Two Trains Running

“And what are you looking at?” she said to Fireball, who was curled up on her bed, inspecting her.

What would he want for lunch? she mused, as she walked through her kitchen, idly opening and closing the overhead cabinets. Some men like a big steak. I still have time to go out and- No, wait! That’s too much for lunch. Maybe tuna salad and some… Oh, damn! I should have just asked him…

1959 October 06 Tuesday 10:42

“Where does a man take a girl like you?” Rufus said to Rosa Mae.

“Take me? Rufus Hightower, I-”

“I didn’t mean for it to come out like that, Rosa Mae. I was trying to ask, when you go out, a woman like you, where does a man take you? I know you’re not going for some juke joint, but you don’t seem like you’re the nightclub type, either. I… I guess I don’t know much-hell, I don’t know anything-about where a respectable woman would go on a date. The movies, maybe?”

“Are you taking a survey, Rufus? Because, if you are, there’s a whole lot of women at my church you could go and ask. I’m sure they’d be happy to talk to you.”

“Why you want to make this so hard, Rosa Mae?”

“Me?”

“You, girl. You know how I feel about you. I… declared myself, didn’t I?”

“You said some things. But am I supposed to know you… like me just because you talk to me?”

“Because of what I talk to you about,” Rufus said, earnestly. “About what’s important to me. What I hope will be important to you, too.”

“Rufus, if you want to go out on a date with me, why can’t you just ask me, like any regular man?”

“Because I’m not a regular man, Rosa Mae. You know that. You know that because I showed it to you. That’s what I was trying to say, before. I asked you about… where you go and all because that’s where I want to take you.”

“Like a real gentleman? That doesn’t sound like-”

“Like Rufus? Like the Rufus you think you know, even after all the times I’ve talked to you? I swear, little sugar, if your daddy was around, I’d go and ask him before I asked you, if that’s the way you wanted me to be.”

Rosa Mae stepped back from Rufus, her amber eyes flashing, as if in sync with her pulse. “You would?”

“On my heart,” he said.

“Then you go and talk with Moses,” she said, turning on her heel and walking off.

1959 October 06 Tuesday 11:08

Dett drank four glasses of tepid tap water, then did his exercises, his mind taking him to that colorless no-place he could induce at will.

He dressed slowly. A fresh-pressed pair of chinos, a dark-green chambray shirt, oxblood brogans whose heavy construction concealed their steel toes.

Dett slipped his brass knuckles into the side pocket of his leather jacket, and dropped his straight razor into a slot he had sewn in just for that purpose. The derringer, chambered for the same.45 caliber as his other pistols, fit snugly inside his left sleeve.

He locked his room door behind him, and rang for the elevator car.

“Morning, suh,” Moses said.

“Morning to you,” Dett replied.

As the car descended, Dett asked, “You’re not going to say anything about that package I left with you?”

“Package, suh?”

“You could teach some of these young men think they’re so sharp a thing or two,” Dett said. “Another day okay with you?”

“One day the same as the other round here, suh.”

“How are you enjoying Locke City so far, Mr. Dett?” Carl called out, as Dett stepped off the elevator car and started across the lobby.

“It seems like a good place to do business,” Dett said, not breaking stride.

1959 October 06 Tuesday 11:11

“Time for another coffee break,” Sherman Layne told the clerk at the car-rental agency.

“How long a break?” the young man asked, worriedly.

“Ten minutes, tops,” Layne promised him. A quick phone call earlier that day had identified the plate on the Buick logged in by Holden as belonging to the agency. The clerk would have pulled the matching paper for him, but Sherman Layne was a man who believed in collecting information, not giving it away.

Him again! he said to himself. Changing rides, are you, Walker Dett? And what does a man like you want with Tussy Chambers?

He strolled out behind the agency building, where the clerk was puffing on a cigarette. “Ever get yourself stopped by the police?” Layne asked the young man. “For speeding, maybe. Or being parked where you shouldn’t be?”

“No, sir,” the clerk said, nervously.

“Next time you do, you give them this,” Layne said, handing over one of his business cards, with “OK/1” handwritten on the back.

1959 October 06 Tuesday 11:22

“He driving a Buick now, boss,” Rufus said into the pay phone. “Brand-new one. Shiny brown color. Let me give you the plate.”

“Who was that, Sal?” a scrawny man in a white shirt and dark suit pants asked, when the phone was put down.

“That was the future, Rocco,” Dioguardi told him. “For anyone smart enough to see it.”

1959 October 06 Tuesday 12:07

“No flowers today?” Tussy said, as she stood aside for Dett to enter.

“I didn’t think-”

“Oh, don’t be such a stick!” she said, grinning. “I was only teasing you.”

“I guess I’m no good at telling.”

“Well, when I make this face,” Tussy said, turning the corners of her mouth down, “that’s the tip-off.”

“But you weren’t-”

“Walker, what am I going to do with you? That was teasing, too!”

“I…”

“I wish you could see the look on your face. Honestly! Well, come on, let’s get you some food. Just put your jacket over the back of the couch there, if you like.”

“Where’s Fireball?” Dett asked, sitting down at the kitchen table.

“Who knows?” Tussy said, airily. “He comes and goes just as he pleases.”

“You mean he can get out by himself?”

“Sure,” she said. “The back door’s got a hole cut in it for him, down at the bottom. My dad did that, a long time ago. He used to go out a lot more than he does now, but he still likes the idea that he can, you know?”

“Yeah,” Dett said. “I do know. Sometimes, all you have is the things you think about.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, her eyes alive and attentive.

“Well, things can happen. The bank can take your house-not your house, not with you never missing a payment,” Dett added immediately, seeing a dart of fear flash across Tussy’s face. “But… well, you can lose things. Like a car being repossessed, or a business going bad. But the idea of things, those you get to keep, no matter where you are.”

“Like dreams, you mean? Wishes?”

“No. More like… When I was in the army, some of the men I served with, what really kept them going was letters from home. But not everybody got those letters. The guys who didn’t, some of them built their own. In their head, like. The idea of a girlfriend, or a hometown, or people that cared about them-I don’t know-things that could have been. Or things that could come true, someday. Some guys, that was all they could talk about.”

“But if those things never happened-”

“They could happen,” Dett said, insistently. “I don’t mean fools who dreamed about being millionaires-or… there was this one guy, Big Wayne, he was always talking about how he was going to write a book. Not like that. I mean, things that really could happen, if you got lucky enough.”

“Fireball, when he goes out, I don’t think he… chases girl cats, anymore,” Tussy said. “He used to come back just mangled from some of the fights he got into with the other toms. But with that door still there, maybe he thinks he could go out and… be like he was before. Is that what you mean, Walker?”

“It’s exactly what I mean,” Dett said.

1959 October 06 Tuesday 12:36

“You have to listen to me, Uriah.”

“That’s not my name. Not no more,” the tall, rangy youth said to his sister. He was wearing a long black undertaker’s coat and matching narrow-brimmed black hat, with three orange feathers in the headband.

“I don’t care what you call yourself,” she said, firmly. “I didn’t cut out of school and come all the way over here to listen to any more of your foolishness.”

“My foolishness? It ain’t me saying those mangy-ass little white boys got themselves some real guns. Where’d you hear that, anyway?”

“I can’t tell you,” Kitty said. “But it’s from someone who knows.”

“I know you ain’t keeping company with none of those-”

“I’m not one of your little gang boys, Uriah Nickens,” she said, facing him squarely, “so don’t you dare use that tone of voice with me.”

“You heard it at school?”

“What if I did?”

“Yeah. What I thought. Those white boys think they slick, spread the word they got cannons, maybe we don’t show up tomorrow night. Punk out. Wouldn’t they fucking love that!”

“Do you have to talk that way?”

“I’ll talk… I’m sorry, Kitty-girl. You my baby sister. Always will be, no matter what the old man say. Look, I think I got it scoped out, what happened. It’s just a bluff, like I said.”

“Uriah, you know I don’t lie. Just because I can’t tell you where I heard it, that doesn’t mean it’s not true. If you go and fight, you could end up…”

“You don’t know nothing about our life, the life we live, Kitty. Some people got farms, some people got houses, some people got cars. What we got is that we’re the South Side Kings. And every King knows, when we roll on another club, he might not be coming back. But if one of us punked out, ever punked out, then we’re all dead, or might as well be.”

“You could always come back home, Uriah. Daddy didn’t mean those things he said. I know he didn’t. You come back, and I’ll stand right there with you, I promise.”

“I know you would, Kitty-girl. And I hope you find the life you want for yourself. College and all. But me, this is my life. Back there, I’m Uriah Nickens, the nigger-boy dropout nothing. If I’m lucky, maybe I get me a job cleaning some white man’s toilets. Here, I’m Preacher, President of the South Side Kings. And you know what, baby sis? I’d rather die where I stand than live back where I came from.”

1959 October 06 Tuesday 12:52

The sky had broken its morning promise. A dull, leaden rain slanted down with the self-assurance of an experienced conqueror. A pink-and-black ’58 Edsel Corsair swayed down the two-lane blacktop, yawing badly at each curve. The turnoff was unmarked, but the driver had been thoroughly briefed, and recognized the lightning-scarred trunk of what had once been a magnificent white-oak tree.

The Edsel slowed considerably as the blacktop turned to hard-packed dirt, passing ramshackle houses so deteriorated a stranger to the area would have thought them abandoned. The houses were scattered carelessly, like garbage tossed from the window of a passing car. Just like home, the driver thought. Only I don’t live here anymore.

The house at the top of a rise was little more than a cabin, but it looked well maintained, with a fresh coat of barn-red paint and a cedar-shake roof, faded to a soft gray. The surrounding yard was more forest than lawn, with a wide swath of macadam laid through it, branching off to a detached two-car garage.

The Edsel pulled up to the garage, and Ruth Keene, proprietress of Locke City’s finest whorehouse, stepped out.

The door to the cabin opened; Detective Sherman Layne stood there a long moment. Then he walked over to her.

1959 October 06 Tuesday 13:31

“Can I talk to you?”

“You talking to me now,” Moses said to Rufus.

“Not like this. I want to sit down with you.”

“After work,” the elderly man said.

“You want to meet me at-”

“You know where I got my little office?”

“There?”

“After work,” Moses said, again.

“I don’t like talking business with so many white people around.”

“When’s the last time you saw any white people down there?”

“Fair enough, what you say. But… this is private, man.”

“So’s my office.”

Rufus looked into the old man’s eyes. Stubborn old mule, he thought. But he’s holding the case ace, here. And he knows it. “Thanks, Moses,” he said, humbly.

1959 October 06 Tuesday 13:33

“What is this?” Dett asked Tussy, touching a dark-green leaf lightly with his fork.

“That’s basil leaf. Sweet basil, they call it. When I make my tuna salad, I always put some across the top. It adds something to the flavor. And it looks pretty, too, the way parsley does. I always put a sprig of parsley when I serve anything. See that pot on the windowsill there? I grow the basil myself. You have to keep it indoors; it won’t survive a good frost.”

“It’s good,” Dett said, chewing the basil leaf slowly.

“Oh, you’re not supposed to eat it.”

“Why not?”

“I… I don’t know, now that you say it. That’s just what the waiter told me.”

“Where?”

“In this place where I went out to eat. An Italian restaurant. I had a veal cutlet, and this leaf was on it. I asked the waiter what it was, and he told me. So, later, I tried it myself. Putting it on food, I mean. I like to do that, try new stuff. Don’t you?”

“I guess I never think about it.”

“Maybe, working at the diner, I get the idea that food means a lot to people. They’re always talking about it, aren’t they?”

“Not the people I deal with.”

“Well, I guess people are different around here-we even have a Businessman’s Special at the diner. I had dinner with a man once, and he said it all went on his expense account.”

“Big spender,” Dett said, dryly.

“That’s what Gloria said! I mean, not the words, but the same way you said them.”

“Well, I thought women liked it if a man spent money on them.”

“Some girls do. You know what my mom always said? She said the man who spends a lot of money is all well and good to go on a date with; but the man who’s careful with his money, that’s the one you want to marry.”

“But the man you married-”

“Joey wasn’t careful with anything,” she said, sorrowfully. “But, by then, my mom wasn’t around for me to listen to.”

“Your father wouldn’t have liked him, either.”

“No, he sure wouldn’t,” Tussy said. “Daddy was always joking that I wouldn’t even be allowed to go out on dates until I was twenty-one. He didn’t mean it-I went to school dances with boys-but he looked them over careful, you can bet on that.”

“I don’t blame him.”

“Would you be that same way? If you had a little girl, I mean.”

“I’ll never have a little girl.”

“Why not? Plenty of men get married at-”

“I’ll never get married, Tussy,” he said.

In the silence that followed, Dett plucked the sprig of parsley from his plate and put it into his mouth.

“You’re a strange man,” Tussy finally said.

“Because I’ll never get married?”

“No, because you eat basil!” she snapped. “I think plenty of men are never going to get married. It’s probably more fun being a bachelor. But you’re the first man I ever met that I was… that I had a date with, that ever came right out and said it like that.”

“Why wouldn’t they?”

“Well, come on! If you were a girl, and a man said he was never going to get married, would you go on seeing him? I mean, I know some girls would, if he was… generous and all. One of the girls who works at the diner, her boyfriend is already married. But…”

“I have to tell you the truth,” Dett said.

“Why?” Tussy said, getting to her feet and starting to clear the dishes. “Why do you have to tell me the truth?”

“I… I’m not exactly sure, Tussy. But I know I have to.”

“But you still ask me to go out with you? Even though you’re never going to be my… boyfriend, even? Because, if you want a girl just for… fun, I’m not her.”

“I know that.”

“How?” she demanded. “How do you know all these things?”

“I promise to tell you,” Dett said. “I have to tell you, or this would all be for nothing. But I can’t do it now.”

Tussy snatched Dett’s empty plate from the table and brought it over to the kitchen sink. She stood there, with her back toward him, and said, “You’re never coming back again, are you? To Locke City, I mean?”

“No.”

“It would be easy to lie. Just say you might be. In your business, that’s always possible. Something like that.”

“It would be a lie.”

“What do you want from me, then?” she said, turning to face him. Her mouth was set in a firm line, but her green eyes glistened with tears.

“I want to tell you my story,” he said. “I waited a long time.”

“For what?”

“To find you,” Dett said.

1959 October 06 Tuesday 13:38

“This place is really… impressive,” Ruth said. “I never saw a house built like it, one huge room, with no walls.”

“I did it myself,” Sherman told her. “It started out as kind of a hobby. I bought the land when I was just a kid. It was a few years into the Depression. I was already a cop, so I wasn’t worried about having a job, but I couldn’t afford to buy a house. And what does a man living alone need a house for, anyway? So I thought I’d invest in a piece of land and sell it someday. Like the big shots do, only just this little bit.

“I started out by clearing the land. Coming up here on my days off. I guess that’s when the idea came to me.”

“How long did it take you to finish it?”

“It’s still not finished,” Sherman said, ruefully. “At the rate I’m going, it may never be. But it’s good enough to live in. For me, anyway.”

“Where did you learn how to do all the… things you have to do? To build a house, I mean.”

“I just read about it. At the library. They’ve got books on everything there. Plumbing-you can’t get city water out this far; I’ve got a well-electricity, everything. I didn’t always get it right the first time, but I just kept worrying at it until I solved it.”

“Like one of your cases?”

“That’s exactly what it’s like,” Sherman said, looking at Ruth with open admiration. “You collect as much information as you can. Then you take whatever you want to test-it doesn’t matter if we’re talking about a plumbing line or a theory-and you try it out, see if it’ll hold up.

“You put a lot of pressure on it,” the big man explained. “Work slow and careful. Keep good notes. Check and recheck. Never let your emotions get in the way. Just because you want something to turn out a certain way doesn’t mean it will. If you let what you want… influence you, the whole thing falls down.”

Ruth made a complete circuit of the big room, then seated herself elegantly on a couch made of wide, rough-hewn pine planks, covered with a heavy Indian-pattern blanket.

“How did you learn the carpentry part?” she asked. “Was that from books, too? Or did your father teach you?”

“The only thing my father ever taught me was to fear him,” Sherman Layne said, his voice as quiet as cancer. “Until the day I taught him to fear me.”

1959 October 06 Tuesday 13:47

“What do you mean, ‘find’ me?” Tussy said.

“Would it be enough if I promise to tell you everything?” Dett replied. “Not now, before I leave. If you don’t want to see any more of me until then, I’ll understand. I wouldn’t blame you.”

“I thought you were going to take me out again tonight,” she said, making a pouty motion with her mouth.

“I am. I mean, I’ll take you anywhere you want to-”

“You know where I’d like to go? The drive-in. I haven’t been there in a million years. But I looked in the paper this morning, and North by Northwest is playing. I really wanted to see that one.”

“Sure. What time should I-?”

“Well, if we get there by seven-thirty, we’ll have plenty of time to eat and everything.”

“Do you know a place?”

“To eat? No, I mean right there at the drive-in, silly.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Haven’t you ever done that? Eat dinner at a drive-in?”

“I’ve never been.”

“In your whole life?”

“Not even once.”

“Oh, you’ll love it. It’s so much nicer than in a movie theater. Like having the show playing just for you.”

“If you like it so much, how come you don’t go more?”

“It’s really for kids. Or people with kids. For the teenagers around here, the drive-in’s just another place to make out. They wouldn’t care if the screen was blank.”

Dett was quiet for a few seconds. Then he said, “That tuna was delicious, Tussy. The best I ever had.”

“You’re just saying that.”

“I’m not. I don’t do that. Just say things, I mean. Every time I have tuna salad, from now on, I’m going to ask for basil on it. And a little piece of parsley on the side.”

“Well, most places have parsley. We serve it at the diner with certain dishes. Like it always comes with the meatloaf. But basil, I don’t know.”

“I can just buy some. In a store, I mean. And take it with me.”

“Oh, people do do that. One old man, he’s a regular, a real sweetheart, flirts with all the girls, he always brings his own bottle of sauce. I don’t know what’s in it, but he puts it on everything. Meat, fish… even eggs. I don’t know if the basil would stay fresh, though.”

“It would if you bought it that same day.”

“I guess it would. But it seems like a lot of trouble.”

“No,” Dett said. “That isn’t trouble.”

1959 October 06 Tuesday 13:56

“Do a lot of people know you live out here?” Ruth asked.

“I’m… not sure. My mail comes to the post office; I’ve got a box there. But this place, it’s not a secret.”

“It doesn’t look like you get a lot of visitors. Or else you have a woman come in and clean for you.”

“I never have visitors,” Sherman said.

“Until me,” Ruth said.

“You’re not a visitor.”

“What am I, then?”

“What you’ve been for a long time,” Sherman Layne said. “The person I trust. The only one.”

1959 October 06 Tuesday 13:57

“You ever get tired of all this?” the man behind the binoculars asked the rifleman.

“This?”

“Waiting. Waiting all the time.”

“Any job there is, there’s always some waiting in it,” the rifleman said.

“You never get bored, just sitting around, doing nothing?”

“What we do, it only takes a couple of seconds,” the rifleman said. “But waiting to do it, that’s part of doing it right.”

1959 October 06 Tuesday 14:04

“Would you like to see my garden?” Tussy asked. “You couldn’t have seen much in the dark, last night.”

“Yes,” Dett said, getting to his feet.

Tussy led him out the back door. She pointed to a neat square of plowed and furrowed earth. “My mother started it,” she said, “before I was even born. That parsley you had? I grew it right here. I’ve got fresh carrots, onions, radishes, all kinds of vegetables. Better than anything you could buy in the store. My dad always said he was going to put a beehive back there. One of those you build yourself. We’d have fresh honey then, too. But Mom said she wasn’t going to have a bunch of bees buzzing around her every time she went outside.”

Fireball left the house, moving slowly and purposefully.

“He’s playing like he’s stalking a bird,” Tussy said. “He hasn’t caught one since my thirteenth birthday. He brought it home. For me, like a present. I cried and cried. My dad explained it was just him being a cat-he couldn’t help himself. But I think he-Fireball, I mean-I think he understood how upset he’d made me, because he never brought one home again.”

1959 October 06 Tuesday 14:09

“Is there a basement?” Ruth asked.

“Well… no. The foundation is really just some big pieces of rock I hauled myself.”

“Oh. And the garage, it doesn’t have heat, does it?”

“The garage? No. It’s all wired, for when I have to see what I’m doing when I work on my car, or put some project together, but you wouldn’t want to go out there in the winter without your coat.”

“It’s all so… open in here.”

“You don’t like it, Ruth?”

“I love it. It’s beautiful, Sherman. I was just looking for a place where you could… build me something?”

“Build you… I don’t understand.”

“Like in my blue room,” she said, looking him squarely in the face. “Only right here.”

1959 October 06 Tuesday 14:11

“You sure I’m the man you want with you for this, Mickey?”

“Ah, Brian, how many times is it I’m to be telling you the same thing? Now, just drive, boyo. You be the pilot; I’ll be the navigator,” Shalare said.

“Not to drive the bloody car, Mickey. I mean that other thing you said.”

“All you have to do is use your eyes, Big Brian. Make them into little cameras. Whatever you see, it’s gold for us. I don’t know if they’re going to let you in, keep you outside, stash you someplace else… but it doesn’t matter. Wherever they take you, wherever they let you be, it’s going to be someplace we’ve not ever seen before.”

“Why is that so important, then?”

“Because we may have to come back someday, Brian. Only without the invite.”

1959 October 06 Tuesday 14:16

“Why?” Ruth demanded.

“Why what?” Sherman said. Knowing he was evading her question; knowing she knew.

“Why can’t you trust me the way you say you do?”

“I do trust you, Ruth. You know my… you know things about me nobody else does.”

“That’s not trusting, Sherman. That’s trusting not to tell. There’s a big difference.”

“What would be trusting you?” the detective asked. A wave of depersonalization washed over him. He could see himself, seated across from Ruth. Lean back to invite a confidence; lean forward to intimidate; work the middle distance to assure the suspect that whatever he’s about to say is going to stay between us. His shoulders trembled as he shook off the wave. Sherman Layne knew how to do that. He had been practicing since he was a child.

“Building me what I asked you for would be a start.”

“Ruth, I don’t think of you like that.”

“But you said… I mean, when I said I’d do anything for you, I meant it. And when you asked me out here, I thought…”

“You don’t understand,” he said, in the hushed tone used for sharing secrets. “What you… think I do… out at your place? You’re wrong.”

“But I don’t care what you-”

“Just listen, okay?” Sherman said. “Please?”

1959 October 06 Tuesday 14:55

“Damn, I’d hate to find this place after dark, Mickey. Are you sure we’re going right?”

“If the directions he gave us are true, we are,” Shalare said.

“Are you thinking…?”

“Ambush? No, Brian. I’m not saying Beaumont’s not capable of it, mind. But he’s too smart for such a stunt now.”

“Now?”

“He’ll be wanting to hear what we’ve got to say first,” Shalare said. “That’s what I’d be doing myself.”

1959 October 06 Tuesday 15:03

“You got a call, Rufe. On the pay phone, down in the kitchen. Man say you should call home. Hope nothing’s wrong, bro.”

“Thanks, Earl. Probably just one of my dumb-fuck cousins. Got a couple of them staying at my crib. Probably can’t figure out how to turn on the stove or something. Country boys, you know?”

1959 October 06 Tuesday 15:41

“There it is,” Shalare said, pointing at the black boulder. “The perfect landmark, isn’t it? Looks like God himself tossed a giant lump of coal into those birch trees.”

“Aye,” the prizefighter said, steering carefully. “And here comes the… curves, just like he said.”

“Remember what I told you, Big Brian.”

“Eyes like a camera.”

“Yes. And ears like a pair of tape recorders.”

“I doubt they’re going to be talking to me, Mick. They’ll probably just put me in some-”

“Lymon’s been good for more than helping us see the future, Brian. He’s told us a bit about some of Beaumont’s boys, too. And if luck smiles on us today…”

1959 October 06 Tuesday 15:49

“What?” Rufus said.

“You know that boy, Preacher? He’s the head of the-”

“I know. Come on, man. I’m at work.”

“He’s been around,” Darryl said. “Wants to buy something. Thought we might have it.”

“We?”

“At the yard. Look, I told him, come back tonight.”

“Why you do that?”

“When you come by, I tell you, brother. But, hear me, this is a decision we got to make. Tonight.”

1959 October 06 Tuesday 15:51

Seth emerged from the guard cottage and walked slowly over to Shalare’s Chrysler, a shotgun in his right hand.

“Help you folks?” he said, as the driver’s-side window descended.

“I’ve got Mr. Shalare here,” Brian said, “to see Mr. Beaumont.”

“Right on time, too,” Seth said, glancing at his wristwatch. “Hey!” he said, suddenly. “You’re not Brian O’Sullivan, the fighter, are you? I could swear-”

“That’s me, for true,” Brian said, grinning broadly. “Hard to mistake a mug like mine, once you’ve laid eyes on it, I’ll bet.” He extended his hand.

Without taking his eyes off the men in the car, Seth tossed the shotgun from his right hand to his left, and used the gentle momentum to bring his open hand up to take Brian’s offered grip. “I was at the Paladium in Akron the night you fought Buster Blaine,” he said. “You’ve got one of iron and the other of steel, just like people say.”

“I sure needed both that night. Fighting Buster was like punching smoke.”

“That’s right! I told my pals he could dance all night but sooner or later Brian O’Sullivan would land one. And that was all it took.”

“Did you bet on me, then?”

“Didn’t I? A double sawbuck, I went for. The odds were… well, they were pretty good,” Seth said, embarrassed.

“Well, they should have been,” Brian assured him. “Buster Blaine is a better boxer in his sleep than I ever was awake.”

“Faster, maybe,” Seth said, stoutly. “But sure not better. You were never a man to get a break from the judges. I thought you got jobbed when you fought John Henry Jefferson. By rights, they’re supposed to give you points for being aggressive.”

“Nah, he won that one,” Brian said. “My own mother would have scored it for him. If I could have caught him, even one time, maybe it would have ended otherwise, but-”

“No ‘maybe’ about it,” Seth said, conviction ringing through his voice. “If you’d of ever caught him, it would have ended, all right!”

1959 October 06 Tuesday 15:59

“Oh! I’m sorry,” Tussy said, belatedly covering her mouth as she yawned. “I didn’t realize how tired I am.”

“Are you sure you still want to go out tonight?”

“I am absolutely sure. All I need is a little nap.”

“All right. Should I come back in-?”

“Just a catnap. Only an hour or so,” she said. “I’d rather you stayed… if you want.”

1959 October 06 Tuesday 16:02

Seth walked beside Shalare’s Chrysler as it slowly crept along the curved drive.

“You can leave it right here,” Seth told Brian. Directing his voice to Shalare, he continued, “And you, you can go right in the front door. Just give a knock, and Luther will take care of you from there on.”

“Many thanks,” Shalare said, opening his door.

“We’ll have a wait,” Seth said to Brian. “If you like, you can come back and share my guard duty with me. Or I could get you a-”

“Ah, it isn’t every day that I meet a man I can talk boxing with,” Brian said. “That little house of yours, it wouldn’t by any chance have a little refrigerator in it?”

The door opened before Shalare could knock. The slack-mouthed man on the other side of the threshold stared blankly, as if waiting for someone to throw his switch.

Good sweet Jesus, Shalare thought. The man’s a blessed dummy.

“Come on,” Luther said, turning and walking away.

Doesn’t search me, lets me walk behind him-what kind of people does Beaumont have working for him, anyway?

It took almost a full minute for Luther to wend his way through the house to their destination. Like a bloody damn museum, Shalare thought. “Beautiful place, this is,” he said aloud.

Luther didn’t respond.

They came to a double-width door, the entrance ramp telling Shalare that the room inside was higher than the floor he had been walking on.

Luther strode through the doorway, Shalare three steps behind him. Beaumont was at the other end of the room, seated behind a modern, kidney-shaped desk. Shalare crossed over to him. “Thanks for having me,” he said, holding out his hand.

“Thank you for coming,” Beaumont said, with equal formality.

Here comes the bone-crusher, Shalare thought, steeling himself as they shook hands. To his surprise, Beaumont’s grip was just firm enough to be masculine-polite. One quick, dry squeeze, and it was done.

“Please sit down,” Beaumont said. “Can I get you anything? Coffee? A drink?”

“Well, since you’re offering, an Irish coffee would be a treat.”

“Jameson’s good by you?”

“I see you’ve been doing your homework,” Shalare said, grinning broadly. “Good by any son of Erin, and good anytime.”

“No homework necessary,” Beaumont said. “I fancy it myself. The Jameson’s, I mean, not in coffee. That one’s an acquired taste, I believe.”

“Well, that may be,” Shalare said, touching two fingers to his lips. “But I acquired it quite early on.”

Luther reappeared, handed Shalare his drink, placed a heavy tumbler full of ice cubes and a fifth of Jameson’s on Beaumont’s desk, barely moving his head in a “no” gesture as he did, indicating the Irishman was not armed.

Beaumont poured himself a shot of the whiskey, held up his glass. “To friendship,” he said.

“To friendship,” Shalare echoed.

Each man sipped at his drink. Noticing the black marble ashtray at his elbow, Shalare lit a cigarette. Nodding, as if this confirmed still another point of understanding between them, Beaumont opened his silver cigarette case and lit up himself.

“So,” he said.

“I want you to know I appreciate this,” Shalare said. “I feel we’ve a lot to discuss, you and me. And I’m thinking, Royal Beaumont is a man you want to talk with face to face, not over some phone, or through intermediaries.”

“As I would have thought of you.”

“You’ll forgive my bluntness, then,” Shalare said. “I wouldn’t have you think me impolite, or without proper respect. But I know your time is valuable. So, with your permission, I’ll lay out my cards, and let you tell me if you think I’ve got a hand worth playing.”

1959 October 06 Tuesday 16:33

“I’ll just wait here,” Dett said, tilting his head in the direction of the armchair in the living room. “Okay?”

“Perfect,” Tussy said, and walked out of the room.

Dett was halfway through a cigarette when Tussy came back, carrying a pink blanket. Without a word, she curled up on the couch, and pulled the blanket over herself.

Fireball immediately launched himself onto the couch, nestling himself at her feet.

“I think that’s why they call them ‘catnaps,’ ” Tussy said, closing her eyes.

1959 October 06 Tuesday 16:58

“There’s going to be an election next year…” Shalare said. Getting no response from Beaumont, he went on, “The biggest one in the history of this country, from where we sit.”

Beaumont said nothing.

Those eyes of his, they look like the sky just before it rains, Shalare thought. “We’ve all got a stake in this one,” he said. “Yes, sure, we all have a stake in every one, but this one, it’s going to change… business, for all of us. Forever.”

Beaumont raised his thick eyebrows, but stayed quiet.

“That is, of course, if the right man wins. It’s my job to see that he does.”

“Your job?” Beaumont said.

“Ah, you’re right to put me in my place,” Shalare said, with a self-deprecating smile. “It’s not my job to make such a grand thing happen, of course. It’s my job to do my part. To do what I can do. Whatever I can do. There’s people all over this country-all over the world, truth be told-that have the same job. The trick is to make sure all the horses are pulling in the same direction, so that none of us cancel out the others.”

“That would be quite a trick,” Beaumont said.

“Aye. But it’s one that can be done, provided each man sees what’s in it for himself. And for his people, of course.”

“And that’s your job? To tell me what’s in it for me and my people?”

“It is.”

“What are you looking for, exactly?” Beaumont asked.

“Well, the simple answer is… votes. Not local votes-we don’t care who’s the next mayor or city councilman or governor, even. The only thing we care about is the presidential race.”

“What makes you think I could-?”

“Because you do,” Shalare interrupted. “Your machine runs this town like the engine in my car. You built it, you maintain it, and you control it.”

“Are we still taking about votes here?”

“That’s my point, Mr. Beaumont-”

“Roy.”

“And I’m Mickey,” Shalare said, bowing his head slightly to show his appreciation of the gesture. “And it’s only votes we’re talking about. Not the casinos, not the clubs, not any of the… enterprises that your people control. Rightfully control, I might add. A man’s entitled to the fruits of his labor.”

“There’s some around here who don’t agree with you.”

“I’ll get to that, I promise. But let me just finish-about the votes, I mean. We need every single one, Roy. Come election day, we can’t allow anyone inclined to go our way to stay home. And we won’t be encouraging visits to the polls by any of those who might be opposed, either.”

“It’s not going to be a landslide,” Beaumont said.

“Right you are! And that’s why I’m here, hat in hand, to ask you for this special favor.”

“Exactly… what?”

“Exactly? I’ll tell you exactly, Roy. This is a Republican town, isn’t it? On paper, anyway.”

“On paper?”

“Well, if someone was to take a poll, right? The local Republican club is the power in Locke City. Everything gets run out of there. The mayor’s a Republican, the-”

“And it would be better, for this one election, if they weren’t?” Beaumont cut in.

“Much, much better,” Shalare said, not smiling. “And that’s where your organization comes into play. Sure, you’ve got the judges, the city council, the mayor. But they’re not what we’re after. To Mr. Royal Beaumont, those are just chess pieces. You’ve got the ward healers, the precinct captains, the ground-level troops. You’ve got them all. Not that tool Bobby Wyeth. You. On your payroll, in your debt, following your lead, because that’s the way it’s always been done, here. What we need is for this whole area to turn around.”

“Vote Democratic?”

“For this one election only,” Shalare said, leaning forward.

“That’s a huge effort.”

“Yes. Way beyond our reach. But not beyond yours, Roy. You could make it happen. Especially if you started laying in the foundation right now.”

“Even so, it would cost a fortune, in time and money. Because, from what you’re saying, I don’t think you want to leave this up to speeches and posters.”

“That’s right. We need the voting machines to work properly, too,” Shalare said, flatly. “But the more the final tally reflects how people in the area actually know they voted, the less… attention is drawn.”

“So, all over America, there’s men like you meeting with men like me,” Beaumont said, nodding his head thoughtfully.

“There are. There are areas of entrenchment we can rely on, we believe. The people in power there, they’re already committed to our side. Nothing but gold and gravy for them if things come out right. Each side can count heads. And each is going to try and poach off the other’s land.”

“Politicians poach with promises.”

“And they all make the same ones,” Shalare agreed. “That’s why our strategy is to go right into the heart of those places the opposition isn’t going to waste any time or money on. Places where they believe they already can count on the vote.”

“Locke City.”

“Not just Locke City, Roy. We know your reach goes out way past the city limits.”

“You may be giving me too much credit.”

“More likely, you’re giving us too little. No offense, but we’ve done our homework, too.”

“It’s a massive move you’re proposing.”

“We’ve no dispute about that, Roy. But this game is worth the candle, no matter if it’s all burnt by the end.”

“More like a stick of dynamite than a candle, Mickey.”

“I’ve had those in my hands, too. They work just fine, so long as you throw them quick enough.”

“And accurately.”

“Yes. That’s why we wouldn’t even try this area without going to the man who controls it.”

“Like I said before, there’s those who seem to have a different idea. Or a different ambition, I should say.”

“Dioguardi,” Shalare said.

“I would have put you on that same list,” Beaumont retorted, calm-voiced. “You’ve been coming from different directions, is all.”

“We’ve never interfered in any of your-”

“No. No, you haven’t. And, now that you’ve laid out your cards, I can see why you’ve been buying up people in the statehouse.”

“And I’ll not deny it,” the Irishman said. “But it was never the plan to try and move in on-never mind take over-your operations. Hell, man, when it comes to this part of the state, I’d rather have Royal Beaumont in my corner than the governor himself.”

“That’s what they told you, was it?”

Shalare took a sip of his drink, then raised his eyes to Beaumont’s. “That is what they said, for a fact,” he said, frankly. “We thought there was a hierarchy of some kind. A pyramid, like. So, of course, you start at the top, if you can. But we found out, soon enough, that this state isn’t one pyramid, it’s a whole row of them. And when it comes to picking your pyramid, you don’t look for the tallest one, you look for the one with the broadest base, the one that’s been standing the longest. Because that’s the one that’ll weather any storm.”

“That’s on the money,” Beaumont said. “No matter who wins, we’ll still be standing at the end. So what good would it do me and mine for your man to win the next election? It wouldn’t change anything around here.”

“Ah, that’s exactly it! You don’t want things to change around here. And we’re in a position to help you see that through.”

“That brings us back to Dioguardi, doesn’t it?”

“I do mean Dioguardi. But I don’t mean it as you think I do. We both understand that Dioguardi doesn’t stand among his men as you do among yours. If he vanished like this,” Shalare said, making a hand-washing motion, then flinging his hands apart, “his people would just put another pawn on the table, and keep the game going. We can reach past him. In fact, we already have.”

“The men he recently… lost. That was your work?” Beaumont said.

Oh, this man is a master of his trade, Shalare thought to himself. “It was not,” he replied, sincerely. “We’ve no idea what that was about, but it has nothing to do with this conversation. When I say we reached past Dioguardi, I mean all the way to the people who sent him to Locke City in the first place.”

“Reached past him for what?”

“For a lesson in reality,” Shalare said. “As of the minute I walk out your door, Dioguardi’s intrusions into your affairs are going to stop. Not slack off, not change target-stop. As if they hit a brick wall.”

“When I was a kid, there was a guy, for a dollar, he’d run right into a brick wall,” Beaumont said. “Butt it with his head like a ram.”

“Probably ended up with mush for a brain,” Shalare said.

“Yeah,” Beaumont said. “That’s exactly what happened to him. He started out stupid, and he got stupider. Only thing is, he kept right on doing it… butting that wall.”

“I must be missing your meaning, Roy.”

“This guy, the one who rammed the wall? He kept right on doing it, usually when he was drunk. Until, one day, he must have hit the wall wrong. Dropped dead, right there on the spot.”

“Ah.”

“See, before this guy got all mushy in the head, he thought he could keep hitting that wall forever, and nothing would happen to him,” Beaumont said, speaking slowly and deliberately. “Then, when his brain turned soft, he wasn’t smart enough to stop. Oh, you could get him to stop temporarily. But, soon as he got drunk, he’d go right back to it.”

“Dioguardi’s bosses, they want this as bad as mine do,” Shalare said, underscoring his understanding.

“So you came here to tell me Dioguardi’s going to back off until the election…?”

“He’s not going to be a problem for you, Roy,” Shalare said. “Not now, not ever. And we’ll give you any assurances you want on that score. Any at all.”

1959 October 06 Tuesday 17:29

Tussy awoke to find Dett still in the armchair, watching her. He looks like he hasn’t moved a muscle, she thought, finding the feeling oddly comforting. “That was just what I needed,” she said, throwing off the pink blanket, so that it landed across Fireball. The big cat struggled out from underneath, gave Dett an annoyed look, as if the entire episode had been his fault, and marched off.

“You feel better?” Dett said.

“I feel great,” Tussy said, stretching her arms over her head. “Sometimes, when I’m feeling just… beat, I take one of my little naps, and it always works.”

“Your cat didn’t seem too thrilled.”

“Oh, Fireball thinks this is his couch. But I never take naps in the bed. That’s too much like sleeping. When I use the couch, I never seem to sleep long, even without an alarm clock.”

Dett got to his feet.

“Are you sure you want to drive all the way back to the hotel just to change clothes?” Tussy asked. “It’s… why, it’s after five. I never realized…”

“I didn’t, either. The time, I mean. I wish I could stay here…” Dett’s voice fell into a pit of such despair that Tussy felt the vibration as it landed.

“Well, you certainly don’t have to get all dressed up just to go to a drive-in movie, Walker. I’m not going to change. I mean, I am going to take a shower, but I’m not going to get into a dress or anything.”

“I want to do the same thing.”

“The same… Oh, take a shower? Well, you could do that here, couldn’t you?”

“I… I never thought of that. But I… I mean, I… I don’t have fresh clothes to change into, not with me.”

“Well… all right, then,” Tussy said. She stood on her toes, kissed Dett lightly just to the side of his lips. “I’ll see you later, okay?”

1959 October 06 Tuesday 17:31

“I wonder,” Beaumont said. “You’re not just doing a job, are you, Mickey?”

“What do you mean?”

“When people spend money, it’s either a purchase or an investment.”

“Aye. And, if you’re asking me, is Mickey Shalare some sort of mercenary, the answer is no. I’ve got-all my people have got-a huge stake in this.”

“Yes?” Beaumont said, inviting an explanation.

Shalare took a slow, deliberate sip of his drink. “Yes,” he said, evenly, rejecting the offer.

“Have you ever been beat down?” Beaumont asked, suddenly. “Getting pounded on so bad, by so many people, that you can’t hope to win?”

“Aye,” the Irishman said, gravely.

“So, when I tell you that, sometimes, the best you can hope for is just to get one in, you know what I’m talking about, don’t you?”

“I do.”

“And it doesn’t matter if you walk away afterward,” Beaumont said. “Look at me, Mickey; how long do you think it’s been since I could walk at all? It doesn’t matter if you crawl, just so long as you survive. Stay alive, so, someday, you can return the favor.”

“ ‘Getting your own back,’ we call it,” Shalare said, holding his glass in a silent toast to a shared value.

“And we call it ‘payback,’ ” Beaumont said, raising his own glass. “But it doesn’t matter what something’s called, only what it is. Have you ever just… nourished yourself with that thought, with only that thought? ‘Getting your own back’?”

“Sometimes,” Shalare said quietly, “it was more than food and drink to me. Without it, I would have starved.”

“I must have some Irish blood in me, then,” Beaumont said, solemnly.

1959 October 06 Tuesday 18:12

Rufus didn’t change out of his bellhop’s uniform when his shift was over. Though acknowledging the truth of what Moses had told him-he had, in fact, never seen a white man in the basement of the hotel-he reasoned that even a chance encounter with any of the white staff would go unnoticed if he was in uniform. Makes us look even more alike to you, he thought, as he made his way down the back stairs.

Walking past the kitchen, Rufus heard the the intimate caress of Charles Brown’s sultry voice drifting out of the radio, crooning his signature “Black Night.” “Oh, Charles!” a kitchen worker implored him, to the rich laughter of her girlfriends.

Moses was in his chair, his pipe already working.

“Leave it open,” he said, as Rufus entered. “People see a closed door, they got to find out what’s on the other side of it. We keep our voices down, with these walls, might as well be in a different town, all anyone could hear. Besides, this way, we see them coming.”

Nodding his head at the wisdom, Rufus glanced around the room, not saying a word.

“Ain’t got no other chair,” Moses said. “But you could probably get something to sit on out of the-”

“I can stand, say what I got to say.”

“Go ahead, then.”

“It’s about Rosa Mae.”

“What about her?”

“I got feelings for her. Not what you think,” Rufus said, holding up his hand as if to ward off those same thoughts. “I got… I’m deep in love with her, and I told her so.”

“So what you need to talk to me about?” Moses said, puffing slowly on his pipe.

“Rosa Mae’s got no father. Not even one of those Christmas daddies, come around once a year, bring some presents, get a fuss made over them, and then go back to their trifling little hustles. So, when I told her if she had a real father I would go and talk to him first, she said I should talk to you.”

Moses drew on his pipe again, his body language that of a man waiting for something. A patient man.

“I know she wasn’t just… messing me around,” Rufus said. “Everybody here knows you just like her father. Look out for her and all, I mean. And she listens to you like a father. Respects you like one, too. So…”

“So I’m like a roadblock you need to run, that about right?”

“No, sir. Not something to get around, that isn’t what I was saying. I mean, I got to show you something, same way any man would have to show a girl’s father something.”

“Not many young men think like that, not today.”

“Not many young black men think at all. All they want to do is get themselves some fine vines, a sweet ride, and tear it up on Saturday night.”

“And that’s not you, what you’re saying?”

“That’s not any kind of me, Mr. Moses. I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, and I don’t eat swine. I don’t want to make babies for the Welfare to feed. I save my money. And I got plans.”

“Everybody around here knows you’ve got a brain, Rufus,” the elderly man said, calmly. “But there’s a world of difference between smart and slick.”

“Fair enough. Just ask me what you want to know, and I’ll tell you. Then you can make up your own mind.”

“Let me give you an example,” the old man said, unruffled. “You’ve been knowing me for years, from your first day on the job. Before today, you speak to me, you call me ‘Moses,’ right? Or ‘man’ or some other kind of jive talk. Today, what comes out your mouth? It’s all ‘sir’ and ‘Mr. Moses.’ Like, all of a sudden, lightning struck you and you got all this respect. Now,” he said, drawing on his pipe unsuccessfully, then pausing to relight it, “that’s either get-over game, or you got another reason.”

“Rosa Mae-”

“-been calling me ‘Daddy Moses’ for a long time, Rufus. She didn’t start today.”

“I know that. But it wasn’t until I… knew I had feelings for her that it… meant anything to me. I’m not going to lie.”

“Because you got no other reason to show me respect.”

“You’re just like she is,” Rufus said. “Making things hard. What do you want me to say?”

“The truth. Like you promised.”

“All right,” Rufus said, moving closer to the old man. “Here’s some truth: I was raised to respect my elders, but that was all about manners-what you say, not what you feel. Why should I respect someone just because they’re older than me? That never made any sense.”

“Don’t make no sense to me, neither,” Moses said, surprising the younger man. “You know what experience is?”

“Of course I know what it is.”

“Yeah? So, you got something wrong with your car, you want to take it to an experienced mechanic?”

“Sure…” Rufus agreed, warily.

“Let’s say the man been working on cars for thirty years. You call a man like that ‘experienced,’ right?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, now let’s say he been working on cars for thirty years but he never was no good at it. In fact, he so lousy a mechanic that he had himself a hundred different jobs. Kept getting fired, one place after the other, because he couldn’t do a job without messing it up. He got a lot of experience, but no knowledge. Lots of old people like that. If they ain’t learned nothing, just being old don’t make them people you should be listening to.”

Rufus stared at the old man for a long time. Moses looked back, unperturbed, at peace within himself.

“Can I sit down? On that crate, there?” Rufus asked. “I got some things I need to tell you.”

1959 October 06 Tuesday 18:20

“It’s going to be Nixon for the Republicans,” Beaumont said.

“Sure, and who else? But he’s no war hero, like Ike was. And our guy, well, he is.”

“You’re positive that’s such a good thing?” Beaumont challenged his visitor. “If the voters think your guy’s going to get us into another mess like Korea, he’s dead in the water.”

“No, no, no,” Shalare answered, quickly. “That’s all been talked over. We know how to wrap a package, Roy. Our man’s going to be a tiger on national defense, sure, but that’ll be self-defense, not sticking our nose into another meat-grinder like Korea.”

“Nixon’s no Eisenhower in more ways than one,” Beaumont said, warningly. “And one of those is, he’s a whole lot smarter.”

“An election’s not an IQ test. If it was, Stevenson would have won the last couple of times, wouldn’t he?”

“There’s all kinds of smart,” Beaumont said. “I never met the man, but, with television, you can get a read on someone even at a distance. I’ll tell you this: you’re not going to find a craftier man in all of politics than Richard Nixon.”

“He’s a ferret-faced schemer, no doubt,” Shalare said. “And that’s a plus for him. The minus is, he looks like what he is. And, like you said, television. That’s going to play a big role in what’s to come.”

Beaumont nodded his concurrence.

“The timing is right,” Shalare continued. “The Taft machine pretty much died off when Ike got the nomination away from them. A lot of them crossed over after that. Look at Warren. They took care of him, and, soon as he got on the Supreme Court, he ambushed the lot of them.”

“That was Eisenhower’s mistake. Nixon wouldn’t make the same one.”

“If we all pull together, Nixon won’t get the chance.”

“Tell me again why I should be part of that,” Beaumont said, lighting another cigarette.

“Didn’t I already?”

“Dioguardi? He’s not such a problem, for what you’re asking.”

“It’s not the person, it’s the… situation. Look at this Castro, over in Cuba. The great revolutionary he is, freeing his people from the yoke of oppression. Mark what I say: he’ll be the same as the man he removed. He’ll use different words, dress different, maybe. But he didn’t take over that country to free it, Roy. He took it over to rule it.”

“So, even if Dioguardi… disappeared, there’d be another to take his place?”

“You know that’s true as well as I do,” Shalare said. “It’s not Dioguardi himself who has to disappear; it’s the reason he was sent that has to go.”

“Here we’re talking about elections, and you want to make me a promise,” Beaumont said, smiling to take some of the sting out of his words.

“That’s right, I do,” Shalare said, not rising to the bait. “For starters, there won’t be any more squabbling about jukebox rents. Nobody else trying to handle the pinball machines or the punch cards, either.”

“Pennies.”

“Pennies add up to dollars, don’t they? And nobody likes to pay the same landlord twice. Dioguardi’s people are going to stop selling protection insurance, too. For starters,” Shalare reminded Beaumont.

“Because…?”

“Because he’s going to be told to stop. And he will. Everything. This whole town will go back to its rightful owner. You, Roy.”

“He never took it. And he never could.”

“He never did. But he was coming, and you know it. Now he stops.”

“One door opens and another one-”

“He stops everything, Roy. The only thing Salvatore Dioguardi’s going to do in Locke City from now on is pay his taxes.”

“How’s he going to keep his men, with no income?”

“Then I guess he’ll lose some of them.”

“The way he already has?”

“I told you, we had nothing to do with that,” Shalare said. “Anyways, losing a few men wouldn’t keep him off you-that’s just the cost of doing business.”

“I don’t know how that whole Mafia thing works. Is Dioguardi some kind of big shot, or just their stalking horse?”

“I’m not sure. What difference does it make?”

“If he’s a stalking horse, one they put in here to see if they could find a soft spot, they’ll learn soon enough that they made a mistake. But if he’s a big shot, and this was his own idea, that’s different.”

“Because, if he’s a big shot, he might be too stubborn to pull out? Or even big enough to call in more troops?”

“There’s that. But I was thinking of something different.”

“And that would be…?”

“You know how they sell cattle? Price them at so much a head?”

“Yeah…” Shalare said, cautiously.

“Well, with people, it’s not like that. Because some heads are worth a lot more than others. Especially when there’s a gesture of good faith involved.”

“Ah.”

“My sister always tells me, when someone gives you a gift, it’s low-class to look at the price tag. It’s the thought that counts, you’ve heard that?”

“Sure. I was raised the same way.”

“But that’s gifts, not business. In business, a man never wants to get shorted on a deal.”

“So, if you traded for a… single head of cattle, you’d want to know if you got the best bull of the herd?”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“I would. In an undertaking as big as this one, there’s a lot that has to be overlooked. You deal with men you wouldn’t have in your home,” Shalare said, glancing around the spacious room as if to underscore the bond between them. “The Jews killed Christ, and we’re dealing with them on this. What’s going further than that?”

“What did the coloreds ever do?” Beaumont said.

“I don’t under-”

“You deal with the coloreds, too, don’t you? Maybe not you, personally, but this whole ‘effort’ you’ve been talking about, the people running the show, they had better be doing that, if they want to pull this off.”

“Well, sure and you’re right,” Shalare said. “I didn’t mean we only deal with our enemies, just that we have to go outside the tribe-all of us do, to make this happen.”

“ ‘Tribes.’ That’s just a word, too. Like ‘blood,’ ” said Beaumont, contempt strong in his iron eyes. “Wasn’t it one of your own that shopped the Molly Maguires to the Pinkertons?”

“Huh!” Shalare said, surprised. “You’re a historian, for sure. But he was a-”

“-Protestant? So am I, I suppose. I know I’m not a Catholic or a Jew, so what’s left, being a Buddhist? You’re right, Mickey. I am a man who studies the past. I studied Centralia. I studied the trial of the McNamara brothers. Sacco and Vanzetti.”

“They were-”

“What? Italians? Anarchists? Catholics? Innocent? What does it matter? My point is, when you try and change governments, whether you’re assassinating a dictator or winning an election, you’ve got to be able to carry through after you take over.”

“We’ll have our own-”

“All I care about is my own,” Beaumont interrupted. “Dioguardi getting out of my hair isn’t a fair trade. But getting his people to stay out of Locke City forever, now, that could be one.”

“You have my word, Roy,” Shalare said. “My sacred word. And if that’s not enough, I’ll throw in a head of cattle, if you want. The finest of its kind for many miles around.”

1959 October 06 Tuesday 18:29

“You know what a pilgrimage is?” Rufus said.

“A holy journey,” Moses answered, as if he had been expecting the question.

“That’s right,” Rufus said, surprised. “And I took mine on September 3, 1955. On that day, I went to Chicago. So I could see that little boy, Emmett Till. See him in the coffin where the white man had put him.”

“I remember that.”

“His mother left the casket open so people could see-so the whole world could see-how they had tortured her child before they murdered him,” Rufus said, his voice throbbing. “It was supposed to be because the boy had whistled at a white woman. Not raped her, not killed her-whistled at her. Men came in the night and took him; didn’t make no secret about it. Everybody knew who they were. And they bragged about it all over town, too. Took some cracker jury about ten minutes to find them not guilty. Probably some of them on that jury, they were along for the ride that night themselves.”

“Mississippi,” Moses said.

“Yeah, Mississippi. And then the men who did it, they got paid for it. I read it in Look magazine, the whole thing. After that jury cut them loose, some reporter paid them to tell the true story, because you can’t try a man twice for the same crime. Every cracker’s dream, kill a black boy and get paid for it, too. Like a bounty on niggers.”

“I read that story,” Moses said, evenly.

“Didn’t it make you want to… kill a whole lot of whites?”

“I don’t believe in killing by color.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, if I could pick, there’d be a whole lot of whites I’ve met in my life that needed killing. But I wouldn’t go kill a bunch of white men for what some other white men did.”

“You mean, like they do us?” Rufus said, every syllable a challenge.

“That’s not why they kill us,” Moses said, a teacher correcting a pupil. “Not for anything we ever did. That’s just their excuse. Like that ‘wolf whistle’ the Till boy was supposed to have done to that white woman.”

“There’s plenty of them would kill all of us, they had the chance,” Rufus said.

“Sure. Or put us back on the plantations. Or ship us back to Africa. But no matter how much they hate us, things is never going back to the way they was-the way they liked it. If things was going backwards, then that evil Faubus bastard would be running for president. I’ll bet he thought he was, when he stood there on the steps and barred our children from his schools. But he guessed wrong. All the crackers in this country put together couldn’t put their own man in the White House, not today.”

“You’re right about that,” Rufus said, thinking, This isn’t just an old river, it’s a damn deep one. “There’s too many of us now. Too many that vote, I mean. Maybe not down there, but up here, the white people-the bosses, I’m talking about-they got to pay attention. That’s why Eisenhower sent the troops in. It wasn’t for our people in Arkansas, it was for our people in Chicago. And Detroit, and New York, and Cleveland, and… everyplace we migrated to. That’s the way the NAACP wants us to think, too. Wait our turn. Be good Negroes, so the good white people can see they should be letting us go to their schools.”

“So they can learn how Lincoln freed the slaves.”

“Yeah!” Rufus said, his voice thick with hate. “And whatever other lies they want to put in our nappy little heads. You know a lot more than I thought, Moses.”

“You can’t tell what a man knows until you get with him,” the elderly man said, puffing on his pipe. “Just watching, that’s nothing. Ofay been watching us since we were picking his cotton, under the lash. But he never knew us, ’cause we learned to keep our thinking off our faces. That’s what I was telling you before, Rufus. The difference between experience and knowledge. I know about the Scottsboro Boys, too. And a lot of other things.”

“But you Tom it up, man. I see you, every day.”

“And you don’t?”

“I don’t do it because that’s me, man. I’m not just surviving, I’m playing a part.”

“How do you know I’m not?”

“Because you never… I mean…” Rufus sat silently for a moment, then admitted, “I… I guess I don’t.”

“I was born on the seventeenth day of August, in the year 1887,” Moses said, a resonant timbre entering his voice. “Does that date mean anything to you?”

“The Civil War was over, but your parents, they were slaves?”

“They were, but that’s not what I’m saying. A great man was born on the same day as me. Marcus Garvey. You ever hear of him?”

“Well, damn, man, of course I heard of him. Marcus Garvey, he’s our spiritual father.”

“I was in that,” Moses said. “The Universal Negro Improvement Association. Before they came and took it all down. But I never forgot. And I was with Wallace Fard Muhammad himself, when I was in Detroit, back in ’34.”

“Then you’re a Muslim?”

“No, son,” Moses said, sadly. “I didn’t say I met Wallace; I said I was with him. It was just too neat, him signing everything over to Elijah and then just vanishing, like the earth swallowed him up. The night Wallace disappeared, I caught the first thing smoking. Been right here in Locke City ever since.”

Rufus got slowly to his feet. “I was going to tell you something today,” he said. “But I got a better idea. That is, if you’re willing to take a ride with me, later on tonight.”

Moses leaned back in his chair, reading the face of the young man before him. Decoding.

“I’d be honored if you would,” Rufus said, holding out his hand.

Moses grasped the younger man’s hand for a long second. Then he rose from his chair.

1959 October 06 Tuesday 18:44

As Luther was escorting Shalare back to the front of the house, a sliding panel behind Beaumont’s desk opened, and Cynthia stepped out.

“What do you think?” Beaumont asked, without preamble.

“He’s the kind of man they used to call a silver-tongued devil, Beau. Two-faced, with a lie in each mouth.”

“For all that, he was being honest with me… to a point.”

“Yes. The point about what he wants. The only question is, is that all he wants?”

“From us? It just might be, girl. Shalare’s outfit was never after our rackets. He’s a political man.”

“You mean, the elections?”

“No. I mean, yes, sure, that’s what he wants-now. But Mickey Shalare’s a man who plays the long game, Cyn. His roots aren’t here.”

“In Locke City?”

“In America, honey. Remember what he said about getting his own back? That’s what Mickey Shalare’s all about. I’m sure of it.”

“So you think he would take care of-?”

“Dioguardi? I think he’s got the horsepower to make him back off, no question about that. I mean, what’s the point of lying to us about that? We’d see the truth of things in a few days, anyway. It’s the rest of his promise-you know, that after the election Dioguardi, or another of his kind, won’t come back. That one I’m not so sure about.”

“That he can deliver?”

“Or that he even intends to. Shalare’s a man who understands power. And he knows, if our organization puts together the landslide he needs here, we’re going to leave our own people in place for the next time. Even stronger, we’d be. This is America. Nobody gets elected president for life, not since Roosevelt.”

“It’s still a puzzle, isn’t it, Beau,” she said, her tone making it clear she was pondering the situation.

“A big one.”

“So now you’re glad you’ve still got Lymon,” Cynthia said, smiling wistfully.

1959 October 06 Tuesday 18:50

“You had a fine old time, didn’t you, Big Brian?”

“Didn’t I just, Mick! You don’t often run across a man who follows the fight game the way Seth does.”

“The man at the guardhouse?”

“Yeah. He got someone else to cover for him, and we just strolled the grounds, talking.”

“And had a couple of cold ones?”

“Sure did. Pretty decent, too. Although it’s not Guinness they brew over here, that’s for sure. I told Seth he’d have to come by sometime and I’ll draw him a real-”

“You invited him to our place?”

“Well… sure I did, Mickey. I thought you’d be pleased.”

“I am, Brian. What did he say, when you asked him?”

“He said he would. And I hope he does. He’d fit right in. With the fellows, I mean.”

“Not like Lymon, hey?”

“Lymon? He’s a bloody tout, isn’t he? Grassing on his own. Seth wouldn’t do that.”

“You can tell?”

“That man would step in front of a bullet for his chief, Mickey. Same as I would for you. I could see it in him, strong and clear.”

“You saw the grounds, too, Brian?”

“Well, I don’t know as I saw them all. That’s a huge spread Beaumont has got. Big enough for a man in training to do his roadwork and never go off the property. Did get a long look at the house, though. Looks like it could take a direct hit from a mortar and laugh it off, it does. Solid stone, all around.”

“When we get back, you can draw us a map, Brian. It’s good work you did today.”

“Aye, Mickey. And thanks. Did your own work go well?”

“Well, I met the man. And I believe we took the measure of one another. But as for whether we have a deal, that I don’t know. We have to show him something first.”

“But that part’s easy, isn’t it? Dioguardi already said he would-”

“Starting tomorrow, we’ll just see about that, Big Brian,” Shalare said. He tapped the fingers of both his hands lightly on the dashboard, playing a song only he could hear.

1959 October 06 Tuesday 18:56

“Like I said, I came of age right in the middle of the Depression,” Sherman said to Ruth. “It was hard times.”

Harder on some than others, Ruth thought, remembering. She was next to Sherman on the couch, hands clasped in her lap. Her burnt-cork eyes never left his face.

“There wasn’t any work,” Sherman went on, “except the WPA stuff. Didn’t bother my father much-he’d been a drunk all his life, so he just stayed drunk. It was my mother who fed us.”

It was me who fed us, Ruth thought. Only I wasn’t the mother, I was the child. The rented child.

“My mother wasn’t a church person, but she had a sense of right and wrong that would have shamed a preacher. There were only two ways a man could go back then. Get on with the government, somehow. Or pick up the gun.”

“So you became a policeman?”

Sherman made a sound Ruth had never heard before, but instantly recognized. He’s calling home, she said to herself.

“Not at first,” Sherman finally said, holding her soft brown eyes with his own pair of faded-denim blues. “The only way to become a cop in Locke City back then was… Well, it’s the same way it is today: you have to buy your job. Today, you can buy it with things other than money. If you know someone, someone political, I mean, you can go to them, make the right promises, and they’ll maybe take you on. But back then it was always done in cash.

“It was all a crazy circle,” he said, nodding his head as if agreeing with some unseen person. “If you had enough money to buy a job, well, you didn’t need a job. Not a job as a cop, anyway. People didn’t just want that job for the paycheck, Ruth. There were always plenty of extra ways to make money…”

“I know,” she said, whisper-soft.

“So I made… I guess you’d call it kind of a bargain. I knew there was only one way for me to get the money to become a cop. So I swore, if… He let me get away with it, I would be the most honest cop there ever was. I’d never steal another dime as long as I lived.”

“So you did pick up the gun, but just one time, is that what you’re saying, Sherman?”

“Yes.”

“Why are you telling me this now?”

“Because I never told anybody else.”

“Oh,” was all Ruth said. She felt as if a malicious nurse had just given her an injection of sadness. I get it now. Once you get past the dollar tricks in alleys, once you start dealing with a higher class of customer, they all have a story they need to tell.

“It’s not that,” Sherman said, sharply.

Ruth sat up as if she had just been slapped. Her cheeks darkened, but she didn’t say a word.

“You’re not… Whatever you think you are, you’re not that to me,” Sherman told her. “I don’t have any need to tell my secrets, like going to confession. What I… trusted you with, what I come… used to come… to your place for, that’s nothing. I don’t mean it’s not a secret-sure it is-but it doesn’t tell you anything about me. This… what I’m saying, it does. I hope it does, anyway.”

“I already knew,” Ruth said.

“How could you? It was almost thirty years-”

“I don’t mean about what you did to get the money to become a policeman, Sherman. I mean, I already knew you. I’m ashamed of myself. For what I was thinking before. I don’t know how you knew, but…”

“I know you, Ruth. Like you say you know me. I don’t know how I know, or how you know. But… I want you to hear… what I have to say. It’s important to me.”

“It’s important to me, too,” Ruth said.

Sherman watched her eyes for a long moment, polygraphing. Ruth dropped her curtain, let him in. Sherman nodded slowly and heavily, as if taking a vow.

“Remember what I said about my mother?” the big detective began. “Remember what I said about her shaming a preacher? Well, that’s the opposite-the reverse, really-of what happened. The preacher, in the church we used to go to, he shamed her. That sanctimonious dog stood up before everyone and denounced my mother. For the crime of feeding her child, he said she was going to burn in hellfire for all eternity.”

“What could possibly have made him-?”

“My mother went with men for money,” Sherman said, tonelessly. “It started when I was little. When my father wanted to bond me out. You know what that is?”

“Yes,” Ruth said. Some children get sold to farmers, she thought. And some get sold to pimps.

“My mother knew what that would mean. She and my father fought about it. I could hear every word. In that house, you always could. She told my father she was going out to get some money. I didn’t know what she was talking about, but I knew it was a bad thing. My father didn’t say anything.”

Sherman lowered his head, dropped his voice.

“When my mother came back, it was real late. Almost morning. I remember my father calling her that word. ‘Whore.’ He whipped her. With his belt. Then he took the money she brought home.”

“Filthy pig,” Ruth whispered.

“No pig would do what he did,” Sherman said. “My mother kept me from being bonded out, but it cost her… everything.”

“What happened to him?”

“How do you know something did?” Sherman asked.

“I just know, Sherman.”

“He had an accident. Out in the barn. He was drunk. Must have tripped and fell down from the loft. Hit his head against an anvil. Right after that, he ran off.”

“Oh.”

“That was when I was thirteen. I wanted to quit school, but my mother wouldn’t let me. I pleaded with her, but she wouldn’t budge, and I couldn’t go against her. You know what she told me, Ruth? She said she was already damned. I couldn’t save her; nobody could. But if I ever became a… bad person, then all her sacrifice would have been for nothing.”

“You really loved her,” Ruth said.

“I always will. My… I was going to say ‘friends,’ but that would be a lie… the kids I went to school with, they knew what my mother did. So I turned into a pretty good fighter. Everyone said I would end up in reform school, but we made them all eat crow at the end. My mother was so proud when I became a cop.”

“Is she still-?”

“She died a couple of weeks after I got sworn in,” Sherman said. “She’d been sick for years. It was like she was holding on, just waiting for that.”

“Is that why you…?”

“Feel the way I do about you?” the big man said, meeting the challenge head-on. “No, Ruth. Listen, my mother never was a whore. I don’t care what people called her, or called what she did. She was a mother, protecting her child. My father was the whore, selling his honor and his name for a few dollars, then drinking up all the money because he couldn’t look himself in the mirror.

“My father wasn’t a man,” the big detective said, “but my mother, she was a woman. A real woman. And so are you, Ruth. Understand?”

“Yes,” Ruth said, between her tears.

1959 October 06 Tuesday 19:04

“Wow! Where did you get this jalopy?” Tussy said, as Dett held the door of the ’49 Ford open for her.

“I just borrowed it,” he said. “From a guy I met. Actually, we traded. He had a big date, and he thought the Buick would help him impress the girl.”

“And you don’t want to impress me anymore?” Tussy said, smiling.

“I wish I could,” he answered. “Only I know you. And I know a car would never do the trick.”

“Even after I got you to take me to the most expensive restaurant in town?”

“Well, that was like… an adventure, right? It wasn’t how much it cost, it was just that you hadn’t done it before.”

“Yes! And now this,” Tussy said. “I feel like a teenager. I mean, in a car like this-boy, those mufflers are loud-dressed like we are, going to the drive-in…” Her voice trailed away into the silence. “Do you feel like that, too? A little bit?”

“No,” said Dett. “But I don’t look like it, either.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you do, Tussy. You look like you’re sixteen.”

Tussy pulled a cigarette from her purse, put it in her mouth. Before Dett could react, she reached over and patted his jacket pocket, then extracted his little box of wooden matches. Christ! Dett thought, his mind on what else he was carrying. I didn’t expect that.

“You know what?” Tussy said, thoughtfully, once she got her cigarette going. “If I was sixteen, and my folks were still… with me, I wouldn’t be going to any drive-in.”

“Your father wouldn’t let you?”

“I don’t think he would have. I never asked… never got the chance to ask him. A couple of boys asked me, when I was around fourteen, but I didn’t even dare to mention it. Dad would have hit the ceiling.”

“Nice girls don’t go to drive-ins?”

“I don’t think that was how he felt. He took us, and there were always plenty of girls there. But he never said anything, except…”

“Except what?” Dett asked, as his eyes swept the mirrors for any disturbance in his visual field. He could not have explained what he was looking for, but the years had taught him to rely on his sense impressions, and the scanning habit was now so encoded he wasn’t aware he was doing it.

“Well, he did say that nice girls didn’t wear skirts to a drive-in. I didn’t even know what he meant until I was older.”

“And you’re still taking his advice,” Dett said, nodding at Tussy’s jeans.

“Well, it’s not that,” she said, blushing in the darkness of the front seat. “It’s just more comfortable than a skirt. I should know: I have to wear one every day. But at least they’re nice and loose.”

“The skirts?”

“The waitress skirts. In some places, they make the girls wear tight ones. And you know what happens: men get all… grabby.”

“Where you work?”

“Oh, no. We get a very nice crowd. Families, mostly. Or couples, on dates. Now, my girlfriend-”

“-Gloria?”

“Yes!” she said, laughing softly. “Gloria used to work over at the Blue Moon Lounge. They made her wear these outfits that were just… scandalous, my mother would have called them. Gloria said, some nights, when she got home, she was too sore to sit down, from all the men pinching her.”

“Is that why she quit?”

“No. She was… Well, you have to understand Gloria. I’m not saying she liked strange men pinching her, but she would have been pretty annoyed if none of them even tried. I don’t mean she’s like a… loose woman, or anything, but she likes it when guys notice her.”

“I’ll bet you don’t go out together much.”

“Why would you say that?”

“I know girls like her. Gloria, I mean. It’s like you say, they’re not… sluts, but they want the attention. And, standing next to you, she wouldn’t get any.”

“Oh, stop it! You don’t even know what she looks like.”

“It wouldn’t matter.”

“You make out like I’m Marilyn Monroe or something, Walker.”

“You’re prettier than she is.”

Tussy turned to face Dett’s profile, curling her legs onto the seat so she could move close despite the floor shift lever. “I know I’m not so gorgeous, okay? But I also know you’re not lying. I mean, you mean what you’re saying.”

“You could be on one of those calendars,” Dett said, defensively, looking through the windshield. “You know, like they have in gas stations. I’ve seen plenty of those.”

“You know, a man once asked me to.”

“Be on a calendar?”

“He sure did. Right in the diner. He was a professional photographer. With a business card and everything. He said I’d be perfect for… well, he said ‘glamour shots,’ but I figured out what he really meant.”

“So you didn’t do it?”

“Of course not!”

“Those girls… in the calendars, I mean… they have their clothes on.”

“I didn’t think he was talking about those kind of pictures, Walker.”

“I don’t, either,” Dett said. “I just didn’t want you to think…”

“What?”

“That I was saying… you know.”

“You are the strangest man, Walker Dett. That never even occurred to me. I knew all along what you meant. And it was very sweet.”

Dett exhaled, without realizing he had been holding his breath. “Is up there where we turn off?” he asked.

1959 October 06 Tuesday 19:29

“You sure we can do this on the phone?” Dioguardi said.

“And why not?” Shalare replied. “All I have to tell you is that I spoke with our friend, and he agreed that these petty business disputes are getting in the way of the bigger objective.”

“So he’s going to play ball?”

“I believe that he is. But, first, we have to make a little good-faith offering.”

“What we talked about before?”

“That. And all of that, mind you. The best way to prove you don’t want what another man has is to step away from it.”

“I get it.”

“A big step,” Shalare said. “Right out of his field of vision.”

“I said, I get it,” Dioguardi said, cold-voiced.

“How long to make it happen?”

“No later than tomorrow. There’s people out now, working. I have to wait until they come back to give them the word.”

“That would be lovely, indeed,” Shalare said.

1959 October 06 Tuesday 19:34

“Silk’s not going to be around tonight?” Rufus said to Darryl.

“I could say ‘no,’ brother, but that would be a guess. The man does come around, you know. And the nighttime’s his time.”

“Who gets along with him best?”

“Gets along? None of the men want anything to do with-”

“This is a job, Darryl. Understand?”

“If it’s a job, I’ll do it myself. I’ll take him over to the-”

“Can’t be you, brother.”

“Why not? All you need is for him to be someplace else, right? So, if he shows, I’ll just slide in and-”

“I need you there tonight,” Rufus said. “There’s someone I need you to talk with. I’m going to get him, right now.”

“This the man you don’t want Silk to see?”

“Don’t want him to even know about. Now, who we got to babysit a pimp?”

1959 October 06 Tuesday 19:41

“Where would you like to park?” Dett asked, as he steered the Ford over the pebbled surface toward the giant screen.

“Not too near the refreshment stand,” she said.

“Okay,” Dett said, creeping along in first gear, “is over there too far to the side for you?”

“No, it looks perfect.”

Dett slid into the last spot in a left-side row, rolled down his window halfway, and attached the speaker. As he twirled the knob to make sure it was working, a dull orange Oldsmobile sedan went by, heading down front.

“Would you like anything to eat?”

“Well… I guess I could go for a hamburger. And a Coke.”

“French fries?”

“You know, I serve so many of those-people eat them with everything-I can’t bear to look one in the face. Besides, they’re supposed to be the most fattening food of all.”

“What difference would that make?”

“That they’re fattening? You can’t be serious,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “You might not believe it, but I exercise every day. Just sit-ups, and touching my toes, and jumping jacks, like we learned in gym, but I do. And I watch what I eat-which is not the easiest thing. If I wanted, I could just swipe something from every plate Booker puts out. If I didn’t watch myself, I’d turn into a whale. I wish I could lose ten pounds, just like that,” she said, snapping her fingers.

“You don’t have to-” Dett quickly interrupted himself, seeing the look on Tussy’s face. “I exercise, too,” he said, quickly.

“It’s not the same for you,” Tussy said. “You’ll never get fat,” Tussy said.

“How can you know?”

“Because you can tell from a person’s body type. You’ve got a naturally lean build. You could probably eat anything you wanted, and you wouldn’t gain weight. But me, I’m naturally… plump. If I didn’t put up a fight, I’d-”

“Okay.”

“Okay? Okay, what?”

“Okay, I can’t win. If I say you look perfect, you’re going to say I’m an idiot. Or, worse, lying. But I’m not going to agree with you, either, so I’ll just shut up.”

“Oh, go get the food!” Tussy said, flashing a smile.

1959 October 06 Tuesday 19:54

“I’ve known you a long time,” Ruth said. “But I never understood you. Not until now.”

“If you didn’t understand me,” Sherman said, “why did you-?”

“-come out here? Make the promise I did?”

“Yeah. When you said you… would, I… I never expected that.”

“I couldn’t bear not to see you again, Sherman.”

“And that’s what you thought, that you wouldn’t?”

“I… guess I didn’t know.”

“Why do you think I came out there?” the big man said, abruptly. “To your place?”

“So you could… you know.”

“No, I don’t know,” Sherman said, thick-voiced. “Tell me.”

“Have one of the girls,” Ruth said, looking down at her lap.

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? What are you sorry about? You didn’t do-”

“I thought… Ruth, we made that… arrangement years ago. When I visit your place, how long does it take me to… do it?”

“I don’t know. I don’t-”

“Five minutes? Ten?”

“I guess.”

“And how long do I stay, afterwards?”

“You mean, when we talk? Sometimes it’s for…” Ruth’s voice trailed off, as the truth of what Sherman was telling her penetrated.

“Hours, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Ruth said. She felt her eyes start to glisten, kept her head down.

“All those… preparations, you know what they were for?”

“Because of what you… the way you wanted to…”

“So, when you said you’d do anything for me, that was what you were thinking of?”

“No,” she said, lifting a tearstained face. “I mean, it was. I would do that, but that isn’t what I meant. It wasn’t all I meant.”

“I’m lonely,” Sherman Layne said, heavily. “I’m always lonely. You’re the only one who makes a difference, Ruth. You’re the one I talk to. The other… thing, all that stuff, it was just an excuse. I don’t even… do what you think.”

Ruth stood up, turned to face Sherman, and studied him for a long moment. Then she turned sideways and nestled herself into the big man’s lap.

“Tell me now,” she said, gently.

“I told you… what I wanted to do, so you could tell them. But that wasn’t what I did. I just did it the… regular way.”

“But why did you let me think it was…?”

“Because, if that’s what the girls were expecting, and it didn’t happen, I knew they’d never say anything. For fifty bucks, they’d make it sound like it was the hardest thing they ever did, so the other girls wouldn’t want to do it, see? The rest, it was all so they would never see my face. Or hear my voice. Or even feel my… I always use a rubber, and I take it along with me when I’m done. Like I’m a phantom.”

“Why didn’t you tell me, Sherman?”

“I didn’t think it would matter. Until you… said what you said, I never thought you… I never thought you cared about me that way, Ruth. I knew you were my friend. I knew you were the one I trusted. But I was being a cop. The kind of cop I taught myself to become.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You know how cops are supposed to be ‘brothers in blue’? All for one, and one for all? Well, that’s a lie. The police depart-ment in Locke City is just like those apartments they build for poor people-the projects. The bids are always rigged, and there’s too much sand in the concrete. You can’t see it to look at them, but those buildings are rotting from the inside. One day, they’re going to just fall down, like a tornado hit them. They tolerate me because I do my job. I do it better than anyone they ever had. And someone’s got to solve the crimes.”

“Don’t they usually solve crimes?”

“Most crimes don’t need to be solved,” Sherman said. “Most murders, for example, you don’t have to look further than the family of the dead person to find out who did it. Most robbers, they keep doing the same thing, the same way, until they stumble into getting caught. And a lot of crime in Locke City isn’t crime, if you know what I mean?”

“Like my house?”

“Like your house. Like the casinos. Like the punch cards and the jukeboxes and… all the rest. And there’s other kinds, too, Ruth. There’s rich man’s crimes, which means just about anything a man does, as long as he’s got the contacts and the connections. And then there’s the crimes nobody gives a damn about.”

“What kind are those?” she asked, snuggling deeper.

“A guy beats his wife half to death, what’s going to happen to him?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing is exactly right. And his kids, unless he actually kills one, that’s on the house, too. To get away with crimes like that, you don’t even have to be rich.”

“All you have to do is be a man.”

“Yeah. A man can’t go to jail for burning down his own house. The only way he gets in trouble for that is if he tries to claim on the insurance. He can do what he wants with what he owns. The law says a man can’t rape his own wife. I mean, he can, but it’s not a crime. I had one of those, once.”

“A real rape? Not just…?”

“A real rape. This guy, he broke her jaw, snapped her arm like a matchstick from twisting it.”

“And nothing happened to him?”

“He wasn’t even arrested,” Sherman said.

Ruth caught something in his tone, shifted in his lap, whispered, “That doesn’t mean nothing happened to him.”

“You think that’s wrong?” he said, almost in a whisper.

“No, Sherman,” Ruth replied, shifting her weight again. “No, I don’t.”

1959 October 06 Tuesday 20:46

“Darryl, this is Mr. Moses,” Rufus said, almost formally. “He’s been in the struggle for longer than you and me have been alive, brother.”

“Yes?” Darryl said, his tone noncommittal.

“I would like it if you would talk. To each other,” Rufus said, his gesture encompassing both men. “In private.”

1959 October 06 Tuesday 21:01

“I know it’s just a movie, but this is scary,” Tussy said, sliding in close to Dett.

“I guess so,” he said, dubiously.

Tussy turned to her left, reached across Dett, and flicked the ash off her cigarette out his window. Her breast brushed lightly against his chest, firing a synapse that radiated through his groin. Her hair smelled like flowers he couldn’t identify.

1959 October 06 Tuesday 21:02

“What do you say?” Rufus asked Darryl.

“He’s what we been looking for, Brother Omar. A true elder.”

“You think he should sit in when that boy comes around?”

“He’s got the wisdom,” Darryl said, “and he’s ready to share it with us. I be proud to have him.”

“No sign of Silk?”

“No, brother. But if he shows, Kendall’s going to ease him off-he’ll never see nothing.”

1959 October 06 Tuesday 21:03

“Sherman, can I ask you a question?”

“You can ask me anything,” the big detective said.

“When you were with those girls. In my house, I mean. Did you ever think about me?”

“You mean, think about you that way? Or… think about you while I was…?”

“What’s the difference?”

“When you came out here, what did you expect?” Sherman countered.

“I expected to… I expected to prove my promise. About doing anything for you. So I didn’t know what to expect, but it didn’t matter.”

“You thought what I wanted, it was the same thing I did down in your basement, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” she said. “But it wouldn’t matter if you-”

“I do think about you that way, Ruth,” Sherman said. “Having… being with you. But not with you tied up, or blindfolded. I always wished, when I was coming out there, when we were talking, that it would be… in bed. Like… afterwards, you know?”

“Start by kissing me,” Ruth said, locking her hands behind Sherman’s neck.

1959 October 06 Tuesday 22:14

A boxy ’51 De Soto moved slowly through the night-shrouded junkyard, every rotation of its tires recorded by watchers’ eyes.

The car came to a halt. A young man with a tall, rangy build got out. He was wearing a long black coat. The three orange feathers in the headband of his hat looked like candle flames in the night.

Two men approached, bracketing the young man.

“I’m here to see someone,” the young man said.

“Who?” the men asked, with one voice.

“I don’t know no name. Don’t want to know no name. I’m here to buy something. This is where they told me to come.”

“You come alone?” one of the bracketing men asked.

“Just me.”

“I don’t mean in the car,” the man said. “I mean, you got anyone waiting for you, close by?”

“No.”

“Come on,” the man said.

The young man followed the speaker; the silent man walked behind them, maintaining the bracket.

“In there,” the lead man said, pointing to a shack.

The young man entered. The room was shadowy, illuminated only by the distant glow of the junkyard’s arc lights coming through a single, streaked window. But he could make out a table, three seated men, and an empty chair.

“Sit down,” said the man seated directly across from the empty chair.

The young man did as he was instructed, resting his hands on the table.

“Say what you come to say,” he was told.

“My name is Preacher,” the young man said. “I’m the President of the South Side Kings.”

His statement greeted by silence, the young man continued, “We’ve got one on for tomorrow night with the Golden Hawks. At the lot over on Halstead.”

More silence.

“I heard that the white boys got cannons, this time. Pistols. Real ones. That never happened before.”

The young man took a breath, said, “I heard the white boys, they got guns from the Klan. We need guns, too. That’s why I came here. To buy some.”

“How much money you bring?” Darryl asked.

“I got three hundred dollars,” Preacher said, proudly, hoping his voice concealed that he had emptied his gang’s treasury for this purpose.

“You say ‘guns,’ you mean pistols?” Darryl asked.

“That’s right. ’Cause that’s what they got.”

“You ‘heard’ this, about the white boys having pistols?” Rufus said. “You didn’t say where you heard it.”

“From a lot of different places,” Preacher said, evasively. “Word’s out, all over.”

“What happens when the fight is finished?” Moses said.

“When it’s finished?” Preacher asked, puzzled. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“What changes?” Moses said. “What will be different?”

“Oh, I see what you saying. What’ll be different is that those white boys will know the South Side Kings don’t play.”

“And now they think you do?”

“Hey, man, no! Everybody knows our club is-”

“So what would be different?” Moses said, implacably.

“I guess… I guess it depends on how the bop comes out.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Moses said. “Before you go out tomorrow night, you going to pour an ‘X’ out of wine on the sidewalk, right?”

“Sure. You got to-”

“What? Show respect for the dead? That’s what they get, for dying? The people who ain’t dead, they get together and say, ‘Oh, that boy, he had a lot of heart’?”

“What else could they get?” Preacher said, as surly as a corrected child. “Tombstone wouldn’t make no difference.”

“You don’t mind dying, do you, son?” the old man said.

“No, I don’t. I can’t. The only way a man can-”

“Courage is a good thing,” Moses said. “You can’t be a man without it. But getting killed don’t make you brave. And dying over a piece of ground that’ll never be yours-”

“It will be ours,” Preacher said. “After tomorrow night, that’ll be Kings turf.”

“Yours?” Rufus said, caustically. “Does that mean you going to build houses on it? Open a gas station, maybe? Could you sell it, get money for it?”

“That’s not what I’m-”

“Fighting for land, that’s what this country’s all about,” Rufus said. “White men killed a whole bunch of Indians, for openers. When they got done with the Indians, they started on each other. And they still doing it. But that’s land that’s got a deed to it, see?”

“You’re saying it ain’t worth it, over a little piece of vacant lot?” Preacher said. “But that’s not what this is about. If we let the Hawks take that lot, it’s like they took a piece of us.”

“Rep,” Rufus said.

“Rep,” Preacher agreed. “When I was in New York…” He paused, but if he was waiting for some indication that he had impressed the seated men, he was disappointed. “When I was just thirteen, I stayed with my uncle for the summer. He lives in Harlem. They got gangs there the size of armies. They run the city. When people see them coming, they get out the way.”

“That’s where you took your name?” Rufus said.

“Huh?”

“The biggest gangs in New York, the Chaplains and the Bishops, right? So… ‘Preacher,’ that would be like… representing what they are.”

“You know a lot,” Preacher said, not disputing Rufus’s intuitive guess.

“You know what? Those big gangs, those armies, they don’t own nothing,” Rufus said. “They got no real power. Only reason the Man hasn’t stepped on them is, right now, they making things easy for Whitey. Got half the folks in the big cities scared out of their minds, so the politicians, nobody cares what crooks they are, long as they protect them from the crazed hordes of niggers. It’s all a shuck, son.”

“How do you know so much?” Preacher said. Not disputing, wondering. Whatever these men were, they were a lot more than gun dealers.

“We’re going to tell you,” Rufus said. “And I hope you listen.”

1959 October 06 Tuesday 22:39

“Walker?”

“Huh?” Dett said, opening his eyes.

“You were asleep!”

“Me?” he said, noticing, for the first time, that his right arm was wrapped around Tussy.

“Yes, you!” she said. “I’ve heard of boys who take girls to drive-ins for all kinds of reasons, but I never heard of one who fell asleep on the job.”

“I didn’t… realize. It was just so…”

“What?” Tussy demanded.

“It was so peaceful,” Dett said, quietly. “Like when you come back in off the line-”

“You mean, in the war?”

“Yeah,” he said, quickly. “For days before, you can’t sleep. Not really sleep, I mean. You’re… tensed up, like there’s little jolts running through you. Guys talk, at night. Some do it just to pass the time, but mostly so you don’t think about what’s out there, waiting for you. They say, ‘Soon as I get back, I’m going to… get drunk, or get a woman, or…’ You know what I mean. But what happens is, when you finally do get back, it’s like someone slipped you a Mickey Finn. You go out like a light. Sleep for days, sometimes.”

“Like someone turned off your electricity?”

“Just like that,” Dett said. “And, here with you, it was like I… I don’t know what it was, Tussy.”

“Well, I’m not mad now,” she said, making a face. “But I know what would make me feel even better.”

“What? Just tell me and I’ll-”

“Talk, talk, talk,” Tussy murmured, her lips against his ear.

1959 October 06 Tuesday 22:47

Sherman entered Ruth as gently as a man defusing a bomb. She opened delicately, a dewy blossom, offering the secret purity she had defended against the rapists of her childhood.

Like a key in a lock, radiated through Sherman’s mind. Only it’s me who’s opening.

Ruth whispered words no customer could ever have paid her to say. Then shuddered to an orgasm she didn’t believe could exist.

Sherman followed right after her, as they mated for life.

1959 October 06 Tuesday 23:12

“You think this’ll do the trick, Gar?” Rufus said to a bespectacled man standing at a workbench.

“It should,” the man said, cautiously. “It’s just physics. What we’re after is dissipation of force. We can’t build a thick enough wall, so we get the same effect with layers. Each one absorbs some of the energy, so, by the time you get to the last one, it holds.”

“How much is that thing going to weigh, brother?” Kendall asked, skeptically. “Remember, the boy got to walk in it.”

“He’s a strong young man,” Moses said. “And he won’t have to walk far.”

“Far enough,” Rufus said. “The Kings’ clubhouse is way over on-”

“We can drive him over,” Moses said. “Drop him off at the side.”

“That’s not the way it works,” Kendall said. “I was a gang fighter, in Detroit. Years ago, before I got… conscious. The leader has to lead. He’s got to walk at the head, all the way down to wherever the meet is.”

“If that boy’s got a strong enough rep-and my guess is that he does-he tells his men this is strategy, him coming in at the last minute-and they’ll buy it,” Rufus said.

“Long as he first across,” Kendall cautioned.

“I think it’s ready,” Garfield said, pointing to what looked like a thick blanket attached to heavy canvas straps.

“Let’s find out,” Darryl said, pulling a pistol from his coat.

1959 October 06 Tuesday 23:49

“Can you… can you do that thing you did before?” Tussy asked, as they approached her house.

“What thing?”

“You know. Go away and come back.”

“Yes.”

“Walker, I swear, how clear a picture do I have to paint for you?”

1959 October 06 Tuesday 23:57

“Is this how you imagined it?” Ruth asked. She was lying in Sherman’s arms, nude, the black lace teddy she had brought with her still in the trunk of her car-in a makeup case that also contained a pair of handcuffs and a black blindfold.

“I didn’t imagine it, I dreamed it.”

“What’s the difference?”

“I… never thought it could really happen.”

“I never thought a lot of things could happen. Good things, I mean. Bad things, those you can count on.”

“Not anymore,” Sherman said, grimly.

“What do you mean, Sherman?”

“You’ll see.”

“Sherman, don’t frighten me. Please.”

“Christ, I’m sorry, Ruth. I just meant from now on bad things aren’t going to happen to you.”

“Not when I’m with you, anyway.”

“More than just then,” the big detective said, his voice lush with love and menace.

1959 October 07 Wednesday 00:54

Another man entering the back door to Tussy’s house would have seen only darkness. Dett’s nightman eyes quickly registered the vague shapes and outlines, and his memory supplied a map of the living room.

Tussy sat on the edge of the couch, knees together primly, hands in her lap. She was wearing a soft pink nightgown.

“Walker,” was all she said.

Dett approached the couch. He dropped to his knees next to her.

“I told you I was chubby,” Tussy said, throatily. “Do you still think you could pick me up and carry me?”

1959 October 07 Wednesday 00:59

“Does it make you happy, putting criminals away?” Ruth asked.

“Happy? Not really. It’s a good thing to do, but it doesn’t mean much.”

“Why doesn’t it?” Ruth said, turning so she could watch Sherman’s eyes.

“Because fighting criminals isn’t the same as fighting crime, Ruth. It’s like… a garden, okay? If you have weeds, what do you do?”

“Pull them out.”

“Yeah. Pull them out. Not chop them off, because that wouldn’t do any good, right? They’d just grow back.”

Sherman rolled onto his back, then shifted position so that he was sitting up, his back against the headboard of the bed. Ruth spun onto her knees, facing him.

“You know what people say about Dobermans?” Sherman asked.

“That they turn on you?”

“Yeah, that. It’s a lie.”

“Why would people make up lies about a dog?”

“I’ll tell you why,” Sherman said, eyes glinting with unforgiveness. “A man gets a Doberman puppy. Now, he’s heard that Dobermans are really tough dogs, and he’s going to make sure this one knows who’s boss. So he beats the dog, that puppy. Until the dog does everything he wants it to.

“This goes on and on. But, one day, the dog realizes he’s not a puppy anymore. And when the man picks up the stick to beat him that day, the dog nails him. You know what the guy he bit is going to say? He’ll say, ‘My dog turned on me.’ You see what I’m telling you, Ruth? The dog didn’t turn on him. The dog was never with him. He was just biding his time, waiting for his chance.”

“Oh.”

“But if he had been good to that dog, from the beginning, I mean, the dog would never have done that.”

“And you think people are like that, too?” she said.

“No. People aren’t as good as dogs-some will turn on you. I see it happen in my job, every day. And there’s men I’ve known, they had every chance in life, but they were criminals in their hearts. Like rich kids who steal just for the thrill of it.

“But the thing is, the one sure thing is, the truly… sick ones, like the rapists and the child molesters, they all were like those Dobermans, once. Only once they got stronger, instead of turning on whoever hurt them, they went looking for weak people to hurt themselves. Like, once they learned how to do it, they got to love it.”

“Some people are just born mean,” Ruth said.

“That might be so,” Sherman said, “but I don’t believe anyone’s born to murder a whole bunch of people for the hell of it. You don’t get to be Charlie Starkweather from reading comic books, no matter what those idiot professors say.”

“I remember that. Everybody’s still talking about… what he did. You’re not saying a man like that, he didn’t deserve to die?”

“He deserved to die a dozen times over, Ruth. I’m just saying, well, he didn’t get that way overnight.”

“What about the girl? That little Caril?”

“What about her?”

“She went to prison. People say she did some of those murders, don’t they?”

“Yeah. And I don’t know what the truth of her is. I don’t think anyone’s ever going to know. Starkweather, he wasn’t one of the hard men, he was just a freak.”

“What do you mean, one of the hard men?”

“A professional. A man who does crime the way another man does whatever his job is. A man with… a code. If he’d been one of those, you can bet he would have taken the weight. Said it was all his fault, that he had forced the girl to go along. He was going to die anyway; he might as well have gone out with some class. Sat down in that chair and rode the lightning like a man. Starkweather, he was nothing but a degenerate. A piece of garbage like that, he doesn’t care what other people think of him, even his own kind.”

“You know what, Sherman?” Ruth said, curling into him. “Even if you’re right, even if his family did… horrible things to him, he didn’t have to do what he did. He had choices. Everybody has choices.”

“Everybody?”

“Yes,” she said, her voice as soft as gossamer. “Sometimes, the only choice is to live or to die. But you always have that. Like a bank account no one knows about, one that you can always go to if things get bad enough.”

“You’re not talking about Starkweather now, are you?”

“No, sweetheart. I was talking about that little Caril girl.”

1959 October 07 Wednesday 02:02

“Are you sure?” Dett said. “You don’t even-”

“If I wasn’t sure, do you think I would dare to do it here? In my own house?” Tussy said, indignantly. “I already know you’re not going to be with me when I wake up.”

“But you’re… crying.”

“So what?” she said, defiantly. “Just because I’m a big enough girl to know my own mind doesn’t mean I can’t cry if I feel like it.”

1959 October 07 Wednesday 02:09

“Night desk. Procter.”

“I’ve got a story for you.”

White male, mid-to-late-fifties, Midwest accent, but not local, flashed through the newsman’s mind, as he reflexively reached for his reporter’s pad. “Go,” he said.

“There’s a pay phone outside the Mobil station on Highway 109, just past the-”

“-exit. So?”

“I’ll give you an hour,” the voice said.

1959 October 07 Wednesday 02:13

Tussy’s kisses tasted like peppermint and Kools. Dett was lost. He cupped her breast gently, as if testing its weight.

“I don’t know how to do this,” he said.

“It sure looks like you do,” she chuckled, her hand trailing lightly between his legs.

“I don’t mean… that. But I never…”

“Oh, Walker,” she said, pushing him onto his back, “don’t tell me you’ve never been with a woman before.”

“Not with a woman I…”

“What?” she said, fitting herself over him.

Dett looked up at Tussy’s face, haloed in the reflected light from the hallway. His life fell into her eyes. “Love,” he said.

1959 October 07 Wednesday 02:20

“Do you hate them all, Sherman?”

“Who, honey?” he asked.

“The… bad people, I guess you’d call them.”

“There aren’t that many truly bad ones, girl. Most of them, they’re just… dopes. You know how we catch them? They start throwing money around, brag to some girl they meet in a gin mill. Or one of them gets arrested for something else, and he turns informer to save his own skin.”

“Some of them… you know the kind I mean… they’re nothing but animals.”

“No, they’re not,” Sherman said, with sad certainty. “But they all practice on animals. When they’re still kids, I mean. Every single one I ever talked to, he started out hurting animals. They loved the feeling. So they went after more of it. They all loved fire, too.” Holden loves animals, flashed into his thoughts. And, just like them, he fears fire.

“When they were kids?”

“Yeah. And, sometimes, even after. You show me a kid who tortures animals and sets fires, I’ll show you a man I’m going to have to hunt someday.”

“You think they’re born like that?”

“No,” he said, watching the candlelight dance in Ruth’s dark hair. “It takes a lot of work to make them turn out that way.”

1959 October 07 Wednesday 03:01

Procter pulled into the Mobil station with eight minutes to spare. He left his car at the pumps and walked inside. “Where’s the restrooms?” he asked the attendant, covering his tracks to the pay phone.

“Around the side,” the young pump jockey told him, pointing.

“Thanks. I’ll just get some gas first.”

“I can fill it for you, mister,” the kid said. “If you’re not back, I’ll just pull it over in front for you, okay?”

“You got a deal,” Procter said.

He ambled out of the station, walked around to the side of the cement-block building and into the darkness between the two restrooms.

The pay phone was hanging on the wall, sheltered by the overhang of the flat roof. Procter lit a cigarette, hunched his shoulders, and waited.

1959 October 07 Wednesday 03:03

“Oh God!” Tussy moaned, falling face-first against Dett’s chest.

Dett’s arms encircled her, as rigid as steel bands, but not quite touching her back.

“It’s all right, Walker,” she whispered against him. “Come on.”

1959 October 07 Wednesday 03:08

When the pay phone rang, Procter snatched it before the pump jockey could react. As he lifted the receiver to his ear, he heard, “That was a nice piece you did for The Voice of Liberation.”

“Oh, you’re the guy who read it,” Procter said.

“How come you never did another?”

“I didn’t care for the company.”

“You knew they were Commies before you-”

“I drove a long way,” Procter said. “So where’s the big story you promised, whoever you are?”

“You never wrote another article for them because you found out that the man in charge of that paper wasn’t Khrushchev, it was Hoover,” the voice said. A statement, not a question.

Procter felt the hair on the back of his neck flutter, and he knew it wasn’t the night breeze.

“Want more?” the voice said.

“Not on the phone, I don’t,” Procter said, dropping his cigarette and grinding it out with the heel of his shoe.

“They ran you off once,” the voice said. “But I’ve been studying you. And I don’t think they could do it again… if the story was big enough.”

“You’re doing all the talking,” Procter said.

It was another few seconds before he realized he had been speaking into a dead line.

1959 October 07 Wednesday 03:21

Alone in his room, Carl angrily tore another sheet of heavy, cream-colored stationery into strips. It has to be perfect!

He stood up, went to his closet, and spent several minutes precisely aligning his clothes until a familiar calmness settled over him. Then he sat down and began to write.

Mein Kommandant, I am yours to…

1959 October 07 Wednesday 03:59

As Ruth and Sherman slept in each other’s arms, Walker Dett slipped through the darkness behind Tussy’s house to where he had hidden the Buick and a change of clothes.

Driving back to his two-room apartment, Procter was thinking, This one’s no crank. And he knows about that time the G-men paid me a visit in Chicago.

Holden felt the darkness lifting around him, felt the night predators retreating to their dens, felt the forest respond to the not-yet-visible sun. He checked his notebook one more time, then headed back to his cave.

A maroon Eldorado crept around the corner on Halstead, then turned up the block.

“One more pass,” Rufus said to Silk. “Then we’ll have it all mapped out.”

1959 October 07 Wednesday 06:11

“You’re up early, Beau.”

“I can sleep when I’m dead, Cyn.”

“Why do you always have to say things like that?”

“I’m sorry, honey. I just meant there’s so much to do and there’s never enough time.”

“I know.”

“And I’m never really sleepy, you know? A couple of hours, that’s all I ever need.”

“At least have a good breakfast, for once. I’ll make some bacon and eggs, and maybe some potato pancakes?”

“I’m really not so-”

“You know how much Luther loves it when we have breakfast together, Beau. We can all eat at the big table. What do you say?”

“Sounds good,” Beaumont said, smiling at his sister.

1959 October 07 Wednesday 07:12

“What?”

“Oh, Walker, I’m sorry! I woke you up, didn’t I?”

“Tussy,” Dett said, as if to reassure himself. “I thought it was… business. No, you didn’t wake me up at all. Is anything wrong?”

“No! Nothing at all. I was just… I… well, I remembered you were staying at the Claremont, and I don’t have to be at work until three, so I thought… I mean, I know you’re busy, you have business and all, but I thought, I mean, if you wanted to come over for lunch, I could…”

“I never wanted to leave,” Dett said.

1959 October 07 Wednesday 07:13

“You can pay six hundred dollars for a suit,” the man with the rawhide skin and dirty-water eyes said, fingering the sleeve of his alpaca jacket. “And it could still be a bargain. A real work of art, all hand-tailored. Takes a whole team to make something like that. You have to see the design in your head, draw a pattern, cut the cloth perfectly, sew each stitch by hand, fit it and refit it until it hangs on you just right…”

The spotter sat behind his tripod, listening with the patience of his profession. The rifleman’s eyes watched the speaker’s hands.

They’re not two men, they’re one man with two bodies, the man in the alpaca suit thought to himself. Put them next to each other in a lineup, you couldn’t tell one from the other. “But one loose thread,” he said aloud, “and the whole thing could be ruined. It’s not the thread itself, you understand; only if someone were to pull on it the wrong way. The thing about a loose thread, dealing with it is no job for an amateur.”

The speaker glanced around the top floor of the warehouse, as if waiting for one of the other men to speak. The spotter didn’t change position. The rifleman breathed shallowly, dropping his heart rate as offhandedly as another man might wind a watch.

“Now, even the best professionals can disagree on something like that,” the speaker continued. “One member of the team looks at the suit, says, ‘We can fix it.’ Another one, he says, ‘No, we need to snip it clean.’ The first tailor, he says, ‘You do it my way, there won’t be a trace-we can weave it back in; it’ll be as good as new.’ But the other one disagrees. He says, ‘That loose thread, it’s like a cancer. Just because you can’t see it, that doesn’t mean it won’t eat you alive. Only thing you can do is cut it out, at exactly the right spot, or the whole beautiful suit, the one we all worked so hard on, could get ruined.’ ”

The rifleman and the spotter listened, growing more and more immobile with every word.

“Now, let’s say the tailors, they’re partners,” the speaker said, his low-pitched voice just a shade thicker than hollow. “Equal shares in the business. They both worked on the suit; they both want it to be perfect, but, now that something’s gone wrong-potentially gone wrong-they can’t get together on how to fix it. It’s like America: you let everyone vote, but, somewhere along the line, the big decisions come down to one man. So, with a suit like I just told you about, it’s not up to the tailors to decide how to fix it. No, that’s up to the customer, the one who ordered it made in the first place.”

The man in the alpaca suit shifted position, moving his hands behind his back.

“You’re a minute-of-angle man, aren’t you?” he said to the rifleman.

“I’m better than that,” the rifleman said, “and you know it. I can do a hundred yards on iron sights and a bipod. Give me the right scope, I could work a quarter-mile.”

“You have everything you need?” the man in the alpaca suit asked.

The rifleman and the spotter nodded together, synchronized gears, meshing.

1959 October 07 Wednesday 09:10

“What may I tell Mr. Gendell this is in reference to?”

“A legal matter,” Dett said into the phone.

“Yes, sir, I understand,” the receptionist said. “But if you could be more specific, so we would know how much time to set aside for your appointment…?”

“Fifteen minutes is all I’ll need,” Dett said.

“Well, sir, we often find that the client’s estimate is-”

“It’s a real-estate transaction,” Dett interrupted. “A very simple one.”

“Well, let’s say a half-hour, shall we?” the receptionist said, brightly. “Mr. Gendell won’t be available until around four this afternoon. Would that be-”

“Perfect,” Dett said.

1959 October 07 Wednesday 09:13

“You come see me on your lunch break, Rosa Mae.”

“I will, Daddy. Did you speak to-?”

“I tell you all about it then, girl.”

1959 October 07 Wednesday 09:15

“What we need is a fulcrum,” Beaumont said.

“What’s a fulcrum, Roy?” Luther asked.

“Well, let’s say you got a big rock that you need to move,” Beaumont replied. “Way too heavy for even a few strong men to budge. What do you do?”

“Put something under it,” Luther said, promptly, making a fist of one hand and placing stiffened fingers beneath, at a forty-five-degree angle. “Then you push down,” he said, bringing his stiffened fingers parallel to the ground to raise his fist.

“And you put a barrel under the stick, so you can lever it up easy, right, Luther?”

“Right!”

“Well, that’s exactly what a fulcrum is, see? The balance point everything turns on, so you can move a big weight.”

“What weight are you talking about, Beau?” Cynthia asked.

“Ernest Hoffman,” the man in the wheelchair said. “Because, right now, we’re against the wall. Shalare says he’ll get Dioguardi to back away, and, after the elections, stay away. Maybe he will; maybe he won’t. That’s the future. If we say ‘no’ now, if we don’t promise to deliver, there’s no ‘maybe’ left. So we have to go along. But even though Shalare’s been working the whole state, I don’t think he’s gotten to Hoffman.”

“Why not?” Cynthia said.

“Because, if he had, he wouldn’t have come here asking us for anything, Cyn. A man who’s holding all the cards doesn’t have to deal a hand to anyone else.”

1959 October 07 Wednesday 09:19

“Put him on.”

“Put who on? You must have the wrong-”

“Put Procter on, Elaine. And don’t be afraid: I’m not working for your husband.”

The leggy redhead who had once been a pageant contestant carefully placed the telephone receiver under a pillow, then rolled onto her side. “Jimmy,” she whispered.

“Uh,” Procter half-grunted.

“There’s a man on the phone. He asked for you.”

“You think your-” Procter said, instantly alert.

“No. He, the man on the phone, he said not to be afraid of that. What should I do? If Bobby-”

Procter sat up, pulled the redhead over his lap, and took the phone from under the pillow.

“What can I do for you?” he said, coldly.

“It’s what I can do for you,” said the voice Procter last heard six hours ago. “I just wanted to show you that I know things, so you’ll listen to me when the time comes.”

“Maybe you don’t know as much as you think you do.”

“You’ll see for yourself,” the voice said. “Need more proof first?”

“Just get to it,” Procter said.

“Soon enough,” the voice promised.

1959 October 07 Wednesday 10:15

“Who wants him?”

“He’s expecting my call,” Dett said. “You got thirty seconds to get him.”

The hum of a live line was broken by Dioguardi’s distinctive voice. “You called for your answer?”

“Yes.”

“That’s your answer, pal. Yes.”

“Yes to what?” Dett said.

“Yes to the noncompetition fee. The ten large. Just come by my-”

“You’re a funny guy,” Dett said.

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess I am. All right. How do you want to do it?”

“Just put it in the mail,” Dett said. “I’ll give you the address.”

1959 October 07 Wednesday 11:33

“Oh, I’m so glad to see you,” Tussy told Dett, her arms wrapped tightly around his chest.

“Why? I… I don’t mean that, Tussy. You just seemed, I don’t know, so surprised.”

“It’s all my fault,” she said, taking his hand and pulling him toward the kitchen. “Even though it was me saying you couldn’t stay all night, I kept thinking about all those stories you hear. You know, how the man’s not there in the morning…”

“You’re crying,” Dett said, touching her face.

1959 October 07 Wednesday 12:06

“Rufus is a good man,” Moses said. “I don’t mean that the way you young folks talk, child. I mean, he’s a righteous man.”

“Rufus? You know he’s got all kinds of hustles, Daddy.”

“That’s just for now, Rosa Mae. He’s got plans. Big plans.”

“Every man who ever talked to me, that’s what he had,” the young woman scornfully said. “Big plans.”

“Not those kind of plans,” Moses said. “Not… personal plans. Not for himself. For all of us.”

“You and me?”

“Our people, child.”

“Oh. You mean, he’s one of those…?”

“Not one of those, girl. He might be the one.”

“The one for me?”

“Ah, that’s the thing, little girl. Rufus, he wouldn’t run around on you. Wouldn’t get drunk and beat you up. He wouldn’t toss the rent money across no poker table. But he’s a bound man. He’s bound to what he’s going to do.”

“I don’t understand, Daddy.”

“I got to be truthful with you, Rosa Mae. You put your trust in me, I got to do that. Rufus, the kind of man he is, you might only see him when you come to visit. Maybe the jailhouse, maybe the graveyard. Understand?”

“No!”

“Yeah, I think you do, child. I think you do. Rufus, he’s a leader. A brave man. You been in this world long enough to know what happens to a brave colored man.”

“You don’t think I should… see him?”

“I think you got to make up your own mind on that, Rosa Mae. But I tell you this: Rufus, he’s no halfway man. He wants you for his woman. Not his girlfriend, his wife. I know he’ll be a good man, loyal and true. I know he’ll take care of you. But, a man like Rufus, you can’t go to be his wife without knowing you got a good chance to be his widow.”

1959 October 07 Wednesday 12:16

“I invited you,” Tussy said.

“Sure, but…”

“But what, Walker? You don’t have to run around spending money on me every second. When I asked you for lunch, I wasn’t asking you to take me to lunch. I can make something right here.”

“That would be great.”

Tussy walked around behind the kitchen chair where Dett was seated. She put her hands on his shoulders, and leaned forward so her lips were against his ear.

“There’s another reason I want to stay here,” she whispered.

1959 October 07 Wednesday 12:33

“Tonight,” Dioguardi said.

“Ah cain’t do it, boss,” Rufus replied, holding the mouthpiece of the phone a few inches from his lips, projecting his voice. “No, sir, Ah jest cain’t.”

“Why not?”

“I got business, boss,” Rufus said, putting a sly veneer over his servile voice. “You knows what I’m talking about.”

“You can always get pussy, boy. One’s the same as the other. Take it from me-there’s no such thing as a golden snapper.”

“Yessir, I know you saying the truth. But I done promised-”

“You know the car wash out on Polk?”

“Yeah, boss,” Rufus said, resigned.

“I’m getting my car washed at seven o’clock. You just stand over to the side, you know, where the cars come out. They got nothing but- Uh, nobody’ll even notice you; they’ll think you work there. Everything I have to tell you, it’ll take five minutes, then you can go get your pussy… with money in your pocket.”

“All right, boss,” Rufus said, allowing his voice to brighten.

1959 October 07 Wednesday 13:04

“Do you think I’m… you know what I mean,” Tussy said. She was seated before her mirror, wrapped in a towel, brushing her hair vigorously.

“No, I don’t,” Dett said, standing behind her.

“Walker! Yes, you do. I’m asking, do you think I’m a nymphomaniac or something, asking you over for lunch just so we could… you know?”

“How could you be… what you said, Tussy? You never did anything like that before.”

“Like… Oh! How could you know that?” she said, smiling into the mirror. “For all you know, I invite men over to take me to bed all the time.”

“No, you don’t.”

“But how could you know?”

“I’ll tell you,” Dett said to her reflection. “I promise you, Tussy. Not today, but soon, I’ll tell you everything.”

1959 October 07 Wednesday 13:41

“I talked to Daddy,” Rosa Mae said.

“Then you know I did, too,” Rufus replied. “Like I promised.”

“He scared me, Rufus.”

“That’s his job. That’s what fathers do with their daughters.”

“I don’t know what to do.”

“Why, girl?”

“Because… it’s not a date you want, like you said. I’m standing in front of a door, and I don’t know what’s behind it. But I can’t find out unless I open it.”

“If you want, I can show you.”

“What if it still scares me, after you show me? What if I don’t want… If I can’t…?”

“Then you walk away, Rosa Mae. If I can’t have you with me, I’ll understand that.”

“Would you, Rufus? Would you really?”

“Honeygirl, you have to listen to every word. I could understand it, sure. A woman like you, you could have… other things than what I got to offer. I’m not saying it wouldn’t hurt my heart. But, yeah, I’d understand.”

“If something hurts your heart enough, it might make you change your mind.”

“No, little Rose,” Rufus said. “If you counting on that, you got the wrong man. I’ve got a road to walk. I wish you would be walking it with me, right at my side. But even if you say you won’t, I still got to walk it to the end.”

1959 October 07 Wednesday 14:04

“Isn’t it cute?” Tussy said, pointing at the little car in her driveway. “It’s a Henry J; they don’t make them anymore. I got it from a customer for twenty-five dollars, and Al deKay-he’s a wonderful mechanic-fixed it all up for me. Someday, when I save enough money, I’m going to get it painted. Pink. I always wanted a pink car.”

“Is it reliable?” Dett said, slowly walking around the car, his mind clicking off potential defects.

“Oh, it’s very good. It never overheats in the summer, and it always starts in the winter, even when it’s real cold. Mr. Bruton-he owns the Chevy dealership-he’s always after me to get a new car. But those payments… I would be so scared to miss one. Besides, I like my car. At least it’s not like every other one you see.”

“I know you have to go,” Dett said, glancing at his watch. “And I know you won’t get back until late. But could I-?”

“It doesn’t matter how late it is,” she said, standing close to him. “Just be sure to call before you come. I’ll leave the back door open, okay?”

“Yes.”

“I wish I didn’t have to work tonight.”

“That’s okay,” Dett said. “I have to work, too.”

1959 October 07 Wednesday 15:56

“Good afternoon,” Dett said to the stylishly dressed woman seated at a small desk behind a wooden railing. “I have an appointment.”

She looked up from her typewriter, adjusted her glasses, smiled professionally, said, “Mr. Dett?”

“Yes.”

“You’re certainly on time,” the woman said, approvingly. “Please have a seat.” She stood up, tucked a ballpoint pen into her lightly frosted hairdo, and walked into a back office.

Dett remained standing. The woman returned, said, “Come this way, please.”

Dett walked past the railing and followed the woman’s pointing finger into a spacious corner office. The man behind the desk was wearing a navy-blue suit with a faint chalk stripe. A heavy gold wedding band on his left hand caught the sunlight slanting through the high windows.

“Mr. Dett,” the man said, getting to his feet and extending his hand. He was slightly above medium height, with a bearish frame. Thick, tightly curled brown hair topped a clean-featured face. His eyes were the color of rich Delta soil.

“Thanks for seeing me on such short notice,” Dett said, shaking hands.

Both men sat down. Gendell spread his hands, his gesture an invitation to speak.

“This is about a mortgage,” Dett said.

“Oh?”

“You seem surprised.”

“You’re not from around here,” the lawyer said. “So I assumed what you told my secretary was a pretext of some sort. And, now that I’ve had a look at you, I still think so.”

“It’s not about my mortgage,” Dett said. “Someone else’s.”

The lawyer’s expression didn’t change.

“Let’s say I wanted to pay off someone’s mortgage,” Dett went on. “How would I go about it?”

“You mean if you wanted to acquire the property for yourself?” the lawyer asked, his hands working expertly with a cigar cutter.

“No, nothing like that. Just pay off someone’s mortgage. So they’d own their house, free and clear.”

“Give them the money, let them walk down to the bank,” the lawyer said, the corners of his eyes tightening.

“I can’t do it like that.”

“Because…?”

“I don’t want them to know… I mean I want it to be a surprise.”

“You want to be someone’s mystery benefactor?” Gendell said, using a long match to distribute flame evenly around the tip of his cigar.

“There’s nothing shady about what I want to do,” Dett said, calmly. “There’s someone I care about. A woman. If I just offered to pay off her mortgage, she’d never accept. So I want it to be a surprise. For after I’m not around.”

“Oh, I get it. You want to leave her the money in your will, so when you-”

“No,” Dett said, slowly. “After I’ve gone from here. From Locke City.”

“And that would be…?”

“In a few days.”

“What, exactly, would you want me to do?”

“I want to leave the money with you. Enough to pay off the mortgage. A month from now, I want you to go to the bank, get the mortgage canceled, and give the papers, the free-and-clear papers, to her.”

“Well, I’d need a power of attorney, together with-”

“Just the money,” Dett said. He reached into his overcoat and took out several stacks of neatly banded bills. “There’s a thousand in each one,” he said. “Six thousand total. The mortgage is thirty-seven dollars and forty-nine cents a month. It’s at least twenty years paid. That’ll be more than enough to cover it. And your fee, too.”

“You don’t need a lawyer for this,” Gendell said, puffing on his cigar. “All you need is a messenger boy.”

“I do need a lawyer,” Dett said. “To be sure she doesn’t get cheated, make certain the deed they give her is what it’s supposed to be. I don’t want anyone at the bank pulling a fast one.”

Dett got to his feet.

“Wait a minute,” the lawyer said. “You come in here talking about the bank pulling a fast one, but you drop six grand on my desk and don’t even ask for a receipt. How do you know I won’t just pocket the money?”

“Because I know what kind of man you are, lawyer or not,” Dett said. “The mortgage I want you to pay off, it belongs to Tussy Chambers.”

1959 October 07 Wednesday 19:03

“The address is a bottle club in Cleveland. On East Seventy-ninth. In what they call the Hough area. It’s all colored there; a white man would stick out a mile away.”

“I never been there, boss.”

“But you got people there, right? A cousin, a friend, something?”

“Well, I knows people there, sure. But what you want, that’s pretty tricky stuff. Like being a spy.”

“It’s not tricky at all,” Dioguardi said, soothingly. Don’t want to spook the nigger, he thought, grinning inwardly as he realized his unintentional pun, vowing to use it later, when he got back to his headquarters. “The package is going to look like this,” he said, holding up a nine-by-twelve-inch manila envelope with thick red bands running both horizontally and vertically to form a cross.

“Looks like a Christmas package, boss.”

“That’s right,” Dioguardi said, encouragingly. “You could spot it at fifty feet. Now, we’ll make sure it gets delivered this coming Monday. All you have to do is watch for a white man coming out of that club, with this envelope in his hand.”

“What if he don’t pick it up on Monday, boss?”

“I told you; this is a colored place, in a colored neighborhood. A rough one, too. The guy I’m interested in, he’s a white man. So he’s not going to want to hang around. The way I have it figured, whoever he’s got working for him-inside the place, I mean-that person is going to call him as soon as the package gets delivered. And the guy I want you to watch for, he’ll be close by, ready to make his move.”

“I don’t think this is something I could do for you, boss. I mean, I wants to do it, sure, I do. I know you pays good. But I be worried that… well, they’s just too many things that could go wrong. And then you be mad at me. If this was Locke City, in Darktown, I mean, I could follow any man you say. But Cleveland, I ain’t never even been there myself. How I gonna chase after a man, I don’t even know the streets?”

“I was counting on you, Rufus.”

“That’s just it, boss. I wants you to count on me. I got a good reputation with you, don’t I? You ask Rufus to do something, it gets done. For a long time now, ain’t that true? Well, this time, something go wrong, now Rufus ain’t so reliable anymore, see? I can’t have that, boss. Now, you got a slick plan, find out who’s going to pick up your package. I know you a big man. You could probably make one little phone call, get a dozen good men to watch that place, if you wanted.”

Dioguardi leaned back in his seat, staring at nothing.

Rufus waited, silently.

“You make good sense, Rufus,” Dioguardi said, grudgingly. “You’re right. I’ll have it taken care of.”

“Thank you, boss. You said there was two things…”

“Yeah. And the other one, it’s right up your alley. All I want you to do is tell me if Walker Dett leaves town.”

“I gonna do that anyway, boss. I watching that man like a hawk for you.”

“You understand, I don’t just mean if he checks out, right? If he leaves town at all, even if he comes back. You can tell if he spent the night at the hotel, right?”

“Yes, sir. Easiest thing in the-”

“It’s a long drive to Cleveland,” Dioguardi said. “But it could be done in a day, easy. You watch him close, hear?”

1959 October 07 Wednesday 20:17

“How come you won’t be needing that shack you asked me about before?” Beaumont asked.

“I changed the plan,” Dett told him. “After I sapped that one punk, and that didn’t work, I took out two of his other men. That got him on the phone. I offered him a bunch of options, but, bottom line, either he was going to pay, or more of his men were going to die.”

“You shook down Sal Dioguardi?” Beaumont said, grinning. “A one-man protection racket, huh?”

“He couldn’t know how many people were involved,” Dett said. “All he knew was a voice on the phone.”

“How did he even know you were the same one who-?”

“I mailed him that souvenir. From the first one.”

“So what was the shack supposed to be for?”

“I figured he’d make some deal, say he had work for me. He’d know I wouldn’t come into his place, so he’d promise to meet me wherever I said. That’s why I wanted it local, so he’d think it was someone from around here. Like I said, he couldn’t know how many people were involved at my end. So he’d send a whole bunch of his best men to storm the shack.”

“And then?”

Dett gestured pushing a plunger with both hands. “Boom,” he said.

“Christ,” Beaumont said, exchanging a quick glance with Cynthia. “What kind of ‘strategy’ is that?”

“The kind that would make him deal with me the next time he heard my voice on the phone.”

“I guess it damn well would. But… why do you think he paid you off, instead?”

“I don’t know,” Dett admitted. “It wasn’t what I expected. Probably he thinks he’s going to snatch me when I go to pick up the money.”

“But there’s no chance of that?”

“None.”

“Maybe he’s doing just what Shalare promised he would,” Cynthia said. “Backing off.”

“Maybe,” Beaumont said, musing. “But maybe he’s got something else he’s thinking about.”

“I don’t think he runs that tight an operation,” Dett said. “I could just hit him, be done with it.”

“That’s just it,” Beaumont told him. “I don’t think that would put an end to anything. When I first sent for you, I thought Dioguardi was our problem. And he still is a problem, unless, like Cynthia says, he moves off, like we’ve been promised.”

“By Shalare,” Dett said, quietly.

“Yeah,” Beaumont agreed. “So now it’s Shalare that’s the problem. I… think. It’s like we’re watching a puppet theater. All we can see is the puppets; we can’t see who’s pulling their strings.”

“What do you want?” Dett said.

“Huh? You know what we want. The reason we brought you in here-”

“You thought there was going to be a war,” Dett interrupted. “Now you’re not sure. If you can’t say what you want, I can’t get it done.”

“I’m paying you-”

“-to do something. Or get something done. That’s what I do. Then I move along. No trouble for you; no trouble for me. I’m not looking for a salary.”

Beaumont sipped at his drink. Cynthia got up and stirred the logs in the fireplace. Luther watched from the corner.

Dett lit a cigarette. He took a deep drag, then looked pointedly at the cigarette, as if to say the fuse was burning down on his patience.

“You’re supposed to be a master planner,” Beaumont broke the silence. “So plan me this: how can we get Ernest Hoffman to back us?”

“Who’s Ernest Hoffman?”

“Ernest Hoffman is the most powerful man in the whole state. I’ve been studying him for years. Probably know more about him than he knows about himself.”

“Tell me,” Dett said, settling back in his chair.

1959 October 07 Wednesday 21:54

“Where Preacher at? We supposed to go, man!”

“How many times I gotta say it?” a round-faced youth with a shaven skull said. “Preacher gonna meet us at the corner. He say he got a surprise for those motherfucking Hawks. One they never gonna forget.”

“It don’t seem right, Buddha,” another youth protested.

“You see this?” the round-faced youth said, getting to his feet, and pointing to an embroidered orange thunderbolt on the sleeve of his long black coat. “This says I’m the Warlord of the South Side Kings. Preacher called this meet, but I’m the one who set it up. And you know what? Me, I’m going down on the Golden Hawks if I got to do it by my motherfucking self.”

Buddha opened his coat, to display a heavy chain draped through his belt. From his pocket, he took a switchblade. As the others watched, he thumbed it into life.

“South Side! South Side Kings!” he chanted.

“South Side, do or die!” another youth picked up the cry.

“Walk with me,” Buddha commanded.

1959 October 07 Wednesday 21:56

“After tonight, everything changes,” Ace said. He held the pistol aloft, like a torch. “And this, this is what changes it.”

“What about the Gladiators?” Larry said, tapping a length of lead pipe into his open palm.

“We don’t need them,” Ace said, quietly. “But I hope they show. I want them all to see this.”

Hog took a final swig of blackberry wine, tossed the empty bottle onto the ratty couch, and stood up. “Hawks!” he shouted to the waiting gang. “Mighty, mighty Hawks! Tonight’s our night. Pick up your weapons, men. Time to roll.”

1959 October 07 Wednesday 22:03

“They’re moving,” Sunglasses said to Lacy. “Looks like… maybe twenty men. More than we thought.”

“Cut across Davenport, so we can come in from the side,” Lacy told the driver, from the back seat. “We’re not driving through nigger territory. Not tonight.”

1959 October 07 Wednesday 22:05

A battered silver truck with RELIABLE MOVERS stenciled in black letters on its sides slowed to a stop underneath a streetlight whose bulb had been shattered earlier that same evening. Inside the back of the truck, Rufus spoke urgently to Preacher.

“We got a ramp all ready, walk you down nice and easy. Four men going to go with you, right up to the lot, just to make sure you get there all right. But then it’s all you, young brother. Be the boss!”

“I’m ready,” Preacher said, grim-voiced.

“After tonight, nobody be calling you Preacher no more,” Rufus said. “You going to be the Magic Man. And people, they going to follow you, son. Understand?”

“Yes, sir!”

“All right. Now, remember what we went over. You just stay there when it’s done. Don’t even try and get up. Everyone else’s going to be running away, but we going to be running at you, get that stuff off, and bring you with us, just like we planned.”

“It’s hotter than a damn oven in all this,” Preacher said, sweat pouring down his face and into his voice.

1959 October 07 Wednesday 22:10

“Spread out!” Hog ordered the bunched-up Hawks. “Corner to corner. Don’t let any of them past the line, no matter what. Long as we keep them in front of us, we got control, no matter how many of them there are.”

“Here they come!” the acne-scarred boy hissed.

The Hawks moved to meet their enemies, shuffling forward in a ragged line. Some carried sawed-down baseball bats. Others had lengths of lead pipe, bicycle chains, tire irons, car antennas. One brandished a glass whip-a length of rope coated in white glue, rolled in broken glass, and allowed to harden. Two held zip guns. Every youth had a knife of some kind, from cane-cutters to switchblades.

1959 October 07 Wednesday 22:11

“There’s Preacher!” one of the Kings yelled.

“Fuck, he walking slow,” another said. “You think he hurt?”

“No, man. Remember what Buddha told us?”

“Behind me,” Preacher called out, as he joined the Kings and merged with the night.

1959 October 07 Wednesday 22:12

“He’s doing it,” Darryl said, quietly. “Boy got himself a ton of heart.”

“Ton of trust, too,” Rufus said. “And he brought it to the right people.”

1959 October 07 Wednesday 22:14

The gangs closed the ground between them, moving in a silence so deep it vibrated, their wine-and-reefer courage already starting to fade.

“Rush!” shouted Hog, breaking into a run.

The Kings immediately fell back a few paces, creating an arrow formation, with Preacher at its apex. As the Hawks charged in, one of the Kings screamed “Ahhhhh!” and leaped ahead of Preacher, swinging a chain over his head like a mace.

In seconds, the vacant lot was a swirling vortex of violence, punctuated by the sounds of blunt objects against flesh, screams when knife blades found homes, the popping of zip guns.

Ace and Preacher stood apart, in the center of the chaos, seeing only each other.

Ace pulled his pistol.

Preacher walked directly toward him, hands in his pockets, moving stiffly.

“Die, nigger!” Ace screamed.

Preacher kept coming.

Ace leveled his pistol and fired.

Preacher dropped. His black-coated body disappeared into the deeper darkness of the ground.

Ace stood frozen, his hand locked to the salvation-promising pistol. His mouth opened like a hinge. A shock wave hit his stomach. He closed his eyes and fired again.

“They got cannons!” one of the Kings shouted.

Sirens ripped the night. Closing fast.

“Rollers!” someone screamed.

Like contestants hearing a referee’s whistle, both gangs immediately started back the way they had come, dragging off their wounded.

Ace was rooted in place. He tried to sight down the barrel of his pistol, but his hands were in spasm. Suddenly, Buddha loomed out of the blackness, arms spread wide as if embracing whatever was to come. He dived to the ground, flinging his body over Preacher. Startled, Ace turned and ran, firing randomly over his shoulder. I was the last to go! blazed through his mind. They all saw it.

From the far side of the lot, Rufus, Darryl, Kendall, and Garfield raced toward where they had seen Preacher go down.

Buddha saw them coming, struggled to his feet. “Come on, motherfuckers!” he shrieked his war cry, standing over the body of his fallen leader, twirling his chain in one hand. “I got something for all of you!”

“Back up, fool!” Rufus snarled at him as they closed in. “We look like white boys to you?”

Buddha staggered backward. He watched in stunned amazement as the four men skillfully turned Preacher over on his stomach. Garfield used an industrial shears to cut Preacher’s long black coat off, then quickly unbuckled a series of straps. The other men gripped together and pulled in unison, rolling Preacher out of his wrappings.

“You all right, son?” Rufus said, bending down.

“Got my… rib, I think,” the young man gasped. “Like I was hit with a sledgehammer.”

“Let me see,” Darryl said. He felt with his fingers. “There?”

“Yeah!” Preacher grunted in pain.

“Never got in,” Darryl said, triumphantly. “You got to walk a little now, brother. Going to hurt, but you can do it.” He draped Preacher’s arm over his neck, helped the young man to his feet.

“What about…?” Garfield said, gesturing in Buddha’s direction with the shears. The round-faced youth hadn’t moved.

“Got to take him with us now,” Rufus said. “We used our own sirens to get them all to run, but the real cops’ll be here any minute now. You!” he snapped at Buddha. “Come on!”

1959 October 07 Wednesday 22:18

“I think I see a way to do it,” Dett said. “If everything you’ve got here”-pointing to stacks of paper and the maps taped to the wall-“is accurate.”

“I’d bet my life on it,” Beaumont vowed.

“That’s up to you,” Dett said.

1959 October 07 Wednesday 22:41

“You see it?” Ace demanded, for the fifth time. “You see me drop that nigger like a sack of cement?”

“We got to get rid of that pistol,” Hog said, urgently.

“Fuck that! This baby is what’s going to make the Hawks-”

“Are you nuts? Once the cops dig that slug out of Preacher in the morgue, all they have to do is match it up with your gun, and you’ll end up getting the chair.”

“Why should they even-?”

“Oh, man,” Hog said, despairingly. “I know you’re all jazzed from what happened, okay? But you’re not thinking, Ace. You asking people if they saw it. Well, they did see it, man. Everybody out there saw it.”

“None of our guys would ever-”

“The niggers, man. You think they’re not going to squeal?”

“Never did before, when we-”

“We never killed one before. This time, the cops are really going to look, man. That pistol has to go. Tonight.”

“Damn, Hog.”

“Hey, man, when the Klan hears what you did tonight, they’ll give you another one. Maybe more than one…”

1959 October 07 Wednesday 22:43

“White boys got to burn for this,” a coal-colored youth with a red bandanna around his neck said. “Gunned down Preacher like he was a dog. He never had a chance.”

“Firesticks!” another youth said. “I got a cousin, works on a construction site all the way up in Gary. We get a couple of sticks of dynamite, go down to their clubhouse, blow those cocksucking Hawks all to hell. Bang!”

“Shut up, all of you,” a squat, coffee-colored young man said. He swayed on wide-planted feet, blood still running from a gash next to his right eye. “This ain’t what Preacher would want us to do. We got to be cold, not crazy. Cops gonna be all over this place. Everybody that needs patching up, get out. All the weapons got to go, too. Have the debs take them away. Now! When the rollers show up, we all want to be-”

“Dancer’s telling it like it should be told.” The voice penetrated the darkened room.

“Buddha!” A joyous yell. “Thought you got it, too.”

“White boys can’t kill no man like me,” Buddha said, grinning.

“Is Preacher gonna make it?” one of the youths called out.

“Make it? Shit, motherfuckers, he gonna do a whole lot better than that. Everybody split now, like Dancer say. We meet back here, tomorrow night.”

“You in charge now?” another youth asked, not a trace of challenge in his voice, only awestruck respect for the man who had stayed behind while all the others had run.

“Preacher in charge, fool!” Buddha said, laughing infectiously. “We all meet, tomorrow night, right here. And you gonna see for yourselves.”

1959 October 07 Wednesday 22:50

“I have to look it over by myself,” Dett said. “How far a drive is it?”

“To the estate?” Beaumont asked. “Probably take you only about-”

“Not there. To the daughter’s house.”

“The daughter? Why her? I thought it would be his son. He’s the one named for him. Not Ernest Junior; Ernest the Fourth. Like he was a goddamned king. And I guess he will be, someday.”

“You said the daughter had a baby.”

“So? That kid’s not going to be named for Ernest Hoffman. What makes you think-?”

“Hoffman himself’s seventy-seven years old, right?” Dett said, pawing through some of the papers in front of him. “Had his own son, this Ernest the Fourth, when he was a young man, so that one’s in his middle fifties already. And he’s been married three times, no kids. What does that tell you?”

“He’s had some bad luck picking women,” Beaumont said, ticking off the possibilities on his fingers. “He can’t make babies himself. Or he’s a fag, and the women are just cover.”

“If you’ve been looking as hard as you say you have, for as long as you have, you must have narrowed it down past that.”

“If he’s a fag, he’s the best faker I ever heard of,” Beaumont said, chuckling. “Ernest the Fourth has been in half the whorehouses in the state. And he’s had a woman on the side every time he’s been married, too. In fact, the one he’s married to now, she used to be the lady-in-waiting.”

“And if he wasn’t shooting blanks, he would have gotten one of them pregnant by now,” Dett said. “ ‘Specially when he knows any kid of his would inherit a fortune.”

“Right,” Beaumont agreed. “Got to be something wrong with his equipment.”

“There’s a lot more wrong with him than that,” Cynthia said, disgustedly. “No man ever had more opportunities in life than Ernest Hoffman’s son. And he’s squandered them all. He’s just a wastrel and a failure. If I was his father… Oh!”

“Sure,” Dett said. “The line is going to die out, without anyone to take over. The daughter, Dianne, she’s out of Hoffman’s second wife, after his first one died. Twenty years younger than the son, and still pretty old to be having a baby.”

“You think she was pressured into it?” Cynthia asked.

“It adds up,” Dett said, moving his hands in a wide-sweeping gesture, as if to include all the material Beaumont had gathered. “Hoffman knows his own son isn’t going to take over for him. But his grandson… I don’t care what the name on the birth certificate says, that’s the real Ernest the Fourth.”

1959 October 07 Wednesday 22:59

Sherman Layne entered the precinct house at the beginning of his shift. He strolled through the squad room, back to the area reserved for the detectives. “I heard there was a rumble earlier, Chet,” he said to a jowly, white-haired cop in a houndstooth sport coat, making the statement into a question.

“There was something,” the plainclothesman answered. “Call comes into the precinct, says they’re having World War III out there. Heavy gunfire. Everybody saddles up and rides, but, time the first cars are on the scene, it’s back to being a vacant lot.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” the big detective said, slowly. “There’s always some of them left, either from wanting to be the last ones to run, or not being able to run at all.”

“They got tricked,” the jowly cop said, making a jeering sound with his rubbery lips. “Looks like someone in the neighborhood had their own police siren. Some of our guys heard it in front of them, as they were heading to the scene.”

“That was pretty damn slick, whoever thought of it,” Sherman said, furrowing his brow in concentration. “Those kids hear a siren, they’re going to bolt. They wouldn’t stop to figure out where it was coming from.”

“Yeah. But you know that area. Nobody knows nothing. One old lady, lives a few blocks from the lot-on Halstead, where it went down-she said the sirens were coming from a couple of different cars.”

“Cars?”

“That’s what she said.”

“But not squad cars?”

“Nope. Just regular cars. Driving around, blasting sirens.”

“That’s a new one on me. Never heard of anything like that before.”

“Me, neither. But it wasn’t her imagination, Sherman. ’Cause the gang boys heard them, too. That’s what made them cut and run.”

“I think I’ll go out there myself,” Sherman Layne said. “Take a look around while it’s still dark.”

1959 October 07 Wednesday 23:04

“Did you see it?”

“Not up close,” Lacy said into the phone. “But we were there. Saw one of them go down. We split soon as we heard the sirens.”

“Tomorrow morning, come over to Benny’s place. We’ll shoot a game of pool.”

“What time?”

“I’ll be there sometime between ten and eleven,” Harley Grant said.

1959 October 07 Wednesday 23:08

“Dianne lives right here,” Beaumont said, pointing to a large map. “Not in Locke City proper, but just outside. They have a place on Carver Lake.”

“Summer place, you mean?”

“No, it’s year-round. Her husband, he works for… well, he works for Hoffman, I guess. He’s the manager of a half-dozen different businesses in town: couple of bars, Trianon Lanes-that’s the bowling alley that’s not ours-the movie house-the Rialto, not the drive-in-things like that.”

“Sounds like a lot of work.”

“It isn’t any work,” Cynthia said, making a snorting sound. “Every one of those places has a full-time manager. All the husband-Parsons is his name, Mark Parsons-has to do is make his rounds and collect money. He’s like a little kid with an allowance.”

“Is he paying anyone off?” Dett asked.

“With Ernest Hoffman for a father-in-law? You’ve got to be joking,” Beaumont said. “Those businesses, they’re all legit. And nobody’d be crazy enough to try and shake him down for protection.”

“All he’s good for is driving around in that fancy sports car of his,” Cynthia said, dismissively. “And making babies. That he knows how to do.”

“They only have the one kid, right?”

“They do,” Cynthia said, her mouth twisting in disapproval. “But before that child was born, two of his girlfriends visited Dr. Turlow.”

“He does abortions,” Beaumont explained.

“If you know all that…”

“It’s not a lever,” Beaumont said. “The son-in-law is… well, he’s a son-in-law. That’s what he is; that’s what he does. He’s not running for office.”

“What if he thought his wife was going to find out?”

“Even if that was worth something, it’s not what we need,” Beaumont said. “All the son-in-law could do is pay some money to hush it up. Probably already did. But he can’t make anything happen, not the way we need it to.

“Hell, his wife probably already knows. And you can bet Hoffman himself does. If Hoffman wanted him to stop running around, he’d take care of it himself. There’s nothing there for us.”

“But if someone had the baby…”

“A kidnap?” Beaumont said. “You have to be insane.”

“Who kidnaps kids?” Dett replied, calmly.

“I don’t know. Psychos, I guess. It’s, I don’t know…”

“Dirty,” Cynthia finished for him, her mouth twisted in disgust.

“Rich people’s kids get kidnapped all the time,” Dett said, calmly. “Bobby Greenglass, Peter Weinberger…”

“Those kids got killed,” Beaumont said.

“You’re going to do a snatch, you might as well,” Dett said, shrugging his shoulders. “It’s the death penalty no matter what. They’re going to execute that guy out in California… Chessman, and he didn’t kill anyone. Ever since Lindbergh…”

“I don’t see where you’re going with this,” Beaumont said, feeling Cynthia’s anger fill his own chest. “We can’t snatch Ernest Hoffman’s grandson. Even if he’d play ball-and we don’t know that he would-he’d know it was us. That’s not strategy. That’s suicide.”

“Have to be pretty stupid to try and pull a stunt like that, wouldn’t you?” Dett said, as if struggling to understand a complex proposition. “Extortion’s for money, not for politics. I mean, what kind of a man thinks he can kidnap a kid to make the kid’s grandfather do him a bunch of favors?”

“An idiot,” Beaumont said, his voice as iron as his eyes.

“Exactly,” Dett said, very quietly. “A real animal. The kind you can’t talk to. You know anyone like that around here?”

1959 October 07 Wednesday 23:59

“Tussy! Call for you.”

“Thanks, Booker.”

“You know Armand don’t like it when-”

“Armand won’t mind,” she said, innocent-eyed.

Tussy went through the swinging doors, picked up the phone, said, “Walker?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to come over after I-?”

“I can’t,” he said. “I’m a long way out of town. But I thought maybe you’d like to go for a drive with me tomorrow.”

“A drive?”

“Yes. A long drive. I thought we could maybe find a nice place, have a picnic all to ourselves.”

“Oh, I’d love that. I’ll pack a-”

“No, I didn’t mean for you to have to do anything. We can pick up some-”

“Oh, don’t be silly,” Tussy said. “Just tell me what time you’re picking me up. I can be ready anytime after nine.”

1959 October 08 Thursday 04:14

“He’s going to go for it,” Lymon said, shielding the telephone receiver in one cupped hand.

“You’re sure?” Shalare said.

“He told me so. Late last night. A few hours ago.”

“Just you?” Shalare asked, glancing over at Brian O’Sullivan.

“No. He called a meeting. Faron was there, too. And Sammy. And-”

“Okay.”

“But he’s going to wait for-”

“I know,” Shalare said, and cut the connection. He turned to face his friend. “The curtain’s coming up, Brian. Now it’s time for the Italian to show everyone how good he can play his role.”

1959 October 08 Thursday 09:29

“Where are we going?” Tussy asked, brightly.

“I hear there’s a lake not so far from here…?”

“You mean Carver Lake? Did you want to go out on it?”

“Go out on it?”

“In a boat, silly. You can rent them there.”

“I wasn’t thinking of doing that.”

“Oh, good!”

“You don’t like the water?”

“I don’t mind it myself,” Tussy said. “But we’d never get Fireball into a boat.”

1959 October 08 Thursday 10:13

“Those pills really did the job,” Preacher said. “I slept like I was dead.”

“Don’t get used to them,” Darryl told him, not unkindly. “Use them on pain, real pain, and they work just fine. Use them for anything else, you end up a junkie.”

“I won’t need any more of them,” Preacher said, resolutely.

“Just make sure nobody punches you there,” Darryl said, touching the young man lightly. “Or even gives you a hug. Cracked ribs, they heal by themselves, so long as you keep them taped. But you can’t be jumping around, not even with a woman, understand?”

“Sure.”

“Just rest,” Darryl said. “We get you back home after it gets dark tonight. But, first, Brother Omar wants to talk to you.”

1959 October 08 Thursday 10:15

“What did you see?” Harley asked Lacy.

Lacy leaned over the pool table, sighted down his cue. “There was a little light, from the street, but when they closed on each other, it was like they all stepped in a puddle of ink. You couldn’t tell black from white. But one of the Hawks had a pistol, all right, a real one. We heard the shots.”

“Anybody get hit?”

“Oh yeah. We saw him fall. Then everyone started running.”

Harley picked up the orange five-ball and the black eight-ball, one in each hand. He placed them together on the green felt so that they were angled toward the corner pocket, then tapped them down with the cue ball. “Sometimes,” he said, “a combination shot, it’s the easiest one of all. It looks hard, but when everything’s lined up right, all you have to do is hit it, hit it anyplace, and it goes. You know what they call it, when the balls are lined up like that?”

“Dead,” Lacy said. “They call it dead.”

“That’s right,” Harley said. Without taking aim, he casually slammed the cue ball into the five-the eight drove straight into the corner pocket. “Just that easy.”

1959 October 08 Thursday 10:41

“I know you’re not responsible for my recent losses,” Dioguardi said. “So I wanted to tell you this personally. I’m pulling up stakes.”

“What does that mean?” Beaumont said, into the phone.

“What’s it sound like? I thought you were expecting this call.”

“It sounds pretty complicated,” Beaumont said. “And it sounds like business, too. Not the kind of business we discuss on the phone.”

“So come on over, and I’ll tell you to your-”

“It’s not exactly that easy for me to get around,” Beaumont said, stiffly. “You don’t have any problem coming out here one more time, do you? I mean, since we’re going to be partners and all.”

“Nobody said anything about partners.”

“Not until now, maybe. Is it worth an hour of your time to hear more?”

1959 October 08 Thursday 10:48

“I think one of our investments is going sour,” SAC Wainwright said.

“Which one would that be?” asked the bland-looking man seated on the other side of Wainwright’s bird’s-eye maple desk. Only the thick weal of a repaired harelip rescued his features from total anonymity.

“The Führer.”

“Him? He’s a nothing. Just some freak who likes to dress up and play Nazi.”

“No,” Wainwright said. “No, he’s not. Maybe he has only ten, twelve ‘followers,’ but he’s got something else, too. Something we helped him get. He’s got a platform.”

“I thought that was what we wanted him to have.”

“That’s right. But the chain of command is now… rethinking the whole scenario. If he does go ahead and announce he’s running for office, where do you think he’s going to get votes from?”

“Mohr? What’s he going to run for, state rep? He’ll get the… I don’t know what you’d call it, the votes from people who hate the coloreds. And the Jews, I guess.”

“Don’t forget the Catholics. They’re on Mohr’s list, too.”

“So? Those kind of people wouldn’t be voting for our guy, anyway.”

“That’s what we thought, what everyone thought, when the operation was launched. But that’s not what we’ve been hearing lately.”

“I don’t understand,” the man with the harelip said, a faint sprinkling of hostility edging his words.

“It’s the chickens coming home to roost,” Wainwright said. “During the war, men like Mohr, they were very useful, especially in dealing with union problems. Instead of focusing on things like wages and hours and working conditions-you know, stuff the Commies could organize around-they had the men ready to riot if they had to work next to coloreds on the assembly lines.

“But some people fell asleep at the switch. What our intelligence says now is, if a man like Mohr ran for office, he’d be pulling his votes from some of the same people-the same white people-who would have voted Democrat.”

“Our intelligence? Or do you mean-?”

“In-house,” Wainwright said, carefully enunciating each syllable. “And our… friends don’t know any more about it than they do about you working for us.”

“Why don’t you just tell Mohr to-?”

“We can’t tell him anything. He’s not on our payroll. And all the money we spent on his group just made him worse.”

“Then…”

“Can’t do that, either,” Wainwright said. “The last thing we need is another Jew conspiracy. We don’t want to make him a martyr. We need him neutralized. Discredited.”

“How the hell can you discredit a guy who runs around calling himself a Nazi? What’s left?”

“This,” Wainwright said, sliding a blue folder across the glossy surface of his desk. Clipped to the outside of the folder was a photograph of Carl Gustavson.

1959 October 08 Thursday 11:17

“It’s so beautiful,” Tussy said. “I was never out here before except in the summer.”

“If you’re cold…”

“Not me,” she said. “I’m pretty well insulated. Or haven’t you noticed?”

“I…”

“Some men just like women who’re… hefty,” she said, hands on hips. “Gloria told me-”

“Gloria may know a lot about men,” Dett said. “She might even be an expert, maybe. But she doesn’t know me. She doesn’t know anything about me.”

1959 October 08 Thursday 11:22

“So they’re both fruits,” the man with the repaired harelip said, putting down the dossier. “What can we do with that?”

“That’s a good question,” Wainwright replied. “After all, Mohr says he’s a Nazi, and they marched fags into the ovens right along with the Jews. We’ve got a tape of a speech he made. Mohr said there’s no room in the party-that’s what he calls that collection of pathetic misfits he’s got, a ‘party’-for fags. ‘A man that can’t fuck can’t fight,’ is what he said. So you’d think, we threaten to release what we’ve got, he backs off, plays along like he’s supposed to.”

“Only…?”

“Only we’ve got men inside, like I told you. Sometimes, I think all of these freak-show organizations would dry up and die if we pulled our informants out-they’re probably the only ones who ever pay their dues on time. Anyway, we had one of our assets get into a conversation with Mohr about it. The subject, I mean. Nothing confrontational, just sounding him out.

“This asset of ours, he spent time in prison-that’s like a credential to those people-so it was a natural subject for him to bring up. What our man did, he admitted butt-fucking some boys while he was doing time. But he didn’t say it like a confession; he said it like, what would you expect a real man to do when there were no women around?

“And Mohr never blinked. In fact, he said he’d do the same thing himself. He said a true member of the master race is a master of his situation, too. Fucking a man doesn’t make you a fag, only getting fucked.”

“But Mohr’s… relationship with this Gustavson fruit, that’s not because he’s in prison,” the man with the harelip protested.

“Mohr’s got a line that covers that, too. He has this whole long story about ancient Greek warriors-”

“Greeks aren’t Aryans.”

“You know that, and I know that,” Wainwright said, smiling thinly. “But these homegrown Nazis don’t. Anyway, Mohr told our guy that part of being a real man is doing whatever you want. He didn’t come right out and say he was doing… that with anyone, but it’s easy to see how he expects it to come out someday. And he’s ready for it.”

“So where’s our edge?”

“Our boy Carl. He’s not a fraud like most of them. He’s the real thing. A true believer.”

“So?”

“So that’s where the finesse comes in,” Wainwright said. “And that’s why I sent for you.”

1959 October 08 Thursday 11:29

Tussy bent at the waist and scooped a flat piece of slate from the ground in the same motion, as agile as a gymnast.

“Want to see something?” she said, holding the stone with her forefinger curled around its edge.

“Sure.”

“Come on,” Tussy said, tugging Dett toward the water’s edge with her free hand. Fireball followed at a judicious distance, eyeing the water distrustfully.

“Watch,” she said. She stood sideways to the water, her right arm extended. Then she took a step forward, twisting her hips as she whipped her arm across her body, releasing the flat piece of slate. It hit the water, skipped, flew through the air, skipped again, and continued until it finally sank, a long way from shore.

“Damn! That must have gone a couple of hundred feet,” Dett said.

“I can do long ones with just a couple of skips, or I can make it skip a whole bunch of little ones,” she said, grinning.

“Where did you learn how to do that?”

“My father taught me. I was watching him do it one day, when I was just a little girl, and I wanted to do it, too. Mom told me girls didn’t throw rocks, and I told her, well, I sure did, every time boys threw them at me. She said she’d better not catch me doing that. Then my dad said we’d make a deal. He would show me how to skip stones, the way he did, and I wouldn’t make my mother frantic by throwing them unless we were at the lake.”

“That sounds fair.”

“It was. And I kept to it. I never threw any more stones. I did throw a dish once, though.”

“At someone?”

“I sure did. At the diner, one time, this man-well, a boy really, he probably wasn’t old enough to vote-he put his hand right under my dress and kind of… squeezed me. I dumped a bowl of hot soup on him. It didn’t scald him or anything, just got him mad.

“I was going back behind the counter to tell Booker when I heard someone yell. I turned around, and he was coming right at me.

“Later, they told me he had just been coming over to apologize. But that’s not what it looked like to me then, so I just picked up a dish-a little one, like you serve pie on-and slung it right at him.”

“Did you hit him?”

“Right in the head. Or, anyway, it would have been right in his head, if he hadn’t put his arms up. He was real mad. I guess I was, too.”

“What happened?”

“Well… not much of anything, really. His friends started razzing him, and he just stalked out.”

“He never came back?”

“I never saw him again,” Tussy said. “Wanda took over my table-the one where he had been sitting. They gave her a good tip, too. I remember, because she wanted to give it all to me, but I made her split it, instead.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Walker, what’s wrong?”

“With me? Nothing. I was just-”

“Your face, it got all… I don’t know, scary. Your eyes went all… black. Like someone turned off the light behind them. It was years ago, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Let’s eat some of the sandwiches I made,” she said. “That’ll make you feel better.”

“I hope they’re tuna.”

1959 October 08 Thursday 11:36

“It’s coming to an end, Cyn.”

“What, Beau?”

“All of this. I can feel it.”

“But why? Everything’s going just like-”

“Like what, honey? Like we planned? It doesn’t feel that way to me. Not anymore. We’re riding the train, all right. But we’re passengers, not the conductor. The best we can do now is hang on and keep from falling off.”

“You’re just tired, Beau. You’ve been working so much…”

“I am tired, girl. But not from work.”

1959 October 08 Thursday 11:44

“That’s such a lovely place,” Tussy said, from the front seat of the Buick. They were parked on a slight rise, looking down the slope toward a three-story brick house surrounded by a terraced garden. A turquoise ’57 Thunderbird with a white hardtop and matching Continental Kit was visible at the side of the property, at the end of a long driveway.

“It’s pretty big, all right.”

“It’s too big,” she said, firmly. “Unless they have about a dozen kids, who needs a place like that? I wonder who lives there.”

1959 October 08 Thursday 15:09

“There’s no way to do it,” Dett said. “The house is too big. They probably have a nursemaid living in, and I’m guessing the baby sleeps on the top floor, too. We’d have to have people watching for weeks even to find an opening. Plus, it’s a long run from where they live to anyplace safe.”

“That’s it, then?” Beaumont said.

“Maybe not. Do you own any local cops?”

“We have… friends on the force,” Beaumont said, concentrating. “Men who would do us a favor, men who owe their jobs to the organization…”

“The chief?”

“Jessup? He’s a sideline man, like most of them are now. Chalk players, watching to see who’s the favorite before they make their bets.”

“There’s a way to hit them all,” Dett said. He was looking at Beaumont, but his eyes were unfocused, somewhere in the middle distance. “If it worked, you’d be the only one standing at the end.”

“I don’t like gambles.”

“Then you won’t like what I came up with.”

“Maybe I should hear it, first.”

“You have another place you could meet Dioguardi in?”

“Another place besides this house? I’m not going to any-”

“Another place in this house. A place not so fancy. A place we could fix up the way we wanted.”

Beaumont exchanged a glance with his sister. “We have a meeting room. But you have to walk right past a car to get in there. Anyone who sees it would know what it’s for.”

“If you decide you want to do this, that won’t matter,” Dett said, snapping his eyes into focus.

1959 October 08 Thursday 16:21

“Well, what do you think now?” Ace said to Lacy. “Did we show you something or not?”

“Yeah,” Lacy said. “You showed me you don’t know what the fuck you’re doing.”

“What!? I iced that-”

“Only thing you iced was your own club. You’re finished, all of you.”

“Hey, man, come on. The cops haven’t even been around. They don’t have any clue about who-”

“You’re the one with no clue, sucker,” Sunglasses said. “Preacher’s as alive as I am.”

“He didn’t die? But I-”

“Die? He didn’t have a scratch. I saw him myself, strutting around with his boys like a… well, like a fucking king, man. Get the joke?” Sunglasses laughed, harshly. “I hope so. Because the joke’s on you, chump.”

“I’m telling you-”

“You ever check that pistol? Fire it yourself?” Lacy said.

“Hell, yes, man. It works perfect.”

“Then it was the bullets. I guess the ‘Klan’ gave you a box of blanks.”

“Those weren’t no blanks.”

“Yeah? Better give it to me, let us see for ourselves.”

“You’re not taking my gun,” Ace said, pulling the pistol from his jacket. “This is mine. I don’t know what your fucking game is, but I’ll find out. I’ll find that nigger Preacher, too. See if I don’t.”

“Relax,” Lacy said, holding out both hands in a calming gesture.

At that signal, one of the waiting Gladiators smashed a length of rebar into the back of Ace’s skull.

Ace crumpled, still gripping his sacred pistol. The Gladiator holding the rebar bent over and raised his arm.

“Never mind,” Lacy told him. “He’s not getting up.”

Lacy slipped on a pair of thin leather gloves, then took the pistol from Ace’s limp hand.

“This is how he goes out,” Lacy said, holding the pistol. “Word’s all over the street about Wednesday night. Niggers talking about Preacher like he came back from the dead. If we don’t do something, they’re going to be too strong to handle.”

“I thought you said we were getting out of bopping,” Sunglasses said. “We’re going to be part of the-”

“That’s right,” Lacy cut him off. “And it’s going to be just like I said. But you don’t just sign up to be with an organization like Mr. Beaumont’s. We have to prove in. Show our true colors. And this,” he said, pointing to Ace’s body, “this is what they told us we have to do.”

1959 October 08 Thursday 22:24

“Sherman!” Holden Satterfield exclaimed. “Boy, am I glad to see you. I got a lot of new stuff in my logbook.”

“Good,” Sherman said, moving closer to where the woodsman stood in the darker-than-night shadows. “But that’s not why I came out here, Holden.”

“What do you mean, Sherman?”

“I wanted to talk to you about a job.”

“A job? But I already got a job, Sherman. Working for you.”

“This would be the same thing,” the big detective said. “Working for me. But not doing this. Not anymore.”

“I don’t get you, Sherman.”

“I’ve got some land, not too far from here. Twenty-two acres. It’s just about all forest; I only cleared a little bit of it, for my house.”

“But I don’t drive a car, Sherman. And this forest, it’s mine. I mean, it’s where I live. You know…”

“Yeah, I know where you live, Holden. Remember, you let me come and visit you there, once? But I was thinking, how would you like to live in a house? A real house. A little one, you could build yourself. In your own forest?”

“I couldn’t do that, Sherman. If anybody found out-”

“It wouldn’t matter,” the big detective said. “Because it wouldn’t be out here, it would be where I live. On my land. We could put up a dandy little house, you and me. It wouldn’t be much, but it’d be a house, Holden. A real one.”

“But what would I do? I mean, I have my job…”

“You could watch the forest for me, Holden. And, in the daytime, you could be clearing the land, working on the house. I always wanted to breed dogs. Maybe we could-”

“I don’t like those hounds, Sherman. They go after-”

“Not hunting dogs, Holden. Dobermans. Do you like them?”

“I… guess so.”

“Sure you do!” Sherman Layne said, patting Holden’s shoulder. “And you could take care of animals that get hurt, same way you do now, only it would be easier if you had a stove and a refrigerator, right?”

“I… I think I could. But, Sherman…”

“What?”

“How come things have to change?”

“Because we’re friends, Holden. And I’m changing, so I thought you might like to come along with me.”

“You’re moving away, Sherman?”

“No,” the big detective said. “I’m getting married.”

1959 October 08 Thursday 22:49

“Uriah got shot,” Kitty said. “But he didn’t get hurt.”

“I know.”

“He wouldn’t tell me how it happened. But I know, if you hadn’t told me about the gun, he couldn’t have done… whatever he did to protect himself, Harley.”

“I wouldn’t let anything happen to your family, Kitty.”

“When I talked to Uriah, it was just for a few minutes. But he’s different now. Like he aged a lifetime.”

“Scared?”

“No. Not at all. It’s like he’s got a… purpose now. I could tell, from the way he was talking. He might even make up with my father. But you know what?” she said, sadly. “You saved his life, and he hates you.”

“Me?”

“Not you yourself, Harley. All white people. That’s what he was going on about. How the whole gang thing was something the white man tricked them into doing, and he wasn’t going to be tricked anymore.”

“Yeah.”

“Locke City will never be the place for us, Harley.”

“Never’s a long time, baby.”

“I know you have plans,” Kitty said. “Big plans. And I know you’re smart. You’re so smart, Harley. I wish you’d go away with me.”

“To college, huh?”

“Yes!”

“Give me another year, honey. One more year. If I can’t… if we can’t be together then, right here in Locke City, I’ll come and be with you, Kitty, wherever you are. I swear.”

1959 October 08 Thursday 23:16

“Compass. Procter speaking.”

“If I get you something so hot it could turn this country upside down, could you get it into the paper?”

“Ah, you again. Yeah, sure. If it’s newsworthy. I mean, really newsworthy, not just some gossip about a politician’s wife, do we understand each other?”

“Yeah, that was just to- Look, this is a guaranteed blockbuster, a bigger story than the Rosenbergs. If I deliver, can you do the same?”

“Absolutely,” Procter said.

“You’re lying,” the voice on the phone said. “You’re not the boss of that place. Your editor would kill it in a minute.”

“This isn’t the only paper in the world,” Procter said. “And there’s magazines, too. More every day. I can-”

“You promise, you swear, that if what I hand over to you is genuine dynamite, and I have all the proof, you’ll get it published somewhere? So people can see it?”

“That’s what I live for,” Procter said. “And if you did as much checking up on me as you seem to have, you already know that.”

“I don’t have much time. There isn’t much time left. You’re my last hope. The next time I call, I’ll have everything for you.”

1959 October 09 Friday 00:01

“I need my car,” Dett said into the phone.

“Name a time,” a man’s voice replied. “You know what you got to bring, and where you got to bring it to.”

1959 October 09 Friday 14:02

A decorous dark-blue Cadillac sedan pulled up to the guardhouse. Seth emerged, empty-handed.

The Cadillac’s front window slid down. The driver said, “I’ve got Mr. Dioguardi in the back. He’s supposed to see-”

“You’re expected,” Seth said, half-saluting toward the back seat, noting the two men sitting there. “I’ll get someone to come and walk you over, just be a minute.”

Seth walked back into the guardhouse.

“Last time, he searched my car like I was bringing a bomb with me,” Dioguardi said to the man seated next to him.

“Things are different now, right, boss?”

“They are so far,” Dioguardi replied. “Hey, look. See that guy walking toward us? I remember him from the last time I was out here. He’s a retard.”

“Beaumont’s got retards working for him?”

“Why not?” Dioguardi shrugged. “They got to be at least as smart as a dog. And probably just as loyal.”

Seeing Luther approach, Seth stepped from the guardhouse and joined him alongside the Cadillac.

“Mr. Beaumont says you can all go in, if you want. Or just Mr. Dioguardi.”

“You guys stay with the car,” Dioguardi ordered.