Atlanta Deathwatch

by Ralph Dennis

  “Is that right?”

  I could see the gears begin to move slowly. I got out my wallet and handed her a five. “I’d like to look around his room.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t let you do that.”

  “The police’ll be over later.” I added another five. “I can call them now, but they won’t pay you ten for a look.”

  “It’s still not right.”

  I put out my hand. Mrs. Burleson jerked the money away and stuffed it down the front of her dress. “He was behind in his rent, anyway.” She dug a key from the apron pocket. “It’s on the second floor, the third door on the left.”

  It was a neat room. That surprised me. The bed was made, and a couple of cheap Army surplus blankets were smoothed and stretched across it. A pair of low-cut black shoos, polished to a high gloss and stretched on shoe trees, were under the front edge of the bed. In the shallow, dark closet, I found a gray suit with a shiny seat to the trousers, two Robert Hall sport coats, one for winter and one for spring, and, four or five pairs of slacks. In the low, three-drawer dresser were the twins to the green twill work clothes Mullidge had died in, as well as shirts and underwear neatly folded and stacked and half a dozen pairs of white cotton socks.

  Still no wallet. I looked around the room. I went to the bed and pushed the pillow aside. Not there. But, lifting the pillow to replace it, I felt the lump inside. I shook the pillow, and the wallet fell onto the tight blankets and bounced back at me.

  It was an old leather wallet, sweat-darkened on the curved side that fitted his hip, cracking with dry rot along the edges. In the money compartment a ten and three ones. No blood money yet. I pulled out the mass of cards and yellowing scraps of paper, and found it in there: four fifty-dollar bills, folded and creased sharply so they wouldn’t bulk.

  So that was what I was worth dead: two hundred dollars.

  I jammed the cards, the scraps of paper and the money back into the wallet and dropped it into my topcoat pocket. Another walk around the room revealed nothing else worth noting. It was the room of a compulsively neat person. Taught by his mother to wash behind his ears, and taught by the Army to make a tight bed, shine his shoes, and keep his clothes ready for inspection. He’d been neat everywhere but in my front yard.

  Hump was in the car drinking Crystal Shop coffee from a place a couple of blocks away. He handed me a cup. “Find anything?”

  “The fee was two hundred dollars.”

  “That’s cheap, for bloodletting.”

  “Buy cheap, and you get shoddy work,” I said.

  “It wasn’t that shoddy.”

  Edna cleared away Art’s supper dishes and brought in coffee cups for Hump and me. She put a fresh pot of coffee on the table and stopped in the doorway, ready to go into another part of the house. “Mr. Evans, the boys are going to be sorry they weren’t here to meet you.”

  “Tell them to call me and I’ll drop by sometime,” Hump said.

  “I will,” Edna said.

  After she left, Art took the wallet and dumped the contents on the table. He put the four fifties aside. “You’re coming up in the world, Jim. When you were a cop, your life was worth about a ten-cent candy bar.”

  “Or a nickel roll of Lifesavers.” It was true enough. In my time on the force, I’d seen policemen killed for a lot less.

  We spent a few minutes going through the wad of paper scraps. We ended up with three piles. In one pile we put the ones with girls’ names and phone numbers. In another we separated the scraps with men’s names, with or without phone numbers. In the final pile we put the ones that had only phone numbers, no names and addresses.

  “We’ll check a couple of the women, but I doubt that there’s anything there. I’ll start a check on the others as soon as I get to the office.”

  “One thing more, Art,” I said.

  “Yeah?” Art was putting the paper scraps from the wallet into envelopes.

  “A little over a year ago, Mullidge was arrested for stealing from the cars at the parking lot where he worked. The owner thinks it was fixed, that Mullidge must have had some kind of clout higher up.”

  Art made a note. “I’ll ask around”

  “Maybe it’s somebody I know.”

  Art put the pad in his shirt pocket. “Speaking of asking around for you, Ben Coleman was with Arch Campbell the night Emily was killed. They were in Arch’s room at the Regency, going over some investment plans. Room service took them ice and mixers around eight, and a pot of coffee a bit after eleven. The same hotel man took up both orders. One of my men showed him Coleman’s photo. He swears that Coleman was in the room both times he took stuff in.”

  “The three hours and a bit between, that’s a lot of time,” Hump said.

  “More than enough to go out, find and kill Emily, and make it back to Campbell’s room for coffee,” I said.

  “Give me a reason Coleman’d kill Emily,” Art said.

  “I don’t have one at the moment,” I admitted. “But he’s a pretty shifty guy.”

  “And give me one reason why Campbell would cover for Coleman while he was out killing Campbell’s daughter.”

  “When you put it that way,” I said, “it does sound silly, doesn’t it?”

  Art nodded. “It makes you sound senile.”

  “I don’t think so. Something’s not right with him. Hump was with me when I asked him how well he knew Emily.”

  Hump nodded. “He got uptight. Blew up.”

  “Just because Coleman might have had a thing for Emily . . . if he did . . . that doesn’t mean he’d kill her,” Art said.

  “That’s funny.” I turned and winked at Hump.

  “What’s funny?”

  “Having a thing for Emily. That’s exactly why you think Eddie Spence killed her.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  The phone was ringing when I got home, a bit after midnight. On the way back from Marcy’s, I’d stopped off to borrow Hump’s shotgun and part of a box of shells. I put the shotgun on the sofa and made a run for the bedroom. I probably got it on the last ring.

  “Hardman?” It was The Man.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve been trying to reach you all day, ever since I read the Journal”

  “I’ve been out most of the day, trying to find out who wants me dead.”

  “Find anything?”

  “So far, it’s dark and muddy.”

  “I just thought I’d let you know that I didn’t send the gun after you,” The Man said.

  “I figured as much. The day you send out cheap white labor, then I’ll be sure you’re slipping.”

  “Of course, sending out a white ass after you, that would be a good smokescreen.”

  “Only,” I said, “if you planned on him missing me and getting killed.”

  “That’s true.” The Man laughed.

  “You been doing any thinking?”

  “About what?” The laugh died and he sounded withdrawn, as if he’d moved the receiver away from his mouth.

  “About what Emily might have known that she wasn’t supposed to.”

  “Nothing yet.” But he still sounded far away.

  “Keep trying.”

  He said he would, and then he lied and said he’d call me as soon as he had something. I pretended to believe him and said good-bye and hung up on him.

  I slept that night with Hump’s shotgun on the bed beside me. At first it reassured me. But, during the night, I rolled over and found myself touching it several times. Near morning, when there was light beyond the drawn shades, I got up and put the shotgun on a chair at the foot of the bed. Maybe that turned the trick. I dropped off into a deep sleep that I thought I’d never come out of.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I woke up the next morning to a ringing that I thought was the telephone. I got the receiver to my ear but the line was dead. But the ringing was still going on, so it had to be the doorbell. By the time I had that figured out, the doorbell had stopped and somebody was hammering on the door fra
me. It sounded like they were using the root end of a tree stump. From the angle of the winter sun, it was late morning. I didn’t feel too rested. I guess that was the result of sleeping part of the night with the shotgun. It made for an uneasy night, like sleeping with a girl you didn’t like or trust.

  I stumbled through the living room and got the front door open. Hump stood there, shivering, with his topcoat collar up. I waved him in and headed for the kitchen.

  “I guess you haven’t been listening to the radio,” he said behind me.

  “Not yet. Why?” I lit the gas under the kettle of water and went to the refrigerator for a glass of juice.

  “The police think they’ve got Eddie Spence bottled up in Piedmont Park.”

  I took a swallow of orange juice from the pitcher and went over and whirled the dial on the kitchen radio. I went past four or five rock-and-roll stations and one prayer meeting of the air before I found the news. “ . . . and Georgia Tech co-ed, Emily Campbell. A suspect matching Spence’s description robbed the Georgia People’s Trust at Eighteenth and Peachtree of an undetermined amount. A witness at the scene said the suspect drove away in a Yellow cab that had been parked in front of the bank. A few minutes later, the cab was found abandoned near the Fourteenth Street entrance to Piedmont Park. Police have closed off all entrances and exits and . . . ”

  I got down two cups and spooned in instant coffee. “When I talked to him Sunday, he said he was short of cash.”

  Hump slumped down into one of the kitchen chairs. “The abandoned cab thing, what does that mean to you?”

  “He’s too smart to get caught that way. The police’ll find two or three dope dealers and a couple of hippies having their noon fuck in a sleeping bag.” I poured the boiling water into the cups and passed the sugar and milk to Hump.

  “ . . . the cab driver, Edwin Benson of Northeast Atlanta, was found bound and gagged in a wooded lot near Piedmont and Monroe. He said a young white male hailed him near the corner of Tenth and Peachtree . . . ”

  I nodded at Hump. “That’s it. He’s got another car. He parks his car somewhere around Thirteenth or Fourteenth, between Piedmont and Peachtree. He walks over to Tenth and hails a cab, shows the cabbie the .45, and has him drive to the wooded lot. Then, maybe even wearing the cab driver’s hat, he drives to the bank, robs it, and drives away. Goes the four or five blocks and leaves the cab. A short walk to his car, and off he goes. My guess is that he’s nowhere near the Park right now.”

  “The cops that dumb?”

  “I bet they’ve made the same guess. Policemen are knocking on doors all around that area to see it they can find somebody who saw Spence get into another car. At the same time, the Park’s nearby, and they’ve got to cover that as a possibility.”

  Hump grinned. “I guess I got you up for nothing.”

  “It was time, anyway.” I made breakfast and Hump had a second cup of coffee. An hour later, a news report said the police had finished their sweep through the Park. There’d been no sign of Eddie Spence. The search had, however, uncovered a cache of grass and two bottles of pills thought to be illegal drugs.

  The phone rang a few minutes after Hump left. By the kitchen clock, it was twelve-thirty-five.

  “Mr. Hardman?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ben Coleman here. I thought you’d be out at Piedmont Park.”

  “That’s a fool’s errand,” I said.

  “Meaning . . .?”

  “Eddie Spence wasn’t anywhere near that search going on in the Park. I’d have been warmer looking in my own backyard.”

  “I see,” Coleman said. “Oh, I was sorry to hear about the attempt on your life. I understand it was a close thing.”

  “It was close,” I said.

  “Well, keep in touch. Mr. Campbell is interested in any progress you make.”

  I said I would, and I knew Mr. Campbell was, and then I rang off. It was a nonsense call, and I couldn’t see why Coleman had gone to the trouble. Of course, I hadn’t been too friendly to him. There was always the chance that he’d called for some good reason and had been put off by me. Someday I was just going to have to get around to being a little more pleasant to people.

  Around five, I drove over to Art’s house. I found him in the backyard, raking leaves. He’d already filled three leaf bags and was working on his fourth. “It gets later every year,” he said. “I used to do this in October or November, and here it is almost Christmas.”

  “Edna got on your back, huh?”

  “She’s been on it for a month. It seems the neighbors don’t like our leaves blowing over onto their lawns.”

  “An act of God,” I said.

  “The neighbors don’t believe that much in God.”

  I held the mouth of the bag open while Art scooped the leaves in with his hands. “Anything yet on the Mullidge numbers and addresses?”

  “Not yet,” Art said. “He seems to have been a pack rat for that kind of thing. I had a couple of men checking that out last night. Some of the addresses and numbers go way back. So far, we’ve found two girls he met in bars, but they didn’t know him well.”

  “How about the pressure that got him off without doing time?”

  “That’s a hard one. People don’t like to admit they were paid off or exchanged favors. I’m going to have to be sly with that one.”

  I agreed that was probably best. Art put the rake in the garage, and we carried the leaf bags out to the street. We stacked them there for the garbage trucks.

  “Stay to supper,” Art said.

  “Can’t, but I’d like to use your phone.”

  While Art washed up, I called Marcy.

  “It’s about time you called, Jim. I thought you’d taken my virtue and decided to forget about me.” She sounded warm and a little amused.

  “I was,” I said, “but the ugly go-go dancer had to work tonight.”

  “You’re a hard man.”

  “I thought we might boil up a few pounds of shrimp.”

  “My place or yours?” Marcy asked.

  “Mine. I wouldn’t want to hurt your reputation.”

  When she finished jeering at me, I said I’d pick her up in thirty or forty-five minutes, after I’d done my shopping.

  The fish store was closed. I had to beat on the door before they’d open up for me. I bought four pounds of shrimp and paid the employee a dollar extra, so he wouldn’t mind working overtime. On the way out to Marcy’s, I stopped at a beer and wine store and bought two six-packs of Beck’s beer and a bottle of Inglenook Chablis.

  When the water was boiling, I threw in a whole peeled onion, a handful of celery tops and a couple of bay leaves. I turned the gas low so it would simmer, and went back over to the sink to help Marcy finish the peeling and deveining. It took a lot longer than I thought it would, and we were on our second Beck’s when we finished the last of the shrimp. With the shells gone, four pounds didn’t seem like very much. Marcy cleaned up the sink while I dumped the shrimp into the pot and stood over them, waiting for the first moment they turn pink. At that instant I cut the gas and drained the water off. I put the shrimp aside to cool, and sat at the table and watched while Marcy made a sauce.

  Marcy looked up. “You’re grinning like a cat.”

  “I wonder why.”

  “Maybe you like having a slave around.”

  “Is that why?” I asked.

  “You want somebody to clean and cook . . . ”

  “I cooked the shrimp,” I said.

  “A warm body for your bed.”

  “I’m warm too.”

  Marcy grinned at me. “It’s a silly conversation, isn’t it?”

  “Only if you believe that’s all I want from you.”

  I was kissing her when the phone rang. I tried to say to hell with it, it couldn’t be that important, but the phone kept ringing, and finally it was Marcy who stepped away from me.

  It was Hump. “The Man just called. He says all hell just broke loose over at his place.”
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  “Meet you there,” I said. I got my .38 from the closet and my topcoat from the back of the sofa in the living room. Marcy stood in the kitchen doorway and watched while I struggled into the coat and dropped the .38 into the pocket. “Wait for me,” I said. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know yet. I’ll tell you when I get back.”

  I left before she could complain or ask me anything else.

  Hump was there before me. He was at the rear of the building, with his back to the door that led to the staircase and up to The Man’s apartment. When he recognized me he stepped away from the door. “It’s a mess up there.”

  He opened the door and we went in. There was one body at the foot of the stairs. It was a black man who’d been with Ferd that night in front of the Dew Drop In. His hands were taped behind his back, and the back of his head had been blown away. I stepped around him and moved up the stairs to the top of the landing. There was another body there, and a pool of blood. This was a young white man, and he’d caught a load of shot in his chest and belly. His face hadn’t been touched, except for some bluish spots where a few stray shot had hit him. He wasn’t anybody I knew. A machine pistol poked out from under his body. I stepped over him and reached the closed door. The door had taken a burst or two from the machine pistol, and the lock and the wood around it were splintered. I tapped at the door.

  “Hardman out here.” The door eased open and I was looking into the eye of the pump gun. There was a different black behind it, one I didn’t know. The pump gun waved past me and lined up on Hump, who was a step behind me. “Hump Evans is with me,” I called out.

  “Let them in.” It was the flat voice of The Man.

  Inside the living room, past the pump gun, the first thing I saw was the damage to the bar. A burst from the machine pistol had stitched across about four feet of the copper fronting. Another had slapped against a shelf of booze. The whole apartment smelled like good alcohol gone to waste.

  The Man was sitting in a chair pulled away from the kitchen table. A white doctor, gray haired and distinguished and wearing a three-hundred-dollar suit, was bandaging The Man’s right shoulder. The doctor didn’t look too happy to see me. Maybe he thought I was a cop. He cleared his throat a couple of times like he wanted to speak, but he didn’t say anything.