A Blind Goddess

by James R Benn

  IT WASN’T THE first time a white boy took a job from me. Pop got me a job stocking shelves in a grocery store that winter. He’d heard one of the cops say his brother-in-law needed a kid to work after school, so Pop sent me down there right away. The owner hadn’t even put a sign up yet. I worked three days before a customer made a comment about that nigger boy being in the way. The problem was I didn’t say “yes ma’am” fast enough and look at the floor while I did so. I told my boss what had happened, and got docked one day’s pay for talking back. That was my first lesson in working with white people. You don’t complain, unless you’re ready for things to get a whole lot worse. Works the same in the army, except you don’t lose your pay, you get a billy club across your head. Anyway, I found out later that the woman who complained about me happened to have a son who could take my spot, so things worked out exactly the way she’d wanted.

  I wasn’t surprised when Pop told me not to bother showing up for work at the station. Even though I’d put in my application a month before and had been approved, it didn’t mean a damn thing, not when a white man, and a detective at that, wanted the job for his kid. No way a Negro janitor could match that pull. I was mad, real mad. And things got worse when I heard that some of the cops didn’t like the idea of a Negro man bossing around a white boy. Pop had worked for years at police headquarters, and had a good record. I don’t think Basher—Billy must have mentioned Basher McGee—minded a colored janitor one bit, but he hated the idea of a white kid working for one.

  At first, I thought the kid would quit, once I heard about the tricks Basher and his pals were pulling. Dumping coffee on a floor, grinding out cigar butts outside the commissioner’s office, that sort of thing. But Pop knew what all that meant. Either he’d get blamed for not supervising Billy properly, or it would prove that a Negro man wasn’t up to the job of bossing a white boy. He’d be in trouble either way. That was the thing about Basher. He enjoyed putting the squeeze on you and watching while you figured out which was the least awful alternative.

  So I wore out shoe leather looking for work. I wanted to save up for college. I had good grades, and I figured if I could get started at any college I’d find a way to finish. I had my eye on a state teacher’s college in Bridgewater, figured I could afford that and still keep close to home. I finally got a job working nights at a gas station, out on Boylston Street. I’d always kept Pop’s jalopy running, and repairing engines came easy, so I was able to talk them into taking me on as a mechanic’s assistant, at half the pay a white man would get, of course. But I counted myself lucky to get any job, and I went right to headquarters to tell Pop all about it.

  That’s when I first ran into Billy. He was pushing a broom in the main hallway, outside the detectives’ squad room. At that moment, Basher came out and I saw his eyes flash between Billy and me, and I knew we were both in trouble.

  “You come for your job, boy?” Basher said to me. I remember Billy looking startled for a moment as he figured out what was what.

  “Detective McGee,” I said, not meeting his eyes.

  “Ain’t neither one of you worth shit,” he said, spitting on the clean floor. “One can’t sweep a floor and the other don’t show no respect. You answer my question, boy.”

  “I have a job, Detective,” I said. “I work down at Earl’s Gas Station now. Don’t need to push a broom.”

  “Well now, Billy, what do you think of that?” Basher said. “Eugene here doesn’t need to push a broom anymore, not like you do, you goddamn shanty Irish.”

  “Maybe I’ll steal that job from him too,” Billy said. This threw Basher off his stride. I caught a quick glimpse from Billy and knew what he was up to.

  “You could try, but they had a sign in the window. No Irishmen need apply.” I threw it right back at him. Basher, being an Irishman one step above shanty, didn’t have much to say to that, and went sputtering back into the squad room. We thought it was funny, and for a minute I forgot about this kid swiping my job. We went down to Pop’s office and told him about the encounter, but he didn’t think it was funny at all. Said Basher always found a way to get back at you, and never forgot a slight. But we were kids, and thought it was all fun.

  I’d come to visit Pop on my way to work at Earl’s most days, and kid around with Billy for a while. Pop said Billy’s old man had gotten the job for him without knowing I’d been in line for it, and since he was a decent sort for a white man, and his kid was a good worker, I should go easy on him. I was a couple of years older than Billy, so naturally he looked up to me. Especially when he found out about my job at the garage. He started dropping by after he was done at headquarters, and we got along okay.

  One day I came to the station early to bring Pop his lunch. I took the back stairs, to avoid running into Basher, but that one backfired on me. He and one of his cronies had Billy cornered on a stairwell above me, and were giving him a hard time, pushing him around. I yelled something, I don’t remember what, and they spotted me below. Basher said something about a dirty nigger needing a bath, and kicked Billy’s mop bucket over. I got a good drenching with filthy mop water, but what none of us knew was that the deputy superintendent was not far behind me. He saw everything, and took a good soaking himself.

  The look on Basher’s face was priceless. His cigar dropped right out of his mouth, and it stayed open as he tried to yammer out an excuse. But Deputy Superintendent Emmons wasn’t having any of it, and he bawled out Basher and his buddy right in front of us, a dressing-down like I haven’t ever heard again, not even in the army. Of course, Billy and me being kids, we thought it was hilarious. We’re standing behind Emmons with big smirks on our faces, while Basher is saying yessir and nosir as fast as he can. But the whole time he’s got one eye on us, and I should have known he’d never forgive us witnessing his disgrace. Him being white, my presence was especially humiliating.

  “LET’S GIVE TREE a chance to eat,” I said as the landlord delivered plates to the table. I couldn’t help smiling at the memory of Basher getting chewed out, even though I knew what had come of it.

  “Nice of you to watch out for Tree,” Big Mike said, “since you look up to him and all.” A ripple of laughter went around the table.

  “I’d call some parts of his version a slight exaggeration,” I said. “But not the part about Emmons standing there in his wet trousers, yelling at Basher.”

  “Remember how his shoes squished, every time he shifted his feet? That only got him madder,” Tree said. We both broke up over that. It felt good.

  “What are we eating?” Kaz asked, investigating the food on his plate.

  “Looks like there’s chicken and carrots swimming in some kind of sauce,” Big Mike said, shoveling a load onto his fork. “Potatoes and parsnips on the side.”

  “Root vegetables aren’t rationed,” Diana said. “They at least are plentiful, especially here in the countryside. It does wear one down, I must say, parsnips day after day.” She moved the food around on her plate, her voice trailing off as the chatter around the table picked up.

  “It didn’t go well, did it?” I asked.

  “No.” She set her silverware down. “Not at all.”

  “The Joint Intelligence Committee?” Kaz asked, in a low voice.

  “Yes,” Diana said, her eyes downcast. Big Mike and Tree halted their conversation and looked to me.

  “Maybe we should talk about something else,” I said.

  “That’s exactly what Roger Allen said.” She clenched and unclenched her hand, and brought her eyes up to look at everyone around the table. “I imagine it is what many in America say about Negroes and the injustices visited upon them. An unpleasant topic brought up by unpleasant people.” She brought her hand to her mouth for a second, and I thought she might burst into tears. But that wasn’t Diana’s style, not the English way at all. When she lowered her hand, her expression was still angry, but controlled.

  “Who is this Allen character?” Tree asked.

  “A powerful
man from the Foreign Office who sits on a powerful committee. A man who sees no reason to be moved by the extermination of Jews throughout Europe,” Diana answered. “He said that the Poles and Jews were deliberately exaggerating reports of atrocities simply to stiffen British resolve.”

  “Any chance that might be true?” Tree asked.

  “About as true as lynching being an invention of your Negro newspapers,” Diana said, her voice hard. “Even with the eyewitness reports we brought out of Italy, our leaders still refuse to do or say anything.”

  “All sounds pretty familiar to me,” Tree said. “Europeans don’t have colored folk, so they go for the Jews instead.”

  “Is that an apt comparison?” Kaz asked, perhaps feeling slighted as a European.

  “Yes, and I think Tree has a point,” Diana said. “My father told me that the Americans had asked Anthony Eden of the Foreign Office to help get about sixty thousand Jews out of Bulgaria. Their government has yet to turn them over to the Germans, but no one knows how long they can last. I asked Allen about that, and he said they recommended that the British government do nothing.”

  “Why?” Kaz asked.

  “Because then Hitler might want to negotiate for all the Jews in Europe. ‘And that wouldn’t do at all,’ Allen told me. When I asked why, all he said was, ‘Whatever would we do with them, my dear?’ ”

  Diana twisted her napkin, her lower lip quivering. I reached out my hand to take hers, but she pulled away.

  “Whatever would we do with them?” she whispered, and left the table.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “I HAVE FAILED, Billy.” Diana curled up against me in bed, twisting her hair between her fingers in a childlike gesture. “And I was a fool to think I wouldn’t.”

  “It’s not your fault that the rich and powerful of the world don’t give a hoot about mass murder at a comfortable distance. To them, it’s like reading about a flood or an earthquake half a world away. Terribly unfortunate, but what can one do?” I spoke the last sentence in a snotty Beacon Hill drawl, trying for a laugh. I got a smile.

  “No, it isn’t my fault. I know that,” she said, sitting up straight and clutching a pillow to her breast. “What really bothers me is the bravery and sacrifice of those who worked to get the truth out: Poles, Jews, Italians, even Germans. What will they think? Are we worthy of them? And the deaths, Billy. All the people dying in the camps every day, while we do nothing.”

  “I feel the same way about Margaret Hibberd and Stuart Neville,” I said, understanding there was no real answer to the question Diana had posed. Some might argue that fighting men were dying every day to end this war, and that was the best we could do for those in the camps. But that wasn’t what she needed to hear right now, or what I necessarily believed. “My dad always said to remember that every murder victim deserved to be alive all the days we were investigating the crime, and more beyond. And that our police work had to be worthy of the days we had and they lost.”

  “I would like to meet your father, Billy. He seems like an interesting man.”

  “He’d like you,” I said. “Your spirit.” I kissed her. “But you’d have to lose the accent, and none of this lady stuff. Wouldn’t go over well in Southie.” Diana punched me in the chest. Hard. I tickled her, and then we forgot about the sorrows of the world for a while.

  Inspector Payne came by in the morning, as we’d arranged. We planned to interview Ernest Bone and the other guy Neville had visited before he was killed. It was doubtful they’d be able to help, but we had damn little else.

  “First, we drop in on Stanley Fraser, the solicitor,” Payne said, as a constable drove us into Hungerford. It was a warm day, the sun bright and the ground smelling sweet with the promise of spring. “I’m sure I’ve heard the name, but I can’t recall where. I do know most of the solicitors hereabouts, but I don’t think I’ve seen him in court.”

  “I thought only barristers appeared in court,” I said. “Or do I have that backward?”

  “No, you’re right that barristers argue before the bench, but a solicitor may view the proceedings, and I’ve got to know quite a few by sight over the years. But not this Fraser chap.”

  “Any news on Sophia or the girl we found?”

  “Nothing new, no. There is a panic rising, though, and I’m not surprised. It would be worth his life if anyone witnessed a man approach a young girl today. I’m worried about some innocent traveler being drawn and quartered for saying a simple good morning to a schoolgirl.”

  “I’ve asked Kaz to drive Diana out to the Avington School for the Channel Island girls this morning, to see if she can get any information out of them,” I said, watching as we drove by a farmer plowing his field.

  “Woman’s touch, that sort of thing?” Payne asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “That, and the fact that she’s a Special Operations Executive agent,” I said. “She might pick up on something.”

  “When our girls were young,” Payne said, leaning back and closing his eyes, as if visualizing the memories, “they could keep any secret from us. But perhaps Miss Seaton can wring the truth out of them. Nothing like an SOE interrogation to break a pack of twelve-year-olds, I imagine.”

  “If there’s a truth to be told,” I said.

  “Girls and secrets go together. You may learn that yourself one day, Captain. Perhaps you and Miss Seaton are headed in that direction?”

  “Perhaps,” I said. “But we’re more often going in separate directions. Maybe when the war’s over.”

  “Hmm,” Payne said. “Peace. I wonder what that will be like? Ah, here we are.”

  We’d gone from fields and farms to a residential street on the outskirts of Hungerford. Atherton Street, where Stanley Fraser lived, contained rows of modern semi-detached brick houses with neat gardens and lace curtains in every window. Two women were walking back from the market in Hungerford, bags heavy in their hands and jackets open to the warming air. An elderly gentleman pedaled his bicycle slowly past us. The neighborhood was quiet, the few people subdued, as if not to disturb the tranquil setting.

  Payne told the constable to wait. Fraser inhabited both sides of the semi-detached, a brass plaque marking the right half as his office with the left side apparently his home. In the reception area we were greeted by a young woman who was busy putting away her nail polish, and with little else.

  “One minute, please,” she said, without asking our names. She walked to an inner door, swiveling her hips all the way, and stuck her head in the room. Payne raised his eyebrows at the view and looked away guiltily. Me, I kept looking in case there was a clue in that general direction.

  “Go in, gentlemen,” she said, returning wearily to her chair. It looked like a tough job.

  “Inspector Payne, Berkshire Constabulary,” Payne said, holding up his warrant card. “This is Captain Boyle. We have a few questions for you, if you don’t mind.”

  “What do the police and the American army want with me?” Fraser said, leaning back in his chair and studying us, pointedly not inviting us to sit in the two comfortable armchairs fronting his desk. He had a paunch restrained by a tight-fitting vest and a disappearing hairline that had left a glossy sheen in its wake, as if the crown of his head had been polished. He tapped a fountain pen on his desk, flashing his manicured nails.

  “Now I remember you,” Payne said, snapping his fingers. “Razor Fraser, they called you for a while, didn’t they?”

  “I don’t know to whom you are referring, Inspector, nor am I responsible for what names I am called by. I am not aware of any matters pending with the police, so please state your business.”

  “How does murder sound as a pending matter?” Payne said, seating himself and crossing his legs. “Didn’t know you’d set up shop in Hungerford, Razor.”

  “First of all, I find that name offensive,” Fraser said. “Secondly, what murder?”

  “How’d you get it?” I asked, following Payne’s lead and sitting. “The nickname, I mean
.”

  “I don’t have time for this,” Fraser said, tossing the pen onto his desk.

  “Then you should get a real receptionist instead of your girlfriend out there,” Payne said. “Bit young for you, eh Razor?”

  “Miss Swinson is not my girlfriend. She is my employee.”

  “As I said,” Payne continued. “It was up at the Oxford Crown Court, if I recall. There was a case of an enforcer from the Noonan Mob who had slit the throat of a rival criminal and was clumsy enough to have gotten caught. You prepared the brief for the barrister, which included testimony from witnesses who were threatened with the same treatment if they didn’t cooperate.”

  “That was never proven,” Fraser said. “It’s nothing but a pack of lies.” He worked at staying calm, but his face was getting beet red.

  “Proven and known to be true are two different things, I grant you,” Payne said, nodding sagely. “So you and your barrister get the villain off, and then guess what happens? He himself turns up dead, his own throat slit for the trouble he caused the Noonan boys. That, Captain Boyle, is how our friend here came by the nickname Razor Fraser. Nice sound to it, eh?”

  “Interesting coincidence too,” I said. “Us being here on a murder investigation.”

  “Do you need representation, Captain?” Fraser said, trying to gain control of the conversation. “It was so nice of the inspector to think of me.”

  “Actually it was the Newbury Building Society who thought of you,” I said.

  “What? About the loan, do you mean? I thought that was all settled.”

  “Do you recall the representative from the society who visited you?” Payne asked.

  “From the Newbury, you mean,” Fraser said. “They prefer that name, you know.”

  “Yes,” Payne said. “The Newbury. I can understand how sensitive you are to the matter of names. Do you recall that visit?”

  “Of course,” Fraser said, leaning back in his chair and making a show of remembering, wrinkling his brow and rubbing his chin. The guy was a pro. “We went over the paperwork and I showed him the plans for the place. We want to put a passageway between the office and the house, and to add a morning room and a small greenhouse for my wife. She so enjoys puttering about her flowers and all that. Any law against the enjoyment of flowers, Inspector?”