Dutch Curridge

by Bryant, Tim

  "You remind me of somebody else," I said, thinking aloud, I guess, as I contemplated the possibility that even a kid like him might end up in the same situation as Whitey.

  "You mean the missing black man you've been looking for," he said.

  "How did you know that?" I said.

  "Jimmy told me about it," he said.

  He paused, and it was a pause as obvious as his talking had been.

  "I think I probably knew him."

  "Whitey Calhoun?" I said. "You mean you knew Whitey Calhoun?"

  "I think so," he said. "Not that many albino negros that I know of. He used to buy from me pretty regular."

  "His momma's the one got me liking records," I said. "That wouldn't surprise me much."

  "Oh, no," Crawford said. "I don't mean records. He bought reefer. Lots of it."

  He slid a big stack of records to one side and reached beneath the same table that I was picking through. He rummaged around and hauled out a cardboard box that looked like a man's hat box.

  "I think this is it," he said.

  "Think it's what?" I said.

  "I think this is where I put that record you're looking for."

  I was so busy thinking about Whitey Calhoun again that it barely registered.

  32

  Thinking can be a dangerous game in my line of work. You start thinking you know something, you're setting yourself up for a schooling. The only reason I'm any good at anything is because I go into everything as if I don't have a clue. Mistaking what you think about something for actual clues is the biggest mistake you can make.

  When Crawford Jackson showed me the signed copy of "I've Got your Ice Cold Nu Grape" by the Nu Grape Twins, it would have been my natural response to be cynical. The record was inside a brown paper sack not unlike the type that Noble and Verbal usually carried a bottle of whiskey in. The Columbia Recording Company label wasn't signed, but there on the blank white sleeve, spattered with something that looked like coffee or maybe whiskey, sat the scribbled names of the two culprits. I couldn't help noticing that Verbal had left the "h" out of Whitaker.

  The thing that got my attention was an official looking parchment clipped to the sleeve. Stamped with the name and logo of the recording company, and signed by a man named Al Slatherly.

  "That's Uncle Al Slatherly," Crawford said.

  "Your uncle?" I said.

  "No," he said. "That's what they call him. He's an agent with the company. Works here with Bob Wills, Roy Acuff, people like that.

  Above his signature, the following sentence was typed:

  "As an agent of the Columbia Recording Company, I hereby confirm that Verble Thomas Whitaker and Noble Albert Whitaker are under contract and can perform as The Nu Grape Twins, splitting any profits made with the Columbia Recording Company as arranged per contract, for a period of ten years from the date of April 5, 1932."

  "Why did they give you this?" I said.

  "For safe keeping, I suppose," Crawford said. "It was out of date when I got it. I guess it wouldn't do them much good."

  "I think it misspells their names, but I reckon it has to be them," I said. The only way I knew the spelling of their names was from the police files with the Sheriff's Department, and, for all I knew, the department could have been getting it wrong. I looked back down at the signatures and everything seemed to pretty much match up. There wasn't a lot of room for argument.

  "Can I take this with me?" I said.

  "It's an old one," he said. "Rare. You can tell by the label. They were all mostly royal blue back then, but this one has Columbia spelled out with only the 'C' capitalized. By the mid-thirties, they started capitalizing the whole word."

  He looked up at me and took a long breath.

  "I can sell it to you," Crawford said.

  I looked at him, waiting for a price, and he looked back.

  "Unless, that is, it's on official police business or something like that."

  "It's something like that," I said.

  I paid a dollar each for the Barney Kessel, the Leonard McAuliffe, and a Bix Beiderbecke and left the store feeling like I had got more than my money's worth.

  I looked down at the royal blue label with the gold lettering spelling out "I Got Your Ice Cold Nu Grape" and "Nu Grape Twins." I had found the needle, but it hadn't solved anything yet. In fact, the damn thing had brought more unanswered questions, more mystery with it.

  I wasn't sure what I should tell Lewis Freeman. I wanted to help the kid, if only because Miss Vita had sent him my way. I hadn't been able to do anything for her son. I didn't want to come up completely empty.

  I got into the Chummy and left, wondering if I might persuade Ruthie to give the record a spin or two before I passed it along. And, for the first time, I wondered if the song was any damn good at all.

  33

  I was sitting in Peechie Keen's when word came around that Dandy O'Bannon had been charged with first degree murder in the death of Terrance Calhoun. The fact that a body hadn't yet been produced didn't seem to faze the powers that be.

  "We have information which leads us to believe the body of the deceased will be located in short order,” Stubblefield said in the Star-Telegram. "The suspect is co-operating fully in the investigation.”

  "Looks like an open-shut case,” Slant Face said. "You said three days ago, it looked as if all signs were pointing at Dandy.”

  For once, I didn't want to be right. What's more, I had a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach. Patrick said it was likely on account of drinking too much rotgut on Jacksboro Highway. I was pretty sure it was something else.

  "Dandy pretty much came out and admitted it to you, Dutch,” Patrick said.

  Patrick supplied drinks and we brought the meeting to order. I ran down my best guess at what had happened on the morning of Whitey's disappearance, and they both listened attentively. Halfway through, Herrera joined in.

  "I've pretty much thrown out the whole idea of Whitey getting pasted up in Vickery,” I said. "Couldn't of happened that way. Now we absolutely know the kid died on him somewhere before he reached that point. We know that because he was seen at the Startle-gram warehouse mid-morning.

  We also know he got from there to my place. Now, I'm thinkin' somebody was waitin' there to bump him off. Whitey sees 'em, maybe, an' ditches the kid. Tries to breeze off, but they nab him.”

  "Negro boy hangin' around the wrong place, middle of the night,” Patrick said, as if to say, "that could happen." Everything Patrick said sounded reasonable. So reasonable he didn't even have to finish his sentences. I bought it coming from him more than I did from my own mouth.

  "Just a few hours later, he makes a phone call to James Alto,” I said. "Tells Alto to please get this message to my momma. Says he's headin' out for Cleco, Mississippi.”

  "Good God a'Mighty,” Slant said. We all looked at him.

  "Well,” he said, "any damn fool off the street could've gotten to your boy there, but not many folks are inclined to give him a telephone call if they're planning on killing him.”

  "So you're sayin' it wasn't the coppers, Slant Face?” Herrera said.

  "Dandy figures out that they had him in stir and goes and kills him?” Slant said. It sounded weak. Thankfully, it sounded real weak. I halfway wanted Patrick to say it and see if it came out better. Patrick shook his head, wouldn't even do it.

  "Dandy and you got split up out at the terrace that night, right?” Patrick said. I said yeah.

  "I think maybe you been had,” he said.

  And so the boys all took a vote and resolved that I had very likely been set up from the word go. Dandy was working for the other side. Got me out to the Terrace, where he knew Stub's guys were waiting. When the bullets started flying, he hightailed it. Stub got his man.

  "Makes no damn sense,” I said. "I'm walkin' around free as a puppy an' Dandy O'Bannon's under glass.”

  "Puppy on a long chain thinks he's free until he gets to the end of his chain," Patrick said, and I didn'
t like any part of that thought.

  Nothing is that convoluted. I knew that the truth was simpler than that. You don't have to stretch it and tease it to make it fit the scene. We were missing key details.

  "Our best bet is still this,” I said. "Lieutenant Kimble kills Whitey. He's got reason, he's got opportunity. Later, they figure, word gets out that he killed a young man tryin' to get his dyin' son to a hospital, might not be a pretty scene. Hell, maybe Kimble killed the kid too. They figure they can pin it on me, but it don't stick. They try Dandy, it's a better fit. End of story.”

  That's where we left it. I brought the meeting to a close, had one more drink for the road, and me and Slant went out looking for Kimble.

  When he wasn't in one of the squad cars, a black and white Nash Airflyte Police Cruiser, he was driving a pale green Olds sedan, a 1947 with hydramatic drive. The Austin Chummy was no match for either, and anytime he got on 80, he usually made short work of me. Aside from that, though, I had all of his favorite haunts mapped out. And I knew he'd be cruising by Brown's Mule Square within the hour, ready for his afternoon beat. I'd be there, ready to join his parade.

  Sitting there in the shade of the square, Slant and me started jawing, trying to think up stories we hadn't already heard a hundred times before. I was telling him about the time, back when I was a boy, that Lizabeth and me found a stack of clothes and cans of food down in the basement of the farmhouse. We hauled them all out of there and presented them to momma like we'd discovered treasure.

  The farmhouse had a big basement that you could only enter from the outside, a big door that came off the back of the house. There was an ice box down there, I remember, that was always padlocked, and I was convinced it held a dead body or something, but I never got the nerve to look for myself.

  Anyway, when momma saw those clothes and the food, she made us put them back right away. I didn't really understand what was going on at the time, but momma sat us down and made us understand that some people didn't have a house to live in. From that day on, I felt like I was living in a haunted house or something, sharing our home with some unseen person down in our basement.

  Sometimes I could hear something down there. Well, we'd always had possums and shit around, but from then on, everything I heard was the man living in our basement. Never saw him, and I don't think momma did either, but seemed like the house became his. We were just holding it down for him. Trying to stay out of his way. Sometimes, after Lizabeth died and daddy left, I got to thinking it might be even be daddy down there.

  Slant said he remembered his momma feeding soldiers during the war over in Salford, England. They'd come by their back door, just like the tramps did here during the Depression, looking skinny and half crazy.

  "They'd grab the bowl and spit in the food before you could even draw your hand back,” he said. "It upset my mum 'til someone sat her down and made her realize, they'd learned to do that so no one else would grab it away from them."

  It got to where people started calling it Spit Pea Soup.

  He'd just got that part out when we saw the squad car come cruising up from Main. Kimble had his arm braced in the window like he might blow out of the car if it wasn't there. He didn't seem to know there was anybody around but him. Still, I let him go a block or so before I pulled out behind him.

  34

  When he got to the apartment, he slowed down but didn't stop. I couldn't help feeling a little disappointment. At the next light, though, he took a quick right, and, before we knew it, we were making a pass along the backside of the building.

  "Hiding in the back,” Slant said. "I told you it was a mistress.”

  Kimble parked along a side street and walked to the same room we'd watched him enter before. I kept at a distance, and after five or six minutes, followed suit.

  Walking across the yard toward the apartment, the sound of leaves crunching beneath our feet seemed unnecessarily loud.

  "Talking about strange food,” I said, "this reminds me of something I haven't thought about in twenty years.”

  "You used to eat leaves?” Slant said.

  "Even worse,” I said. "I can remember my mother making cicada pie and sending it along to school with me.”

  "Cicada pie?” he said. "Aren't those the little buggers that scream at night?”

  "Crunchiest damn thing you ever bit into,” I said.

  We rounded the corner and stood before the opened door to Apartment 301. I looked at Slant and shrugged.

  "Age before beauty.”

  "No, I insist.”

  I looked into the darkened apartment and strained for a sound. I gripped the .38 Colt but kept it holstered. No sense in showing your cards before the game's even commenced.

  "You actually call yourself a detective?”

  I looked up and straight into the muzzle of a Colt snubbie.

  "You been trailin' me for the past three days,” Kimble said. "Think I know from nothin'?"

  Slant was grabbing air, but I played it off. Kept my hands in plain sight at my sides. He had the drop on us, so our best bet was to talk our way out of the situation. Fortunately, I felt up to the task.

  "Kimble,” I said. "We're just looking for the dope on this Calhoun case. Boy's momma has a right to know what happened to her son.”

  His gun hand started shaking, and I was scared he was gonna squeeze off a round out of pure nervousness. He steadied himself with his left hand.

  "You can tell that woman one thing for me,” he said. "I tried to help her boy. God knows I did. In spite of my better judgment.”

  "I figured you did,” I said.

  "And look at the way things turned out.”

  "How exactly you think things turned out?” I said.

  "You, of all people, ought to know, Curridge,” he said. "You've been there and walked away.”

  "It's a tough job,” I said. "Too tough for me.”

  "It's too much for anybody that's got any damn sense,” he said. "Look around this town. Would things be any damn worse if we weren't even here?”

  He fumbled with the trigger on the gun, and, for a moment, I thought he was standing down.

  "I've gone too far, Curridge,” he said. "There's no going back.”

  "What do you mean?"

  I was trying to get him to talk. For one, I was pretty sure he wouldn't shoot me while he was talking to me, and two, I needed to know what he knew.

  "I'm quitting the force," he said. "This is my last week. The wife and I are moving in here, getting away from everything we know."

  "That will give you more time to hang out with Dutch and me," Slant said. I think he was trying to cheer him up.

  "Point that thing somewhere else,” I said. I could feel the tension in the room and didn't much like it. "Talk to me.”

  "Sure, I'll talk,” he said. "Set the record straight. Get it all off my chest. You wanna know what happened? You really wanna know? I was there that night. Yeah, I had every intention in the damn world of beating that boy's brains clean out of his skull. Had reason enough to do it too.

  I pulled up beside him up on the north end of Vickery. Asked him what the hell he thought he was doing. That's when I recognized who he was. I jumped out of the car, ready to kick seven shades of shit out of him. I could see the fear in his eyes. Made me laugh. The scareder he looked, the more I laughed. Hell, I almost peed myself, him crying there on the side of the road like he knew what was coming to him.

  Know what, Curridge? Wanna know something? That kid wasn't no more afraid of me than the man in the moon. He didn't give a good goddamn about Lieutenant Kimble. That damn little baby he had was dying. Right there in front of us, with me jumping up and down and acting like I was gonna cloud up and rain all over both of 'em.

  Well, what the shit was I supposed to do? I got the damn baby, pulled the kid into the car, and off we go to Harris Methodist. He can't go in there, he starts saying. I have to take the baby myself. Me, I'm not thinking straight enough to realize what he's meaning. I s
ay, where do you want to go? I'm not taking him to no nigger doctor, I tell him. I ain't having none of that. No damn way I'm taking no baby with my blood in it off over there. We're going to my doctor.

  Well, half an hour later, I'm trying to talk my way in the door of my own hospital, they're telling me that this baby can't be their patient. They don't have no records. They don't have the authorization. I'm off duty, so I don't have my badge. I'm in the sedan, I don't have the squad car. I can't make anyone believe me, can't make a damn thing happen. All I have is my gun, and don't think I didn't almost use it a time or two."

  He stopped and took a deep breath.

  "The baby died while we was waiting to find a doctor that would agree to see it."

  I thought about reaching out for his gun, but my arms felt too heavy to get the job done. His shakes were back, and I didn't want to spook him.

  "We ended up carrying it over to the newspaper,” he said. "The boy claimed he had a job over there. We got a card paper box and took care of the baby. I asked the boy what he wanted to do with it now, and he said he reckoned he ought to bring it on to Mr. Alvis Curridge at the Stockyard Hotel. By that point, I figured it might be smart to bring you into this whole thing."

  I told him Kimble appreciated it. I wasn't sure if he thought I was trying to be funny.

  "So we made a beeline for your place," he continued. "I tell the boy to get that baby up to your room fast as he can, and then I take him on in to Stubblefield.”