"Tell me about it. I was wondering if you local guys could give me a hand on something."
"Depends. What's the pitch?"
In the police, just like in the army, if you ever really need to know something, ask a sergeant.
"I'm in town trying to locate somebody, a man by the name of Calvin Reece. He was involved in some of the mob action back around '47 and before. All I have on the guy is a ten-year-old East Saint Louis address. I checked it out and there's nothing there now. I was wondering if there might still be any word on the street about this guy?"
"Calvin Reece ..." The three Saint Louie blue suits swapped glances. "Reece ..."
Kinney suddenly bobbed his head. "Yeah, sure! Desperate Jesus, but I haven't heard that name in a while. I remember him. A shine. A real badass back during the war."
"Is he still around?" I asked. "Do you know where I can get ahold of him?"
The sergeant's expression turned cautious. "That depends, LA. Have you been downtown about this yet?"
"No, I haven't. I'm not holding papers on anyone, and I'm sure as hell not planning on making any arrests." I crossed my arms and slouched in the booth, looking disgusted. "In fact, I'm supposed to be on my goddamn vacation just now."
Remember, keep it as close to the truth as you can manage. . . .
"Here's the deal. Out in Los Angeles, we've been having trouble with some of the mobs moving into our territory. That includes some of the old Chicago boys. We're putting together files on some of them, including a couple of guys that this Reece may have known.
"Anyhow, I made the mistake of mentioning in front of my captain that I was passing through Saint Louis on the way to visit my brother. And he gets this bug up his ass about saving the county some money by just casually having me drop in on this Reece to ask some questions."
I leaned forward again and lowered my voice. "Gimme a break, Sarge. This is a chickenshit detail, and I'm on my own time here. If I go through channels downtown, the friggin' suits'll have me filling out friggin' paperwork for the rest of the week."
The friggin' suits downtown and their friggin' paperwork are something that street cops everywhere agree on. I had a sympathetic audience.
Kinney shrugged. "What the hell. Yeah, as far as I know, Reece is still in town. But I don't know how much you're going to get out of him. Like I said, he was a real badass. He ran stolen liquor and he stole most of what he ran. After the war, though, 'bout '48, he knocked off a bank and did some hard time. That must have knocked some of the sass out of him, because I haven't heard much about him since. Last word I had was that he was running a place off Tenth Street. That would be over on your beat, wouldn't it, Thomson?"
The older of the cruiser crew nodded. "Yep. I know who you mean now, and I know the place. A little hole-in-the-wall barbecue joint, the Three Star Grill. We've never had any trouble out of him."
"Yeah," the younger squad man added. "Good food and never even a drunk and disorderly. He seems to be a pretty good guy for a colored."
"Thing is," Thomson continued, "I don't think the pen softened Reece up all that much. You'd better watch yourself if you plan on talking to him, Pulaski. He still doesn't take shit off anybody.
We found the Three Star Grill on a backwater business street, wedged in between a pawnshop and a hardware store. This neighborhood was in better shape than the residential district where we'd found the rooming house, but it had a long way to go before it could be called uptown.
"How did you find out about this place?" Lisette inquired, glancing at me curiously.
"I know a guy who owns a good Ouija board. Relax, Princess, it's all just part of the deluxe service."
I parked the '57 in front of the place, where I'd be able to keep an eye on her. Three tough-looking Negro teenagers lounged on a set of steps a couple of doors down. Their attention focused on Lisette and me as we got out of the car.
I caught the eye of the trio's leader, and for a long moment we swapped stares. Over on the hard side, it's real important to establish your position in the pecking order. I sent the kid a message. No, man. Not us and not today.
The gang leader's gaze moved on. We understood each other.
An old-time embossed tin ceiling set low over the half-dozen dark wood booths that ran down one side of the little restaurant. A couple of colored workmen who'd been talking quietly in one of the booths got a lot quieter as Lisette and I entered. A row of stools faced a counter on the other side, a single open doorway leading into the kitchen behind it.
All of the room's furniture and fixtures were old and battered by a lot of hard use, but there was also a well-scrubbed cleanliness and sense of order to the place. It had the feel of an army mess hall maintained by a tough, no-nonsense company cook. An incredible spicy aroma flowed out of the kitchen door, a tantalizing scent that made the saliva gush and provided a pointed reminder that one cup of coffee three hours ago didn't make for much of a breakfast. As a smoke hound from way back, I realized that I was in the presence of genius.
That presence stood behind the counter just now, coldly eyeing us. By what I'd been told about him, this had to be Calvin Reece, and yeah, he looked like he didn't accept a whole lot of shit off of anybody. He was a human fireplug. Not tall, but burly and solid. So much so that he looked like dynamite would be needed to take him off his feet. He wore jeans and a checked shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a sauce-stained white cloth tucked under his belt serving as an apron. Balding, he had a fudge of a beard on his chin and a mean-looking mass of scar tissue overr his left eye.
"What do you want?" He didn't have to actually say the "the hell" to add it in as part of the sentence.
I made a show of thinking about it for a couple of seconds, then said, "Well, it's like this. This lady and I were in the mood for some really good barbecue. And I don't know about you, but I've never known a white man that could throw a decent rack of ribs."
I'd found the key to the lock. Reece chuckled shortly, a sound like a couple of cinder blocks mating. "That's because such a thing ain't never been borned, boy," he said. "Sit down; I'll set you up."
Behind us, the other customers went back to their conversation.
The Three Star was the kind of place where you didn't look at a menu; you just ate what the cook damn well felt like fixing that day. Not that I was complaining. The baby back ribs had a sauce that would make your mouth burn for an hour after you finished eating and leave you enjoying every second of the experience. The baked beans were baked and not just boiled and camouflaged under a little brown sugar, and the steaming golden corn bread had had extensive congress with butter and honey well. before we ever became involved with it. A couple of bottles of Miller Highlife, chilled to about two degrees short of freezing, washed things down. Lisette got a glass with hers.
"How'd that sit?" Reece inquired, emerging from the kitchen. The other two customers had left, leaving Lisette and me alone with him in what I'd bet was a lull before a major lunchtime :rush.
"I'd call that barbecue," I replied sagely, swirling the last half-inch of my beer around in the bottom of the bottle. "Now, Mr. Reece. can we talk with you for a second?"
He got suspicious again real fast. "You some kind of cop?" he demanded.
I wonder sometimes if they can smell us the way some cons claim. I shook my head. "No, I'm just the hired help. The lady here is the one with the questions."
Lisette was ready to pick up on my opening. She had her purse open, and she took a photograph from it, a picture of a dark-haired smiling man in an out-of-date suit. "Mr. Reece, do you know this person?" she asked, passing the photo across the bar.
Reece did. You could read it in his face. But he was a long way from letting down his guard. "Maybe. How come you want to know?"
"This man's my father."
Reece almost dropped the picture. "Sweet Jesus," he almost whispered. "You're Johnny 32's little girl?" Lisette nodded.
"I will be forever damned," Reece went on mus
ingly. "I can see the look of him in you. Johnny was a handsome sumbitch for a white man."
"So you did know my father!"
"Yeah, darlin'." Reece nodded. "I knew your daddy. And I expect you know about him, too, else you wouldn't be here." Lisette nodded her own reply. "I know what he was, and I know that you were his friend in those days."
"We did work together some." Reece smiled reminiscently, a quick flash of white teeth against dark skin. "Back during the war, your daddy was runnin' some big old clubs up in Chi Town, and decent drinking liquor was hard to come by. Me and some of the boys down here had ways of. . . acquirin' decent drinking liquor. We did good business."
The restaurant owner leaned back against the rear counter, lost for a moment in thoughts of his own past. "I'll tell you something, gal. Your daddy may have been way the hell outside the law, but he was still a good man. He always offered a fair price for a load, and he never tried to skim nothin' on the payoff. If the feds or the troopers nailed one of the boys, he was always right there to throw their bail and to pay the juice to the judge. And when another gang took to trying to highjack our trucks, he'd ride along to give us another gun. There was some other stuff, too."
"Please, what?" Lisette asked with quiet urgency. She was hearing words about a man who had been lost to her for a long time, and she didn't want them to end.
"Oh, like his looking you right in the eye when he talked to you. Like his not hesitating when he reached out to shake your hand. Things like his always callin' me Mr. Reece whenever other folks were around. Things that don't really amount to too much, I guess."
"Yes, they do."
As for me, I kept my trap shut throughout the entire exchange. A spark had jumped between these two people, and for a whole lot of reasons I didn't want to interrupt anything.
"Mr. Reece, when my father made his last trip west back in 1947, did he come to see you?"
The colored man hesitated. "You mean the run where he got killed?"
"Yes."
Reece nodded. "Yeah, I saw him. He looked me up that evening he passed through Saint Louis."
Reese's brows came together shrewdly. "You goin' after it, aren't you? You goin' after that money?"
"You know about it?" I blurted out, silently swearing at myself a split second after it was too late.
Reece shrugged. "Hell, boy, a whole lot of people know about the money Johnny 32 scored off his partners. Just nobody knows where it's at. Unless you do, girl?"
"I might, Mr. Reece," Lisette replied.
Reece studied her for a long moment before speaking again. "Well, I guess that's the way it should be. That money was supposed to be for you and your momma anyhow."
"It was?"
"That's what Johnny said. On some of them runs up to Chicago, him and me, we talked. In the cab of a truck at night, you sort of forget what color your skin is and you can just talk like people. Me and Johnny, we talked about what kind of lives we were livin' and about what was wrong with them. He showed me a picture of your momma and you lots of times. And I showed him a picture of this gal who seemed set on making me an honest man.
"We both talked some about getting' out of the gangs and going straight, but we both agreed that you'd need one last big score to do it right. I guess Johnny was trying for that big score on that last run west of his."
"Did you get out, Mr. Reece?" Lisette asked.
"Yeah, I did. Sort of the hard way, though. I knocked over a bank and got sent up the river for it." He reached up and rubbed the ridge of scar tissue over his eye. "I did five real hard years for that. But they never found my money, neither. And when I got out, I found I had me a whole lot better woman than even I knew. She'd took the roll and bought this here place for us. Ever since then, she been keepin' me too busy runnin' it for me to get into trouble anymore." He gave that cinder block chuckle again.
"What did my father want that last time you saw him?"
Reece went grim again. "He asked me for a name, darlin'. The name of a man he might call on farther down the line on 66. Johnny knew I'd done some business out toward Texas and Oklahoma, and he was needin' a contact out that way."
"What kind of a man?" I asked.
"A real good one, or a real bad one, dependin' on how you look at it. I don't know what he needed him for. Johnny wasn't sayin,' an' I wasn't askin'."
"Did you have a name for him?" Lisette prompted.
Reece hesitated, "Yeah, but I don't know if I should be givin' it to you. I may have been no damn good, but this man was bad, if you get my meanin'."
Lisette leaned forward on the counter. "I need that name, Mr. Reece," she begged. "It's more important to me than you can know just now."
Reece hesitated a second more. "Claster," he said finally.
"Jubal Claster. He was one of a whole pack of white trash Clasters who used to hang around Galena and Baxter Springs back in the moonshinin' days. All I had on him was an old telephone number where he could be reached, and I can't remember that no more. Don't even know if he's still around there or if he's even still alive or not. Although if he wasn't, this world would likely be a better place."
I watched as Lisette's eyes widened slightly. The name meant something to her.
"Thank you, Mr. Reece," she said. "This has really been a big help to me. But if we're talking about bad men, I think you should know that Mace Spanno is involved in this, too."
"Spanno?" Reece scowled. "You mean no sensible soul's laid that piece of shit out dead in an alley yet?"
"Not yet," the girl replied softly. She straightened on the counter stool. "He may come around asking questions. I thought you should be warned."
Reece just smiled a smile that would scare little children and make grown men thoughtful. "Don't worry none about me. Spanno come around asking questions a little while after your daddy was killed. He didn't like the answers he got then, an' he won't like the answers he'll get now."
He glanced over in my direction. "That a fast car?" he asked, curtly nodding toward the '57 parked outside the front window.
"It'll do till one comes along."
"That's good, boy. Because you are gonna plant this little gal in it and you are going to drive that sumbitch! Havin' Mace Spanno chase you is bad. Havin' him catch you is a whole lot worse."
I was willing to take those words to heart. I paused before getting back into the '57, scanning the street for any out-of -place pale faces or a lurking midnight black Chrysler. Inside the car, Lisette was already digging the guidebook out of her purse.
"That make any sense to you?" I asked, dropping onto the sun-heated front seat beside her.
"Yes. It explains another entry my father made."
In the Kansas section of the little book, opposite the underlined town name of Baxter Springs, the name "Claster" had been entered and underlined, along with an old-time three-digit rural phone number.
"This is the next man we have to find, Kevin. He's the next link in the chain."
"You sure that's such a good idea?" I asked. "From the sound of this Claster character, even if we do find him, we might just be finding ourselves more trouble."
She turned quickly in the seat to face me. "I'm sure. Just like with Mr. Reece in there, I have to talk to this man. There are things I need to find out, beyond just the money. I can't explain now, but maybe as we go along ..." Her voice trailed off.
"Okay, Princess. Say no more." I switched on the ignition. "Next stop Kansas and all points west."
"Uh, Kevin, maybe one or two other stops before then?"
"Such as?"
"Someplace where I can buy a pair of flats. Being in heels all the time is killing me. And I need some fresh clothes and some other things for the road."
"Okay. We'll get on the other side of the river and hunt up a department store."
"That will be great. But I really did mean it last night when I said that I only had two dollars to my name. Could you . . . ?"
How come a girl never looks happier tha
n when she's spending your money on herself?
Kansas
97 mi. (117 mi.) Baxter Springs. (Pop. 4,921; alt. 842'; Merry Bales hotel; garages: Pruitt Motor Co. and Tally's; cabin camps include: Baxter, Sunbeam and 66 Camp; small business district with cafes, stores, etc.) A green and quiet town with an ancient, bloody history . . .
We blew out of Saint Louis, cutting diagonally southwest across the state of Missouri. Eureka, Allentown, Grey Summit . . . barns in the September heat, red except for the Meramec cavern advertisements painted on their slab sides.
We lost the four-lane about thirty-five miles out. From there on, it would be the old eighteen-foot-wide two-lane pretty much all the way out to the coast. Along this stretch, it even had those damned concrete lips along the edge of the pavement that were such a big deal a few years ago. Some congenital idiot in the highway department came up with the theory that if they just put curbs along the sides of the highway, a car drifting off the road would bump against them and be bankshot safely back into its lane like a pool ball. In reality, however, the curbs only served to trap the heavy Missouri spring rains, turning the highways into rivers. And if a car accidentally did clip one at speed, it generally flipped ass-over-teakettle into the middle of next week. This was one of the reasons this piece of the old road had acquired the nickname Bloody 66.
Saint Clair, Stanton, Cuba . . . we were traveling across the Ozark highlands now, the road curving sinuously through its series of steep-sided ridges and valleys. Except for the occasional vineyard or patch of pasture, the hills were thickly sheathed in brush thickets and hardwood. Occasional pale slashes of limestone could be seen along cliffsides and road cuts, the bony skeleton of the land tearing up through its deep green skin like a compound fracture of the planet.
It was a stealthy and mysterious country, small towns and small houses huddled back into the trees and close to the earth, asking no aid and. wanting no intrusion.
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