What Kills Good Men

by David Hood

  “And the card game?”

  “Kept goin’. I went out front, shooed away a couple sailors, reminded the girls ta keep the door locked and not let in any more friends to help them pass the time. I talked to Martha and Annie for a bit. I was comin’ back to check on drinks and then I heard Sarah and I went straight for my bat.”

  Baxter was not sure of the image, only that it was horrible. “She screamed.”

  Clarke waved the piece of meat on the end of his fork. “Whistled. Most men know enough to behave themselves in my place. I tell all my girls, first hint a trouble, keep playin’ nice but start whistlin’ a tune loud as you can.”

  “You said she was with Victor.”

  “Didn’t make sense to me neither. I got my bat all the same.”

  Baxter had gotten over his shame, his hands were on the table and he was leaning forward. “And then…?”

  “I find Sarah by the back door. Victor’s on the stairs with a knife. Nothin’ on but the look of a man lost his mind.”

  “Sarah had broken the news?”

  Clarke had put down his fork. He gave his plate a push. “Afterward, when she was tryin’ to tell us what happened, Sarah said Victor was calm at first, told her not to worry, things would work themselves out. She said he asked her if she would fix him a drink. She put on a dressing gown and came downstairs.”

  Baxter rapped his knuckles on the table as if he were signalling a pass in 45s. “You’re lying. Victor wouldn’t carry a knife.”

  Clarke laid a trump. “I didn’t say it was his. Girls eat in their rooms, always leavin’ dirty dishes lyin’ round. Doesn’t matter where he got the knife.”

  “Well, if Victor had the knife, how does he wind up dead?”

  “’Cause he wasn’t being careful.”

  Clarke looked at him as if the answer was obvious and he couldn’t understand why Baxter was lost. “Careful…What are you talking about?”

  “Safes.”

  “What?”

  “Safes, you know, what a man puts on if he don’t want no babies…or anything else.” Baxter looked around the room expecting to see all eyes on them. “No, Mr. Clarke, I don’t know,” he whispered, another look of disgust on his face.

  “Well, Wallace did. They was his idea. He wouldn’t go near otherwise. He saw to it there was always plenty round. But Sarah let Victor think with his dick, now they both dead. Not Wallace. He was careful.”

  The testimony would be scandalous. The courtroom would ripple with oohs and ahs and squirms of discomfort. Be that as it may. Wallace was going to stand trial. He could see him sweating in the witness box. He could see Tolliver and the mayor watching in hair shirts. “He was protecting his investment.”

  “What da ya mean?”

  Baxter scowled as you would at a child’s foolish ploy. “Don’t play dumb. You and Wallace are business partners.”

  Clarke rolled his eyes. “You bump yer head? Me and Wallace partners…talk sense.”

  Baxter continued to push. “He owns the building.”

  “Owns what buildin’?”

  “Your place.”

  “No he don’t. I pay rent to that real estate prig…Nevers.”

  Baxter withdrew, took a measure. Clarke did not look away. His forehead was creased, his shoulders a little hunched. “You ever hear of a holding company?”

  “A what?”

  Baxter let out a small sigh of impatience. Clarke was supposed to be the one doing the telling. “A business front for the well-to-do, so I’ve learned. Nevers is a beard. Wallace is your landlord.”

  Clarke’s eyes narrowed. He leaned back a little. “Since when?”

  Baxter thought for moment to be sure. “Seven, eight years.”

  Clarke pushed back from the table with an angry scrape of wood on tile. His voice grew loud. “That son of a bitch…I gotta go.”

  Now all eyes were upon them. Baxter tried to look them off while getting to his feet. “You have to finish. Victor didn’t stab himself.” He spoke in a whisper. No doubt a few of the closer tables heard anyway.

  Clarke was back in his coat and three steps from the table. “I gave you all the help I can,” he said, not looking back from his beeline for the door.

  Baxter sat back down and replaced the napkin in his lap, waiting for the room to look away. He had hardly touched his food. He took a cut of steak. It was cold and tasted like sawdust and took forever to get down. He gave up and waved to the waiter for the cheque.

  Outside the hotel, he stood for a few moments looking down Argyle toward City Hall, trying to summon up the will to go back to work. There were things to be done. Routine things, things that would not solve this case. Finally he turned the other way, rounded the corner onto Sackville and began walking home. His legs felt weak and he moved awkwardly as if he had been running hard or struggling under some great weight. He would lie down once he got home. Maybe he would be able to fall asleep.

  Clarke had not gone home. The Carleton Hotel was at the end of the block, on the other side of the street from the Aberdeen. Clarke was hidden from view, standing in the recessed entranceway. Now and then a patron came or went. He played doorman to ward off suspicion. He watched Baxter on the sidewalk. He looked to be waiting on a hack. One soon pulled up. Baxter ignored it until the driver gave his horse a touch of the whip and moved on. Baxter stood with his hands in his greatcoat, his shoulders rising and falling as if he were struggling for air or trying to take in enough of it to lift himself off the ground and into the breeze. Finally he resigned himself to walking and went round the corner out of sight. Clarke waited another minute in case Baxter had a change of heart, then he came out form his cubbyhole and made his way back down to the Aberdeen.

  Clarke stood just inside the door. When he saw who he was looking for he waved.

  William Paul approached, balancing a tray of dirty dishes on one shoulder. “You’re the one they call Billy right?”

  “Some do.” William’s eyes narrowed.

  Clarke waved one hand slightly as an indication he was no threat. “Billy, is the boss in?”

  “Mr. White, you mean?” He peeked back over his shoulder.

  “Yeah.”

  “No, he’s out, said he’d be back around four I think.”

  “You still be here then?” The door opened behind them. Charlie and William both turned, wearing guilty faces. The woman clutched her bag and hurried past, looking back twice.

  “Yeah, I’ll be here ’til ten or so.”

  “I need you ta give him a message for me.”

  William balanced his tray on an empty umbrella stand and began patting the pockets of his apron. When he came up empty, he said, “You want me to get you a pen and paper?”

  “Naw. You know who I am?”

  “Charles Clarke, right?”

  Behind them the woman was speaking to a man across the front desk. They were taking turns glancing toward the door. “That’s right, you tell White his boss needs to come see me. Tell him I ain’t waitin’ long.”

  “Who is it you want to come see you?”

  The man had come around the desk and was walking slowly toward them. The woman stood watching, arms folded, nose in the air. Clarke looked back at William, leaning the hotel front door open as he spoke. “You just tell White what I said, he knows.”

  “All right, Mr. Clarke, I’ll tell him.”

  There was just the one telephone. It was in the library. Wallace used it for business, mostly to make calls, not take them. Wallace looked after his business affairs in the morning. Afternoons were for other things. The telephone rang for some time before someone picked it up. “Ah, hello…”

  “Yes.”

  “This is Mr. Edger Nevers calling. I wish to speak with Mr. Wallace.”

  “Is he expecting your call?”

  “…No, I…”


  “How did you get this number?”

  “I have urgent business.”

  “What was the name again?”

  “Nevers, M…”

  “Just one moment.”

  The receiver lay on the desk for several minutes. “Mr. Nevers.”

  “Yes.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  “Mr. Wallace?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mr. Wallace, my name is Edgar Nevers, of Edgar Nevers Real Estate.”

  “I think we’ve established that.” The sarcasm in the voice was most intentional.

  “Yes, I’m sorry, I’m sure you are very busy. You may not remember, sir, but I work for you, well, not directly. You are discreet, of course. You have…A man…”

  “Mr. Nevers, did someone call you or did you speak in person?”

  “We spoke in person.”

  “And did you speak with a newspaper reporter or someone else?”

  “Someone else.”

  “A policeman?”

  “Yes, sir.” Now it was fear that was evident on the line.

  “It was Chief Inspector Baxter, was it not?”

  “He threatened me, Mr. Wallace. I had no choice. I would never…”

  “Thank you very much for calling, Mr. Nevers. Good afternoon.”

  Robert White had gotten the message. Not long after he passed it on, the telephone in his small office rang in response. White had picked it up before the second ring. He followed the instructions it gave him to the letter. A little after midnight, he heard the roar of the mob under the wheels of the great black coach as it crushed the gravel of the courtyard. He stood by for ten minutes as directed, then made himself scarce.

  Wallace stepped out of the carriage looking as if he might have stolen it, dressed in a worn wool jacket, heavy leather boots, the peak of a newsboy cap pulled low. He swung the coach door very slowly, then leaned against it gently, bringing it to latch. He looked up at the driver and nodded. A quiet double click of the tongue and the carriage began rolling back whence it came, its opaque windows and lacquer sheen more sinister in the night light than a black cat. Wallace moved at the same time, his tracks in the gravel lost in the greater thunder of the horde as it again rose up beneath the wheels.

  A tall stockade fence closed the courtyard on three sides and separated the hotel from the rooming house next door. Usually the door in the fence was padlocked. Just now that padlock was tucked away in a small drawer of the Aberdeen’s front desk. A slip of paper bookmarking the hotel ledger would remind Mr. White to put it back in the morning.

  Wallace shut the fence door behind him. The gaslights that lit the back of the hotel were of almost no use now. He waited a moment. Thinking his eyes well enough adjusted he stepped off with confidence across the yard. After only two steps he banged his shin on a broken axle from a hawker’s cart. He cursed and limped on. Watching the ground, he was nearly decapitated by a low-hanging clothesline. He cursed again and made his way around a few more hostile shapes in the tall dead grass. The minefield galled him all the more because he owned it. Later he would see to it that Mr. Woodside lit a fire under that piss-ant Nevers. Why was it so hard to find good help? Across the gauntlet with no further damage, he made his way down the alley between the rooming house and Sanford’s Market and came out on Argyle Street at a point two streets down and two blocks over from Clarke’s.

  “I’m not used to being summoned.” The look from under the peaked cap was as indignant as the words.

  Most of the knocks on his door came late at night. When things were hopping he was often slow to answer. No matter, his customers would wait. This time Clarke was not slow to the door because he was busy. He was slow because he knew who was there. The thought of facing Wallace’s snobbery did nothing to raise any sympathy or hurry. “Might remember that next time yer givin’ orders,” Clarke suggested, not looking very hopeful.

  “Thank you for that valuable advice on etiquette and manners, but what is it that you really want to discuss?” Wallace took a step forward. Clarke remained in his path, one hand planted firmly on the door casing.

  He waited for Wallace to step back. “Thought we might talk about the future.”

  Wallace pulled off his cap, indignance boiling into rage. “So you mean to threaten me.”

  Restraint only at the last minute kept the play out of his voice and prevented him from smiling. Outwardly, Clarke remained all calm and matter of fact. “I mean to collect a debt.”

  “What is it you think I owe you, Charlie?” Wallace demanded. He said the name as if it belonged to one of his lowest minions who needed to be reminded of their place.

  Now a slow smile did cross Clarke’s face. It was a show of force, not humour. “Well, Maynard, how ’bout a bit a truth to start.” Now Clarke stepped aside, allowing Wallace to cross the threshold. Clarke locked the door then stepped round Wallace and moved on into the front parlour. Clarke took his time sitting down. He didn’t invite Wallace to a chair.

  Wallace watched while Clarke crossed his legs and set his back just right. The wait took none of the sauce from his voice. “It seems to me you have your truth already.”

  “I wanta hear it from you.”

  Wallace looked down at the chair closest to the door. After he had crossed his own legs and set the cloth cap on the seat next to him as carefully as he would a fine top hat, he looked at Clarke with a bald expression and said, “What do you want to hear, Charlie, that I own this place? I once owned it, yes, now I merely have control over it, which to you is the same thing, I suppose.” He finished with a dismissive wave of his hand before letting it fall back on his knee.

  Clarke leaned forward just a little and blinked once or twice as if it were a problem of Euclidean geometry he was trying to solve. “So I work for you, an’ it’s been that way for years.”

  “You pay rent to a company I have interest in, hardly the same thing. Have I ever told you what to do or asked you for anything other than discretion? You have any paystubs signed by me?”

  Clarke sat back. His chin and eyes followed the top of the opposite wall along the thin line where it joined the ceiling. He spoke to himself as much as to Wallace. “Don’t know why I didn’t figure it out long ago. You send word you’s comin’. You and yer guests take over, play cards, fuck the girls, all like you in yer own house. You less bold about it, but you ain’t much different than the man owned my father.”

  Wallace joined in the study of the wall for a moment, then came back to Clarke. “We’re a long way from…Georgia, was it, where your father came from.” He waited to be corrected, then continued when he wasn’t. “I desired certain entertainments. I arranged for them in a way that would not draw attention to myself or my associates.” His expression remained as flat and even as a balance sheet.

  Now Clarke shook his head and the smile that came to his face this time was a mix of humour and sadness and resignation. “Daytime you a re-spectable gentleman. Sneakin’ round here at night in yer handyman costume you is somethin’ else.”

  “I protected…”

  The smile snapped, the legs uncrossed, and the voice fired in a warning shot. “No! I done the protectin’. You ever feel a knife in yer ribs? Yer wife ever get a note in the mail?”

  Wallace avoided Clarke’s exigent glare and brushed at his pants. “Everything was well taken care of.”

  Clarke let out a great “HAH” and a similar mocking squawk erupted from the hidden interior of Preacher’s cage. “Payin’ yourself it turns out. But that ain’t it. Nobody in this place cared who you was, or Victor or the rest of yer highfalutin friends. Sure we pretended at romance, that’s the job. But we wasn’t deceitful. We was honest and you played us for fools.”

  Wallace seemed unperturbed by the volume or its protest. He rolled his eyes up slowly from his pants and spoke with an instructor�
��s patience. “So the blackmail you are leading up to now is not tawdry and predictable, because you are going about it honestly, is that it? And the reason we are playing out this little whorehouse drama in the middle of the night isn’t because a man is dead. This is all because I didn’t tell you my business?”

  Clarke found both knees with his hands and pushed himself up. As he spoke he uncovered the cage and from a nearby dish fed the bird some fruit. “Last couple of days I been thinkin’ a lot about my father. He come here, managed to scratch out a living. Give you the shirt off his back, didn’t dare hold his head up though. I ain’t ashamed. I’m just done lookin’ at my shoes.”

  “And of course you need money to turn over a new leaf.” The first three words were delivered in the rising tone of an unsurprised eureka.

  Clarke turned from the cage and stood over Wallace, giving back his doubtless tone. “Takes more’n money for a man to hold his head up. Way I see it, time you found me a legitimate job, somethin’ I can work at and get someplace. Time goes by people be sayin’ there goes Charles Clarke, you know he came up from nothin’.”

  Wallace pursed his lips as if in serious thought, then asked, “What then, you get elected to city council? And what do you do with those bloody floorboards, have them made into a desk?”

  “Fuck off.”

  Wallace shot up a hand as if he were starting a race or as if he truly had discovered something new and wonderful. “That’s more like it, Charlie. You had me worried for a minute.”

  Charlie’s face rolled over to something as hard, rolled precise and deadly like a revolver. “You think I won’t talk to Baxter? I’ve already told him most of it.”

  Wallace stared back as you would at a toy gun. “So you finish, and you wait. And you know what happens…nothing. There is no evidence. The only witness has flown the coop. And should she reappear, I’m sure she can be managed. Meanwhile, this city isn’t about to side with a pimp against some of its most reputable citizens.”