A Blind Goddess (37 page)

“Best if you two don’t hang around together so much. White boy and a Negro boy can only be trouble,” Mr. Jackson said. “It’s not your fault, it’s just the way things are.”

“Is that what you think, Dad?” I wondered if Dad was getting pressure from his boss, or if he really believed that.

“I think Mr. Jackson knows what he’s talking about. It’s the smart move. Let Basher find something else to get all riled up about.”

“Okay,” I said, not willing to argue with two fathers.

“Billy,” Dad said. “Don’t soft-soap me.”

“No, really, I get it. We make a convenient target. And Tree
would get the worst of it, so I understand.” They were relieved. The first thing I did after work was to run over to Earl’s and tell Tree.

“Yeah, Pop read me the riot act this morning,” Tree said. “What are we gonna do?”

“I don’t know. I have enough money once I get paid this week to buy the Indian Scout. But it needs work. I thought I could do it here.”

“You can,” Tree said. “Earl said it was okay, long as you help me out. He’s not a bad guy.”

“But what if we get caught?”

“They can’t stop you being a customer of Earl’s, can they? Are that’s what you’d be. Sort of.” It was with that twisted logic that we began to deceive our fathers, which was not a minor transgression in either of our households.

I bought the Scout, wheeling it in at night to Earl’s to avoid any chance of being seen. I’d sounded out my dad about getting a motorcycle, but Mom heard and before he had a chance to give his opinion, she’d weighed in. He went into his study and shut the door on us both. I kind of doubted he’d say yes, but he never said no, either.

Things were going well. Basher was leaving us alone, even on the few times Tree came to see his dad at work. I’d gotten a used oil pump and installed it, and was planning on working on the brakes next. My thinking didn’t really go much beyond that.

One day, as I was about to finish up at work, Basher brushed by me, giving me a hard elbow in the ribs. He grinned as he and two other cops made for their squad car. He was happy, and Basher was only happy when other people weren’t. I ran to the garage, and found Basher taking a statement from Earl. The place had been robbed, a window broken to gain entry, and a crowbar taken to the cash register. They’d gotten fifty bucks in cash.

And my 1922 Indian Scout.

They had Tree in the squad car, and wouldn’t let me near him. Earl swore Tree was a good kid and had had nothing to do with it, but they thanked him for his cooperation and drove away. There was only one thing to do.

Dad was working a homicide down on Fulton Street; he’d been in the station that day and told me to tell Mom he’d be home late. I jumped a streetcar and looked around until I saw the police cars. The coroner’s wagon was just taking the body away and Dad was talking to two beat cops. I waved until I got his attention.

It wasn’t pretty. Disturbing your dad at work to tell him you’ve been lying to him is never a good idea. When your dad is a homicide detective with a fresh corpse, it’s truly a horrible idea. The fact that he’d warned me about Basher meant that I had to endure the iciest glare ever. When Dad got mad, he got loud and yelled a lot. When he got
really
mad, he got quiet as the veins bulged on his neck.

He dispatched a couple of bluecoats over to Tree’s house, telling them to make sure Basher did everything by the book. When I asked him what he meant, his look went from stern and angry to weary, as if he didn’t want me to hear what grown men were capable of.

“Son, they’re going to find the money and your bike on the Jacksons’ property. That’s what this is all about. It’s what Mr. Jackson and I tried to tell you. This isn’t kid stuff. This is real life, the way it happens when you go up against guys like Basher without a plan.”

“You mean they’re going to arrest Tree?”

“There’s no way out of it, Billy. They’ll have evidence.”

“But you can tell them, Tree wouldn’t do this. Earl at the garage even said he was a good kid!”

“Evidence, Billy. They have evidence. It’s phony, you and I know that. The judge might even suspect it, but the law is the law. I’m sorry. Best I can do is make sure Basher doesn’t pull anything like claiming Tree resisted arrest. My men will keep an eye on him. Now go home, and we’ll talk later.”

I took the streetcar home to South Boston, wishing it would never stop.

They let Tree out on bail. Mr. Jackson had to put up his house for the bond. The prosecutor argued that the young man was a flight risk, and only the loss of his father’s home would serve to keep him around.

Of course, Tree lost his job. Earl said people wouldn’t trust the
garage if the guy accused of robbing it still worked there. He had a point.

I knew Tree had been planning on going to college in the fall, and I figured that I could sell my bike, once it was out of the evidence impound, to help him out. It was only right, since the whole thing was my fault. We’d both jumped in feet first, but Tree was the one paying the price.

I decided to do some detective work of my own. I canvased the neighborhood, like Dad talked about. But since I was a kid, a lot of people didn’t want to be bothered. One old lady didn’t mind. Mrs. Mildred Bishop lived in a walk-up apartment overlooking the alley behind Earl’s Garage. She stank of cigarette smoke. Her house stank, her cat stank, and two fingers on her right hand were stained yellow with nicotine.

“I wake up coughing sometimes,” she said. I tried to hide my surprise. “So I get up and have a smoke. I always stand by the window, it helps me breathe. The other night, when they said the garage was robbed? Well, I was up a lot that night. I had just lit a Pall Mall when I heard a sound outside. It was warm, so the windows were wide open.”

“What sort of sound, ma’am?” I asked. I had my notebook out and was scribbling her statement, or what I thought a police statement looked like.

“Breaking glass. I thought maybe a stray cat had knocked some bottles over. People are always leaving bottles stacked in the alleyway. I didn’t hear much else, until near the end of my cigarette. A truck pulled up and stopped in back of Earl’s. Someone came out and loaded what looked like a motorcycle on it. They had boards out so they could run it up the back.”

“Did you see the person, Mrs. Bishop?”

“No, it was too dark to make out faces, dear boy.”

“Could you tell if it was a Negro or a white man?”

“Oh, it was a white man. I could see a bit of his face, no details, but I’d certainly say a white man.”

“Could you describe the truck?”

“No, sorry, I can’t. I don’t really know much about cars and trucks.” She ground out one Pall Mall and lit another.

“Did the police come by and ask about the robbery?”

“They did come, yes. They had a picture of that nice colored boy who works at the station. They wanted to know if I’d seen him. Of course I had, I told them. When I walk by and he’s out, he always waves. Nice young fellow, like you are. Polite.”

I wrote everything out, asked her to read and sign it. She did, and invited me back anytime. I coughed a bit myself, thanked her, and left.

What I should have done was go to Dad and give him the story Mrs. Bishop had told me. But I went to Tree first, because I wanted him to know that I was on the case, and that I wouldn’t let him be railroaded. I felt bad about everything that had happened, starting with how I got the job, right up to Tree being framed, all because Basher didn’t like a white doing a colored job. Also because we’d made Basher look stupid, and he never forgave an offense.

Tree and I figured the best thing to do was take the statement to his public defender. He was a young lawyer who didn’t have much experience, but this information seemed like it would give him an edge. Reasonable doubt, that’s what we thought. I also knew I wanted to impress Dad, to show him I could fix my own mess without his help.

Shows how dumb I was. The thing I didn’t think through was that the public defender had to share evidence with the prosecutor, and the prosecutor works with the police. Meaning Basher. By the time I’d filled in Dad—and gotten a dose of reality, delivered in a long and loud lecture about my lack of brains, judgment, and all-around suitability as a functioning human being—a new public defender had been appointed, the evidence from Mrs. Bishop had been misfiled and lost, and Basher had paid her a visit. She refused to speak to me again, even when I showed up with a pack of Pall Malls.

The fix was in. What we didn’t fully understand was how deep and twisted the fix was. At the last minute, the prosecutor offered
Tree a deal. Testify that the theft had been my idea all along, and he’d walk with probation. Then the district attorney would file charges against me. Whether they stuck or not didn’t really matter. What mattered to Basher was teaching us a lesson. And he’d have something to hold over my father’s head. Dad wasn’t exactly an angel when it came to the small stuff. Hell, our kitchen was furnished with a lot of stuff that fell off trucks after a robbery. But Basher was corrupt in a big way, the kind of corruption that led to organized crime and dead bodies floating in the harbor. Dad resisted him every step of the way, but the cop code of silence kept him from doing any more than that. With me coming up for trial, Dad might be tempted to exchange an illegal favor or two to derail the court date.

Tree told the DA to go to hell. Not to save me from trouble, but because he wanted a trial. Probation meant a conviction, and even though he wouldn’t serve time, it would kill his chances of college. Pop Jackson had a Negro lawyer, Irwin Dorch, lined up to defend Tree. Dorch was head of the Boston National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and Mr. Jackson said he’d paid his dollar a year to belong since he came back from the war, and it was time to collect. Dorch took the case pro bono, and he planned to use it not only to exonerate Tree, but to agitate for more Negro police officers.

The whole thing was a far cry from the simple summer job I’d originally signed up for.

Tree and I began to drift apart as rumors swirled about Dorch taking the case. All of a sudden it seemed like it was the whole department, not just Basher, against him and me. It became a case of us and them, with me sitting on the
them
side, since my dad and uncle were both detectives, and being on the force was their whole world.

I tried again with Mrs. Bishop, but she was gone. Took her nest egg and moved to Maine to live with her daughter, the neighbors said. Conveniently outside of the local jurisdiction. Looked to me like any nest egg she had went into buying smokes, and I wondered if Basher had shown up with a wad of cash. No wonder my single pack of coffin nails hadn’t opened any doors for me.

I went to see Tree after that. I said I’d talked to the DA, that he’d been to the house a few times, and was what my dad called one of the good guys. Even among lawyers, cops, and robbers there were good guys and bad guys, and you couldn’t always count on the uniform or suit coat to tell them apart.

Tree said no, let it go to trial. That way I was in the clear, and he stood a chance of keeping his record clean. I didn’t see it that way, but he was in the hot seat, so I told him he was probably right.

But I never said I wouldn’t talk to the DA.

I waited outside the courtroom the next afternoon. A big trial was wrapping up, and I knew DA Flanagan would be there for the cameras. He was. As the flashbulbs popped and he puffed out his chest in the August heat, I strolled around the edges of the crowd. Finally I caught his eye, and as the crowd dispersed and he walked to his waiting sedan, he waved me over.

“What are you doing here, Billy?”

“Waiting to talk to you, Mr. Flanagan. About Tree … I mean Eugene Jackson,” I said.

“Your father know you’re here?” He’d stopped and given me his full attention, tapping out a cigarette and firing up a gold lighter.

“No, sir. This isn’t his idea, it’s all mine.”

“And what exactly is it you want?” He drew in smoke and exhaled through his nose. It looked strange, and I unaccountably thought of dragons.

I told him about how Basher had treated us, about Mrs. Bishop and the statement I’d given to the first public defender. “I just want Eugene to get a fair shake. But Basher’s got everything lined up against him.”

“Billy, the police have presented sufficient evidence for my office to act. If Mrs. Bishop will come forward and give a proper statement, we’ll be glad to take it into consideration.”

“She’s gone. It looked like she didn’t have a dime to spare, and now she’s moved up to Maine with a nest egg.”

“So all I have is your word,” Flanagan said.

“Yes, sir.”

“It might look very bad for your father if word got out his son tried to influence the prosecution in favor of a defendant,” Flanagan said. He moved toward his automobile and the driver hopped to and opened the rear door. He stopped, took a drag, and crushed the cigarette out on the curb. “I wouldn’t try this again, young man. You might stir up trouble your family doesn’t need.”

“Yes, sir,” I said to the door as it slammed shut.

I went back to mopping floors as the summer ended. Tree’s trial was scheduled for right after Labor Day. The day before the holiday, Dad came home with good news. The prosecutor had offered Tree a deal. A terrific deal. All charges dropped except breaking and entering. And he was given a choice about how to do his time. Take one year in jail, or join the army.

Tree hadn’t wanted to take the deal. He was ready for a fight, and thought Dorch could win the case. But Pop Jackson wasn’t so sure, and told Tree to take the offer. He wasn’t a guy you argued with, whether he was your boss or your father. So Tree took the deal.

I made the mistake of telling Tree that I had been the one to talk to the DA. I was bragging about it, to tell the truth. I thought I’d gambled and won, and I wanted my friend to know. Flanagan had believed me, or at least knew enough about Basher to reconsider his case. I thought Tree would be happy, even thankful. But he was roaring mad. I was the one who’d taken away his chance to prove himself innocent and make his own choices about college or the army. It wasn’t my place to decide for him. I wasn’t that much better than Basher, when it came down to it. Both of us used the system to get what we wanted, without giving Tree a choice in the matter. We had a big blow-out fight, and Tree told me to never come around again.