The Dying Crapshooter's Blues (29 page)

“So we got to confiscate it,” the sergeant finished.

“Confiscate what?”

“Whatever it was you did with the colored man you had in your room.”

Mr. Purcell gazed at the sergeant without speaking for such a long time that the junior officer felt compelled to hitch his gun belt and speak up. “You hear what he said, mister?”

“I heard him.” Without shifting his stare or changing his tone, Mr. Purcell said, “Jake, get the list.”

Jake turned to stare at the older man as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

“Get the list,” Purcell repeated.

Jake went into the backseat and rooted around until he found the binder that held the tally of the recordings, the names of the
performers with corresponding numbers. He crawled out and handed it to Mr. Purcell, who ran a finger down the top page.

“Thirty-two A, B, and C,” he said quietly. “Get those disks for the officers, please.”

Biting down on his anger, Jake went into the backseat once more, this time pawing through one of the boxes of masters until he located the correct ones. He lifted them from the box as if they were made of fine china and handed them out.

“Here we are,” Mr. Purcell said. He took the disks in their paper sleeves from Jake and held them out before him. The sergeant drew back, at a momentary loss as to what to do, as if he had expected the two Yankees to make some sort of pathetic plea. He hefted the three disks for a few seconds, then handed them to his partner.

Mr. Purcell's eyes rested on the boxes briefly as they were passed. “Can we go?” he inquired.

“Yeah, I s'pose y'all can go,” the sergeant said. “Just don't come down here tryin' no more of this kind of shit, y'understand?”

Mr. Purcell didn't answer. Instead, he said, “Officer? I want to tell you that what you've got there might be worth a large amount of money someday.”

The sergeant frowned. “What now?”

“I'm telling you that someone would be wise to hold on to those,” Mr. Purcell said.

He saw the glimmer of stupid greed in the policeman's eyes. He left it there, motioning Jake back into the car. The younger man, seething over the surrender, refused to look at him. Instead, he glared at the mirror and watched the two cops move back to their car, heads together as they conferred over what they now possessed.

They got in their car and waited until Jake turned the key, stepped on the starter pedal, and pulled out onto the two-lane, then followed, dropping off once they reached the county line.

 

As they stood waiting outside Chief Troutman's office, Lieutenant Collins noticed that Captain Jackson had spent some time in the men's room. His suit was precise, with not a stitch out of line, and his hair had been combed into a severe helmet. When the door opened, he marched into the chief's office like he was on honor guard. Despite the gravity of the business at hand, Trout-man had to turn his head for a moment to hide his amusement at this preening display. It was all the more evidence that the Captain was losing his wits.

For his part, Captain Jackson was delighted to note that his preparation had been worthwhile. As promised, Mr. Gilbert from the mayor's office was present, and no doubt ready to report back. There was no way Chief Troutman could bury him; and if the chief had agreed to the meeting in the hope that Jackson would make a fool of himself, he had miscalculated.

Still, it was his office, and the other three men had to wait until he crossed his arms and raised his thin eyebrows expectantly for Captain Jackson to begin.

“I want to report progress on the Inman Park burglary,” he announced without preamble. “I have three people in custody in the Tower, and at least one of them was at the Payne home Saturday night.” He leaned in the direction of the mayor's assistant with a cloying little smile and said, “So you can tell the mayor we're in sight of closing the case.”

The chief stood by, itching to ask Jackson why he had waited so long to bring in these
suspects,
then thought better of it. Any opening would lead to more of the show, and he saw how Mr. Gilbert was now regarding the Captain with some interest, though he couldn't tell if the mayor's man was impressed or amused by the dramatics.

Quickly, the chief said, “Very well, then,” and stood up to end the session. It wasn't just that Jackson gave him the willies. He wanted him out of the office before he could completely win over Gilbert, who of course had the mayor's ear.

The Captain understood this. His face flushed with the pride of victory and he all but bowed as he made his exit. Lieutenant Collins, who had spent the tortured minutes wanting to blurt out that it was all a sham, and that in fact the Captain had nothing except three bodies in jail, followed along behind.

Less than an hour after Pearl had been locked in the cell with Miss Dolly, the two matrons returned. Keys jangled and the door swung open.

“Out,” said the talker of the two, and that was all. There was no doubt who the order was meant for; Miss Dolly didn't glance up from the yellowed pages of her romance magazine.

The matrons were regarding her with a cold apathy that frightened her, and she had to bite down on her fear. The cell door slammed shut, and they started down the corridor. When she glanced to her left and caught the quiet one treating her to a dirty stare, her stomach twisted.

They ushered her up the stone staircase to the ground floor, then turned into the north wing. She was sure of it now: They were going to put her in with the men and let those animals have at her. She clenched her jaw and braced herself, swearing she would not go through what they were planning. She'd fight, so they'd have to beat her unconscious or kill her.

They passed along the corridor between the cells, and when the men noticed her passing, a frenzy went down the line like a kerosene fire. They shrieked inhuman sounds and reached from
between the bars with filthy, grabbing paws, the faces red and contorted and the yellowed teeth bared. The matrons slapped the hands back as if they were swatting flies. The swell of howls echoed crazily off the stone walls.

All the while, Pearl refused to turn her head, keeping her chin up and eyes straight ahead, inflaming the prisoners all the more. Some of them were actually shaking the bars like apes in a zoo. A few grabbed their crotches and started pulling just at the sight of her.

Though the ordeal lasted no more than a half minute, it felt like it took ten times that long to reach the squared space at the end of the corridor. On either side of this box was a cell with a solid wood door with a tiny slot of a window instead of bars, special rooms for some special kinds of confinement. The silent matron unlocked the door on the right, and her partner waved Pearl inside.

Now she wondered if they were going to install her there to let the men line up and take turns. Imagining this horror, she felt like sobbing for mercy. The door closed with a thump and the lock clacked behind her.

She waited until the matrons had moved off before settling herself enough to take a look around. The cell was ten feet wide and twelve deep, with mortared stone walls. There was an uncovered pallet on the floor and a privy hole in the corner. A window six inches high and a foot wide was cut into the back wall. The door was two-inch-thick oak with iron fittings. Through the heavy wood and stone muffled sound, she could still hear the men's shouts from outside, though over the next minutes the chaos subsided. The other prisoners had either been put down or placated with a promise.

She walked the perimeter of the cell one time, encountering the usual small armies of roaches and other vermin swarming over the walls. She stepped to the window and peered out. The sun was
a dim yellow circle above the brown cloud that rose from the rail yards, making the city look like an old faded photograph.

She turned away, in her misery thinking about Joe and wondering if he was going to come and save her. Not that she deserved it.

 

Joe and Sweet sat in the cell for the rest of the afternoon with no cigarettes, food, or water. The hole in the floor that served as a toilet was stopped up. With the sun gone, the only light came from a bare bulb outside.

A few minutes before six o'clock, a jailer appeared to unlock the cell.

“Let's go, Rose,” he said.

“Go where?”

“Captain wants to see you.”

“What about him?” Joe said, gesturing to Sweet.

“He ain't none of your business,” the jailer said. “Now let's go.”

They took him two floors up to the end of a hallway and into a windowless interrogation room with a heavy door, the kind that would mute shouts, cries, and moans. Inside, the Captain and a thick-bodied young man wearing corporal's stripes on the sleeves of his uniform were waiting. A table had been pushed against the side wall, and two of the three wooden chairs had been shoved into the corner. The third one remained in the center of the floor.

The Captain was leaning against the back wall, his arms folded across his chest. The corporal, a little shorter than his superior but as thick as a barrel across the middle, slouched in the corner on Joe's right, an immobile lump, though Joe had no doubt the man could snap out of his crouch and be on him. He had seen the type before, a hard case with the kind of dead eyes that revealed nothing save a talent for delivering serious pain or
worse. Gun bulls who had been on the job too long had that same look, a general statement that they would crush a man or an insect with an equal amount of efficiency of emotion. All of them had wretched histories that they paid back every waking day.

Captain Jackson nodded curtly to the chair. Joe sat down. The Captain stared at him for almost a half minute, the gaze fixed somewhere past him. Joe waited. Finally, without moving a muscle except for those around his mouth, Jackson said, “Your gal steal those jewels?”

“What gal is that?” Joe inquired. In the heartbeat's pause that ensued, he realized he had made a mistake. The next thing he knew, he was sideways, the left side of his head had collided with the floor, and stars were exploding behind his eyes.

The corporal had apparently been instructed to listen for just such a gambit, and had come out of the corner in one large stride to smack Joe with a hand as broad and thick as a beefsteak, knocking him out of the chair. Instinctively, he curled into a ball. When his vision cleared, he saw that the corporal had retreated into the corner, slumping and yawning as if nothing had happened.

Captain Jackson was regarding him with a flat expression. “Get up,” he said. “We're going to try it again.”

Joe rose to one knee, his ears still buzzing. After a few seconds, he righted the chair and pushed himself into it, blinking to clear his head.

“She got those jewels?” the Captain said in exactly the same tone of voice.

“If she does, she didn't tell me so,” Joe said.

“What did she tell you?” the Captain said. “You didn't spend all your time in that room at the Hampton fucking, did you?”

Joe wasn't surprised that they'd been watching. It made him wonder why they hadn't come after the two of them sooner.

“She's got a story about what happened that night,” he said.

“She does, does she?” the Captain said. “And you believe it?” He stopped and his thin lips barely curled. “She's a fine-looking piece for a colored gal. And I'd guess that once she spreads them legs, you'd believe just about anything she says. Wouldn't you?” He studied Joe for a grudging moment. “All right, let's hear this
story
of hers.”

Joe said, “She got hired on to work at the Christmas party.”

“I know that part.”

“One of the other girls passed her a note. She thought it was from me.”

“Was it?”

“No, it wasn't.”

“Then where'd it come from?”

“Some fellow handed it to the other girl outside. It was dark and she couldn't make out his features.”

“What did this note say?”

“For her to go down to the basement and unlock the outside door.”

“And that's what she did.”

“She thought it was from me.” Joe felt his face reddening. “So . . . yes, she . . . she did it.”

The Captain said, “So she gets this note and goes downstairs, thinking you wanted to get in and rob the home. Is that what you're saying?”

“Except for the last part,” Joe lied.

The Captain cocked his head. “What about the last part?”

“She thought it was me, but she figured I just wanted let in to see . . . to meet her.”

Jackson shifted his weight from one leg to the other, his first sign of life, and came up with a smile that was cold and jagged. He said, “You telling me that she thought it an invitation to go down to the basement to meet you for a quick fuck? Do I have that right?”

“She didn't know I was in town, so it—”

“I didn't ask if she knew you were in town,” the Captain snapped. “What I did ask was did she think the note was an invitation to go down to the basement to meet you for a fuck.”

Joe said, “I guess that could be true.” As he hoped, the Captain was too caught up in the
fuck
part to catch his falsehood.

“All right, then,” Jackson said. “She goes downstairs with her drawers all wet, 'cause she thinks she's about to get some Indian dick, and unlocks the door, expecting you to be standing there with a hard-on.”

“We call it a totem pole,” Joe said.

He had the sense not to crack a smile and wait to see if the Captain or the corporal did. It would have been a long wait; both policemen held their dead stares. He might as well have delivered the quip to two blocks of Georgia pine.

“See, I don't know . . . I'm not sure if I'm Indian or not,” he offered lamely.

“Expecting you to be standing there with a hard-on,” the Captain repeated, as if he hadn't heard a word.