War at Home: A Smokey Dalton Novel

by Kris Nelscott

  The neighborhood looked abandoned. I was sure there were apartments above the shops across the street, but none of the building’s lights were on. I made myself keep walking so that I wouldn’t look like I was casing the place.

  I needed to settle in a spot that would give me a good view of the army building. It was large, but it looked impenetrable. Someone would have to work hard to get inside, especially with the place locked up the way it was.

  I finally settled on a building halfway up Pearl. The building had an old wrought-iron fire escape that reached all the way to the ground. From my vantage, it seemed like the fire escape went to the roof. I hoped no one was up there, trying to cool down. If so, I would have a heck of a time explaining what I was doing.

  The iron was covered with a layer of rust that flaked onto my fingers as I grabbed the railing. I pulled myself up, hoping the supports that attached the escape to the building would hold. The entire fire escape shook as I moved. It also rattled, the sound so loud that it seemed like people could hear it all the way up in Central Park.

  But I made it to the top without incident, climbed over the roof’s lip, and stepped into the white granules that some places used for roofing material.

  From this roof, I could jump to the next, and then the next, but I wouldn’t have to. I had a good view of the Induction Center, particularly the front door.

  Since the bombing site had been picked for its symbolism, I suspected the bombers would want to use that symbolism to its fullest. Either they’d destroy the entire building, or damage it near the recruitment signs.

  There was no one else on the roof, and no evidence that the residents ever came up here. I glanced at the other rooftops and saw no one.

  Then I found the perfect spot and settled in for the night.

  FORTY

  About three in the morning, I saw movement to the south. Someone had climbed on the steel frame of the new skyscraper and was wandering along the beams. The person wasn’t on the upper level of the new structure. He was on a lower floor, peering over the edge.

  He was probably a night watchman. It was necessary for larger construction areas to hire someone to keep an eye the property, particularly over a long weekend like this one.

  I didn’t move as he surveyed the area to the west of the building. I didn’t want anyone to see me.

  But I watched him. I couldn’t see how big he was from this distance. I couldn’t really tell that I was looking at a man, but given the job, I doubted a woman would be up there. The light from the street did give him an outline, however, and I noted that he didn’t have long hair or an Afro.

  He wasn’t one of the young men I had seen at the Whickam apartment.

  Still, I remained motionless. He seemed to be moving a few things — because they were dangerous? In his way? I couldn’t quite tell. Then he disappeared, probably to continue his rounds.

  I doubted I’d see him again. Judging from the size of that unfinished building, he had a lot of ground to cover during one night.

  But that was the only disturbance during the darkness. Dawn came — a beautiful sunrise over the water, illuminating the buildings beyond, reminding me again how much I had once loved this city and its environs. I stretched and shook my limbs, careful not to get stiff.

  I had eaten a few of the snacks I brought, and finished an entire bottle of soda. Later, I’d used the empty bottle as a urinal, an old military trick that I’d used before on stakeouts.

  During the night, I had found other exits off the roof, and I double-checked them in the light. The door leading into the building was locked, but the lock was flimsy. Two buildings over, another fire escape led to a different street, one impossible to see from Pearl. And all the way at the other end of the block, on Whitehall, I found an open door that seemed to lead into another group of apartments.

  I felt better now that I had backup plans.

  The neighborhood remained surprisingly quiet as the morning progressed. I expected to see Daniel or someone from his group shortly after dawn, but they didn’t show.

  Instead, a trickle of men, all in uniform, made their way from South Ferry Station to the army building. At least fifteen people were inside by seven-thirty, which surprised me. I would have thought the building would be empty on the Fourth of July.

  I saw no one else until about nine, when a few people crossed out of the park. They seemed like tourists, laughing and joking as they walked partway up Pearl. When they realized that the businesses down here were closed, they went back the way they came.

  Then, at ten, my breath caught. A ratty green car, covered in peace signs and antiwar bumper stickers, crawled down Pearl. It parked just below my perch, and five people got out.

  I recognized three immediately — the white girl and the two young men from the Whickam apartment. They wore ripped blue jeans and had their hair tied back.

  Then Rhondelle got out of the front seat, and Daniel got out of the driver’s side.

  “Told you it’d be empty down here,” one of the white boys said.

  “Better to be cautious,” Daniel said.

  The other boy said, “Still think we should’ve—”

  “Shhh,” said the white girl. “Windows are open. It’s hot.”

  “I want to look around.” Daniel put a hand on the white girl’s arm, pulling her toward him. Rhondelle stood on the curb, then sighed. After a moment, she followed.

  The group crossed the street, then walked along the army building to Whitehall. They moved as a unit. If they were scouting the place, they were doing a terrible job of it.

  They obviously weren’t military. Anyone military would have shown up before dawn, scouted locations, and left before daylight. This group had slept in. The way they were laughing as they walked they seemed to see what they were doing as a lark.

  It clearly wasn’t. If I hadn’t seen that map, I might have doubted their intentions, but I didn’t now. Not with the map, the dynamite in the Barn, and the date.

  I hadn’t wanted to be right, yet it seemed that I was.

  The group hadn’t quite reached the main door when a shot echoed. The group seemed to collapse in on itself. Someone was screaming, and at least two people were on the ground — one was prone, the other kneeling.

  I couldn’t quite see what had happened.

  Then Rhondelle ran, and so did one of the white boys. The front door to the army building opened, and a soldier beckoned. “Bring her in here,” he yelled.

  The shot obviously hadn’t come from there, then. I looked around, but saw no one.

  Then I looked at the steel frame. Did something glint over there? I couldn’t tell. I kept my own head low, not wanting anyone to see me.

  Another soldier joined the first. “We have a doctor inside. Hurry!”

  The person kneeling was Daniel. The brown-haired girl was on the ground. Daniel held up bloody hands.

  “You did this, man. I’m not bringing her in there so you can finish her off.”

  He slipped his hands underneath her back, and lifted her. I knew exactly how that felt, the hot viscous liquid, the slowly chilling skin. Her eyes were closed, and her arms dangled.

  “Careful,” the soldier yelled. “You could hurt her worse. We’re sending out a doctor. Just stay there until he—”

  “Stay away!” Daniel screamed. He staggered under the girl’s weight, then stumbled toward me.

  Except for the shouting, the area was quiet. No more shots, no one else moving. Rhondelle and the two boys had reached the car and were tugging the doors open.

  Daniel ran toward them, the girl’s body bouncing in his arms. “Make room for her, make room!” he screamed. “Somebody start the car.”

  Rhondelle got into the driver’s seat, and the car rumbled to life. Soldiers poured out of the building — about ten in all — shouting, telling Daniel to bring the girl inside, they’d already called an ambulance, they had someone there who might save her life.

  I clutched the edge of the roof,
feeling helpless. I couldn’t see who had fired the shot. And I couldn’t go down to the street to help the injured girl. I was trapped up there, unable to move.

  Daniel shoved the girl into the car and then crawled in beside her. The car peeled away as someone pulled the back door closed. Two soldiers stopped in the middle of Pearl Street. Another chased after the car, yelling at them to stop.

  I couldn’t stay where I was. It would only be a matter of time before the police arrived and searched the entire area. I grabbed the urine-filled bottle, put it in the sack with the rest of my garbage and the one still-full soda bottle, and crawled to the next roof over.

  I hurried down the second fire escape, pausing at the bottom only to toss the urine-filled bottle down a sewer grate. Then I walked up Broad Street to the old Standard Oil Building. I knew there was another subway stop somewhere nearby, and I had to take it.

  I had to leave before I got blamed for the shooting. Still, it felt strange to walk away from a crisis instead of help with it.

  The subway was on Broadway, right near the Standard Oil Building, just like I remembered. I hurried down the steps and took the first northbound train.

  I studied the other passengers, memorizing their faces. I wanted to know if someone had followed me.

  I got off at Times Square, tossed the bag into a nearby garbage, and walked north. The streets were empty. Only a few people straggled by, looking at closed shops.

  It felt very surreal. I was shaking, trying to figure out what exactly had happened. The soldiers hadn’t shot anyone. Contrary to Daniel’s accusations, a soldier wouldn’t have offered to help if the offer weren’t sincere. Someone else had fired that shot, and it had echoed like a rifle report.

  Then I remembered the night watchman. Had he been doing what I had been doing? Staking out the area, waiting for Daniel and his group to arrive?

  Why shoot one of the girls? Why not shoot Daniel?

  Or had that shot been meant for Daniel, and had somehow missed?

  I picked up the train again at Columbus Circle. I saw no familiar faces, either in the station itself or in the train. No one had followed me. I leaned my head back against the scratched window.

  Daniel had obviously planned something for the Army Induction Center. The map, and their conversation, confirmed that. Someone — a sniper? — had thwarted the plan, but the shots had come from some place other than the army building.

  Daniel, however, believed the army was behind it, and that would probably provoke him to attack again.

  I had to find out what was going on. I just wasn’t sure how.

  FORTY-ONE

  I realized my next step the moment I walked into the apartment. Jimmy was sprawled on the living room floor reading the newspaper. Tomorrow’s paper would report the incident. It would list the name of the girl who had been shot, and what hospital she went to — if Daniel had been smart enough to take her to a hospital.

  As panicked as he had been, he probably had. After all, he hadn’t shot her. No one in their group had. He just hadn’t trusted the soldiers nearby to take care of her.

  Jimmy was very glad to see me. Malcolm had just made them lunch, and I joined them, hungrier than I expected to be. I told them what had happened.

  “Is that girl gonna die?” Jimmy asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I certainly hope not.”

  But she had lost a lot of blood. And I wasn’t sure that she would survive Daniel’s rough treatment either. The reason I dreamed about carrying my fallen comrade wasn’t because of the ordeal, but because I had never been sure if my actions — my desperate attempt to save him — hadn’t caused his death.

  I had lost my chance to get Daniel and his group arrested. But I might be able to get information out of the wounded girl, provided she survived the night.

  Jimmy was happy I had returned. He wanted to do something special for the Fourth, and Malcolm had been resisting. I saw no reason to resist. Jim was getting very little enjoyment out of this trip; the least I could do was help him celebrate, even though any sort of celebration felt odd after the last twenty-four hours.

  After I took a short nap, I discovered there would be no parade, and no local fireworks. New Yorkers went out of town for that kind of celebration, although one neighbor said she believed we could see some from New Jersey if we went up on the roof.

  I couldn’t handle another roof. Instead, we walked through Harlem, which seemed unusually deserted. No flags flew, except for one or two from apartment windows.

  So in lieu of a parade, I used the day for an impromptu civics lesson, one I felt both boys needed. I showed them houses where famous black Americans had lived. I explained how a black man, Scott Joplin, started an entire musical subgenre — ragtime — which led to blues and jazz and ultimately rock and roll. I showed them where the jazz musicians lived, and the writers of the Harlem Renaissance. I taught them about important black political leaders who helped change America, and who also lived in Harlem—Marcus Garvey and Thurgood Marshall and Malcolm X.

  I showed them Madame C.J. Walker’s house, and told them that, even in America, a black woman could become the rich head of her own company. I spent the day helping these boys respect their heritage and hoping that some of it, at least, would sink in.

  We ended our tour at Mount Morris Park, expecting that we would be able to climb the only remaining fire watch tower in the city. From there we might be able to see some fireworks. But people already sat on its three levels and the stairs leading up to the top, and I didn’t want to fight for our place.

  So as twilight fell, we slowly walked back to our apartment. At Jimmy’s insistence, we bought some firecrackers and sparklers. By the time we reached our street, we had hot dogs, root beers, and two armfuls of sparklers for a midstreet celebration.

  Kids were already out there, running with sparking light trailing behind them, making images in the darkening air. Jimmy crammed the rest of his hot dog into his mouth, and grabbed a box of sparklers from me, then ran into the middle of the street toward kids he didn’t know to get a light.

  Soon he was laughing with pure joy and writing his name in the sky. Malcolm grinned at me, took a box of his own, and walked out there, too, deciding that for once he didn’t have to be cool.

  I sat on the steps and watched, staring at the phone booth across the street. Would Grace be home, or would she be at Jackson Park with Elijah, watching the fireworks there? I knew I should call her, but I couldn’t summon enough courage.

  Instead, I leaned my elbows on the cool concrete step behind me and thought about my strange day. It had certainly turned my investigation upside down.

  Now I had to figure out three things: not just what Daniel planned next or how to stop him, but also who had shot at his group, and why.

  FORTY-TWO

  The next morning’s newspaper said that a student named June D’Amato had been shot while taking a walk near Battery Park with four of her friends. According to the paper, the friends panicked, and drove her to St. Vincent’s Hospital. No one seemed to know why she had been shot.

  I had no more arguments from Malcolm and Jimmy. They knew I had to investigate on my own. They went back to the Harlem branch of the library while I headed down to the Village to see if June D’Amato was angry at Daniel for allowing her to get hurt, and whether she would tell me exactly what she and Daniel had been up to when she got shot.

  I arrived at St. Vincent’s sprawling complex at the start of visiting hours, but my promptness did me no good. June D’Amato was in a drug-induced sleep after her second emergency surgery. The nurse on her floor told me that June wouldn’t be up to visitors for at least twenty-four hours.

  I thanked the nurse and headed back toward the main floor. I had thought June D’Amato my best chance of getting information quickly. Now I realized I would have a lot more work to do.

  At least it was still early in the day.

  As I headed toward the hospital’s main exit, a white man in
a suit approached me. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a wallet and opened it, revealing a badge.

  My mouth went dry, but I managed to smile, nod, and look slightly confused, like any innocent black man would when approached by a plainclothes police officer.

  “You the man who just asked to see June D’Amato?” he asked.

  I took the badge from him, looked at it, and saw that it was legitimate. I would have thought the police had finished with June D’Amato yesterday. The case had to be important for someone to hang around the hospital.

  I thought about lying about why I was here. But I decided it would be easier to cooperate. It might also get me some more information on Daniel. “Yes, I asked about her.”

  “Why?” the man said. “You’re clearly not family.”

  He was balding, with care lines around his mouth, but the suit fit him well even though it was cheap. He looked five to ten years younger than I was, obviously on a career track, and maybe more open-minded than some of his longer term colleagues.

  That was a gamble I was going to have to take.

  “I heard she’s a friend of Daniel Kirkland,” I said.

  The cop raised his eyebrows, asking a question without bothering with the words.

  “I’m from Chicago,” I said. “I know Daniel’s mother. He went missing several months ago, and I’ve been looking for him. I just came down from New Haven. He’d been attending Yale, but he dropped out.”

  “And you think June D’Amato knows about him.”

  “I had heard they were close,” I said.

  The cop stuffed his badge back in his breast pocket. “Where’d you hear that?”

  “In New Haven. I think I went to every hippie house and drug den in the city, trying to find Daniel.”

  “You a private detective?” the cop asked.

  “Kinda,” I said. “I’m a freelance investigator for a number of Chicago businesses.”