by Jack Cady
"With regrets to Masterson family and friends. Keep rollin," Wade called. "Let's keep rollin'."
Gloria remained pee-oohed.
"I knows de man," Lester jived to her in darky accents. "Next time he drop one on you. Momma always say takin' turns be fair."
August 7th
The Third Death
Check-Out Day
In days more ancient, even, than those when bloody rags preceded barber poles, an uglier symbol strode the world. After Ghengis Khan, or Alexander the Great, or some such other savage despoiled a city, he commanded that all loot be stacked in an enormous pile. When the stack of loot reached zenith, a blood-drenched flag was placed before the heap of statuary, ornaments, gold, tapestry, rugs, rings, pots and tools. The flag announced distribution of goods to the victors. Warriors gathered, waiting their shares. Being only warriors they publicly cried victory while thanking their gods; and privately bitching.
Thus began a custom with chants somewhat religious, and economic always. The red flag would flap across history. As methods of murder became more svelte the red flag turned to a remnant from ancient times. It now hangs outside of auction houses. Sometimes it means 'Auction Today', and sometimes it means 'Check-Out Day'.
* * *
On the following morning a small van from Arnold's Moving & Storage picked up the Victorian hall tree, so it was obvious Daniels had engaged in drama. Daniels showed up right away, but any tale of 'a rich bastard stand-off' would have to wait.
Lucky showed up a little later, just in time to help Wade's kid who was about to walk across forty acres of misery.
It was check-out day. On Wednesday night a lot of small stuff went home with buyers. Most of the furniture, and other gear, remained among litter of cigarette butts. In the front of the store, and in back, Wade's kid had pushed a broom.
This Thursday morning the auction would see two kinds of trucks arrive: pickups belonging to local dealers who could probably get their stuff in one load, but who could make two loads if necessary. The second kind were large, usually vans, but an occasional 18-foot stake. These were dealers from downstate who bought at St. Vincent de Paul, plus stores on Market St., then topped off their loads at auctions.
"If there is gonna be trouble . . .", as Lester would tell you, "it will likely come from one of these country boys whose momma didn't raise him with no politeness."
Several tons of merchandise move out of front and back doors, and mostly move in the first two hours of the business day. Ninety-nine percent of customers are honest, while one percent will steal a deaf man's hearing aid.
Most members of the one percent are known to the auctioneer and everybody else. The junk dealer, Fudd, is an example. The rule is "Fudd will never make a dollar because he thinks of dimes. He'll move items around, and shift something nearly worthless into a box of worthless crap for which he paid a buck."
The country boys may cause problems because some of them are strangers. Wade, a country boy himself, can tune in with such men quicker than a pigeon can poop. Wade usually checks them out.
The buyer gets an invoice listing his purchases by description and lot number. Wade, or Wade's kid, or Lester, or Wade's daughter checks each item off with a pencil as it is loaded on a truck. When the buyer is not known, it pays to look in drawers of chests, and open the doors of cabinets. Small merchandise has a way of getting 'lost' in large containers. The general response from such buyers, is, "Wa'll I'll be gawdam, how did thet git in there?"
As the sale is dismantled, some buyers get impatient as they wait for a checker. If a country boy, he's liable to act the way he acts back home. That is what caused the first rough note of the day.
Lester, so black he shone brilliant, sweated into his socks as he dismantled a baby grand for loading. It's a delicate job, about like trying to carve ivory with the elephant still attached.
The lid comes off, the sound board has to be secured, and with another guy's help the instrument is tipped on its side. The legs have to come off. It must be wrapped in furniture pads. If you're lucky, the buyer owns a piano board. Without luck, you're gonna have to help boost it, not slide it. Experienced men can get the thing ready in ten minutes if the customer stays 't'hell out of the way'. Otherwise it takes half an hour. Two experienced men can boost it if the buyer doesn't assist. Otherwise, the crash can sound like Geo. M. Cohen on a real bad day.
Lester, with Daniels' help, had the thing on edge and perched on a flatbed cart. He held it steady while Wade's kid draped furniture pads and arranged furniture straps. Daniels gradually stepped aside because he didn't want to be asked to 'boost that heavy bastard'.
Beside Lester and kid, chests and tables were carried through the front doorway as Wade's daughter checked for the antique dealer, Gloria. A truck stood out front, and sunlight made the dust on its red paint seem mellow. Sunlight flooded the street, but smart men and women wrinkled their noses. Some people claim they can smell a thunderstorm hours ahead of time. Lester wrinkled his nose, and figured it for three p.m.; plenty of time to get the sale checked.
A country boy approached. He carried his small invoice like an important flag. He looked in his late thirties, and his spiky hair needed a wash job. His overalls covered a substantial tummy. His teeth were not too rotted, and his hands showed that he knew about dog-work. He did not exactly qualify as white trash, but would serve until white trash could be found.
"Need some checkmarks," he told Lester. "Couple refrigerators in back, and a stove."
"I got this here piano."
"Now," the guy said. "I got a long drive and no time for bullshit."
Lester grinned, darky-like, so as to ease away from trouble. "Better see the boss. I can't exactly stop what I'm doin'." He reached down and around, holding a furniture strap so Wade's kid could tighten.
"Now."
"See the boss."
"Where I come from," the guy said, "we don't stand for nigger sass."
Wade's kid fumbled the strap, tried to back away, then stood his ground.
"The big trouble with niggers," Lester said quietly, "is that some of the black bastards are dangerous." He looked beyond the guy as he searched for Wade. "Go find your pa," he told Wade's kid. To the country boy he said, "Fool with me and you wreck this piano. You wanna buy a piano?"
The country boy paused. In his world black bastards did not threaten white men. Black bastards were intimidated, and goddamn well should be; ever since the invention of rope.
Folks started paying attention. After all, this was no stranger. This was Lester. Folks had dealt with him for years. Wade's daughter stopped checking and also went looking for her dad. A couple of guys from the red truck gathered close. Daniels showed up from somewhere. Gloria stood watching; and Gloria, though small, had a way of making a man feel surrounded.
The country boy shifted from one foot to the other as he studied on 'how far he could take this here mess'.
When Wade showed up the country boy had about decided to back down. "What?" Wade said.
"Your boy just mouffed off a load of crap," the country boy said. "Damn poor way of doing business."
Wade looked at his kid. "What'n' baby-face hell did you say?"
"Not him," the country boy said. "Where I come from we got a sign at city limits. It says, 'nigger, don't let the sun set on you in this town'."
"And where I come from," Wade said as he slapped the guy on the shoulder, "we got a saying. 'The customer is always right until he gets to be a pain in my main joint.' Let's get you loaded." Wade sounded so jovial that the country boy couldn't figure whether he'd been insulted, or maybe not. Then he grinned and turned away.
"Dumb-dick," Gloria offered. "Hick-dumb-dick."
"'Ef I let such get to me," Lester told her, "I'd be livin' a life of sorrow." He grinned big time, sort of phony and sort of not, speaking darky language which wasn't usual. "You bein' good folks," he said. "Steady on this," he told Wade's kid, "and I'll tight down the straps."
When the pia
no was loaded Wade's kid drifted away. He lingered for a minute listening to Daniels tell about last night: about how the rich bulldog lady and the rich chubby guy nearly pulled each other's hair; except the chubby guy didn't have all that much to pull, etc.
Then Daniels, who understood himself for a hero, had settled it by making everybody act like civilians. He told both sides to pitch in fifty bucks each. They could then donate the thing to a museum, gift of both couples. There wasn't a museum in the world that would "want the gad-damn thing," but he hadn't mentioned that.
Wade's kid drifted into the back room which looked nearly naked. Long rows of merchandise had disappeared. Here and there a piece of furniture looked lonesome. At the end of the day all of the stuff not picked up would be shoved into a corner. It would move out in a day or two.
The kid paused near his dad who talked about Lester with a couple of guys. " . . . goddamn smart for a spade. I never seen the like."
"Keep a close eye," one of the men said. "There's not a-one of them that's not a thief." This was a man who ran a restaurant supply house on Market St. He was Germanish-looking and bald.
"Not Lester," the other man said. "Charlie used to swear by him." This man handled used furniture and clothes on Market. He was just a little snip of a man, but brittle and active.
"Charlie was too trusting."
"Dunno," Wade said. "Everything I've ever heard of Charlie said he knew his shit . . . ."
Soon it would be time for the kid to get the push broom. More cigarette butts, more clutter of squashed chewing gum wadded in gum wrappers, more junk from buyers who sorted boxes of small stuff and left what they didn't want.
He got to the back door just in time to see the country boy pull away. The man's truck was blue with wood stakes that carried remains of orange paint. Green canvas tarp lay stretched and roped across the mounded load, and a couple of heavy timbers extended beyond the bed. The timbers were flagged, small red dots waving.
The truck traveled down an alley. When the kid stepped through the back doorway of the auction, and looked left down the alley, he could see a little swatch of Eastern Parkway. The alley did a ninety at the back door of the auction. Then it stretched away a whole block and intersected Deer Park Avenue.
All along the alley were garages with narrow doors. The garages mostly had dirt floors and once held carriages, or, later, Model T's. Roofs of some garages sagged and showed missing shingles. Doors were sprung. The buildings were past usefulness, except for a kid.
The neighbor's garage was a place where a kid could wander and not be found for a while, and the kid walked toward it. Dirt floor, sagging roof beam, door nearly off its hinges, and sunlight casting little spotlights through holes in the roof. The beams of sun spotted the dirt floor.
Once inside this place a kid could feel safe, although Wade's kid did not think of it that way. This place was not confusing. In this busted garage were no grown-ups with talk that must make sense, if a kid could figure how. Grown-ups said one thing, then said the opposite, and acted like both were true. How did that work?
He pulled the door open hoping it would not fall off. From inside the garage sounded a rustle, like someone moving quickly. The kid paused. A creak, like rust on a hinge. The kid almost backed away. There were no more sounds. He stepped inside. Timid.
Gloom in the garage was cut by those tiny spotlights of sun. One spotlight hit directly on the forehead of a man who lay on his back. Newspapers were spread under him. The man wore a black suit with white shirt and tie. His shoes were polished. He looked like he was asleep, and what sense did that make?
The little spotlights made the gloom seem darker, and Wade's kid thought he'd better leave. If he woke the man up, the man would be mad. Then the kid looked beyond the little spot of sun, looked at the man's face. This was the man who had taken him by the arm and pushed him out of Mrs. Samuels' house. The kid understood, before he understood how, that the man was dead.
He'd ought to do something. Instead, he stood. As his eyes fully adjusted to gloom, he saw a silver pistol lying near the man. There was nothing else in the garage, except a round-point shovel leaning against a wall. A small door led to the backyard of the house, but it stood closed.
There was a dark little hole, blue, in the man's temple. It didn't seem like nothin'. This man's eyes weren't rolled back. They weren't even open. The kid could not see the other side of the man's head, just the little hole. The newspapers weren't even wet, even. The ground wasn't even damp.
The kid knew that in another minute he was going to be scared and running. Some other part of him knew that he'd better look close. He didn't want to remember this in the quick and awful way that he remembered Mrs. Samuels' rolled eyes and open mouth.
The little spots of sun lay like freckles on the soil. The man's suit was clean but worn. It had funny, square collars and extra buttons. The jacket had frays. The worn sole of one shoe needed fixing. The pistol lay a-ways off from the man's outstretched hand, and the pistol wasn't very big. Antique dealers at the auction bought lots bigger ones.
One of the man's arms was folded on his chest like a man laid out for burial. The other arm looked like it had fallen to his side. His face looked slack, and almost caved-in, like from sickness. One little speck of light, a tiny spotlight, gleamed on the tip of his polished shoe.
"Youngster," Lucky said in a low voice. "We'd better get you out of here." He touched the kid's shoulder.
The kid had not heard Lucky approach. The kid had never heard a man's voice sound that gentle. "Nothing we can do," Lucky told him. "I'll get somebody to take care of it. You come along."
* * *
The kid would remember sweeping floors, because that was what he was supposed to do, and because people didn't pay attention to kids who swept floors. He swept while crazy stuff swirled around the auction house. The worst part wasn't his father's quiet cussing. The worst part was faces.
He knew his mother's face. He had seen her face joyful or sad, tired, and even exhausted, with her bobbed hair dull. He had seen her face glow with the quiet pleasure of church service and church song, hair shiny and blue eyes intent. He had seen her angry and suppressing it, or angry and quietly speaking. He had never before seen her face filled with shame.
"We could have done something. We're always so busy. We were obliged to do something." It was like she could not raise her head all the way. It was like she bowed beneath an awful weight.
"I'm afraid not much could be done." Lucky sounded more sad than shocked. Lucky also sounded awfully guilty. "Lots of pressure," he said. "Pressure mounts up."
Nobody understood what he meant. Maybe Lucky didn't understand all of it, but he understood enough. The style of the man's clothes showed that he was European, and eastern European at that. If Jewish, the main questions were how had he escaped Europe, and how had he come to the Jewish backwater of Louisville?
"I knew those people were alone." Wade's wife nearly whispered.
Lucky should have asked more questions. Later he would curse himself because he had not. At the time, he assumed that Wade's wife meant Mildred Samuels and the dead man. Lucky did not know that Mrs. Samuels had two sons. Lucky tried to make Wade's wife feel better, and he kept an eye on Wade's kid.
Wade's kid thought he knew his father's face. He had seen that face angry, excited, and also fatigued after a long day's work. He had watched his father's droll way of spreading b.s., and he had seen the way his father looked when bullying kids, or bidders. He had never seen that face bloodless and shocked and fearful. "Sanctified cat-nuts," his father said. "Shitfire and sermons."
It was his father's prayerful cussing that defined the day, and it sort-of seemed right. If his father could pray, it would have to be in cuss words.
There were other faces and voices. When two tough cops asked questions the kid felt almost babyish: "Where were you? What were you doing there?" The cops tried to be nice, sort-of, but one cop's face was red like a man who is liquored-up. The other
cop's face looked like a lemon, like a bored lemon.
The cops asked his father questions. "Did you hear anything? The damn gun had to make a noise . . .funny looking gun. A pinfire, foreign, Europe . . . little thing, bullet didn't go all the way through . . . and, what about that black boy? Where he don't belong . . .?"
The angry cop seemed mad because " . . .it don't add up." The dead man wore his frayed suit and looked respectable. It looked like, maybe, someone had closed the dead man's eyes and arranged the body. Or, maybe not. The cop used the auction's phone and gave a long explanation to his dispatcher or sergeant.
Lester's face went blank. His eyes narrowed. His face looked like a statue, hair so short it wasn't hardly even kinky. His face looked grim, like pictures of soldiers during the war. He busied himself by assembling all goods not yet picked up. As he worked he hummed, but so low only the kid heard. It amounted to a tuneless hum, like a small electric motor running without taking a load. Lester, so black he stood out clear as sunshine, did his level best to disappear. When the kid's dad asked did Lester " . . .want to come see," Lester turned sullen: "I done Army time. You think I don't know how it looks?"
Lots of people just left. Daniels, who might or might not accidentally trade for stolen property, disappeared before the cops showed up. Daniels' face seemed toneless. He wasn't gonna hum, and he wasn't gonna promise anything.
Gloria acted the same, except her face beneath Irish-red hair was not toneless. She looked grim as a teacher sending a kid to the principal. Gloria had a reputation as one tough little cookie, but she wanted no part of what might happen.
Lucky hung around for a while, even if it meant he would be late opening his store. He talked to the police. He talked to the kid's dad. He mostly talked to the kid's mom, like he understood her sadness. He spoke in the same gentle way he had used with the kid.
The two cops were joined by a detective. A '47 Ford, a black mariah, came for the dead man. A couple of guys rolled the man onto a stretcher and shoved him in the Ford. The kid didn't see that. His sister told him. Of course, she might have been pretending. His sister could pretend anything.
