by Ron Levitsky
“You . . . you don’t think Basehart did all this?”
Rosen shook his head and shifted back in his chair. “Basehart’s just a fly stuck on some flypaper. We all know that—you, me, and Lester. It’s the spider I’m after. I wish you’d trust me, Lu. I feel partly responsible for Top’s death. I’d like to help Lester too, because I think he’s caught between the police and the murderer—a rock and a hard place. I’m sorry for both of you.”
He started to get up, when Lu grabbed his wrist. “You hold on now ’n give me a minute. Got to go into the bedroom. Be right back.”
She walked through the kitchen’s swinging doors, and while pouring another lemonade Rosen thought he heard two voices in another part of the house. Checking his watch—it was just after three, he was about to call Wilkes. Before he could phone, Lu returned and nodded.
They sat quietly and waited. There was a certainty in Lu’s manner—she was so still—the way a parent acts when calling a child to account for some wrongdoing. A minute later Rosen heard a man walking through the house, the alternating light-heavy steps of someone who has a bad leg.
Collinsby sat wearily in Becky’s chair, his eyes staring into the table. He looked terrible—hair tousled, shirt wrinkled and stained with sweat, and the breath whistling in and out of his lungs.
Rosen waited for the other man to gain his composure, but instead Collinsby began to tremble and wring his hands.
“Lester,” Rosen said softly, touching his shoulder. “Lester.”
Collinsby slowly raised his head, his red eyes squinting behind a series of dark circles. Rosen smelled liquor on his breath.
“Lester?”
Lu took Collinsby’s hand. “Go ’head, Lester. You got to tell somebody. Maybe Mr. Rosen can help.”
Collinsby licked his lips then shook his head. “Too late. Nobody can help me now. It’s too late. I’m done for. I tell you, I’m done for.”
“Just like Nguyen Thi Nhi?” Rosen asked.
“Yeah, just like her, I guess. Look”—he seized Rosen by the lapels—“maybe I could get out of town for a few weeks. Lu’s got family in Charleston I can stay with.”
Removing the man’s hands, Rosen said, “You can’t run away forever. You’ve got to come home sometime.”
Collinsby lapsed into silence.
Rosen spoke softly. “Lester, you know the story in the Bible about Jonah? God ordered him to preach His word, but Jonah felt inadequate so he tried running away. What happened—he was swallowed by the whale. Guess that goes to show you can’t really run away. Like Jonah, you’ve been called to speak the truth, and that’s something you’ve got to do. What happened?”
Collinsby raised his hands helplessly.
Rosen said, “Why don’t we start with you dropping off Billy Lee Pelham at the bait and tackle shop this morning, so that he could pack to leave town. What’s your connection with him?”
Crinkling his brow, Collinsby shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Nate. I’ve been here since early this morning.”
“If you’re going to lie . . .”
“I swear I’m telling the truth. Ask Lu.”
She nodded solemnly.
Rosen said, “The waitress in the diner across from the bait and tackle shop saw a red Jaguar parked in Basehart’s driveway this morning. Where’s your car?”
“One of Lu’s friends is repainting it another color, one that’s not so easy to notice. Besides,”—he said the next words through clenched teeth—“I’m beginning to hate the color red.”
“This isn’t a very big town, and the only other red Jaguar I can think of belongs to that charmer we met on the boat, Junior Dickerson.”
Biting his lip, Collinsby looked down at the table.
“Go on, Lester, tell him,” Lu said.
He sighed deeply. “All right. I’ll tell what I know, Nate, but you got to believe me that I don’t know everything.”
“Do you know who killed Nguyen Thi Nhi?”
“No. Not for sure that is, but I have a pretty good idea.” He paused to look around the room. “It might’ve been Junior. Like I said, I don’t know for sure . . .”
“Wouldn’t put it past him,” Lu said. “Wouldn’t put anything past that boy. When the Lord wanted to make something wicked, He mixed up all the evil He could find ’n came up with Junior Dickerson. Never saw him do a thing that wasn’t low-down ’n hurt somebody.”
“Sounds as if you knew him pretty well,” Rosen said.
“Not ’cause I wanted to. He ’n Top used to do business pretty regular down at the club.”
“Drugs?”
She nodded. “Not that I liked it, but I ain’t talkin’ down Top now. He always said it was hard enough for a black man to earn any kind a’ dollar, he didn’t have the luxury to care if it was clean or dirty. And every penny a’ that money went for the business or the children.”
“So your husband supplied Junior with drugs. Where did Top get the stuff?”
“Some from a friend he knew in Baltimore.”
“Not from the gangs in D.C.?”
“No, he never wanted to fool with them. Too dangerous. That part don’t matter anyway. Most he got through that Vietnamese, the dead woman’s brother.”
“Nguyen Van Van?”
“Yeah. That Van—he a real match for Junior. Like two rotten peas in a pod, one more slimy than the other. All started ’bout three years ago. Junior come into the club with one a’ his tramps and began ordering everybody ’round like he was a king. He tells Top that anybody that black oughta have some joints around. So Top had him tossed out. Two days later a couple guys beat Top bad, cracked two ribs.”
“Sounds familiar,” Rosen said.
“One a’ Junior’s favorite games. That next week Junior come back, go into the back room with Top ’n buy some joints. Put in a bigger order for the next week. Like a kid, the more Junior got, the more he want. Guess the boy started dealing the stuff to his friends. Next it was heroin ’n then cocaine. Top was scared, Mr. Rosen, he done time before and if he got caught dealing drugs. . . . He told Junior ’n the boy just laughed. Said better Top be in jail than dead. Junior said not to worry, that his old man the Senator had fixed it with the cops, that he had a big cop in his pocket. So what was Top . . .?”
“Did Junior ever say who this cop was?”
Lu shook her head. “That boy appeared to own everybody ’n everything.”
“Do you know, Lester?”
“No, but I don’t doubt it. I handled cases for some of Senator Dickerson’s roughnecks, and there was always evidence against these men disappearing from the police property room. It was just a little too convenient.”
“Well, that where Van come in,” Lu said. “He had it all, like he was a walking drugstore. He’d come in all the time, listening to the music ’n joking with Top. That’s where Top used to get his joints.”
“What was Van’s source?”
She shrugged. “Said he had his own sources, his ‘soul brothers’ back where his family come from. Wherever it was, he sure could get everything anybody wanted.”
“So Top would use Van as a supplier for Junior.”
“Yeah. After awhile Top figgered the best way to get himself out was to bring those two together. That was a night—having two snakes under the same roof.”
“About how long ago was it?”
She tilted back her head for a moment. “Must be ’bout two years ago. It was in that corner booth, near where the piano used to be, so I heard most a’ what went on, ’n what I didn’t hear Top told me later. Junior was bragging ’bout what a big shot his daddy was, how he owned this ’n that—talking ’bout owning not just things but people. Talked ’bout all them things his daddy bought him, like a new red sports car every year. Oh yeah, he really love that color red.”
Collinsby struck his fist against the table.
Lu continued, “Van just sat there ’n smiled like a cat who just swallowed the mouse. Real
smooth, that one—all sugar ’n honey. Said he could get Junior anything he wanted—not just drugs but women too. Junior said he was tired a’ white and black women, wanted something else. You know what Van went and did—Lord help me but this is the truth—Van said he could get any Slant . . . he used that word . . . any Slant woman Junior wanted. Then Junior, like he was testing him, asked if Van had a sister. Van smiled back nice as you please and said sure, that she was real pretty too. Then they shook hands ’n left the club together.”
“Van’s sister, Nhi?” Rosen asked.
“Uh huh—thought that might interest you. I read in the paper they found some heroin in her room. Like I said before, wouldn’t surprise me one bit to find out that Junior killed that woman.”
Rosen shifted back in his chair. “I’d like to believe it, knowing what a lovely boy Junior is, but why would he do it? What’s his motive?”
“Why do a hunter shoot a deer? ’Cause he like to.”
Rosen thought for a moment then shook his head. “Tell me about the phone call you overheard—the one in which Top mentioned G.U.N.”
“Like I told you before, don’t rightly know what it was all about. It was after you asked Top to look for Van. I begged him not to get mixed up in all this. He told me not to worry, that he already knew the answer, that Teddy John told him the day after the murder.”
“Who’s Teddy John?”
“He work down at the yacht club. Takes care a’ the boats. I know what you thinking—you wanna talk with him—but you can just forget it. Day after Top died, Teddy John sent some flowers with a note saying he was leaving town for good. Probably in Texas by now.”
“What did he tell Top?”
“Something he saw the night a’ the murder. Top wouldn’t tell me what, said the less I knew the better off I’d be. All he said was that he was gonna fix it so’s we’d be on easy street the rest a’ our lives.” She looked at Collinsby for a moment. “I think he was talking to Junior Dickerson. Don’t know anyone ’round here who he could try to tap for that much money.”
Rosen asked, “Did either of you know that, on the afternoon of his death, Top sent his bartender to see me?”
They glanced at one another then shook their heads.
“Big Ben told me some story about Van being involved in a gang war with drug dealers from D.C. and that caused his sister’s death. It was all made up to keep me from digging into Top’s scheme to blackmail Dickerson.”
Collinsby trembled. “If Junior ever found out that Top was talking to you . . .”
“Maybe Junior does know. He interrupted my conversation with Big Ben. He probably knew everything. Got Big Ben so angry, he almost threw Junior out the window. Do you think he had Top killed?”
Hesitating, the other lawyer suddenly snapped, “Yeah, I think he had Top killed.”
“Do you have any proof?”
“Like Lu said, just knowing Junior is proof enough. He’s the connection, the link between drugs and G.U.N. That’s why it’s no surprise that Rupert and probably Billy Lee Pelham killed Top. You see, the Guardians of an Undefiled Nation are nothing more than Senator Dickerson’s private army. Their whole purpose isn’t just random violence against the blacks and Vietnamese. It’s all planned very carefully to keep everyone in line.”
“You’re saying it’s political.”
Collinsby nodded. “Twenty-five years ago when Dick Dickerson first started out, there weren’t any problems. Musket Shoals was about half white and half black. Lot of white folks owed his daddy, an ex-mayor, favors and the blacks just kept quiet and did what they were told. Dickerson went on to become State Senator and a mighty big man around here. He bought a lot of people.” Collinsby stopped, licking his lips, and poured a glass of lemonade.
Rosen said, “I’m surprised he never tried for anything more, like Governor or U.S. Senator.”
“That’s what he’d like to have done, but he was smart enough to know if he ever went for something that big, his finances would never stand public scrutiny. Instead he made Musket Shoals kind of his personal kingdom.”
“So G.U.N. became a means of protecting his kingdom.”
Collinsby nodded again. “You see, things began to change. The civil rights protests in the Sixties got a lot of black folks registered to vote for the first time. There was even talk of running a black candidate to oppose Dickerson, but the man’s car was firebombed and he was killed. Police said it was probably the Klan, but no one ever found out the truth. Things quieted down a lot after that. But now with the Vietnamese moving in, the whites make up a minority of the population. It may not be too long before the blacks, the Vietnamese, and those whites who can’t stomach Dickerson get together and kick him out of office. Once that happens and they begin to look into his finances, he’ll be on his way to jail, or worse.”
“That’s where the Guardians of an Undefiled Nation come in.”
“Yeah. He’s been using them for the past few years to keep the Vietnamese in line. They’re new, so he figures they’re the easiest ones to scare. He gets the votes of those who’ve become citizens and ‘voluntary contributions’ from those who own businesses down in the Paddy. The G.U.N. members do all the collecting and take care of any ‘disagreements.’ I’m on the payroll too. Dickerson hired me a few years ago to defend any of those G.U.N. creeps caught vandalizing or roughing up a Vietnamese. Paid me well to keep my connection with him quiet. Even gave me Junior’s cast-off sports car, like I was a beggar.”
Rosen shook his head.
“What’s the matter!” Collinsby demanded. “Don’t you believe me?”
“Sure. That explains the ledger sheets I found at the bait and tackle shop. It’s just that I’m disappointed in Edison Basehart. I thought he was a bucket of scum but at least one with principles. To find out he’s just a cheap thug. . . .”
“No, no.” Collinsby shook his head. “Basehart wasn’t in on any of this. He’s been blind as a bat all these years. Thought he was running the last stand for America, when behind his back Pelham’s been taking orders from Dickerson.”
“He’s been duped all these years?”
Collinsby looked down at the table. “Guess a lot of us believe what we want to believe, like me thinking I was just defending some penny-ante offenders who had a right to a lawyer like anybody else.”
“You said you don’t think Basehart killed Nguyen Thi Nhi.”
“When Dickerson called me to take the case, he said to make sure Basehart was convicted. I think Junior shot the woman while looking for Van. Van probably shortchanged him on a drug deal, and Junior came after him. If you find Van, I bet that’s what he’ll tell you. If Junior and his boys didn’t already find him.”
“And so they framed Basehart. Pretty neat.”
“Yeah. It got Junior off the hook and put Pelham in charge of G.U.N. I don’t think he liked always going behind Basehart’s back—got too complicated.”
Pushing his chair from the table, Rosen stood.
“Where’re you going?” Collinsby asked anxiously.
“To the yacht club. If this Teddy John saw something, maybe someone else did as well.”
Collinsby’s voice trembled. “You’re not gonna tell anybody where I’m hiding, are you? If Dickerson or Junior finds out where I am, I’ll be next, sure as the sun rises.”
Rosen remembered his Talmud. “‘Shall I say: throw a stone at the one who has fallen?’” He stood at the doorway. “One last thing. This top cop you mentioned—the one who fixed everything for Dickerson. Sure you don’t know who he is?”
Collinsby shook his head. “But he’s got to be pretty important. I’d be careful about calling the police, if I was you.”
“Sure.”
Lu and Collinsby holding hands warmed him, and the Talmud came to mind once more, that deeds of loving-kindness are equal to all the commandments of the Torah. However, opening the door he thought of his destination—Dickerson and Junior—and braced himself as if the wind through the doo
rway had blown from the damp cold netherworld where Nguyen Thi Nhi and God knows how many other of their victims wandered restlessly, waiting for justice to be done.
Chapter Seventeen – THURSDAY EVENING
As Wilkes drove along the shoreline, droplets of rain grew into a steady patter upon the windshield. Although only late afternoon the sky had darkened as more clouds, thick and smokestack-gray, rolled inland, reminding him of the day he was assigned to the murder case. Not even two weeks had passed, yet long enough to leave one life behind, as a snake crawls out of its skin then curiously gazes at what once protected it. He had seen Death lying in its crimson pool, more real than anything he had ever known, terrifying and exciting him. Office politics and the constant haggling with corporations seemed as insignificant as the broken coffee grinder at home, for today he was looking for a murderer. Today he would do simple justice.
His secretary’s car began the long private lane leading to the Tyler Yacht Club. Black pavement ahead shone smooth and hard, and the trees on either side were groomed so precisely into a bower they appeared artificial. Only the ocean was real, the tide beginning its evening ritual of return, lapping the shoreline below him, as Wilkes drove the last ribbon of road that dipped toward the clubhouse.
Stopping directly in front of the building, he rolled down his window and beckoned to the doorman who huddled under a narrow canopy. Reluctantly the man ran to the car.
“Yes, sir, can I help you?” he asked, turning up his collar.
“Is Senator Dickerson inside?”
“He was here for lunch but left about three. He was dressed for sailing. You might try the docks.”
Wilkes continued to the parking lot and pulled into an open space. There was something familiar about one of the parked cars he had just passed, a Dodge with a dented fender; walking back he recognized it as the rental Rosen was using. It was locked, Rosen’s briefcase lying closed on the passenger side of the front seat. Leaving the car, Wilkes splashed across a few shallow puddles and hurried up the steps of the clubhouse.
He walked through the restaurant to the bar but didn’t see the other attorney. Sitting on a stool, he ordered a sherry to take away the dampness and described Rosen to the bartender.
