Reach the Shining River (22 page)

Emmett holstered his gun and straightened his jacket. He put the man’s license and ID into his pocket and dropped the wallet in the dirt. “I have a message for your red-headed friend,” he said. “Tell him to tell Richie T to go fuck himself.”

36.

Arlene was sleeping poorly. Without Wardell, the house was lonesome. The temperature had dropped and the crickets were quieter. The walls creaked. Mice rustled beneath the floorboards.

Reverend Jones’s men were long gone. She discouraged visitors. When she got home from the Sunset, she sat at the kitchen table with a glass of water and a pack of cigarettes. She smoked more than ever. Her voice, Piney said, was nice and dark these days, but his forehead crinkled with concern when they talked, and he kept pushing food on her that she didn’t want.

Several times a night she wandered into Wardell’s room. He had taken his pictures and baseball mementoes and bed linen to Columbia, so the walls were bare, the bed stripped. The curtains were open. She stared at the moonlit mattress as she had once stared at his crib.

First thing each morning she wrote him a letter. She told him what she was going to do that day and reminded him to be clean and alert and respectful of his kin. After breakfast she walked to the post office on Twelfth Street to mail the letter and check her post office box.

Charlotte was a teacher at Douglass Elementary. She brought Wardell to school every day and reported on his progress. Two boys close to his age lived next door. Alvin was not terribly bright, but he was a good, non-drinking man who had a way with kids and a generous spirit. He and Charlotte had not been blessed with children, and they’d always had a soft spot for Wardell.

She kept his letters beneath her mattress.
Me
and
Uncle
Alvin
gone
fishing
.
I
keeps
you
in
my
mine
,
mama
.

When she reread these words, she felt a shiver as if she’d passed over the grave of a dead child.

*

On Friday evening, there was a knock at the door. She was dressing for work and threw a housecoat over her slip. A neighbor, most likely, or Alice dropping by with groceries. But it was a white man, and for a moment she thought that the detective had returned.

It was Emmett Whelan.

“Arlene,” he said.

She buttoned the housecoat. “Hello.”

“May I come in?” he said.

He did not look good. His face was unevenly shaven and his tie stained. He held his hat in his hands, wheeling it by the brim. His eyes searched out the corners of the porch.

A white man at her house was never going to be good, but better for him to be inside than out where all could see, so she brought him to the kitchen. Wardell’s letter lay on the table. She scooped it up, showed him to a chair, and excused herself. In her bedroom she changed into her dress, brushed her hair, and checked herself in the mirror.

“Would you like some lemonade?” she asked him.

“You don’t have anything stronger?”

“No, I don’t.”

She poured two glasses. Propped on an elbow, he slumped at the table. One of his jacket lapels was torn. As she moved around the kitchen she was aware of him looking at her. When he swallowed his lemonade, the cords of his neck moved like old rope.

“Where’s Wardell?” he said.

“With his kinfolk.”

“In Columbia?”

She nodded.

He started to speak but went quiet. He fidgeted. She didn’t know if he was holding something back or confused.

“I owe you an apology,” he said. “About what happened by the river.”

“All right.”

“But Wardell… he was never in danger.”

“What about now?”

“Well, he’s not here, is he?”

“So I was right to send him away?”

He took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his face. “No harm being careful.” Again his eyes lost their focus and his jaw grew slack.

“Mr. Whelan – ”

“You can call me Emmett.”

But as she started to speak, he rested his forehead on his palms so that she was looking at the top of his head. He had a bald spot the size of a silver dollar.

When he hadn’t moved for a while, she said, “Are you all right?”

His hands trembled. He turned from her and coughed and spat into his handkerchief. “I’m worn out. It gets too much sometimes.”

“Don’t I know it.”

“The case. My wife.”

“It must be a great strain on a family,” she said, “working on something like this.”

“I need your help,” he said abruptly.

“How?”

His eyes grew wide, almost manic. “The police killed Eddie Sloan.”

“Don’t say any more,” she warned. The windows were open.

“I’m going to nail them for it.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“I need your help. I need to know why they did it.”

“They need a reason?”

“A motive.”

“Wardell helped you and he had to leave town. If I didn’t have to work, I’d be with him.”

“Don’t go.” He spoke quickly, desperately. He had a look on his face that she had only seen on colored folks.

He reached across the table and touched her arm. She recoiled.

“Listen to me for a minute and don’t say anything,” he said. “You let your son help me. He brought us to the crucial evidence.”

“I don’t want to know this.”

“You have to trust me. I can find Virgil Barnes. I need you to help me. If he tells me what he and Sloan were doing for the police, then I’ll have a case.”

“Eddie had nothing to do with that man.”

“I think you may be wrong about that.”

“And I have no desire ever to see Virgil Barnes again,” she said.

From his inside jacket pocket he withdrew some crumpled papers. She glimpsed a gun and holster beneath the jacket. He laid the papers on the table and smoothed them out. He paused, reached again into his pocket, and showed her a small metal canister. “Do you know what this is?”

“Film?”

“That’s right.” He lost his train of thought and slipped the canister back in his pocket. By now she was keen for him to be gone.

“These are documents from the Friendship Brotherhood offices. Barnes and Sloan were bagmen for Richie Timmons. These papers prove it.”

“You’ll have to leave,” she said.

“What’s wrong?”

“I have to go to work. I’m already late.”

“I need to find Barnes. And I need you to come with me. He’ll talk to me if you’re there.”

“I have to go.”

“I’ll walk with you.”

“No.”

“Can you help me on this? Please?”

His eyes, she saw now, were asking for all sorts of help.

“I told you,” she said. “You have to go.”

37.

Emmett had been sitting in the reception area of Perkins & Graves for half an hour. The ceiling fans clicked steadily and the typewriters rattled. Lloyd’s receptionist tapped her pencil on the desktop between phone calls. She had finger-waved hair and a small mouth with too much lipstick.

“He knows I’m here, right?”

“I’ve told him three times, Mr. Whelan.”

Emmett was stone-cold sober, but Lloyd didn’t know that. The old man was making him stew.

On Emmett’s lap was a manila envelope containing a notarized log, descriptions, and photographs of two .38 cartridge cases. In his pocket was a glassine bag with the cases: the shell from the crime scene and another from the gun club. Henry Conway had delivered, and Leo Gilligan had confirmed: a perfect match.

That morning, Gilligan had run out of the Sharp Building like a kid on Christmas morning. “Like I said.”

“You’re sure?”

“Of course I’m sure, it’s like identical fingerprints.”

Still wearing rubber gloves, he handed Emmett the glassine bag, along with his benchnotes. “I won’t testify. I’m telling you that up front. But send this to any lab worth its salt and they’ll confirm the match.”

Emmett paid him the rest of the money. As he counted out the bills, he felt the nudge of the film canister in his jacket pocket. It was like an uncracked fortune cookie. Again he’d intended giving it to Gilligan to develop. Again he stalled. One mystery unveiled at a time.

He relished showing Lloyd he could do the business. But the news didn’t give him the fizz of triumph he’d expected. The question remained: why? Mickey was right: without motive, evidence was only half the story. Proof was not enough. Emmett wanted a narrative. His gut told him something was missing. Too many gaps in the plot, too many unanswered questions.

After an hour, a secretary led him to Lloyd’s office. To his surprise the whole gang was there: Robert Perkins, like a Buddha in a leather chair, Roddy and Les Newton. The men stood around Robert like figures in a painting. No one said hello. In the false silence, Emmett knew that they’d been talking about him. It got his dander up.

“Emmett,” Lloyd finally said. “You have news?”

Newton took out his pad and pencil.

“You the stenographer?” Emmett asked.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Every time we meet, it’s out with your little notepad. I feel like I’m in court.” He said to Lloyd, “Does he really need to be here?”

Newton’s acned cheeks grew even redder. Robert lifted a hand from the arm of the chair. “Forget about that. What’s the news?”

Emmett emptied the glassine bag on Lloyd’s desktop. The shells jangled like coins. “We have a match.”

He pointed at the first, marked by Leo with a spot of blue dye. “This is the case found at the scene of Eddie Sloan’s murder. The other one, with the red spot… it’s from Richard Timmons’s bay at the Paseo Gun Club. Right after he’d been there. The two were fired from the same gun. No question about it.” He set the manila envelope beside the shells and tapped it with a fingernail. “Cartridge cases have been logged, photographed, and examined.”

“How’d you get the shell from the club?” Lloyd asked.

“Kid that works there.”

“How did you arrange that?”

“What difference does it make how I arranged it?”

Lloyd reared back ever so slightly, crinkling his eyes. Newton scribbled while Roddy reached across and picked up the envelope and the shells. “Who did the analysis?”

“A bona fide lab. But the source has to remain anonymous.”

“What good is the match,” Lloyd said hotly, “if the lab can’t be identified? And by the way, it makes a hell of a difference how you acquired the second shell. Or have you forgotten the rules of evidence?”

“Hey,” Roddy said, “let’s cool down here. We can get another lab to verify the match. That’s the easy part. The crucial question is, will the kid testify?”

“I can ask him,” Emmett said.

“You can
ask
him?” Lloyd said. “You can make goddamn sure he does so, or you can forget the whole thing. This is a federal case we’re constructing, not some back-room exercise.”

Lloyd was stiff as a hatrack. His face was dark and tight. On his upper lip was a small, purple blister. His hair had fallen across his brow.

“Can I get you a glass of water, Mr. Perkins?” Newton said.

Lloyd waved away the offer and stared at Emmett, who rode out the scrutiny. Lloyd’s face reminded him of Fay.

“Do you understand?” Lloyd said.

“Of course I understand.”

“Then do it,” he said. “Bring him in and get a statement. Roddy, you call the Feds tomorrow and set it up.”

“Not so fast,” Emmett said.

Up to this point Robert had seemed to be taking nothing in. He’d sat passively in the soft chair. But now his small, hard eyes focused on Emmett.

“We can go to the second lab,” Emmett said. “We can get the kid to testify. But we’d be foolish to move. What if Timmons says his gun was stolen? What if he has an alibi? What we need is a motive. You asked me to find out why the Pendergast organization is killing Negroes. Well, I’m close to an answer. Once we know that, the evidence turns harder. And the case comes cleaner.”

Newton had stopped writing. The men bent their heads towards Robert, who cleared his throat. “That was a nice little speech, Whelan. But we have a bird in the hand. We move on the shell.”

“Why?”

“We move on the shell.”

Lloyd’s anger had turned to watchfulness. He looked at his brother.

Emmett sensed a shift in power and purpose, but he was in too far to pull back. “Move now, we risk losing the case. Or settle for a lot less than what we could get. I’m talking about a conspiracy that includes KCPD, the mob, and who knows who else. It’s big.”

Roddy raised a hand. “That’s enough, Emmett.”

Robert struggled up from the deep chair. His whole head turned crimson with the effort. He straightened his tie. “We have a plan here, Whelan. Keep digging on the wider case, sure, and keep us informed. But Roddy’s going to take this evidence to the FBI and move this to the next stage. We can’t wait any longer.”

“But I don’t see how waiting until – ”

“Lord Jesus, Lloyd, how much more of this bullshit do I have to listen to? There’s nine million bucks on the line here!”

His outburst was like a train roaring by. Alarmed, Lloyd glanced at Emmett. Newton slipped his notepad into his shirt pocket and Roddy coughed.

Lloyd stepped quickly around his brother and clapped Emmett on the shoulder. “Let’s not get impatient, Robert. Sounds like we have a plan. Roddy, you do what you have to. Emmett, you’re right. Stay on the case. We’re making progress here, I can feel it.”

Lloyd was moving herky-jerky, like a marionette. Robert had gone to one of the deep windows. Legs apart and shoulders hunched, he gazed onto the street below. Roddy and Newton whispered as Lloyd guided Emmett to the door and asked his secretary to call him a cab.

“I can walk,” Emmett said.

“Good. Fine,” Lloyd said. “Give me a call later.”

*

Half a block away Roddy caught up with him. “Hold on.”

Emmett kept moving. He didn’t want to stop. He didn’t want to think about what Robert had said.

Roddy grabbed him by the arm and swung him around so that they faced each other. “Lloyd kind of hustled you out of there.”

“Is that what he did?”

“We’re all on edge, Emmett. We’ve gone critical here, I think you can see that. And your contribution is essential. It won’t be forgotten.”

Roddy flashed his most charming smile. He had cut himself shaving, and the red nick was like the blister on Lloyd’s lip.

“Contribution?” Emmett said. “What is this, a fund-raiser? Nine million for big Bob to pad his empire?”

“Pendergast is a scourge. Last of the crooked machine bosses. You’re helping to bring him down. It’s a moment in history.”

They were poised on the street, between the high limestone buildings of Grand Boulevard. The tangled noise of the city flowed around them.

Emmett waited for a streetcar to pass and leaned close. “History my ass, Roddy. Nine mill. You think I don’t know what that fat prick was talking about?”

Roddy slowly lit a cigarette and dropped the spent match on the sidewalk. “I’d be very careful about using language like that to describe Robert Perkins. You’re not in West Bottoms now.”

“No shit?”

“It’s dangerous to jump to conclusions.”

“What conclusion
should
I come to?”

“It’s a complex case. The Pendergast family has been blocking business in this town since the turn of the century. The prosperity of the whole state is at risk because of the corruption.”

“Save your breath, Roddy. I’m in the family, remember? Lloyd’s been on this case for nearly five years. They’re after the insurance, the federal fire insurance premiums in escrow.”

Roddy pulled on his cigarette, hollow-cheeked and attentive. “So what if they are?”

“And I thought you guys were worried about Negroes being killed.” Emmett looked at the sky. “What a chump. The State of Missouri will arbitrate on the insurance claim and Pendergast controls the state. Lloyd and big Bob want Timmons so they can squeeze Pendergast and get a favorable judgement. It’s all about money. How could I be so stupid?”

He needed a drink. He needed to get off the street and into a quiet bar.

“You haven’t been stupid,” Roddy said. “And don’t go stupid on me now. What did you expect? Like I said first time we met – they see an opportunity. So they’re fudging their motives. The endgame’s the same. And you… you’ll benefit too. Don’t forget that. Careerwise. Financially.”

In court, when a case was going well and Emmett had evidence and argument perfectly aligned, he often knew what his opponents would say before they spoke. And if they left something out, it was as obvious as a missing front tooth.

“What about you, Roddy? What’s in it for you?”

Roddy hitched at his jacket. “You mess with these guys, Emmett, and they’ll chew you up and spit you out. Family or no family.” He took a final drag and flicked his cigarette butt into the gutter. “I’ve said my piece. Just don’t do anything you’ll regret. Go home, spend time with your wife, get a good sleep. Things will look better in the morning. You’ll see.”

He raised his shoulders and walked up the street.
Spend
time
with
your
wife
. Was that a cut? Had Lloyd been airing the family’s dirty linen? He watched Roddy return to the law offices. He did not look back. More business to attend to. All of them sniffing the money like bloodhounds. Big Bob probably still at his window perch on the fourth floor, staring down at Emmett right now.

He didn’t bother to check. He turned on his heel and headed downtown, in search of the nearest saloon.