The Dying Crapshooter's Blues (21 page)

“Is it too early in the day for me to offer you a drink of Irish
whiskey?” she said. “It's the real thing. I'll tell you, I could do with it.”

No man in his right mind would turn down such a treat, any time of the day. Not that Molly waited for an answer before stepping to her closet to open the door and retrieve a squat bottle and two short glasses. She stood at the table and poured, and Joe caught the scent of peat and smoky oak. Compared to the rotgut passing as liquor in Atlanta these days, it smelled like perfume, and in the light through her curtains, gave off a deep amber glow.

Once Molly was settled in the opposite chair, they tapped glasses in a small toast. Joe passed his whiskey under his nose and sighed with pleasure.

Molly took a sip and gazed idly into her glass, her face falling into a mask of distress. “I couldn't believe it. He was a nice fellow, mostly. He was always kind to me.” Her brogue was getting deeper by the word.

Joe said, “How well did you know him?”

Molly tipped her glass this way and that. “When I first moved here in September, he came knocking on my door. He was very friendly. Drunk, of course. I didn't often see him sober. Now and then he'd come around to talk.”

“Talk about what?”

“Some about his life. Where he grew up and like that. A bit about his police work and that sort of thing. Nothing very interesting.” Her eyes shifted slyly. “He did let me know that anything I wanted, he could provide. Jewelry, dresses, whiskey, anything like that. All I had to do was ask.”

Joe wasn't surprised. That sort of merchandise was an extra benefit to a street cop's low-paying job.

“I didn't take him up on it,” Molly went on in a cool voice. “Because I knew I'd end up paying for them, one way or another. Isn't that how it works?”

Joe mused for a moment, thinking this young lady was not such an innocent, and most likely had a story of her own.

“Other than that, he was nice as could be,” she said. “Sometimes he got sad when he was drinking. Lonely-like. You know how some people get that way.”

Joe said, “Did you notice anything different about him lately?”

She said, “I think something was bothering him the last couple weeks. He didn't talk as much when I saw him in the hall. Just hello, and that was all. Then that last time I saw him was when he came to tell me about leaving.”

Joe was surprised. “He said he was leaving? When did he tell you that?”

“It was maybe two weeks ago. He came knocking and said he had some news. He told me he was moving out. Said it would be soon, but he hadn't told Mrs. Cotter. And he didn't want me to say anything to her.”

“Did he say where he was going?”

“No. He acted all mysterious about that. Just
away.
That's all he'd say.”

“That's all?”

She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Well, he did talk about having it his way. ‘Now I'm going to have things my way,' or something like that. Does that help at all?”

“It might.” Joe drank off some more of his whiskey, putting this last bit of news next to what he already had. He thought of something else.

“I found a picture in his room. A little blond girl.”

Molly's eyes got tragic. “I know about that. He showed me.”

“Who is she?”

“His daughter,” Molly told him. “He talked about her sometimes. Said he was going to get her back. He'd call her ‘my baby.' Like that.” She sighed. “I don't know where she is or anything else about her. And now he's gone. So sad.”

Joe mulled this new information. Between Mrs. Cotter and Molly, this man he'd never known was beginning to take on the trappings of a life. “Did he ever talk about a woman named Daisy?”

Molly frowned. “Maybe so. I really don't remember.”

“Anything else come to mind?” he asked her.

“No, that's all,” she said. “I try to not get too much in other people's business, if you know what I mean.” She paused for a few somber seconds then regarded him curiously. “Why are you doing this? What's he to you?”

Joe shifted in his chair. “Two nights before he was killed, he shot a fellow on Courtland Street. A Negro named Jesse Williams.”

“A criminal?”

“It wasn't an arrest, if that's what you mean. He just shot the man.”

Molly came up with a troubled frown. “That doesn't sound like something he would do.”

“Well, he did it. But I don't think it was his idea. I think someone put him up to it. I think he was paid to do it. Maybe the person who was in his room, arguing with him, what was it, last week?”

Molly nodded quickly. “I heard the voices when I came out of my bath. Mr. Logue and another man. I heard the door open and then footsteps on the stairs. A little bit later, I saw John in the hall. He didn't look so well, and I asked him if he was all right. He got real quiet for a little while, and then he started talking about how a person sometimes had to do things he didn't want to. He said something else about it not being fair, but that he was in a corner. I asked him if that was what all that commotion was about and he said, ‘Never mind about that.' Then he said he was doing me a favor not telling me.”

“That's all?”

“Until I heard what happened, yes.” She took another small sip from her glass. “If you don't mind me asking, this Negro fellow, was he a friend of yours?”

Joe said, “See, I started this and . . . it's . . .” He stopped, began again. “Actually, he was a pimp and a rounder. He cheated at cards and he ran women. That sort. But with all that, he wasn't a bad fellow. He was just a sport, making his way. He never hurt anyone that I know of.”

“But someone wanted him dead?”

Joe nodded. “And I think it was whoever was arguing with Mr. Logue that night.”

“Oh, my . . .” Her gaze flitted for a moment. “Maybe I shouldn't have told you about that. I don't even know who you are.”

“You know me well enough to let me in your room,” Joe said.

Molly smiled shyly. “You don't scare me, that's all.”

Joe sipped the rest of his whiskey, savoring it. When she didn't move to refill his glass, he rose to his feet and pulled on his coat, musing on his own strange behavior. Molly was pretty and full-bodied, the kind of woman he liked, and yet he was making no move to get her from upright to horizontal. His life was already too complicated.

She stood up, too, studying him gravely. “You have such worries on your mind. Is it all because of the Negro?”

“No, that's not all of it.” He sat down again and heard himself saying, “There was a burglary at a mansion in Inman Park on Saturday night. And the police have been leaning on me to find the person who did it.”

“Why you?”

“I happen to know people in that line of work,” he said carefully.

“Because you're one of them?” It wasn't really a question.

“Well, I have been,” he admitted.

Molly watched him steadily. “Is there by chance a woman mixed up in it?” she said. Joe raised an eyebrow. “You have that look about you.”

He laughed shortly. She didn't miss anything. “It happens there is,” he said.

She nodded with sympathy. “Well, I'm sorry for your troubles.”

He mused for a moment on the strange turn in the exchange, and then got to his feet, saying, “If you think of anything else about Mr. Logue, I keep a room at the Hampton on Houston Street. You can send a message there.”

Now she eyed him with sprightly humor. “So, you're quite the gentleman, aren't you?”

“Excuse me?”

“You didn't try anything fresh with me,” she said. “What kind of sporting man are you?”

Joe felt his face getting red. “What do you know about sports?”

“Oh, Mrs. Cotter tells me stories.” She lowered her voice. “Do you know she used to be a madam in one of those houses? I'm learning all sorts of things.”

Again, he caught a hint of something devious and thought to pry a bit more. Instead, he simply thanked her for her time and went for the door before he did something stupid.

She called his name and he stopped. “You can come back and visit again, if you like,” she said.

He couldn't read her expression. Though guileless, something odd was traversing her eyes and he got a sudden sense that she was hiding in that room. Perhaps she was on the run from a bad man or some unnamed crime. She could be escaping the troubles across the water in Ireland. He'd come across a few fellows like that in his travels, never a woman, but who knew? She
was another puzzle, the next chapter in the mystery of the female gender, one he'd never solve.

He slipped out the door, along the hall, and down the stairs, all without making a sound. As soon as he found himself on the street, he looked back and saw her silhouette in the window and raised a hand to wave. She didn't move, and he realized that she couldn't see him for the sun in her eyes.

 

One of the fellows who had been lounging around the kitchen came in to whisper in Willie's ear. The blind man asked the sport to repeat it. He spent a few moments watching Little Jesse, who had dropped into another tortured sleep. He got up to speak briefly to Martha, then pulled on his overcoat, slung the Stella over his shoulder, and headed outdoors.

He found the two men standing on the Decatur Street corner, Jake Stein and an older fellow who introduced himself as George Purcell, both of them with nervous Yankee accents. Each man took his hand and shook it, something a white man rarely did with a Negro, and Willie felt a spike of worry that someone might have seen.

Mr. Purcell was in charge, and he didn't waste any time stating their business. Willie was stunned with pleasure and agreeable, though it wouldn't be a simple matter. It would have to be handled cleverly. He told the pair that he would make his own way to the Dixie, describing the service entrance around back, accessible from Fairlie Street, and explaining exactly what had to be done. Murmuring agreement, Purcell and his young assistant shook his hand a second time, and went on ahead.

Twenty minutes later, Mr. Purcell approached the front desk of the hotel and engaged Sidney the clerk and the house detective, who happened to be loitering nearby, in a frank discussion that was entirely fabricated, some nonsense about the annoyance of stragglers not showing up on time and still wanting to audition.
The detective, bored to his socks, made a big deal of describing all the various ways to keep that sort from causing trouble. Mr. Morgan had passed the word about the guests' unhappiness over the Negro singer, and they were eager to be of service.

Meanwhile, Jake Stein was paying one of the colored bellboys fifty cents to clear a path and escort Willie through the alley entrance of the building and into the freight elevator. In another few minutes, the door had closed on the fourth-floor suite with the blind man safely inside.

Once Mr. Purcell finished his little charade and made his way upstairs, they went right to work. There would be no need for an audition; anyway, there wasn't time. Willie asked if the first song could be for practice, and Mr. Purcell agreed, then turned and winked at Jake, signaling the younger man to go ahead and turn the machine on, anyway. If he thought the singer wouldn't catch this, he was mistaken. Willie could hear the flutter of a butterfly's wings at twenty paces. To him, the switch being flipped sounded like a firecracker going off.

It was over in less than a half hour, and Mr. Purcell knew he had something. Giddy with excitement, he went about hustling the singer out of the hotel the same way he had come in. Though this time, it didn't go quite as smoothly. As they hurried along the hallway, they failed to notice a guest who had opened his door and saw the young Negro carrying a guitar and plainly not hired help, in the company of two white men.

 

Every city had a tenderloin, and Central Avenue was Atlanta's. Crossing over Hunter Street in a bleached afternoon sun, Joe failed to see much evidence of the crackdown he'd been hearing about during his travels. Maybe the police had other things to do that afternoon. It was a weekday, and that accounted for some of the calm. Friday and Saturday were the nights that raised the hackles, with the rowdy noise, drunkenness, and fighting, all amid a cascade of illicit commerce.

Now it was generally quiet. Joe had always thought it interesting that all the day-to-day iniquity along the avenue went on within sight of the second-floor windows of Girls High School, and no one seemed to mind. He couldn't imagine what those innocent young ladies thought when they gazed and beheld the scarlet trade in full flush.

He had spent enough time on those blocks to know the house Mrs. Cotter had mentioned. It was on the east side of the street, just north of Mitchell. He found the address, knocked on the door, and was ushered in by a squat fellow who looked like he might have been a prizefighter at one time, his face a map of battered geography. Joe asked for Daisy and was told she was busy with a customer. He was invited to have a seat and wait. He said he'd rather come back in a little while.

He wandered down the avenue to Fair Street, then turned around and came up the other side, paying little attention to his surroundings as his thoughts drifted to another drunken cop, this one a Philadelphia detective named Glass, who regularly opined his long-held belief that if a coincidence occurred, it was rare. When two things happened in conjunction, he asserted, it was no accident. The detective liked to talk especially about the coincidence of a man being out of town when his hag of a wife met with a fatal accident.

“You know how many times that's happened and the party was innocent?” he inquired. “Once in a blue fucking moon. In other words, right there next to never.”

Joe had taken that lesson with him, one of a few he learned while policing that he could still use. And so he couldn't ignore the idea nibbling at the corners of his thoughts that the Payne mansion burglary and the shooting of Little Jesse were somehow tied together. Glass might have puzzled it out, but he was long dead, the bottle taking him as everyone assumed it would. Maybe his old friend Albert Nichols or his new pal Lieutenant Collins would step forward, but he wouldn't hold his breath for either one.