The Dying Crapshooter's Blues

by David Fulmer

  Purcell turned to his assistant. “What’s the colored fellow’s name?”

  “It’s Willie. Mc-something. McTell, I think.”

  “He’s that good?”

  The younger man was emphatic. “He is, yes, sir.”

  “Then let’s bring him up here.” He winked, as furtive as a spy. “One way or another.”

  With a wide grin, Jake went for their coats.

  But when they got outside, the blind singer was gone. The desk clerk’s face reddened as he explained that he had apparently given up and left. Asked where he might have gone, Sidney said there was no telling.

  Mr. Purcell’s face flushed and he raised his voice as he opined that no telling wasn’t much help.

  “I can tell you that them colored musicians is likely to stay over that way,” Sidney said, pointing in a general easterly direction. “You got Decatur Street and you got Auburn Avenue and they got all kind of colored places. He could be anywhere down around there.”

  Purcell looked at Jake, sighed, and turned away.

  At that moment, six blocks distant, Willie was climbing the steps to Jesse’s rooms, feeling the weight of disappointment lingering in his gut.

  When the young man from Columbia came downstairs, and Willie asked that his name be added to the list, he caught the stutter of hesitation, a signal of surprise that was easily read. He was the only colored person in the lobby who wasn’t carrying a tray or a mop. The young fellow wrote down his name, as polite as could be, then introduced himself as Jake Stein, and said it would be an hour or more before they could get to him.

  Willie would have waited all day for his chance, but once the crowd in the lobby had thinned, the desk clerk wasted no time in telling him to move outdoors. He explained that he was on the list. The clerk insisted that he leave, though he could tell by his tone that he didn’t feel good about it. Several of the other musicians grumbled about the treatment, and yet no one called him back.

  Willie had been asked to make records before, but they only wanted coon songs, and he wasn’t willing. He wanted to select from his own song bag, the kind of material he’d picked up out on the road: blues, ragtime numbers, even some of the tunes that were popular during the war, all of them done up his own way, along with some songs he’d written on his own. He believed his were a match for any white man’s and better than most. No one he’d ever heard had anything like his booming twelve-string and sweet, churchified tenor. So he deserved a chance to record on the Columbia label, and was willing to stand out in the cold for as long as it took to do it. If nothing else, he might catch one of the record people stepping out for lunch.

  He had been on the sidewalk a cold hour and had two dollars in nickels and dimes dropped into the box of the Stella when a kid came along with a message from one of the women tending to Little Jesse. Jesse was going down fast, the boy whispered, and he’d been asking for Willie and Joe Rose.

  Realizing he was giving up his chance, Willie dug into his pocket and gave the kid a dime to carry the message on to Joe Rose at the Hampton Hotel. Then he started south on Walton Street.

  When he stepped into Little Jesse’s bedroom, he understood that his troubles were nothing. He could smell that whatever had infected Jesse down in his gut was emitting an odor so sour and heavy that it stung his nose. The air in the room was close, as more people had gathered around with the word that the end might be near.

  There was a rustle of motion and a murmur of voices as they made way for Willie and his guitar.

  Jesse’s breath was low as the blind man settled into the chair in the near corner. “Hey, Willie . . .” He barely opened his eyes. “You got my song done yet?”

  “Almost.” Willie sat down, cradled the box on his lap, and brushed his fingers across the twelve-string. “Don’t worry. I’m getting right up on it.”

  The faintest ghost of a smile curled Jesse’s lips. “I believe I can wait a little bit longer,” he said.

  Joe Rose was not at his hotel, so the kid left the message with the man at the desk.

  After Joe watched Lieutenant Collins cross to Houston Street and step into Lulu’s, where the driver was waiting, he turned around and went the way he came at a quick pace, cutting down James Street to West Cain. If he’d had any doubts about being in the middle of something, the lieutenant had settled them during their five-minute stroll along Peachtree Street.

  When he reached the corner, he scratched some gravel off the ground and tossed a tiny bit at the second-story window, the oldest trick around. A few seconds passed, the curtains parted, and he was looking up at a freckled Irish face. He saw Molly’s sudden smile, even in that dim light. With a quick glance up and down the street, he hurried onto the porch, stepped inside, and climbed the stairs, making barely a sound. She was waiting on the landing. She went ahead of him down the hall and into her room.

  “Why didn’t you come in the way you left?” she said as she closed the door behind him. He noticed the brogue in her voice.

  Joe smiled and shrugged, and spent a moment doffing his cap, straightening his coat, and giving his host a closer look. Her deep green eyes were merry over freckled cheeks. He thought she looked like nothing so much as one of the paintings of lasses that appeared on calendars. She was short, not fat but sturdy, more like a shop girl than some hoity miss who would put on airs; the type who wouldn’t dream of opening the door for a stranger ducking the cops, in other words. All in all, she presented a kind picture, and yet there was something just a little cunning and watchful in her expression.

  “Is your last name Malone?” he asked her. “Or Maguire?”

  She shook her head slightly. “It’s O’Connell.”

  “Joe Rose,” he said. He went into one of his inside coat pockets and drew out a gold cross on a gold chain. “This is for you,” he said. “To thank you for your kindness.”

  “You didn’t need to do that,” she said. “This wouldn’t by chance be a hot item, would it?”

  “No, it’s not.” This was a lie; it was one of those stolen trinkets he kept on hand for just such instances.

  Molly accepted the charm with a smile that told him she wasn’t fooled. Laying it aside, she said, “You didn’t come back just to give me a gift, did you?”

  “No,” Joe said. “I want to talk to you about Officer Logue.”

  “Ah, I thought you might.” She gave a sad shake of her head. “Mrs. Cotter told me what happened. My sweet Jesus.” She sighed, then gestured to one of the chairs arranged on either side of the small table in the corner. “Would you like to take off your coat?”

  He removed the coat, draped it over the back of the chair, and sat down, thinking how easily she was treating a stranger walking into her room and her life. He was in for another surprise.

  “Is it too early in the day for me to offer you a drink of Irish whiskey?” she said. “It’s the real thing. I’ll tell you, I could do with it.”

  No man in his right mind would turn down such a treat, any time of the day. Not that Molly waited for an answer before stepping to her closet to open the door and retrieve a squat bottle and two short glasses. She stood at the table and poured, and Joe caught the scent of peat and smoky oak. Compared to the rotgut passing as liquor in Atlanta these days, it smelled like perfume, and in the light through her curtains, gave off a deep amber glow.

  Once Molly was settled in the opposite chair, they tapped glasses in a small toast. Joe passed his whiskey under his nose and sighed with pleasure.

  Molly took a sip and gazed idly into her glass, her face falling into a mask of distress. “I couldn’t believe it. He was a nice fellow, mostly. He was always kind to me.” Her brogue was getting deeper by the word.

  Joe said, “How well did you know him?”

  Molly tipped her glass this way and that. “When I first moved here in September, he came knocking on my door. He was very friendly. Drunk, of course. I didn’t often see him sober. Now and then he’d come around to talk.”

  “Talk ab
out what?”

  “Some about his life. Where he grew up and like that. A bit about his police work and that sort of thing. Nothing very interesting.” Her eyes shifted slyly. “He did let me know that anything I wanted, he could provide. Jewelry, dresses, whiskey, anything like that. All I had to do was ask.”

  Joe wasn’t surprised. That sort of merchandise was an extra benefit to a street cop’s low-paying job.

  “I didn’t take him up on it,” Molly went on in a cool voice. “Because I knew I’d end up paying for them, one way or another. Isn’t that how it works?”

  Joe mused for a moment, thinking this young lady was not such an innocent, and most likely had a story of her own.

  “Other than that, he was nice as could be,” she said. “Sometimes he got sad when he was drinking. Lonely-like. You know how some people get that way.”

  Joe said, “Did you notice anything different about him lately?”

  She said, “I think something was bothering him the last couple weeks. He didn’t talk as much when I saw him in the hall. Just hello, and that was all. Then that last time I saw him was when he came to tell me about leaving.”

  Joe was surprised. “He said he was leaving? When did he tell you that?”

  “It was maybe two weeks ago. He came knocking and said he had some news. He told me he was moving out. Said it would be soon, but he hadn’t told Mrs. Cotter. And he didn’t want me to say anything to her.”

  “Did he say where he was going?”

  “No. He acted all mysterious about that. Just away. That’s all he’d say.”

  “That’s all?”

  She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Well, he did talk about having it his way. ‘Now I’m going to have things my way,’ or something like that. Does that help at all?”

  “It might.” Joe drank off some more of his whiskey, putting this last bit of news next to what he already had. He thought of something else.

  “I found a picture in his room. A little blond girl.”

  Molly’s eyes got tragic. “I know about that. He showed me.”

  “Who is she?”

  “His daughter,” Molly told him. “He talked about her sometimes. Said he was going to get her back. He’d call her ‘my baby.’ Like that.” She sighed. “I don’t know where she is or anything else about her. And now he’s gone. So sad.”

  Joe mulled this new information. Between Mrs. Cotter and Molly, this man he’d never known was beginning to take on the trappings of a life. “Did he ever talk about a woman named Daisy?”

  Molly frowned. “Maybe so. I really don’t remember.”

  “Anything else come to mind?” he asked her.

  “No, that’s all,” she said. “I try to not get too much in other people’s business, if you know what I mean.” She paused for a few somber seconds then regarded him curiously. “Why are you doing this? What’s he to you?”

  Joe shifted in his chair. “Two nights before he was killed, he shot a fellow on Courtland Street. A Negro named Jesse Williams.”

  “A criminal?”

  “It wasn’t an arrest, if that’s what you mean. He just shot the man.”

  Molly came up with a troubled frown. “That doesn’t sound like something he would do.”

  “Well, he did it. But I don’t think it was his idea. I think someone put him up to it. I think he was paid to do it. Maybe the person who was in his room, arguing with him, what was it, last week?”

  Molly nodded quickly. “I heard the voices when I came out of my bath. Mr. Logue and another man. I heard the door open and then footsteps on the stairs. A little bit later, I saw John in the hall. He didn’t look so well, and I asked him if he was all right. He got real quiet for a little while, and then he started talking about how a person sometimes had to do things he didn’t want to. He said something else about it not being fair, but that he was in a corner. I asked him if that was what all that commotion was about and he said, ‘Never mind about that.’ Then he said he was doing me a favor not telling me.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Until I heard what happened, yes.” She took another small sip from her glass. “If you don’t mind me asking, this Negro fellow, was he a friend of yours?”

  Joe said, “See, I started this and . . . it’s . . .” He stopped, began again. “Actually, he was a pimp and a rounder. He cheated at cards and he ran women. That sort. But with all that, he wasn’t a bad fellow. He was just a sport, making his way. He never hurt anyone that I know of.”

  “But someone wanted him dead?”

  Joe nodded. “And I think it was whoever was arguing with Mr. Logue that night.”

  “Oh, my . . .” Her gaze flitted for a moment. “Maybe I shouldn’t have told you about that. I don’t even know who you are.”

  “You know me well enough to let me in your room,” Joe said.

  Molly smiled shyly. “You don’t scare me, that’s all.”

  Joe sipped the rest of his whiskey, savoring it. When she didn’t move to refill his glass, he rose to his feet and pulled on his coat, musing on his own strange behavior. Molly was pretty and full-bodied, the kind of woman he liked, and yet he was making no move to get her from upright to horizontal. His life was already too complicated.

  She stood up, too, studying him gravely. “You have such worries on your mind. Is it all because of the Negro?”

  “No, that’s not all of it.” He sat down again and heard himself saying, “There was a burglary at a mansion in Inman Park on Saturday night. And the police have been leaning on me to find the person who did it.”

  “Why you?”

  “I happen to know people in that line of work,” he said carefully.

  “Because you’re one of them?” It wasn’t really a question.

  “Well, I have been,” he admitted.

  Molly watched him steadily. “Is there by chance a woman mixed up in it?” she said. Joe raised an eyebrow. “You have that look about you.”

  He laughed shortly. She didn’t miss anything. “It happens there is,” he said.

  She nodded with sympathy. “Well, I’m sorry for your troubles.”

  He mused for a moment on the strange turn in the exchange, and then got to his feet, saying, “If you think of anything else about Mr. Logue, I keep a room at the Hampton on Houston Street. You can send a message there.”

  Now she eyed him with sprightly humor. “So, you’re quite the gentleman, aren’t you?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You didn’t try anything fresh with me,” she said. “What kind of sporting man are you?”

  Joe felt his face getting red. “What do you know about sports?”

  “Oh, Mrs. Cotter tells me stories.” She lowered her voice. “Do you know she used to be a madam in one of those houses? I’m learning all sorts of things.”

  Again, he caught a hint of something devious and thought to pry a bit more. Instead, he simply thanked her for her time and went for the door before he did something stupid.

  She called his name and he stopped. “You can come back and visit again, if you like,” she said.

  He couldn’t read her expression. Though guileless, something odd was traversing her eyes and he got a sudden sense that she was hiding in that room. Perhaps she was on the run from a bad man or some unnamed crime. She could be escaping the troubles across the water in Ireland. He’d come across a few fellows like that in his travels, never a woman, but who knew? She was another puzzle, the next chapter in the mystery of the female gender, one he’d never solve.

  He slipped out the door, along the hall, and down the stairs, all without making a sound. As soon as he found himself on the street, he looked back and saw her silhouette in the window and raised a hand to wave. She didn’t move, and he realized that she couldn’t see him for the sun in her eyes.

  One of the fellows who had been lounging around the kitchen came in to whisper in Willie’s ear. The blind man asked the sport to repeat it. He spent a few moments watching Little Jesse, who
had dropped into another tortured sleep. He got up to speak briefly to Martha, then pulled on his overcoat, slung the Stella over his shoulder, and headed outdoors.

  He found the two men standing on the Decatur Street corner, Jake Stein and an older fellow who introduced himself as George Purcell, both of them with nervous Yankee accents. Each man took his hand and shook it, something a white man rarely did with a Negro, and Willie felt a spike of worry that someone might have seen.

  Mr. Purcell was in charge, and he didn’t waste any time stating their business. Willie was stunned with pleasure and agreeable, though it wouldn’t be a simple matter. It would have to be handled cleverly. He told the pair that he would make his own way to the Dixie, describing the service entrance around back, accessible from Fairlie Street, and explaining exactly what had to be done. Murmuring agreement, Purcell and his young assistant shook his hand a second time, and went on ahead.

  Twenty minutes later, Mr. Purcell approached the front desk of the hotel and engaged Sidney the clerk and the house detective, who happened to be loitering nearby, in a frank discussion that was entirely fabricated, some nonsense about the annoyance of stragglers not showing up on time and still wanting to audition. The detective, bored to his socks, made a big deal of describing all the various ways to keep that sort from causing trouble. Mr. Morgan had passed the word about the guests’ unhappiness over the Negro singer, and they were eager to be of service.

  Meanwhile, Jake Stein was paying one of the colored bellboys fifty cents to clear a path and escort Willie through the alley entrance of the building and into the freight elevator. In another few minutes, the door had closed on the fourth-floor suite with the blind man safely inside.

  Once Mr. Purcell finished his little charade and made his way upstairs, they went right to work. There would be no need for an audition; anyway, there wasn’t time. Willie asked if the first song could be for practice, and Mr. Purcell agreed, then turned and winked at Jake, signaling the younger man to go ahead and turn the machine on, anyway. If he thought the singer wouldn’t catch this, he was mistaken. Willie could hear the flutter of a butterfly’s wings at twenty paces. To him, the switch being flipped sounded like a firecracker going off.