by Lionel White
“Disappeared?” Carlton said. “What do you mean? Where did she go? Did she say ...”
“Said to tell you if I ran across you that she was going over to that Youth Center thing she’s running in colored town. Don’t think it’s any sort of proper place for a young lady to be at any time, least of all...”
“Do you mean she went over there alone? In the colored section tonight?”
“That's what she said in her note she was going to do. I’d advised her earlier to stay away from the colored district, but none of you young people listen anymore..
“Of all the stupid damned things,” Carlton said. He quickly reached for the flashlight, which he’d laid on the end table next to the couch. “Of all the insane, stupid ...’’
"Now, Carlton,” Cass Asmore said, “don’t start off half-cocked ..
“I’ve got to find her,” Carlton said. “Tonight, down at that Youth Center! Jesus ..
"You better get the police if you plan to go anywhere around that neighborhood tonight, Carlton,” his uncle said. “I don’t want you going down there alone. Get hold of...”
“I’ll find someone along the way,” Carlton said quickly. “Whatever police there are around are already down in that section. But I want to get started. Good God, how long has it been since . . .”
“I’d say at least a couple of hours,” Cass Asmore said. “But you be careful. This is no night to wandering around alone over in ..
“I’ll find someone along the way. You look pretty uncomfortable on that couch. Why don’t you let me drop you off at the bank? You can go up to that apartment of yours in back of your office and ..
“Wouldn’t care to spend the night there alone in the dark,” Cass Asmore said. “No, I think ...’’
“We can dig you up a flashlight,” Carlton said. “And I don’t think you’d have anything to worry about. The property is being patrolled. Those fellows from the National Security Association got into town tonight and offered to help out and Del Patridge has them patrolling in front of the banks.”
“Thanks, but I still think I’ll be more comfortable here," Cass Asmore said. He looked up suddenly as his nephew started to turn away.
“Fellows from where?” he asked.
“National Security Association,” Carlton said. “At least that’s what I think the man said.”
Cass Asmore again ran his fingers through his hair as his nephew hurried from the room.
“National Security Association,” he said, under his breath. “Humph—never heard of it. That boy never could get a name right.”
He reached for the cigarette lighter he’d left on the table at the side of the couch, planning to light it and read the face of the gold wristwatch he’d taken off and placed next to the lighter, when the second tremendous explosion within less than eight hours rocked the Cosmos Club. This time the entire building shook on its foundation, glass was broken in a dozen or more windows by the pressure of the concussion, the main, cut-crystal chandelier in the dining room tore loose and shattered into thousands of fragments on the inlaid marble floor.
The shock was so great that for a second or so after it was over, Cass Asmore was positive that the building itself had been blown up. The very couch beneath him seemed to writhe, and his gold wristwatch slid off the end table and fell face down on the hardwood floor, breaking the crystal and bending the fragile hands so that they were frozen at exactly twelve-forty-six.
4 IN THAT first moment, when he’d moved out of the shadows into the reflected light of the single candle, she’d seen the badge and the helmet and she’d assumed he was a motorcycle policeman. But then, as his face came into the light, the heavy-jowled, good-natured, laughing, round ebony face which made a perfect framework for his twin row of sparkling white teeth, she recognized him, even before he spoke, saying, “Why, Miss Vargle, what you all doing here?"
It was Buddy, Shirley’s boyfriend.
If it hadn’t been that she was so completely relieved after that one unreasoning moment of fear when the three of them had entered the room, she might have wondered why he was wearing the badge and the motorcycle policeman’s getup. But before she could catch her breath, let alone collect her thoughts, the voice came out of the darkness, came from one of the two that had come in with Buddy.
“Well, break my balls! If this cat Buddy ain’t somethin’. Got himself two broads siftin’ here waitin’ fo’ him. Not one, Parky, two. дп' he tol’ us simple minded boys that he’s just stoppin’ off to pick up a little ol' bottle a booze.”
“Man, yo’re sure right. You can say it again. This Buddy is real tricky, Joe. You don’t think he was plannin’ on jus’ keepin’ these little ol’ girls all to himself do you, Joe? That’ be mighty selfish of Buddy. Yes sah, mighty selfish.”
He took a couple of steps forward and suddenly stopped and whistled.
“Well, well, well," he said. “What you know ’bout this, Joe? Buddy not only got a black girl waitin’ heah for him, but less my eyes deceive me, he got himself a ofay as well. Now, I call that right thoughtful of Buddy.”
Shirley Candle pushed her chair away from the table and stood. She tried to keep her voice calm and steady when she spoke.
“I think you should make introductions, Buddy,” she said, and then kept on talking, not waiting for Buddy to speak up. She turned to face the two men who had approached the table.
“I am Shirley Candle,” she said, "and this is Miss Vargle. Miss Vargle is in charge here at the Youth Center.”
“That booze I got is in my locker and I’ll get it and we can be on our. ..” Buddy began, but the one called Parky pushed past him and sprawled over the chair Shirley had vacated. He interrupted, saying, “Sure, Buddy, you jus’ get that booze. That’s a mighty fine idea. Then we can all sit down and have a nice friendly liT drink together. How’s that sound to you, miss?”
He looked over at Caroline, smiling. “I’m sure you runnin’ this place an’ all, you mus’ really like us black folks and would like to have a little drink with Joe an’ me.”
His arm suddenly shot out and circled Shirley’s waist and he pulled her down on his lap.
“An’ you too, kitten,” he said. “You, too. Buddy, you jus’ hurry up an’ get that booze. I’ll take good care of this Shirley girl of yours while you make yo’self busy pourin’.”
As Shirley silently struggled to get away from him, his right arm tightened like a vise around her slender waist as he pulled her close against his chest. His left hand moved, forcing itself between her legs under her dress and brutally closed over the soft flesh of her vagina.
"After all,” he said, “a man’d have to be a real pig to take the dessert before he took a taste of the main course. Am I right, Joe?”
Caroline pushed back her chair and stood up. She tried to keep her voice steady when she spoke. She was frightened, but she was more angry than frightened. Instinct told her that unless she got on top of the situation, in control of it at once, it would be too late.
“I think you gentlemen had better leave,” she said. “If Buddy has some liquor, just take it and leave. This center is for the children ...”
“Why, miss,” Parky said, “this place is for black people, isn’t it? Tha's what I heard around. This is for black people.”
“This center,” Caroline began, but Parky suddenly stood up, dropping Shirley to the floor. His voice was ugly when he spoke, no longer half sarcastic, half good-natured.
“This place is for black people,” he said, “and we’re black. You ain’t, sister. So just shut that big mouth a yours ’fore I shut it for you.”
Caroline could feel the blood leaving her face and she instinctively took a step backward. The anger of a moment ago was now totally replaced with fear.
“I am not disputing your right to the center,” she said. “I think —I think I had better leave. Shirley, if you would like to come with me...”
Parky’s anger left as swiftly as it had come. He smiled widely and again
his arm went out and he lifted Shirley from the floor with one hand as though she were a rag doll.
“Long as we got that straightened out,” he said, “we might jus’ well sit back an’ hav’ ol’ Buddy bring that booze on. We can all have a nice friendly liT drink.” He turned again toward Caroline and smiled broadly. "I’m sure, miss, that bein’ as you is so friendly and all with colored folk, you wouldn’t mind havin’ a little drink with Joe an’ me.”
She knew that they were not going to let her out of the place, knew that there was no chance she could make an escape. The only thing she could do was stall for time and hope that someone would come in. The main thing was not to antagonize them. They were probably half drunk already. Perhaps if they had a few more drinks, if they became stupid with alcohol . .
Buddy came back to the table carrying a quart bottle of liquor in one hand and a stack of paper cups in the other. He put the bottle down on the table along with the cups. He said, “Say, Joe, can I see you for a minute? Somethin’ I wanna ask you.”
Joe followed him to the back of the room and, when they were out of earshot, Buddy leaned close to the other man and spoke into his ear.
“I think we should get outta here,” he said. “That Miss Vargle, she got all kinds a friends. Big influential people. They probably knew she here tonight and they could be cornin’ ’round anytime. Her boy friend’s a district attorney. Mr. Asmore.”
“You tryin’ shit me, baby?” Joe said. “What you tryin’ do, git rid a Parky an’ me? You know they ain’t goin’ be any po-licemen come inta this part a town tonight.”
“Look, Joe," Buddy said, “I’m tellin’ you. Fool around with her and it could mean real trouble. You know what Parky's got in the back of his mind. I don’t care about ol' Shirley. She’s my girl, but I ain’t no hog. You both have her and she got plenty to take care of you both. But I tell you, Miss Vargle . .
“You know you trouble, Buddy?” Joe said. “You trouble is you just plain chicken. Plain common chicken shit.” He turned and stalked back to where the others were in the front of the room.
“You know what Buddy’s trouble is, Parky?” Joe said. “Buddy’s chicken.”
“I found that out already,” Parky said. “When we took his gun away from him. When we took his money off a him. So now we goin’ take his women away from him. An’ he can stay right here an’ watch it while we do it. Right, Buddy Boy? You goin’ stay right here an’ watch.”
He stood up again, once more dumping Shirley unceremoniously to the floor.
"Go lock that front door, Joe,” he said. “We don’t need nobody else bargin’ in tonight.”
His hand shot out as fast as a snake and closed on Caroline’s wrist.
“You,” he said. “You, ofay! You must like black men or you wouldn’t be down here hangin’ around ’em. You probably heard black men are good, really good. Well, tonight, you white bitch, you’re goin’ find out. ’Cause I’m goin’ give you everythin’ 1 got, an’ in every place you got. Unnerstan’? An’ when I get through, then Joe can try you on and ifen by then they anything left to get into, well, we’ll toss it to ol’ Buddy boy here, who’s stupid an’ chicken, but still probably better’n any white man you got.”
He jackknifed his arm, pulling her first up close to his body and then pushing her roughly away. She fell to one knee as she fought to recover her balance.
“Now, open up that jug a whiskey and pour me and Joe a drink. Pour it real nice and full and then you serve it to us real polite. I likes to have my women wait on me a bit before I get down to the serious business a the evenin’.”
Joe called over from the doorway: “Why don’t you ask the lady to take off a few of her clothes, Parky? It’s a little hot here tonight an’ anyway they tell me that all the white waitresses go topless now.”
“To the waist,” Parky said. “Take ’em right off, bare ass down to the waist. You, too,” he added, turning to Shirley, “you, too. Let’s see whose got the best knockers. I’m bettin’ on black.”
nine
1 MR. Carpender had at least two hours to kill before he would be packing the two-suiter and calling the cab to take him out to the airport where he would pick up the flight which would drop him off in Atlanta, Georgia, shortly after dawn on Sunday morning. Another plane would also be arriving in Atlanta, but not running on any definite schedule, as there was no telling exactly what time it would come in. He would check into a hotel in town, confident that sooner or later the pilot of that plane would show up.
Mr. Carpender had complete faith that he would not be kept waiting an unreasonable amount of time. Of all the people involved in the plan, the one single person that Mr. Carpender was absolutely sure of was Patsy. Patsy never failed to deliver.
Having time to kill, Mr. Carpender got out his ledger and began to check over his figures. He knew, without looking at the ledger, almost to the penny exactly how much he had invested up to this Point. He could make an educated guess concerning the returns,
but there was no telling the exact amount until Patsy met him in I that hotel room in Atlanta and they opened the suitcases.
The one thing, of course, which he could not estimate, which no one could have estimated, was the cost in human lives and in human misery. But that, in a sense, was a trivial matter and without real significance. After all, had he bothered to think about it, Mr. Carpender would undoubtedly have shrugged it off with the thought that in no war were the prime movers able to estimate the cost in human lives and human misery. And after all, this thing, in its own small way, was exactly like a war. The motive behind it was profit, exactly as it was in any war. Take the Civil War. The South wanted to keep its free labor, the North wanted to eliminate competition from a part of the country which didn’t have to pay for labor to produce goods. All wars were motivated by profit. Even the great religious wars of the past. Remove the possibility of looting and there would have been no Crusades.
These were facts that Mr. Carpender understood without really having ever had to think or know much about history. One simply didn’t count those hidden costs, the costs paid by the innocent bystanders. It was just another fact of life.
It was this philosophic point of view which made it possible for Mr. Carpender to review his ledger and completely ignore what might have been happening to real people down in Oakdale. Of course, a few women and children and men would be killed and maimed. But weren’t women and children and men being killed and maimed all over the world all of the time? In Vietnam, in the Near East, in the riots in other cities across the nation? In fact, it was only after those riots had started sweeping the country several years back that Mr. Carpender had conceived his grand plan.
It had started when the thought occurred to him that it seemed a damned shame to have all that bloodshed, all that fighting, and no one really getting anything out of it.
The plan had been his own brainchild, from beginning to end. Of course, the money in back of it, and the personnel who made up what might be referred to as his own very small, hard-core army, were not his alone. Nor would the profit be entirely his alone. A certain percentage would have to revert to “the family.”
But even after paying off the “soldiers,” taking out the expenses and splitting the net profits with the financial backers, Mr. Car-pender knew that he would realize a very handsome profit. Very handsome, indeed.
There would be a few additional expenses to take care of after it was all over, naturally. A few of the soldiers, those who had been recruited outside of the very exclusive ranks of the family itself, would have to be hit. It was simply too dangerous to have them running around loose. It wasn’t that he worried about the local police, or even the state police. But with the banks being involved, that meant the federal government, the FBI. Mr. Carpender had a great deal of respect for the FBI, respect for their ability to reenact a crime once that crime had taken place, respect for their ability to find and pick up participants in the crime.
The one thing which
Mr. Carpender wanted to make sure of was that no one who participated in the activities in Oakdale that evening was ever given the opportunity to testify and perhaps turn state’s evidence.
The only two men involved whom he didn't worry about were Patsy August and the one who had checked into the Peabody Hotel under the unimaginative name of “Mr. Jackson.” In the case of Patsy and Mr. Jackson, it wouldn’t matter. Even if they were to be picked up later on, a very remote possibility at best, they were safe.
The others were expendable. Like those innocent bystanders who may have been maimed or killed during the night of rioting.
2 WH EN Patsy August drove away from the airport in the rented car, heading in the direction of the city, he took his time, exercising extreme caution. He was working on a tight schedule, but he was taking no chances. He was very conscious of the two suitcases in the back of the sedan, knew exactly what they contained. It wasn’t just the nitroglycerin, enough to blow up a city block; he simply couldn’t afford an accident. Caution was second nature with him—caution, careful planning, attention to the smallest detail. They were his stock in trade. They were the factors which had made his success possible. And success, in this case as well as in
so many other cases in the past, was the difference between life I and death.
Patsy was fully alert to the fact that, should there be some small accident, should he smash up the car or even hit a bump in the road and swerve into a ditch and cause that nitro prematurely to explode, there was a chance of perhaps one in a hundred he might survive. But he knew that there wouldn’t be one chance in a million that he would be alive a week later to boast about his luck.
Accidents, like failure, were not a calculated risk in Mr. Car-pender’s planning. And Mr. Carpender was not a man to allow anything to interfere with the orderly progress of his plans, once those plans had been put into operation.
As he drove toward the city, Patsy was thoroughly knowledgeable of exactly what had been taking place in Oakdale, although he had been a witness to none of the incidents which had occurred. He also knew every mile of the road, every turn and twist of the streets and avenues he would be passing over, although he had never been within several hundred miles of this particular area before in his life. He knew because he had paid strict attention to his homework.
