Lightning Men

by Thomas Mullen

  “Well, that’s true when it comes to white cops. I daresay the chief’ll feel different about it when it comes to a black cop with a thief for a sister.”

  McInnis told himself to stay calm. He usually didn’t need to remind himself. “Smith has a perfect record under me. Nice try, but that won’t happen.”

  “Don’t be so sure. How’s he gonna feel knowing his relations could get sent away for, oh, five years? His cute little sister, chained to a grueling work camp. Ruin her life. But, wait, maybe there’s some way we could pull some strings for ’em? Unlike you, I have quite a few friends over there. Maybe I can get the prosecutor to let them out on a technicality. Probation instead of time. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

  It almost made McInnis wonder whether this had been the plan all along. White cops were always trying to point out perceived violations by the Negro officers in hopes of getting the chief to nix the colored experiment. Now they’d moved on to blackmail.

  “Good talking to you, Gene. But no deal. I’d hate for any arrests to lead your way, or toward any white officer at all. I know that sometimes those arrested Negroes wind up conveniently killed in jail, but I don’t think that can happen too many more times before the folks in Internal Investigations get curious. Or even the chief, or the mayor. This is my final warning.”

  Slater lowered his voice. “You son of a bitch. After that sting you helped with, there were plenty men ready to mess with your brakes one day so you’d have an unfortunate accident. I held them back. I believed you were still a decent fellow. Looks like I was wrong.”

  “You’re wrong about something,” McInnis said just as the waitress came by with two paper bags. He grabbed his hat and stood to leave, Slater following.

  Outside, Slater said, “Know what I think, Mac? You’re just a pussy who’s found you’d rather stab cops in the back than risk his life going after real crooks.”

  McInnis dropped his bag, turned, and threw a fist Slater’s way. Another bag hit the ground as Slater dodged it, having expected that reaction. A southpaw, he punched once with his left, catching McInnis in the jaw. Already off balance from his miss, McInnis stumbled back, into a parked car.

  Slater stepped forward, intending to make his point more emphatic, but McInnis pushed off from the car, launching his head into Slater’s midsection and charging. He slammed him into the brick wall. Through a window McInnis could see cops with full mouths staring.

  He hit Slater as hard as he could in the stomach, twice. He was at least two inches shorter and maybe ten pounds lighter than his ex-partner, yet this was the first time they’d ever fought. Both had wondered how it would go down. Slater wrapped a hand around McInnis’s head, trying to wrench him away, and McInnis drove another fist into Slater’s ribs. Slater released him, McInnis backed up a step, and they stared at each other.

  Slater swung first, a right that McInnis mostly dodged, then McInnis drove a fist into Slater’s nose. A tornado of cops whirled upon him then, holding back his arms and pushing against his chest. Another group held Slater back, cops everywhere calling out Hey and Mac and Stop that. McInnis pushed them away, demanded they release him, and finally he had his body to himself again. He ran his fingers through his mussed hair and spat on the sidewalk. No blood. Someone had stepped on his to-go bag. McInnis picked it up anyway and refused to look at any of the gathered men, who’d all but disowned him anyway. He kept his gaze on Slater.

  Then McInnis turned and walked away, refusing explanation. He told himself not to listen to their comments as he crossed the street toward headquarters, nerves afire.

  43

  DURING WHAT SHOULD have been his break in the late afternoon, Rake lied to his partner, saying he needed to run an errand. Then he drove in search of Delmar Coyle, local Fascist. He didn’t trust Parker enough to have made this errand while on the clock. If he was going to solve the dilemma Dale had set before him, he’d need to do it on his own.

  No one answered the door at Coyle’s shack, so Rake knocked on the neighbors’ doors. One of them was answered by a man in his sixties, who claimed Coyle had been leaving his house most mornings, perhaps going to work, like any normal fellow.

  Rake returned to his squad car, which he’d parked around the corner so as not to alarm Coyle, and waited. He’d sat there only twenty minutes when a brown pickup, fifteen years old at least, pulled in front of the Columbian’s place.

  Coyle stepped out. He was clad not in his Nazi Brownshirt getup but another kind of costume: white collared shirt, red tie, slacks. In disguise as a respectable American.

  Rake walked over to him. “I almost didn’t recognize you in that.”

  Coyle froze. Recognizing Rake, he said, “Yeah, well, some of us have to earn a living doing real work.”

  “But who’d hire you?”

  “Why is it any of your business?”

  “Just answer me.”

  “I got a cousin high up at a shipping outfit by Terminal Station. They needed a junior accountant, and I’ve always been good with numbers.”

  “They hired a known felon?”

  “Like I told you before, I’ve paid my debt. And people stick by their family.”

  “That’s funny coming from you.”

  “Why’s that?” He looked over Rake’s shoulder and to the side, checking for other cops.

  “Tell me about your cousin, Martin Letcher.”

  Coyle’s reaction was the lack of one, his face blank. “Been doing some research, huh?”

  “You’re a bit smarter than I thought. But still not as smart as you think you are.”

  “My cousin Marty is a damned crook. He’s the one you should be bothering, not little ol’ me. He and his cronies, the other bankers and real estate men, they got this whole system worked out, see? They pick a neighborhood, then they sell a couple houses to niggers there, telling them it’s a ‘transitional area’ and okay for them to move in. Then they run to all the white folks and tell ’em that, oh gosh, the neighborhood’s turning, so you’d best sell your place fast or you’ll lose even more money than you already have. They get those white folks to sell to ’em at rock-bottom prices, then they turn around and resell to the niggers for a big markup. Presto, it’s an all-African neighborhood and Marty makes out like a bandit.”

  “And you decided to teach him a lesson. But why use the Klan? Didn’t have the guts to do it yourself?”

  “The Klan,” and he laughed bitterly. “Klan’s a bunch of traitors. When us Columbians stepped up to try to make this city safe for white folks, all the Klan wanted to do was hide. They were all worried after that GBI sting, worried they didn’t look ‘respectable’ anymore—one of them actually said that to me! They turned their back when the cops arrested us, and I know for a fact that some of those cops were Klansmen themselves. They didn’t understand that we could have been their allies. They’d rather tease us for our uniforms—as if theirs aren’t the silliest damn things grown men ever did wear—and call us Nazi stooges, when really they were just jealous, jealous that we dared to say what we believed in, in broad daylight, ’stead of running around with pillowcases over our heads.”

  “So you wanted somebody to teach Martin a lesson, let him know that his blockbusting was not appreciated by tough guys like you. And you picked a moron Klansman to do the dirty work for you, out of some sense of poetic justice.”

  “I’m not confirming a damn thing,” Coyle said, grinning. “But I’ll say this,” and the Columbian chose his words carefully. “There are reasons the Klan hasn’t been doing enough to stop what’s happening in Hanford Park: they’re the same kinds of rich folks who are making money off that, so why would they stop it?”

  Rake had to admit Coyle’s plan was smart: it kept the Columbians clean of the attack, it gave Letcher reason to fear Klansmen even though the Klan hadn’t actually been angry at him, and it caused widespread confusion within the Klan, making them look all the more foolish and incompetent. In one move, Coyle had beaten one foe and debilitated a riv
al.

  “You picked my own brother-in-law, you son of a bitch. Though I doubt you realized he was related to a cop. Only thing I can’t figure is, who was Whitehouse?”

  “You got any proof of any of this? I’ve never known a man named Whitehouse. Sounds fake to me. But, you know, I do have plenty of allies. And we aren’t all young.”

  “You’re very proud of yourself, aren’t you?”

  “Come on, you don’t care about some nigger getting beat up—what you’ve been doing all along is trying to protect Dale. Who, by the way, you’re right about being a moron. But you’re not too bright, either. Your brother-in-law got mixed up in a killing, and you’ve been trying to find a way to help him out of it ever since.”

  Rake stepped closer. “Watch it.”

  “You don’t have anything on me I don’t have on you. You try and arrest me for anything you just said, then the whole story comes out. Including how you’ve known all along what Dale did. Instead of turning him in, you kept it to yourself. You put your family first. Family, clan, blood, race. That’s how life works, so why are you fighting it?”

  Rake was tempted to end this conversation the same way he’d ended his talk with Dale—punch the son of a bitch a few times. He wanted it so, so badly. Yet he was standing there in his uniform, and he would not allow himself to descend to the same level as his former partner, administering beatings whenever he couldn’t solve problems with his brain.

  “I hope you’re not threatening me, Delmar.”

  “What are you so bothered about? Hell, I’ve been helping you. Marty’s trying his dirty business in Hanford Park now, in your neighborhood this time, and you can’t even see what’s happening. You’re too busy wanting to be mad at me, ’cause you think you’re better than me, just like those damn Kluxers. I’ve been trying to keep your neighborhood white, but in another week or two, every other white family but you will be moving out.”

  “That’s not happening.”

  “The hell it ain’t! Call Marty and ask him, I dare you. Or talk to your neighbors and find out how many have decided to sell. I hear some neighborhood association just sat down with some head niggers or some such to redraw the race line officially—if that’s true, you’d best believe your house is on the wrong side of that new line. Christ, stop worrying about Dale and me and worry more about yourself. Whose side do you want to be on?”

  Rake shook his head. Seeing Coyle in that respectable getup, looking to all the world like a perfectly harmless, well-functioning part of the American workforce, was nauseating. There had to be some way to punish Coyle without seeing Rake’s own career go down in flames.

  Yet Coyle was right about Rake’s neighbors fleeing Hanford Park. Cassie had said as much that morning.

  Rake said, “Much as you may hate your cousin, he isn’t doing anything illegal. Stay away from him, and from Dale. And from Hanford Park, understand?”

  “Marty may not be breaking your laws, but some of us answer to a higher law,” Coyle said as Rake walked back to his car. He sounded so confident, so right in his cause. “And you’d best believe, the reckoning’s gonna come quick.”

  44

  “I SPOKE TO the prosecutor,” McInnis told Smith and Boggs in his dank, mildew-scented office. When the Y basement had been turned into their de facto precinct, the city had paid to put three walls and a door in the corner for the sergeant. Usually McInnis only spoke to someone in there if that someone was in trouble, but Boggs and Smith had asked to meet there before roll call. “He’s going to recommend that the Greers be held without bail for their own safety.”

  “No bail, for a B and E?” Smith had been sitting, but he nearly shot up. He felt just a few degrees below boiling. “That’s crazy!”

  McInnis held out a hand as if he could contain Smith. “Given the tensions in the neighborhood, he’s afraid that if they’re released, something will happen. I know jail’s no fun, but it beats a lynch mob.”

  “So because white folks can’t control themselves, two colored folk have to stay in jail?”

  “I realize it’s wrong. But do you want to see your relations strung up?”

  “I want to see them dealt with fairly.”

  “Unfortunately, a lot of other factors are being placed on the scales right now.”

  “Sir,” Boggs finally spoke, “his sister’s seven months pregnant.”

  “I’ve greased some wheels with the jail warden. There are still a few folks over there who owe me favors, and I’ve been guaranteed no one will hurt them. We’ve made things as good for your family as we can expect until we get a better handle on things. They’re safer there than they’d be encountering some linthead neighbor with a grudge and a baseball bat.”

  Smith leaned over and put his face in his hands. He felt on the verge of collapsing, overcome by the sheer stress of the past twenty-four hours, and the uncertainty of the many hours to come. It was all he could do to lift his head, looking straight at his sergeant.

  “You need to get back on the phone with that prosecutor,” he said. “Malcolm and Hannah aren’t safe in there, and I need them out before they’re killed.”

  McInnis seemed thrown by his officer’s blunt command. “What aren’t you saying?”

  “I just figured this out last night, while we were sitting watch together in his house.” He told them what details he dared, leaving out quite a few. He explained how Malcolm worked at the Rook as a doorman and bouncer. In that capacity, Smith lied, Malcolm had learned that his boss, Feckless, was involved in more than running a legitimate nightclub.

  “Feck also works with a man we’ve been hearing about, Quentin Neale. Me and Lucius got some tips Neale was part of the gang that opposed Thunder Malley. Now I’ve learned, according to Malcolm, Neale spends a lot of time at the Rook, and he’s always there when some mysterious deliveries show up in back.”

  “Keep talking.”

  “Malcolm was recently asked to tag along on a late-night errand to pick up something at the Pullman Yards. He declined because he thought it sounded shady. He asked around and figured out what his boss is really up to. Lester Feck, the Rook’s owner, smuggled from the rail yards during the war, and now he’s starting to smuggle marijuana in from New Orleans. So, first Feck and Neale tried to take down the competition, Thunder Malley, who had protection from white cops. We inadvertently helped him there.”

  Smith noticed McInnis sit up a bit straighter at this news. “Where’d you hear the part about smuggling during the war?”

  “From Malcolm. He wasn’t a part of that—he was in the Pacific back then—but Feck was here making money from stolen smokes. Then Feck decided to go straight just in time, buying a nightclub and walking away from smuggling.”

  “Shortly after Feck walked away,” Boggs said, watching McInnis carefully as he said this, “the smugglers got shut down by the FBI. In ’45. An Isaiah Tanner was the ringleader. The FBI arrested Tanner’s men, but didn’t have anything on Feck. Tanner himself was killed. In an unsolved murder.”

  McInnis looked distinctly uncomfortable. “How do you know all this?”

  Boggs said, “Tanner’s brother, Jeremiah, who got put away for five years—I’m engaged to his ex-girlfriend.”

  “Well I’ll be.”

  “And, Sergeant . . . We’re pretty sure the cop who was helping Thunder Malley was Gene Slater, the same cop who was probably helping Isaiah and his ring back during the war.” He paused, but he’d gone this far, so why not? “And you were Slater’s partner back then.”

  “So all the cards are on the table now,” McInnis said, still sounding calm. “I saw Tanner’s name on the arrest report Jennings and Edmunds filed last week, so I knew he was out of Reidsville. I didn’t know about your connection to him. And I didn’t realize my own officers were digging into my past.”

  “I was only looking into my fiancée’s ex-boyfriend, to see who I was dealing with. I didn’t expect to find . . .” He didn’t seem to know how to say it.

  McInnis n
odded and stared at his desk for a moment, eyes inward. “I like to think that one of the reasons I’m the cop I am today is because of Slater. Because he showed me exactly who I did not want to become.”

  Boggs and Smith waited. McInnis broke a long silence with, “He was my second partner, after I’d been on the force a few years. I realize now I turned a blind eye to the seriousness of what he was doing. First it was taking a little cut, protection money, which was bad enough. I told myself there were worse cops out there. I didn’t lift a finger to help his little smuggling ring, and I didn’t take a cut. But I didn’t stop him, either. Otherwise, we worked well together. Then, when the FBI came in, Slater panicked. He told me he was going to kill Isaiah to make sure he couldn’t be implicated. But first, Isaiah vanishes. Slater says he can’t find him. Then, two days later, a beat cop finds Isaiah’s body decomposing in a car abandoned in an alley.”

  “So . . .” Boggs tried to work this out. “Slater killed him?”

  “I don’t know. He had all but said he was going to. Then he said he couldn’t find him. Then the body turns up. He never told me he did it, never spoke about Isaiah again. Maybe he just couldn’t say it, or didn’t want to.”

  McInnis rubbed away pressure along the socket of his eyes, as if pushing back a memory. He continued, “When they arrested Jeremiah for the smuggling, they tried at first to get him to confess to killing Isaiah. That is about as low as I have ever felt, knowing they were doing that, when there was a chance my own damned partner was the killer.” A pause. “Jeremiah didn’t confess, didn’t get charged. And I didn’t point the finger at Slater when I could have. A couple months later, we were assigned to new partners, and from then on we avoided each other.”

  This was all rather illuminating to Smith, but he said, “I don’t mean to slam the door on your past, sir, but it’s my family’s future I’m worried about right now.”

  McInnis shook his head. “Slater is an opportunistic and slippery son of a bitch, but he has no desire to be put inside of a jail cell. He may have taken his cuts from Malley, and Tanner before that, but I don’t think he’ll be moving on to Feck. I’m confident we’ve shut him down.”