by Ed Gorman
Chapter Nine
The town had a colored section adjacent to the mixed-race section. The buildings all seemed to lean at impossible angles, as if ready to collapse. You could smell cooking and heat and filth. A white policeman in a fancy blue uniform and a kepi-style hat walked up and down the street with a murderous-looking nightstick in his hand. Ragged children ran after him, trying to be nice. He wasn’t nice back. He was just fat and Irish-looking and mean. The people here stared at Guild and John T. Stoddard with white, forlorn eyes out of black, forlorn faces.
Rooney was the name of the colored fighter. Unlike Sovich he did not have a training camp. He worked outside against another Negro in tufty grass behind a bar where an ancient Jamaican man played a squeeze box. There were maybe thirty black men in a circle around the two fighters. Some of them wore the bright clothes of the bayou they originally came from. Most wore the drab rags of stoop laborers. Most of them were drunk. The sparring served to take their minds off their problems. They sounded as if they had only one real concern in this world, and that was how good Rooney looked.
“Come on, Rooney, you take him out, hear?”
“Come on, Rooney, quit playin’ and do the job.”
“Come on, Rooney, show him your real punch.”
Rooney was as squat and massive as Victor Sovich. He appeared to be a talented fighter capable of a good right hook and an even better left uppercut, but he did not have Sovich’s skill at moving left and right as he threw his combinations. The other fighter pegged him several times with punches Rooney should have been able to avoid. Guild could imagine what Sovich would do to this man.
“He looks good, doesn’t he?” Stoddard said.
“You know what Sovich will do to him.”
“Sure. But Rooney here will put on a good show. You’d be surprised at how many people will bet on him. A lot of white people secretly believe that colored boxers are stronger. And that’s what you have to play on—that belief.”
It was then that Guild saw the woman start to draw something from her purse, something that glinted suspiciously in the sunlight.
“Shit,” Guild said, and took off running to the other side of the crowd, where the woman stood.
John T. Stoddard shouted at Guild to stop, but Guild didn’t slow down.
The men around here were too drunk and too involved in the fight to see what she was about to do.
Guild got her just as she was leveling the small revolver at Rooney’s back.
He grabbed her wrist and tugged her free of the crowd. He must have grabbed her wrist very hard because she started crying almost immediately.
He pulled her inside the tavern. The place was shadowy and stank of the outhouse just outside the door.
“What the hell are you trying to do?” Guild said.
She just kept crying.
The bartender eased over for a better look at the two of them. Obviously he thought Guild had smacked her around some.
“I wanted to kill him,” she said.
This was the beautiful mulatto woman he had seen last night in the restaurant. She wore the same sort of frilly white lace at her neck, but today her dress was of blue silk and her small angled hat of a darker blue silk. She was still beautiful, but Guild’s impression of her fragile nature had been altered somewhat by the fact that she had just tried to kill a man.
“I know you wanted to kill him,” Guild said. “What I want to know is why.”
She glanced up at the bartender, who was still eavesdropping. “I don’t want to talk with him listening.”
“Let’s go for a walk, then.”
“Why are you so interested?”
“You wouldn’t be interested in a woman who pulls out a gun and almost shoots a man?”
She sighed. “I suppose I would be.”
They left a few minutes later. The bartender looked disappointed he hadn’t gotten to hear what happened.
Guild knew he should be back with Stoddard, but instead he walked with the mulatto woman. Several times she tried to walk away from him. Each time, he grabbed her elbow and jerked her back. “What’s going on here?” Guild would ask. “What’s shooting Rooney all about?” But she’d say nothing.
They walked out of the colored section to a park where children splashed chill silver water in a marble pool and where nurses pushed strollers. Dogs yipped and jumped at balloons and a three-year-old got chocolate all over her face.
When they reached the river, he pulled her into a tavern where the bar was nothing more than rough planks. The place smelled of heat and hops and wine and vomit. He could see she hated it in here. The men filled their ignorant eyes with her.
After two beers—his, not hers; she wouldn’t drink—he took her out behind the place and threw her up hard against a shed.
“I’m going to slap you,” he said, “if you don’t talk.”
She didn’t talk, and he slapped her very hard.
She immediately started sobbing.
“My name is Clarise Watson. I’m from Chicago. Rooney killed my brother a year ago.”
“In the ring?”
“Supposedly.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means that he put poison in my brother’s drinking water right before the fight. It made my brother very groggy. He couldn’t defend himself. He died right in the ring.”
He could see she was fighting tears again.
They had been walking once more, back to the colored section.
The block they were on was filled with children and teenagers. The latter stared long and hard at the beautiful mulatto woman. Guild could not quite tell if they liked her or despised her. Their stares seemed to convey both feelings.
The sunlight showed her skin to be a beautiful coffee color. In the daylight her features were even more beautiful. Only the lines in her neck betrayed her age. She had to be nearly forty.
“I’m sorry I keep crying.”
“Nothing to be sorry for.”
“I loved him.”
“I’m sure you did. You sure about the poison?”
“One of Rooney’s trainers admitted it to me.”
He looked at her closely. “He admitted it?”
She smiled without pleasure. “I had to help him. I gave him some bourbon and then I gave him myself.”
“I see.”
“You don’t sound as if you approve.”
“I don’t.”
“I wanted to know the truth.”
“You probably could have figured out another way.” “Could I?”
They walked another quarter block in silence. Guild felt jealous. It was ridiculous, feeling jealous. Then he felt ashamed. He realized then that he was still hung over.
He stopped and turned her toward him. “You going to try it again?”
“I don’t know. I’ve waited so long for today—built up to it so much. And then right at the last second you stopped me and—”
“I’m going to turn you over to the law. You tried to kill a man.”
“What?”
“You’re not giving me any choice.”
“You’ve got my gun.”
“You can always buy another one.”
“Maybe I won’t try. Maybe coming this close was good enough.”
“‘Maybe’ isn’t something I can count on.”
“Do you have a brother, Mr. Guild?”
“I had two of them. They both died in the war.”
“I’m sorry.”
He took a cigarette from his shirt pocket and lighted it up. The smoke tasted nutty in his throat and felt soft and blue in his lungs.
“I’m going to ask you again. You going to try to shoot him?”
She made a face. “I suppose not.”
“You’re a hell of a lot of help.”
She laughed. She had a wonderful laugh. “I don’t suppose I am, am I?”
“You staying anyplace special?”
“The Carleton Arms. The manager is out of town. The
desk clerk said I could stay till the manager gets back. He hates Negroes.”
“Why don’t you meet me tonight in the Carleton dining room?”
She looked at him carefully. “What are you after, Mr. Guild?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
“I guess that’s fair enough.”
He paused. “Rooney wouldn’t be worth hanging for.”
“Did you ever get over the death of your brothers?”
“Not really.”
“Then you know what I’m going through, Mr. Guild.”
With that, she walked off, making it clear that she didn’t want him to accompany her.
He watched her go down the block. The children came up to her and felt her beautiful blue dress and looked more closely at her beautiful face.
She looked back at him only once. She looked happy that the children were so accepting of her and seemed to like her so much.
She walked around the corner with them. Even from here he could hear their laughter. It was silver on the sudden cool breeze. His hangover did not bother him so much now. He thought of the man she’d had to sleep with. He felt angry, and stupid that he felt angry.
He went back to find John T. Stoddard.
Chapter Ten
Sometimes he forgot the name of the town he was in. With the coming of streetcars and tall buildings, with the coming of large glass display windows and crowded sidewalks, towns all began to look alike.
He could not, standing at the hotel window and looking down at the street, recall the name of this town, for instance.
He puffed on his cigar and continued to watch late afternoon passengers board the streetcar.
He looked at his pocket watch.
He was supposed to meet Reynolds downstairs in five minutes. He turned around and said, “I’m going to go downstairs to get some cigars. I’ll come right back up.”
“Do you want me to go with you?”
“No. I don’t think Victor will bother me anymore today. We got through our meeting. He’ll be with his Mexican woman and his booze. It’s tomorrow I’m really going to need you.”
Guild smiled at him. “You’re not going to need me tonight?”
“Not after dinner. I’d appreciate it if you’d sit downstairs with me and help keep some of the reporters at bay.”
“Sure.”
“Then you can take off if you’d like.”
“Fine.”
He stared at Guild a moment. He was not the sort of man he could understand quickly. Stoddard never knew when he was going to irritate Guild; he never knew when Guild was going to take offense. He would be glad when it was all over, when Reynolds had done his job, and when he no longer needed men such as Guild for protection.
The streetcar rattled away now. He had been paying particular attention to a woman in a white picture hat. He still loved to look at women, even though the last three years he had suffered the embarrassing loss of his manliness when he’d actually been with them. He wondered what it was, disgust over his wife leaving him or just age, that slow creaking crawl to the grave he saw in so many men around him, closed off to all experience but making money. He felt tears in his throat as he looked out once again at the town. He wondered if this would be the sort of place he would die in—big and anonymous—and without even knowing its name.
He put the flocked curtain back in place and went over to where Guild played solitaire.
“I’ll be going downstairs now.”
“You all right?”
“Why wouldn’t I be all right?”
“You look sort of strange.”
“I didn’t hire you to be my goddamn priest.”
Guild sighed and turned over a red eight of hearts. “You can leave anytime, as far as I’m concerned.”
He had succeeded in pissing off Guild again. He almost felt good about it. He liked to see Guild upset and squirming.
It was always pleasant to walk into a taproom. He liked the smell of smoke and the hubbub of laughter and conversation. He liked the boozy heat of arguments about politics and sports. He liked the barmaids he tried to pick up for later and the bartenders he tried to intimidate with his self-confidence and his tips. It was fun to see them jump.
This taproom was fashioned after those in Chicago, everything done in stained oak, with brass fixtures along the bar and a huge mural of a naughty vaudeville lady named Ruby Lee stretching across the back wall. He had actually spent a night with Ruby Lee once. She’d had enormous breasts and equally enormous feet. He’d never seen feet that size on a woman.
Reynolds was at a rear table. He sat alone, a shot glass and a schooner sitting untouched in front of him. He was in his early thirties but older looking because he was balding. He was thin and wore a drab three-piece brown suit. He had small hands and nervous fingers. There was a certain air of sadness about him. He was one of the best thieves in the Midwest.
Stoddard sat down. When the waitress came over, he ordered a bourbon. When the waiter left, he said, “Are you all set for tomorrow?”
There was so much noise in the taproom that Stoddard did not have to worry about being overheard.
“There’s only one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“You sure Victor isn’t going to figure it out and come for me?”
“How’s he going to figure it out?”
“You think he’s going to believe it?”
Stoddard shrugged. “Robberies happen all the time. I’ll leave Guild in the back room guarding the cash. If Victor blames anybody, it will be Guild. He hates him.”
“He could still figure it out.”
“Not if we’re careful.”
David Reynolds looked around. “This Guild, is he tough?”
“Not as tough as he thinks.”
“He going to give me any problems?”
“Not if you do what I tell you.”
“Which is?”
“Shoot him.”
“What?”
“You want to make this look convincing, don’t you?”
“Jesus, Stoddard, I’m a thief, not a killer.”
“I didn’t say kill him.”
“Jesus.”
“In the arm, maybe. Or the shoulder.”
“I don’t know. I’ve never shot a man before.”
Stoddard smiled. “Then it’s probably the only thing you haven’t done before.” Stoddard tried to know things about everybody he worked with. “You’ve developed yourself quite a reputation. Even for a man in your line of work. You get in and out, and there’s supposed to be no trouble.”
“After this is all over, I have to live in this town.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning if there’s violence, the police are going to be looking for the thief double hard.”
Stoddard took out a cigar and lit it. The afternoon light was dying in the window. A pretty barmaid passed by just now. He did not want to be talking to this frightened little man.
“You might even enjoy it, Reynolds.”
“I doubt it.”
“Some men get accustomed to it.”
“I’m a thief,” he said again with a certain obstinate pride.
“I don’t want to have to worry about you. You’re getting a nice little nut for half an hour of work.”
“I don’t have any objections to the nut, Mr. Stoddard.”
“Good. Then you’ll do it?”
Reynolds smiled. “You’re a cold son of a bitch.”
“I just want to relax and have a quick drink here before I have to go back upstairs. And I can’t relax if I think you’re not going to do it right tomorrow.”
“Oh, I’m going to do it right.”
“You’re going to shoot him?”
Reynolds hesitated only a moment. “I’m going to shoot him.”
“Good, then. It’s settled.”
“You really are a cold son of a bitch, you know that?” Reynolds said. But his words were not without a certain harsh admiration
.
Chapter Eleven
Victor Sovich said, “You want to come with me?”
The woman looked at him. “Where you have in mind?”
“The next town, wherever that is.”
“My children?”
“Your mother’s across town.”
“I leave my children?”
“It’s no life for them, believe me.”
“But my children. I love them.”
“We’d come back through here every three or four months. The Midwest is good for me. I’d have to come back through here anyway.”
They were in bed. The sheets smelled of their sweat and their lovemaking and the wine they’d had just before. He sat propped up against the wall and took in the smells. He enjoyed them. In the window the light was dying. It had turned yellow and pink. Now it was purple dusk. Through the smashed window he could see the quarter-moon. He smiled to himself. She was going to go with him. Oh, she would protest and tell him what a good mother she was. They always did. They needed that dignity. There was no other way they could face what they were about to do. He knew they wouldn’t last long. These women never did. There would come a night or afternoon, some idle moment when he was shaving or bathing or reading a magazine, when he would suddenly have had enough of her, and then he would want to see her no longer. Then he would not be able to endure her touch or look at her body, clothed or unclothed, ever again.
“You like Maria.”
“She’s cute.”
“Couldn’t we at least take Maria?”
“I’d like to. It just wouldn’t be good for her.”
“Bobby, then. Perhaps it would be more appropriate for a boy to travel.”
“It wouldn’t be good for him, either.”
Now was her time to sulk. She rolled over in the bed, away from him. He put his hand on her warm back, feeling the graceful curve of it, how it so fetchingly gave way to her plump, tender buttocks and the magnificent sweep of her long legs.
“Don’t,” she said.
Now it was his turn to roll away.
He lay on his side, staring at the wall. He could see the dirty handprints the kids had left on it. He could smell where the cat shit in the corner. Maybe he didn’t want to take her with him tomorrow after all.
