just stroll past them. And the back staircase was only seconds away, in the opposite direction.

Papers and numbers, Rufus thought, gingerly probing the contents of the chest of drawers. No. He shifted his attention to the desk, but again came up empty. The flashlight’s softly focused light played over the largest suitcase, the one Rosa Mae had said contained the mojo. Hoodoo bullshit, Rufus said to himself, like Silk thinking Mr. Dett’s real name is Mr. Scratch. But he didn’t open it.

Where’s the other suitcase? And that little case, too?

But a search of the closet drew a blank.

Never mind, Rufus assured himself. I already got what I came for.

1959 October 05 Monday 02:16

“He’s always at the top, isn’t he?” Cynthia said, pointing to a large rectangular piece of white oaktag, taped to the wall lengthwise. On its glossy surface was a collection of names, written in black grease pencil. Each name was circled, connected by lines to the others. The effect was as neat and orderly as a school presentation.

“Ernest Hoffman? Sure, honey. And he’s always going to be. I remember a word I read once. I don’t remember the book or anything, but that word, it always stayed with me. ‘Kingmaker.’ You see how strong that word is? There’s been four different governors of this state since the war. Only Jake Moore has managed to hold two terms, and he’s up again, soon. They come and go, but Hoffman, he’s always there. He’s the man who calls the shots.”

“Because he owns the newspaper?”

“That’s just a piece of it, honey. There’s a lot of papers around the state. Here, we’ve got the Compass. But only the Union Messenger goes statewide. Most people, they take two papers, the local and Hoffman’s. Plus, he’s got the radio stations, three of them. I’m pretty sure he owns Channel 29, too.

“And, see over there,” Beaumont said, pointing to the extreme left side of his chart, “besides everything else, he’s got the unions in his pocket. You know why? The same reason he’s got the governor. Because he decides who gets to be president of the locals. A kingmaker.”

“But he doesn’t touch anything of ours. Or of anyone else you have on that chart, Beau.”

“Oh, he touches it, all right, Cyn. Maybe not with his own hands, but he pulls the strings, and everybody dances to the tune he calls. The man who controls the vote controls everything, one way or the other. We own a few cops; Hoffman, he owns the police budget, see? You know what it means, to control where a new plant opens up, where a road gets built, what a garbageman’s salary is, which town gets a new school?”

“Everything.”

“Everything,” Beaumont echoed. “Shalare,” he said, pointing to another chart, “he’s trying to buy his way in, but he’s not playing for the same stakes. Shalare can pay a state senator to vote a certain way, that’s all. But that same senator, he ever crosses Ernest Hoffman, well, he’s not a senator anymore. That means his son loses his job, too. His nephew doesn’t get a promotion. His daughter’s husband doesn’t get to run for a judgeship. He’s all done.

“You see what I’m saying, girl. That’s real power. So, if a man wants to run for… even president of the United States, why, he’d have to come to Ernest Hoffman first. And he’d better come with his hat in his hand.”

“How did he get so powerful, Beau? There’s plenty of people with money…”

“It was his father’s money, first, and his father’s before him. See where it says not just ‘Ernest Hoffman,’ but ‘Ernest Hoffman III’? Like he really was a king-King Ernest the Third. His grandfather owned the big mines over in Stilton. That’s where it started.

“His father was the one who brought in the state police toput down the strikes. Crushed the union forever, people thought. But now, today, that union is back in power, a real force. What a comeback, huh? Only Hoffman, he owns it. It belongs to him. The president, McCormick? He’s so deep in Hoffman’s pocket that he probably thinks he’s back down in the mine shaft.

“You know what a man like Ernest Hoffman could do, if he wanted, Cyn? It’s his trucks that move goods; it’s his factories that keep people working; it’s his… his everything. During the war, why do you think they built that huge munitions plant down in Morgan County? Because, with Hoffman at the helm, the government had an ironclad guarantee that there wouldn’t be any union nonsense getting in the way. In New York, on the docks, they had to deal with Luciano to keep things moving-in these parts, it’s Ernest Hoffman. You see what I mean, honey? The real government isn’t sitting in the statehouse. It never is.”

“But it could be? Is that what you’re saying, Beau?”

“I thought about this a lot,” the man in the wheelchair said. “Some nights, when I can’t sleep, it’s all I think about. What you just said, it’s the secret to… everything. Like a magic key, that unlocks any door.”

“I don’t under-”

“Remember when you said it could be, girl? That’s what they think. Even what they believe, like in church. Let’s say you’re a politician, and you want to clean up Locke City, okay? Here’s your plan. First, you start small. You go along to get along. You take the money, you look the other way, you wait your turn. Then, one day, you’re in charge. The mayor, say. Now what do you do? You clean house. Top to bottom. The chief of police, the municipal judges, the commissioner of public works… You sweep them all out, then you bring in your own people. Honest men, every one of them. You make Locke City into the straightest town this side of heaven. And you know what that does, Cyn?”

“I can’t even imagine.”

“It kills the town. It kills Locke City like somebody put a bullet into the heart of every man, woman, and child who lives here. This town, it rose from the ashes once. When they closed down the mills, that should have been it. The only reason Locke City’s not a deserted village right this minute is because of the same things this great ‘reformer’ would be wiping out.”

Beaumont contemplated the tip of his burning cigarette-he couldn’t remember having lit one. “And that’s when the truth comes out, Cyn. Under pressure. The harder things get, the closer to the truth they are.”

“If things happened like you say, people would see it, wouldn’t they? They’d turn on him. And vote him out of-”

“The town couldn’t wait for that to happen. It wouldn’t survive. Takes too long for people to wake up, most of them. But not people like us. We know. A man who takes our money, our support, to get where he is, it’s because we expect things from him. We have a deal. And if he doesn’t keep up his end, all the new police chiefs in the world won’t help him.”

“People like us…”

“I don’t make the mistake the others make,” Beaumont said. “I know I’m no better than Dioguardi. Or Shalare. Or anyone else in our game. I may be smarter; I may have a tighter crew; I may be dug in deeper; but I’m the same as them. And you know what that means, hon?”

“No, Beau.”

“It means Ernest Hoffman, he’s the same as me,” Beaumont said, his voice steeled with utter conviction. “I’m a boss; he’s a bigger boss. He sees everything I see, but he’s standing on top of a much higher mountain, so he sees more. Maybe all the way across the country.”

“Why is he so important now?” Cynthia asked. “Because of the election next year you keep talking about? If you’re right, what difference does it make who wins? Locke City will still be the same.”

“It matters who wins because the power flows down through every political machine in every city in America, Cyn. I don’t care about history; I care about right now. And the reason Hoffman’s so important is because of this whole ‘truce’ thing. Shalare wants to meet with me. He says he’s already got Dioguardi signed up. We’re all supposed to be pals, put our weight into making sure the election goes the right way. Who could call for such a thing but Ernest the Third?”

“So you’re going to meet with him? Shalare?”

“Sure. And I’m going to make the truce, too.”

“Then why did you send for… that man?”

“Because it’s all lies, Cyn,” the man in the wheelchair said, coldly. “Every word out of every mouth is a lie now. When this is over, there’s only going to be one man in charge. In Locke City, I mean. And you know who gets to pick him?”

“Ernest Hoffman.”

“Yes. Ernest the Third himself. That’s why he counts. That’s why he matters. We can’t have gang war in Locke City. The only way to have peace is for Hoffman to pick a boss. He only has to say the word, and the Italians would tell Dioguardi to pack his bags. Shalare, I’m not so sure. But there’s other ways, and Hoffman, he’ll know them.”

“Why would he pick one over the other? Just to keep us from fighting?”

“Because it’s more efficient. Things work better when there’s one man in charge. You make a plan, you don’t have to worry about someone else making a different one. That’s all I think about now: how I can get Ernest Hoffman to see that it’s our organization he wants to run Locke City after the election’s over.”

“Have you ever met him? Hoffman?”

“Never once,” Beaumont said. “But I’ve been studying him for years.”

“That’s why you brought him in!”

“What do you mean, honey?”

“Dett. That man, he’s here to do something about Ernest Hoffman, isn’t he?”

“Not what you think,” Beaumont said. “But once I meet with Shalare, we’ll see if this Walker Dett’s really worth what he costs.”

1959 October 05 Monday 02:19

“I had to tell him something,” Ruth said.

Detective First Grade Sherman Layne leaned against the wall of Ruth’s office, expressionless, arms folded across his broad chest. Look at him, Ruth thought. Like a big piece of rock, covered with a thin layer of rubber.

“You didn’t see him,” she said, a rush of indescribable fears creating a vortex in her chest. “He’d do it.”

“Set this whole place on fire?”

“With everyone in it,” she said.

“And he said he worked for Beaumont?”

“Yes. And that’s what Beaumont himself said, too.”

“You called him?”

“I called him myself,” Ruth said, emphasizing the last syllable. “At a number I had, not one this man gave to me.”

“And you know Beaumont’s voice?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Are you saying Beaumont… knows?”

“No! Nobody ever did. Not about… you. But this man, he… he knows how it works. One of the girls who left, that’s who I think told.”

“It doesn’t matter,” the big man said, dead-voiced.

“It does to me!” Ruth said. “You know why I-”

“I just meant, it doesn’t matter how he knows,” Sherman said, his detective’s mind raising and rejecting possibilities. “He only knows about… what happens. He doesn’t know it’s me.”

“No.”

“And you didn’t…?”

Ruth lowered her face into her cupped hands.

“It’s all right,” Sherman said. “He hasn’t got any-”

“You bastard!” Ruth snarled, lifting her tear-streaked face to stare up at Sherman. “You thought that I… that I would ever…”

“Oh Christ, Ruth. I’m sorry. I was just trying to…”

“What? Make me feel better for betraying you? After all, what could you expect from a whore anyway, right?”

“I never-”

“Yes you did, Sherman,” she said, getting to her feet and moving over to where he stood against the wall. “You hurt me deep. You’re the only man on earth who can do that. The only man who can make me cry. I hope you’re proud.”

“I’m not proud, goddamn it! I’m… sorry, Ruth.”

“You should be sorry. Because I gave that foul man what he wanted, all right. A name. I told him it was Bobby Wyeth.”

“Hah!” Sherman chuckled, despite himself. “That was perfect. The last man in Locke City Royal Beaumont needs to blackmail is Mayor Bobby Wyeth. He already owns him.”

“And he does come here, Sherman,” Ruth said, eagerly. “Plus, he’s got his own… tastes. If a blackmailer just dropped a little hint-you know how they work; they’re very careful what they say-he’d probably even pay up!”

“That was really slick,” the big man said, admiringly.

“The man who came here, I wish you could have seen him, Sherman,” Ruth said, glowing under the big man’s praise despite herself. “He said he worked for Beaumont. But he said something else, too. He said he knew I didn’t.”

“Ruth, what are you talking about?”

“He said, this man, that he knew I was really in business for myself. Paying Beaumont was like paying tax. And if Beaumont was gone, I’d just pay someone else.”

“Seeing if you were loyal, you think?”

“No, Sherman. Telling me, I think telling me, that he was in business for himself, too.”

“That’s why you think his… source wasn’t Beaumont?”

“Yes. I’ve never seen him before. I don’t think he’s from around here, so I don’t know where he could have found out. But it was more like he was fishing than… I mean, I think he’s the kind of man who would hear a lot of things, but wouldn’t have any way of knowing if they were true. So, when he came here, I think it was really to see if whoever told him was lying.”

Dett, Walker, Sherman Layne thought, replaying the information he had vacuumed from the records of Ajax Auto Rentals. A gentle hint that someone who may have rented from them within the past month was a “possible suspect” in a bank robbery had been enough to get the clerk to turn over the ledger and step outside for a smoke that lasted a half-hour. Date of birth: March 3, 1920. Height: 6′1″, Weight: 175 pounds. Home address: Star Route 2, Rogersville, Oregon. No restrictions.

“I can never come here again,” he said aloud.

“I know.”

“Ruth, I apologize. Not for what I said, or even for what I was thinking… because I wasn’t. But if I hurt your feelings…”

“There’s another way,” she said, looking down.

“I-”

“If you want me, there is.”

“Ruth…”

“I’d do it for you, Sherman,” she said, tilting her face up to look at him. “I’d do anything for you.”

“I…”

“Yes you could,” she whispered.

1959 October 05 Monday 02:22

Carl stood under the shower in a cloud of steam, a safety razor in his hand. Everywhere! he repeated to himself, working with great care from the waist down.

When he finished, he rinsed off in an icy stream, shivering but determined. As a Spartan!

Carl turned off the shower spigot, parted the curtains, stepped out, and began to pat himself dry. While waiting for the mirror to defog, he worked baby oil into his skin with mechanical determination. Caressing his stiffened penis, Carl paused. Purity! he admonished himself, applying some of the oil to his swollen, hairless testicles. Then he coated his forefinger and penetrated his anus. I resist! By the time he was finished with his underarms and the soles of his feet, the mirror had cleared.

A cotton ball coated with a peroxide solution was Carl’s next tool. Years ago, before he learned, he had attacked any emerging pimples with such ferocity that he caused angry red blotches to appear against his fair skin. Now he cleansed with delicacy. If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right, he heard his mother’s voice in his head. He bared his teeth.

Perfect white teeth. Carl remembered the dentist, working the foot pedal of his drill during the excavation of a particularly deep cavity, pausing to compliment him. “You’d be surprised how a lot of big, strong men can’t take this,” the dentist had said. “They always want more and more novocaine. Now, you, young man, you’ve got the pain tolerance of a bull,” he had said, approvingly.

If you only knew, Carl had thought. Dr. Gottlieb was the best dentist in all of Locke City. The Jew has a natural capacity for intellect, just as the dark races have a natural capacity for strength. One would rule by insidiousness, the other by brute force. Only the Spartans bar the gates against them.

Carl gargled with mouthwash, then brushed his teeth for the second time since he had arrived home that evening. He inspected his nails. Why is it that a gangster can get a manicure without being thought… unmanly, but an Aryan warrior can never take such a risk? he thought, regretfully.

Normally, Carl wore only white silk boxer shorts and matching undershirts. But tonight, plain white jersey briefs and a sleeveless cotton T-shirt went on beneath a dark, tailored suit.

As he knotted his muted blue tie, Carl gazed longingly at the pair of black boots, polished to a brilliant shine, standing in the corner of his closet. He sighed and shook his head. Someday, he promised himself, settling for a pair of wingtips.

He walked down the short flight of stairs from his private, converted-attic suite to the second floor, his footsteps silent in the carpeted hallway as he passed his mother’s bedroom. Carl wasn’t concerned about waking her-she always retired within an hour after he came home from work, taking a sleeping draught with her glass of warm milk. If the neighbors heard his car start up in the middle of the night, they would just assume he was working an extra shift at the hotel-he often volunteered for such duty.

Carl opened the padlock and spread the doors of his garage wide. Inside sat his immaculately black ’57 Mercedes 190 sedan. It had originally been purchased in Germany, shipped home by a returning GI, and then offered for sale by a private party in Chicago. Fitting himself behind the wheel, Carl recalled that special trip. What a voyage of discovery that had been! My journey to myself.

His mother had argued ferociously against the purchase, persisting even after he pulled his prize into the driveway for the first time.

“I don’t see why you need a foreign car, Carl. And it cost the earth! Why, for what you spent, you could have bought a-”

“It’s my money, Mother,” Carl had replied, calmly. “I saved it myself. Besides, it’s not just a car; it’s an investment. Ten years from now, it will be worth more than I paid for it.”

“I don’t see how that could be,” she said, using that passively stubborn tone he hated so.

“Well, I guess we’ll see who’s right when the time comes,” he said, attempting to dismiss the issue.

“It’s just too much money. Especially on your salary, Carl.”

“I don’t really have much in the way of expenses, Mother. It’s not as if I had to pay rent someplace.”

Catching the implied threat, his mother had subsided.

But that was over a year ago. Tonight, Carl was alone in his perfect Reich car. He slipped the column shift into reverse, tenderly let out the clutch, and backed out of his driveway.

1959 October 05 Monday 02:51

Finished with his meal, Dett took a short length of rope from his suitcase and stood ramrod-straight. He held one end of the rope in his right hand, draped the length of it down his back, and grasped the other end with his left. Dett pulled at both ends of the rope, lightly at first. Then he increased the tension until the rope vibrated, the muscles in his arms and shoulders screaming in protest. He willed away the pain, breathing steadily and rhythmically through his nose, counting slowly to one hundred. He switched hands and repeated the exercise.

Dett stood under a hot shower for several minutes. Wearing only a towel around his waist, he took a small pair of steel springs from his suitcase. Placing one in each hand, he began to compress them, over and over, until his forearms locked and the springs dropped from nerveless fingers.

He stood up, rotating his head on his neck, first in one direction, then the other, making five full circles each time. Next, he unscrewed the top of a small hexagonal jar, dabbed his finger into the dark-red paste inside, and applied it to each of his hands. He dry-washed his hands until the paste was fully distributed and he felt a familiar tingling sensation.

Spreading fresh towels over the tatty carpet, Dett lay on his stomach, placing his hands, palms-down, on either side of his face. Then he raised his neck all the way back until his sternum was barely touching the improvised mat, and held the position for a count of six. He did four repetitions. Then he rolled over onto his back and slowly drew his body into a ninety-degree angle, sitting straight up, back perfectly aligned. He lowered himself to the mat, moving in small, smooth increments, feeling the tightening of his abdominal muscles with each repetition.

On arising, Dett walked to the far wall, placed his spread fingers against it, and pushed until his entire upper body cramped.

Dett stepped away from the wall, arms dangling at his sides, the middle finger of each hand barely touching his thighs. Slowly, he moved his hands behind his back until they met, and clasped them together. He took a deep breath through his nose, held it for a few seconds, then expelled it as he brought his hands up behind his back and over his shoulders in one smooth, continuous motion. When the arc was completed, his clasped hands were at his waist.

Dett held that position for a full minute, then repeated the entire exercise. He went back under the shower, toweled off, and lay down on the bed in the darkness, holding his derringer.

After a while, he closed his eyes. But he did not sleep.

1959 October 05 Monday 02:59

“What’s all that you writing, brother?”

“It’s what I found in that man’s room,” Rufus said. “Look for yourself.”

Kendall stepped behind Rufus. He saw a grade-school notebook-white ruled paper, bound in a hard black cover with a random pattern of white splotches. Rufus opened the book, as if displaying a trophy. The right-hand page was divided by a lengthwise line, creating two columns:

Under the columns was a string of addresses, all public buildings: the city library, the police station, the post office… and three different banks.

At the very bottom of the page, in the far right corner, was a ten-digit number.

“I thought you said there wasn’t nothing in his room,” Kendall said.

“There wasn’t,” Rufus replied. “But when I meet with the boss greaseball, Mister Dioguardi himself, this is going to be what I tell him I copied down, see?”

“Does it mean anything?”

“Only the long number at the bottom. And that one’s a pay phone, in a part of Chicago they call Uptown. White man’s territory. Ivory picked it up one day, on his route, and it went right into our information book. Now we finally got a use for it. Only I wrote it backwards, like it was in code.”

“You going to tell the man that, Omar?”

“What?”

“That it’s in code, man. Otherwise, what good is-?”

“Brother, listen to me. The last thing I would ever do is explain anything to those kind of people. See, niggers is stupid. We don’t know nothing. We just good little monkeys, taking orders, stepping and fetching. We smart enough to take money for stuff they tell us to do, but that’s about it. You understand?”

“No,” Kendall said, his voice tightening. “I know how you always be saying-”

“Yeah, K-man. I always be saying, but you don’t always be listening. Look, we’re not a ‘minority’ for nothing, understand? That means just what it says-there’s more of them than there are of us. Always going to be like that, too. So we learn to slip and slide, hide what we got. And what we got the most of is brains, brother. Those ‘race leaders’ of ours,” Rufus said, his voice clotting with disgust, “they’re all about convincing the white man he’s wrong about us. We’re not ignorant apes that only want to fuck their women-with our giant Johnsons, don’t forget-no, not us. We good boys. They should call us ‘Negroes,’ not niggers, or jungle bunnies, or spooks. They should let us go to school with them, work in their businesses, ride on their buses.”

Rufus unconsciously shifted into his natural orator’s voice, but kept the volume down. “But the ‘good’ whites, they don’t see us as equals. No, to them, we’re pets. And you got to take care of your pets. Make sure they get enough food and water, right? See, pets, they don’t want to be free. No, they just want to be taken care of.

“So let them think we’re all like that. Why do you think we’re raising those puppies out back, brother? Whitey thinks we all scared of German shepherds, because that’s the dogs they use on us down south. White man thinks, I got me a German shepherd, I never have to worry about no nigger burglar, okay? But dogs, they’re like children. They don’t have no natural hatred of any race. They have to learn that. So we’re raising our own.”

“Our own children, too,” Kendall said, proudly.

“Yes, brother. But you can’t teach a child if you can’t feed a child. The child will not respect the father who doesn’t take care of him and protect him. You got millions of black children in this country, and who’s their father? Uncle Sam, that’s who. The white man, the Welfare. Same thing.

“We got to have our own, K-man. Our own businesses, our own money. Our own land. And the only way we even get that chance is to sneak up on Whitey.”

“But the NAACP-”

“Let them walk their own road, brother. Let them eat white rice, even though everybody knows the brown rice is better for you. Let them straighten their hair, bleach their skin. Let them marry whites, they love them so much. You know where the word ‘nigger’ comes from?”

“No, man. I don’t.”

“Me, neither. But I know what a ‘spook’ is. A spook is a haunt. A ghost. Something you scared of. The white man who calls us spooks, he’s not lying. How many of our people got hung from trees? Shot like mad dogs? Dumped in graves nobody will ever find? All those dead niggers, that’s their ‘spooks.’ I can hear them, calling to me.”

“For real?”

“Real as life, brother. Real as death. You know how a preacher say he ‘got the call’? Well, I did, too. Not to preach. Not to yell and scream and beg. Jesus ain’t for us. If he was, he wouldn’t be white. And he wouldn’t stand by and let them do us the way they do.”

Rufus’s voice dropped a few degrees, in volume and in temperature. “Let Mister Dioguardi be happy with his tame nigger, Rufus Hightower. Nigger like Rufus, he be too stupid to make up some phony list and say he copied it down from what he seen in the man’s room. He’ll never see the real me, brother. You can’t actually see a spook.”

“Never see us coming, you mean!” Kendall said, holding up a clenched fist.

The man he called Omar tapped Kendall’s fist with his own, a blood oath.

1959 October 05 Monday 03:10

Carl loved this time of night. Or, rather, morning, he corrected himself. On the other side of town from where he ruled the Claremont’s front desk, it was as if he rode through a transparent-walled tunnel, watching the filth and degeneracy of the streets flare like a match just before it dies. He could feel the desperation just outside his steel-and-glass cocoon, the whores and junkies and con men and burglars and drunks and… all trying to make one last score, one final connection, one more try, before they were driven back by the coming morning, when the good citizens would take back the streets. Temporarily.

Carl wished they could meet at HQ. How glorious that would be, especially in the meeting room itself, with the crossed flags standing sentry to their cause. But he understood why this was never to be.

The warehouse district was a thing of such beauty that it sometimes brought moisture to Carl’s eyes. Most, he knew, would look upon it as a cluster of abandoned buildings, symbolizing the death of the town’s industries. But Carl saw a different symbol entirely. He saw… Cleansing! This is how whole cities will look, someday. The streets empty, free of vermin, awaiting the occupation of the Master Race.

1959 October 05 Monday 03:51

“Lights,” the man seated behind the tripod-mounted binoculars said to his partner.

“Ready.”

“Turning. Got a… I’m not sure what that is. Wait! It’s the Mercedes.”

“Romeo, Zulu, nine, two, zero?”

“Roger.”

“Logged.”

“Turning left into Sector Four. Hey! Hear that?”

“I don’t hear anything,” the other man said.

“Neither do I,” the spotter said. “Even with all these windows open.”

“So he’s parked?”

“Yeah. Close by.”

“This is our post.”

“Come on! This is the third time. Whoever he is, he’s not out for a night drive.”

“We’re not supposed to-?”

“We can go over the roofs,” the spotter said. “They’re all pretty much the same height. He can’t be more than a block or two away, and we’d still have-”

“-the high ground,” the other man finished. He unzipped a padded bag, removed a heavy-barreled rifle. “All right, but it has to be quick.”

1959 October 05 Monday 03:54

The Commander’s car was nowhere in sight, but Carl was unconcerned. He flashed his brights three times, quickly. A door next to what had once been the loading bay began to climb upwards, slowly exposing an empty slot. Carl knew the electricity to the warehouse had been cut off years ago, and the Commander was cranking the door by hand.

Carl backed his Mercedes into the open space. He watched through the windshield as the door descended, turning his whole world dark.

1959 October 05 Monday 03:59

“Now what?” the man holding the rifle whispered.

“Somebody opened that door for him. From inside.”

“You want to try to get-?”

“No. We’re in perfect position here,” the spotter said. “Let’s just wait. We only saw one come in. What we want is to see everyone who comes out.”

1959 October 05 Monday 04:02

Karl climbed out of his Mercedes. He closed the door lightly behind him, but the sound was still audible in the empty building. Suddenly, a hand-a powerful hand, it always was, when Karl called up the image in the privacy of his shower-grasped the back of his neck. Obediently, Karl allowed himself to be propelled forward, his eyes now picking up the streaks of phosphorus that appeared on the concrete floor. Arrows, pointing the way to his destiny.

Around a corner, and there was light. Faint light, from a three-cell flashlight, positioned so close to the wall that only a pale aura was visible. But there was enough light for Karl to see the roll of carpet on the floor. And the blanket-covered sawhorse.

The hand on the back of his neck clamped tightly, but Karl never flinched. His hands were steady as he undressed.

“The Spartans never went into battle without the special strength they drew from their Boys of War,” the Commander said, his lips an inch from Karl’s ear.

1959 October 05 Monday 04:44

“Car number one-”

“The known.”

“Right. Car one-the known subject-entered Sector Four at oh three fifty-one. Entered Building 413 at oh three fifty-four. Exited oh four thirty-six. Car number two-unknown subject, Foxtrot, Echo, Bravo, eight, eight, one, local plate-exited oh four forty.”

“He must have come in from across the open ground to the east,” the rifleman said. “That’s why we haven’t see him before, I bet. But now, whoever he is, he won’t be unknown in a few hours.”

1959 October 05 Monday 05:58

“Nice time for a briefing,” Special Agent David L. Peterson said grumpily to his partner. “Six in the morning.”

“The Bureau never sleeps,” Mack Dressler replied laconically.

“Nothing ever bothers you, does it, Mack?”

“Not anymore, it doesn’t,” the older man said, settling himself in a metal folding chair.

A tall man in a navy-blue suit suddenly strode into the large room. He had dark hair, worn slightly longer than current Bureau fashion, and an aristocratic face.

“I’m betting Yale,” Mack whispered. “He looks a little too loose for Harvard.”

“Gentlemen,” the man at the podium addressed the thirty men seated before him. “My name is M. William Wainwright, Special Agent in Charge of the Organized Crime Task Force, Midwest Branch. I’ve called you in this morning to review our objectives and bring you up to speed on the current initiative.”

“The Invisible Empire,” Mack muttered sarcastically.

“The Klan?” his younger partner whispered.

“Pretty hard to be invisible when you’re walking around with a sheet over your head, partner,” the older man answered, his voice as soft and dry as sawdust. “This guy’s talking about the Mafia. You know, the mob the boss said didn’t exist until a couple of years ago.”

“As you already know,” the speaker continued, “there exists within America a tightly organized network of criminals. Originating in Sicily, this…”

As the speaker droned on, two assistants entered from the side, one carrying a large easel, the other several sheets of poster board. When they completed their setup, the speaker unclipped a pen-size object from his breast pocket. With a snap of his wrist, a professorial pointer emerged.

“This,” he said, “is the overall structure, at the national level.” A brief biography of each individual followed. “As you can see, there is a quasi-military structure to the organization, with a distinct chain of command.”

“Jesus,” Mack said, very softly.

His partner moved a few imperceptible inches away from the heretic.

“But that’s just background,” the speaker said, his tone indicating he was about to say something important. “In this region, our specific target is one Salvatore ‘Sally D.’ Dioguardi. Originally a member of the Mondriano family in Brooklyn, New York, Dioguardi was dispatched to Locke City approximately four years ago, with orders to wrest control of local rackets from one Royal Beaumont.”

The speaker’s assistants placed charts of the two organizations side by side on the easels.

“Beaumont is a local product, with no national connections. However, he is well entrenched, with deep roots in local politics, and Dioguardi has not been successful in dislodging him. The Bureau has been aware of the situation since its inception. However, as activity was relatively stable, and, presumably, well-known to local law enforcement, no Bureau role was envisioned.”

The speaker paused to gauge the impact of his presentation on the audience. His quick glance took in a wall of attentive postures and flat faces-a tabletop full of face-down cards.

“Recently, one member of the Dioguardi gang was severely beaten. He is still comatose. Two other members were assassinated. No arrests have been made. According to our sources within the Locke City Police Department, there are no suspects.

“Note, Dioguardi himself appears to share the view that Beaumont is not responsible for the attacks. Our profile of Dioguardi indicates that he is a rash, impulsive individual, with a violent temper. And hardly an intellectual,” the speaker said, chuckling.

None of the assembled agents joined in.

“Therefore,” the speaker went on, unfazed, “we do not believe we are facing a gang-war situation as has occurred in larger cities around the country. In fact, several of our RIs have reported rumors of an impending truce of some sort. Any potential alliance of criminal organizations is of great interest to the Bureau, especially one that involves Mafia families and outsiders. We have no record of this occurring previously, although, of course, nonmembers have worked with Mafia organizations on many occasions, and even formed working partnerships.”

“So pay close attention…” Mack said, just below a whisper.

“Every agent in this room has been working in a remote surveillance capacity of some sort,” the speaker continued. “Placing undercovers inside either of the organizations in question is not a viable option. So the information provided by our Registered Informants is, admittedly, secondhand. The purpose of the Task Force is, therefore, to begin the process of information sharing. The Bureau is extremely interested in these ‘truce’ rumors. So, once weekly, we will be meeting. Same time, same place. And once all the new information is assimilated and correlated, we’ll have-”

“-more fucking charts,” Mack said, under his breath.

“-a clearer, more comprehensive picture of whatever the various parties hope to gain from a joint enterprise.”

1959 October 05 Monday 06:44

“He never even mentioned the Irish guys,” the spotter said to the rifleman, as they drove back to their base in the warehouse district. “You think that means Shalare’s not a player?”

“No,” the rifleman said, “it means that kid in the fancy suit-Wainwright?-he’s not.”

1959 October 05 Monday 07:09

“I got it, boss!”

“You sure?”

“Boss, mebbe I ain’t sure ‘xactly what I got, but I got something, I knows that much.”

“What we were talking about?”

“Yes, sir. Just like you said there was gonna-”

“That’s enough. When can I see it?”

“I’m at work, boss. I don’t finish till six. I could-”

“Too much traffic then. Make it eight.”

1959 October 05 Monday 09:39

“You wasn’t in your room last night, suh,” the elevator operator said to Dett. “Even though it looked like you was.”

“How do you know all that, Moses?”

“Know it looked like you was, ’cause the maid said the bed all messed up when she came in to do your room earlier this morning. Knew you wasn’t, ’cause somebody else was.”

“Who?”

“Can’t say, suh. But I thought it might be something you would want to know.”

“Much obliged,” Dett said, offering his hand to shake.

The elevator operator hesitated, then grasped hands with Dett, felt the folded-up bill inside, and pulled it back with him. “Hope you didn’t give me too much, suh.”

“I don’t catch your meaning.”

“What I told you, wasn’t no big surprise to you.”

“How do you know that?”

“ ’Cause other peoples knew you was gonna be out real late, suh, if you came back at all. And I figure, a man like you, that can’t be no accident.”

“You’re an even sharper consultant than I first thought, Moses.”

“There’s a room I got here, suh. Not no room like you got, not a sleeping room or anything. More a big closet, like. Down in the basement, off the boiler room. Got me an old lock on it, but I don’t need it. Nobody would go in and mess with old Moses’s junk.”

“Why not?”

“ ’Cause, all the years I been here, I got a lot of friends. And I know a lot of things. Plus, I’m an old man, so, sometimes, I forget to lock that room for days on end. People got themselves plenty of chances to look inside, see what I keep in there.”

“And what’s that?”

“Got me a nice easy chair. Came right from this here hotel. They was going to throw it out, but I rescued it, like. I got a little table, a big green ashtray on it. And a picture of my wife, when she was a young girl. Most beautiful girl in Tulia, Texas, she was. I like to sit there, all by myself, just smoke me a sweet pipe of cherry tobacco. When I look at the picture of my Lulabelle through the smoke, it’s like she’s right there, still with me.”

“She’s gone, then?”

“Left me it’ll be twenty-eight years this December, sir. Just before Christmas.”

“I’m sorry.”

“She was took with the cancer,” the old man said. “It came at midnight, the Devil’s time. When she woke up the next morning, it had her in its clutches. And it never did let her go.”

“I… I don’t know what to say.”

“That says a lot about you, suh.”

“I don’t-”

“This little room I got,” the old man went on, as if Dett had never spoken, “it’d be a perfect place if a man wanted to keep something outside his own room. That is, if the man trusted old Moses enough to do it.”

“What time do you get off today?” Dett said.

1959 October 05 Monday 10:06

“You know what the other cops call you? ‘The Great Sherman Layne.’ What do you think that means?” Procter said, sardonically.

The calculated dimness of the bar was perfectly suited to morning drinkers. Even the mirror facing the two men was a murky pool of misinformation.

“It means you’ve got something on Chet Logan,” the detective said, the image of the jowly cop coming readily to mind. “Same as you got something on the chief. And probably half the people in this town.”

“You think it’s only Logan calls you that?”

“I’ve got no idea,” the big detective said, indifferently. “But he’s the one who caught the Nicky Perrini case, and with you nosing around the way you always do…”

“You think that’s a bad thing?”

“What?”

“To go nosing around.”

“It’s always a bad thing for somebody,” the detective said. “Sometimes, the guy who gets found out; sometimes, the guy who does the finding.”

“That sounds like a threat,” Procter said, tapping his glass on the counter for a refill.

“Good advice usually does,” Layne said, unruffled. “When I was in uniform, we’d get these radio runs to what they call a ‘domestic.’ Always means the same thing: somebody beating up on his wife. What you’re supposed to do, a case like that, is take the guy aside, talk to him like a Dutch uncle. That is, unless he went too far, and the woman’s nearly dead. Or just plain dead-that happens sometimes.”

Procter raised his freshly refilled beer glass and his eyebrows at the same time, asking the detective if he wanted another. Sherman Layne shook his head “no,” and went on with his story. “Now, what you tell a guy in a situation like that is, he keeps it up, he’s headed for trouble. See, there’s things in life the law just can’t allow to go on, because they always end up ugly. You keep beating on your wife, one day you’re going to hurt her so bad that you’re going to jail, even if she won’t press charges-and they never do, not that I can blame them-or kill her, which means the Graybar Hotel, for sure. And there’s other nasty possibilities, down that same road. Maybe your wife, she’s got a father with a short fuse and a long rifle. Or a brother who’s handy with a baseball bat. See what I mean?”

“Yeah.”

“Anyway I remember one night, I’ve got this guy outside, and I’m telling him all this. But he doesn’t listen good. He takes it like I’m the one who’s going to come over there and hurt him if he keeps on doing like he was.”

“What happened?”

“Well, like I said, he was a bad listener. He was so damn sure that what I was telling him was a threat instead of good advice, he hauled off and took a swing at me.”

“Do I have to guess the rest?”

“I don’t think you do. You see what I’m saying, here?”

“Sure. You’re telling me about a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

“Those happen,” Layne affirmed. “And they’re never accidents.”

“I’m not interested in you,” Procter said, throwing back half of his beer in a single gulp.

“That’s funny,” Layne said. “Because I’m sure as hell interested in you.”

“Me? Why?”

“Because you’re a real lone ranger, Jimmy. You don’t have friends, you’ve only got sources. And that’s the way you want it, I think. See, you’re an addict. Been one your whole life, I’m guessing. Only it’s not dope you need, it’s information. You don’t get your fix, you get… Well, we all know what a junkie will do for his dope.”

“You’ve got my job confused with my personality, Sherman. How would you like it if I said you needed to solve crimes?”

“I might not like it,” the big man said. “But that wouldn’t make it a lie.”

1959 October 05 Monday 10:11

Back in his room, Dett checked the top drawer of the bureau, not surprised to find that the hair he had plastered across the opening with his own saliva had been disturbed. But the medicine chest in the bathroom was open the exact same half-inch he had left it, the sliver of toothpick holding it open still firmly in place. And the suitcase he had left behind had not been touched.

Nobody’s that good, he thought. But Moses wasn’t lying, either.

Dett drew the shades and the curtains, then lay down on the bed, fully dressed. He drifted off to Five o’clock! flashing behind his eyes like the VACANCY sign at the motel where he had spent the previous night.

1959 October 05 Monday 11:17

“You see that guy, over at the corner table?” the pudgy man behind the counter said.

Harley Grant looked over at a tall, rail-thin man in doeskin dress slacks and a black Ban Lon short-sleeved shirt, which displayed pipestem forearms that tapered to narrow wrists and pianist’s hands. He was fox-faced, with a night-dweller’s complexion and feral eyes. His dark hair was combed into a high pompadour.

The man was playing alone, beneath a large NO GAMBLING sign. Harley watched him lightly tap a solid-red ball into a side pocket-the cue ball hopped slightly, then gained traction and flew backward, caromed off two cushions, and settled in the same place it had started from. The shooter stalked the table, eyeing the green felt with the hyper-focused concentration of a diamond cutter; his split-second hesitation at the full extension of each metronomic backstroke reminded Harley of a round being chambered.

“Yeah,” he said, expressing no interest. “So?”

“That’s R. L. Hollister, Harley. They call him Cowboy.”

“Who calls him Cowboy?”

“Everybody does. Supposed to be the best one-pocket man east of K.C.”

“Yeah? Well, I never heard of him.”

“Which of the top players have you heard of, Harley? Shooting stick, that’s not your game.”

“Fair enough, Benny. But I know enough to know if you recognized him other people will, too. So how’s he going to make any money here?”

“The Cowboy’s no hustler,” Benny said, almost indignantly. “He’s a professional. Like the men who sit in on the big stud game at Toby Jesperson’s club. They don’t come in wearing disguises; they come to take the other guy’s money, right out in the open.

“That’s the beauty of the games Mr. Beaumont runs, Harley. You guys supply the dealer, you supply the cards, the tables… everything. So a man can concentrate on playing without worrying about someone pulling a fast one. The house takes its tolls from the pot, so it doesn’t care who wins. Nice and clean. People come from all around just to-”

“That’s poker, Benny. Not pool. We don’t have anything like that for-”

“But you could, right?” the pudgy man said.

“What do you mean?”

“Harley, I’m kind of… sponsoring, I guess you call it, a little tournament here. Starts Wednesday night. In the back room, I got a brand-new Brunswick table. Just the one. It’s absolutely perfect, that table. Dead level. Nobody’s ever played on it, not one rack.”

“How are you going to have a tournament on one table?”

“That’s just for the championship. The final match. See, every player antes five hundred bucks, and they play double elimination.”

“Benny…” Harley’s face matched the “get to it” tone of his voice.

“Okay, look, I’ll make it simple. Nine-ball. Race to five. Nine racks, max. First guy to win five games, he moves on. You lose two matches, you’re out. And the action’s quick. Just the way people like it.”

“What’s the prize?”

“Five grand for the winner,” Benny said, flushing with pride as Harley raised his eyebrows, “and a deuce for the guy who comes in second. Whatever they want to side-bet between them, that’s their business. But we’ll have a board up here, too, so anyone can get a bet down, anytime he wants.”

“With you?”

“Well, they place the bets with us, but they’re really betting against themselves. Parimutuel, like at the track. See, we keep the records, we hold the money, and we make the payouts. So we-”

“-take your piece off the top.”

“Exactly! Just like when you run a dice game. Only, here, we’re the house, see?”

“When were you planning to tell us about this, Benny?”

“Today!” the pudgy man exclaimed, one hand over his heart. “You always come Mondays, don’t you? Listen, Harley, this could be big. Action like what we’re planning on, it brings people in. The place will be packed for a week. And the back room, it’s all fixed up special. Wait’ll you see it. Got this beautiful blue carpet on the floor, a couple of girls to serve drinks, leather chairs to sit on, everything. People’ll be proud to pay twenty-five bucks, have a ringside seat for a championship match like this one. Tell their kids they once saw Cowboy Hollister himself play. The final, it’s going to be five games. Five sets of games, I mean. First man to win three sets, the money’s his. We can handle bets on every game. Hell, every shot, if people want. We’ve even got a little kitchen back there. When people drink, they want to eat.”

“You’ve been planning this a long time.”

“A real long time. Harley, I’m telling you, the day will come when Benny’s Back Room-that’s what I’m calling it-is famous. Just like Ames’s in Chicago or Julian’s in New York.”

“How much is it going to cost you?”

“Cost me? I’m going to be making a bundle. You’ll see, when you get your cut.”

“How much did it cost you, get this Cowboy guy to come and play?”

The pudgy man took off his steel-framed glasses and polished them with a clean white handkerchief. “I can see why people say what they say about you, Harley.”

“And what’s that?”

“That you’re going be the boss around here someday.”

“Try it without the Vaseline, Benny. Just tell me what I asked you.”

“Five,” the pudgy man said, not meeting Harley’s eyes.

“You mean you paid his entry fee, or you…?”

“Five large. But, look, Harley, it’s an investment, okay? You know how many boys, think they’re holding hot sticks, already entered? Thirty-one, and we still got two more days to sign people up.”

“That’s fifteen five, and you’re paying out twelve,” Harley said, acknowledging the wisdom of the math.

“Not counting our cut of the wagering pool, the money from the drinks and the food, and… we’ll make another bundle just from tickets to see the final. I’m telling you, Harley, this thing’s a mortal lock.”

Harley lit a cigarette, leaned back, and exhaled a puff of smoke, thumb under his chin. He was the very image of a man considering a complex proposition, wanting to be scrupulously fair about it. “If this guy is so great, how come so many people want to try him?” he finally said.

“A guy I knew in the army, he once fought Sonny Liston.”

“Yeah?” Harley said, drawn in despite himself. “What happened?”

“What happened? Sonny knocked him out, what do you think happened? Only man ever to beat Sonny was Marty Marshall, and that was when Sonny got a broken jaw in the middle… and he still finished the fight, lost on points. Now, Marshall, he could bang. But when Sonny got him back in the ring, six months later, it was lights-out for that boy.”

“Why are you telling me this, Benny?”

“Jesus, Harley, don’t you get it? Just being in the ring with Sonny Liston, that’s something that you can brag on forever. Makes you special. Sonny, he’s going to be world champion as soon as he gets a title fight. Nobody beats him, so it ain’t no disgrace to lose to him, see? I love that guy. Why, it’d be an honor just to shake his hand, wouldn’t it?”

“Yeah, okay, I get it,” Harley said, thinking, Be an honor just to shake his hand, huh? Long as it’s not happening in your living room. Maybe Kitty’s right. No matter how big I ever got in Locke City…

“Well,” Benny continued, “if you’re a pool player, that’s what playing Cowboy Hollister would be like. Now, I don’t mean a pro player. Some of them, I’m sure, they think they can take him, any given night. And with a game like nine-ball, they could be right. But when it comes to one-pocket-”

“Uh-huh,” Harley said, absently, looking around the poolroom.

“Someday, people are going to talk about the great matches they seen in Benny’s Back Room like they talk about when they seen Stan Musial go up against-”

“You’ve been real up-front about all this, Benny.”

“You know I’d never do nothing without what I cleared it with you, Harley. But, see, I knew you’d love this.”

“That’s a lot of money you’ll have around, Benny. Are you going to need any extras?”

“Nah. Everybody knows this place has Mr. Beaumont’s protection. Who’d be crazy enough to try and rob us?”

“Somebody who was crazy,” the younger man said.

“Well… maybe you’re right. We’re not that far from the South Side. Can I get a couple of men for finals night?”

“We’ll send you three,” Harley said. “Two at the usual rate, the other on the house.”

“Hey, thanks, Harley!”

“Yeah. The third man, we’ll put him right on the cashbox. All night long. Just to be on the safe side.”

“Put six men on it, all I care,” the pudgy man said, grinning. “I’m not doing this for the money.”

1959 October 05 Monday 11:23

“I was just trying to be a gentleman,” Mickey Shalare said into the phone. “I asked for the meeting, so it’s only right that I come to you, at your convenience.”

“Is tomorrow afternoon all right with you?” Royal Beaumont replied, his voice as steel-cored courteous as the Irishman’s.

“Well, that would be fine indeed. Anytime at all, just say the word.”

“Four o’clock?”

“Just the time I would have chosen for myself.”

“Anything special I can have for you here? What do you drink?”

“Ah, Mr. Beaumont,” Shalare said, chuckling, “if you have to ask that question, I can tell you’re not familiar with my reputation.”

“Oh, I think I am,” Beaumont said. “Do you need directions to my place?”

“I surely do,” Shalare said. “I know it’s way out in the country, somewhere, but I could be wandering around for hours. You won’t mind if I bring a driver? He wouldn’t be sitting in on our meeting, of course.”

“Bring whoever you like,” Beaumont said. “We’ll take care of them.”

1959 October 05 Monday 11:38

“Daddy Moses, could I talk to you?”

“You can always talk to me, gal. You know that.”

Rosa Mae scuffed the toe of her flat-heeled white shoe against the just-vacuumed mauve carpet that covered the eighth-floor hallway. She looked at her shoes as if fascinated by the sight.

“What is it, child?” Moses asked her. “You in some kind of trouble?”

“No. I’m not… No! I wouldn’t never-”

“There’s all kinds of trouble,” the elderly man said, soothingly. “I wasn’t thinking about… what you was.”

“I… I need to ask your advice about something. But I’m a little scared.”

“Scared of Moses? How that going to be? You know I’m-”

“That’s what I mean!” Rosa Mae said, plaintively. “You’re like a father to me. Since I come to work here, you always look out for me, and…”

“And what, child?”

“And I couldn’t bear it if you was to think… if you didn’t think I was doing right.”

“You call me ‘Daddy,’ and it does two things, Rosa Mae,” the old man said. “It makes me proud, ’cause if I had been blessed with a child, I’d want her to be just like you. And it makes me… makes me responsible, too. A good father, he don’t judge. If there’s something you need, I help you. That’s all there is to that. I ain’t no preacher. Whatever you got yourself into-”

“Oh, Daddy,” Rosa said, eyes shining with barely restrained tears, “it’s nothing like that. Nothing like you think. Can I come down to your office later, and just… talk?”

“Sure you can, honey. We do it at lunchtime, all right?”

1959 October 05 Monday 11:44

The dull-orange ’53 Oldsmobile pulled up in front of a fire-gutted building on Cardinal Street, barely inside Hawks territory. Five teenagers in black-and-gold jackets were lounging on the stone steps; three sitting, two standing.

The front passenger door of the Oldsmobile opened, and a well-proportioned youth stepped onto the sidewalk. He was wearing a mustard-yellow satin shirt and black peg pants, saddle-stitched to match his shirt. The pants were sharply creased, billowing at the knee before tapering to a tight cuff as they broke over pointy-toed alligator-look shoes. Dark aviator-style sunglasses concealed his eyes.

“Who’s Ace?” he asked.

One of the standing Hawks pointed without speaking, recovering some of the face lost when their leader had not been recognized.

“Let’s go,” Sunglasses said.

The leader of the Hawks got to his feet. Slowly, making it clear he was not responding to a summons but accepting an invitation. As he started toward the Oldsmobile, two Hawks moved next to him, one on each side.

“Just him,” Sunglasses said, pointing.

“It’s all right,” Ace told the others. “There’s no room in there for any more of us, anyway.”

Sunglasses opened the back door. A heavyset young man, dressed identically to Sunglasses, stepped out, gesturing with his head for Ace to climb in.

The Hawks watched as the Oldsmobile pulled away, their leader sandwiched between two Gladiators in the back seat. Hog turned to Larry. “Wait’ll they see,” he said, nodding his head to notarize the promise.

1959 October 05 Monday 11:56

“I’ll be seeing him tomorrow,” Shalare said into the phone.

He listened for a few seconds, then said, “Yes, I know how important this is, Sean. I’m not a man who has to be told the same thing twice.”

Another pause, then Shalare said, “You’ll know as soon as I do. Or as soon as I can get to a phone.”

Shalare hung up. “Brian,” he said to the man seated across from him, “sometimes I wonder about some people.”

1959 October 05 Monday 12:00

Dett awoke at noon. He brushed his teeth, then opened the brass canister and washed down several crimson flakes with two glasses of water, taken slowly and deliberately.

From his closet, he selected a dove-gray suit, an unstarched white broadcloth shirt with French cuffs, and a blue silk tie. He placed all three on the bed, and looked at them critically for several minutes.

From a small jewelry case, Dett removed a pair of silver cufflinks, centered with a square of lapis, and a pewter tie bar.

Picking up the phone, he called the front desk.

“Would I be able to get a pair of shoes shined?” he asked.

“Of course, sir,” Carl answered. “Shall I send a boy to your room to collect them, or would you prefer-?”

“If you’d send someone up, that would be great.”

“Ten minutes,” Carl promised. “And you would need them back…?”

“In a couple of hours?”

“Absolutely!”

1959 October 05 Monday 12:22

Wedged between the two Gladiators in the back seat, Ace resisted the urge to touch the talisman concealed in his jacket. He was torn between relief that he hadn’t been searched and anger that the rival gang hadn’t even bothered.

Sunglasses puffed on a cigarette, flicking the ashes out the open window. None of the other Gladiators smoked. Nobody offered Ace one.

Instead of turning east, as Ace expected, the Oldsmobile crossed Lambert Avenue, motoring along slowly. Kings turf, Ace thought to himself. And they’re just driving through it, like it was theirs. He kept his hands on his thighs, hoping his expression showed how profoundly unimpressed he was.

The Gladiators’ Oldsmobile did a leisurely circuit of the area, even driving right past the block of attached row houses on South Eighteenth, where the Kings had their clubhouse.

Look at all the niggers, standing there on the corner like they owned it, Ace thought. If you had a machine gun, you could just mow them down, like cutting the grass.

The Oldsmobile finally turned east, then headed back across Lambert, and into Gladiator territory. As the driver parked in front of an apartment building on Harrison, all four doors opened in unison, and the Gladiators stepped out. Ace slid across the seat cushion and followed, feeling the presence of the others surrounding him as he walked.

1959 October 05 Monday 12:26

“Why are you always pulling stuff like that?” Dave Peterson asked his partner.

“Like what?”

“You know what I mean, Mack. Wisecracks and all.”

“What are we doing here?” the older man asked, suddenly.

“Here? You mean here, on surveillance? Or here, like… our purpose in life?”

“Dave,” the older man said, wearily, “I thought we came to a gentlemen’s agreement on that stuff. I know you’re a good Christian. Hell, anyone who gets to listen to you for ten minutes knows that. And you, you know I’m a sinner, going straight to hell.”

“I never said-”

“Yeah, I know. Never mind. Look, what we’re doing here, we’re doing our job.”

“You always say that.”

“What else do you want me to say, kid?”

“I wish you wouldn’t call me that.”

“Why not? I’m old enough to be your father, aren’t I? Doesn’t that make you wonder?”

“I don’t under-”

“Come on. You know I’ve got more than thirty years on this job. I go back to the days when Capone was running things. So how come I don’t have an ‘SAC’ after my name? How come I’m partnered with a rookie?”

“I… don’t know. I guess, maybe, to teach me some of the-”

“You don’t know, but you’ve heard, haven’t you?”

“I’m not a gossip,” the younger man said, stiffly.

“I know you’re not,” Mack said. “You don’t smoke, you don’t drink, you don’t gamble, you don’t cheat on your wife, and all you want to do is serve your country.”

“Why do you have to-?”

“I’m not mocking you, kid. I mean it,” Mack said, his voice just short of affectionate. “Okay, look, I’m going to answer my own question. What are we doing here? Our job. And what is our job? We’re blackmailers, kid. You, me, and the entire Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

“Mack!”

“That’s the way things get done,” the older man said, calmly. “That’s the way people stay in power. Because there’s one thing on earth that’s more valuable than gold or diamonds, Davy. Information. The most precious commodity of all. You get enough on a man, it’s like there’s a handle growing out of his back. And whoever’s hand is on the tiller, he gets to steer.”

“That’s not blackmail; that’s just… law enforcement.”

The older man leaned back in his seat and lit a Winston, ignoring the younger man’s frown. “Law enforcement means keeping tabs on people who are breaking the law, kid. But the Bureau watches everybody. If the boss had his way, he’d have a file on every man, woman, and child in America. Wouldn’t be surprised if he already did.”

“Well, the way things are today-”

“Don’t start with that ‘Communist’ nonsense, again, Dave. That’s just a cover story. We’re supposed to be cops, not spies. That’s the CIA’s job.”

“But the CIA can’t work in America. It was the FBI that caught the Rosenbergs. And it was the Bureau that-”

“The Bureau spies on people because that’s what it does, kid. And they’ll be doing it long after Communism’s dead and gone.”

“You’re… you’re wrong, Mack. We’re not spies, we’re crime-fighters. America’s most important-”

“Yeah, I know. Doesn’t it strike you as unfair that we have to play by the rules and the bad guys don’t?”

“Well… sure. But if they did play by the rules, there wouldn’t be any need for us at all.”

Mack tossed his still-burning cigarette out of the side window of the plain-Jane sedan. “Want me to tell you a story, Dave?”

“I… don’t know,” the younger man said, warily.

“Oh, it’s a good one,” Mack promised. “You want to hear the inside scoop on how we nailed Al Capone?”

“I already know that. The Chicago police weren’t ever going to stop him. Probably half of them were on his payroll. But the Bureau got him on income tax, and that finished him and his whole empire.”

“Not a word of that’s true, kid.”

“Al Capone didn’t go to prison for tax evasion?”

“Of course he did. That’s not what I’m talking about. You want to hear the story or not? We’ve got another four, five hours to sit here and wait, anyway.”

1959 October 05 Monday 12:29

“Take the chair, child.”

“Oh, no, Daddy. That’s your chair. I’ll be fine on this,” Rosa Mae said, carefully perching herself on an upended crate.

“Bother you if I smoke my pipe?” Moses asked, holding up a long-stemmed white clay model as if for her inspection.

“Daddy, you know I love the way that cherry tobacco smells.”

“Never hurts to have manners,” the old man said.

“Yes, sir.”

“Come on, gal. I know you didn’t give up your lunch break for no reason. What you want me to help you with?”

“Daddy Moses, what do you think of Rufus Hightower?”

“That boy? Why you be asking-? Oh, I see…”

Rosa Mae lowered her head for a moment, then turned her amber eyes on Moses. “That’s what I want to know, Daddy,” she said, very softly. “What do you see? Because, sometimes, I see him… different than the way other people do. At least, I think I do.”

“Rufus is a very intelligent young man,” Moses said, cautiously. “A lot smarter than he let most folks know. But that’s nothing so strange, gal. Our people been doing that since we was on the plantations.”

“Oh, I know that,” Rosa Mae said. “But that’s for dealing with white folks, not our own. Rufus, he… Daddy, sometimes, it seems like he is two different people. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“One minute, he all diddybop, right?” Moses replied. “Got his mind on nothing more than a bottle of wine, some sharp clothes, a nice car, and a piece of-excuse me, gal-and as many women as he can catch. Next minute, he all serious. Not preacher-serious, all righteous and stiff: serious like he got plans.”

“That’s it!”

“He been talking to you, child?”

“Well, sure. I mean-”

“Don’t go all country-girl on me, Rosa Mae,” the elderly man said, sternly. “You know what I mean when I say ‘talking to you.’ ”

“Yes, Daddy,” she said, meekly. “He’s been talking to me.”

“Both parts of him?”

“Yes! Oh, Daddy, I knew you’d understand. Sometimes when Rufus talks to me, he’s like all the others. You know what I mean.”

“Wants to be the boss rooster.”

“That’s him. That’s him sometimes. But other times, it’s like he really, truly… sees me. Not just… you know. Me. The real me.”

“You know what they say about a good burglar, little girl?”

“No, Daddy.”

“He can’t get in the door, he’ll try the window.”

“Yes,” Rosa Mae said, sadly. “My momma always told me that, only she said it different.”

“Your momma was done wrong by a man, honey. She just don’t want you to make her same mistake. That’s natural.”

“You know my momma?”

“Know her story, is all. She’s a whole lot younger than I am. We don’t be going to the same places.”

“My momma goes to church,” Rosa Mae said, tartly, smiling to take the edge off her words.

“So did I, child. Went every day when my Lulabelle had the cancer. Prayed and prayed. Spent so much time on my knees, I wore out the pants of my good suit. I promised God, You let my woman live, You can have whatever you want from me. Take me instead, You want that. But He didn’t listen to me then. And I don’t listen to Him now.”

“I’m sorry, Daddy,” Rosa Mae said, eyes misting. “I was only playing. And I should know better.”

“That’s all done, gal,” Moses said, drawing on his pipe. “Now it’s time for you to tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

“Whatever Rufus asked you. Or told you. Whatever it is that’s got you all upset.”

“You know the man who stays in 809? His name is-”

“Yeah, that’s Mr. Dett.”

“Yes. Rufus, he is very interested in that man. And what he asked me… what he asked me, would I look around his room. Not take anything,” she said, unconsciously putting her hand over her heart, “just tell him what I saw while I was cleaning.”

“Rufus don’t steal,” said the elderly man, surprising himself with his spontaneous defense.

“Oh, no, Daddy. It wasn’t nothing like that. I know it wasn’t.”

“So you did it.”

“Yes, sir. Yes, I did. And Rufus paid me, too. So I figure someone must be paying him.”

“Now, that sounds like the boy.”

“You mean, a hustler? I know he does that, Daddy. I know he brings things to men in their rooms. Even… you know. But that isn’t why he has me so confused. See, other times when Rufus talks to me, it’s… it’s like I said, he’s got plans.”

“And you in those plans?” Moses said, catching on.

“I… I think that’s what he’s saying. Daddy, did you know Rufus was a race man?”

“A lot of those young boys say they race men, but that’s just putting on a show for the girls.”

“I know. But Rufus, when he talks, it feels like truth to me, Daddy. I don’t know what to do.”

“Well, at least you told me something, child.”

“What’s that?”

“You got feelings for that young man. Real feelings. And you know what that means?”

“No…”

“Means I got to make it my business to take a closer look at him.”

1959 October 05 Monday 12:34

This is beautiful! Ace thought, as he was escorted into a large room with freshly painted white walls, furnished with a couch and two easy chairs, all covered in the same tan leatherette. A blond wood coffee table was set in front of the couch, a matching set of red glass ashtrays positioned at each corner.

“This is the President’s office,” Sunglasses said. “Just have a seat,” indicating one of the easy chairs. “He’ll be here in a few.”

The escort team positioned themselves at various points around the room.

“This is some setup you got here,” Ace said.

Nobody answered.

Like that, huh? he thought to himself. Okay, motherfuckers. You want ice, you got ice. He lit a Camel, leaned back in the chair, half-lidded his eyes.

As Ace ground out the butt of his cigarette in the red glass ashtray, a man of average height entered the room. He was wearing a fingertip-length black leather jacket over a black dress shirt, buttoned to the throat. His dark-blond hair was worn long on the sides and square-cut across the back. He looked to be in his early twenties, with what Ace thought of as a hillbilly’s face-narrow, long-jawed, with suspicious brown eyes. Lacy Miller himself, Ace thought. President of the Gladiators. Should I…?

The man in the leather jacket crossed the room and held out his hand, interrupting Ace’s thoughts. Ace got to his feet, and they shook. Lacy’s grip was perfunctory. Got nothing to prove to the likes of me, Ace thought, resentfully.

The President of the Gladiators stepped back and took the un-occupied armchair. As he settled in, the other gang members took seats, too. All except for Sunglasses.

“It’s still on for Wednesday night?” Lacy asked.

“The Hawks will be there,” Ace assured him.

“How many Hawks?”

“Well, I can’t say exactly. We’ve got seventeen counted, but there could be more. There usually is.”

“The Kings have got at least thirty men,” Lacy said, his tone indicating that he would not entertain a contradiction.

“Thirty niggers,” Ace said.

Sunglasses snorted.

“You think a nigger’s blade doesn’t cut as deep?” Lacy said, his voice mild and unthreatening.

“I didn’t mean nothing like that. Just that, well, the Hawks can hold their own, even if we’re outnumbered. We done it before. Plenty of times.”

“You know what that comes from, ‘holding your own’?” Lacy asked.

“Comes from?” Ace said, confused.

“Where it started,” Lacy said, patiently. “It came from the pioneers. The ones who went out west, a long time ago. They went out there to farm, or ranch, or pan for gold. To do that, you had to stake a claim. Sometimes, people would try and take it from you. Indians, maybe. Or white men too lazy to work for what they wanted. You had to fight them off your land. Hold your own, see?”

“Yeah,” Ace said, thinking, This guy, the President of the Gladia-tors, he talks like some faggy schoolteacher. Jesus.

“So-you see what I’m telling you?” Lacy said, smiling as if he read Ace’s thoughts… and forgave him the mistake. “You-the Hawks, I mean-you never really did hold your own.”

“The niggers wouldn’t dare to move against us on our own turf,” Ace said, hotly.

“Why should they?” Lacy countered. “They don’t want your territory; it’s on the wrong side of town. But that lot on Halstead, that’s No Man’s Land, right?”

“Well… well, sure it is. I mean, it’s just a whole block of dirt and junk. Nobody even lives around there.”

“Uh-huh. Last time you rumbled there, who won?”

“We did,” Ace said confidently, knowing each side would tell a different story. Hell, he thought, when a rumble’s over, everyone tells a different story… ‘specially those who weren’t even there.

“So you won… what, exactly? A fight?”

“What else is-?”

“There’s the land, is what I’m telling you. When you win a war, you get the land, right?”

“Nobody wants that land, man. It’s just a-”

“Yeah, I know. But, see, if you control land, you can do things with it.”

The same thing those Klan guys were telling me, Ace thought. “I see what you mean,” he said, aloud.

“We’ve been thinking about that property ourselves,” Lacy said. “So we’re going to send along a few men Wednesday night. Just to make sure the Kings don’t try anything extra.”

“That’s cool.”

“And after it’s over, that lot on Halstead, it’s going to be Gladiator turf,” Lacy said, his voice subtly downshifting to a tighter gear.

“Well, I guess. I mean, we got this treaty-”

“The treaty means you don’t move on us and we don’t move on you. It means you can walk through our turf flying your own colors and you don’t get jumped. It doesn’t mean we’re partners.”

Ace felt his face flush. He lit another cigarette, quickly glancing down to satisfy himself his hands were steady. “If your club went to war, we’d be right there with you,” he said.

“That’s not going to happen,” Lacy said. “You see what it says on our jackets now?” He nodded to his right.

Sunglasses plucked a white satin jacket from the seat of a straight chair in the corner. He held it up in both hands, displaying the back, with its ornate red script yoked across the shoulders:

Gladiators SAC

“Social and Athletic Club? You’re going collegiate!?” Ace blurted out. “The Gladiators always been the strongest bopping club in the whole-”

“Relax,” Lacy said, holding up his palm like a traffic cop. “What we’re doing is moving up. Rumbling, that’s for kids. We’ve got bigger plans. Who needs the cops looking over your shoulder every minute?”

“They don’t bother us,” Ace said, struggling with what he was hearing.

“No offense, but why should they, unless you’re getting it on with some other club?”

“Yeah, I can see that, but…”

“But what?”

“It’s like… I don’t know, not what I expected, maybe. What do you want us to do?”

“Do? Nothing. You have your meet Wednesday night. After that, it’s over.”

“No warring with the-?”

“Listen, when it comes to other clubs, you guys do whatever you want. But not on Halstead. Wednesday night is going to be the last rumble in that lot. On that whole block, in fact. The Kings cross your border, it’s okay with us, you kill every last one of them. And if you decide to go down on them, jump them in their own territory, that’s your business, too. Wednesday, we’ll have enough men there, make sure you guys come out all right. But after that, the lot on Halstead, it’s Gladiator turf. Understand?”

“We’ll come out all right,” Ace said, sullenly.

“Because they’re niggers?” Lacy said.

“No,” Ace told him, pausing dramatically, “because they ain’t got nothing like what we got.”

“What’s that?”

“This,” Ace said, slowly taking the pistol out of his jacket.

Nobody moved.

“It’s not loaded,” Ace said, thrilling inside at the silence he had produced. “I’d never bring a loaded piece inside your clubhouse.”

1959 October 05 Monday 13:18

“You know how old Capone was when he went to prison?”

“Fifty?” Dave guessed.

“Just a little past thirty,” Mack told him. “And when he was released, he was barely forty. So how come he didn’t move right back in, take over the rackets again?”

“He was sick, I thought.”

“He was sick all right, kid. Paresis, you know what that is?”

“Like, cancer?”

“No. His brain was all rotted out. From syphilis.”

“Ugh. That’s…”

“What? A nigger disease?”

“I didn’t say-”

“I’m not accusing you of being prejudiced, Davy. But that is what you heard, isn’t it? That only coloreds get it?”

“No. That’s not true at all. In the army, they showed us this film-”

“And gave you the short-arm inspection when you got back from leave, sure. But that’s for the clap, gonorrhea. Syphilis, it’s what the colored people call ‘bad blood.’ Compared to the clap, it’s like a howitzer against a rifle.”

“How come you know so much about this?”

“That’s another story. Now you’re hearing this one. So pay attention. Syphilis, it’s a special disease. When you got the clap, you know it-it burns like hell when you take a piss. But the syph isn’t like that. When you first get it, what they call the primary or the secondary stage, you get these sores on your body. Right at the same spot where you… made contact. They look like all holy horror, like leprosy or something, but they don’t hurt. And here’s the special thing about them: they go away. All by themselves.”

“You only get it from having sex?”

“Yeah. No matter what else you might have heard, that is the only way. And it doesn’t matter what kind of sex, okay? So even queers get it. Anyway, if you ever go into a neighborhood where it’s all colored-not just a place where they let them live, where it’s wall-to-wall black, businesses and everything-you’ll find some of what they call ‘men’s doctors.’ They’re not real doctors. Not even witch doctors,” Mack said, making a sound of disgust. “They’re just con men. You come to one of them with syphilis sores and they’ll sell you some potion supposed to be just the thing for it. So, when the sores go away-and they always do-you think you’re all cured. Only you’re not.”

“But if the-”

“There’s a third stage. They call it ‘latent’ or ‘tertiary.’ What that means is that you can’t pass it along to anyone else. You’re not what they call ‘infectious.’ But you’re sure as hell infected. It’s a freakish disease. The worse it looks, the less it’s doing to you. And when you think it’s gone, it’s actually eating you alive.”

“Killing you?”

“One way or the other, yeah. Sometimes, it goes after the heart. Sometimes, the liver. Paresis, what Capone had, means it went after the brain. By the time he got out of prison, he was a walking vegetable.”

“With all his money, why didn’t he just go right to the hospital?”

“He did,” Mack said. “But by then it was too late. See, in those days, they used to treat it with all kinds of different drugs, like ’606.’ Sometimes they worked, sometimes they didn’t. Today, we have penicillin. For syphilis, that’s the KO punch. Kills it, every time. But even if they had had it back then, it wouldn’t have mattered. Because all it can do is stop the disease in its tracks-it can’t repair any damage already done. Once syphilis gets to the brain, that’s the end.”

“Where would Al Capone get syphilis?”

“Well, the story is, he got it when he was working muscle for Johnny Torrio back in New York, when he was just a kid himself. Torrio was a major pimp, had a whole string of whorehouses, so Capone could have been dipping his wick anytime he wanted.”

“Then he thought it went away, but, all the time, it was-”

“-killing him, yeah. That’s the story. But it’s not the truth. See, Al Capone had syphilis, all right. But he didn’t get it when he was a kid-he got it in the federal penitentiary.”

“How? If he was-”

“When he first got busted for taxes, he made some kind of a deal to plead guilty. According to him-and I mean him, not some rumor; that’s what he said-he was supposed to draw a deuce in the pen, and cover all the charges with that. But he bragged to the papers about it, and the judge-a federal judge, remember-said he wouldn’t go along. Hell, with all that press, he couldn’t go along, or it would look like he was on the mob’s payroll, too. Get himself investigated. So Capone went to trial. And he ended up with eleven years.”

“You think, if he had kept his mouth shut-?”

“We’ll never know. Anyway, they put him in the Cook County Jail while he was waiting to see how his appeals came out. And, kid, let me tell you, he ran the place. Had three private cells to himself, fixed up like a hotel suite. He ate steak and lobster, drank the best bonded booze, had all the ‘visitors’ he wanted, too.

“When he lost his appeals, he was sent to the federal pen in Atlanta. And he ran that place just like he ran Cook County. The man was a king inside those walls. And that’s when it happened.”

“The syphilis.”

“Yep. Girl named Noreen Tisdale. Most gorgeous blonde you ever saw in your life. Face like a schoolgirl, and a body like Candy Barr-never mind, trust me, she was a real stunner. Visited that scar-faced greaseball five times, just to make sure.”

“Wait! You’re saying she knew-”

“Knew? That’s what she was paid for, kid. First, she had to fuck a guy who had the syph-early stage. Then she had to be checked by a doctor, make sure she had it. And then she goes and lets Capone fuck her, any way he wanted it. By the time she was done with him, that was it.”

“But couldn’t a doctor-?”

“What? Fix him? Maybe… maybe… if he’d gotten to one in time. But, soon as they were sure they had him infected, they boxed him up and shipped him to Alcatraz. That’s when Big Al stopped running the show. No more special treatment. No privileges, no nothing. And the only thing the doctors they had in there ever treated was stab wounds.”

“Why would any woman do… all that?” Dave said.

“Her husband was sitting in the Death House at the Georgia State Pen. Bank robbery, and a guard got killed. He got a pardon from the governor when another guy confessed to the crime. Turned out her husband was innocent all along.”

“Jesus Lord!”

“Yeah. She was some kind of woman.”

“Her? I meant… an innocent man on Death Row. It’s so…”

“He was guilty as sin, Davy.”

“But you just said-”

Mack drew a long, deep breath. Let it out slowly. Turned to the younger man and said, “It was a business deal, son. All the way around. Noreen did the job, and she got paid what she wanted for it. And what we got, we got Capone.”

“We? You don’t mean-?”

“Yeah, I do. That was just an experiment, at the time. And it worked. Nobody knew exactly what would happen if a man got syphilis and never got any treatment at all. Not for sure, anyway. Can you imagine what you could do with something like that? A disease you get from sex? The Krauts had their mustard gas in World War I. This, this could be bigger than that by a thousand, a million times. If you knew how to keep it under control, use it only when you wanted to use it, you could own the whole damn world.”

“Mack, how could you know all this?” Dave demanded.

“Because that was my job then.”

“Al Capone?”

“No, kid,” the older man said deliberately, as if the words were too heavy for his breath to carry them. “Noreen Tisdale.”

1959 October 05 Monday 14:49

“Benny’s Poolroom,” the pudgy man answered the phone.

“I want to leave a message for Harley Grant.”

“Shoot,” the pudgy man said.

“Tell him that part he wanted for his Chevy just came in. The one he’s been waiting for.”

“Sure. Who’s-” Benny started to ask. But Lacy Miller, President of the Gladiators, had already hung up.

1959 October 05 Monday 14:51

“The car wasn’t satisfactory, sir?” the clerk at the rental agency asked.

“No, it was fine,” Dett said. “Only I believe I need something a bit… nicer.”

“Well, we do have a Buick Invicta available. It’s a real beauty. Brand-new, really. But it’s quite a bit more than-”

“I’ll take it,” Dett said.

1959 October 05 Monday 15:28

Tussy’s bedroom looked as if it had been freshly burglarized, by a ham-fisted drunk. Drawers hung open, their contents strewn about the room. The bed was hidden under a blanket of discarded dresses, sweaters, and blouses. The back of the room’s only chair was draped in brassieres, its seat covered with panties.

All this… junk! she admonished herself, surveying the mayhem. The red one is too tarty, the black one is for funerals, and that blue one is for an old lady. What am I going to-?

Surrendering, Tussy went into her kitchen and poured herself a cup of coffee. “You want something, too?” she asked the enormous gray-and-black cat who was perching regally on one of the padded chairs.

When the animal responded with a rumbling noise, Tussy poured a dollop of cream into a saucer and set it out on the floor. The cat calmly strolled over to her offering, sniffed it suspiciously, then lapped it up.

Tussy sat down at the chrome-legged kitchen table and lit a smoke. Glancing at her watch, she realized she still had a couple of hours to go before her date. After all this aggravation, I’ll need another shower before I get dressed, she thought, absently patting the curlers in her hair.

1959 October 05 Monday 15:40

Dett inspected his newly polished shoes with a jeweler’s eye.

“Those look all right to you, sir?” Rufus asked, anxiously. Thinking, Those shoes, they’re just like the man himself. Nice and smooth on top, but they got rubber soles and steel toes.

“They look better than when they were new,” Dett told him. “Whoever you’ve got doing shoes at this place is an ace.”

“Did them myself, sir. Not to be downing the boy who usually do them, but I wanted them to be perfect. And I know, you wants a job done right, you does it yourself.”

“Why do you talk like that?” Dett asked, suddenly.

“Huh? What you mean, boss?”

“That’s what I mean,” Dett said. “You’re an educated man. Why do you talk like you’re not?”

“Educated man? Me? No, sir. I ain’t got no education, ’cept for up to the tenth grade at Lincoln-that’s the high school over in-”

“Help you get bigger tips?” Dett asked, as if Rufus had not spoken.

“No, sir, I don’t believe it do.”

“I don’t blame you for not trusting me,” Dett said, handing Rufus a folded five-dollar bill. “Thanks for the shoes. You did a beautiful job.”

1959 October 05 Monday 16:01

“Fuck!” Hog said to Ace. “Why’d you show it to them?”

“You weren’t there, man.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means, the way they talked, it was like we were the niggers.”

“But the treaty-”

“You’re not listening, man. The treaty, all it means is, the Gladia-tors aren’t going to move on us. But, see, what they were saying-and this is from Lacy himself-they wouldn’t be doing that anyway. Bopping, that’s kid stuff to them now. Big shots.”

“I thought Lacy hated Preacher.”

“Maybe he does, but he sure didn’t act like it. It was… like they didn’t give a fuck, one way or the other. The only thing they cared about was the lot on Halstead. After Wednesday night, that’s theirs. Maybe if the Kings tried to claim it-’hold their ground’ is what Lacy said-that’d make him call an all-out. But it doesn’t matter anymore. The plans we had, they’re no good now.”

“We still gotta show. Otherwise…”

“You think I don’t know that, man? But no matter how it comes out, we’re never going to end up part of the Gladiators, not now. Remember how we had it figured? After the meet, after they see what we can do, we get asked to come in with them? Sure, I don’t be President anymore. And you wouldn’t be Warlord. But men like us, we could move up in the organization, be a part of something big. That’s all gone, now. So I’m thinking about what those Klan guys told me.”

“About Fat Lucy’s and-?”

“Yeah. See, it’s like someone talked to the Gladiators, too. About the same thing, only bigger.”

“What are we going to do, Ace?”

“First, we’re going to take care of the Kings,” the young man said, grimly. “Then I’m going to ask to see Mr. Dioguardi. He’ll know what we should do.”

1959 October 05 Monday 17:21

Dett shaved slowly and meticulously. He patted witch hazel onto his cheeks, and started to dress. His face was a frozen mask, his mind a cloudless night sky.

1959 October 05 Monday 17:29

Tussy grunted as she tugged a panty girdle over her hips, finally letting out a breath when it was in place. She attached her stockings-a brand-new pair, purchased earlier that day-to the garter clips, then shrugged into a pale-pink bra trimmed in lace around the top of the cups. Next came a dark-gray pencil skirt-her earlier attempts to fit into it had necessitated the girdle-a lightly ruffled ice-blue silk blouse, and a peplum jacket that was a mate to the skirt. Finally, ankle-strapped black pumps with three-inch heels.

Tussy walked over to the full-length mirror and surveyed the result of her handiwork. Her makeup had been applied before she dressed herself. The glass reflected a radiant beauty. Fatso! she said to herself, sticking out her tongue at the mirror.

1959 October 05 Monday 17:40

When the elevator car opened on the eighth floor, Dett entered, carrying a leather shaving kit in his right hand.

“I wonder if you’d mind holding on to this for me until I get back,” he said to Moses.

The old man pulled a folded brown paper bag from inside his uniform jacket. He snapped open the bag, inserted the shaving case, rolled the bag closed tightly, and deposited it atop the padded stool next to the brass control lever. He moved the lever to the right, and the car slowly descended.

Neither man spoke until the car opened in the lobby and Dett stepped out.

“You have yourself a good evening, suh,” the operator called out.

Dett walked over to the front desk, waited patiently as Carl finished speaking with one of the maintenance men, then asked, “Do you know where I can find a good flower shop around here?”

“At this hour?” Carl said, glancing at his watch.

“Yeah,” Dett said, his voice shifting tone so slightly only a human mine-detector like Carl would have noticed. “Right now.”

“Give me a moment,” Carl said. He picked up the desk phone, dialed a number from memory. “Laurel,” he said, to whoever answered, “we have a guest who needs some flowers. Yes, I know you close at six. But this is a VIP request, Laurel. The Claremont would very much appreciate… Hold on,” he said, turning to Dett. “Did you have any particular flowers in mind?”

“Just nice ones.”

Covering the receiver with his hand, Carl leaned toward Dett ever so slightly, said, “Forgive me if I seem intrusive, sir. But there are flowers one brings to a lady, flowers one leaves as an offering, although that would be more a floral arrangement…”

“I’ve got a date,” Dett said, the spaces between his words so measured, the effect was just short of mechanical. “I want to bring her some flowers.”

“Ah! Excuse me…” Carl removed his hand from the receiver, said, “Laurel, we can make do with American Beauties. I know you still have some very fresh ones from earlier. Of course long-stemmed. And, I think”-glancing over at Dett-“some whites, too.” Catching Dett’s confirmatory nod, Carl went back to the phone: “No, Laurel, not a dozen. That’s so… ordinary. Let’s have six white, with three red, centered, of course. Wait…” Turning to Dett, he said, “Their boy has already gone for the day; they won’t be able to deliver. Shall I send someone over to collect them for you, or would you prefer-?”

“I’ll pick them up myself,” Dett said. “Just tell me where I have to go.”

“He’ll be there in, say, ten minutes, Laurel. We won’t forget this.”

Carl hung up. “It’s really not even five minutes from here by car,” he said to Dett. “I’ll just draw you a little map.”

1959 October 05 Monday 18:45

Tussy peered out from behind the living room curtains. It was six-forty-five in the evening, past dusk, but the street was alive, as if the unseasonably warm weather had turned back the calendar. The men in work clothes had been home for a while; the ones in business suits always came later. A man played catch with a boy wearing a blue baseball cap with a white bill. Tussy didn’t need a telescope to read the embroidered logo on the cap-anyone in her neighborhood would recognize the colors of the Beaumont Badgers, the Little League team sponsored by Beaumont Realty.

Some of the men were doing what Tussy always thought of as weekend work-washing their cars, mowing their lawns. A pack of kids were playing touch football in the street, making the kind of noise that quiets every mother’s anxiety. A little girl jumped up and down excitedly in front of her parents, telling them something wonderful. The neighbor’s beagle-a notorious escape artist no fence could contain-charged across a backyard, chasing an invisible rabbit.

Parents watched as a bronze Buick came slowly down the block, silently approving of the driver’s cautious approach. It was more than his being alert to the ever-present possibility of a child or an animal darting into the street-somehow, it felt as if he was showing respect for their neighborhood, like a man who knew enough to take off his hat in church.

They all watched as the Buick pulled to the curb in front of Tussy’s house. Tussy watched, too. And when a tall, neatly dressed man emerged from the car, a bouquet of roses in his hand, and started up her flagstone walk, she thought, Now they’ll have something to talk about for weeks!

Dett felt eyes on his back. He didn’t feel endangered; he felt… appraised. Squaring his shoulders, he tapped the brass door-knocker gently, the sound barely registering.

He counted to seven in his head, and was just reaching for the knocker again when the door opened.

Tussy.

“Hi!” she said. “You’re right on time. I’m almost ready. Come on in.”

Dett stepped across the threshold, holding out the flowers. “These are for you.”

“Oh, they’re just lovely! I never saw roses like that, so… perfect.”

“Well, I-”

“I have to put them in something. I think I have… Oh! I’m sorry; I have no manners. Please sit down; I’ll be back in a minute.”

Dett looked around the small living room, dominated by a large couch made of some dark wood, with an ornately carved frame into which sky-blue cushions with a white fleur-de-lis pattern were inset. In front of the couch was a simple slab of white-veined pink marble, standing on wrought-iron legs. The floor was wide pine boards, with knotholes showing through a gleaming coat of varnish. Against one wall was a small hutch, backed by a mirror. Its shelves held framed photographs, some hand-painted porcelain figurines, and what looked like military medals.

He took a cautious seat on the edge of the couch, back ruler-straight, unsure of where to put his hands, eyes trained on the door through which Tussy had departed.

The gray-and-black cat entered the living room, regarding Dett with unflinching yellow eyes. His thick tail twitched twice, then he effortlessly launched himself onto the seat of an armchair upholstered in the same fabric as the couch. The cat curled up comfortably, his bulk covering the cushion completely. His eyes never left the intruder.

“Oh, you met Fireball,” Tussy said, smiling as she came back into the living room.

“He looks like someone should have named him Cannonball,” Dett said, making a face to show he was impressed.

“Yes, he’s a big fat load now, aren’t you, boy?” Tussy said, scratching the monster behind his ears, a move instantly rewarded with a sound like a trash compactor. “It was my dad who named him. Even when he was a little kitten, he was the laziest cat on earth. ‘A real ball of fire,’ my dad said one day, and it just stuck.”

“I never saw one that big. Is he part bobcat or something?”

“I don’t know what he is. My dad brought him home one day from work. I had been asking for a kitten for the longest time, and it was my birthday, so…”

“But that had to be when…”

“When I was a little girl, yes. Well, twelve, anyway. Fireball’s been with me ever since. Guess how old he is?”

“I… uh,” Dett struggled, trying for the right number, “… thirteen?”

“I don’t know who you’re being nicer to,” Tussy said, “me or Fireball. He’s twenty-one-old enough to vote.”

“Really?”

“Why are you so shocked? Didn’t you ever hear of a cat who lived that long?”

“I… I don’t know much about cats. I never had one. But if he’s twenty-one, and you got him when you were-”

“I’m thirty-three years old,” Tussy said, hands on her hips, as if daring him to deny it.

“You don’t look… I mean… I don’t know how to say things sometimes. I thought you were…”

“Younger? Don’t look so distressed, Walker. I took it as a compliment.”

“I didn’t mean it as one. Damn! I’m sorry. What I meant to say was, I wasn’t just saying it. You look like you’re maybe twenty-five. Anybody would say the same thing.”

“Well, me and Fireball are a lot alike. We’re both overweight, and we both don’t show our age so much.”

“You’re not…” Dett felt his face burn as his voice trailed away.

“I’m just having fun with you,” Tussy said. “Look, it’s only a half-hour drive to the restaurant. I’ve never been there, but I know where it is. Would you like a cup of coffee?”

“No, thank you.”

“I should have tea in the house. My girlfriend Gloria does; it’s ever so elegant. But I don’t drink it, and I don’t have people over very much.”

“Could I have a glass of water?”

“With ice? Boy, listen to me!” Tussy laughed. “You can take the girl out of the diner, but you can’t take the diner out of the girl, I guess.”

“I would like some ice water,” Dett said. “Very much.”

He studied the cat, who affected great boredom, until Tussy returned with a pair of tall blue glasses, one in each hand.

“Here you go,” she said, handing one to Dett, and seating herself on the opposite end of the couch.

Dett took a sip. “It’s great,” he said. It’s water, you fool, he thought to himself.

“Oh, just put it down on the table,” Tussy said, sensing his discomfort. “We never used coasters in the house. Mom always said they were for people who put on airs.”

“With a house like this, you wouldn’t need to put on airs,” Dett said. “Your furniture is really something. It looks too good to buy in a store.”

“It is!” she said, delightedly, clapping her hands. “My father made it. All of it. My father and my mother together, actually. Dad did the woodwork, Mom did the upholstery. It took them forever. And when it was finally all done, Mom said she wasn’t about to cover it with plastic, the way some people do.”

“Your father makes furniture? I mean, for a living?”

“No. He worked at the plant. Woodworking, it was like his hobby.”

“Hobby? He’s a real artist. I’ll bet he could sell stuff like this for-”

“My parents are gone,” Tussy said. She opened a little black purse, took out her pack of Kools. Dett reached for his matches as she said, “They’ve been gone a long time. My dad had a workshop. Out in the garage. There wasn’t even room for the car in there. And my mother, she sewed for money, sometimes. She made dresses, like for proms or weddings.” She leaned toward Dett, accepted the offered flame, inhaled deeply. “She never got to make one of those dresses for me.”

“Christ, I’m sorry,” Dett said. “I didn’t know. I never would have-”

“They’ve been gone a long time. Eighteen years, this December. It’s all right, Walker. I love this house. I love everything my mom and dad did to make it beautiful. It didn’t make me sad when you said what you did-it made me proud.”

1959 October 05 Monday 19:00

“I didn’t know who else to talk to,” David Peterson said.

“You did the right thing,” SAC Wainwright assured him.

“Exactly the right thing,” the man standing next to Wainwright’s desk seconded. He was a stranger to Dave, dressed in a matte gray alpaca suit which draped softly over his lithe frame, and a white silk shirt, buttoned at the throat. The man’s skin was the color of rawhide, emphasizing the artificial whiteness of his too-perfect teeth. His eyes were shallow pools of dirty water. “What is it this time?” he said. “Nazi scientists, working in a secret lab to send rockets to the moon? A plot to test new vaccines on military personnel? Flying saucers?”

“Giving syphilis to Al Capone,” Dave said, relieved when the unnamed man barked a laugh.

“Mack Dressler used to be a top agent,” Wainwright said, solicitously. “But a number of years ago, he began experiencing what psychiatrists call ‘paranoid ideation.’ It’s not as uncommon as you might think, Agent Peterson. A man spends his life following people, opening their mail, listening in on their phone calls-he starts to think people are doing the same thing to him.”

Wainwright paused, looked into Dave’s eyes to emphasize his concern, paused a couple of heartbeats, then went on, as if responding to a question: “Well, of course, we arranged for Mack to get treatment. Had him in a government hospital for almost a year. Unfortunately, the treatment wasn’t a complete success. He no longer believes he’s under surveillance, but he… ruminates a lot. And he constructs bizarre, highly detailed scenarios in his head, to ‘explain’ things.”

“Sir, could I ask, how come he’s still…?”

“Working? Well, there’s two reasons, Agent Peterson. The first one is that Mack Dressler, for all his… well, we might as well call it what it is, craziness… is an excellent investigator. He has superb skills, and we use him in sort of a training capacity, always partnering him with new agents. You’ve learned a few tricks from him, I’ll bet.”

“I sure have,” Dave said, loyally. “He’s shown me how to-”

“Yes,” the unnamed man interrupted. “Exactly so. And the other reason we keep Mack Dressler on staff is the most important one. The Bureau always takes care of its own, Agent Peterson. Never forget that.”

“I won’t, sir.”

I never saw a Bureau man who didn’t wear a tie before, Dave thought to himself on the drive back to his apartment. And he wasn’t carrying a weapon, either-you couldn’t even hide a wallet under a suit like that. He wished he could ask Mack what it all meant.

1959 October 05 Monday 19:13

“This is a swell car,” Tussy said, touching the overhead sun visor of the Buick with a freshly painted fingernail.

“It’s not mine,” Dett told her. “It’s just a rental. For while I’m in town.”

“That must be fun, driving different cars all the time.”

“I… I guess it could be, if you did it only once in a while. But when you do it all time…”

“When you’re home, do you have a car there?”

“I don’t really have a home.”

“How could you not have a home? Everybody has to live someplace, don’t they?”

“I suppose most people do, but me, I’m like a high-class hobo. I sleep in hotel rooms instead of boxcars, and I eat good, but I don’t have a real home of my own.”

“Well, you have a hometown, don’t you? I mean, a place you’re from.”

“I used to live in Mississippi.”

“You don’t talk like you’re from the South.”

“I haven’t been back in a long time,” Dett said. “I guess I lost the accent. Besides, I wasn’t born there. I was born in West Virginia, and we moved to Mississippi when I was a kid. Then I went in the service, and when I got out, I never went back.”

“Wow. I’ve been in the same place my whole life.”

“Locke City?”

“The same house. I was born there. I mean, I was born in the hospital, but my folks always said they bought that house for me. As soon as Mom got pregnant, they went out and got it.”

“But when they-”

“Turn up ahead,” Tussy interrupted. “The road we want is just past the next intersection, on the right.”

1959 October 05 Monday 19:29

“See?” Wainwright said to the man in the alpaca suit. “He’s harmless. We know what he’s going to do. And every single man we’ve partnered him with has come to us with the same report.”

“So you think that’s a good test?”

“Don’t you? Now, if one of the rookies didn’t come to us with one of Mack’s famous stories, then maybe we’d have something to worry about.”

“What do you think turned him?”

“He’s not turned,” Wainwright said, forcefully. “He’s nuts. There’s reports on him going back to way before I signed on.”

“Fine,” the other man said, patiently. “What’s the read on why he started giving those little lectures of his, then?”

“The McCarthy business.”

“He was in on that?” the man in the alpaca suit said, tonelessly.

“Not in on the end-game, no. But he was… told certain things, during the briefings, when we were still in the process of selecting the… technicians.”

“Christ.”

“It’s nothing to worry about,” Wainwright said, making a flicking motion at his lapel. “He was a drunk then. Everyone knew it, but there was a lot of pressure to get things moving, and there was a personnel shortage. Anyway, Dressler’s been telling his wild yarns for so long, who’d ever take him seriously? As you just heard for yourself, he always sounds exactly like what he is-a crazy old man.”

“That’s the Bureau’s take on it? Officially?”

“From the top,” Wainwright said, firmly. “And there’s no reason for you people to look at it any differently. If Mack Dressler’s a problem, he’s our problem, not yours.”

1959 October 05 Monday 19:51

“That’s it,” Tussy said, pointing through the windshield to a château-style building standing at the top of a rise. “Even the cars in the lot are all foreign. It looks like it was transplanted right from France, doesn’t it?”

“I’ve never been there,” Dett said.

“Well, neither have I, silly! Don’t you ever just imagine the way things would be, things you’ve never seen yourself?”

“Sometimes I do,” Dett said, feeling the bluestone under his tires turn to pavement as they drove up to the entrance. He got out, leaving the engine running, and walked around to open the door for Tussy. A uniformed man beat him to the job.

Tussy put her hand on Dett’s forearm as he handed the uniformed man a folded bill.

They walked to the door together. Dett stood aside to open it for Tussy, regretting the loss of her hand on his arm the second it occurred.

Inside, a man in a tuxedo checked a register, confirmed the reservation Carl had called in Saturday afternoon, then personally showed them to their table, already set for two. It had banquette-style seating. Dett stood aside as Tussy slid in first, then he settled himself next to her.

“The sommelier will be with you momentarily, monsieur,” the man in the tux said.

“Is that French for ‘waiter’?” Tussy said, biting softly into her lower lip.

“I don’t know,” Dett replied. “I was never in a place like this.”

“In your whole life?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, for goodness’ sakes, how come you picked this one, then?”

“The hotel, the one where I’m staying, they said it was the best place in town.”

“Do you always do that? Go to the best places?”

“Me? I never do. What for?”

“I don’t under-?”

“I only wanted to come here because I was with you, Tussy,” he said, heavily conscious of her name in his mouth.

“You don’t have to put on a show for me, Walker.”

“I-”

“Our wine list, monsieur,” the red-coated sommelier said, presenting a grape-colored leather packet with a gold tassel.

Dett and Tussy looked at each other. The corners of her mouth lifted slightly. Even her eyes smile, Dett thought.

“Perhaps I might be of some assistance?” the sommelier said, unctuously.

“I don’t like wine very much,” Tussy said, speaking only to Dett. “I drank some at a wedding once, and it tasted like… I don’t even know how to say it, but it wasn’t… fun.”

“I don’t like it, either,” Dett said. Turning to the sommelier, he said, “I think we’ll pass.”

“Pass, monsieur?”

“Not have any,” Dett translated.

“Oh. Well. Votre garçon-pardon, your ‘waiter’-will be with you very shortly.”

“I think we made him mad,” Tussy said, giggling.

“At least we know how to say ‘waiter’ in French now,” Dett said.

1959 October 05 Monday 20:12

“This is what you got?” Dioguardi said, holding the list Rufus had concocted in one hand, reading with a flashlight.

“That’s what I wrote down, boss. But that be ’xactly what the man had on his own paper. I copy as good as a camera. Checked it over twice, just to be sure.”

“Where did you find the paper? The one you copied this from?”

“In his room, boss. Just like you-”

“Where in his room, goddamn it?”

“Oh, I see, boss. It was in the pocket of one of his suits,” Rufus said, patting his own chest. “Nice suits he got, like the one you wearing.”

“What made you look there?”

“ ’Cause I couldn’t find nothing nowhere else, boss. Looked in his shoes, too. Sometimes, people be hiding things there.”

“That was slick thinking,” Dioguardi said, soothing over any problem he might have caused by his earlier flash of temper. You have to watch the way you talk to these people, he counseled himself. They can get all sensitive on you, clam right up.

“Thank you, boss.”

“Let me ask you another question, Rufus.” They like it when you call them by their name, not “boy” and stuff like that. “When you were looking around, did you see anything that might give you a read on the man? You know, something about his personality?”

“Well, he didn’t have no magazines, boss. That tell you something, you see what some people be looking at. You be surprised what some people keep in they rooms. No letters, neither. Had him some whiskey, but I was the one that went out and got that for him. I tell you this, though. That one, he a serious man.”

“You say that why?”

“Man had him a straight razor, boss.”

“So? Lots of people shave with a-”

“Yes, sir. I knows that. But the man, he had him a safety razor, besides. Nice new Gillette. And plenty of blades for it, too.”

“I see what you’re saying.”

“That’s right, boss. Some of the baddest men I know, they never walk out they house without one.”

“No guns?”

“Not a one, boss. And a gun, that ain’t something you can hide in a hotel room. Not from Rufus, noways.”

“You did a good job, Rufus. Like you always do.”

“Thank you, boss.” Nah, massah, Mr. Dett, he don’t keep no gun in his room. That’s ’cause he carries it around with him. Just ask Silk, you greaseball motherfucker.

“Now, that list you saw, it’s probably not worth anything,” Dioguardi said. “But remember when I explained to you that time the difference between flat-work and piece-work?”

“Yes, sir! I remember that like it was yesterday, you told me.”

“You ever see a hundred-dollar bill before, Rufus?”

“I seen them, boss. But I never held one.”

“Well, now you are,” Dioguardi said, smiling in the night.

The two men shook hands-Niggers love it when you do that, buzzing through Dioguardi’s mind-and Rufus slipped out of the Imperial and into the welcoming shadows of the vacant lot on Halstead.

1959 October 05 Monday 20:32

“Do you know what any of this stuff is?” Tussy asked Dett, tapping a red-lacquered fingernail against the placard on which the various dishes were listed.

“The only French I know is à la carte.”

“And all I know is à la mode,” she said, making a face. “Do you think we should ask him?”

“The waiter?”

“Or we could just take a guess at something. I mean, how bad could it be, in a place like this?”

“I did this wrong, didn’t I, Tussy?”

“What? You haven’t done anything-”

“I should have asked you where you wanted to eat. Instead of, like you said, putting on a show.”

“You just come out and say what you think, don’t you?”

“Not usually. I’m not that much of a talker.”

“But in your business…”

“Oh, I talk all the time,” Dett said, deflecting. “But that’s, like you said, business talk. Negotiations and all. I meant… with women.”

“You don’t seem like a shy man to me.”

“I just don’t spend a lot of time going out on dates and stuff. I’m always working.”

The waiter hovered.

Tussy and Dett looked at each other.

“Could I have this?” she said to the waiter, touching a line on the menu.

“Certainement, madame. And for monsieur?”

“I’ll try this one,” Dett said, following Tussy’s example and pointing at random.

“What’s your favorite?” she said, as soon as the waiter departed.

“My favorite?”

“Your favorite food. I know it’s not… whatever we just ordered. If you could have anything you wanted, what would it be?”

“Lemon pie,” Dett said, unhesitatingly.

“That’s no meal!”

“You said whatever I wanted.”

Tussy turned in her seat so she was looking directly in Dett’s eyes. “All right, let’s say it would be lemon pie-my lemon pie-for dessert. What would the main course be?”

“Well, I guess… I… I guess I don’t think about food much. Maybe a steak?”

“Uh-huh. And what else? You can’t just have steak and pie!” she said, mock-indignantly. “You need a vegetable at least. You like baked potatoes?”

“Sure.”

“You don’t sound all that excited about it.”

“I like the skins. Not the inside, so much.”

“Do you like salads?”

“I like the stuff they put in salads, but not all mixed together, with dressing all over it.”

“Lettuce and tomatoes?”

“Lettuce. And celery. And radishes. And those little onions.”

“Pearls.”

“Pearls?”

“Pearl onions, that’s what they call them, but I never heard of anyone eating them raw. You like real crunchy stuff, huh?”

“I guess I do. Like I said-”

“-you don’t think much about food,” she interrupted, smiling. “You don’t go out on a lot of dates. And you said you weren’t a gambler. What do you do for fun? Watch television?”

“Not so much,” Dett said.

“How old are you, anyway?” Tussy said, laughing.

“I’m thirty-nine. I was born in-”

“Oh, I was just playing,” she said, a touch of anxiety in her voice. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

The waiter arrived, and ceremoniously presented the food. Tussy and Dett ignored him until he went away.

“This kind of looks like a little steak,” Tussy said, poking dubiously at the meat on her plate. “And yours, it looks like…” She bent over Dett’s plate and sniffed. “Well, I think it’s some kind of fish, but there’s wine in that sauce on it, that’s for sure.”

“The bread’s good,” Dett said, chewing a small morsel he had removed with his fingers. “Anyway, I don’t care. I didn’t come here for the food.”

“Well, I’m not leaving here without tasting everything,” Tussy said. “Gloria, that’s my best friend, she’d kill me if I didn’t describe every square inch of this place, never mind the food.” She resolutely cut off a small piece of the meat on her plate, and popped it into her mouth, chewing thoughtfully for a few seconds before swallowing, and saying, “It’s not steak. It’s… lamb, I think. What about yours?”

Dett forked a morsel into his mouth, swallowed it without chewing. “It’s all right, I guess.”

“Can I try it?”

“This?” he said, nodding at his plate.

“Yes. That way, I can say I had two different meals here. Besides, it might be good.”

“Sure,” Dett said. He reached for his plate, intending to put it before Tussy, but she had already speared a portion with her fork.

“This is good!” she said.

“Let’s switch,” Dett immediately offered.

“Don’t you like-?”

“Like I said, it’s okay. But it’s not what I came here for.”

Tussy held Dett’s eyes for a long second. Then she reached over and switched their plates with professional skill, blushing furiously.

1959 October 05 Monday 21:02

The Gladiators’ dull orange Oldsmobile made its third circuit of the lot on Halstead.

“I know that car,” Sunglasses said to Lacy, as he pointed with a black-gloved finger. “That dark-blue Imperial. It’s Dioguardi’s.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah,” Sunglasses said. “I seen it plenty of times, right in front of that restaurant he owns.”

“You think he’s meeting with that Ace kid?”

“In that spot, who else? It sure as hell isn’t any of the Kings, right? You still want us to drop you off? Two blocks away, it’s their turf. If they spot you…”

“Nobody’s going to spot me,” Lacy said. “That’s why the jacket stays in the car. You know how people are always saying niggers all look alike?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, you know what? I think it works the same way for them when it comes to us. Without my jacket, I’m just… a regular guy. A nothing.”

“Without the jackets, maybe that’s what we all are,” Sunglasses said.

1959 October 05 Monday 21:54

The check was presented in a natural-calfskin case, open on three sides. Dett unfolded it like a book, glanced at the tab, put a hundred-dollar bill inside the folio, and closed it.

“It cost that much?” Tussy said.

“No. There’ll be change.”

“I’m sorry. I know you’re not supposed to-”

“You could never do anything wrong,” Dett said. “Not with me.”

The waiter returned with the portfolio. Tussy seemed relieved to see several bills inside when Dett opened it again. He took some of the money, left the rest, and closed it again.

“I trust you found everything to your satisfaction,” the man at the front said, as they walked to the front door.

“Oh, it was just wonderful!” Tussy assured him.

The valet drove Dett’s Buick to where they were waiting. An attendant reached to open the passenger door for Tussy just as Dett stepped forward to perform the same act. The attendant bounced off Dett as if he had hit a wall. Dett closed Tussy’s door gently behind her, and handed the breathless attendant a pair of dollar bills with his other hand, all in the same motion.

Dett walked around to where the valet was holding open the driver’s door. “Your partner’s got your half,” Dett told him, and pulled his door shut.

1959 October 05 Monday 21:58

As if beckoned by the red glow of Lacy’s just-lit cigarette, Harley Grant’s Chevy glided up. Lacy tossed his cigarette away and got in.

“What was so important, you had to see me?” Harley asked him.

“There’s a meet Wednesday. Between the Hawks and the Kings,” Lacy answered.

“A real one?”

“Yeah. Supposed to go down in the big lot on Halstead, a little ways from where you picked me up.”

“Kids,” Harley said. “What’s that to me?”

“Kids, yeah. Only, we got a treaty with the Hawks.”

“I told you, Lacy. We’ve got big plans now. You can’t be getting into any-”

“I know that. I know what the plan is. We wouldn’t be fighting with them-on their side, I mean-but they wanted to be sure we’d be around, back them up, in case the Kings bring too many men. Extras, like.”

“We talked this over, Lacy,” Harley said, in the same quietly commanding voice he used with Benny, a voice Royal Beaumont never heard. “If you get your guys into any-”

“We’re not,” Lacy assured him. “But that isn’t what I had to tell you, the important thing. See, the Hawks, they’ve got guns.”

“So do the Kings. It’ll be like it al-”

“Not zip guns, Harley. Real ones.”

“How do you know that?”

“Ace, the President of the Hawks, he showed it to us. Brought it right into our clubhouse.”

“What, exactly, did he show you?” Harley asked, enunciating each word to emphasize its importance.

“A pistol. A real pistol.”

“One like this?” Harley said, pulling a snub-nosed revolver from inside his leather jacket and holding it below the dash.

“Like that,” Lacy said, “only bigger. And it was all bright, too, not like yours.”

“You’re sure?”

“I seen plenty of real guns,” Lacy said. “This was just like the ones the cops carry.”

“He say where he got it? Or if they have any more?”

“He said he got it from the Klan,” Lacy snorted. “But I don’t think so. I think I know where he got it.”

“Where?”

“From Dioguardi.”

“Dioguardi?” Harley said, consciously keeping his voice level. “Where’d you get that idea?”

“Where they have their clubhouse, that’s Dioguardi’s building,” Lacy said, defending, but not defensive. “Dioguardi’s got a storefront real close by, too-the one with the windows painted black? And tonight, just before you came, we saw his Imperial, parked in the exact same lot where the meet’s going to go down.”

“This… Ace is his name?… He was with him? With Dioguardi?”

“We couldn’t see inside the car. But it figures, right? I mean, where would the Klan have heard of some little club like the Hawks?”

1959 October 05 Monday 22:10

“Did you mean what you said before?” Tussy asked Dett.

“What?”

“That I couldn’t do anything wrong. With you, I mean?”

“Yes. That’s the truth.”

“Walker, how could you say such a thing?”

“I don’t know how I could say it,” Dett told her, as he turned onto Route 44, heading back toward town. “But that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. When I said it, I knew it was. I don’t know how else to explain.”

“I guess we’ll find out,” she said, drumming her fingers lightly on the dashboard.

“What do you mean?”

“I want to keep talking to you.”

“I want to, too,” Dett said.

“I know. I just don’t want you to take what I’m going to say the wrong way.”

“I promise.”

“If you take me home now, I can’t invite you in. The neighbors… Some of them, they’ve known me since I was a little girl. And the others, they know I was divorced, so they all think I’m… you know.”

“I would never want you to-”

“And the only place I know in town-the only nice place, I mean-where we could sit quietly and talk this late is the diner, and I could never bring you there.”

“Oh,” Dett said, not understanding, but unwilling to say so.

“I know someplace. It’s out in the woods. Where some of the kids go to park. You know, like to-”

“Sure.”

“I want to go there,” Tussy said, firmly. “We could be alone, and talk some more. But I don’t want you to think I’m one of those-”

“I wouldn’t,” Dett said, solemnly. “Never.”

1959 October 05 Monday 22:16

“Are you crazy, calling me here? At this hour? What if my father had answered the phone?”

“I would have hung up,” Harley said to Kitty. “But I had to take the chance. I have to talk to you.”

“Talk?”

“Kitty, please. This is serious. Real serious. It’s about your brother.”

“If you’re just-”

“I’m not. Please, Kitty. I can’t tell you this on the phone. Can’t you just meet me by the back of-?”

“No! And if you come by here, everyone in the neighborhood will hear those loud mufflers of yours.”

“I already traded cars. For the night, I mean,” Harley added, hastily. “It’s a black Caddy.”

“Fit right in around here, huh?”

“Kitty, now’s not the time to be doing that. Will you meet me or not?”

“I could go over to Della’s house for an hour, maybe. But that’s all, Harley. When could you-?”

“I’m only a couple of blocks away,” Harley said, speaking urgently into a pay phone, one hand inside his leather jacket. “Just walk to the end of the block, I’ll pick you up.”

1959 October 05 Monday 22:43

“I haven’t been here in… God, I can’t even remember the last time I was here. But it is beautiful, isn’t it? You can see the moon right through the trees.”

“Want to sit outside?”

“Outside? I’m all dressed up, and we don’t even have a blanket or… or do you?” Tussy said, a faint hint of wariness edging her voice.

“A blanket?” Dett said. “No. Where would I get a blanket? I thought, maybe, you could sit on the hood of the car. On my jacket, I mean, so you wouldn’t mess up your dress.”

“You’d ruin your coat,” Tussy said. The little smile at the corners of her mouth seemed to reach inside her words.

“No, I wouldn’t. And that way, I could… see you better. They didn’t even let us sit across from each other in that restaurant.”

“Yes. Wasn’t that-?”

“I thought you’d feel better that way, too. Outside, I mean.”

“Me? Why? Oh!”

“Did I say something wrong?”

“What you said was just right, Walker. Come on, let’s do it, just like you said.”

Dett spread his jacket on the Buick’s broad hood. Tussy took his hand, put one foot on the heavy chrome bumper, and stepped, turning as she sat down. “It’s warm,” she said, giggling.

“It is,” Dett agreed. “More like summer than-”

“I meant, where I’m sitting,” Tussy said, hiding her face behind her hand. “From the engine.”

“Oh. Do you want to-?”

“It’s fine,” she said, fumbling in her purse.

Dett moved close to her, matches ready.

As he leaned in, Tussy kissed him on the cheek, so butterfly-soft that he couldn’t be sure if it had actually landed.

“You want to know all about me, don’t you?” she said.

“Yes.”

“That’s so strange.”

“What is?”

“Just that you’d want to know, for real. When people ask, they really don’t, mostly. They’re just being polite. But what’s so… strange is that I know it myself, somehow. That you truly want to, I mean.”

“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t-”

Tussy blew a jet of cigarette smoke to stop Dett from talking. “After my mother had me, she couldn’t have any more children, the doctor said. She used to tell people that was fine with her, because I was more than enough for anyone to handle.

“I had such a lovely life. I never knew how lovely it was until it happened. When I was fifteen.”

Dett watched Tussy’s face intently, silently willing her to go on.

“My parents were killed,” she said, quietly. “People said it was an accident, and I guess it was. But I say ‘killed,’ because that’s what happened to them. They were coming home from the movies. It was pretty late, but I was up, because I was waiting for people to come home from the movies, too. I was babysitting, for the Taylor kids. I was a great babysitter. Everybody wanted me, because I was so reliable. I’d been doing it since I was eleven. I bought all my own clothes for school with the money I made, and I even had extra left. I was so proud of that.”

“Drunk driver?” Dett said.

“They were all drunk,” Tussy said, pain and sorrow twisted in her voice, “every single one of them in that car. It was just before Pearl Harbor. Everyone knew we were going to war, sooner or later. My dad had been in World War I. He always said that was supposed to be the last one, but there would never really be a last one, not with the way people are…”

Tussy’s voice trailed off. Dett descended into the silence with her; he stood immobile, as if any movement would frighten her away.

Tussy took a deep drag of her cigarette, blew the smoke out in a vicious jet of anger. “They were all college boys,” she said. “Seven of them, in one car. They were going like maniacs. My folks were stopped at a light. They came right through the red and just… smashed them to pieces.”

“What happened to them?”

“I told you,” she said, sharply. “They were kil- Oh, you mean, what happened to the college boys? Nothing. They didn’t even get hurt. The driver walked away. I mean, he walked right out of his car. His big, huge new car. It crushed my dad’s little Ford like it was made of paper.”

“Did he go to jail? The driver, I mean.”

“Jail?” she said, bitterly. “I told you, they were rich boys. Maybe they got a ticket or something, I never knew. When the Taylors got home, we waited for my folks to come by and pick me up. But they never came. It got real late. There was a knock on the door, finally. It was the police.”

“Christ.”

“You know what? I didn’t believe them. No matter how many times they said it, I wouldn’t listen. They took me to the hospital. They had my… they had my mom and my dad there. When I saw them, all… I don’t remember what happened after that.”

“Did people take you in?”

“Nobody took me in,” Tussy said, fiercely. “I quit school. I got a job. The same job I have right now today. And I never missed one single payment on our house.”

“Didn’t anyone… make trouble or anything, you being all by yourself?”

“Well, they sure tried,” Tussy said, leaning back and supporting herself with one palm against the hood. “The Welfare people said I had to go to a foster home. Even the school, they said I was too young to drop out. I could get working papers, for part-time, but I couldn’t leave school entirely, is what they said. And the bank said I couldn’t take over the mortgage, because I wasn’t of age.”

“But…?”

“But Mr. Beaumont-he’s the biggest man in Locke City-he saved me. With everybody acting like I was a baby, I was so scared. I thought I would lose… every last trace of my mom and dad. But this one policeman, he told me, ‘Miss, you go and see Mr. Beaumont. He can fix things.’ And that’s just what I did,” she said, reflectively. “I knew the proper thing would be to write him a letter, but I couldn’t wait. I was too terrified. I couldn’t just sit in my house and have them come for me. So I started walking.”

“You walked to-? I mean, was it far?” Dett hurriedly amended.

“It was real far. The policeman, the nice one, he told me where it was, but I had never been way out in the country. I mean, we went out there, for picnics and stuff, but not to where Mr. Beaumont lives. That’s a different kind of country, you know?”

“Sure. Rich country.”

“Yes! First, I hitched. I knew that was stupid. If my dad had ever caught me pulling a stunt like that, he would have…”

Tussy tossed away her cigarette, put her face in her hands, and started to sob. Dett held her against him, protectively, not moving his hands, his face as flat and blank as a slab of stone. He felt his own heart-a fist-tight knot in his chest, pulsing hate.

1959 October 05 Monday 23:01

“What do you make of it, Sally?”

“It’s a list of some kind, G. Maybe the letters are the jobs he’s been hired to do, and the numbers are the payoff?”

“Could be, I guess. But what’s with the buildings? I mean, banks, I could see. Even the post office, there’s money there, if you know where to look. But the police station? That don’t make any sense.”

“I know. But let’s say those letters, they stand for people, okay?”

“Okay,” the scar-faced man said, noncommittal.

“One of them, the letter is ‘D.’ What’s that tell you?”

“The truth, Sal? Nothing. Not a damn thing. Those numbers, they’re not right. See where the ‘D’ is on the list? Second, not the top. And the number next to it, that’s half of the number across from the ‘X.’ Even if it was a hit list, nobody gets fifty grand. Nobody. Even the guys who did the job on Albert, they got ten apiece. And those guys, they were famiglia, not some outside contract men. If you’re the ‘D’ on that list for twenty-five K, then who’s ‘X,’ for fifty?”

“I’m not saying that’s what it is, G. But I know this: it means something. This guy, Dett, it’s more like he’s a fucking Russian spy than a hit man.”

“In Locke City?”

“You making a joke, G.?”

“No, Sal.”

“No? Good. Because I got news for Mr. Walker Dett. Sal Dioguardi’s not some fucking cafone; he’s a man with a mind. See this number, here?”

“Yeah.”

“Mean anything to you?”

“Not to me.”

“It’s a phone number, G. You know how I know?”

“How?”

“The last three numbers, that was the tip-off.”

“Two-one-three?”

“Yeah. Look, I cover those numbers with my finger-see?-what do you have left?”

“Sally, I swear I’m not-?”

“You got seven numbers,” Dioguardi said, excitedly. “That’s a telephone number, G. Now, if you want to call long distance, you need an area code, right?”

“Right.”

“Which is how many numbers?”

“Three. Huh! So you think the whole thing, it’s a phone number?”

“Those last three numbers? Two-one-three? That’s the area code for L.A., Gino.”

“And this guy, we know he didn’t have a car when he came in; he had to rent one here,” the scar-faced man said. “It all adds up, Sal.”

“Yeah,” said Dioguardi, thoughtfully. “We talked about you going out to L.A. anyway. For that other business. Okay, this moves things up a bit: I want you on the next plane out, G. Tomorrow, okay?”

1959 October 05 Monday 23:06

“I didn’t mean to just… let go like that,” Tussy said, her voice muffled in Dett’s chest.

“It’s okay,” Dett said. Knowing it was, trusting the knowledge.

“You really want to hear all this?”

“More than anything.”

Tussy pulled back slightly. She examined Dett’s face in the moonlight for a long minute, making no secret of what she was doing. Finally, she nodded to herself, swallowed, and went on with her story: “I got three rides, one after the other. By then, it was already afternoon. I knew I wasn’t going to get anyone to pick me up on the side roads-I didn’t even see anyone for a long time-so I walked. It was almost dark by the time I got there.

“Mr. Beaumont’s house, it’s like a castle. All stone. I never saw anything like it before, even in a book. There’s a gatehouse at the entrance to the property. Not a fence, a little house, like, where you have to stop before you can go in.

“The man there, the guard, I guess he was, he was very nice, but I told him I would only talk to Mr. Beaumont. Like I was insisting on it, isn’t that ridiculous? But, finally, he told me to move away. Not get off the property, just step back. Then he picked up a phone thing and he talked into it. After he hung up, he told me someone would be out to get me.

“I just stood there. A man came up. He was one of those… slow ones. I don’t like the names people call them, but I don’t know the polite thing to say. He just said to come with him, and I did.

“Inside the building, it was just like the outside. I mean, like a palace or something. I don’t even have the words to tell you how… stupendous it was. The foyer, where I waited, it was bigger than my whole house.

“The man who brought me, he said to just sit down-there was a hundred places you could do that-and somebody would come and get me.

“I guess I expected it would be Mr. Beaumont himself, I don’t know why. But it was a lady. She told me her name was Cynthia Beaumont, and she was Mr. Beaumont’s sister. I went with her into this place like an office, and she sat behind a desk and told me to tell her everything I came to tell Mr. Beaumont.

“That’s what I did. She had a hard face, Miss Beaumont did. Not a mean one, but hard. Like policemen have. I never saw her smile, not once, all the time I was talking. But I guess I didn’t tell her anything to be smiling about. I was crying. A lot.

“When I was all done, she said, ‘Mr. Beaumont will set things right for you, young lady.’ Then she just got up and left. In a minute, that man, the one who you could see was kind of slow, he came back, and he took me outside.

“There was a car sitting there. A big black car, like you see in gangster movies. The slow man, he said to get in. So I did. And the man in the car-a different man-drove me straight to my house, like he knew exactly where it was.”

“That’s some story.”

“That’s not even the end,” Tussy said. “After that, everything stopped. No more Welfare people, no more truant officer, no more talk about a foster home. I got my job at the diner, working for Armand. And I still did babysitting-I didn’t work nights then. One of the other girls, she was a few years older than me, she had a car, and I rode to work with her.

“I only made sixty cents an hour-fifty for the babysitting-but I got my meals free. And the tips were very good. The mortgage is thirty-seven dollars and forty-nine cents a month, so I could pay it with plenty left over, for the electricity and the oil man and everything.”

“Why do you think this Mr. Beaumont did all that for you?” Dett asked.

“Oh, I think he does it for everybody. Not the same thing, of course. But everyone in Locke City knows Mr. Beaumont is the man you go to if you have a problem. There’s only one thing that makes me sad, every time I think about it.”

“What’s that?”

“I never had the chance to thank him. Oh, I wrote him a letter, of course. But he never answered it. I never even met him. People say he’s a cripple, in a wheelchair. I wish I could do something for him. Fix him, like he fixed me. But that’s just being silly. What could someone like me ever do for a man like him?”

1959 October 05 Monday 23:12

I don’t know her, Holden Satterfield thought. I don’t know him, neither. And I never seen that car before. I have to write it down, so when Sherman- Holden’s forest-trained ears picked up the sound of another car pulling in, just on the other side of the embankment. They’re not going to do nothing. They’re just talking. I better go see who else is here…

1959 October 05 Monday 23:14

“All right, tell me,” Kitty’s voice floated out the car window.

I know this one, Holden said to himself. She’s been here before. In that pretty red Chevy. But it’s a different car tonight. A Cadillac. She must be one of those girls who…

“Wednesday night, there’s going to be a rumble. In that big lot on Halstead.”

“Harley, what Uriah does has nothing to do with me. With any of our family. He hasn’t lived at home for-”

“You know people call him ‘Preacher’? You know he’s the President of the South Side Kings?”

“Yes. Yes, we all know. Everyone in town knows. Every family has its disgrace. That’s why my father-”

“This won’t be one of those kiddie rumbles they’re used to having, Kitty. Not this time.”

“What are you saying?”

“The Golden Hawks, the ones your brother’s gang is going to clash with, they have guns. Real guns.”

“You mean like the army?”

“No. Pistols. But real ones. Your brother, he’s the leader. He’s got to go first. Walk right up to the leader of the other side and start throwing. Only, your brother, he’s going to be expecting bicycle chains and tire irons and baseball bats… stuff like that. If he walks up on a man holding a pistol-a real pistol, Kitty, not a little zip gun-he’s going to get killed.”

“Oh my God.”

“You see why I had to tell you? I know you and your brother don’t-”

“Uriah got shot once. In one of those rumbles. He didn’t even have to go to the hospital, he said.”

“That was with a zip gun, Kitty. They only take twenty-two shorts, and most of the time they don’t even-”

“I don’t want to know about guns! I hate them. I don’t… Why do you even know how they… how gangs fight, and everything?”

“That was me, once,” Harley said. “I didn’t know it then, but gangs, they’re like the minor leagues. In baseball, I mean. The big boys, they have scouts. They know what they’re looking for. And when I got picked, that’s when I got my chance. The chance for everything I’ve been telling you about, Kitty.”

“But you work for Royal Beaumont. How could he-?”

“It doesn’t matter. Not now, anyway. What matters now is, you’ve got to tell your brother.”

“What good would that do?”

“Do? It would save his damn life, if he called this off.”

“Harley, sometimes I don’t know where you were raised. If you were in a gang yourself, you know my brother could never do anything like that.”

“Then he should use different-I don’t know-tactics.”

“Like what?”

“Maybe, while the Hawks are going over to the lot, your brother’s gang sneaks over to their clubhouse and waits for them. Then, when they come back, ambush them or something.”

“Wait around in that neighborhood? They’d all end up in jail.”

“So? That would be the best thing, wouldn’t it? Let someone call the cops, and say a lot of… Negroes are congregating. If your brother and his boys have to spend the night in jail, it’s a lot better than being dead.”

“I… I’ll tell him. About the guns. I can cut lunch tomorrow and go over there. But I don’t know if he’ll-”

“You have to at least give him the chance.”

“You’re only doing this because of me, aren’t you?”

“Kitty, I don’t give a damn about your brother, and I’m not pretending to.”

“If anyone ever found out you told, wouldn’t you get in a lot of trouble?”

“More than a lot.”

Holden watched as the voices stopped and the bodies came together.

1959 October 05 Monday 23:29

“I don’t know why I told you all that,” Tussy said, sliding off the hood of the Buick to stand next to Dett. “Some date, huh?”

“This wasn’t a date.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, a tincture of misgiving in her voice.

“I mean, a date, it’s like you… it’s just something to do,” Dett told her, struggling to express himself. “You go out on dates a lot, don’t you? But they don’t mean anything.”

“I don’t go out on dates a lot, for your information. But you’re right: they don’t mean much.”

“This does,” he said, gravely.

“This?”

“Being with you. To me, I mean.”

“You don’t even know me, Walker. For all you know, I could be-”

“Pure.”

“What?”

“That’s what you are,” Dett said. “Pure. A pure person. I knew it the minute I saw you.”

“I thought I heard every line there was,” Tussy said, chuckling hollowly, longing for him to say something to banish her skepticism.

“It’s not a line. I know you think… I don’t even think you do think it is,” Dett said. “You know, just like I knew.”

“That you’re a pure person?”

“I’m not. I’m nothing like that. I never was; I never will be.”

“You mean, like the church says, about sin? I already told you I was divorced. You know what they say about-”

“There’s no church. Not for me, there isn’t. A turned-around collar doesn’t make you a good person, no more than wearing a black robe makes you an honest one. I wasn’t talking about that. You say I don’t know anything about you. Well, I’m saying that I do. What I said is true. And so are you. True. I know this. And what I said about you knowing me? I only meant, you know I’m not lying now.”

“I thought ‘pure’ meant you were a virgin.”

“ ‘Pure’ is your heart, not your… I don’t know how to say what I want to, Tussy. You know what? I’ve been all over. Not just in America. All over. And the world, it’s rotten. Like, if you could look all the way into the center of the earth, it would be this… ugly, evil thing.”

“There’s bad people and there’s good people,” Tussy said, in a schoolmarm’s tone. “I found that out for myself, like I just told you about. Just because you had some bad experiences, that doesn’t mean the whole world’s-”

“No, no,” Dett said. “Can I…?” He reached out his hand. Tussy took it, as trusting as a child.

Dett felt her hand, small and work-roughened, pulsing faintly, like a heart at peace.

“I wasn’t talking about people,” he finally said. “Not… individuals. I meant the world. The people who run it.”

“Like kings and presidents?”

“Not them. Well, maybe them, but even that’s not what I mean. I mean the people who run them.”

“I don’t understand. Nobody runs the president of America. And nobody runs an evil man like… like Hitler was, right?”

“No.”

“No, I’m right? Or no, I’m wrong?” she said, looking up at him.

“No, you’re wrong. But you’re right about people. Most people, anyway. They’re sheep. They go wherever they’re herded.”

“Walker?”

“What?”

“You’re not some kind of… religious man, are you?”

“I already told you-”

“When I was nineteen,” she said, suddenly, “I got married. He was twenty-five, just back from the war. He had been wounded in Italy. He was a hero, people said. He was a very handsome man, especially in his uniform. That’s what he was wearing when I met him. In the diner. I thought he was the man I had been waiting for.”

“But he wasn’t…” Dett said, fearful she would stop talking, desperate beyond his own understanding to hear the end-to know what had gone wrong.

“Joey didn’t have any trouble getting work. The war was still going on-this was right after VE Day-but everyone knew we would win by then. The plants were running double shifts. And, with him being a veteran and all…

“We got married in the church. And then we came back ho-to my house. For a little while, it was good.”

“And then…?”

“It started… I don’t know exactly what started it. So many things happened at once. Joey didn’t like Fireball-which was a dirty trick, because when we were going out he said he did-and he… drank a lot. I thought that was because he hated his job. He wasn’t a war hero at the plant. He was always coming home in a temper because the foreman had chewed him out or some supervisor didn’t like the way he did something.”

“You said there was plenty of work…”

“There was. Joey would quit one job and get another, but it was always the same story. And even with him hating his jobs, he was always after me to quit mine.”

“Why didn’t you want to quit your job?”

“I did. You think being a waitress is a wonderful career? I always wanted a baby, ever since I was a little girl. I thought it would be so wonderful, to be a mom like mine was. Help my husband, be a family, together. But I knew if I quit my job I couldn’t make the payments on my house.”

“But when you got married, wasn’t it his job to-?”

“No!” she said, hotly. “I mean, it would have been, maybe, if I did what he wanted. Sell the house, and move into an apartment. Then Joey would have paid the rent, sure. But I wouldn’t sell my house. So he moved in there, with me.”

“What’s wrong with that? I mean, couldn’t he just as easily pay the mortgage? It would be cheaper than renting an apartment, especially right after the war.”

“He wanted to do that, too. After I put his name on the deed.”

“You did that?”

“I was going to,” Tussy said, almost apologetically. “But I was… I don’t know, nervous about it, kind of. So I went to see a lawyer. Mr. Gendell, he has an office right over the bank where I have my account. Everyone says he’s the best lawyer in town. He even does some things for Mr. Beaumont, that’s how important he is.

“But he turned out to be the nicest man you ever met, except for those horrible cigars he smoked. The air in his office, it was just blue. I was a little scared of him. He’s very big and he talks very loud. I wanted to know how much it would cost for him to explain the law to me. About mortgages and deeds and things. And he said I should just tell him what I wanted to know, and he’d figure out what it would cost. That scared me even more, but I went ahead and did it.

“Mr. Gendell listened to everything I told him. And then he said, ‘Young woman, if you put your husband’s name on that deed, you will never be able to get it off.’

“I asked him why I would even want to get it off. And he said, ‘Things happen.’ That’s just what he said, ‘Things happen.’ He said the house would be half Joey’s. And Joey was the man. So, if he wanted to sell it, for example, well, he could just do it. Mr. Gendell didn’t say anything about divorce, but he asked me how long I’d known Joey before we got married, and stuff like that, so I understood what he was really saying.

“He gave me a real lecture. Not like a scolding, but like I always imagined college would be, if I had ever went. He told me about the Married Women’s Property Act, and how hard it had been for women to get the vote, and how the courts treated women when they got divorced, and… Well, anyway, when he was done with me, that was the end of me putting Joey’s name on the deed to the house.”

“How did Joey take that?”

“He walked out of the house. He came back late at night. Drunk. And he beat me up. Ow!” Tussy squealed, as Dett’s hand clamped down on hers.

“Oh God, I’m sorry,” Dett said. He felt hot lava suffusing the artificially tightened skin of his face, threatening to erupt. He quickly bent forward and kissed her hand. “I’m sorry, Tussy. I didn’t mean to-”

“It’s all right,” she said. “You just… startled me, that’s all.”

“When I heard you say he-”

“I understand,” she said, realizing, as she spoke, that she did, and not questioning it.

“What happened?” Dett said, clipping each syllable.

“I told you. He-”

“After that.”

“Oh. The next morning, he apologized. It was the liquor that made him do it, he said. But I couldn’t forget him… punching me, screaming how could he be the man of the house when it wasn’t even his house? I didn’t go to work the next day. I was too ashamed. My face was all…”

“He never did it again?”

“Can I…?” Tussy said, gesturing.

Dett handed over her purse, lit the cigarette he knew was coming.

“He did do it again. And again. He even kicked Fireball.”

“Your cat? Why would he-?”

“Fireball tried to tear him up. Scratching and biting. Joey couldn’t get him off.”

“I didn’t know cats did that. Dogs, sure. But-”

“Well, Fireball did. He was a little tiger. When Joey kicked him, he went flying into the wall. I thought Joey had killed him. If he had…”

“But he was okay?”

“I took him to the vet. They said he was fine, but that’s when everyone found out.”

“Found out?”

“About Joey… beating me. I had to take Fireball to the doctor; I thought he was hurt real bad. I did my best to cover up my… I put on a lot of makeup, but it didn’t do any good. I had a black eye, and my nose was all swollen.”

“You think the vet told people?”

“Maybe. I mean, I guess so. Because, when the police came, it was like they already knew.”

“The police came to the vet’s?”

“No, no. To my house. It was the very next night. Joey was drunk, and he slapped me. I punched him back, as hard as I could. Then I tried to scratch his eyes out, like Fireball would have, if he could. A window got broken. Someone must have called the police. One of my neighbors, I think. Nobody ever said.

“When they got there, Joey looked worse than me, I think. But I was the one with the broken ribs. We all went to the hospital. The police asked me what happened, and I told them. They said if I pressed charges Joey would go to jail, and then he’d lose his job, and there’d be no one to take care of me. I couldn’t even explain to them that I didn’t need anyone to take care of me; I was too busy crying. I felt like everything was just… gone.”

“Did you press charges?” Dett asked, shallow-breathing through his nose.

“What happened was, Sherman Layne came in. I didn’t know his whole name back then, but I remembered him, from the time my parents… he was the one who told me to go and see Mr. Beaumont He remembered me, too. I asked him, what should I do? He said the best thing would be for Joey to just leave and not come back. I told him Joey would never do that. But Sherman-everyone calls him that, Detective Sherman-he said he would.”

“Did he?”

“Yes,” Tussy said, as if still surprised at the memory. “That’s just exactly what he did. He moved out. He didn’t really have that much stuff to take, anyway; all the furniture-what you saw-it was mine. And then he had a lawyer send me some papers saying we were going to get divorced. I showed the papers to Mr. Gendell, and he started laughing. ‘Stupid punks,’ is all he said. Then he took the papers from me, and said not to worry about anything.

“A few weeks later, Mr. Gendell came into the diner. He gave me some legal papers, with seals on them and everything, and said I was divorced, and Joey had to pay me sixty dollars a month for alimony! I told him I didn’t want any money from Joey, and Mr. Gendell just smiled. He told me he knew I was going to say that. Joey was never really going to pay me a dime-the alimony was just for insurance, he said. In case Joey ever made trouble for me, I could have him locked up for nonsupport.

“I was so grateful. I asked Mr. Gendell how much money I had to pay him, and he said Joey paid him. He laughed when he said it. Like it was this terrifically funny joke.”

“He sounds like a good man, especially for a lawyer.”

“Oh, he is. But, you know, the way he laughed that day, I wouldn’t ever want him to be mad at me. Do you know what I mean?”

“Yes.”

“Well, now you know. My whole sad story. Still think I’m so pure, Walker?”

“Even more,” he said, holding her hand.

1959 October 06 Tuesday 00:13

“It didn’t even hurt, Daddy,” Lola whispered.

“You sound like you mad about it, sweet girl,” Silk said.

“Well, those other girls, they said it did. They said it burned like fire, and they couldn’t-”

“So you think they was gaming on you, playing you off the trick, so they could have him for themselves?”

“It was fifty dollars, Daddy!” Lola said, proudly. “Who gets that kind of money?”

“You do, little star. And that’s the truth. Be the truth forever,” Silk said, pulling his whore closer to him on the leather seat of the Eldorado. “Now tell Silk what you remember. Every little thing, right from the beginning.”

1959 October 06 Tuesday 00:41

As Dett nosed the rented Buick out of the clearing, a black Cadillac Coupe de Ville flashed past. Moving too fast for these dirt roads, Dett thought. He’ll put a lot of chips in that paint job.

“Anyone you know?” he asked Tussy, keeping his voice casual. Back where they had been parked, Dett had felt another presence. A lurker of some kind. Probably kids, looking for a thrill, he had thought at the time, not picking up any sense of danger. And, whatever it was, it had moved on quick enough. But now the Caddy…

“Why would I know anyone who comes here?” Tussy said, more angrily than she intended.

“I didn’t mean… that,” Dett said, holding his hands up helplessly. “I meant the car itself. It looked pretty fancy for a teenage kid to be driving.”

“Oh. No, I… I mean, it just looked like a car to me. I can’t tell them apart, the way some people can.”

“Sure. I thought it looked like it belonged to one of the people I’ve been talking to. About buying property.”

“Well, it was a big one.”

“Yeah. A Cadillac. But there’s no shortage of those around.”

“I guess that depends where you live,” Tussy said, chuckling. “You won’t see any on my block.”

“That’s sensible,” Dett said, seriously. “Some cars cost so much, you could buy a nice little house instead.”

“I can’t understand why anyone would do that. Have you ever noticed how some colored people buy big cars? I’m sure they buy them on time, but that’s the same way you’d buy a house, isn’t it? I mean, either way, you have to make payments every month. So why do you think they do that?”

“Well, what if you couldn’t buy a house?”

“I don’t understand. I, well, maybe I couldn’t, with what I make, but some of them-”

“No, I mean, what if nobody would sell you one? You walk into a showroom, I don’t care if you’re black or white or purple they’ll sell you a car. But if you want to buy a house…”

“Oh. I see what you mean. I never thought of it like that.”

“I didn’t, either,” Dett assured her. “Not until someone pointed it out to me.”

“And now you pointed it out to me,” she said, seriously. “I guess that’s the way people learn things.”

“It’s only learning if it’s the truth, Tussy. If a lie gets passed from person to person, they’re not learning, they’re being tricked.”

“Did you get this way from the business you’re in?”

“What way?”

“Thinking so… black all the time. Like everything is crooked and rotten. Is that from being in real estate? I heard, from people who come in the diner, it can be a real cutthroat business, real estate.”

“No. I learned it… a long time ago. And not in any one place.”

“I… Oh, good Lord! Do you know what time it is?”

“It’s… almost one o’clock.”

“In the morning.”

“I didn’t realize.”

“Neither did I. My goodness.”

“I’m sorry if I-”

“Oh, you didn’t do anything. I just got… lost. In talking. And I don’t have to go to work tomorrow, anyway.”

“Right. No Mondays or Tuesdays. I was hoping…”

“What, Walker?”

“That you would let me see you again.”

“Tomorrow, you mean? Well,” she said, grinning in the darkness of the car’s interior, “later today, actually.”

“Yes. Anytime at-”

“Would you like to come over for lunch? In the daytime, it would be perfectly fine.”

“With your neighbors?”

“You think I’m silly, don’t you? I’m just not a… flashy person. My girlfriend-”

“-Gloria.”

“Oh, you really listen, don’t you?”

“I listen to you. Every word you say.”

“I guess. Anyway, to show you what a flop I am at being, well, not wild, exactly, but… one time, Gloria talked me into trying out at the Avalon.”

“What’s that?” Dett asked, images of strip joints stabbing his mind.

“It’s a dance hall. You know, one of those dime-a-dance places. It’s very classy, actually. The men had to wear ties. And they didn’t serve liquor. Gloria said it would be fun. Plus, we could make some money.”

“But you didn’t like it?”

“Well, I was a little afraid of it, at first. I mean, can you see me as a dance-hall girl? I’m way too short, and way too… plump.”

“No you’re not.”

“Oh, you have a lot of experience with dance halls?” she said.

“I was never even in one,” Dett told her, truthfully.

“I was just clowning around, Walker. I know you were being nice. I’m no good at taking compliments-I never know if someone’s just being polite.”

“I wasn’t. I mean-”

“Oh, stop it!” Tussy said, smacking him playfully on his right arm. “I understand. Anyway, one night in that place was enough for me. At first, I was afraid nobody would ask me to dance, and I’d just sit there, a little wallflower, until Gloria was ready to go home. But a man came over right away. And then another. I could have been on my feet all night.”

“What didn’t you like, then?”

“You know.”

“Being grabbed?”

“Yes. When I was in high school-I was only a freshman, so it was my first year-I used to love to dance. But this, it wasn’t dancing at all. The men couldn’t dance. Or, more likely, they wouldn’t dance. All they wanted to do was paw. Some were nicer about it than others, but… one man, he just reached down and grabbed my bottom! Right out on the floor.”

“That’s when you slugged him?”

“I wish I had! But I was too… shocked to do anything but pull away from him. I went right over and told Gloria we were leaving. And she didn’t argue.”

“I’ll bet she didn’t,” Dett said, admiringly.

1959 October 06 Tuesday 01:40

“I figure, whatever that man wants to know, might be something we want to know,” Silk said.

“You figured right, brother,” Rufus said.

“So-what do we know?” Kendall asked, a shade softer than hostile.

“My woman, Lola, she told me everything. But, the way they do it, there ain’t a single clue about the man who comes by for that kind of taste.”

“You came all the way over here, tell us that?”

“Ice up, K-man,” Darryl said, quietly. “Let the man say what he come to say.”

Silk nodded gratefully at Darryl, then said, “But here’s what we do know. The woman who brings the girls to that ‘blue room,’ she’s the one who sets the whole thing up. Puts the girls in that leather thing to hold them, tells them how to get ready, how to act… all that. Now, any madam might do that for her girls, especially for a high-paying regular. But somebody got to know when the trick is coming, ’cause it take time to get everything ready for him. Somebody got to let him in. So somebody got to know his car, see his face, hear his voice…”

“The madam,” Rufus said.

“That’s the one, Brother Omar,” Silk confirmed. “This Ruth girl, she knows. She knows all of it.”

1959 October 06 Tuesday 01:44

“I wish you could come in,” Tussy said, as Dett’s rented Buick turned off the main road. “For coffee, I mean,” she added, quickly.

“But it’s so late…”

“It’s not that,” she said. “I’m wide awake. I usually don’t even get home from work until past midnight.”

“Your neighbors-”

“Oh, they’re probably asleep. Who stays up this late if they’re not working? It’s just…”

“The car, right? Standing in front of your house.”

“How did you know?”

“People,” Dett said, shrugging.

“I don’t see where what I do has to be so much their business,” Tussy said, defiantly. “It would just be for-”

“I can drop you off,” Dett said. “Walk you to your door, and drive off. And then come back.”

“But what difference would that make? You’d still-”

“Nobody would see me coming,” Dett said, so softly Tussy had to lean toward him to be certain she heard. “The back of your house, there’s nothing there except a big ditch and some empty land.”

“That’s where they stopped working,” she said. “The builders, I mean. They cleared all the land behind us after the war. It was supposed to be the next Levittown. But it was a stupid idea.”

“Levittown?”

“No, silly. That was a great idea. I read where it sold out in just a few weeks. But that was because they built it where there was work. Maybe not right there in Levittown, but close enough to where people could commute.

“What was there like that around here? It was all factory work back then. Plants and mills. The men who worked in them already lived here. So, when everything dried up after the war, so did the big ‘development.’ I don’t know who owns that land now, but it can’t be worth anything.”

“You know a lot about land, huh?”

“Well, not like you. I mean, not like a real-estate person. But I love reading about houses. Little ones, not big mansions. I like looking at pictures of houses in faraway places, and thinking about the people who live in them.”

“Like Levittown?”

“Yes. But, you know, those little houses, they’re not like mine.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, they’re all alike. They look different from the outside-I think they have five or six different fronts-but inside, they’re all the exact same. It would be like living in one of those housing projects, only all on the first floor.”

“No, it wouldn’t,” Dett said, steering onto Tussy’s block.

“Why do you say that?” she asked.

“I’ve never been to Levittown. But it’s all individual homes, isn’t it? They may be all the same, but each little house, somebody owns it. It’s yours. You don’t have people on top of you, or below you. You have some… privacy.”

“I’ve never seen a project, except in magazines. They look like awful places to live.”

“They are.”

“Oh,” she said, as Dett pulled the car to the curb in front of her house.

He shut off the ignition, climbed out, walked around behind the car, and opened Tussy’s door. She held out her hand. He gently took her elbow as she exited, then dropped his grip when she stood up. They walked to her front door, shoulders touching, hands at their sides.

“It was a lovely evening,” Tussy said, facing him. “I’ll never forget it.”

“Neither will I.”

“I…” Tussy looked around furtively, then whispered, “Could you really do it? Come back so nobody would see you?”

“I promise,” Dett said. “But it’ll be at least an hour, maybe more.”

“I’m not sleepy,” she said. “There’s a back door. But it’s pitch-black dark out behind the houses. Are you sure you can-?”

“I’m sure, Tussy. I promise I am.”

1959 October 06 Tuesday 02:00

“Lights,” the spotter called from behind his binoculars.

His partner waited, notebook in hand.

“On-off… two, three, four. Brights. Off.”

“That’s him, then.”

“Yeah.”

“What should we do?”

“Nothing,” the rifleman said. “He knows how to find us. He only signaled so we wouldn’t mistake him for a hostile.”

“He’s off the screen. Now where did he-?”

“He’s inside,” the rifleman said, gesturing for silence as he swung his weapon around to cover the doorway.

Thirty seconds later, the man in the alpaca suit stepped onto the top floor of the warehouse. He held a small flashlight, the beam aimed at his face, as if holding out his passport to border guards.

1959 October 06 Tuesday 02:46

When Tussy heard the tap at her back door, she opened it instantly.

“You shouldn’t do that, not without looking first,” Dett said, gently. “How could you be sure it was me?”

“Well, who else would be knocking at my door in the middle of the night?”

“I don’t know. But still…”

“Oh, come on in,” Tussy said, pointing at the kitchen table. She had changed into a pair of jeans, rolled up to mid-calf, and a man’s flannel shirt, the sleeves pushed back to her elbows. She was barefoot, and her face had been scrubbed free of makeup. “How do you take it?” she asked, as Dett sat down.

“Take…?”

“Coffee. My goodness.”

“Oh. Black, please.”

“Why are you… staring like that.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, dropping his gaze. “It’s just… Remember, before, when I was off by so much? When I was guessing how old you are? Well, now you look like you’re not even that old.”

“That’s very sweet of you to say,” she said, laughing. “But if I had to spend another minute in that girdle, I’d get blood clots, I swear.”

Dett ducked his head, not saying anything.

“You changed, too,” Tussy said. “Boy, I can understand why nobody would see you, dressed like that. Where did you get all that black stuff?”

“They’re work clothes,” Dett said. “Uh, for when I have to walk around certain kinds of property. Sometimes, you can’t wear good clothes. They’d get ruined in a minute. Stuff like this, even if I get them all dirty, it wouldn’t show.”

“I know what you mean. Some nights, my uniform looks like I’m wearing what everybody had for dinner.”

She placed a steaming mug in front of Dett. He sipped it, said, “This is really good.”

Tussy sat across from him. She lit a cigarette, and left it smoldering in an ashtray while she went to the refrigerator for a small bottle of cream. “Fireball,” she called. “Come on, boy. I’ve got your favorite cocktail.”

“I thought cats don’t come when you-” Dett interrupted himself when he saw Fireball enter the kitchen and stalk haughtily over to the saucer of cream Tussy had placed on the floor.

1959 October 06 Tuesday 02:48

“You’re out pretty late tonight, Holden.”

“Well, there was a lot going on, Sherman. ‘Specially for a Monday night.”

“Is that right?”

“Yes, sir! I got my logbook all ready for you,” Holden said. “See?”

“You do a beautiful job, Holden,” the big detective said. “I wish I had ten men like you. Let’s have a look. Hmmm… a couple of new ones, huh? Never saw these before.”

“The Buick? There was a man and a girl in it. Well, not so much in it. They was standing around, talking.”

“You hear what they were talking about?”

“Sort of. It wasn’t any of the stuff you said to be sure and listen for, Sherman, I know that. Just about growing up and things. The girl told him about her parents being killed.”

“Killed?” Sherman Layne said, taking care to keep his voice level.

“By a drunk driver,” Holden said, proud that he had remembered. “It was a long time ago.”

“A blond girl? Kind of short? Chubby?”

“That’s right! Boy oh boy, Sherman. You must be as smart as Sherlock Holmes in the movies.”

Tussy Chambers? He repeated the name to himself, as he copied down the license number of the Buick Holden had discovered.

“And I got something else, too!” Holden said, excitedly. “About the Cadillac? I never seen it before. And I couldn’t see the people inside, neither. Where they were parked, I couldn’t get close enough to hear what they was saying, but I know the voice, Sherman. Of the girl, I mean.”

“Who was she?”

“I don’t know her name, Sherman. But I know her voice. It was a colored girl.”

“Out here? In your section?”

“Yes, sir! And that’s not all, Sherman. I know her name. Part of her name, anyway.”

“Slow down, Holden. Easy… That’s right. Let’s you and me go sit in the car, where we can discuss this like professionals.”

“In your car, Sherman? The police car?”

“The unmarked car, Holden. Detectives don’t use black-and-whites, right?”

“Right!”

The two men walked over to Sherman’s Ford and climbed in. Sherman let Holden devour the interior with his eyes for a couple of minutes, then said, “Tell me about the girl, Holden.”

“She was a colored girl, Sherman.”

“Yes. I wrote that down, Holden. But you said you knew her name…?”

“Kitty,” Holden said. “That’s what the man called her.”

“You sure he didn’t say ‘kitten,’ now? That’s what some guys call their girlfriends. You know, like ‘honey,’ or something like that?”

“No, sir. I heard it plain. ‘Kitty.’ He called her that a lot. ‘Kitty.’ Plain as day.”

Might be a street name, Sherman thought to himself. But I can’t see any Darktown working girl coming way out here to turn a trick.

“But, listen, Sherman. There’s something else. See, the man she was with, I heard his name, too.”

“And what was that, Holden?” Sherman said, feeling his interest fade. Holden always tried his best, but…

“Harley,” the forest prowler said. “Harley was what she called him.”

1959 October 06 Tuesday 05:41

As Carl showed up for work, early as always, Dett and Tussy were falling asleep together, she in her beloved house, Dett in Room 809.

Dioguardi was at his weight bench in the cellar of his restaurant, stripped to a pair of gym shorts and sneakers, seeking that almost-exhausted physical state that unleashed his mind.

Rufus daydreamed of fire.

1959 October 06 Tuesday 08:01

“Come on, Beau. It’s a real Indian-summer day. We won’t have many more like this before it gets cold out.”

“Not today, Cyn. I’ve got too much work to do.”

“You always have work to do. So do I. So does everyone else. But you never get any sun, Beau. That’s no good for you. Remember what Dr.-”

“I haven’t believed a doctor since I was a kid,” Beaumont said, flatly. “Why should I?”

“Oh, forget the doctor, then. But you need to get out, get some fresh air. You could play a few games of horseshoes with Luther. You know he loves it when you do.”

“Luther’s fine.”

“Beau, please.”

“Cyn, you know how long it takes to roll this damn wheelchair out of here?”

“Well, you could go straight out the back, through that little doorway, if you’d only let me-”

“What? Tear the cellar apart, rip out the stairs, build a whole bunch of… We can’t have that kind of work done on this house, honey. We can’t let outsiders down there. And if we just used our own men, it would take months. The garage, that’s our escape hatch, remember? We could leave from there and never go near a main road for miles. So it was worth whatever time and money it took to get that built. But just so you could wheel me straight out to the backyard? No.”

“Well, even if you won’t let me build what it takes to make it easy, that doesn’t mean you can’t go at all,” Cynthia said, walking behind Beaumont and pulling the wheelchair toward her. “Now, come on!”

1959 October 06 Tuesday 08:19

“You know full well I’m meeting Royal Beaumont himself this very afternoon, Sean,” Shalare said to the bulky man seated across from him in his upstairs office.

“I do, Mickey. And your timing is a thing of beauty, as always.”

“So I need to know,” Shalare went on, as if the other man had not spoken, “what it is, exactly, I’ll be offering him.”

“Offering him? Why, this whole town, son. And everything in it. Dioguardi’s been told, and he’ll do as he’s told. Once the election’s over, for all we care, they can go at each other like rats and terriers.”

Shalare templed his fingertips, touched the tip of his nose, then said, “The way Beaumont looks at it, offering him this town, Sean, that’s like offering a man sex with his own wife.”

“Oh? You did say Beaumont’s worried enough about Dioguardi that he’s brought in a specialist.”

“I did.”

“Doesn’t seem to have actually done anything, this man, does he?”

“There’s those two of Dioguardi’s men that-”

“Ah, you’re not telling me that Beaumont had to send for outside help to handle something like that, are you?”

“No. You’re right there,” Shalare admitted. “But, just because you can’t see the miners, it doesn’t mean the coal’s not being dug.”

“Let me tell you something about trains, Mickey Shalare,” the bulky man said, pointing a stubby finger for emphasis. “You can control the conductor, you can control the engineer, but it’s the men who lay the tracks who get to say where it ends up going.”

“That’s all well said,” Shalare replied, unruffled. “But we’ve been watching Locke City a long time, now. Getting the feel of the land before we plant our crops. And this is what I know about Royal Beaumont: he’s one of your hard men. The genuine article. Hear me, the man’s a pit bull, veteran of a hundred fights. You pull his teeth, he’ll still try and gum you to death. A man like him, he may come at you like a locomotive, but it’ll be on tracks he laid himself.”

“That’s the way he negotiates? Or is he-?”

“All in,” Shalare said, as if reluctantly proud of his adversary.

“I should hope it wouldn’t come to that,” Sean said, judiciously. “But there’s too much riding on this for any one man to be allowed to derail our train. Should it come to it, your Mr. Beaumont’s not the only one who can call in a specialist.”

1959 October 06 Tuesday 10:12

“A ringer!” Luther yelled. “Look, Roy! I got one!”

“Go for the six-pack, Luther,” Seth urged him on. “You can do it.”

The slack-mouthed man hesitated, one of the custom-made “turn shoes” the Beaumonts had given him last Christmas steady in his hand.

“Bring it home, Luther,” Beaumont said. “One more and we’ve got forty. That’ll teach these young bucks to mess with old stags like us.”

Luther stood at the edge of the platform, sighted down the length of the pit to the stake, exhaled slowly, and delicately rainbowed the shoe through the air.

“Damn!” Harley said. “You nailed it, Luther. We’re done.”

Luther’s slack mouth flopped into a wide grin. Beaumont rolled over to him, and extended his hand.

“Easiest hundred bucks I ever made,” he said. “A pure slaughter. You and me, Luther, we’re a hell of a team.”

“Well, you got most of the points, Roy. Nobody pitches as good as you.”

“Yeah? Well, it wasn’t me that went back to back and slammed the door on them, Luther.”

The slack-mouthed man pumped Beaumont’s hand, speechless.

Cynthia caught her brother’s eye, and beamed her approval. Their love arced between them, as palpable as an electric current.

1959 October 06 Tuesday 10:28

“Yes?” Dett said, his voice as inanimate as the receiver he was holding.

“He’d like to see you.” Cynthia’s businesslike voice.

“When?”

“That would depend on your… schedule. He knows you’re working on an important project.”

Dett felt the muscles in his neck unclench. If he wants it for lunch today-anytime today-I can’t do it. But if you don’t come when they call, they start thinking you’ve slipped the leash… “How would tomorrow be?” he said.

“If that’s the soonest you can make it, that would be fine.”

Was there something in her voice?

“I’m still collecting some of the information he wanted,” Dett said. “I expect to have a good bit more of it come in sometime today. Tomorrow, my report would be more complete.”

“I understand. Tomorrow then. You have no time preference?”

“No.”

“Sometime in the evening, then. Say, eight?”

“I’ll be there,” Dett said.

1959 October 06 Tuesday 10:33

Tussy stood before her bedroom mirror, studying her face for the tenth time that morning. Oh, what is wrong with you? she thought. I don’t care if you only got a couple of hours sleep, you don’t gop on the war paint in the daytime. Stop stalling and start cooking! She brushed her tousled hair vigorously, then gave herself a sharp crack on the bottom with the hairbrush. All right, now! She nodded briskly at the mirror, grabbed a fresh pair of dungarees and pulled them on, holding her breath to fasten the waist.