Darktown (35 page)

“He had three little girls and then he had me and damn if he didn't put his heart and soul into making sure I knew how to be tough. I like to believe I learned most of those lessons eventually, but not all of them right away. Sometimes it takes us a while to learn the obvious stuff. See, the more he told me to steer clear of the niggers, the more curious I got. Even after that riot, there were still a few neighborhoods where the coloreds and us were on the same block, we'd cross paths, that sort of thing. And he always laid down the law good and thick on that.”

Just keep him talking, Rake figured. The more Dunlow was talking, the more time Rake was not being shot.

“I do see a lotta me in you. And here's what I worry about, Officer Rakestraw. A good Christian man like you, with that pretty wife of yours.” The mention of Cassie was enough to get Rake to tighten his grip on the blade's handle. “And those cute kids. You got so much to worry about, but at the same time, ah, I bet the wife won't stop complaining about the baby, and you can't stand the little one's crying at night, and life just doesn't seem that much fun anymore, does it? Being a strong respectable white man is
dad-gum
difficult work, and though that'd be more than enough to inspire most men to take to this”—he nudged with his left hand the glass that Rake still hadn't touched—“you're
better
than that, you take that police oath seriously. But the home life is getting tougher and your paycheck ain't going far enough and your job is taking its toll, and what's a fellow got to do to relax?”

Rake could push the table up and onto Dunlow, but it was so light
weight it would take Dunlow less than a second to knock it away and aim and fire. Or Rake could lunge over the table and hope Dunlow was too slowed by drink, then try to knock away the gun and at least it's a fair fight. Beyond that he saw no other options save waiting.

“So you decide to yourself, you'll go down to Darktown and have you some fun. Show off how enlightened you are, mix with the coloreds, because they always know how to relax and be lighthearted even when their lot in life ain't so good. So you hit those nightclubs even though you still ain't drinking, and you play cards even though that's illegal, too, but you ain't really betting much money so what's the harm?

“And the women! Now that's a whole 'nother story. You've heard the things they say about nigger women and damned if it don't appear to be true. Curves that white ladies couldn't even
draw,
and my Lord, they are free about it. Not
free
exactly, because at this one place you been frequenting, money is certainly exchanged with the ladies. But, you figure, money spent on
that
is a hell of a lot better spent than money at the tables, you get me? We coming to an understanding here?”

“Sure.” He had no clue where this was going.

“So now you even got a regular thing with one of 'em. She gives you just the
best
damned time, she's wild and funny and the more you're with her, damned if you don't get to thinking. Thinking that she ain't all that dumb after all. She's got a brain on her shoulders. And you think maybe all this stuff they tell us about the coloreds and their women, maybe that's just a bit of hokum. Jealousy. Maybe it's just because us white folk are too stuck-up and hard up and we resent the way they can have so much damned
fun
despite having so little.

“Time goes by and your wife has probably noticed you ain't taking the family to church no more, but that's all right, you're busy with work and all and you got to sleep in the day. And you don't need to be right with no God right now anyway. It's the goddamn Depression and the things you see every day, Lord. You'd thought when you became a cop it'd be all hero stuff and saving lives and maybe busting heads and getting your rocks off like that, but no, it turns out you spend almost all your time trying to get good folks off the street, helping them find shelter, get a hot crumb somewhere. Hearing stories that just break your heart and seeing the looks in those little boys' eyes, kids same age
as yours and they got
nothing
and they're skinny and their heads don't look quite right and you're just trying to get their parents a warm spot for the night. For one goddamn night. And then tomorrow it's the same thing for 'em again. That's your job, that's your life, every day. You don't unnerstand how no God could be doing things like this, and you ain't right in the head and your wife don't unnerstand you when you try to explain.”

Dunlow had retreated within himself. His hand wasn't even on the gun anymore, just beside it. If there was a moment for Rake to knock away the gun, it was now.

Yet he wanted to hear the rest of the story.

“So you're going to that whorehouse more and more, and it's a shame the way those colored gals live, but hell, that's the hand life dealt 'em. You're there at the off-hours on account of your job, and they'll take you anytime and be happy about it, on account of your money. You eventually learn that more'n one of 'em has a kid there, these little boys who run around the halls when there ain't no john in the building. Sad as hell. Your own brats are driving you crazy at home, of course, but there are times at the whorehouse where you get to talking to those little kids and roughhousing with 'em. One of 'em's pretty damned smart, too, his name's Duke because his mother says she'd fallen in love with a Duke Ellington record back when he was born, listened to it all the time. It gets so you leave a nickel for him sometimes, or even bring him a bag of candy now and again. He's like your little mascot.

“Makes you feel sorrier for those girls, the way you and that kid get on. He's funny, and sometimes after you've had your roll in the hay with one of the girls, you bring him a book you brought from home, something your kids have outgrown. He ain't going to any school but he picks up the words quick enough. And he can play piano! They got one in their parlor, sometimes one of the ladies plays it, and he's picked it up just from watching her. One day he gets up on the bench and starts hammering away, and damned if he ain't carrying a tune. Not the greatest tune you ever heard, but for a four-year-old? Actually knows what he's doing. Sings, too, words he just done made up on the spot.

“That little boy. Calls you ‘Mr. Down Low,' and first you think it's cause his pronunciation ain't so good, but you come to realize it's delib
erate, it's a joke, he's a clever kid. So you're Mr. Down Low to him. And it sounds crazy, but you can just tell that little boy is meant for better things. Has a way about him. He looks at you and you feel like he's reading your mind, understanding you. Charisma in spades. No pun intended. And the more he plays that piano, you can just see him on a big stage, playing and maybe singing, charming folks in nice suits. Crazy, but maybe he
is
the next Duke Ellington. You read him these books at night, at an hour no kid that age should be up, let alone in a place like that, and you realize, this little kid has something, something truly special. You start wondering what you can do to really help him, not just reading him a book or buying him candy but getting him to a proper music instructor, something. Be like a secret sponsor to the boy, find a way to really make the most of that God-given talent he been given. Little ol' Duke.”

Dunlow's hand was back on the gun. Not picking it up so much as ensuring it was near.

“Then one day you drop by the whorehouse place and it's all these other people there, some of them you know and others you never seen before, because you've been careful over the years to not be around when there's too many other folks, course, you can't have people realizing just how often you're frequenting the place. There's yelling and screaming and crying and you're still fighting your way through a crowd when the ambulance shows up. You don't see what happened yet, but folks are talking about it. Little boy ran out in the street. Hit by a car. Duke. And part of you wants to push that crowd out of the way and run up to the boy and see if maybe there's something you can do, and even if there ain't. . . . Comfort him that last time. But the other part of you knows who you are and where you are, and you can't do that. You just stand there and wait and listen to the crowd and you hear her screaming now, just screaming in a way you've never heard, not even the times you've had to give the worst news to parents on the job. . . . You just . . .”

Dunlow shook his head. His eyes were red and glassy and he tried to distract himself by pouring another drink. Half of it missed, spilling on the table. What made it into the glass he promptly swallowed.

Rake was wondering if he sat there long enough, would Dunlow's silence gradually turn into sleep? But good manners got the better of Rake, and he said, “I'm sorry, Dunlow.”

“I didn't ask for your goddamn sympathy. This is a
lesson
for you, boy, like it was a lesson for me. Mothers drinking all day while their toddler walks off into traffic? Women selling themselves? All that lighthearted music and partying and laying about while good white people are working their tails to the bone trying to put this goddamn country back together during the Depression and then the war? I tricked myself into thinking they could be good as us, and then life showed me otherwise. Do
not
repeat that mistake. Do not be taking sides with these nigger cops. They ain't cops. We let them run around with guns much longer, this city will be in flames.” The hand that wasn't cradling the gun slammed the table. “We are the last line of defense. Boggs and Smith have already killed one man that we know of, and they'll do worse soon enough. They'll be emboldened. Once they see they can kill a nigger and get away with it, they'll turn on white folks next. You want that, Officer Rakestraw? You want that on your conscience?”

Rake let a few seconds pass, hoping that might defuse his adversary some. Then he asked, “How does this end, Dunlow? You shooting me here because I don't see eye-to-eye with you? You building a case against Boggs and Smith, even though you've already passed on your so-called evidence to Homicide and we haven't heard anything since? Or will it be you deciding to hunt Boggs and Smith down yourself, maybe with a hood over your head, and you'll just assume no one in the Department will mind that two officers were killed?”

“They ain't officers.”

“There was a time I may have actually wanted you to do something incredibly stupid, let yourself get fired or tossed in jail. But I don't want Boggs's or Smith's deaths on my conscience, or that Negro down the block. I've actually changed my mind on this, and I wish, I really do wish you
won't
do something incredibly stupid.”

“Don't get your hopes up.”

“Who killed Lily Ellsworth?”

“What?”
The change of subject seemed dizzying to Dunlow.

“Who killed her, if not your buddy Underhill?”

“Hell if I know. He said he got paid to remove a body, not kill anybody.”

“But she was alive and in his car when Boggs and Smith pulled him
over that night. Removing a body when the body's alive isn't accessory after the fact, it's murder.”

“He'd have no reason to lie to me 'bout that.”

“You're a cop, and you're saying someone wouldn't have reason to lie about a murder?”

“You've changed the subject on me and I ain't too drunk to notice. What the hell happened to your finger anyway?”

“A wall mouthed off to me and I hit back.”

“Then it wouldn't just be one finger in a splint like that.” Spoken like a man who had punched his share of walls.

“My hair's about to catch fire it's so goddamn hot in here. I've heard you out and I thank you for showing me your family heirloom,” and Rake nodded toward the toe, “but I'm going to stand up now and walk home to my wife and kids. I suppose I'm just going to have to hope you don't choose to shoot me in the back.”

And with that, Rake stood. He had convinced himself he wasn't taking an awful chance. He had convinced himself that Dunlow did see him fondly in a way, that Dunlow truly did view him as a younger version of himself, that Dunlow felt more a fatherly need to beat sense into that self and not a homicidal need to turn this shed into a crime scene. Rake was reeling from Dunlow's story but he also saw that his partner was even smaller than he had thought before, and he was telling himself that smallness equaled weakness and therefore he had nothing to fear by standing up, and turning, and slowly walking toward the shed door. He chose not to think that this simple act constituted a fatal mistake.

One hand on the doorknob, he turned to look back at Dunlow one last time.

Dunlow was still sitting but he was holding the gun now, his arm straight and true, the muzzle aimed at Rake's head.

Bang.

32

THE SIRENS OF
the Peacedale squad cars were louder now, the same sounds as the APD squad cars Boggs and Smith had become so accustomed to, but inspiring a very different reaction.

Boggs had nearly stopped, the first squad car no more than forty yards behind him when Smith said,
“Now.”

They had reached a bend in the road where the blacktop curved sharply to the left. Just before that bend, the road was narrower due to overgrowth of unkempt rhododendron and rose of Sharon shrubs. At Smith's command, Boggs swung the wheel counterclockwise. The Buick's wheels squealed and he felt it hydroplane a bit, dirt and gravel scraping beneath, the car swinging until they faced straight into the woods and they were blocking the road.

Next it was the squad car's wheels squealing. Boggs didn't turn to watch them, as Smith had already opened the passenger door and jumped out. Boggs crawled over the seat and did the same, closing the door behind him, so that the Buick stood between them and the cops.

The second squad car parked behind the first, which was a mere fifteen yards from the two colored officers.

The driver's door of the lead squad car was kicked open. The man who hurried outside it was so enraged he could barely stand up, nearly tripping as he exited. He had dark hair and something about one of his eyes looked funny even from this distance. Boggs saw from the stripes that this was the local sheriff.

“You get the hell back in that automobile, boy!”

At about this time, as doors from both squad cars were opening to disgorge the sheriff's fellow officers, the sheriff seemed to notice that one of the Negroes was holding a rifle.

Smith was not aiming it or even pointing it. He brandished it before him, though, muzzle pointing up at about ten o'clock from the white men's perspective. Standard infantry-at-guard position. Standard warning-­not-to-consider-crossing-this-point stance. Boggs's hands were at his sides; the white men couldn't see his pistol because of the Buick's obstruction. He would let them imagine it.

“You're Sheriff Nayler?” Boggs called out, ignoring the question.

“You put that goddamn gun away, boy!”

By now the other cops had noticed the rifle, and quickly they availed themselves of their own weapons.

“Shit,”
Boggs whispered. He held up his left palm in what he hoped looked like mild appeasement, though the other hand he kept hidden.

“Let's all stay calm here. We're just trying to head back home and don't want any trouble.”

The white cops weren't pointing their revolvers at them, yet, since they were apparently awaiting an order from their superior. Beside the sheriff was another cop, big and much younger, staring at his master like a dog impatiently awaiting the command to attack. Behind them, from the second car, were two more white cops. They were too far away, so it was hard to tell how young or hard they were, though that barely mattered. All that was relevant was how good a shot either was, and how many more weapons they had stashed in those cars.

“Sheriff told you to put that gun away, boy!” the younger cop said. “And put both your damn hands up!”

All the cars' engines were still on, purring in the shade like barely stilled predators, waiting.

“We are police officers from the city of Atlanta,” Boggs said, employing what Sergeant McInnis always referred to as
calm but barely restrained power.
Do not sound panicked or angry. Sound in control. And possessed of such inner wrath that they will fear the unleashing of it. “We are returning to our precinct and expect you to let us pass.”

“The hell?” the younger one said to Nayler.

“You ain't police out here,” the sheriff said. “You ain't got no call to be out in my town, son.”

“We'll happily leave your town, Sheriff. That's what we were just trying to do when you pulled us over.”

There were a hell of a lot of bees in the air, Boggs noticed. They were darting to and fro across the road, as the humans appeared to have stopped in the middle of some vital insect hub. The rose of Sharon were in bloom and nearly every lavender flower was being pillaged.

“What do you think y'all doing out here, boy?” the sheriff demanded. He hadn't asked them to show a badge, which they didn't have with them anyway. Even asking to see such a badge would have been to acknowledge the unmentionable, that these Negroes thought themselves worthy of the station.

“We were just expressing our condolences to the Ellsworths,” Boggs said.

“That's a family of nigger thieves and you'd best stay away from them.”

“I read your report, Sheriff,” Boggs said, “but I didn't see anything about evidence of them committing theft, or any other crime.”

“You're goddamn shifty niggers, ain't you? You may have tricked some pantywaist city folk over there, but you ain't tricking us.”

Boggs said, “You'd know about tricking people, wouldn't you, Sheriff ?”

The big cop whispered something to the sheriff, who nodded. Then the big one turned his head—slowly—and called something to the men behind him, though Boggs couldn't hear what. One of the rear cops nodded and opened his squad car door again.

“Y'all best stay out where I can see you,” Smith commanded, trying to sound in control despite a growing sense of helplessness.

Hopefully these were the only two squad cars in Peacedale. If a third should happen to come from the other direction, they were doomed. The man in the other car may have been radioing for help, either in town or from another jurisdiction.

“Y'all are messing in affairs that don't concern you,” Nayler said.

The cop who had reached into the back squad car now emerged with a rifle in his hands.

“Shit,”
Smith whispered.

No one had aimed a weapon yet. Everyone but Smith was pointing their guns at the ground as if trying to hold the earth prisoner. Smith's rifle was still held before him, aimed at the canopy of pines.

The two cops from the back started walking toward their fellows. The one with the rifle was in the center of the road, the other brushing up against the shrubbery to the right, bees everywhere.

“We can't let them spread out no more,” Smith whispered. “They try and flank out and we'll have to start shooting.”

“Are you crazy?”

“I'm experienced. We let them draw a perimeter through the woods and we're dead.”

Boggs called out, “My partner's a twice-decorated army sniper. You'd best not lift that rifle any higher.”

“What do you think is stopping us, son, from just shooting you all right here and now?”

A bee landed on Boggs's shirt. He was tempted to brush it off, but he was afraid the movement would cause one of the whites to aim and fire.

“You outnumber us right here,” Boggs said. “But our police outnumbers yours about a hundred to one.”

“They ain't coming to your rescue, boy,” the cop with the rifle spoke for the first time.

“You already got away with murder, Sheriff,” Boggs recapped. “That and theft of his truck and his cash. You have a lot to lose if you call more attention to yourself. I think letting a couple of city cops drive home so they can just complain about you from fifty miles away is an awfully good deal for you.”

Nayler was staring straight at Boggs. They were shaded from the worst of the summer sun yet still sweat was pouring down Boggs's back and he could smell his own stink, could hear his own heartbeat in his ears. His entire body was tense, arteries and veins compressed and loud.

“You tell your boys to start shooting, though,” he said, “and you'll get a whole lot of attention.”

“I don't know what you're talking about, boy,” Nayler said. “And if you even consider trying to besmirch my good name, you will deeply regret ever having heard of me.”

Smith's palms were sweaty and he was worried that if he had to aim the rifle hurriedly, he'd mishandle it. The Buick might not be thick enough to deflect many bullets. He was judging angles and who he'd
shoot second, thinking of making his body thin, hiding behind the wheels, wondering which white man would panic first.

“We have no jurisdiction out here, like you said,” Boggs said. “We just want to get back home.”

The sheriff waited. “Then get your black asses in that car and get the hell back to Atlanta.”

Boggs could breathe just the slightest bit easier, even though the big cop's head swiveled the sheriff's way, his eyes wide with shock and betrayal.

“Slowly,” Smith whispered.

With his left hand, Boggs opened the passenger door, still gripping his revolver with his right. He climbed into the car, eyes on the white cops. Realizing that he now had less protection from them. Fearing that this was the sheriff's ruse and the command to fire was coming.

Smith put his left foot into the car and stood with his right on the running board, though this model seemed to be fading out the gangster-­style boards and he could barely manage to stand upright, leaning with his chest against the roof of the car, the rifle pinned there but still in the white cops' view.

Because the car was perpendicular to the road, Boggs had to shift to reverse to give himself some space, backing ever closer to the white cops. They did not back up. Nor did they holster their weapons. There were even bees in the goddamn car. Boggs had to take his eyes from the whites for a moment as he shifted the car again—three-point turns were not something he had much experience with, let alone one-handed and with firearms involved.

Smith kept his eyes trained on the white cop with the rifle. Keeping all of them in his vision but focusing on that one. He wanted to give the sheriff one last glance, but it wasn't worth the risk.

The white cops were motionless as Boggs pressed the gas and the white men receded like two-dimensional props, Western-style shooting range targets looking more flat and lifeless with every second.

“ ‘Sniper twice decorated?' ” Smith said when he got back in the car. “I spent the war in a goddamn tank.”

“It scared 'em, though.”

“Just drive, and faster.”

Silence for a good ten minutes when Boggs finally said, “We need to warn them.”

“When we're a hell of a lot safer than this. Back in Atlanta.”

Boggs hated himself for agreeing with his partner. They needed to get out of the country. There was no telling where other white cops might have set up a roadblock, or just have a squad car ready to chase them down with more firepower and gunmen than Peacedale had mustered. Any minute they wasted by pulling over and making a phone call could make all the difference.

But what was happening to what was left of the Ellsworths? What would those Peacedale cops do next, after feeling like they'd been one-upped by a pair of Negro cops? What would happen to all that unquenched bloodlust, that sense that the order of their universe had been threatened?

He drove on.

After another twenty minutes, he couldn't take it. He pulled over into a filling station.

“Not yet!” Smith snapped. “We got longer to go.”

“I'm not waiting any more.” Boggs left the car.

Smith cursed under his breath and cradled a pistol in his lap. He scanned the area. Damn little to see: the filling station had two spigots, a long window, and a lone door. The pay phone was on the rear wall, and Boggs hurried toward it. Across the street was a ramshackle white house that
looked
abandoned but that possibly housed some unfortunates. Beyond that was nothing but peach trees baking in the late-afternoon sun.

Boggs dropped a coin down the slot, hoping a redneck wouldn't emerge from the building and tell him the phone was for whites only.

He hadn't seen any telephone poles out by the Ellsworths' place, and he didn't know which Peacedale Negroes, if any, owned phones. But he remembered one of the churches they'd passed on the south side of the tracks. “In Peacedale, Second Baptist Church of the Lord, please.”

After a pause, the operator said, “Yes, sir,” and connected him.

A woman answered on the second ring.

“Yes, ma'am, I'm calling from out of town and I have an urgent message I need to get to the Ellsworth residence.”

Silence for so long he feared she'd hung up on him. “Who is this?” She was old, either a preacher's wife or a spinster so dedicated to the Lord that she spent her time helping around the office. He'd known such women all his life.

“Ma'am, I'd rather not say, but I'm very concerned the Ellsworths are in danger right now and need to get out of their house as soon as possible. Can you please see about getting that message to them somehow?”

She made a sound, like a sigh but more disgusted.

“You're too late. Fire trucks already done headed over there. Their place is on fire.”