Reach the Shining River (7 page)

She stared at him.

“Do you understand?”

“I don’t know.”

“Let me say this: whoever did what they did to Eddie has insulted me. But speaking out of turn to every Tom, Dick and Harry’s not going to bring him back.”

“Why isn’t the murder being investigated by the police?”

He puffed at his cigar. “Who says it isn’t?”

Piney was bug-eyed. “The police been here. Axed their questions, wrote down their interpretations.”

His desperation filled the air like the cigar smoke, but the memory of Eddie’s body would not let her shut up. “The police don’t care,” she said. “He’s just another colored man. Might as well have been a dog got killed for all it means downtown.”

Richie spoke. “The police are as puzzled as anyone.” His voice was oddly light, almost squeaky, but sharp.

“How could they be puzzled,” Arlene said, “when they haven’t done anything?”

Piney looked stricken. Richie made a swift, chopping motion with his hand. She saw now that he was not a bodyguard or sidekick but the one in charge.

“Angelo, you can leave us.”

Lococo motioned Piney out of the room. Richie stared at her for a minute before unbuttoning his jacket, grabbing a chair, and sitting on it backwards, so that his chest rested against the ladderback. Up close she could see that his teeth were bad. He gave her the look most white men, well-intentioned or not, gave her at some point: bloodless, possessive, unabashed. She placed a hand at her neck.

“You’re not getting the message, are you?” he said.

“A friend of mine was murdered.”

“Like the man said: we understand. You asked who do I think I am. That doesn’t matter. What does matter is what I can do. You got that?”

“Yes sir.”

“The hurt I can put on a person. Or her family.”

Her heart echoed in her head like a steam engine.

“Who’s been asking you questions?” he said.

“Nobody.”

“If you lie to me, I’ll find out.”

“I wouldn’t lie to you, sir.”

“Not even to protect someone?”

“Piney said the police came around here asking questions. Well, no one asked me anything.”

He absorbed this comment and wiped his nose with his sleeve. “Where’s Virgil Barnes?”

“I wish I knew.”

“When did you see him last?”

“Virgil? I never saw him. Eddie did. The night he died, they had planned on meeting up. So Eddie said.”

“Him and Sloan were good friends?”

“I don’t know about good. They shared a bottle sometimes.”

“How about you? What did you share with Sloan?”

“We had a professional relationship.”

“I’ll bet you did.” Casually and coldly he swept his eyes up and down her form.

She did her best to ignore the fear. She thought of Wardell and how he needed her. Richie reached across and plucked at the satin flower on her dress, but it was sewn on, and when it wouldn’t disengage he pulled hard. Her dress ripped at the neckline, and the fabric flapped open, exposing her breast. She gasped and covered herself. His mouth tightened as he continued to stare at her bosom.

He threw the flower on the floor and stood quickly, pushing the chair so that it knocked against her knees. “You’ve known Piney a long time?”

“Yes sir.”

“You want to see him stay in business, you keep your mouth shut.
You
want to make a living, you keep your mouth shut.”

“Yes sir.”

He put his hand on the door knob. She could feel the heat of his stare, his determination, and his anger.

“I’ll know if you don’t,” he said.

After he left, she dropped her head between her knees and vomited on the scuffed wood floor.

13.

The Aztec Room was murky after the numbing glare of the late August sun, and Emmett stood blinking at the entrance, hat in hand. The head waiter seated him and left menus. The room smelled of stale cigarette smoke. Unaccompanied women sat at the bar and two swarthy men in sharkskin suits laughed loudly at a table by the window. Not the Muehlebach Hotel, that was for sure.

Ten minutes later Roddy arrived. He wore a striped bottle-green blazer, linen slacks, plaid tie, and saddle shoes. Emmett wore his weekday suit.

Roddy smiled broadly as they shook hands. “Got here ahead of me, I see. What’s that you’re drinking?”

“Seven-up.”

He frowned. “I thought you came from West Bottoms.”

He signaled for the waiter, discovered him hovering at his elbow.

“Ted, bring me an old-fashioned.”

“Yes, Mr. Hudson.”

He took a silver case from his blazer pocket, offered Emmett an English cigarette.

“Don’t smoke.”

“Strike two.”

He snapped shut the case and lit his cigarette. His face was deeply tanned, his teeth large and even. His flat, closely shaven cheeks shone like polished stone and descended to a chin that was solid and confident. Elbow on the table, he held his cigarette high and let his green eyes wander as he spoke. Not the serious figure Emmett had expected. More Clark Gable than Spencer Tracy.

“I was here two weeks ago,” Roddy said. “George Foster’s thirtieth birthday party. There was a Negro band playing that blew the roof off, let me tell you. George had a good-time girl on each arm, drinking champagne like it was going out of fashion.”

He gestured at the piano, shook his head at the memory. The waiter delivered his drink. Following his lead, Emmett ordered prime rib. The women at the bar laughed.

Emmett sipped his soda. This was their meeting? Murder and investigation seemed like the last things on the agenda.

“You’re married to Lloyd’s daughter, aren’t you? Phyllis?”

“Fay.”

“Fay, of course. Excuse me. I knew Isabel years ago.”

“She was married herself recently.”

“So I heard. Mrs. Richard Brewster.” He smiled, knocked cigarette ash into a black onyx ash tray. “A girl like Isabel could have done a lot better than Dickie Brewster.”

“Dickie’s doing all right.”

An amused look. “There is no-one more boring than a dull man waiting for an undeserved inheritance. Or more stifling to a bright young woman than having to live with him.”

He lifted his glass as if for a toast but drank and said nothing.

“I appreciate you coming,” Emmett said. “You’re busy, I’m sure.”

“To tell you the truth, it’s a relief to get away. Government may do its business in Jefferson City, but the place is not what you’d call cosmopolitan. You walk a block from the Capitol and it’s corn cob pipes and tattered dungarees.”

“Not the best of times for farmers.”

Roddy sighed. “No, it isn’t. You know, more than half the division’s murder cases now are rural. That’s what the dust storms did. Robbed farming people of all they had and turned them desperate.”

“Some pretty desperate men in the city.”

“That’s why we’re here, Whelan.”

Their food arrived and they ate silently for a few minutes. The beef was excellent. Sensing a big tip, the waiters were tactful and attentive.

Roddy glanced sideways and asked, “Where are we at?”

“With the case?”

“What else?”

The swift change in tone disoriented him, and Emmett fumbled for a response. “Ah, Lloyd and his friends said you’d help me.”

“And so I will.”

“How is it going to work? Will I get access to division records?”

Roddy wiped the corners of his mouth with his napkin. “Emmett, this is not your usual case.”

“I know that.”

He dropped his voice. “The machine has its fingers in the state pie. Which makes the conventional routes….” He paused, lifted his fork. “This territory we’re headed into, you step carefully. We all do.”

“I understand.”

“So. Where are we at?”

Emmett quietly summarized his work so far. The visit to the morgue. The gathering of documents. The case file. It felt slight.

“Where’s the jacket?”

“Don’t worry. It’s back in bed. Not that there was much to see.”

“How’d you get your hands on it?”

Emmett paused. “I have my sources.”

“Like I said.”

“I know.”

Roddy dabbed a piece of bread in his gravy and ate it slowly. He rested his elbows on the table and brought his hands together at the fingertips. “Look,” he said softly, “we both know what’s going on here. Bob Perkins and his pals are tired of being on the outside. They see an opportunity.”

“To get rid of the corruption,” Emmett said.

“Among other things. These are businessmen. Their righteousness is, well, double-edged.”

“Are you saying they’re using me? Or you?”

“Nobody’s using anyone. By all means, let’s do what we have to to get rid of the rot. The state will love us for it. But let’s be smart about it and do it in a way that’s self-contained. And deniable. In case things don’t go our way. That way we don’t get burned. Win or lose, we survive.” His eyes had grown hard. “So you’ve assembled the evidence. Do we have a case or don’t we?”

Emmett told Eddie Sloan’s story, as he had cast it in his own mind. The soft-spoken man minding his own business. His witness of something sensitive or brutal. The manner of his death.

Roddy listened carefully. “You seem convinced of the scenario.”

“You’re not?”

“It’s plausible.”

“Of course it is. It happens all the time. And most of these cases never get solved. Never even get investigated, really.”

“Except this time, right?”

“I’m working on it. I’m checking stolen vehicles. Trying to pinpoint the scene of the crime. Looking at potential witnesses.”

“You haven’t identified the crime scene?”

“Not yet.”

Roddy’s mouth was flat, the ridges of his cheeks reddened by the wine. He was good. Like Mickey. A step ahead and short on patience. He tapped the table with the ball of his thumb. “What else?”

Aware of a stirring above his head, Emmett glanced up and saw the ceiling fan swinging into motion. “The investigating detective is a guy named Timmons.”

“Richie Timmons?”

“The very man. Pretty Boy Floyd’s dancing partner after the Union Station massacre. Just happened to be given the Sloan case.”

“And given his history…”

“Well, it’s worth exploring. Though I don’t – ”

Emmett looked at the waiters, their hands folded across their aprons, their eyes clear of all anxiety but the mild strain of their job.

“You don’t what?” Roddy asked.

Maybe it was recalling Sloan’s death. Maybe it was the heat. But he felt queasy, put off by the room’s tawdry furnishings, the plates of congealed fat and half-eaten vegetables.

“Are you all right?” Roddy asked.

Emmett cleared his throat. “Say I manage to prove what seems to be true. Say I dig up the evidence and build a case and we take it to the next stage. What’s different this time? How can I make it stick when Pendergast owns the state?”

Roddy lit another cigarette, blew smoke out the side of his mouth, and smiled. “That’s where I come in.”

“I’m listening.”

He laid his hands on the table, palms upward. “A change is coming.”

“Amen.”

“You said you’re listening, so listen. Don’t underestimate men like Will Hutchins and Charlie Hayes. You think the Perkins brothers seek their company for their wit? They look like crotchety Bull Moosers but they know what’s what. They are imperialists. They understand how empires work and they have foreseen the coming of the next great dominion.”

“God in his heaven.”

“Closer than you know. The Federal government.”

Emmett snorted. “Those boys hate FDR.”

“Of course they do. They’re businessmen. But they can see the writing on the wall. Centralization. The regulation of industry. The Treasury stockpiling gold. Some people see socialism. Will and Charlie, they make a virtue of necessity. They see economies of scale. New markets.” Roddy’s voice had deepened. Nothing like talk of money to stimulate sincerity. “These guys don’t make things. They’re into banking, insurance, securities. Pure money businesses, mobile and fluid, that can benefit greatly from federal control. As long as you understand and manipulate that control. Look at this fire insurance case your father-in-law is pursuing. Nine million dollars. And the Feds are the key. They’ve got the dough in escrow.”

That voice. Intoxicated by its subject but in complete command.

“What does all this have to do with Eddie Sloan?” Emmett said. “Or Richie Timmons?”

Roddy stubbed out his cigarette with undue force. “The Feds will be Pendergast’s downfall. It’s inevitable.”

“He’s stronger than ever.”

“The bigger they come. Listen to me. There’s been a power shift. Congress has expanded federal jurisdiction. And Pendergast is blinded by greed. He sees federal programs as just another opportunity to skim. He was smart enough to get control of WPA jobs in Missouri, but what did he do? Channeled them to his pals. And made a big mistake.”

Roddy’s whole face was arched with intent – eyebrows, cheekbones, upper lip.

“What was that?” Emmett said.

“He hasn’t given any of the welfare jobs to Negroes, that’s what. Washington is not happy about it. Not happy at all. And it’s not enough that he’s keeping them poor. Now he’s
killing
them as well.”

Emmett would not have wanted to face this man in a courtroom. The sound of his voice alone was convincing.

“And if we… if you and I can bring a case to them.”

Roddy was nodding like a politician. “An innocent Negro murdered by his supposed protectors, in cahoots with gangsters. A tailor-made
cause
célèbre
for the Feds. We’d have the power of the US government behind us. At the right moment in history.”

He swiveled in his chair and signaled for the check. He was agitated, like a race horse in the traps, and needed to move.

“As with business,” he said, “so with the law. Control and manipulation. Build me a case, Whelan. Build me a case and I’ll bring it to the federal attorney. Who just happens to be a friend of mine.”

“Maurice Milligan?”

“An honest Irishman.” He blinked. “Like you.”

“There’s a few of us around.”

“He’s honest and he’s smart and he’s ambitious. And he remembers his friends.”

The head waiter arrived with the check. Roddy paid and they took the elevator to the street. The Saturday afternoon traffic blurred past them. Brickwork and tarmac shimmered in the heat. The sun crashed down on their heads, but Roddy appeared not to notice. Sweat beading his brow, he stood on the sidewalk and touched the lapel of Emmett’s jacket.

“Can you imagine how happy the FBI would be to get payback on Richie Timmons? Dillinger they nailed. Baby Face Nelson. Even Pretty Boy Floyd they killed last year in Ohio. But Kansas City has been a brick wall to them. And you, Emmett, you can make it happen. You have the jurisdictional authority. You’d be a national hero.”

He peered up the street, took a white handkerchief from his pocket, and wiped his forehead. Newspaper boys warbled the late editions, and Emmett could hear his name in headlines.

“Listen. Laura and I are throwing a party at Mission Hills,” Roddy said. “For some charity. An end of summer thing.”

“Doesn’t feel like the end of summer.”

“Well, we can’t wait for the weather to turn. Next Friday. Why don’t you and… your wife come along. Lloyd will be there and we can follow up. He’ll want to hear about your progress first hand.”

“Sure.”

“I’ll have Laura send you an invite. Of course, we’ll be talking in the meantime.”

Emmett wanted to hear more about national heroics, but Roddy’s mind had moved on. He tapped Emmett’s forearm. “Build me a case.”

He put his hat on and headed up the street in long, loping strides, the tail of his striped blazer flapping in the sunshine.