Season of the Witch (12 page)

She looked at me gravely, and consulted the chart again. “You were admitted Tuesday night, rather late. It’s now Friday morning.”

“Then I have to get out of here.”

I struggled uneasily to my feet, then sat back down very quickly. My heart was pounding and my head swam. I took a deep breath and tried again. Slower. I put my hand on the wall and walked. The nurse at my side objected to my moving, breathing, et cetera. I motioned her away and opened up the closet, pulled out my clothes.

“I have to go. Now.”

“You can’t, Mr. Longville. You have a concussion. If you move, it will only aggravate your injury. Dr. Hama says you need at least two weeks off your feet.”

There was no chance that I was staying in that bed. I stumbled into the bathroom to dress. The gaunt specter in the mirror startled me. A large, square bandage covered my right temple; a ghastly purple bruise was quite evident around it.

“Just where do you think you’re going?”

I turned around at the sound of the voice. It was Keeler, mercilessly gnashing a piece of gum.

“Jake?”

“Take it easy. I was here when they brought you in, Roland. I heard it over the radio. Do you remember anything?” I almost expected him to blow a bubble.

“Not right now. I have to get out of here.”

“I was afraid something like this would happen. You’re in rough shape. Maybe you should stay put.”

“Jake, I can’t. I have to get out of here.”

He shrugged mightily, and continued remorselessly killing his gum. “Your call. My car’s right outside.”

Someone had brought fresh clothes from my home for when I got back out of that bed. I was pretty sure I knew who that someone was.
Thanks, Les.

I got dressed and walked out into the hall. I was asked to sign and initial several documents, any of which could have been a confession to setting the Great Chicago Fire. Or the Tate/LaBianca murders. I wasn’t quite up to speed yet. Jake and I walked slowly to his car. It was an angry morning, cold but not raining.

The sun brutally assaulted my eyes. I felt very dizzy.

Jake reached over, and handed me a thermos. “Get yourself some of this.” I unscrewed the lid. Coffee.

This man loves his coffee.

“You’re lucky to be alive. A garbage man spotted you, half in, half out of your car, on the street near Hazelwood’s old place. He radioed for help. Looks like somebody jumped you in there.”

“Looks like.” I sipped the hot java. It warmed me way down inside.

Keeler frowned at my sarcasm, popped his gum and went on. “Your car is in the impound yard. It’s the best I could do. That’s where I’m taking you. Getting it out won’t be any trouble; I fixed that. But Roland, I need to know more than what you’re telling me. You tried it your way, and you almost got killed. The last thing I want is a pissed-off Lester Broom on my hands, because I let you go and get yourself killed. It looks like you could use some help. What do you say?”

“What I remember, Jake, is that somebody knocked the hell out of me with a crowbar.”

“Any idea who attacked you?”

It was my turn to grimace. “It was dark, so I couldn’t swear to it, but it was a smaller person. If I had to, I’d bet on Itchy Danny Weber.”

“But why? Do you honestly think he’d try to whack you just because you’re looking for him?”

“I believe that he was waiting for someone else. Like I said, it was dark. Remember, I was in Hazelwood’s home. He and I are about the same size. Who knows how long Itchy had been there waiting. He probably hadn’t heard about Hazelwood’s death.”

Jake squinted. “Hmm. Maybe. But why do you think Danny would take a chance trying to whack Hazelwood?”

“Maybe he wasn’t taking a chance. Maybe he thought that he had to, before Hazelwood killed him.”

“So Hazelwood was gunning for Danny? I’ll bite. That is, if you’re going to tell me why.”

“Because they are both after the same thing, a whole hell of a lot of money. I believe that someone stole it, and that someone is probably our boy Danny. Money that maybe Hazelwood decided he would like to get his hands on. This money—if that’s what it truly is, and I’m beginning to have my doubts—has a lot of people after it.”

“Well, excuse me, Roland, but I’m hearing an awful lot of
if
and
maybe,
and very little
I know.”

“That’s the gumshoe way, Jake. We poke around in the theoretical until we discover the truth. Hey, you asked for what I had. That’s about it.”

We were at the parking deck. “Well, sounds like you have some leads to chase down anyway. Maybe that knock on the noggin made a few things fall into place.”

“Maybe. I’d just as soon try the old-fashioned way, and think things through.”

“Considering recent events, are you sure you can handle things? I mean, on your own? Do you need some backup? I’d be glad to tag along. There’s a lot going on here.”

“Thanks, but no. Since you ask, though, I could use a favor.”

“Has Jake ever failed you? Who do we shake down?”

“Not that. It’s not even this case I need help on, Jake. The other one.”

“Other . . . oh, the runaway cheerleader or whatever?”

“Yeah. Listen, What I’d like you to do is no big deal. Could you go by again, in an unofficial capacity, and make sure she’s okay? She’s got to be getting pretty sick by now. I was having trouble being in two places at once when I still had my entire brain. And to tell the truth, I’m worried about her.”

Jake pursed his lips, but nodded. I knew he’d rather get involved with the mess surrounding Hazelwood and Itchy Danny Weber, but an idealistic young cop like Jake wasn’t the kind of help I needed on that one. I would probably rub shoulders with some people he wouldn’t like.

Finally, he nodded and gave me a curt, “Sure. Can do, chief.”

“Just tell her that I’ll be by later today. She’s just a kid, Jake, and she’s in a hell of a mess.”

“Like some other people I know.” He smiled his college boy smile, but there in his eyes was that cop wisdom, that in the end everything was probably going to go to hell, and he would just be left to file the report.

“We can still make this work out for the good.” I wondered if I sounded like I believed it.

“Welcome to the Magic City,” he said with a wry smile. Then he shut the door and drove away.

I fished around in my overcoat pocket for the little book I’d picked up from Hazelwood’s floor. My head buzzed, but I felt a tad triumphant. It was still there. Inside, there were numbers, a lot of them. But there were no names. Just numbers. Apparently, Mr. Hazelwood had a great memory, or he had a system that allowed him to locate a certain number without writing anything down identifying the owner. There was also a business card stuck in the exact center of the little book. I held it up close to my eyes and read its inscription.

The Red Horse Lounge
the card proclaimed in black cursive script, on a red background. A lithograph of a lingerie clad woman figured prominently. The writing seemed to be almost an afterthought, but then again few words were needed. You got the idea. Classy. On the back was scrawled a single word, a woman’s name:
Lucinda.

There was no street address, just a mention of what part of the city the lounge was located. It was on the North Side. Time for a drive. If the card couldn’t tell me where the place was, maybe I could find someone who could. A friend or even a former acquaintance of Itchy Danny Weber would be nice. And thanks to Jake, I knew just where I could find such a person. I was going to do a little train spotting.

Chapter 10

The North Side. You have to drive north for about thirty minutes and cross the train tracks, the dividing line, to get there. It is easy to gauge how close you are getting to the heart of the district by observing the deepening accumulations of filth on the roadsides, and by the increasing number of people loitering on the sidewalks. Even in daylight, smog and factory sludge blot out the sunlight, and the perpetual night closes in—the leftover bad breath from decades of Birmingham’s industrial age, the hangover of headier days.

On the way I passed the old Shloss Furnace, a monument to Birmingham’s bygone steel days, the days of empire. It had sat dejected for years after it was shut down, its great smokestacks pointing skyward in ironic aspiration. It had been a vast eyesore, a terrible reminder of former prosperity, a sad, but impressive sight, like the corpse of a giant. In those days, I had been in uniform, and I had run in many of the junkies and dealers who haunted its ruin.

Recently, it had been renovated and concerts and other events were held in its vast and empty boiler rooms. One was in progress as I drove past, and young people filled the lots that used to be silent except for the furtive whispers of drug transactions. I could hear their laughter and the vague din of music inside. I passed by and headed out beyond 60
^th
street, and parts of Birmingham less warming to the soul.

I went out through Ensley, and crossed over the tracks again, this time winding my way northward. The suburban sprawl lay behind me. This was an old part of town, full of shuttered shops and boarded up houses. Old post war neighborhoods squatted in the shadow of the furnace’s smokestacks. The interstate had risen up over their heads. There had been no renovation here, no urban renewal. The Magic City had taken its magic elsewhere. The newer parts of town were over the mountain, in Homewood, in Mountain Brook, over in Vestavia. Here, there was a different plan in operation.

Young girls with neon tans in tight leather skirts call out to lone male drivers. The girls are dressed for Malibu, showing off their goods despite the cold drizzle. Hustlers young and old slide in and out of the pools of darkness between the flickering streetlights. They sell themselves, each other, things that numb the mind to pain, to joy, to dreams. It is all part of an ancient rite that has gone on in every great city that has existed in all the years since. The relentless wheel of time had rolled over those places, and countless more besides. It will one day crush the sad North Side, perhaps even the Magic City itself, with all of its crumbling greatness, its petty human evils.

But not yet. And so I had my little job to do, and poor lost Itchy to find, barring disaster. I headed for the Red Horse lounge, and wondered what lay in store. As I crossed the bridge over to the North Side, I turned on the radio, to an oldies station that I’d been listening to lately. Keep it to yourself; it’s a secret that I’m getting older. An old song crept out, Donovan’s voice, unearthly in the gathering evening.

You got to pick up every stitch

You got to pick up every stitch

The rabbits crawling in the ditch

Beatniks are out to make it rich

Must be the season of the witch

Must be the season of the witch

For some unaccountable reason, as I listened, I felt goose bumps crawling up my arms and the back of my neck.

The Birmingham Freight yard is another massive industrial monument, although one that is still used. Its current volume of business is a sad and tiny fraction of the heroic trade of bygone years. Interstate trucking has slowly but surely squeezed the once great rail lines until very little of their former majesty remains.

I had driven by the freight yard a thousand times, and lived within earshot of its trains my whole life, but had never been out to the yard. I noticed on my drive down that there were places where the tracks had been pulled up. Longs stacks of them glinted in my headlights. I wondered what Birmingham would seem like, some day, when they were all gone. It was hard for me to imagine.

I was looking for train bums, the type that Keeler had described. It was like deadheads or hackers, another “Alternative culture” within our culture. Every year brought another group of disaffected young people who wanted to be counted out of the big picture. Not even rebelling, just falling through the cracks, inheriting the deadening, drugged apathy of their parents.

I pulled up next to the guardhouse and checked the door. It was locked and looked long vacant. Dust had drifted inside of the windows, and undisturbed cobwebs, thick with filth, shrouded a flickering yellow floodlight. Apparently the railroads didn’t even employ guards there anymore.
 

I got out of my car and walked toward the sidings where Keeler and the others had busted Danny and the crew. The freight cars lined up there were pretty well decorated with graffiti, with the names and trip score of various hoppers: “Bloki 21, Flitzen 42” and so on.

I wandered around for a long time through the various silent lines of boxcars, dark and foreboding in the thick gloom. My feet crunched in the soft, black, porous rock that lay thick on the ground. The heavy smell of sulfur and rust lay over everything. A light diffusing through the wet atmosphere cast a gray, spectral aura over the desolate yard.

Eventually I heard low voices, and I paused to get my bearings. The voices were coming from inside the cars, and they had a strange, tinny echo to them. So, here were my modern hobos. How to approach them? If they were part of the train hopper community known to Keeler and Danny, I didn’t want to risk scaring them off. In the end, I walked right up to them, since there was really no alternative.