Odds Against Tomorrow

by William P. McGivern

  “Shut up! Shut up!” Ingram’s voice trembled with anguish and contempt. “You were going to let me walk right into their arms. You lied to me all along. I was heading for the chair, while you and her went free. That’s what you planned, wasn’t it? Goddam you, wasn’t it?”

  “What are you talking about?” Earl said. He wet his lips, and the taste of his tongue was like a distillation of corruption and shame. “You’re not making any sense,” he yelled furiously.

  “Crazybone came upstairs to tell about the radio,” Ingram said softly. “She thought I figured she was lying. She kept saying the woman lifted up the radio and smashed it on the floor. I told her she was imagining things.” Ingram’s smile strained the skin tightly across his shining face. “Sure, I stuck up for you, buddy. I felt like a heel for listening to her. But once you get a suspicion, it’s hard to keep it from growing. All I knew was what you told me. Then the radio got busted. So we couldn’t get any more news. It was hard not to start adding things up. I tried not to, buddy, I tried as hard as I could. But I started adding it up. And you know the answer I got.”

  The bitterness in Ingram’s eyes and voice cut Earl like a whip. “She stumbled and knocked over the radio,” he said. “You believe me, Sambo, or that old fool, Crazybone?”

  “She stumbled, eh?” Ingram turned and stared at Lorraine, appraising her slender legs and neat, efficient body with deliberate contempt. “Does she look like the kind of woman who falls over her feet? No more than a cat does, buddy.”

  “You leave her out of this,” Earl yelled. An illogical anger rushed through him. “Forget about her. What’s she got to do with it, anyway?”

  “She’s part of the big lie, isn’t she? Send him out to get his black hide nailed to the wall. Dumb colored bastard—what difference will it make to him? That’s the lie she’s part of. She’s as rotten as you are.”

  “Now hold it. I’m warning you.”

  “Oh, pardon me,” Ingram said, laughing bitterly. “I forgot my place, didn’t I? You white folks were just sending me out to get killed—that’s all. And I’m such a rude, low-down nigger that I got mad and forgot myself in front of a white woman. I surely am sorry about that.”

  “Don’t take any lip from him,” the old man cried, his voice emerging from under the blankets in a muffled cackle.

  “Keep still, both of you,” Lorraine said. “Ingram has a right to be angry, if he believes what Crazybone told him. But it just isn’t true. I broke the radio accidentally, Ingram. I swear it.”

  “You should have broken them all, ma’am,” Ingram said slowly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “There was one you forgot about—the one in the car I drove into the mica pit. I climbed down there and the radio was working fine. So I waited to hear the news.”

  Lorraine looked quickly toward Earl, her eyes dark and anxious, but he turned away, rubbing the back of his hand roughly across his lips.

  “You know what the news said?” Ingram laughed shrilly and slapped his leg, his manner a cruel parody of cringing good humor. “The news said the police are looking for a colored rascal named John Ingram. Just listen to what that cut-up has gone and done. Tried to rob a bank, then went and kidnaped a doctor to take care of his wounded buddy.” Ingram glared at Earl, but his eyes were bright and hard as diamonds. “The name sounded pretty familiar, so I listened real close. Ingram, they said, was about thirty-five, used to live on Arch Street near Maple in Philly. Well, imagine my surprise. That’s me, I thought. Little ole me. Wanted by the police everywhere. The police, that’s how us colored folks say it.” Ingram continued to stare at Earl, his smile changing slowly, becoming bitter and cold and sad. “You can imagine how surprised I was, buddy. Can’t you imagine it?”

  “It’s different than what you think,” Earl said, making a weary futile gesture with his hand. “It’s not all one thing or another, like you think. It’s a question of what you got to do, of how things really are—” The confusion in his voice swelled into empty, pointless anger. “But you don’t understand that, do you? It’s all black and white to you, isn’t it?”

  “We’ve got to go, Earl,” Lorraine said. “Get the car keys.”

  “Yeah, I was surprised by the news,” Ingram said, as if he hadn’t heard her; he was watching Earl with hurt, bewildered eyes. “After I saved your skin, after I brought your girl here and got a doctor to patch you up—after all that, you could go on lying to me. It wasn’t hard for you—that’s what I can’t understand. It was easy. You smiled and lied to me like it was the most natural thing in the world.”

  “You don’t know how it was, I tell you. You just see it one way.”

  “Get the car keys,” Lorraine cried.

  “We talked about going to ball games together, remember?” Ingram said, clenching his hands tightly. “Like buddies. Sit in the sun and drink beer. Talk about what we’d been through. You remember all that?” Ingram’s voice was derisive and bitter, but tears were shining softly in his eyes. “Old times in the Army, baseball games, how you felt about your old man—no, I didn’t think you were lying to me. That was a great snow job, buddy.”

  “Damn it, shut up!” Earl shouted.

  “That’s the way,” Ingram said, in a tone of mocking approval. “Don’t talk about it. Lie, cheat—but oh for Lordy sakes, don’t say nothing about it. Treat people like dirt, but don’t be crude and discuss it.” Ingram laughed and pulled the car keys from his pocket. The Silver Star gleamed and flashed in the light. “But you want to talk about these, don’t you? And saving your neck. That’s all right. That’s nice and clean, isn’t it?”

  “Give it here,” Earl said, putting out his hand. “Give it here, Sambo.”

  “You need old black Sambo now, don’t you?”

  “Give them to me!” Earl’s voice rose in a shout; Ingram’s defiance justified the anger pounding through his body. He pulled the gun from his pocket. “Give ’em here,” he said softly. “I’m not kidding.”

  “You can’t shoot me,” Ingram said, laughing at the hot anger in Earl’s face. “Who’d you go to ball games with then? Who’ll you talk about the Army with? You can’t shoot your old buddy.”

  Earl took a quick, long stride toward him and jammed the gun into his stomach. When Ingram doubled up, gasping painfully for breath, Earl brought the gun barrel down on his head with an abrupt, chopping gesture.

  The old man sat upright, his eyes bright with pleasure. As Ingram’s body pitched to the floor, he cried, “That’s the way to handle ’em. Put the iron to ’em.”

  Lorraine knelt smoothly and quickly and took the keys from Ingram’s motionless hand. “Let’s get away from here,” she said to Earl. “Please, for God’s sake.”

  Earl stared down at Ingram, the gun hanging limply at his side. “Why didn’t he hide the keys?” he muttered. “Throw them away or something.”

  “Earl, please!” Lorraine’s voice was shaking. “Please.”

  “Waving ’em around like a fool,” Earl said. “Didn’t he know better? Communications character. Didn’t know nothing.” He shrugged wearily. “Give me a hand with him, Lory. We’ll put him on the couch.”

  “What difference does it make?”

  “I don’t know. God, I don’t know. But give me a hand. Come on, move. Come on, Lory.”

  After they lifted Ingram’s body onto the sofa, Earl looked at him for an instant in silence, appraising his heavy breathing and the blood running brightly down his temple and cheek. “I didn’t hit him hard,” he said to Lorraine. “Just enough to put him out for a while. That’s all I did, I swear.”

  Lorraine pulled her coat tightly about her throat and hurried toward the door. The old man grinned at Earl who was still standing beside the sofa staring at Ingram. “Go with her,” he said. “You got a long life ahead of you, son.” He pushed the covers back and rummaged around under his bed, hanging over the side like a big gray crab. “Here it is,” he said, as his clawing hand touched the Bible. “The Word.” He
flopped back into bed exhausted and triumphant. “Me and the colored boy will read some prayers for you. We’ll shout till God hears us, and saves you from evil and death. Go on, leave us now.”

  Earl couldn’t make himself move. “Sambo?” he said softly.

  Lorraine looked back from the door and cried, “Earl!” When he didn’t turn, she ran across the room and shook his arm roughly. “What’s the matter with you?”

  “I’m all right,” he muttered. “I’m okay.” He saw Ingram’s eyelids flutter. “Go out and turn the car around, Lory,” he said.

  “Why won’t you come?’” she cried softly.

  He jerked himself free from her desperate hands. “Do what I tell you. Turn the car around. Tap the horn when you’re ready.” He stared into her white, strained face. “Do what I tell you!”

  She backed away from him, moistening her lips, and then turned and ran from the room, her heels sounding with a frantic clatter on the hard floor.

  Earl saw that Ingram was staring up at him, his eyes bright with fear and wonder. “I’m going to leave you some dough,” he muttered. He took out the money Lorraine had given him, worked three tens loose with his thumb and let them flutter to the foot of the sofa. “There’s thirty bucks. It’s not much, but it’s all we can spare. With what you’ve got of your own, it’s something, Sambo.”

  Ingram’s expression was grave; he seemed to be searching for something in Earl’s face, probing at him with soft wondering eyes.

  “I can’t give you any more,” Earl said. He saw that the old man was watching him, the gloomy light shining on his gray hair and soft silvery whiskers. Night had fallen now, pressing with black finality against the windows. Earl shifted uneasily as he heard the wind clawing at the sides of the house like an angry animal. “You got a chance,” he said, trying to force a note of conviction into his voice. “There must be some colored folks living here in the country. They’d put you up, wouldn’t they? You got money to smooth your way with. Think about that, eh?”

  Ingram didn’t answer him; his eyes were full of speculation, but the line of bright, crusted blood was like a seal drawn across his dry lips.

  “You think I’m ratting on you,” Earl said bitterly. “Why don’t you say it? Say something, damn it. You helped me, now I’m walking out on you—that’s what you’re thinking, I know.” Ingram said nothing, and Earl came closer to him, and cried softly, “It’s got to be this way, Sambo. Don’t you see? Lory and me have got to take off. I’ve got to go with her. Everything I am makes it what I’ve got to do. We’re running to save our lives. It’s the way life is. It’s rotten, maybe, but I didn’t make up the rules. Well, did I, Sambo? Did I?” Earl heard his voice rising to a shout; he could feel the words swelling in his throat like filth he needed to eject from his body. “I didn’t make up the rules, remember that! I didn’t do nothing to you. You can’t blame me. I’m not responsible for you, am I?”

  “Read the book of God!” The old man intoned the words slowly and solemnly. “He’s got the answers. Don’t matter whether you’re black or white, there’s where to find the answers.”

  Ingram was sick and frightened, but more than that he was puzzled—he didn’t understand Earl or himself, and that seemed more important now than his fears or his illness.

  In some devious way he had led Earl to this last moment of shame. Why had he done it? To humiliate him, just to see this look of shame in his eyes? Was it that way with all colored folks, he wondered, with their smiles and head bobbings, their unctuous courtship of the most evil and arrogant things in people. Cultivating their faults till they grew so big they couldn’t be hidden any more… Was that all they wanted? To make white people worse?

  If that’s all he’d wanted, he was no better than Earl. The relationship had just been an exercise in deceit, with both of them using kindness and understanding as their weapons. There was no honesty in it at all. It would have been kinder to walk out on him and let him die. He would have died without shame, anyway. It was wrong to treat a man decently just to get the whip hand over him. It was scheming and vicious. Not just dumb and scared like Earl.

  “Listen!” the old man cried triumphantly. “Here’s Ecclesiasticus. Get this now: ‘God created man of the Earth, and made him after his own image—’” He laughed shrilly, peering sideways at Earl and Ingram. “Ain’t that rich? Ain’t that a thought to tickle your ribs?”

  “Haven’t you anything to say?” Earl said, looking quickly over his shoulder at the door. “I’m leaving you some dough, Sambo. I’m doing the best I can for you.”

  “And listen here,” the old man said. “Listen to this.”

  “Goddamit, shut up!” Earl yelled at him.

  “Don’t be cursing the Good Book. Go your way. Me and the colored boy will pray for you. You’ll need it, son. You’ll need it.”

  “I’ve got to leave you, Sambo,” Earl said. “I got to.”

  “‘Tarry not in the error of the ungodly, give glory before death,’” the old man cried. “‘Give thanks whilst you’re living… and thou shalt glory in his mercies.’ That’s old Ecclesiasticus, too, a-shouting and a-stamping for all he’s worth.”

  Ingram understood himself at last. He hadn’t tricked Earl. He was sure of that. In a confusing way he had been closer to him than anyone else in his whole life.

  “‘O what is brighter than the sun?’” the old man shouted in the imbecile voice of a man drunk with sound and rhythm.

  The blast of a horn came from outside the front door, insistent and demanding.

  “I got to go,” Earl said. He backed slowly away from the sofa, watching Ingram with childish anxiety. “You understand, don’t you, Sambo? Just say you understand.”

  “‘Or what is more wicked than that which flesh and blood hath invented?’” the old man cried, his voice crescendoing into an evangelistic roar.

  The horn sounded again, two sharp blasts, and Earl glanced guiltily over his shoulder. “So long, Sambo, so long,” he said.

  “‘He beholdeth the power of the height of heaven; and all men are Earth and ashes!’” The old man closed the book as the draft from the opening door stirred his thin hair in grotesque waves. He settled back, drained and exhausted by his exertions. “There’s always comfort in the Bible,” he said. “Remember that, boy. Remember it when the police come to hang you.”

  Ingram was too sick and weak to move. The pain in his chest was dull and heavy, a weight pinning him helplessly to the sofa. He turned away from the old man’s vindictive eyes, listening to the whine of the car plowing through the thick mud. The wind came up furiously then, obliterating everything with its sweeping roar, and when it died down he could hear nothing but the faint echo of the throbbing engine. That faded swiftly into silence, and he knew they were on their way at last, pushing through the dark toward freedom.

  The cold tears stung the crusted blood on his cheeks. He’s just dumb, he just doesn’t know what he’s doing, he thought. Why couldn’t I have said something to him?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  AT FOUR THIRTY the phone on the sheriff’s desk rang. He lifted the receiver without any suggestion of hope, and said, “Sheriff Burns.”

  The call was for Kelly. The sheriff gave him the phone, and Kelly listened for a few seconds, then said, “Okay, Smitty.” He shrugged as he put the receiver back in the cradle. “That’s a final report on West Grove. No Balsam Peru customers there.” Kelly shook his head. Balsam Peru. He was beginning to dislike the sound of the words. There had been about sixty calls in the last hour from state troopers and FBI agents, all containing substantially the same message; no luck. Every doctor and druggist in and near Crossroads was searching his files and his memory for clients who had used Balsam Peru. But so far the search had been futile.

  Kelly glanced up at the black circle the sheriff had penciled around the area southwest of Crossroads. Were the men still waiting inside that noose? Or had they started to move by now?

  They had a delicate logistics
problem facing them, Kelly thought. Earl Slater, Lorraine Wilson and Ingram, the Negro… Would they stick together? Or split up? There was danger in either choice.

  Together they would attract attention, so they would probably split up. Kelly made a dollar bet with himself that the white couple would desert the Negro—and that the Negro would be an eager and angry witness against them. Okay, he thought, a dollar… Still, catching them wouldn’t be a snap. The police had identification on both cars, the sedan and the station wagon, but it would be a simple matter for them to hold up a motorist and take his car and papers.

  Then they had a chance to slip through the roadblocks. Traffic was heavy on all roads and highways in the area. It was a difficult night to make a thorough check of every occupant in every car. If one trooper hurried his inspection or swung his torch a bit casually, the harm might be done. It could happen easily if the woman were a fairly good actress. “What’s the matter, officer? Well, do you think it’s safe to go on? All right, thanks so much…” And away they’d roll.

  The phone rang several times in the next few minutes, but all the reports were negative; no doctor or druggist knew of any customer currently using the old patent medicine.

  “Maybe it’s hopeless,” the sheriff said a bit wearily. “With sulfa drugs and penicillin, why should anyone bother with an old-fashioned cure-all?”

  “But someone has,” Kelly said. “Unless Doctor Taylor is wrong, someone in that house was using it.”

  “It could be an old jar. Bought a dozen years ago.”

  “Maybe,” Kelly said. “But a few agents haven’t reported yet. Maybe the break is coming.”

  “Maybe,” the sheriff said, drumming his big fingers on the desk top. “Maybe.”

  It was frustrating to wait. They were ready to explode into action, with every contingency anticipated and planned for; six of Kelly’s men were standing by at a temporary headquarters in the Crossroads’ post office, and state troopers in squad cars were posted at strategic intersections throughout the valley. When the break came dozens of experienced men were ready to reach for riot guns, walkie-talkies, tear gas, torchlights—ready to move out in a matter of seconds.