Death's Door (45 page)

“I have to be back in London for tomorrow morning. I’ll talk to people there and see what I can find out. I promise.”

“Got a girl, Billy? A hot date?”

“I’m getting promoted. General Eisenhower is pinning my captain’s bars on me.”

“The general himself!” Tree said. “I heard he’s your uncle. That true?”

“True enough,” I said. I had a girl, too, but I didn’t want to get into that right now.

“Nice,” Tree said. “Always good to have a relation looking out for you.” He looked away, his lips tight in resentment. This was an old argument with us.

“Listen, Tree,” I said, barely keeping my voice steady. “I’ve already been in the shooting war, so don’t think I’m some desk warrior hitting the clubs in London every night. And as far as relations go, you couldn’t even make it to your own father’s funeral, so don’t lecture me on the subject.” We were nose to nose now, fists clenched, years of unresolved rage aching to get out.

“There’s two reasons I wasn’t there,” Tree said, showing more restraint than I had by stepping back and addressing Kaz. “When I got the message my father had died, I was at Fort Polk, Louisiana. The army gave me compassionate leave, and I was on a train in a matter of hours. Only problem was, the Southern Railways route took me dead across the Deep South. You know what that means, Lieutenant Kazimierz?”

“Yes. The part of the United States that held slaves.”

“Right,” Tree said. “And some down there wish things never changed. I had to change trains in Birmingham, and by the time I got my duffle hoisted aboard and found a seat, I’d misplaced my ticket. In the confusion I must’ve forgotten where I was, because when the conductor came through and I couldn’t find it, I said something like,
hold on buddy, it’s here somewhere
. Big mistake. He pulled a revolver out of his jacket and placed the barrel right between my eyes. Said if I spoke another word, he’d put a bullet in my brain and toss me off the moving train. This was in the colored car, in front of fifty witnesses. You could have heard a pin drop. One white man with a gun in Alabama, that’s all it took. Threw me off the train at the next stop, left me at some two-bit whistle stop where the colored waiting room was behind the outhouse. Not a train going in my direction for ten hours. By the time I made it back, I was a day late.
That’s
why I missed my father’s funeral.” Tree’s eyes were damp, but he locked onto mine. I should have known he hadn’t missed it on purpose. I couldn’t bear his gaze and looked away.

“You mentioned two reasons,” Kaz said.

“The other one is right here,” he said, pointing at me, his finger trembling and his voice choked with anger. “If it weren’t for Billy, I never would have been in the army in the first place.”

“You could have been in jail, Tree,” I said.

“Maybe not. Would have been my choice, though,” he said. I took a lesson from him and stepped away. It was an old argument, no reason to start it up again. I watched the traffic, what there was of it. A couple of horse carts, the occasional truck, and a number of shoppers at a bakery across the street. Hungerford was a lively town, a river cutting through it, spanned by a graceful bridge. Cottages close to the road were well kept, like the shops that dotted the roadway. A constable rode his bicycle across the bridge, his blue uniform bright in the sunny March air, his helmet bobbing along on the cobblestone street. I wondered if he was a pal of the dead cop as I watched him pass by.

“Sorry I wanted to help,” I said. I knew I sounded like a sarcastic schoolboy, but I couldn’t help myself.

“What you don’t understand, Billy, is that a Negro down South might as well be in jail. Nobody was on our side. Not the army, not the law. They could do anything they wanted to us, and no one backed us up. You know we had to step off the sidewalk in some towns whenever a white passed by? Me, wearing the uniform of the United States Army, with sergeant’s stripes on my sleeve, I had to stand in the gutter for no-account white trash. That’s prison, my friend.”

Somehow we’d come head to head again. Kaz stepped between us.

“It is interesting, you know,” Kaz said, in a casual conversational tone. “The Germans have the same rule in Poland. Poles have to step aside when any German walks by, upon pain of death.”

“Yeah, but there’s one big difference,” Tree said. “I’m going over there to kill those goddamn Nazis who make you step off the sidewalk. But when I go home, white men will still want me in the gutter.”

O
THER
T
ITLES IN THE
S
OHO
C
RIME
S
ERIES

Quentin Bates

(Iceland)

Frozen Assets

Cold Comfort

Chilled to the Bone

Cheryl Benard

(Pakistan)

Moghul Buffet

James R. Benn

(World War II Europe)

Billy Boyle

The First Wave

Blood Alone

Evil for Evil

Rag & Bone

A Mortal Terror

Death’s Door

A Blind Goddess

Cara Black

(Paris, France)

Murder in the Marais

Murder in Belleville

Murder in the Sentier

Murder in the Bastille

Murder in Clichy

Murder in Montmartre

Murder on the Ile Saint-Louis

Murder in the Rue de Paradis

Murder in the Latin Quarter

Murder in the Palais Royal

Murder in Passy

Murder at the Lanterne Rouge

Murder Below Montparnasse

Murder in Pigalle

Grace Brophy

(Italy)

The Last Enemy

A Deadly Paradise

Henry Chang

(Chinatown)

Chinatown Beat

Year of the Dog

Red Jade

Death Money

Gary Corby

(Ancient Greece)

The Pericles Commission

The Ionia Sanction

Sacred Games

The Marathon Conspiracy

Colin Cotterill

(Laos)

The Coroner’s Lunch

Thirty-Three Teeth

Disco for the Departed

Anarchy and Old Dogs

Curse of the Pogo Stick

The Merry Misogynist

Love Songs from a Shallow Grave

Slash and Burn

The Woman Who Wouldn’t Die

Garry Disher

(Australia)

The Dragon Man

Kittyhawk Down

Snapshot

Chain of Evidence

Blood Moon

Wyatt

Whispering Death

Port Vila Blues

Fallout

David Downing

(World War II Germany)

Zoo Station

Silesian Station

Stettin Station

Potsdam Station

Lehrter Station

Masaryk Station

(World War I)

Jack of Spies

Leighton Gage

(Brazil)

Blood of the Wicked

Buried Strangers

Dying Gasp

Every Bitter Thing

A Vine in the Blood

Perfect Hatred

The Ways of Evil Men

Michael Genelin

(Slovakia)

Siren of the Waters

Dark Dreams

The Magician’s Accomplice

Requiem for a Gypsy

Timothy Hallinan

(Thailand)

The Fear Artist

For the Dead

(Los Angeles)

Crashed

Little Elvises

The Fame Thief

Mick Herron

(England)

Dead Lions

Adrian Hyland

(Australia)

Moonlight Downs

Gunshot Road

Stan Jones

(Alaska)

White Sky, Black Ice

Shaman Pass

Village of the Ghost Bears

Lene Kaaberbøl & Agnete Friis

(Denmark)

The Boy in the Suitcase

Invisible Murder

Death of a Nightingale

Graeme Kent

(Solomon Islands)

Devil-Devil

One Blood

James Lilliefors

(Global Thrillers)

Viral

The Leviathan Effect

Martin Limón

(South Korea)

Jade Lady Burning

Slicky Boys

Buddha’s Money

The Door to Bitterness

The Wandering Ghost

G.I. Bones

Mr. Kill

The Joy Brigade

Nightmare Range

The Man with the Iron Sickle

Peter Lovesey

(Bath, England)

The Last Detective

The Vault

On the Edge

The Reaper

Rough Cider

The False Inspector Dew

Diamond Dust

Diamond Solitaire

The House Sitter

The Summons

Bloodhounds

Upon a Dark Night

The Circle

The Secret Hangman

The Headhunters

Skeleton Hill

Stagestruck

Cop to Corpse

The Tooth Tattoo

The Stone Wife

Jassy Mackenzie

(South Africa)

Random Violence

Stolen Lives

The Fallen

Pale Horses

Seichō Matsumoto

(Japan)

Inspector Imanishi Investigates

James McClure

(South Africa)

The Steam Pig

The Caterpillar Cop

The Gooseberry Fool

Snake

The Sunday Hangman

The Blood of an Englishman

The Artful Egg

The Song Dog

Jan Merete Weiss

(Italy)