The Lightning Rule

by Brett Ellen Block

  “Why hello, Calvin,” Meers said genteelly. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I think we’re going to have a lot of fun together.”

  Then he shut the trunk.

  TWENTY

  The Fourth Precinct had not been built to withstand the heavy combat that came to its doors. The brick and brownstone structure shuddered with each new wave of assault. Emmett’s rational side told him to get out of there, to get home and make sure Edward, Freddie, and Mrs. Poole were all right, but his reflexes were screaming for him to stay and help. His body and mind pulled in opposite directions. Evander Hammond’s file was hidden under his jacket in the waistband of his pants, stuck in the small of his spine like a gun, splitting him down the middle.

  Reason beat out reflex, and Emmett bolted for the station’s rear door. When he stepped outside, the ground was shaking beneath his feet. People were stampeding toward the precinct. Others spilled along side streets, charging at the stores that hadn’t been looted and battering down doors and windows. The din crescendoed into a roar.

  Emmett ran to his car and sped away with the dispatch frequency on full blast. Frenzied calls began flooding in. Robberies were being reported by the dozens. The dispatchers couldn’t get a word in edgewise. At any given time, day or night, over fifty police cars patrolled the city’s streets. Each of the five precincts had twelve cars apiece, and the force was bolstered by forty motorcycles as well as the horses of the Mounted Division in the Second Precinct. From the sound of it, every single car was radioing in offering aide. Some Fifth Precinct cars said they could come immediately, but the dispatcher forbade them from doing so.

  “All cars, by orders of the command post, you are confined to your precincts.”

  No sooner had dispatch completed the transmission when one of the Fourth Precinct cars called in an SOS. “We’ve been hit by a firebomb. The car’s on fire. The goddamn car’s on fire.”

  The police band was mute. After conferring with superiors, the dispatcher returned with instructions. “Abandon the car. Get to the Fourth on foot.”

  Then a second radio car went down.

  “They’re throwing cinder blocks at us. They’re tossing ’em from the windows. Two hit the car. The first nearly came through the roof. The other hit the hood and knocked out the engine. The car won’t run. Whadda we do? What the hell do we do?”

  “I repeat, by order of Police Director Sloakes, all cars are to remain in their districts.”

  Emmett imagined a communal curse of Sloakes’s name coming from the mouths of cops listening throughout the city. At every intersection and stoplight, he had to wrestle away the impulse to turn around. The neighborhood he was cutting through was a quiet contrast to where he had come from. Residents were hunched on their stoops, oblivious to what was happening just blocks from their homes.

  “Officer needs assistance,” a voice shouted over the frequency. “We got a brick through our windshield. It hit my partner. He’s cut and he’s bleeding something fierce. We’re at Camden and Fifteenth. We can’t make it to the Fourth. We can’t make it in. We—” The officer was interrupted by a blast. “Jesus Christ. They’re firebombing us. We need help. The car’s burning. We need—”

  The transmission broke off right as Emmett arrived at his house. He sat in the car, deliberating whether to go back. Cars from the Traffic Division immediately began patching in, volunteering assistance to the trapped patrolmen.

  “We’re off Routes One and Nine. We can get there faster than the bus.”

  A “bus” was code for an ambulance, and the traffic cars undoubtedly could have beaten any emergency crew to the scene. Unlike regular radio cars, theirs were souped-up Chryslers that had lighter bodies built for high-speed chases. With the sirens rolling, they could get anywhere on the double.

  “Stay on the highway,” was the response from dispatch. “Repeat. Stay on the highway.”

  Powerless, Emmett put the car in park and cut the motor. Most of the lights in his house were off by then, only the bluish glow of the television showed through the blinds. He knew everyone inside was waiting for him.

  When he walked in, Mrs. Poole was seated in a straight-backed chair she had taken from the kitchen, while Freddie slouched across the couch’s armrest, chin propped on his elbow. Edward was in his regular spot beside their father’s old lounger. Concern washed across his face the instant he saw Emmett.

  “What’s wrong?” Mrs. Poole asked, her reaction mirroring Edward’s.

  “A lot.”

  Emmett hit the power on the television and put Edward’s homemade radio on top of it. A fretful voice was saying, “We’ve got stores on fire all up and down Belmont. Send the fire department now. Now, damn it.”

  “I need trucks on Clinton Avenue,” someone shouted next. “We got fires burning in four stores I counted. Four of ’em. And the ones that ain’t on fire are getting robbed. Niggers are going in and out like they’re shopping. We need backup. It’s just the two of us and they’re throwing stuff at the car.”

  Mrs. Poole’s hand went to her heart. Freddie sat up, alert.

  “Raise the volume,” Edward insisted.

  Dispatch reiterated its infuriating refrain. “By order of the command post, all cars are to remain in their districts.”

  “The hell with the command post,” someone blurted. The air went dead for a second, then the flurry of reports resumed.

  “I don’t understand,” Mrs. Poole said. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s the same as yesterday,” Emmett said. “Only worse.”

  He hadn’t seen exactly what set off the mayhem. The specifics were immaterial. The rally to protest police brutality had spiraled into exactly that—police brutality—and reprisals were sweeping like a tidal wave. Every radio car in the city was demanding that the dispatcher take them off their assigned routes so they could come to the Fourth Precinct.

  “Breaking and entering reported at a gun shop on South Orange and Beacon. Repeat. South Orange and Beacon. They’re stealing shotguns. I can see ’em. Those bastards got three under each arm.”

  “This is real? I mean, really real?” Freddie couldn’t believe his ears.

  In a panic, Mrs. Poole stood up and glanced around for her purse. “I need my pocketbook. Where’s my pocketbook? I need to get home. Please, Mr. Emmett, take me home.”

  “I can’t do that. You won’t be safe there. Not tonight.” He gingerly sat her back down.

  “But my house? My things?”

  “Unless you live in a store, lady, nobody’s gonna care about your things.”

  “Freddie’s right. Anyway, it’s too dangerous for you to be there. You’ll have to spend the night here. Both of you.”

  Neither of them was thrilled at the prospect, and Edward was giving Emmett a dirty look.

  “I guess staying here’s gotta be better than being in the middle of all that,” Freddie said as the police band became garbled with more requests.

  The next was from an officer begging for fire trucks. “There’s a structure fire on the corner of Springfield and Morris. One building and spreading. Get the hoses here pronto.”

  Upon hearing the location, Freddie hopped off the couch. “Take me home. I need to go home.”

  “What about not being in the middle of things?” Emmett said.

  “I said take me home.”

  “Freddie, no. It’s too—”

  “Let offa me. Lemme outta here. I said I need to go.” He was imploring Emmett with his eyes.

  “The fire. It’s by Luther Reed’s body shop. That’s what you’re worried about.”

  Freddie stopped wriggling. “Not the shop. What’s inside.”

  “The tape?”

  He nodded gravely.

  “You told me you didn’t give it to Luther. You said you weren’t that stupid.”

  “I didn’t. And I’m not. Figured it’d be the last place Luther’d think of.”

  “What tape? What are you two talking about?” Mrs. Poole was up out of her c
hair again.

  Freddie and Emmett traded glances. There was no time for an explanation. Ionello and Vass would never believe that the tape had been lost in a fire. They would dedicate their lives to making Freddie’s miserable until they were satisfied that he wouldn’t turn them in.

  Emmett hated to say it. “We have to go get that tape.”

  “Don’t, Marty.” Edward wheeled in close. “Not for him. It’s not your problem.”

  “Screw this,” Freddie yelled, reaching for the door. “I’ll get the damn thing myself. And screw you, you damn cripple.”

  Emmett slammed him against the living room wall. Freddie floundered under his weight. “The next word out of your mouth is going to be an apology.”

  “I don’t wanna hear him say he’s sorry,” Edward sneered. “I knew he was sorry the minute I met him. He’s a good-for-nothing lowlife and he’ll never be anything more.”

  Mrs. Poole touched Emmett’s arm lightly. “Please. You might hurt the boy. He’ll apologize.”

  Emmett released him. He didn’t want to be responsible for Freddie getting hurt. That was why he couldn’t allow him to go to Luther’s body shop alone.

  “Let him chase after his precious tape. Whatever it takes to get his worthless ass out of my house.” Edward rolled into the kitchen. The screen door hinges cawed, then the door bashed shut.

  Freddie pulled away from Emmett to nurse his bruised shoulders as well as his bruised ego.

  “I’m sorry, Freddie. I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry to you too, Mrs. Poole. I realize this isn’t what you signed on for.”

  Diving into the middle of a riot wasn’t what Emmett signed on for when he bailed Freddie out of jail, but that cassette tape was Freddie’s future. They had to get it before the flames did.

  “Take my bed. It’s the big room upstairs.”

  “I couldn’t, Mr. Emmett. The couch is fine.”

  “The couch might be fine for you. It won’t be for your back. You brought that chair in from the kitchen because none of these would give you any support.”

  Mrs. Poole shook her head, amazed. “I should’ve known I couldn’t put nothin’ past you.”

  Very little got past Emmett. Though too much got to him. Except he wouldn’t let it show.

  “You’ll have to get Edward into his bed. If he’ll go.”

  “He’ll go. Once he gets tired.”

  Edward was already tired—tired of being trapped in the wheelchair and tired of being angry. While he may have wanted Freddie out of the house, Edward wanted out of his wheelchair more.

  “Shots fired,” a distraught voice shouted over the police band. “Repeat. Shots fired at South Orange and Rankin.”

  It was the first gunfire of the night. Emmett was certain it wouldn’t be the last.

  “Do you have to go right this second, Mr. Emmett? Can’t you wait? At least a little while?”

  “The fire won’t.” He took the radio from off the television. “You ready?”

  Feeling slighted from the fight, Freddie wouldn’t respond.

  “Your mouth ain’t broke, young man. Speak up or you’re staying here. Tape or no tape.”

  Freddie crossed his arms, sulking. “Yeah, I’m ready.”

  As they were preparing to go, the police dispatcher changed his tune. “By order of the command post, all available units are to report to the rear of the Fourth Precinct to assist in guarding the remaining cars. All available units in the area report to the Fourth.”

  The upbeat bulletin was undercut by the dire phrase “remaining cars.”

  “That means the rest of the police are coming to help, doesn’t it? They’ll make it stop, won’t they?” Mrs. Poole seemed to need an answer, any kind of answer. “Won’t they?”

  Emmett’s answer was: “Lock the door behind us.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  All of the bulbs in the streetlamps on Springfield Avenue had been smashed, leaving the moonlight to illuminate the devastation. The city’s main drag, which Emmett and Freddie had traversed just hours earlier, was now a four-lane obstacle course. A delivery truck was abandoned in the middle of the street, its contents spilled on the asphalt, and refuse littered the sidewalks, exhaled in the looters’ maelstrom.

  Emmett switched off his headlights and drove slow, weaving around the wreckage. Freddie was gazing out the passenger-side window in astonished silence. “Where are the cops?”

  “They said on the radio they were outnumbered.”

  “So they left?”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  Flocks of people were roving in and out of store windows, arms loaded with anything they could carry, from toaster ovens to groceries. The Foodtown Supermarket had been decimated. Even the cash registers were gone. A car with a towline was backed up to a furniture store, having ripped free the iron security grating. Three men were stepping over the fallen grate, hoisting a chair with floral upholstery into the car’s trunk.

  “Forget layaway plans,” Freddie said.

  A woman hurried by pushing a baby carriage. Singed cartons of Peach Schnapps were stacked in the stroller. She had a pile of dresses slung over her arm too. The hangers bobbed to the rhythm of her footsteps.

  “Folks be thinkin’ it’s Christmas.”

  “Christmas is about giving and receiving. This…this is about robbing and stealing. Whoever owns those stores isn’t going to see it as a holiday.”

  “Whoever owns those stores ain’t Negro.”

  “That’s beside the point.”

  “No, that’s right on top ’a it.”

  A curtain of smoke was moving downwind. Embers were swirling on the breeze. That didn’t stop the shopping. Looters fanned cinders from their eyes, a minor inconvenience. On one side of the street, a couple was carting an elaborate chandelier on a child’s red wagon. On the other, a man in suspenders was ambling off with a vacuum cleaner and holding his shirt to his mouth so he could breath.

  Emmett started coughing. He raised his window. “That fire we heard about on the radio must have spread.”

  “Then drive faster,” Freddie told him.

  Black smoke billowed from the appliance store next to Luther Reed’s auto body shop. Flames on the rooftop were lapping at the sky.

  “Where’d you hide the tape?”

  “It’s in the garage. In the station wagon on the lift. Under the front seat.”

  “You’re right. Luther definitely would not have looked there.”

  “It’s the first car we got from the junkyard, first car we swapped the title on,” Freddie revealed, wistful. His clever idea was about to go up in the blaze.

  “We’ve got to do this fast. I’ll cover you. You get the tape.”

  “Like pickin’ one big pocket.”

  The body shop had been conspicuously spared the destruction faced by other businesses on the avenue. Valuable tools prime for stealing lay in plain view behind an unmarred window. Even in the midst of a riot, nobody dared damage Luther Reed’s property.

  Freddie jogged up to the garage and raised the rolling door. “Luther don’t lock it. People too scared to break in and steal from him.”

  “Most people.”

  They slid under and closed the garage door behind them. Emmett had his borrowed flashlight at the ready. The station wagon was suspended high in the air, the mammoth body floating improbably. Its bumper hovered above Emmett’s eye level.

  “You know how to lower the lift?”

  “Lever’s over here.” Freddie flipped it repeatedly. Nothing happened. “Damn. It’s busted. Help me up.”

  Outside, a car rode by honking its horn victoriously. A dining table was lashed to the roof. Emmett snuffed the flashlight beam until the car passed, then pushed Freddie into the open driver’s-side window.

  “Lucky for us you’re tall.”

  “It’s got its advantages. I never thought this would be one of them.”

  “I always wished I was tall,” Freddie said, slithering into the driver’s seat. “I praye
d every night that I’d grow and every morning I’d wake up the same height. Short.”

  “You’re still a kid. Who’s to say you won’t wind up taller than me.”

  Freddie looked down at him from the car window, encouraged. “Really? You think?”

  “Anything’s possible.”

  “Anything’s possible, huh?” Freddie repeated the phrase. “I like that. Gotta ring to it.”

  Possibilities were what the stolen dining tables and chandeliers and vacuum cleaners represented, a second shot for people who hadn’t been given a first. Emmett had spent the last six years of his life chasing down and arresting robbers, burglars, and thieves. He didn’t condone stealing. But he could see how someone who had been robbed of their own possibilities would feel justified in evening the score.

  “Found it.” Freddie held up the cassette.

  “Good. Because we need to leave.”

  The odor of smoke was getting stronger. It scraped at Emmett’s throat and nostrils, painful to inhale. Muffled through the garage windows, the crackle of flames sounded oddly similar to rushing water.

  Freddie crawled out the window, saying, “I wish I could see Luther’s face when his body shop—”

  “Quiet.” Emmett heard a noise. The front door was unlatching. “Someone’s coming.”

  He shoved Freddie’s dangling legs into the station wagon, extinguished the flashlight, and pasted himself to a wall in between two shelving units. The looters had gotten gusty and were robbing Reed, or it was Luther and his men.

  “Hurry up. Fire’s getting close.” That was Reed’s voice.

  “How we supposta carry it?”

  “With your hands, fool.”

  “But it’s heavy.”

  “That’s why I brought your dumb asses with me.”

  In the hazy light, Emmett could see Freddie peeking over the station wagon’s dashboard. He signaled for him to stay out of sight. Reed and his men were shuffling from the storefront to the back room.

  “What about the rest ’a the stuff?”

  “I don’t give a damn if this whole place burns to the ground,” Luther said. “That’s what I got the house for. And you gonna get fried up with this place if you don’t get my air conditioner.”