Hanging Curve

by Troy Soos

  “They certainly were.” He put his glasses back on. “Even before the riot took place. There was no end of rumors about ‘gun-toting darkies,’ and newspapers were reporting that pawnshops were doing a brisk business selling guns to Negroes—they’d display them in the windows because we’re attracted to shiny things, you know. The police department eventually issued a general order to disarm all Negroes. Patrolmen would stop and frisk colored people who were walking down the street, and pull over and search their cars for no reason. All weapons were confiscated from Negroes, while the whites armed themselves to the teeth against an imaginary colored army. Our people saw it as an attempt to leave us defenseless, and there were some colored people running guns from St. Louis over the bridge—transported by light-skinned Negroes who could pass for white.”

  “But it wasn’t the numbers guys doing it?”

  “Not my client. I’ve told you before, the numbers men are more like bankers than criminals. They generally avoid violence. By the way, Mr. Parker provided the money for rebuilding Cubs Park.”

  I didn’t believe they were quite as innocent as Aubury claimed, but perhaps he wanted to believe that his benefactor had no “bad” criminal involvement. “I was kind of worried,” I said. “The thought crossed my mind that if you were involved with Parker, maybe you were passing on information that I gave you on the Elcars, and maybe Parker was using his thugs to get revenge on them.”

  Aubury rolled his eyes.

  I said, “You did seem to know pretty quickly when things happened, or were about to happen.”

  “I do hear things—I make an effort to remain informed. And I do have some contacts with those in the community who do not have the patience for justice to be achieved through legal means. But I have been using whatever small influence I might possess to urge restraint, not revenge.”

  “What about Enoch’s place being burned the other night—have you heard who was responsible for that?”

  Aubury answered sadly, “No. If Negroes were involved, I doubt that they intended that anyone should die. So they are unlikely to say anything at all.”

  There remained three possibilities, then, I thought. The only impossibility was that the fires had been accidental. Flames don’t accidentally break out in two separate buildings at the same time.

  Aubury rubbed his eyes again.

  “You look like hell,” I said. “Want to get some lunch? My treat.”

  He laughed wryly. “My wife has been telling me the same thing. Thank you for the lunch offer, but what I need is sleep, not food.”

  I knew what he meant; I hadn’t been sleeping much lately, either.

  Only four days after Tater Greene’s death, Roy Enoch had a display ad in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. It made no mention of Greene’s death, only that the “huge inventory of fine automobiles” hadn’t been harmed, and the lot was open for business. He also made a statement of defiance to the Negro community by including his slogan “Komplete Kar Kare” at the bottom of the advertisement.

  I telephoned the number listed in the notice.

  A cheerful female voice squeaked, “Enoch Motor Car Company.”

  “This is Detective Brown,” I said. “East St. Louis Police Department. I’m calling about the fire Tuesday night.”

  “Oh, I’ll get Mr. Enoch. He’s out on the lot.”

  “No need,” I said. I preferred to speak with someone who might be less guarded. “I just have a couple of simple questions; there’s a minor discrepancy in the report I have to clear up. Is this Miss, uh”—I didn’t know her last name—“Doreen, is it? I’m sorry, but I can’t make out the last name on the report here. I guess I need to give our officers some penmanship lessons.”

  She giggled. “That’s okay. It’s Doreen Uhler.” She slowly spelled the last name for me.

  “The main question I have, Miss Uhler, is about Mr. Greene’s position at the dealership. One of my officers wrote that he was a mechanic, but I have another report here that he was a watchman.”

  “Oh, I can explain that! He was a mechanic, but a week or so before he died, he was made night watchman instead.”

  “Wasn’t a good enough mechanic?” I thought if Greene had been made a watchman, it might be because Enoch wanted him there at night—if he was still a mechanic, there was no good reason for him to be there when the fire was set.

  “Well, I think it had to do with something else.”

  “And what was that?”

  She hesitated. “I really think I better get Mr. Enoch. I shouldn’t say anything bad about Mr. Greene.”

  “I can assure you this will be kept in confidence. I only need to complete the report; I’m not looking to damage Mr. Greene’s reputation.”

  “Well... he’d been drinking a lot lately. Mr. Enoch is a strict Prohibitionist, and normally he’d fire anyone he knew was a drinker, but he thought Mr. Greene might change if he was demoted to watchman.”

  “I appreciate your time, Miss Uhler. That’s all the questions I have.”

  It didn’t really answer much. From my phone conversations with him, I already knew that Greene had been drinking lately. And that he regretted the things he’d been involved in. One possibility was that he’d set the fires himself—the sales office to harm Enoch, and the garage—well, if he was drunk enough, that might have been an accident. Or if he was sad enough, maybe he wanted to die in the blaze. Then I remembered his body had been found in the backseat of a car; that sounded more like he’d been sleeping when the fire broke out.

  The two leading possibilities were that it was a retaliatory attack by Negroes to get back for Cubs Park having been burned down, or it was the Klan, using the fire as a cover to kill Greene, who they might have considered untrustworthy. Although if it was the Klan, burning the garage would have been enough. Why the sales office? That would have hurt Enoch’s business. Unless all the important things had been removed first. Maybe that’s why they were able to open again so soon.

  The only thing for sure was that, no matter who was really responsible, the Klan would have to act as if they’d been the victims of an attack. Which meant they would be striking back.

  I was determined to do what I could to stop the Klan this time—and to get some measure of revenge for what they’d done to me.

  The question was where to apply the pressure. I couldn’t take on an entire klavern. I had to find a weakness.

  The only area I could think of where the Klan might be vulnerable was with regard to the Slip Crawford lynching. That act was the one the Klan most wanted to disavow. Among those likely to have been involved, I thought Brian Padgett was a good choice. He was a hothead for sure. He was also the one Greene had heard talking about me being whipped. So he must have had some contact with those who’d grabbed me.

  The next question was how to get him to break the secrecy of the Invisible Empire.

  I finally came up with the beginnings of a plan. Then I enlisted Karl Landfors to help me carry it out.

  CHAPTER 33

  I never thought it would happen, but at midnight, as June turned into July, I was attired in the white hood and robe of a Knight of the Ku Klux Klan. Karl Landfors wore a similar costume, but his was the green outfit of a Grand Titan, a rank higher than that of Exalted Cyclops Roy Enoch.

  “Maybe they won’t be able to pick him up,” I said.

  “If he’s home, they’ve got him,” Karl said confidently.

  The two of us were in an abandoned boathouse on the shore of Horseshoe Lake, north of East St. Louis. We sat a while longer, waiting, in the dim light of a small kerosene lamp, listening to the crickets and owls.

  “You sure you know what to say?” I asked.

  “We’ve been over it often enough.”

  I said nothing more until we heard a car pull up near the boathouse.

  We nodded at each other, lowered our masks, and stood up.

  In walked two muscle-bound young men in street clothes, prodding along a smaller man shrouded in a burlap sack.
From within, came the muffled yelp of Brian Padgett, “Let me out of here! What the hell’s the big idea?”

  I took some pleasure in watching him endure what I’d been through.

  The two big fellows donned hoods and robes as white as their skin, then jerked the sack off of Padgett. “Sit,” one of them ordered.

  Padgett’s eyes lit on Karl’s uniform, and he was clearly awed by it. He might never have seen such a high-ranking Klansman. A rough shove sent the Elcars’ shortstop toward a straight-backed chair next to the lamp. The second man pushed him down into the seat and promptly tied him in place with a rope.

  Karl stood a few feet in front of Padgett, I stood behind Karl’s shoulder, and the two big men positioned themselves on either side of our captive.

  “What is this,” Padgett pleaded, “some kind of initiation?”

  “No,” answered Karl in a surly voice. “This is an inquiry.”

  “But why’d you drag me—” Padgett squawked as a hard slap to the side of his head sent him crashing to the floor.

  “Speak when spoken to,” said the man who hit him.

  The other man pulled Padgett upright.

  I didn’t know where Karl had found these two, but they were playing their parts perfectly—they even scared the hell out of me.

  Padgett’s frightened eyes darted from one to the other. “Okay,” he said softly, as if unsure that even this much speaking was allowed.

  “First question,” said Karl. “Did you, or did you not, take an oath to ‘heed all Imperial mandates, decrees, edicts, rulings, and instructions’?”

  “I did. But I—” Another blow to the head let Padgett know that he was not supposed to elaborate. I found the sound of a fist on Padgett’s head quite satisfying; I only wished it was my fist doing the punching.

  “And were you, or were you not, informed that the Invisible Empire does not want its Knights involved in acts of violence?”

  “I was.”

  “Then what in damnation was the idea of lynching that darky pitcher? We have bigger plans than lynching a nigger over a baseball game!”

  “We didn’t—”

  Karl held up his hand to interrupt. “Before you say anything more, I have another question: Have you read your Kloran?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you know the penalty for lying to an officer of the Invisible Empire.”

  Padgett nodded meekly.

  “Good,” said Karl. “Now, bearing that in mind, you may answer.”

  “We didn’t kill him because of the ball game.”

  “Then why?”

  “He insulted a white woman.”

  “How?”

  “After the game, the nigger was bragging he was gonna celebrate by screwin’ one of our women.”

  “You heard him say that?”

  “No. Another player did—J. D. Whalen. And J. D. told us Crawford pointed to my fiancee when he said it.” Padgett was starting to display the anger that he must have felt when he heard Whalen tell him that. “We had to do it. Got to protect the women, right?”

  That was the usual excuse the Klan gave to justify the most vicious violence: protecting American womanhood.

  Karl said, “So you took it upon yourself to lynch Crawford without permission from your Exalted Cyclops?”

  That was one of the questions I had: Did Roy Enoch order the lynching, or was it an unsanctioned act by some hotheads?

  Padgett squirmed. “No sir. We wasn’t gonna lynch him at all. We just brought him to the ballpark, to give him a beating and teach him a lesson. But he wouldn’t admit to what he said.” He added with some admiration, “Pounded the hell out of him, but he swore he never said nothing about any white woman.”

  Apparently, it never occurred to Padgett that Whalen was lying. “Go on,” prodded Karl.

  “Then somebody said ‘hang him.’ ”

  “Who said it?”

  “I dunno.” One of the men next to Padgett cocked his fist. “Really, I don’t!”

  Karl shook his head, and no punch was thrown.

  Padgett appeared grateful. “Guys were yelling all along—‘Hit him again,’ ‘Kick him’—and we kept doing it. Then somebody said, ‘Hang him,’ and all of a sudden there was a rope.”

  “So you strung him up.” Karl’s voice cracked, and I feared he might give himself away.

  “You know how it is,” Padgett whined. “Who’s gonna say, ‘No, let’s not’? So we went ahead and hung him.”

  By then, Padgett seemed more pathetic than evil.

  Karl looked at me, and I nodded slightly toward the door. If we asked too many questions, Padgett would get suspicious; we had to limit ourselves to what we could pretend we knew.

  In the most ominous tone he could muster, Karl said to Padgett, “Consider yourself warned: If there are any further actions that could reflect badly on the Invisible Empire, you will suffer the consequences.”

  With that, Karl spun about to make a regal exit. The two large men and I followed. When we got to the Buick sedan, we could hear Padgett yell, “You can’t just leave me here!”

  “How’s he gonna get out?” I asked as we got into the car.

  The driver said, “Depends. If he’s smart, he’ll realize he can slip the rope off the leg of the chair. If he tries to untie the knot, he’ll be there all night.”

  He’ll be there all night, I thought.

  The four of us removed our robes and hoods, and then we drove away, the big men sitting up front and Karl and me in the back.

  As I folded the robes, I asked Karl, “You got to get these back to Chicago?”

  “Yes, perhaps they’ll come in useful again.” He stuffed the robes and hoods into a leather satchel.

  “By the way,” I said, “what is the penalty for lying to an officer of the Klan?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “But you asked Padgett if he read his Kloran.”

  “He didn’t strike me as the reading type. So I figured if I bluffed, he’d assume the worst.”

  The two men dropped Karl and me off downtown near Union Station, where they’d picked us up a couple of hours earlier. “They did a helluva job,” I said. “I didn’t know you knew any muscle guys, just college boys.”

  Karl smiled. “They are college boys—and the pride of their school’s football team.”

  “You sure you can trust them to keep quiet about this?”

  “Oh yes. The college they play for is Notre Dame. Catholics are no greater fans of the Klan than the NAACP is.”

  I smiled, but a pang shot through me that caused me to feel less cocky about what we’d done. “Do you realize, Karl, that we just committed a kidnapping?”

  He rubbed his long nose. “Yes, I suppose we have.” After a moment of thoughtful silence, he added, “But I can live with that.”

  I decided I could, too.

  Then I looked at Karl, who had really impressed me this night. I’d had to let him do the talking at the boathouse since Padgett might have recognized my voice, but I’d worried whether Karl could pull off the impersonation of a Klan official. He’d sure thrown himself into the role, though, and Padgett never showed any sign of suspecting the ruse.

  Just before we split up, I said, “You know, if you ever want to get into acting, I’ll bet Margie still knows some people in Hollywood. You did great, Karl.”

  He doffed his cap and made an elaborate bow.

  CHAPTER 34

  Although I’d gotten in late from my outing with Karl Landfors, the experience had me too energized to get much sleep. Shortly after dawn, I was awake for good, while Margie still slept soundly.

  For a while, I just lay next to her, enjoying the fact that my back had healed to the point where I could once again join her in our bed. Almost all that remained from the whipping I’d received was that I would have some ugly scars. But since I couldn’t see them, I wasn’t going to worry about how they looked.

  As Margie shifted on the mattress and purred softly into her pillow, I
had one of those brainstorms I get sometimes when I haven’t had enough sleep. I thought it would be nice to repay her for the way she’d taken care of me by making her Sunday breakfast.

  I slipped out from under the covers and went out to the kitchen, where I began to gather all the utensils I assumed were involved in preparing breakfast. I was familiar with the coffeepot; the rest might as well have been chemistry equipment.

  After spreading a fair number of pots and pans on the kitchen table, I stepped back and decided that it might be better to take Margie out to breakfast. I began putting them back in the cupboard, when I knocked an iron skillet to the floor. It sounded as if an automobile had run into the house. I remained motionless for a moment, hoping Margie hadn’t awoken, then began putting them away again.

  “What are you doing?” she asked sleepily from the doorway.

  I confessed, “I was going to make you breakfast.”

  She stifled a laugh. “That’s so sweet!” Looking over the mess I’d managed to create before I’d even started on the food, she added, “Can I help?”

  “Maybe you could give me some hints on what to do.”

  Ten minutes later, Margie was preparing eggs, toast, and pancakes, while I manned the coffeepot. As I waited for it to brew, I filled Margie in on what Karl and I had learned from Brian Padgett.

  She said, “You don’t believe that Slip Crawford really said something about Padgett’s girlfriend, do you?”

  “Not for a minute. J. D. Whalen must have lied about that.”

  “Could I have the butter, please?” After I handed it to her, Margie asked, “But why would he lie?”

  “The way I figure,” I said, “is that Padgett probably has the worst temper on the Elcars’ team. I saw it when we almost had a fight during the game, and then again at the car lot when another salesman was talking to Doreen. If Whalen wanted to get the Elcars riled up against Crawford, the best way to do it would be to claim to Padgett that Crawford had said something about Doreen.”

  “But why would he want to get the Elcars to attack Crawford? Because he beat them?” Margie sounded as perplexed as I’d felt most of the night.