by Stuart Woods
When he saw the girl he had an instant erection. She stood on a midway stage with two other girls, doing some mild dancing to a record that blared over loudspeakers. The girl was young, clearly not more than eighteen or nineteen, but tall and big breasted, just Sonny’s type. A hawker droned on about the show inside, and male customers started to file into the tent behind the stage, leaving half-dollars with the hawker. A couple of beardless youths were cheerfully turned away. Sonny flashed his badge at the hawker and strolled into the tent.
Almost immediately, a man appeared at his elbow. “Could I have a word with you, Chief?” He nodded toward a flap at the other side of the tent.
Sonny went with the man.
“Listen, Chief, this is our first night, and we want to give the boys a good show, you know? But we don’t want any problems.”
“Sure, sport, I get you. I’m here for the show, myself.”
“Ah, that’s just fine,” the man said, and Sonny suddenly found a wad of folded bills in his hand. “I hope you’ll pass that on to your favorite local charity. I’m sure you have some fine youth organization that could use the help.” He winked slyly at Sonny and left the tent.
Sonny rejoined the crowd. The show began, to the hoots and hollers of the audience. The three girls worked methodically through their dances, teasing, stripping, but not all the way. Each ducked into the wings at the climactic moment, leaving the crowd begging for more. Then the hawker appeared and started a pitch for the “insider’s show,” and most of the men paid another fifty cents to stay.
There was no stage, simply a two-by-four separating men from girls. Now the girls came back and bumped their way close along the fence, just out of reach, naked except for G-strings and pasties. Then they worked in even closer, allowing a feel here and there.
The young girl stopped before Sonny, dancing just for him. She came close and allowed him to get an arm around her waist and his hand under the G-string for a moment before slipping away, grabbing briefly at his crotch. Then the show was over, and after a lot of fruitless calls for an encore the men slowly filed out of the tent. Sonny stayed, unsatisfied, throbbing all over.
He ducked under the two-by-four and walked quickly to the flap where the girls had disappeared. He found himself outside, behind the tent, facing a small trailer. The manager, the man who had given him the money, was quickly beside him.
“Can I help you, Chief?”
“Where’s the girl?” Sonny demanded.
“Well, she’s resting ‘til the next show. Come back for that one. Glad to have you.”
“I think I’d like a little private show, is what I’d like. Where is she?”
“Now look, Chief, the girl’s awful new at this, and besides, she’s married, just been married a couple of months, you know?” He slipped his arm through Sonny’s and began steering him back into the tent. “Listen, I tell you what, come on back around here when we close down for the night, ‘bout twelve, and I’ll introduce you to the little brunette, remember her? You’ll have a real good time, believe me.”
Sonny jerked his arm free and headed for the trailer. “Not later, and not the brunette,” he said. “The tall one, and now.” He opened the trailer door and stepped in. The girl was sitting at a tiny dressing table in a dirty terrycloth bathrobe, eating chocolates from a box.
“Hey, there, sweetheart,” Sonny purred, walking toward her. “You don’t want to go ruining your figure with all that candy.”
The girl stood up and backed away from him. The robe fell open to reveal a large, beautifully formed breast. She quickly snatched it shut and tied it. The manager was quick into the trailer behind Sonny. “Cherry, this here’s the Delano Chief of police, uh, he admired your performance, and—”
“Get him out of here, Jimmy,” the girl said quickly.
“Now, Cherry, you want to be nice to the Chief, this being our first night and all.”
“Yeah,” said Sonny, unbuttoning his pants, “be nice to me, Cherry.”
The girl turned and pushed open a window behind her. “Danny!” she yelled at the top of her lungs. “Danneeee!”
The manager was trying to quiet her and get Sonny out of the trailer when the door was yanked open and a short, heavily muscled young man barged in. He looked at Sonny. “Okay, Hiram, the show’s over, now get your ass out of here.” He grabbed Sonny’s arm and started dragging him toward the door. Sonny whipped out a blackjack and swung wildly at the young man, grazing the bridge of his nose. He tripped and fell down the trailer’s short steps into the sawdust, and Sonny was all over him.
“Hey, Rube!” the man screamed, shielding himself from the blackjack with his arms as best he could.
“Shut up, Danny,” the manager whispered loudly. “The guy’s a cop! He’s the fucking Chief of police, for crissakes!”
Billy and Patricia were walking down the midway with Tom Mudter when they saw people running toward the lower end of the fairgrounds. They followed quickly and came to the edge of a crowd of at least fifty people. There was something going on, but they couldn’t see well.
They burst onto the midway, swinging wildly, Sonny using the blackjack, the manager holding back a group of carnival workers who had responded to Danny’s call for help, saying, “Stay out of it, the guy’s a cop, and Danny’s on his own.”
Sonny was in a kind of frenzy. He was taking some punches, but the blackjack hurt where it hit. His opponent was bleeding heavily from the nose. Sonny stayed back, jabbing with his left hand, keeping the man away from him, using the blackjack with his right. He loved the feel of it when the leather billy struck home. He used it on the man’s upper arms and on his ribs, he didn’t want him going out too soon; this was too good. Danny fell to one knee, and Sonny lashed out with his foot, catching him under the chin, unaware of the crowd quickly forming around him.
Danny sprawled backwards, and Sonny followed, kicking the semiconscious man wherever he could, in the ribs, in the face. Something wonderful was welling up inside Sonny, something more powerful than anything he had felt since the war. He was on the verge of release, when suddenly he was yanked backward by the collar and sprawled, full-length, in the sawdust. He was back on his feet instantly, the excitement pouring from him; then he stopped. Colonel Billy Lee was standing between him and his victim.
“That’s enough, Sonny,” the colonel was saying quietly, but urgently. “Give me the blackjack.”
Sonny looked around him and saw the crowd for the first time, looking at him in horror. He tried to speak, but failed. Finally he was able to say, “Resisting arrest.”
The colonel took the blackjack from him and flung it away. “Butts!” Another voice from behind him. He turned and faced Hugh Holmes. “Now, listen to me. I want you to go home right now.” Sonny started to speak again, but Holmes waved him quiet. “No, I don’t want to hear it. You just go home and stay there. I’ll talk with you tomorrow.”
Sonny looked around at the crowd again. Women were hustling their children away from the scene. No one was saying a word. They were just staring at him. He realized that his fly was open, and he quickly buttoned it. He flushed. The front of his trousers was soaking wet. He turned and started up the midway, and the crowd gave way before him. He was confused. It must be the booze. He had to go home and think.
While Tom Mudter bent over Sonny’s bloody victim, Billy watched the policeman half walk, half run, up the midway, but his mind was not at the fair. He was in a London pub on V-E Day, listening to a young infantry captain tell him a war story, the worst war story he had ever heard.
23
HOLMES put down the phone. Billy realized that it was the first time he had ever seen the banker truly angry.
“That’s the last one,” Holmes said. “The full city council will meet at noon tomorrow.”
“Do you think there’s any chance at all they’ll back him?” Billy asked.
“They’ll back him over my dead body,” said Holmes, and Billy felt that they might finally be about t
o see the last of Sonny Butts. Holmes got up and poured Billy and Patricia a drink. They had arrived at his house only as he was finishing with his calls.
Holmes sat down again. “I’ve got the carnival manager to agree to press charges for assault and battery, if necessary, though he was afraid to do it at first, and he told me Sonny extorted some money out of him to let him keep the hootchykootchy show open, too. If the council shows any resistance at all to getting rid of Sonny I’ll plunk down that complaint on the table, and we’ll see what happens then. In anticipation of Butts’s going I’ve already asked the governor for some state-patrol help while we look for a replacement.”
Patricia spoke up. “I suppose it doesn’t matter, now, what the grand jury does.”
“Oh, yes, it does matter,” said Billy. “Butts has to go to jail, or maybe to a mental hospital.”
Holmes looked surprised. “You think he’s crazy?”
“Didn’t he look crazy to you tonight? The man’s a menace to civilized society. He’s got to be put away.”
Holmes took an unusually large pull at his bourbon. “Billy, I owe you an apology.”
“How do you mean?”
“It’s my fault that this thing has gone so far. I had a lot of reservations about Butts from the beginning, and I should have spoken up.”
“You had no way of knowing what would happen.”
“No, but when the rumors about the beatings down at the jail started, I should have known they were true, I should have stepped in. Marshall Parker would still be alive today if I had done something about that early on.”
Billy shook his head. “No, sir, you can’t blame yourself.” Billy could not absolve himself, though. If he had been quicker to understand, if he had taken responsibility sooner…Well, he would have to live with that; he would have to find a way to make up for it.
Sonny was late getting to the station. He was hung over as hell, and Charley would just have to work a couple of extra hours. He wondered why Charley hadn’t been on the phone, complaining.
But Charley wasn’t at the station. When Sonny walked in he found a uniformed state-patrol sergeant sitting at Charley’s desk.
“Chief Butts?” The patrolman stuck out his hand. “Morning, I’m Dave Barker, from the La Grange post. My commander sent me down here to give you a hand, seeing as how you’re short an officer. I relieved your other man, Ward. Hope that was okay.”
“Yeah, sure, uh, Dave.” He motioned toward his office. “I’ll be in here if anybody needs me.” He started toward the door.
“Oh, Chief.”
“Yeah?”
“There was a message from a Mr. Holmes about half an hour ago. He says you’re to be at City Hall at twelve-thirty today for a city council meeting, without fail. He says just to wait in the city manager’s office until they’re ready for you.” The patrolman seemed to avoid his eyes and turned quickly back to his newspaper.
Sonny stood frozen in the doorway. “Yeah, okay,” he was finally able to say. He went into his office and closed the door.
In Greenville, Bert Hill called the case against Sonny Butts and Charley Ward before the grand jury. His first witness was Annie Parker.
“Annie Parker, you are the widow of Marshall Parker?”
“Yessir.”
“What did your husband do for a living?”
“He had a garage. He was an automobile mechanic.”
“His own business, was it?”
“Yessir.”
“Where did he get the money to start this business?”
“He saved most of it up in the army, and he borrowed some of it from Mr. Holmes at the bank.”
“Marshall served in the army, did he?”
“Yessir. He got some medals, too. The biggest one was a Silver Star, in Italy.”
Hill let that sink in with the grand jury for a moment, before continuing his questioning.
Sonny sat at his desk for nearly an hour, staring straight ahead of him. He had to think of something, had to think of a way out of this, but his mind wouldn’t work. He dug a bottle out of a desk drawer and took a long pull. After a moment, he took another one.
“Mr. Fowler, what is your business?”
“I have a dry-goods store in Delano, on Main Street.”
“Were you acquainted with Marshall Parker?”
“Yessir, he was a customer at my store, a good customer, paid his bill on time every month. Better than a lot of white people.”
There was a small stir among the grand jurors. Bert Hill was sorry Fowler had said that. He hurried on to his next question.
“Did Marshall Parker come into your store on Saturday night a week ago?”
“Yessir, he did. He and his wife, there.”
“Did you smell any liquor on Marshall Parker?”
“No, sir, I did not. He was as sober as I was.”
“How would you describe his frame of mind.”
“He was in a real good mood. He said he’d had his best week since he opened his business, and he wanted to buy his wife a new dress.”
In the back of the room Annie Parker began to cry. It was the first time she had let anyone see her cry since Marshall’s death.
Sonny paced the office like a caged animal, thinking, thinking. He needed a good arrest, something to make him look good to the city council, but what? Traffic tickets wouldn’t do it this time. He thought about the porter at the hotel, the bootlegging business. Not good enough. Besides, half the council probably bought liquor from him. Sonny needed something bigger, more important. The phone rang in the station room. The patrolman stuck his head in the door.
“Phone for you, Chief.”
Sonny snatched up the instrument. “Chief Butts.”
“Hey, Sonny, it’s Tank Talbot, up in Atlanta.”
It took Sonny a moment to concentrate. Oh, yeah, Tank was in state-police headquarters.
“Yeah, Tank, how you doing?”
“Not bad. Listen, you know those missing persons cases you called me about a little while back?”
Sonny sat up straight. “Yeah, sure, what about them? You got something new on ‘em?”
“Naw, not on them ones, but I got a fresh one for you, might be down your way.”
“Yeah?”
“There’ll probably be a bulletin in your morning mail, but I thought you might miss it.”
“Yeah, Tank, thanks a lot.” Sonny quickly found the bulletin in the mail on his desk. Tank read aloud from it.
“Name, Harvey Charles Mix; age, seventeen; five eight; hundred and thirty-five; blonde hair; green eyes; no scars or markings. Sounds like them others, don’t it?”
“Sure does, Tank. Got anything else?”
“He’s from Chattanooga; his folks think he might be headed for Florida.”
“That might bring him through here, all right.”
“Damn right, listen to this. This is new. He called home Friday night, and his daddy got the operator to check on it. He called from Newnan.”
“That’s forty miles north of here.”
“Right, and if he was hitchhiking to Florida he’d have to take Highway 41 south, there’s no other road, and that brings him right to you.”
“That sounds good, Tank. Anything else”
“That’s it.”
“Okay, I’ll check it out and let you know if I find out anything.” Sonny hung up. His hands were trembling. His mind flashed through the file in his bottom drawer, the missing boys, the circle of marks around Delano, Foxy’s nervousness when he visited unannounced. Then Saturday morning came back to him. Somebody getting into Foxy’s truck over the mountain. He tried to remember. Did he see a blond head? Yes. Yes!
He quickly slipped the bulletin into the file and started for the door. Optimism flooded through him now. This was all he needed. Before the day was finished, he’d be a hero again. They wouldn’t be able to lay a finger on him. He charged through the station room, startling Sergeant Barker.
“Be back in a while, Sarge,
” he shouted over his shoulder. In the parking lot he paused at his car and turned instead to the motorcycle. It started on the first kick, and he roared up the hill toward Broad Street, revving flat out through the gears.
Barker got to the front door in time to see him take the corner at Broad Street and turn up the mountain.
“Dr. Mudter, have you attended dying men before?”
“I was a medical officer in the army, in the Pacific, the island invasions. I saw them by the hundreds.”
“Those that were able to speak before they died. What did they have to say.”
“They had messages for loved ones. If they felt guilty about something they wanted to confess.”
“Has it been your experience that men in those circumstances tell the truth?”
“Yes, it has. Why would a dying man lie?”
“Did you feel that Marshall Parker told you the truth?”
“I very definitely did. I told him how important it was for him to tell me the truth. He knew he was dying.”
Sonny flew up the mountainside, over the crest, and down the hill to the turnoff to Foxy’s house. He shifted down and drove more slowly. The motorcycle could be very quiet at low speeds.
Further up the dirt road, at the top of the hill, he cut the engine and coasted silently down toward Foxy’s house. It appeared around a bend, seeming quite normal, its flower beds and trees laid out in perfect symmetry. He bore down around the house, heading for the rear. Beyond the detached garage he could see something, someone.
As Dr. Tom Mudter finished his testimony, Skeeter Willis entered the grand-jury room and whispered something to the prosecutor. There was a brief exchange between them, and Bert Hill nodded. Skeeter went to the door and beckoned to someone. A tall, thin black man entered, and Skeeter pointed him toward the witness chair. He was sworn in, and Bert Hill addressed him.
“Walter Johnson, is that your name?”
“Yassuh. They calls me Pieback, though.” The man was sweating and trembling slightly.
“What is your occupation?”
