Finally someone pulls open the door. That someone is Darryl Castor, known to most people as Fingers. His eyes are red and he looks tired. He blinks to clear his vision and glances from their faces to their badges and back again.
‘Detectives.’
‘Mind if we come in?’
He steps aside.
Carl enters the small first-floor apartment. Friedman follows.
The curtains are drawn, giving the place a claustrophobic feel, making it seem smaller even than it is, darkness crowding the corners.
Darryl Castor scratches his head and sniffles. ‘Excuse the place. I work nights and I was trying to catch a little shut-eye.’
‘We’ll just be a minute,’ Carl says. ‘We’re here about Eugene Dahl.’
‘Thought you might be.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘He hasn’t come into work last couple days, boss said the police called and asked after him, and next thing I know two detectives are banging on my door. I ain’t a genius, but I can do a little arithmetic.’
‘That’s all?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Has he been in touch with you?’
‘Why would he be in touch with me?’
‘You’re friends,’ Carl says.
‘We work together.’
‘You never associate except on the job?’ Friedman says.
‘We might.’
‘You either do or you don’t.’
‘Then I guess we don’t.’
‘I hear different,’ Carl says.
‘What did you hear?’
‘I hear you’re a horn player.’
‘Trumpet.’
‘And I hear you play bebop music in a Negro bar.’
‘Okay.’
‘And I hear Eugene Dahl’s gone down to see you play. Rumor has it he even took a dolly once or twice.’
‘So what?’
‘So that makes him your friend,’ Friedman says.
‘Lots of people come to see me play.’
‘Lots of white people?’
‘I don’t see how that has anything to do with anything, man.’
‘Fellow drives down to 57th Street to see me blow my horn in a Negro bar, I’d call him a friend.’
‘Fine, he’s my friend. So what?’
‘So you admit to lying?’
‘About what?’
‘You said you didn’t see him outside of work.’
‘I don’t see him outside of work. Every once in a while.’
‘Was one of those times in the last two days?’
A slight pause, then: ‘No.’
‘I think you’re lying,’ Carl says.
‘I think you’re ugly.’
An open hand whips out and slaps his mouth.
‘Enough bullshit,’ Friedman says.
Darryl Castor touches the corner of his mouth, fingertips coming away red. He absently rubs the blood between his fingers.
‘Look,’ he says finally, ‘I can’t help you.’
‘We know your reputation. Even if you don’t have anything to tell us now, you know people. You can get information.’
‘I got no reason to stick my neck out for a couple cops never did nothin for me. Especially not to help you get to Eugene.’
‘He’s a murderer.’
‘Murderer. Man sends back steak if it’s bloody. He’s a good guy, but square all the way down.’
‘People are surprising.’
‘Not in my experience. And like I said, I’m not in a position to help you.’
Carl scratches his cheek, thinking. He didn’t want to have to do what he’s about to do, but it looks like the only way to get the information they need.
‘You know,’ he says, ‘I’ve heard your name more than once in the last couple years. You’re smart enough not get mixed up in murder, so I never paid much attention, but when I heard it again today I called a friend of mine in the hop squad. He’s been watching you, even dug into your history some.’
‘I’ve never been arrested for anything, man.’
‘Not your arrest record I was interested in.’
‘Then what?’
‘Your mother.’
‘What?’
Carl pulls a notepad from his inside pocket, ignoring the syringe tucked in beside it, and flips past several pages of unrelated case notes. Finally he reaches the correct page and scans his own handwriting, telling himself to only think about what’s happening right now in this dimly lit room.
‘Darryl Castor,’ he says, ‘born Darryl Jefferson in Metairie, Louisiana, fourty-two years ago to a widowed Negro cook named Loretta Jefferson, and sent to an out-of-state boarding school by Herman Castor, the Louisiana businessman your mother worked for. You attended boarding school until you were sixteen, at which point you ran away, disappearing for several years before turning up in California, where you began passing as white. Does your boss know you’re really an eight ball? What about the people you work as an intermediary for? They have a lot of colored folks in their organizations? When I talk with them all I hear is nigger this and spade that, so I have my doubts. And what about the people at the Negro club where you blow your horn? You think they’d look kindly on a man who denies what he is so he can enjoy the benefits of society they’re not entitled to, meanwhile slumming with them when the urge strikes? Seems to me you could find yourself in some seriously ugly situations if it got out that you’ve been lying about what you are for the last twenty years.’
Darryl Castor stands silent for a long time, expressionless. Then, after the silence has stretched to nearly a minute, he speaks. ‘Herman Castor raped my mother and faced no consequences for it. Some folks who knew about it even blamed her. She tempted him, right? She must’ve. But I remember when I was six or seven this colored boy whistled at a white lady in town, and two days later he was found strung up in a tree, beetles feeding on his corpse. Just a boy, thirteen years old. Maybe she smiled at him, or swayed her hips in that way ladies sometimes do when they know they’re being admired. Don’t matter, though, because it’s always the nigger’s fault. They just can’t control their animal urges, right? A white man rapes my mother, it’s her fault. A Negro boy whistles at a white lady, gets lynched for it. That’s the way of the world we live in. I’m not ashamed of what I am. I never lied to nobody. I just let people think what they want to think. I might as well benefit from what my mother had to endure. And I guess I’m as much that man’s son as I am my mother’s. I only look like this because of it.’
Carl closes his eyes, opens them.
‘That’s a tragic story,’ he says, ‘but it doesn’t have anything to do with what’s happening right now. You have a decision to make. You can continue to be stubborn, in which case we start fucking with your life, letting people know you’ve been passing, and what happens as a result of that happens. Or you can be sure of things and help us get to Eugene Dahl, a murderer despite what you may believe, in which case nobody finds out anything. I’m a Johnson myself, a live-and-let-live type guy, and I’d rather not have to meddle in your business. But like I say, the choice is yours.’
Darryl Castor looks down at the floor for a long time. Finally he says, ‘I’m gonna pour myself a drink. You guys want anything?’
Carl shakes his head and taps a Chesterfield from his packet.
Friedman simply says no.
‘Okay.’
Darryl Castor turns and walks into the kitchen, and when he emerges once more a few minutes later, it’s with a glass of something strong on ice. He walks past them and sits on the couch. He stares off at nothing. He takes a swallow from his glass.
‘What’s it gonna be?’
2
Fingers stares at his reflection in the gray surface of his television screen, forearms resting on his knees, glass of dark rum gripped in both hands. He looks at his light skin, his wavy hair. He thinks of his mother, whom he hasn’t seen since he was twelve, thirty years ago now. He wonders if she’s still alive
. He can’t imagine she is. He feels small and impotent, and hates that he’s been made to feel that way. He doesn’t want to betray his friend a second time.
He betrayed him once already.
Louis Lynch called, said he’d been talking to people all day with no luck, asked did he know Eugene Dahl, and he answered without thinking. When Louis Lynch asks a question he’s asking for the Man, and when the Man wants an answer you provide it. It’s simple as that.
He gave him a gun, offered him money, tried to correct his mistake. But Eugene’s on the run because of what he did, wanted for murder, and he’s being asked once more to betray him, only this time it’s coming from the cops. He doesn’t want to do it, but he doesn’t want his life to come crashing down around him either. It makes him sick. He’s not ashamed of where he came from, nor of what he is. He was born of adversity and that makes him strong. Part of him thinks he should tell these cops to go fuck themselves, and every part of him wants to. They’ll spread the word and he’ll be who he is. He’s already who he is. The only difference will be, everybody’ll know it.
That might be fine.
Except he’ll lose friends. He might lose his job. People he’s worked with for years will stop talking to him. He’s built a life, a good life, and he doesn’t want it reduced to rubble. He doesn’t want to have to start over, and at a disadvantage.
‘Eugene came by earlier today,’ he says. He stares at his own reflection in the television when he says it, can’t bring himself to look at these men as he betrays his friend. ‘About an hour ago.’
‘Why’d he come by?’ the older cop asks.
‘He wanted a gun.’
‘What for?’
‘He didn’t say and I didn’t inquire.’
‘Have any theories?’
He shakes his head.
‘Did you give him one?’
‘One what?’
‘A gun.’
‘I did.’
‘Do you know where he’s staying?’
‘No.’
‘I think you do.’
‘I don’t.’
‘Okay,’ the older cop says. ‘I want you to do what you can to find out, and if he gets in touch with you again you let us know.’ He pulls out a card, walks to the coffee table, sets it down.
‘Thanks for your time.’
Fingers doesn’t respond. He continues to stare at his reflection in the television screen as the two police detectives let themselves out of the apartment, as the door latches shut behind them.
He hopes to God Eugene stays as far away from him as possible.
3
Carl sits in his car with both hands gripping the steering wheel. His palms are sweaty. The seat rumbles beneath him as the car idles. His head is turned to the right. He watches through the rain-spotted passenger’s-side window as his partner walks into his house to greet his wife and his two children, and disappears behind the door.
Sometimes Carl feels as though he’s spent his entire life watching people walk away.
He thinks of using the syringe now, but it’s only a thought. A junkie might not care about being cautious, but he isn’t a junkie.
He has a job he cares about, responsibilities.
He can’t shoot up in broad daylight while parked in front of his partner’s house.
He puts the car into gear. He looks into the mirror and sees a rain-spattered rear window, exhaust pipe emitting a steady cloud of white smoke which the rain then hammers out of existence. Behind the exhaust fumes the street is clear of vehicles. Rivers of water rush along the gutters. He pulls his foot from the clutch while gassing the engine and rolls his vehicle into the street. He’ll wait till he gets home. It’s only a fifteen-minute drive. He’s waited all day, he can wait another fifteen minutes. Of course he can. He isn’t a monkey. He’s in control of his own actions.
He isn’t a goddamn monkey.
He feels sick and sweaty and cramped. His stomach is boiling. His sphincter is twitching, and he thinks he might have to be careful he doesn’t involuntarily shit. He feels weak and heavy, as though his limbs have been drained of blood and the blood replaced by lead. His eyes are dry and it’s difficult to focus.
The windshield wipers squeal across the glass. The sound is maddening. Someone needs to invent a windshield wiper that doesn’t make such an irritating fucking sound. He wants to park and step outside and rip the wipers off the car. He wants the throw them into the street and run over them.
He wonders if Darryl Castor will help them get to Eugene Dahl. He thinks there’s a good chance he will, but feels rotten about the way they broke him. He tells himself he shouldn’t feel bad, he was just doing his job, but that doesn’t make the feeling go away.
The trick is to keep your soul winter-numb.
He pulls into an empty parking lot. He kills the engine. He peers through the rain-spattered windshield at the building he’s parked in front of. All the lights are off, doors locked. But for his car, the parking lot is empty.
He pulls the syringe box from his pocket and puts it into his lap. He slides out of his jacket, shrugging it off his shoulders and tossing it aside. He rolls up his shirtsleeve, revealing the black dot on his arm where last he used the needle, and a pink dot like a pimple where he used before that. Beneath the skin, they’ve become hard little knots. He whips his belt from his pants and puts it over his shoulder so it’s handy. Looks down at the box in his lap. Reads the lid:
BD YALE
Becton, Dickinson and Company
Rutherford, N.J.
One 10cc Syringe
He opens it and within finds a syringe, a needle, and a paper bindle. He removes his lighter, his spoon, and his foldaway knife from the right-hip pocket of his slacks. He sets the objects, but for the syringe, on his left leg, a nice row of his favorite things. He removes the syringe from its box, as well as the Yale reusable needle, and puts them together.
His mouth, which was dry, is now watering. He swallows.
He’s supposed to meet Candice for dinner tonight. He made a date. He should go back to the boarding house and get showered and changed.
He looks at his watch. He has two hours. Two hours is plenty of time. He’ll do this first and then finish his drive home and get cleaned up. This first, then that. She’ll understand if he’s a few minutes late. He’ll tell her it was work. That’s how it goes sometimes, nature of the job.
He flips open the knife and with the tip of it scoops a small bit of brown powder from his paper bindle into the spoon, then he realizes he has no clean water.
He closes his eyes, tells himself it’s okay. Tells himself it’s for the best.
This isn’t something he should do in his car anyway, not when there’s still daylight outside. He lost control for a moment, but this isn’t something he should be doing. Of course it isn’t. He’s only minutes from home.
He picks up the spoon telling himself he’ll just pour the powder back into the stash and fold his bindle up, telling himself he’ll pack everything else up and drive home.
Instead he brings the spoon to his mouth and spits into it, gently. He lets a bead of liquid form on his lips and eases it into the spoon. It doesn’t seem like enough to cook the heroin in so he does it a second time, and then a third.
He already has everything out, after all. It would be silly to pack it all up at this point.
He loops the belt and puts his arm through it.
He picks up his lighter.
THIRTY
1
Eugene watches Evelyn walk to her hotel room and key open the door, following closely as she slips through so that she can’t shut the door in his face. Once they’re both in her room, he slides the deadbolt into place.
‘Sit down.’
She sits on the bed. He looks at her and she looks back. He hates to admit it, but seeing her again, even after what she did, stirs something within him. They’ve spent only hours together, but those hours were somehow both comfortable and exciting, and
the way she’s looking at him, not with fear but with sadness, makes him believe that despite what she did afterward, she felt the same as he did.
But that’s over now. That’s a faucet he needs to shut off.
‘I’m sorry for what I did.’
‘I don’t care.’
‘Just the same, I’m sorry.’
‘I thought. . I thought we had-’
‘We did. We do.’
‘You framed me for murder.’
‘It was my job.’
‘I know.’
‘That doesn’t mean I don’t care for you, Gene.’
‘Shut your fucking mouth, I’m not here to work this out with you. You can go to hell, and the sooner the better. I’m here to find out how to clear my name. I‘m here to find out how to get out of this mess you got me into.’
‘You can’t. It’s too late for that.’
‘I’m innocent.’
‘You’re wanted for murder. I can’t make that go away. I’m sorry for my part in it, but it’s done. The best I can do is help you get to Mexico, and get you some money, enough to live on for a long time down there.’
‘I don’t want your money. I want my fucking life back.’
‘But can’t you see that that’s over?’
‘Don’t you try to tell me what’s over. You don’t get to make that decision. You don’t get to make any-’
A knock at the door, three quick taps. Eugene’s first thought is that he was too loud, that the man in the next room heard him in here, heard him and is now just outside the door, waiting to make sure everything is okay.
Then he speaks: ‘I’m stepping out. You might want to make sure your door is chained. Don’t want the milkman to get you.’
Then silence stretches out for a full minute.
‘Don’t move,’ Eugene says.
Keeping an eye on Evelyn he walks to the door and unlatches the deadbolt. He pulls open the door. He glances left, then right. The corridor is empty. He closes the door and locks it once more, the deadbolt clacking into place.
The Last Tomorrow Page 21
