Reach the Shining River (11 page)

“Hey. You there. Put that gun down.”

Several uniformed policemen approached, led by a man in a seersucker suit and a slouch hat. Wardell was at his side.

“Mama!”

He ran to her and she clutched him like a life buoy. He was unscratched.

“I got the autograph,” he whispered.

The man who had rescued him, and rescued Cal, looked familiar. He had bad skin and a crooked mouth and an air of command.

“Take that goddamn thing off him,” he said to the cops, “before he ups and kills somebody.”

The cops took the guy’s shotgun and led him away. The rescuer wiped his mouth with a handkerchief and peered at Arlene. “You the singer?”

“Yes, sir.”

He pointed at Wardell. “And
that’s
your son.”

Arlene nodded. Then, with a shudder, she recognized the man. It was Richie. Mr. Lococo’s boss. And no gangster, after all.

Richie pointed at Cal and said to Wardell, “Go on over there, boy.”

Wardell held her arm tightly. “Go ahead, honey,” she said softly. “Do what the man says.”

“This woman was attacked,” Cal said. “And I was assaulted.”

Richie removed his hat, exposing small eyes and thinning hair. “I would think you’d want to quit while you’re ahead,” he said to Cal. “Take these kids and head on home.”

“He clubbed her with the barrel of his gun.”

“You have a problem I suggest you file a complaint at the station.”

Cal stared, thumbs looped through his suspenders. His hair was mussed and there was a lump above his eye.

“C’mon Cal,” Arlene said softly. “Let’s go.”

As she pulled him away, Richie crooked a finger. “No. You stay.”

“Arlene.”

“It’s all right, Cal. I’ll be with you directly.”

Cal and the others moved off but stayed where they could see her.

“This doesn’t look good,” Richie said.

“What’s that?”

“First I hear the dead piano player’s a friend of yours. Now looky here – the kid who found the body is yours. I’m asking myself: is this a coincidence?”

“We just came to the ballgame. He loves baseball.”

“Forget about the ballgame. Why didn’t you tell me about your kid? At the club?”

“I didn’t know you knew who he was. I didn’t even know you’re a policeman.”

He set his teeth and pushed his face so close she could smell his bad breath. “What did I tell you? If you lie to me, I’ll find out.”

“I didn’t lie.”

“That boy there could get himself some real trouble, running around unsupervised. Talking about what he mighta found.”

“He doesn’t talk about it.”

“How do you know?”

“He doesn’t. And I don’t. We’re trying to forget all that.”

He sized her up, sucked at his bad teeth. Reaching out, he lifted her chin with a finger. “I’d hate to think what might happen to the boy,” he said, “if his tongue get the better of him.”

She nodded. Blood from her wound stained her shirt. He pointed at her breast and said, “You want to get that looked at.”

He loped off. She searched out Wardell. The sky was full of smoke and sirens.

19.

Emmett heard about the riot on Saturday evening. After an afternoon at the office chasing empty leads, he stopped in O’Toole’s for a soda. Red Blaney leaned against the bar, his face slurred with drink.

“More funerals in niggertown.”

“What do you mean?” Emmett said.

“The colored game today. Crowd went apeshit and the cops had to bust a few heads.”

“There were people killed?”

Blaney blinked at his beer, lost his train of thought.

“What happened?”

A small guy in a cloth cap piped up, “Cops were escorting some geechie from the field and the crowd went bananas. Three dead.”

“Negroes?”

“So I heard.”

“Who – players, fans?”

“No idea. They were shot, anyhow.” He drank deeply from his beer. “Fuckin’ appleheads.”

Through the smoke and noise Emmett saw his reflection in the mirror behind the bar. Strangled by collar and tie, his face was shiny and flushed, like a slab of corned beef. Holed up in his office, out of touch. Even the stewbums in the gutter knew more than he did.

When he could get no more scoop in O’Toole’s, he crossed the street to Hanlon’s. Nothing there either, so he bit the bullet and walked the half mile to Billy Christie’s. No sign of his dad, but at the bar was the usual crowd: Jem Boyle, Joxer Martin, Fat Jack Harte. Firemen and rivermen and party hacks. Fat Jack’s voice, high-toned and sarcastic, rode the high surf of a Saturday night. Emmett made sure not to look his way.

He found Mickey in a snug with a bunch of guys from the tanneries. The stink was monumental. Emmett pulled him aside.

“What’s this about killings at the stadium?”

Mickey shrugged. “You tell me. I been in here since lunchtime.”

“If you’ve been here, you know more than I do. What happened?”

Blood streaked the whites of Mickey’s eyes. Dandruff powdered his shoulders. He nodded towards the bar. “Why don’t you ask Fat Jack’s boys? They were probably in on the action.”

“Wake up, Mickey.”

“I’m off duty.”

“The fuck you are.”

Mickey listed, and Emmett stilled him with a hand to the chest. A funk of tannic acid, stale porter, and roughcut Virginia rose from him. The deep fog of daytime drinking.

“A fucking donnybrook,” Mickey said, rubbing his eyes. “That’s my understanding.”

“How did it start?”

“You know how these things go. Mixed race team comes in from North Dakota, and your know-nothing types have a conniption. Words, tempers. Police step in.”

“I hear three dead.”

“Could be.”

Emmett felt eyes on him. He turned and caught the sharp end of Jem Boyle’s glare before he swiveled away.

“Listen to me, Mickey. Shit like this is going to turn the colored district upside down. Like our job isn’t hard enough already. You got to get off your can and get out there. Find out what happened. The word on the street.”

“OK.”

“Call me at home tomorrow.”

“Sunday?”

“You doing anything more interesting?”

“Not a question of what I’m doing. Nothing going on of a Sunday.”

“All the easier to dig below the surface.”

Mickey swayed, steadied himself with a palm to the wall. “Buy me a drink, Emmo.”

“Ask Fat Jack. I gotta run.”

He turned to go.

“Emmo.”

“Yeah.”

Mickey’s smile showed yellow teeth and pale gums. “Saw your better half today.”

“That right?”

“Swanning out of the Westport Hotel. To the nines.”

Emmett spat on the floor. “Just do your fucking job, Mick.”

*

KCPD didn’t like county boys nosing around, but after dark Emmett chanced a visit to headquarters. He figured he could blend into the chaos. He was right. The place was in crisis mode: telephones ringing off the hook, duty cops shouting, uniformed cops clattering in and out of the panelled muster room looking grim and ready to rumble.

The death toll from the stadium stood at four – all Negroes – but the casualty on police minds was Officer Lawrence J. O’Neill, a baby-faced rookie thumped on the head with a crowbar while on duty outside the visitors’ locker room. He lay unconscious in the trauma ward of St. Luke’s, attended to by his father and three brothers, all cops themselves. The top brain guy in Missouri was on his way from St. Louis.

Emmett looked for a foothold in the swirl and found it in Ben McKenna, a young cop from the old neighborhood.

“Curfew in the colored section,” he told Emmett. “Everyone off the streets by eight o’clock.”

“Club owners can’t be happy about that.”

“The chief’s worried we could have another Tulsa. It’s for the niggers’ own good.”

“I’ll bet.”

“We got double duty on every beat.”

“What happened, Ben?”

The kid shook his head. “Larry was just standing there, guarding the visitors’ locker room. Bunch of nigger boys come running down the corridor and crack him open with an iron bar.”

“I heard there were four men killed.”

Ben leaned close, top lip lifted in a savage sneer. “We’ll find these fuckers, Emmett. Heads will roll. Mark my words.”

Emmett went to the press room but ducked back when he saw two reporters from the
Star
who knew him. Among the uniforms were a few city suits, shifty-eyed and dark around the mouth. No doubt waiting for Charlie Carrollo’s boys to turn up. The curfew was going to hit the mob bosses where it hurt. Which meant the machine would suffer and Pendergast’s boys would want action. Shit flows downhill. The worker bees were in for a bad time.

A tall man in corduroy approached, pad and pencil in hand. Emmett tried to slip past, but he blocked the way. “I saw you in the press room, sir. Can I ask you a few questions?”

“I’m not with the force.”

“Oh? And, ah, who are you?”

“A curious bystander.”

“Very much, if I may say, very much like myself. Yes. I’m down from Chicago, from the
Tribune
. Leo Pruitt.” He extended a pale hand, and Emmett had no choice but to shake it. His skin was dry and warm. “A bad turn of events, don’t you think?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Emmett said.

“You’re from Kansas City? A native?”

“You could say that.”

“Then perhaps you could, ah, tell me this. I’m working on a story for the
Trib
, you see. On the murder of a Negro named Edward Sloan.”

Emmett let his gaze drift across the room. No one was listening. “You’re doing a story on the Sloan murder?”

“For the
Tribune
, yes. The way our paper sees it, the stadium riot is not a, ah, an isolated incident. The Sloan murder creating tension in, ah, the Negro community. And so forth.”

The man blinked and pushed his thick-lensed glasses up his nose.

“Well, maybe I can help you,” Emmett said. “What have you found out so far?”

“Ah, let me see.” He flipped through the pad. “There’s an associated case, I believe. The disappearance of a Virgil Barnes.”

“That’s right.”

“I say disappearance, but to the best of my knowledge a missing person’s report has not been filed.”

“Filed here? At the police station?”

“Yes.”

“If you were given access to a KCPD missing person’s report, Mr. Pruitt, it would be a first in my experience. Reporters must be more privileged in Chicago.”

Pruitt sniffed and went back to his pad. “You have, ah, any idea where this Virgil Barnes might be?”

“Can’t say that I do.”

“You’re familiar with the Friendship Brotherhood?”

“The what?”

“Fraternal organization for Negroes. Barnes and Sloan both belonged is my understanding.”

Emmett noticed the man’s footwear, heavy work boots rimmed at the soles and heels with dried mud. “How long have you been in Kansas City, Mr. Pruitt?”

Before the man could answer, there was a loud commotion at the front door. Two uniforms dragged a young colored man across the polished marble, yelling and kicking him as he covered his head with his arms. Pruitt had his glasses off and was staring at the scene, eyes scrunched up. As they approached the duty desk, one of the cops tore the man’s hat from his head and punched him in the face.

Pruitt put his pad in his jacket pocket. “I’d better see what’s going on here.”

“Wait a minute,” Emmett said. “This Friendship Brotherhood.”

But he had already melted into the turmoil.

*

Mickey called Emmett at home the next day. He was raspy with hangover, but he’d done his legwork.

“A bloodbath, Emmo. Not just the dead – the colored hospital is overflowing. They ran out of beds and they’ve got the injured laying in the halls.”

An annoying click on the line cut across his words.

“How’d it start?”

“Depends on who you ask. The cops say they were clearing the field of troublemakers when country niggers attacked them with clubs and iron bars. The colored I talked to said the cops hit first.”

“Does it matter?”

“Well, yeah. You know, there’s pictures of Eddie Sloan everywhere. In the stores and bars. The barbershop. The kind with a black border and words from the bible underneath.”

“There’ll be more of those now.”

Emmett was sitting in a leather chair in his den, drinking lemonade. Through the open window he could see Fay watering the flowers. She wore a yellow sundress, and one of the shoulder straps had slid down her arm, downy in the afternoon light.

“I was in headquarters last night,” he said. “They’re baying for blood on account of what happened to Larry O’Neill.”

“Larry’s a good man.”

“They were all good men, I’ll bet.”

Mickey blew loudly into the receiver. “What a mess.”

Fay glanced over her shoulder, her face sour.
Swanning
out
of
the
Westport
Hotel
. She moved out of his view.

“Guess who was in the ballpark when all this happened?” Mickey said.

“Tell me.”

“Richie T.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“I am not.”

The click again on the line, muddying the last phrase.

“Do you know why was he there?”

“Well, he is a detective-in-charge. But get this – I got a look at the roster for the day, and he was not on the detail.”

Emmett stood up. Outside, the fading hydrangea glistened, freshly watered. The leaves on the cherry tree were just beginning to yellow. Like Fay’s dress. Where had she gone? The hose lay coiled in the grass, still spouting.

“He was out there stirring things up,” Emmett said.

“Why would he do that?”

“Think about it. If he’s, you know…
involved
, then this whole shitstorm would suit him.”

Mickey coughed so roughly Emmett held the receiver away from his ear. “C’mon, Emmo. Why would he start something where his own men would get hurt?”

“
One
cop down. Small price to pay.” Emmett tried to get above the facts, to frame the big picture. “Listen, Mick. We have to follow this up. Timmons has every reason to make this riot happen.”

“Emmo, Emmo.” Mickey’s voice was worn. “You’re doing this ass-backwards, and you know it. Motive. Start with motive.”

“Why else would he be there? Think about it.”

Mickey sighed. “Stop asking me to think. I’m pooped.”

“I’ve got another lead for you. Have you heard of the Friendship Brotherhood?”

“No,” Mickey said.

“Some kind of Negro lodge. Apparently Sloan and Virgil Barnes were both members, and it was a small organization.”

“You got it.”

“And another thing. There’s a reporter from Chicago nosing around. Guy named Leo Pruitt who claims to be doing a story on Sloan’s killing. See if you can find out where he’s staying, how long he’s been around, so forth.”

Outside the window was pure suburban Sunday: sprinklers hissing and the smell of cut grass. Sunlight dappled and maudlin. Then the click on the phone again, sharp and irregular.

Emmett had a sudden, clarifying fear. “Let’s get off the line,” he said.

“What’s the matter?”

“Come by my office tomorrow. After five.”

He hung up and stared at the telephone. Could it be? He scrambled back through the conversation. The scenarios suggested, the names mentioned. Not good. The Feds were the guys with the technology, but more likely it was Pendergast’s boys. The guy was in total control of his patch.

He heard a rustle. Fay stood in the doorway.