by Lionel White
“Keep them overnight and let them out on bail in the morning. You can tell whoever is sitting if I am not around to make the bail nominal. Charge them with disorderly conduct. How does it look otherwise? Do you think they have the fire situation under control?”
“I’d say that it is contained, but not exactly under control,” Partridge said. “The firemen aren’t even trying to do more than keep the flames from spreading and I can’t say I blame them. A couple have been struck by sniper’s bullets and Christ only knows how many have been hit by rocks and trash thrown off rooftops. Those men are paid to fight fires, not to be targets."
“I know,” Asmore said. “I know. How about the looting?”
“As far as we know, just about every store on Central Avenue, Mission Avenue and Division Street, certainly every liquor and grocery store, and hardware and appliance stores. There have been a few cases of rocks thrown through windows in some of the stores in the fringes of the business district, but so far as I can determine at this point, the looting has been confined only to the stores in the colored districts, those patronized by the niggers themselves.”
“Any other..
“A number of people have reported having rocks thrown through the windows of their cars, in widely separated parts of the city. So far as we can tell, they were thrown from passing cars being driven by young colored boys cruising around the city. The state police, who have been helping us out and are mostly patrolling in the outlying areas, have made a dozen or so arrests. As a matter of fact, I got a report not too long ago that a car in which your uncle, Cass Asmore, was riding had its windshield shattered by a flying rock. I think he was being driven by that girl from up North, the one who is working over at the Youth Center in colored town.”
Carlton Asmore looked up sharply.
“Was anyone hurt?”
“Don’t think so. Certainly not seriously or I would have heard about it. Think the girl got a scratch from a piece of flying glass. It happened a couple of hours ago at least, I believe.”
“You wouldn’t know where they are at present, would you? My uncle, or the girl—Miss Vargle?”
Partridge shook his head.
“No,” he said, “no, I wouldn’t. Seems to me, as I remember it, the story came to me from someone who had stopped by the Cosmos Club. I imagine they may have been there. If that is where they were, the chances are they are still there. We have been warning people all over to stay off the streets, stay where they are and not try and move around. Safest place for anyone tonight is with a lot of other people.”
As Asmore turned to the door, preparing to leave the room, Partridge said, “By the way, how did you get here from the hospital? By private car?”
Asmore said yes, he’d driven his own car.
“Well, if you are going out on the streets again,” Partridge said, “I think you’d be a lot safer in an official police cruiser. I have an extra one out in the yard. I’d send a man along with you, but right at the moment I don’t have any extra men to ..
“I don’t think I’ll need a bodyguard," Asmore said. “But the police car sounds like a good idea, if you are sure you can spare it.”
“I can spare it, all right,” Partridge said. “The way my boys are being carted off to the hospital I’m going to have more cars than men before the night is over. Not that we haven’t lost a couple of cars, either. Had one turned over and burned on South Division and another one so badly smashed by a gang of rock throwers that it will be out of commission for some time. But take the one in the yard. And by the way, are you armed?”
Asmore smiled thinly, shook his head.
“Oh, I hardly think ..
“You’re going to be buzzing around where there’s trouble, you damned well better have some protection,” Partridge said, pulling open his top desk drawer. He reached in and took out a thirty-eight revolver and held it out by the barrel.
“We’ve run into a sort of unusual situation and haven’t quite got it figured out yet. But I have had a half dozen reports of police cars being fired on by men on motorcycles. Seems there is some gang of militant blacks running around wearing something which resembles police helmets and with black leather jackets. Riding motorbikes. I have one man over at the hospital who was shot all to hell, but before he lost consciousness, he said he was fired on by one of these cyclists. Said he thought the guy was wearing some kind of police badge and he had no warning at all before the son of a bitch started throwing lead at him. It’s happened several times, often enough so that my boys have been told to shoot first and ask questions afterwards if they spot any of them.”
Asmore took the gun reluctantly and put it in the side pocket of his jacket.
“I’ll keep my eye peeled,” he said.
“That thing is loaded,” Partridge said. “Safety is on, but be careful. It’s one of my own. Hair trigger.”
“I’ll be careful,” Asmore said. “I’m going to stop by the Cosmos Club, then take a look around. Be back a bit later. Don’t forget about the courthouse basement.”
“I won’t don’t worry. Just try and figure another place after we get that filled up. The rate we are making arrests...”
“Speaking of arrests,” Carlton Asmore said, hesitating again as he reached the door and turning back,” how about the bombing over at the church? I don’t suppose you have any clues as to who was behind ...”
Partridge shook his head. “Nothing yet,” he said. “We haven't been able to really get into the wreckage yet. The fires are still smoldering there, but I have had the area cordoned off and we are doing our best to keep people away until we can have the chance to start an investigation. But until we get this rioting under control, there is really not much we can do. Only thing we can be sure of at this time is that it was undoubtedly a bomb, probably tossed in from the street. We’ve checked out a couple of reports from people near the scene at the time and we believe that the bomb may have been tossed from a half-ton pickup truck seen in the vicinity just before it happened.”
Asmore nodded.
“Well, keep on it,” he said. “When we get who is behind it—and by God if it’s the last thing I ever do I want to get them—it is going to be murder one. Aside from those children who were killed and injured, whoever was responsible for that bombing is also indirectly responsible for everything which has happened since.”
2 LEAVING police headquarters, Carlton Asmore drove west on South Charter Street and was surprised to see the lights flooding the pavement as he approached Peach Street. In another moment he was passing Higgins Chevrolet and he realized that someone had turned on the headlights of a number of cars in the showroom. He slowed down as he noticed the large front window had been smashed. There was no sign of anyone either inside the showroom or outside of the building and he at once assumed someone had thrown a rock through the window from a passing car. A block further on he turned north on State Street. Approaching New Court House Square, he was slightly surprised to observe how completely deserted the principal business section of the city appeared to be.
The Columbia Savings and Loan Company was opposite the new courthouse at the intersection of State and Green, and it was in this building that the district attorney’s uncle, Cass Asmore, maintained a private office, a logical location certainly as Cass Asmore was not only the principal stockholder in the bank but the chairman of the board of directors as well.
Carlton instinctively slowed down as he approached the bank building, his eyes going to the windows on the second floor behind which his uncle had his office. The office itself was actually a suite of three rooms, two of which had been converted into a small but rather elaborate private apartment. It was not unusual for Cass Asmore to stay overnight in the apartment, especially if he had been spending a late evening at the Cosmos Club, which was only two blocks farther north on State.
The windows were dark and Asmore’s eyes went back to the street. He saw the car standing at the curb in front of the bank, a man leaning against
the fender. He switched on the spotlight and a moment later the figure was outlined in its glare. Asmore saw at once that the man was wearing a badge and he slowed down and pulled over.
The man pushed himself away from the car and came to the window as Asmore clicked on the dashboard lights. As he leaned in the opened window of the police cruiser, the badge came into view and Asmore saw that it was a city police detective shield. He looked up into the face leaning in and failed to recognize him.
“I'm Carlton Asmore, the district attorney,” he said. "I’m afraid I can’t place you. I thought I knew most of the men in the detective division.”
The man nodded, half-smiled.
“Gail," he said, “Thomas B. Gail. I’d be surprised if you did know me, Mr. Asmore. Just got into town this evening. I’m with Bankers’ Security Association. I’m here with a team of my men to check over the security systems of the local banks the first of the week. As I say, we just got into town this evening and when we saw the trouble you people are having, we stopped by to see your chief of police to see if we couldn't help out. He swore us in, or rather let me say he gave us badges and temporary status as detectives so that we could take over guard duty in this area and relieve a few of his men, who seem to be pretty badly needed elsewhere.”
“I see,” Asmore said. “It was good of you to offer us a hand. We can certainly use all the help we can get tonight. I suppose everything has been quiet around here?”
“No problems at all so far.”
“By the way, how long have you been on duty?”
“Oh, I'd say perhaps an hour, hour and a half.”
“I was just wondering if my uncle may have stopped by the bank here. Cass Asmore—he’s chairman of the board. Tall, slender, gray-haired man in his early seventies. Thought he may have stopped by. He keeps a small apartment in the bank, he sometimes uses it overnight.”
Mr. Gail shook his head.
“Not a soul around,” he said. “I’m pretty sure I would have seen him if he had come by. And I am certain no one has entered the bank, at least in the last hour or so.”
Asmore nodded.
“Well, it is good of you to give us a hand,” he said. “We don't really expect any trouble in this area, but I do feel better knowing someone is covering the banks.”
“One of my men is over in front of the First National and another one is covering City Trust,” Gail said. “I don’t think, myself, we have much to worry about. These riots are usually confined to the colored sectors, but of course, there is always the chance a car full of hoodlums might drive by and toss a few rocks or something of the sort. We'll be ready for them if they do.”
“Good. Well, again thanks.” Asmore clicked off the dashboard light, started to put the car into gear and hesitated.
“By the way, who did you say you were with?”
“National Security Association. You know, yearly checkup.”
3 IT WAS a wonder that old man Jackson heard the knocking on the front door of the Cosmos Club at all. It was hours past his normal bedtime and a man of seventy-four needs his rest. Not only that, but he had been on duty for a solid sixteen hours in a row, since eight o’clock on Saturday morning in fact, when he had arrived at the club to take up his normal duties as the head waiter in the dining room. Under the best of conditions he was more than half deaf, and certainly these were anything but the best of conditions.
It wasn't only that he was tired out, just about dead on his feet with exhaustion, all but ready to collapse physically. There was that business about Carol Lou, his granddaughter, the mother of little five-year-old Georgina, his great-granddaughter and the apple of the old man’s eye. Little Georgina, whose body was now over in the city morgue, where it had been taken after the explosion which had destroyed the Abyssinian Baptist Church.
He still couldn’t believe it, couldn’t really understand what had happened. The whole thing seemed like some crazy nightmare. Carol Lou was really not actually his granddaughter but had married young Billy, his favorite grandson. After Billy had disappeared some years back, he’d become a little confused and began to
believe that it was she rather than Billy whose grandfather he was.
Carol Lou had come over to the Cosmos Club, where he’d worked for more than half a century, and screamed at him and cried and carried on, saying that he was working for the white people who had murdered little Georgina. Of course, that was ridiculous and he knew that the grief must have gone from her heart to her brain and made her temporarily mad. She’d tried to get him to leave his job then and there, and when he’d explained to her that most of the other help had left and he had to stay on and take care of "his people”—he always referred to the members of the Cosmos Club as “his people”—she’d screamed curses at him and spit in his face.
Someone had taken her away then and they had explained to him that little Georgina had actually been killed in some sort of accident and that his granddaughter hadn’t known what she was saying, being sick with the grief and everything.
For a moment, after she’d been taken off, he’d been tempted to leave and go out to find her, do something to help her. But the habits of a half a century held him back and he stayed on at the club. He knew that there was a lot of trouble, the electricity not working and most of the other help, the waiters and cooks, all having left. “His people” needed him and his duty came before everything else.
So the old man had stayed on, doing what he could. It was after midnight now and, although there were still a couple of dozen of his people staying on in the barroom, they were managing to make their own drinks and take care of themselves and he’d gone into the lobby of the club off the hallway and slumped into one of the great upholstered leather chairs and closed his eyes, trying to get his confused thoughts organized. He had been just about to doze off when the knocking started on the outside door.
For a confused moment or two, he wondered why they didn’t ring the night bell and then he remembered that the electricity wasn’t working. He pulled himself to his feet and went to the door and pulled back the bolt which latched it shut from the inside. The man standing outside had a flashlight in his hand and he held it up, illuminating his face so that old Jackson could identify him.
“Why, Mr. Asmore,” Jackson said.
Carlton Asmore stepped inside and closed the door.
“Still here, Jackson?” Asmore said. “You should have been home hours ago.”
The old man shook his head.
“That’s right, Mr. Asmore. I sure enough should have. Was ready to leave, right after dinner, like I always does, but then everything began to happen and all those others left and somebody had to stay on. Had to take care of my people.”
Asmore looked down the lobby and saw the light flooding out from the barroom.
“You seem to be taking pretty good care of them,” he said. “At least you seem to have managed to get plenty of lights.”
“Mr. Matthews,” Jackson said. “He went over to his store and he brung back some Coleman gasoline lamps. Jus’ as well he did, Mr. Asmore. Never did see so many of my people stayin’ on this late before, less there was some kind of party. But that barroom, that barroom is still crowded. I be in there fakin' care of them, but they tol’ me to come out here and sit a spell and rest up. Gettin’ pretty fagged out and ...’’
“Well, you just go on back and sit down, Jackson,” Asmore said. “By the way, do you know if my uncle is inside?”
“Mr. Cass? No, no, he not in there."
“Wasn’t he here earlier?"
“Oh yes, he was here. He’s still here. But he not inside. Not in the barroom. He was pretty tired out himself so I took Mr. Cass and put him in on a couch in the library room and I found a blanket and covered him up and he’s getting him some rest.”
“You’d better do the same, Jackson," Asmore said. “Go find yourself a place to lie down for awhile.”
Jackson nodded his head up and down slowly and went back to the chair he
’d been dozing in earlier as Carlton Asmore started toward the library.
The moment the beam from the flashlight fell across his face, Cass Asmore opened one cold, bleak eye, rolling it up and trying to make out the face of the man holding the flash.
“Get that damned thing out of my face,” he said.
Carlton quickly dropped the beam and pulled a chair up next to the couch.
I “It's me, Carlton, Uncle,” he said.
“Well, go away and let an old man get some rest,” Cass Asmore said.
“Uncle,” Carlton said, “I’m looking for Caroline. I was told that she was with you earlier and that...”
“She was, but she isn’t with me now. Why don’t you go away and let me get some sleep?”
“I understand that there was some sort of accident. Somebody threw a rock through your windshield. Were either of you hurt?”
Cass Asmore groaned and tossed the blanket aside and sat up, putting his feet on the floor. He ran a lean, long-fingered hand through his hair and yawned.
“Haven’t you anything better to do than go around depriving your elders of their sleep?” he asked petulantly. “Yes, she was with me. In fact, she drove me in from the country club after my chauffeur deserted me. The damned black rascal. And somebody did heave a rock at the car and broke the windshield. Your Miss Vargle got a small splinter of glass in her forehead. Nothing serious at all. Brought her here and a band-aid took care of it.”
“Well, where is Caroline now?” Carlton said. “I certainly hope you didn’t let her go out on the streets alone...”
“Let her? What do you mean, let her?” The old man’s voice was indignant. “I would just like to see you try and stop her. Do you know what that young lady of yours pulled on me? Sent me out to the bar to fumble around and find her a drink, and then, while I was breaking my neck in the dark, she writes me a note and disappears. I don’t know what’s got into young people these days.”
