by David Fulmer
Joe couldn’t think anymore, so he followed along. The dancers tapped their way to a rattling crescendo that was followed by a loud surge of claps and whistles. The troupe came bouncing off. Normally, Joe would have been delighted to observe such a lovely procession. This time, it barely registered.
The host on the stage made the introduction, and modest applause swelled again as Blind Willie McTell walked out onto the stage, leaving Joe in the darkness.
Nine
The sun broke through and by nine o’clock had burned off the last of the morning mist. The temperature rose a few degrees and then fell again as a cold front moved in from the northwest.
The snap in the air seemed to cheer the pedestrians who were milling along the downtown sidewalks. The Christmas decorations that adorned the storefronts and lampposts glittered in gay shades of red, green, silver, and gold. Shoppers, mostly women from the tonier neighborhoods north and east of the city, hurried into the stores, picking over the bountiful displays and crowding around the radio sets that were on sale for the first time this season, listening to the music and perhaps the word that Atlanta’s one annual day of snow might be on the way.
Joe woke up with his arms wrapped around something soft and warm, only to find that it was his pillow. He pushed it away and rolled over to gaze drowsily at the ceiling.
The career of the previous day and night came back to him in a shuffling of cards. It had begun with the discovery of the killing of one stranger and ended with another, with a friend dying between the other two. It was a grim trio of events for one sweep of the clock. Someone had stayed busy cleaning up a mess. Whoever had paid Logue to shoot Jesse had gotten rid of him and then the only witness. And if Little Jesse had hung on, Joe had no doubt that someone would have come for him, too.
He pushed himself up against the headboard and turned to gaze out at the morning as his brain came unstuck. He thought about who could maneuver such a bloodbath and the only name that came to mind was Grayton Jackson, though he couldn’t see any reason why the Captain would want a common criminal like Jesse Williams dead. There were dozens like him and worse working the Atlanta streets. Jackson had bigger problems than him.
One in particular was the burglary at the Payne mansion, a crime that had the mayor, the chief of police, and some rich citizens very upset. The Captain clearly suspected Pearl, and the way she kept edging around the coincidence of being at the mansion when the jewels went missing had Joe vexed, too. Was it really true that she just happened to be there? He knew how his old friend Detective Glass would answer the question.
But Pearl was too clever to pull such a brazen theft. Any decent thief would know that a home was best breached when the occupants were off the premises, at work, during church, or away on a vacation. Making a snatch like that during an event like the Christmas party, with so many people milling around who might spot an intruder, had been either a foolish blunder that had come out lucky or done for show. If that was the case, then dragging Pearl and Joe into it as a diversion would not be such a dumb move. In Joe’s criminal gut, it felt right.
He closed his eyes and flipped through the mug book that he kept in his head, trying to pick out any characters who could pull that slick of a job. There were only a few with the wits, and he hadn’t seen any of them around. And yet it looked likely that someone had plotted the theft and the subterfuge that went with it.
He was back from the bathroom and had just finished dressing when there was a tap on his door. He opened it to find Albert Nichols standing there. He stepped back, inviting the detective inside.
“I could use a cup of coffee,” Albert said, smiling lightly. “What say we go across the street?”
“That’s not a good idea,” Joe said.
Albert snickered. “Are you still hiding from him? Isn’t that a lot of damn work? Why don’t you marry the girl and get it over with?”
Joe didn’t think that was funny at all.
The detective took a moment to cough into his hand. “Or don’t you want to be seen with me?”
“You don’t need to be seen with me,” Joe said.
Albert frowned with impatience. “You want to talk or don’t you?” he said. “Hell, you’re talking to everyone else.” With that, he took a step back and strolled off down the hall.
The detective was sitting over a steaming cup, watching the bustle on Houston Street and noting the characters strolling in and out the doors of the Hampton, when Joe walked in and crossed to the counter. Momentarily, he stepped up to the table with a coffee cup of his own in hand.
“I thought you might have changed your mind,” Albert said. His eyes shifted toward the kitchen window. “He in there?”
Joe shrugged. “I didn’t look.”
“Well, sit down, then.” Albert smiled, noting that Joe did so to give himself a clear view of the kitchen and a clear path to the front door.
Albert sipped his coffee and put his cup down. “I heard Williams died.”
Joe sighed. “Yeah, I was there.”
“How was it?”
“He went easy.”
“Did you get anything else from him.”
“No,” Joe said. “I didn’t.”
“And that Negro who was shot down on the tracks. Your witness. Clark. Anybody else I don’t know about?”
“This ain’t my fault, Al.”
The detective’s mouth settled into a hard line. “I got called off into the Captain’s office yesterday,” he said. “Just long enough for him to tell me to stay the hell away from you and this shit you’re stirring up. So you better make this little visit worth my while.” He treated Joe to a pointed stare.
“All right, then.” Joe dropped his voice and said, “Logue was paid to kill Jesse Williams.”
“That’s not what I want—”
“Wait a minute,” Joe interrupted. “This isn’t what you think.”
Albert shifted in his chair. “Go ahead, then,” he said.
“He deposited two hundred dollars in the bank last Friday,” Joe said. “So either the chief is handing out Christmas gifts this year or someone else gave him the money. The next night, he set out to kill Jesse Williams. Two nights after that, he was shot down. And now Williams is gone and so is the one witness to what happened down there on Courtland Street.”
Albert eyed him. “How do you know about the money?” When Joe didn’t answer him, he said, “You didn’t happen to break into his room, did you?”
Joe said, “I didn’t break in anywhere.”
Albert laughed and shook his head. “You’re such a swell fellow. I can see why the ladies are so sweet on you.”
Joe went through the rest of it, using his fingers to count down what he had, and arriving at the conclusion that it was all tied together somehow.
Albert mulled for a few seconds, then said, “You know your deceased friend Mr. Williams had a long sheet of arrests. He was trouble for years.”
“Nothing serious, though. Nothing to kill him over.”
“Not that we know of,” Albert admitted.
“He was just another rounder, Al.”
“It doesn’t matter what he was,” the detective retorted. “It’s over. There’s no place to go with it. You’ve got two dead Negroes, and we’ve got a dead cop. I’d call that a dead end.”
“Maybe for you,” Joe said. “I’m still stuck in the middle of it.”
“Then you better get some help.”
“I was hoping the police department might lend me a hand.”
“We don’t work for you,” Albert said, sounding gruff. “Stop stealing and pay some taxes and we’ll see about it then.”
Joe grinned as he sipped his coffee. “I can’t wait that long,” he said, then shrugged. “This is your case, too, Al.”
The detective’s expression darkened. “No, it’s not,” he said. “Not anymore. They took me off it and put me on a desk. I’m sitting on my ass going through old files.”
Joe said, “Damn . . .”
“Y
eah. That’s what I get for talking to you. They think you’ve got something and you’re not sharing. And somehow it’s my fault.”
“I know.” Joe looked around for a furtive second. “Collins braced me.”
“When?”
“Yesterday. Right up on Peachtree. It was after he saw me talking to you at the scene down there.”
“Goddamn,” the detective said. “He must have tailed you. What did you tell him?”
“What I told you. That Logue shot Little Jesse.”
Albert frowned irately. “What did you do that for?”
Joe hesitated. “I thought it would be okay.”
“Well, it wasn’t. Did he ask you about the burglary, too?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t give him anything. I don’t have anything.”
Albert stopped to treat Joe to a searching look. “You don’t, huh? Why do I find that hard to believe?”
Joe held out for a few seconds, then related the story Pearl had told about Saturday night, adding his own conclusion that the crime was committed in a way that would entangle the two of them.
Al didn’t see it. “That’s crazy,” he said. “There’s too many things could go wrong. Who would go to that kind of trouble?”
“No one I can think of,” Joe said.
“More likely you just walked into something. Who knew you were in town?”
Joe thought about it and said, “Well, I went to Decatur Street on Friday. Saturday night I was in that speak on Lime Row. The Ace Club. And then I was out there on the street after Jesse got shot. I’ve been down on Central Avenue, too.”
“In other words, maybe half the criminals in Atlanta saw you at one time or another.”
“I guess so.” Put that way, maybe it really was just a dose of bad luck.
“What about Pearl?” the detective inquired.
“What about her?”
Al smiled dimly. “Maybe she’s the one out to get you.”
Joe said, “Why would she?”
“You’d know better than me,” the detective murmured. “You cross her?”
“No more than the usual.”
Albert laughed shortly. “What else have you got?”
“That’s all,” Joe said. “Really.”
“Then you better get some more,” the detective said. “The Captain’s about to start climbing up your back. I mean it. His ass is in a grinder. If he doesn’t break this burglary, he’ll be lucky to get a job cleaning up after the horses. This was a man who thought he was next in line for chief of detectives.”
Joe smiled and said, “That job’s still open, ain’t it? Maybe they’ll give it to you.”
Albert’s dark eyes flashed. “Listen, goddamn it, this ain’t a joke! It’s one thing to have crime down Central Avenue. It’s something else when it’s at the Payne mansion during their fucking Christmas party! This is serious. You follow me, pal?”
His voice had gone up, and a couple heads at other tables turned their way. Joe gaped, startled at the performance.
Albert coughed into his napkin, his face turning crimson as sweat popped on his brow. When he could talk again, he said, “Are you getting all this? Because I don’t want you to be the next carcass they pick up off the street.” He stared at Joe for another moment, then pushed his chair back and stood up. “We’re finished here,” he said.
As he started around the table, Joe grabbed his sleeve and whispered, “I don’t know how, but that sonofabitch has got both hands on this.”
The detective didn’t say a word in response. He donned his hat, walked to the door, and stepped out onto the street, leaving his cold cup of coffee.
The telephone call from City Hall came in around midmorning, and one of the clerks carried the message upstairs to Lieutenant Collins, along with copies of the last night’s arrest reports. The lieutenant wasn’t at his desk and the other detectives were out, so the clerk peeked into the dark office and was surprised to find Captain Jackson staring pensively down at the floor, one side of his face illuminated by the winter light through the window.
“What?” the Captain said without looking up.
“The arrest reports, sir. And there’s a message for you from the mayor’s office.”
Jackson cocked his head in the clerk’s direction and held out his hand to snap the paper away, hardly breathing as he read through it. Then he reached out with his other hand for the stack of index cards, blue for the incidents involving white victims, yellow for the colored. “Anything else?” he said.
“No, sir,” the clerk said and backed away. At the door, he stole a glance back and saw the Captain holding one of the yellow cards before his eyes, staring at it with this mouth twisted into an odd, crooked smile.
Ten minutes later, Captain Jackson was stalking up and down along the side of the building, blowing little puffs of steamy breath, when Corporal Baker drove up in an APD sedan. The Captain climbed in with a grunt. Baker took one glance at his face and spent the drive staring straight ahead and not uttering a word. Not that he talked much anyway.
Meanwhile, Captain Jackson’s mind was raging as in a fever. In the first moments after he received the message, he had entertained the giddy notion that this was what he’d been waiting for, that he was being summoned so that the mayor could offer him the chief of detectives job.
That thought came and went, blown away by a cold wind that told him the real reason for the summons was for a dressing-down over the Inman Park business. They might even pull him off the case. Four days had gone by, and he had produced nothing. Even if he pinned the charge on one of the sneak thieves who swarmed the dark sections of the city like so many rats, he wouldn’t have Mrs. Payne’s jewels in hand, and they’d know it was a frame job. He had hoped that his threats might work, that even a smart fellow like Joe Rose would do the smart thing and come up with something. In fact, Rose and his black gal Pearl Spencer had called his bluff. For all he knew, Rose hadn’t done a damned thing about the burglary.
A low, strangled sound came from his throat, as if he couldn’t catch his breath. Corporal Baker glanced over at him with dull eyes, then returned his attention to the busy morning traffic.
The Captain had made a point of using Baker, partly because the corporal was too stupid to be devious, partly to let Lieutenant Collins know he was no longer trusted. Not him, and not Sergeant Nichols, either. The both of them with their righteous noses in the air. Aside from the random piece of fruit from one of the stands, or a cup of coffee from Beck’s or from Lulu’s Diner on Houston Street, neither one ever took a thing, including any of the ready cash.
Now one of his spies had passed the word that Nichols had been spotted earlier that morning in Lulu’s, the same place where Sweet Spencer worked, talking to Rose like they were a couple old pals. And after he’d told the sergeant to stay away from that character. For all he knew, Collins had joined the party, too, and they were plotting his destruction. If that was the case, the Captain swore he’d take all three of them down with him.
Mayor Sampson was slouched behind his desk, drumming his fingers, his ruddy face pinched in displeasure. Chief of Police Troutman stood at his left, as rigid as a toy soldier. A blank-faced assistant in a suit waited on the other side of the desk. His name was Mr. Gilbert and his most—his only—striking feature was hair slicked down and so shiny with oil that it fairly gleamed under the lights. Mayor Sampson murmured to him at intervals, and Gilbert’s birdlike eyes followed the mayor’s every word and move. There were already jokes going around about “Sampson’s shadow.”
They all looked around as the door opened and Captain Jackson was ushered in. The Captain forced his legs into a brisk stride, and his earnest expression showed no trace of concern, though anyone watching closely enough would have noticed the strained flicking of his eyes. He glanced at the three men, trying to read their expressions. Seeing nothing to encourage him, he readied himself for a duel.
“Mr. Mayor,” he said crisply. He did not look at Troutman, instead o
ffering a quick nod as he grunted, “Chief.”
Troutman glared at the discourtesy and started to say something. Before he could, the mayor spoke up. “Thank you for coming by on short notice.” He stared hard at the Captain. “I’ll get right to it. You led us to believe you could close this theft at the Payne mansion, find whoever committed the crime, and return the stolen goods, all in quick order. Isn’t that what you told Chief Troutman?”
The Captain now felt the chief’s cold eyes on him and knew the man was enjoying this. He said, “I did, Mr. Mayor, yes, sir, and I’m—”
“Do you have any suspects in custody?”
“We’re very—”
“And what about the stolen items?”
The mayor’s had gone shrill. The Captain licked his lips, found them dry. He could feel his face getting hotter. “We’ll be closing the case soon.”
“Soon?” the mayor barked. “Soon isn’t good enough, damn it!”
Chief Troutman straightened his shoulders imperiously. “Are you playing some sort of game, Jackson?”
The Captain looked over at him, thinking, What I’d do if the mayor of the city wasn’t sitting here . . . He cleared his throat. “What do you mean, sir?”
The chief’s knowing gaze slinked toward the mayor. “Well, if someone wanted to make Mayor Sampson look bad, stalling the investigation of a crime like this one would be one way to do it.” He pulled his eyes off the man at the desk to glare at the Captain. “Do you agree, Captain Jackson?”
The Captain felt his scalp prickle with sweat and his stomach heaved as the six other eyes in the room fixed on him. That would do it. Run away before he vomited on the mayor’s carpet and he’d be finished for sure. They’d be hooting over the story for years. It took an effort of will to stanch the disaster that was brewing in his gut and cool his brow. He drew a breath and steadied himself, feeling some of his equilibrium return. He glimpsed an opening. Another breath, and he was back. Now it was his turn.
