by Ace Atkins
She nodded.
“You know his name?”
She nodded again.
“But you won’t tell me.”
“They’d kill me.”
“They won’t kill you. We arrested that Fannie Belle woman and we’ll find him. If I could get some help understanding all this, maybe we could arrest a lot more.”
She nodded.
“Did you ever go to school?”
She shook her head.
“How did you end up here?”
She shook her head and looked back down at her hands. I didn’t say anything, just sat there smoking and watching it rain on Eighth Avenue and all the cars roaring by on the wet asphalt. I was thinking of home and getting some sleep when she spoke.
“I wasn’t always a whore.”
“You try to escape?”
“Can we get out of here, please? People are staring.”
I looked around. There was no one in the diner but a fat trucker and his wife in curlers, and they seemed more interested in the chicken-fried steak than us. I shrugged and grabbed my hat.
Soon, we were on a back highway, just driving. The talking seemed to come easier the more we moved out of town, and she bummed some smokes from me and squinted into the hot wind as we rounded our way around Russell County.
“I tried a few times. To leave, I mean.”
I just drove, listening and taking the curves as they came. I noticed a couple houses being built up on Sandfort, not far from where I kept my horses. Just a few years ago, it had been nothing but trees, most of the turnoffs unpaved.
“Aren’t you going to ask me what it was like? How I could do those things?”
“Nope.”
“How come?”
“You want to tell me?”
“Not much to tell.”
“How often did you see Fuller at Fannie Belle’s place?”
“Every night,” she said. “That’s when he came by to get his cut.”
I drove some more and then found a good road, a paved road, and took it, and soon the lights down on Crawford were shining, and I passed the turnoff to my house and Slocumb’s and kept on going to downtown. The service station looked oddly quiet closed up, with only some dim lights over the pumps. I wondered how my father-in-law was making out.
“I can find you a place to stay.”
She shook her head and asked me to take her to the bus station.
“You have money?”
She didn’t say anything.
At the bus station, I gave her a twenty-dollar bill and wrote out my home number. I told her to call anytime.
“I’m no snitch.”
“Wonder who made that call from the Hill Top? Figured it came from inside. Nobody else lives around there.”
She shrugged.
“Bert Fuller will get his due,” I said.
“Did you know he had a pecker the size of a stickpin?”
“Nope.”
“I figure that was why he was so mad.”
I nodded. “It couldn’t have helped.”
IT WAS MIDNIGHT IN THE LIVING ROOM OF ARCH FERRELL’S house, and Madeline had finally gotten some sleep, the baby growing restless inside of her. When Arch knew she couldn’t hear him, he slipped off to the sofa and dialed the number in Texas. He let it ring and ring, in that static connection, all the way over to Galveston. Finally, a man answered, and he sounded as if he’d just been roused from a dream.
“Si?” Arch said, whispering.
What?
“Si, listen-”
Arch?
“Hell, yes, this is Arch. Things are a mess. Governor Persons gone and did it. He finally did it. They shut down the whole town.”
Everything?
“Every goddamn thing, you hear me? They’re busting up slots and tables and arresting folks left and right. They got the goddamn jail so packed that the Guard’s holding folks in pens like they were dogs. You got to get back.”
I’m coming back.
“You mean it?”
I do.
“They even arrested Hoyt and Jimmie. Bernard Sykes questioned them up in the Ralston Hotel for nearly eight hours. This Sykes boy smells political blood, Si. And if you don’t come back soon, I’m gonna be sitting in Kilby come Christmas. You left my ledger in your briefcase. Damn thing shows every penny I collected in Phenix City against Patterson.”
Si coughed. He put down the phone, and Arch heard his echoed voice speaking to someone.
“Who was that?”
My nurse. She is the kindest colored woman I’ve ever met. She gave me a sponge bath yesterday and was so gentle.
“You know there is talk of putting you up on some kind of lunacy hearings if you come back. You understand that?”
I’m still the elected attorney general of the state of Alabama. I’ve read law since I was a child. When I’m well, I can resume my duties.
Arch crooked the telephone between his shoulder and ear. He lit a cigarette and poured himself a triple bourbon. A light flashed on in the bedroom, and he saw Madeline cross the threshold of the door in a nightgown, holding her big stomach and looking like a ghost.
She glowered at him from the door. He looked away.
“Well, you better get your goddamn head screwed on right quick or we’re all gonna hang for this mess. You gave me your word you’d take care of this. You said you’d handle all of it.”
I just needed some rest. I’ll come back and everything will be fine. Just fine.
But Si’s voice sounded sleepy and satisfied, the way an adult reads a storybook to a child with no sense. As Arch smoked down the cigarette and knocked down the rest of the drink, Madeline looking through the refrigerator for a nighttime craving, he wondered if Si Garrett wasn’t gone forever.
“I’m coming to see you.”
Not here. Not now.
“I’m coming to Texas. We need to talk. You gave me your goddamn word. What are you without your word?”
The phone line went dead, and Arch left it there buzzing in his lap for a long time, his face growing hot.
JOHN PATTERSON AND HUGH BRITTON MET ME AT THE sheriff’s office the next morning. I opened some of the windows behind my desk to let in some air. It took some work, because the sills had been painted over and the windows didn’t budge until I used a flathead screwdriver and a hammer. Finally, I got some air going and set a fan on top of the desk, where I sat on the edge and listened to Hugh Britton tell us both what he’d heard.
“Fuller is leaving town,” he said. “I hear it’s tonight. He’s waiting till it gets dark and then he’s gonna slip out past the roadblocks.”
“You know where he’s headed?”
“I don’t.”
“Can we hold him on anything?”
Patterson shook his head. “We could charge him with neglect of duty, but he’d be out within an hour. We’d need something that would stick, and let the judge set his bond high enough that he won’t be able to leave.”
“What about pimping?” I asked.
“You know anyone who’ll testify to that?”
I thought of the girl and then shook my head.
“This whole town is still scared to death of that sonofabitch,” Britton said. “But if y’all don’t do something, Bert Fuller will be sitting on a beach in South America and we’ll never see the bastard again.”
I lit a cigarette and tried to open another window. It was only early morning but hot and muggy, and the office smelled of old tobacco and sweat.
I reached into a desk and found what I wanted and tossed it across the desk. “Found this in the files last night.”
Patterson opened up little books of prints lifted from the Patterson Oldsmobile and handed them to Britton.
“I don’t know if these are duplicates. Can we get these sent up to Washington to go with the prints on your daddy’s car?”
Patterson nodded. He looked better than I’d seen him in a while. He was freshly shaven, wearing khakis and a light blue shirt. He stood up and helped h
imself to a mug of coffee from the pot we kept on the hot plate. His eyes clear and focused, black hair combed straight back. Not a single Democratic candidate had challenged him for the AG position, and he was already making plans to move to Montgomery come January.
Behind him, the gun rack sat empty. The only guns in the jail were on the Guard troops and the.45 Jack Black had given me. I had no uniforms. I had no deputies.
The file cabinet drawers were open and cleared, most of the contents being pored over by assistant state attorneys. One of the young boys – fresh out of University of Alabama law school – had brought the print book to me before I left my house.
“Where’d you hear this about Fuller?” I asked.
“A friend of his girlfriend,” Britton said. “She thinks he’s gonna skip out on her, too. She may be pregnant.”
“You want to take a visit?”
“Sure thing,” Britton said.
“I don’t want to see Bert Fuller till he’s in jail or sitting before a judge,” Patterson said. “I don’t trust myself with him.”
I grabbed my hat.
“Aren’t you gonna carry a gun?” Britton asked me.
I shrugged. “Not right now.”
“You got your badge?” Britton asked.
“He knows who I am.”
“I’d carry a badge.”
“I think it’s in my car,” I said. “Hugh, how’d you like to be my deputy?”
“How much you pay?”
I told him.
“Think I’ll stick to layin’ carpet, if it’s all the same,” he said.
As we left, John Patterson sat in my office in a hard wooden chair, staring out my open window.
SOMETIME AFTER OUR RUN-IN ON THE FOURTH, FULLER had decided to move into the second floor of Homer C. Cobb Memorial. The hospital was named in honor of the former mayor, mostly known for allowing gambling to run wild during the Depression to keep Phenix from falling into receivership, and the two major donors to the building fund had been Hoyt and Jimmie. It was one of the finest hospitals in east Alabama.
Fuller was in bed reading a Zane Grey novel. He wore a pair of red-and-blue-striped pajamas and smoked a cigarette, and when we entered the room he smiled weakly and reached out his hand to me.
“Congratulations,” he said. “I’m proud of you.”
I looked over to Hugh Britton and he looked back to me.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Fuller said, crushing out the cigarette in an ashtray that rested on his belly and setting down the book on a nearby food tray. “I’ve been meaning to thank you.”
“For what?”
“For helping me.”
He put out his hand again, but I still didn’t take it, and he smiled a little at that, fully understanding the situation.
“I was a sinner,” he said. “But I’m not a sinner no more.”
“That’s nice for you, Bert,” I said. “But I need to ask you some questions.”
“Won’t you pray with me?”
“Maybe later.”
“I love you, Lamar. I love you for what you done.”
I nodded and looked back to Hugh Britton. Britton was chewing a big wad of gum, and his jaw muscles flexed and worked as he eyed the big tub of guts in the bed. He just shook his steel gray head over what Bert Fuller had become.
“You want to tell me where you were when Mr. Patterson was shot?”
“Sure thing. It’s no secret. I was at the jail with Sheriff Matthews. I’ve already told all this to Mr. Sykes.”
“Well, tell me again.”
“I’m ashamed to admit it, but we were playing cards. But let me tell you something, that’s in my past. I don’t gamble, and my lips won’t touch a drop of whiskey. I am cleansed. Yes, sir. I just heard on the radio that Billy Graham wants to come to Phenix City for a revival. If that don’t beat all.”
“Bert, can you tell me how long you were at the jail?” I asked, pulling a little notebook from my shirt pocket. I clicked open a pen and took some notes.
“’Bout an hour,” he said.
“What time did you get there?”
“’Bout eight, it was gettin’ dark.”
“And when did you leave?”
“When we got word what had happened to Mr. Patterson,” he said. “I just grabbed my hat and ran out of the office.”
“Did you leave your office any time before that?”
“No, sir. There were four other deputies with me there, and Sheriff Matthews, of course, and the jailer.”
“I don’t doubt those men will vouch for you.”
“Mr. Murphy, you got to know I had nothing to do with this, and I’d give my right arm if I could find out who killed Mr. Patterson like that. I swear before my Lord Jesus Christ that I did not kill that man. Won’t you pray with me?”
I looked down at him and then over at Hugh Britton. I shook my head.
“No, thanks, Bert. I don’t think I will.”
I turned to leave and Britton followed me, walking down the long hospital hall. “You believe that song and dance?”
“No, sir.”
“What can you charge him with?”
I punched the button on the elevator.
“What about vote fraud?” Britton asked.
“Keep talkin’.”
“What if someone was to file charges against Fuller for loading the ballot box?”
“You see that?”
“No, but I know someone who did.”
“You think he’ll testify before a judge?”
“Can’t hurt to ask her.”
14
“HOW MUCH YOU GET?”
“Two dollars.”
“That’s it?” Reuben asked. “Big old house and that’s all they got to give to a poor orphan?”
“The woman didn’t believe I was an orphan,” Billy said. “She said my teeth were too good.”
Reuben nodded and wheeled the car out from the oak shadows by the wide-porched, white-columned house in Columbus. He whistled while he drove in and out of the shadows and wheeled down by Broadway, and asked Billy to count out the change.
“How ’bout a hot dog?”
“I thought we were buying groceries,” Billy said.
“Hot dogs are groceries. It’s food, ain’t it?”
They stopped up on the bluff and bought a couple hot dogs from a little brick stand and ate them in the car, the windows down, a nice little breeze coming down the street, working in the shadows. Billy watched his dad load them down with plenty of that free stuff, chopped onions and relish and the like, and part of it spilled down on his hands as he washed it down with a bottle of Coca-Cola.
“You think you could do a cripple?” Reuben asked.
“I guess,” Billy said. “I can do a limp and make my eyes go kind of funny.”
“If you could make yourself drool, we’d hit the jackpot.”
Billy finished up his hot dog and watched the people come and go from the little stand. His father flicked on the radio, and they listened to reports about some A-bomb tests in the desert, and knowing all that was close kind of made him feel better about the day. Before everything was blown to hell.
“I know of a few more neighborhoods we can hit tomorrow.”
“If you buy whiskey, I won’t do this again.”
“Goddamn it. I’m not going to buy whiskey. I told you that.”
“You did last time.”
“Well,” Reuben said, starting the engine and twirling the car around. “Well, last time I needed it.”
They drove over the bridge into Alabama and up the hill on Fourteenth Street, past all the jeeps and Guard troops. Billy saw a couple boys with rifles walking under the dead marquees smoking cigarettes. He turned back straight ahead, and soon they were headed up Summerville Road and home.
“I don’t think they’re going to leave till they find out who killed Mr. Patterson.”
“Shit, they know who killed Mr. Patterson,” Reuben said. He reached under the seat and
pulled out a pint of Jack Daniel’s, taking a hit. “They just are doing this for the newspapers. Soon as Governor Folsom comes in, these people will be gone, and me and you can start making some money again.”
“Who was it?”
“Bert Fuller.”
“I guess everybody knows that,” Billy said. “Problem is that nobody saw him.”
Reuben took a hit of the whiskey and wheeled onto the long dirt road that would take them home. The sun had started to dip to the west, and everything was nice and gold and warm on a hot August day.
“Someone saw him,” Reuben said.
Billy looked over at his dad and pulled a cigarette from his pack of Luckies. He fiddled with the lighter in the dash.
“I seen that sonofabitch standing in that alley beside the Elite not two minutes before Mr. Patterson was shot. He was crouched down behind a car. I wasn’t the only one either. I seen two more people walk right by that sonofabitch and look him right in the face.”
Billy stared over at his father and couldn’t breathe for a moment. His father shook his head and put an index finger to his lips. “You think I’m messin’ with that clusterfuck and get myself killed? Hell, no, son.”
He parked the car in front of the farmhouse but only got halfway there when the screen door of the porch creaked open and out walked Johnnie Benefield with a sling on his arm and a smile on his face.
WE FOUND HILDA COULTER IN TOWN AT THE LITTLE flower shop she ran right next door to Hoyt Shepherd’s pool hall. In back, she arranged some spindly white flowers at a table with what seemed to be some kind of fern. Hilda was in her late twenties or early thirties, and wore a blue dress with a tiny belt at the waist. She was a brunette, with big, perfectly done hair, and looked downright annoyed when we walked in and she had to turn down a small radio that played Rosemary Clooney.
We all knew each other. Hilda had started the RBA’s women’s auxiliary in ’52. She was a firecracker. A female version of Hugh Britton who would run with any assignment that old Albert Patterson had given her, from campaigning to visiting officers at Fort Benning. She didn’t think anything of talking down to some generals in the most genteel language about what services were offered for the soldiers.
She kept on with the arrangement, adding in some long-stemmed roses, measuring the stem and then cutting a bit back.
