The Ragtime Fool (26 page)

My God, Ireland thought. Man just dropped thirty years.

***

Rudi Blesh pushed the doorbell at the little house on East Third, but no one answered. A second and a third try were no more productive. He pounded at the door. “Mrs. Rohrbaugh,” he called. “Mrs. Rohrbaugh!”

A window came up in the house to the right, then a woman stuck out a head bristling with pink curlers. “She ain’t home, Mister,” a shrill shout. “Went off just a little while ago.”

“Damn,” Blesh muttered, and gave the porch railing a token jab of resigned disgust. He called a thank-you to the woman, then marched off the porch and down to the street. Go get a sandwich and a drink, he thought. Just have to keep my eyes open at that ceremony and hope I get lucky.

***

One by one, the Klansmen ducked through the smashed cellar door into Barton’s basement. Johnny Farnsworth came in last. He strolled directly to the bar, but before he could pick up a bottle, Klein called, “Hey, Johnny, no booze, remember?”

Farnsworth sagged, then turned and looked around the room. “Yeah, okay. Jerry still ain’t here, huh?”

“No.” One short word from Clay Clayton, pure irritation. “We was startin’ to get worried maybe you was gonna crap out on us too.”

“Well, you don’t have to worry about me. You wasn’t bothered last night when I set up the charge, slick as snot. Wasn’t for me, there wouldn’t be none of us havin’ fun tonight.”

Klein stepped forward. “Come on, boys, let’s cool it off, okay? We’re gonna make us some history tonight. Our kids and grandkids’re gonna read about us in newspapers and history books. Course, they won’t know it’s us, but still.”

“I just can’t figure it with Jerry,” Rafe Anderson said. “It ain’t like him at all.”

“He was pretty sore about Curd,” said Klein. “Probably took him and his whole family off someplace real quiet.”

Anderson shook his head. “Nah, it’s been way too long. You think maybe Curd got him on the wrong end of a razor?”

“Who the hell knows?” Klein growled. “Tomorrow, we can go out lookin’, an’ if it’s Curd we find, we know how to get him to tell us what happened. But let’s first take care of tonight. It’s workin’ out even better’n I was thinkin’ yesterday. Tuesday nights, Rowena’s got her Ladies Auxiliary meetings, so she’ll be there from before suppertime till about eight-thirty. I’ll tell Eileen I’m gonna be havin’ an important meeting myself, in the basement, then go down there and out the cellar door, and meet you guys at the shack behind the school. Eileen won’t even think about me or the basement, ‘cause tonight’s Milton Berle, and you couldn’t get her off the TV with a prybar. By the time Berle’s over, we’ll all of us be back, and when Rowena gets home, she’ll come down an’ find us playin’ poker. Women oughta be good for something, huh?”

Luther Cartwright laughed. “They are good for something, but it don’t hurt if they’re good for something else now and then.”

Everybody laughed. The disagreeable mood from the beginning of the meeting vanished in a cloud of good fellowship.

***

A little past six, twilight of a cloudy day. Brun stood up from the piano bench and stretched. He patted Alan on the back. “That oughta hold you for a while.”

Alan nodded vigorously. “I hope I can remember it all.”

“You will,” Isaac piped from across the room. “Boys your age is sponges.”

Luella walked over to Brun, hesitated, then rested a hand on his arm. “I don’t think he’ll forget that lesson the rest of his life. Did you see his face while you were teaching him those tricks?”

He almost said, Damn, they weren’t
tricks
, but swallowed the words.

Alan filled the breach. “Did I look funny?”

Luella smiled. “Not at all.”

“Well, I felt sort of funny,” Brun said. “Like I was standin’ on the wrong side of a fence.”

“No,” Luella said. “You weren’t.” She looked at her watch. “When I talked to Eileen earlier, she said that after all she’s heard about the ceremony, she wants to go to it. I told her I’d pick her up before her father gets home from work, and we’d stop for a bite of supper first. Suppose we meet you at the school at a quarter past seven?”

Mixed chorus of “Right” and “Yeah.”

As Luella walked out and closed the door, Ireland jiggled a finger toward the floor at Green’s feet. “Lonzo, look at what a mess you’re making. You figure to just leave all that sawdust sitting on my floor?”

Green laughed an apology. “Don’t worry, Tom. I clean up my own messes.”

Alan grinned. “One of those guys at…one of those guys I was hiding from said he wished they’d brought some sawdust so they could do, something about a school.”

Ireland, Green, Isaac, and Brun all stiffened. “Something like what about sawdust and a school?” Ireland asked.

The heat in Ireland’s words made Alan’s voice shake. “I don’t know. I couldn’t hear real well, and that was all I could make out.”

“What you goin’ on about?” Slim had dozed through the piano lesson, but now he looked fully awake. “Sawdust? Boy just didn’t hear right, that’s all.”

“Yes, he did,” Ireland said. “Out here, sawdust is another word for dynamite.”

“Sweet Jesus.” Green whistled low. “They’re gonna blow up the high school. We better call the cops.” He shot a cuff, checked his watch. “Fast.”

Ireland raised a finger. “Hold on. We’d have to tell them how we know about it, and take my word, if what Alan has been through the past two days ever comes out, we’ll be in the middle of a stew we don’t want any part of. Lonzo, you’ve worked with dynamite.”

“Well, yeah. I did a fair bit with the cops in Kay Cee.” Green clearly didn’t like what he saw coming.

Ireland pulled himself to his feet. “Best if we can take care of things ourselves, but if we can’t, I guess we’ll have to make an anonymous call. Tell the police to close the high school, that it’s going to be blown up during the ceremony.”

“Then who they gonna come after?” Slim asked. “After they trace that call.”

“There are phones in the offices at Hubbard,” Ireland said. “If we don’t have everything under control before the ceremony’s due to start, I’ll sneak in and get hold of the police.”

Slim was halfway to the door before Ireland finished talking. The big man extended a hand like a football player trying to fend off a tackle. “So
we’s
supposed to go an’ clear out that dynamite? That’s what you sayin’?”

Ireland looked puzzled. “Well, yes. What else—”

Slim shook his head violently. “You can just count me outa that.” He flung the door open. “I ain’t havin’ no truck with no dynamite. The book’s gone, the money’s gone, an’ now I’m supposed to get my balls blown all the way back to Jersey? Uh-uh, forget ‘bout that. I’m gonna take ’em there myself, first train outa this place. I wishes you all good fortune.” He frowned, glared at Alan. “Ceptin’ for you, mammy-jammer.’” He stomped outside, slammed the door.

Ireland hustled into the kitchen, returned in an instant, stuffing a flashlight into a pants pocket. “We’ve got five less minutes now than we did when we tumbled.” He looked at Isaac, reaching for his cane. “Maybe you ought to stay here and wait. We’re going to have to move fast as we can.”

“Nosir.” Isaac started toward the door. “You all go on ahead. But I ain’t missin’ that ceremony.”

“But they might blow up—”

“Tom, now, get you’self movin’ so maybe they don’t.” Isaac motioned with the back of his hand. “Go on, now, quit wastin’ time. Shoo.”

***

Eileen had the door open practically the instant Luella rang the bell. The girl threw a jacket over her shoulders as she rushed outside. “Your father’s not home yet?” Luella asked.

Eileen shook her head. “Not for about another fifteen minutes.”

Good, Luella thought. “Aren’t you going to say good-bye to your mother?”

Eileen closed the door. “Mom’s off at her Ladies Auxiliary meeting at the hospital. I left her a note. Where are we going for supper?”

Luella smiled. “I thought we could try Puckett’s. They just opened last month.”

“I heard. Sally Arthur was there with her family. She said the fried chicken was super, and the apple pie was just divine.”

Luella held herself to a tolerant smile. God’s very own apple pie. “Well, that settles it, then. Let’s be on our way.”

***

Ireland, Green, Brun, and Alan crouched at the back wall of Hubbard High School. “Ain’t gonna be outside here, where anybody could spot it,” Green whispered. “Odds are they snuck in the basement at night and set it someplace down there. Let’s see if’n we can’t spot anything what tells us where they got in from. Tom, you an’ the boy go around to the right there. Me an’ Brun’ll check the left. Meet here, soon’s we can.”

Within just a few minutes, they were back. Ireland shook his head. “Just windows down into the furnace room on that side, and they’re all locked from inside, and none of them are broken. What about over there?”

“Door down to the cellar,” Green said. “Padlock on it, but it don’t look like it’s been fooled with. Only one other thing.” He made a circular motion with a hand.

The four walked to the left rear corner of the building. Green pointed. “Coal chute.” He bent, pulled at the wooden cover; it came away in his hand. He waved it at the group. “Looks like somebody was in too much of a hurry to fix it back right.”

Alan stared through the opening in the wall, at the metal slide running down and into a nearly-full coal bin.

“Big enough for a man to get through. An’ look.” Green wiped his hand over the chute, then held up the palm. Ireland pointed the flashlight, shaded the beam with his free hand.

“No coal dust,” Brun said.

Green laughed. “Shiny as a nigger’s heel.”

“How’d they get out, though?”

“No trouble there,” said Ireland. “You can’t get into the school after hours, but you can always get out. The doors lock from the outside, but there’s a bar on the inside, you push it and the door’ll open. When those guys were done, they could’ve gone up the basement stairs, into the hallway, and right out the back door.”

Green made an exaggerated bow to Alan. “There you go, young mister. Show us the way. Take you’self a li’l ride.”

Alan swung himself onto the upper edge of the chute.

“Don’t bang your feet,” Green hissed. “Quiet.”

Alan balanced himself from behind, wiggled his legs and body straight, then let go of the edge. He hit the coal standing, staggered to the side of the bin, and vaulted over it to the floor. A moment later, Green came down the slide, and jumped out of the bin. Alan looked back and up the chute.

“It’s just you and me, boy,” Green said. “Your friend with his heart pills better not be takin’ no joy rides, an’ Mr. Ireland’s gonna go make sure he can get to the phone if he has to.” Green pulled Ireland’s flashlight out of his pocket. “Now, let’s start lookin’.”

“I don’t even know what I’m looking for,” Alan said.

Green began to shine the flashlight around the room. “Something that just don’t look like it belongs where it is.”

Alan walked back to the coal bin. Could they have put it under the coal? Not likely. Would’ve been a hard, dirty job, and then the coal would take out a lot of the blast, wouldn’t it? The boy walked to the furnace, saw it was not lit, and carefully opened the door. Green suddenly appeared behind him, shone the light into the furnace. Nothing but ashes.

Alan got down on his knees to peer under the boiler. He swung his hand back and forth beneath it, but felt nothing. As he wondered where to look next, Green pulled at his shoulder. “Over here.”

He followed Green halfway across the room, to the foot of a wooden column more than two feet thick, one of a row supporting a huge horizontal beam that ran the width of the basement. Green directed his flashlight to the base of the column. “See there?”

Alan squatted, squinched his eyes. “I don’t see anything.”

“Shee-it, boy. Lord wasted his almighty time givin’ you eyes.” Green grabbed Alan’s hand, stubbed the index finger into the floor at the base of the beam. “Now, you gonna tell me you don’t see nothin’ there but dirt?”

Alan looked closely. “Just a little sawdust.”

“An’ where you think that sawdust come from, huh?” Green played the light around the lowest part of the beam. “That sawdust be tellin’ you where be the sawdust. See the li’l saw-line on the post? Here, hold me the light on it.”

Alan watched Green pull a knife from his pocket, flip open a nasty-looking blade, then carefully apply the length of the cutting edge to the side of the column. A twist of Green’s wrist, and Alan heard the creak of a nail being pulled. The colored man reached across the column, twisted the knife again, then came away with a small wooden object in his left hand. “Look at what we got here, boy. Thin li’l piece of fir, same wood as the post, there. A cover.”

Green dropped the wood, pulled the flashlight from Alan’s hand, knelt to shine light into the recess. “Um-hm! Okay, quick now. See that red stick, wires goin’ to a li’l alarm clock?”

Alan squatted to peer into the cavity. “Twenty minutes after nineteen? What kind of clock is that?”

“Twenty-four-hour clock, prob’ly army surplus. These guys knows what they’s doin’. An’ see? The li’l alarm hand’s set to go off right at a quarter till twenty. That's a quarter till eight.”

“So we’ve got less than half an hour.”

Green played the flashlight over the device. “We be okay. It ain’t sweatin’.”

“Huh? The
dynamite
isn’t sweating?”

Green laughed. “Yeah, you is, and me too, but not it. Dynamite gets old, the nitro breaks down and sweats through to the outside. That happens, you don’t dare fool with it, it can go off in your hand. But this stuff’s okay.” He scrambled to his feet, pulled at the boy’s wrist. “Come on. Let’s check the other posts.”

***

In less than five minutes, Green and Alan had pried covers from two more support columns. Then, Green led the boy to the steps going up to the school, sat, wiped at his face with a handkerchief. “Auditorium’s right above here, and that big beam’s what’s holdin’ it. The three of them charges’re gonna go off right at the same time, and when that happen, there goes forty feet of support, and the whole room come down.”