Five Smooth Stones (126 page)

As Abra'm climbed into his pickup, David called after him, "Mind you don't stay out there! Mind you make your ma turn you loose, y'hear!"

As Abra'm's laughter, clear and rich and coming from deep inside, came back to him David thought how rare it had been, these last months, the sound of the deep, rich laughter of his people.

***

When they came back into the room, Chuck was standing, waiting for them. "You heard that, Chuck?" asked David.

Chuck nodded. "Sorry," he drawled, "but I've plumb got to say it: 'God works in mysterious ways,' you guys."

"He do," said David. "He do indeed. Where's Garnett?"

"Out back, working on his car. He couldn't hear anything."

Brad was at the telephone, his hand on the receiver. He withdrew it slowly. "I don't dare," he said. "God damn it, I don't dare use this phone for something like this. It's bugged as sure as I'm a foot high." He sighed. "I'll take a bullet any day over this kind of thing. Lloyd Litchfield is a hell of a person; he was one of my best friends at college, besides being one of our clients. But if I call him and start talking about tapped lines and acting like a phony hero in a cheap TV series he'll send the white coats after me."

"How about me phoning from Washington later?" asked Chuck. "I'm supposed to fly there tonight for a conference with the rest of my group."

"If we have to, yes. But it should be me. Or David, for whom he has a high regard. Thinks he's a legal genius. Probably the best plan will be for me to drive to Heliopolis and call from that motel there."

"Wire first—" said Chuck, and Brad broke in. "Still naive after all this time, Chuck? Scoggins would have the full text of the wire ten minutes after it was sent. It's not so much the text as it is the identity of the man it's going to."

"Stall and betray," said David slowly. "Stall and betray." Then, without preliminary smile or chuckle, laughter took hold of him and shook him like a gale; it threw his head back and doubled him over, shook the pain from his belly and the soreness from his body, and cleansed and healed him momentarily. It carried Chuck and Brad along with it, and when at last he could speak, Chuck said, "I'm damned forever; forever damned. Charles Beauregard Martin, an ordained minister of the Lord!" He sobered completely. "My people, my own people, have made a conniving so-and-so out of me—and I'm eating it up. Maybe its funny—and maybe it isn't."

CHAPTER 79

Twenty minutes later David came back from showering and shaving, bath towel around his middle. Winters and Les Forsyte were in the room now, talking to Chuck and Brad. It was evident there had been no developments downtown. He opened his suitcase in the dingy side bedroom, found clean snorts and khaki trousers, and slipped into them, and as he sloshed the clothes he had been wearing in a basin of suds at the sink he said to Winters, "Watchman, what of the night?" Winters shrugged. "Still talking."

Garnett, back now at his self-appointed post at the side door, mopped his forehead and the top of his head with a handkerchief, then the back of his neck, finishing off with a swipe under his chin. "Those bastards must be really putting on the pressure," he muttered.

"God damn it!" Brad's voice was rough, sharp with exasperation. "Don't you trust your own people?"

Garnett whirled to face him, eyes hot with antagonism. "No, I don't. I'm not faulting them. There's not a Negro in that room in City Hall who isn't tied into the white economy, isn't dependent on some Goddamn' white for his income. Even Haskin with that little store of his. Day before yesterday the bank cut off his credit, you know that? Soon's they found out he was active in this. Cracked down on him on a loan."

"And just what in hell do you think keeps the white economy healthy?" David tried to keep his voice level, tried to turn Garnett's antagonism on himself and away from Brad. "Where would they be—where will they be without cheap labor, damned near slave labor, without Negro buying, without Negro bus fares? Remember Montgomery? Retail trade's already off fifty-six percent in a week here. That hurts." His eyes narrowed. "Maybe I just came in on this picture, but whose idea was it in the first place that we give in to them, keep outsiders out of the meeting, subject vulnerable people to pressure and threats? How did that setup in City Hall come about?"

"An outsider negotiator was something they wouldn't—" began Garnett, but David's voice, rasping with tension and suppressed anger, cut him off.

"Negotiate!" It was almost a snarl. "Negotiate! For Christ's sake, how often have I got to say it! You don't 'negotiate' rights! An American citizen doesn't 'negotiate' his right to vote, the right to use tax-supported facilities. Does the United States Government negotiate his right to pay taxes? His right to wear an Army uniform, his right to get shot to protect his second-class citizenship! 'Negotiate' hell! I wish you guys would quit using that word. Every time you do it weakens us."

"You got a better one?" Garnett used the question for an exit line, letting the front door slam behind him, then in a moment racing the motor of his car viciously, driving off with a squeal of brakes at the turn into the roadway.

David wrung out the now rinsed clothes and slapped them down on the drainboard. It was too damned hot to get that angry. He spoke to the room at large. "Where's the reverend? I mean Hummer Sweeton."

Les Forsyte answered: "As soon as we got here I made him go into that little back room and take a nap. He's no youngster, and he looked like hell. Abra'm offered him a room at his mother's where he could get some good food and a little peace and quiet, but he turned it down."

"He would," said David. "No sense exposing an old lady to guns and bombs and arson. Save 'em for the kids in Sunday school." He pumped cold water into the washbasin and splashed his face and neck with it. "Christ, what in hell are we fighting? What in hell are we fighting? Berserk dinosaurs? Critters from another planet? Not humans, that's for certain."

A few minutes later, in the musty, airless bedroom, Chuck and David dressed. Chuck held up his newly washed, freshly starched white suit on its hanger and shook his head sadly. " 'So cool, so white, so fair,'" he said. "And in ten minutes— Still, I suppose I better wear 'em, turnaround collar, rabat and all."

"Sure had," said David. The blue cotton-mesh sport shirt he had put on had been, a year before, tight across his chest; now it fitted loosely. He had learned that crepe-soled sports shoes were cooler on his feet, and he slipped into a pair now and entered the front room in time to pick up the ringing telephone. It was Haskin.

"What's going on, Haskin?"

"Nothing much. They was an hour and a half late. They've been setting there, being kind, worrying about us and what we going to do, how we going to take care of our families and all if we keeps on like this, threatening we'd all get fired from our jobs."

"God damn them to hell," said David dispassionately. "Tell 'em to start worrying about how they're going to keep their stores open, keep their buses running with an economic boycott going on."

"Williams, he said something about that, and this city attorney guy what keeps coming in and out, Elmore's his name, Thomas Elmore, he says a boycott's a criminal conspiracy."

"Balls! Did you tell him that?"

"What you just said? You think I'm crazy!"

"How long will the lunch break be?"

"Dunno for sure. About two hours, I guess."

"Two hours!" The whole thing was going sour, thought David. The whole lousy thing was going sour. The longer the kids were in the stockade and the jail in this heat, the harder it would be to control the crowd, the closer to the breaking point their men in City Hall would be. Stall and betray; stall and betray. It was the same old lily-white story. But he could not let Haskin sense for a moment the way he was feeling. "Keep the people cheered up if you can, Haskin. And listen. Well be there in a few minutes. But if something delays us or we don't make it, here's what you must do. When you go back in there, stop talking. Don't bargain. Tell them to turn the youngsters loose, and well talk. Only one bargaining point, remember. Reasonable bail. That we have to go for. If they weasel on that—" He stopped. He had been going to say "Give 'em Article Eight of the Bill of Rights." Haskin probably did not even know it. He thought that if Garnett had been in the room he might conceivably have killed him. Someone should have been there with those men, someone who could cram facts down the stinking gullets of the Mayor's committee.

"You still there, Lawyer Champlin?"

"Yes, I'm here. Just sit tight and we'll be down there. You're doing fine, Just tell everybody who asks you that— wait a minute. Haskin, did anyone call you, anyone tell you to take a lunch break for two hours?"

"Sure. Reverend Sweeton."

"Reverend Sweeton? Hummer Sweeton? He's been here, asleep. Right here in this house."

"I dunno about that. Garnett, he telephoned just a bit ago and he said 'We'—that's what he say, 'We'—thought there ought to be a break for a couple of hours. Called me to the phone over there in City Hall. Seemed kinda funny to me, but then I thought mebbe there was something cooking over here on this side and he didn't want to say nothing 'bout it on the phone, so I went along."

"Sure," said David. "I can see how you would." His own voice came to him through a pounding of blood in his ears. "We'll be there soon. Just tell everyone you see that you've quit talking. That the next time you go over it'll be turn the kids loose, talk afterward."

He hung up the receiver and found Sweeton standing beside him. The minister's face seemed even more haggard than it had that morning. "Isn't that what they did?" he said. "Isn't that what they did?"

David shook his head. He concentrated on a small abrasion on the back of the hand that still held the receiver. He needed to think for a minute. Until now he hadn't been able to figure out exactly what the hell Garnett was up to. Now he was sure he knew. They had gotten to him when he was in jail. Now that David was reasonably sure of what was going on, the picture began to become clear, like one of Luke's photographs in the developing bath. He would never know the details for certain, but it must have been a case of turning Garnett loose, dropping the charges against him—trumped up though they had to have been. He could hear how they must have done it, kindly, reasonably, dealing in implied threats instead of actual brutality. They might have offered other inducements, a job perhaps, even though they knew he was an outsider. They would have told him they weren't really planning to keep the young people in the stockade any longer than was necessary but that everyone's welfare, and especially the Negroes', depended on the economic well-being of the entire community. They would have flattered him, and he would have known the flattery for what it was, being Negro—not even a Garnett could be fooled by a white's self-seeking flattery—but he would have pretended to swallow it, his eyes on the safety they offered. An indeterminate stretch in a Cainsville jail at the mercy of the Cainsville jailers and police would be more than Alonzo Garnett could face.

Now the telephone call purporting to be from Sweeton was understandable. Either by prearrangement or by getting word to him somehow they had asked him to call for a breathing spell. It was probably the reason for his abrupt leave-taking. The white committee's reasoning seemed clear enough: given a long morning of fruitless talk, then a long break with the young people still in the stockade, the pressures against the Negro committee from their own people would be so great they would give in on other points. It would also give the men on the other side of Main Street additional time to get their heads together and try to work out still greater leverage to apply on the Towers land deal.

This had to be the story. The counteraction would have to be taken by feeling their way, playing it by ear.

He became aware that Sweeton had been trying to get his attention and that his voice was becoming louder and more insistent. "I told them," he was saying, "I told them plain this morning they was to stay with it till they turned them young uns loose—"

Now David dared look up, control returning. "You told Garnett,'' he said gently. "You told Garnett to tell them, didn't you?"

Sweeton nodded, not speaking, and David laid a hand on the thin shoulder. "Hummer, will you do something for us, for those kids, for the people here?"

"Whatever I can."

"Let Forstye take you back to the motel for an hour's more sleep." He saw the protest in Sweeton's eyes, but went on. "We need you, Hummer, need you like hell. What's happened so far Brad and I can handle, you know that. It's what may happen later that's worrying me. And that's when you'll be needed. You're damned close to collapse, man. It's not fair to us—to the kids—to the people—for you to take chances. I swear to you that if something comes up and you're wanted immediately, we'll get you."

"All right," said Sweeton. He turned away, and David knew it was to hide from him the look in his eyes of a man let down by someone he trusted. "Send Garnett to me," he said.

"We'll straighten him out, Hummer; we'll straighten him out." David raised his voice. "Les!"

"Front and center!"

"The Reverend Sweeton's under house arrest. Sleep's the sentence. Drive him to the motel for an hour's more rest."

"Right."

They left by the side door, and Sweeton did not speak again, did not turn back with his usual wave of the hand.

Brad came out of the bedroom, buttoning a drip-dry shirt. "All I do is wash clothes," he said.

"Let's get going," said David. "Where's Winters?"

"Getting ready to take a shower. He'll stay here to watch the phone and write some reports. You coming with us, Chuck? My God, you look pious in that outfit."

"Which is more than I can say for either of you," said Chuck. "I'm taking my own car. Going over to the enemy camp, see what I can spy out. Also, see what I can do."

"You can't," said David flatly. "They hate your guts worse than they do ours."

"Spitting on my grandfather's grave again, that's what," said Chuck. He walked, long-legged, big, lumbering, to the car that had been David's, and waved at them as he opened its door. "With my shield or on it!" he called back, and then clambered in, awkward as a young elephant.