The Charleston Knife is Back in Town

by Ralph Dennis

  The waiter came and I ordered the antipasto and the scampi. Hump nodded along with the antipasto and got his inner laugh by ordering the spaghetti and meatballs. As soon as we’d finished ordering, almost as if on a signal, Jocko looked up and gave me a surprised look of recognition. With that he gave us the 100-watt smile. I gave him the smile back and, just for the hell of it, I waved at him with the bandaged hand. That might give him something to think about. Why was I waving with that hand? Was I left-handed? Was it some kind of message?

  As suddenly as the warmth had been put there it was wiped away. He bent over his papers. But somehow, some way I’d missed, a signal had passed from him to the maître d’ and brought him hurrying over to Jocko’s table. It wasn’t a really long conversation. Maybe fifty words but Jocko did all the talking. The maître d just jerked his head a few times. He hurried away and came back with a pot of coffee. He filled Jocko’s cup and bowed himself out of range.

  “You think it takes that long to ask for a cup of coffee?”

  Hump shook his head and got up from the table. I knew he’d gotten the hint and taken off after the maître d’, doing his best to look like he was on his way to the john. He followed the maître d’ past the cash register and into the main dining room. While I waited I signaled our waiter and ordered a carafe of chablis for me and one of burgundy for Hump. I was sipping the first glass of mine when Hump came back. He sat down across from me and shook out a cigarette and lit it from an open book of matches he had in the palm of one hand. He passed the pack of cigarettes across to me with the open book of matches. I lit one of his and read the number in the inside of the book.

  ?74-2032

  “I was one step too far behind him,” Hump said.

  I pushed the cigarettes back across to him and kept the matches. “The question is how many phone numbers in Atlanta have these same last six digits?”

  “Lord knows.” Hump poured himself a glass of burgundy. “Maybe Art would know.”

  I left the table and retraced Hump’s movements toward the men’s room. There was a bank of three pay phones near the entrance to the rest rooms. I dug out a dime and dialed the department number.

  “Is that all you’ve got?”

  “It might be something,” I said, “and maybe not.”

  “Hell, he’s probably ordering another number ten can of tomato paste.”

  “It might lead us to Charleston,” I said.

  “Who used to do your scud work before you knew me?” But he said he’d do all the checking he could and if I’d call back in half an hour or so he’d let me know which grocery store Jocko shopped at.

  “Addresses, too,” I said.

  Art grunted and hung up.

  “These are the possibilities.” We were eating the antipasto and I had to stop long enough to get rid of a ripe olive pit. “One—the call doesn’t concern us. In that case nothing to sweat over. Two—the call was to Beck. We’ve made him nervous and he wants his shadow around.”

  “Easy enough to check out,” Hump said. “We’ll know when the door opens and in walks Beck.”

  “Yeah, and that might mean all we’ve got is the last six digits of Beck’s home phone.”

  “A waste then.”

  “The one I’m hoping for is that the call is to Charleston, telling him we’re here. Or if Beck’s with Charleston it could be to Beck at Charleston’s number.”

  “So if Beck walks in we really don’t know what’s waiting out in the parking lot?”

  “Either someone or no one.”

  “That’s a help.”

  We went on eating the antipasto.

  I’d checked my watch when the maître d’ left to make his call. Twenty-three minutes later the outside door opened and a man walked in. Hump saw him and nodded at me.

  “Beck,” he said under his breath.

  Watching him as he moved down the aisle toward Jocko’s table, I had a hint of a feeling why Art and Hump had been impressed by him. He moved like a ballet dancer with balls. And when he took off the light tan camel hair coat, I saw that he probably had been a boxer at one time. He had the shoulders and the arms for it. The cut of the suit didn’t hide it. He had the flat, hipless and almost rump less body and the short legs that seemed out of proportion to the rest of him.

  “Art strikes out on that. No can of tomato paste.”

  Hump nodded.

  Beck sat across the booth table from Jocko. He listened for a minute or so and then he turned slowly as if looking for the waiter or the maître d’, but the real purpose was that long look at us. The eyes studying us had the flat glassy look of beads used as doll’s eyes.

  “He know you?” I asked Hump.

  “He knows me. Curled his lip at me for a kiss.”

  “What happens now?” I asked.

  “Two beautiful hunks of trim come in, sit with us, play with our knees and then run off with us. And when we’re all in the same bed naked, in walks Charleston and puts a monogrammed knife in each of us.”

  “Sounds like fun,” I said.

  “I hope they let us get a little before the knife part of it.”

  My scampi came and Hump’s huge platter of spaghetti and meatballs. I adjusted my napkin and looked down at the shrimp. “I think it’s their move. Maybe it’ll be a bad one.”

  Hump plopped a meatball in his mouth and grunted.

  While the waiter poured the coffee, I got up and went around to the deck of phones. Art was waiting for my call.

  “Hell of a lot of combinations possible. I had them checked out. We eliminated most of them. Phones that had been in the name of the same person for years. Business phones. Cut it down to three. One was a church so I threw that one out. I might be wrong but I’d pick this one. New phone installed on Tuesday, the day after the J.C. Cartway fight. I reached the man who installed it at home. Says he can remember it because the whole house was empty. A house on Piedmont Road.” Art gave me the number. “He says nobody was there when he installed the phone. A note on the door telling him where they wanted it installed. Nothing in that room but a cot bed.”

  “How’s it listed?”

  “Hold onto yourself. Charles Tree.”

  “Our boy,” I said. I edged around and saw Beck approaching. He seemed unaware of me, just moving toward the john. “Doing anything about it?”

  “Going to stake the place out. Got a man out there now finding us a room or an apartment across the street.”

  I kept my eyes on Beck as he seemed to head directly toward me and then swerve at the last minute and go into the restroom entrance. “Can’t you just tear the goddamn door down and go get him?”

  “Get who? I’m not even sure it’s Charleston. I’m not even sure anything wrong’s going on over there.”

  “Who owns the house?”

  “We’re checking that now.”

  “You’re a big help,” I said.

  “You are, too,” Art said. “You remember Uncle Walter?”

  I did. The candy-assed head of our section.

  “He’s very impressed with me. Wants to know where I’m getting all this good information.”

  “And you said . . .?”

  “I told him I had a new informer,” Art said.

  “Thanks a lot.” I waited a second. “Call me at home if anything breaks. I owe him and I’d like to be around.”

  “All informers get paid,” Art said, laughing before we broke the connection.

  It was slow in the other room. I drank my coffee and told Hump about the house on Piedmont Road. He heard me out and then tipped his head toward Jocko’s table. “Nothing out here. I think this visit, except for the phone number, might be as big a zero as the Braves.”

  “It’s like chess,” I said. “Never learned to play it. Never learned the rules. Used to watch a couple of guys at the department play it during their lunch hour. It didn’t make any sense at all. Maybe because I didn’t know the rules.”

  Hump looked puzzled. “It might be the wine, but I’m
having trouble following you.”

  “I’m having trouble following myself. I think I’m walking around the point of it, if there was a point. Just this—the one thing I learned about chess was that there were pawns and they were expendable and you gave them up for other advantages. And then there were queens, kings, knights and bishops and you were careful with them. Didn’t waste them.”

  “A class system of sorts,” Hump said.

  “Now us here. Things are happening. Vibrations and static but we don’t know how to take them. The big thing is that we don’t know how they see us.”

  “Pawns,” Hump said.

  “If so, then they know we just blundered into this and our only involvement in it is that we’re stepping on corns. Getting in the way.”

  “Kings, queens, knights or bishops,” Hump said.

  “Then we’re on the kill list.”

  “You’re cheerful,” Hump said.

  There was movement in the corner of my eye. I looked around and watched as George Beck left Jocko’s booth and cut across the aisle toward our table. Up close his eyes looked as hard and glassy as they’d seemed from a distance. He stopped about three paces away.

  “Mr. Giacommo wants to know if you’ll have a drink with him.” Beck’s voice had a strange quality, the New York harshness and flatness softened to a degree by a dash of Southern speech.

  “What about it, Hump? You want to have a drink with Mr. Giacommo?”

  Beck cut in before Hump could answer. “The invitation’s just for you. Not the shine.”

  Hump moved slow and easy, not a jerk to it, until he was looking up at Beck. When he spoke he was still facing Beck, but talking to me. “Go ahead and have a drink with the fat spic if you want to, Jim. It’s no red off my candy.”

  I shook that off. “Tell Jocko . . . ,” I began.

  “Mr. Giacommo doesn’t like to be called that,” Beck said.

  “Tell Jocko I didn’t come here to be insulted by the hired help. I don’t need a drink that bad.”

  Hump grinned up at Beck.

  Beck said it flat, all the softness gone, back in the New York streets, “You and me, shine, you and me.”

  “Just as long as you don’t kiss me before I know you better,” Hump said.

  “You’ve killed a few men, haven’t you, Jim?”

  Hump knew the answer. He’d been there one time, the night when I’d had to chop Eddie Spence when I hadn’t wanted to. When I’d hesitated he’d been yelling at me to burn him before Eddie got lined up on me. So it was a question leading somewhere. “A few,” I said.

  “I haven’t.”

  Across from us Beck was carrying the message back to Jocko. Jocko’s eyes played across us and moved away.

  “Better you don’t,” I said.

  “Never wanted to before. A few good licks and my mad’s gone. Up to now. But Beck’s got me going in the wrong direction.”

  They’d finished talking across from us. Jocko, slowly, almost kingly, stood up and came toward us. He stopped next to my elbow and waited until I looked up at him.

  “We seem to have a misunderstanding, Mr. Hardman. I assure you I had no intention of insulting your friend, Mr. Evans.”

  “The message got garbled.”

  “Mr. Beck grew up in a rough part of New York and he has an unreasonable hatred of blacks.”

  “His problem,” I said. “Ought to keep it at his house.”

  Jocko nodded and smiled. “I’d still like to have that drink with you . . . and with Mr. Evans.”

  I waved toward a chair. As soon as Jocko started to sit, Beck got up from the booth and took a step toward our table. “But I don’t want to drink with your Mr. Beck. I can be unreasonable, too.”

  Jocko hesitated just an instant and then turned and waved Beck away. Beck returned to the booth, but he sat on the other side, in Jocko’s seat so he could watch us.

  The maître d’ trotted over and hovered near Jocko’s elbow. Jocko paid him no attention at all. “I have some excellent thirty-year-old cognac.”

  “Fine with me,” I said.

  The maître d’ sprinted away. As soon as he was gone, Jocko spread his hands and gave me his best apologetic smile. “I hope you won’t be offended by what I have to say, Mr. Hardman. I have, of course, done some checking on you. I know you were an honest cop and that you were treated unfairly. I know how you make your living now. I even know about those trips to New York you and Mr. Evans make from time to time and what you bring back with you.” He shrugged his shoulders slightly, as if it didn’t matter much to him. “I make it my business to know.”

  “I figured as much,” I said.

  Jocko’s gaze shifted to Hump. “And Mr. Evans is equally well-known. Once, while watching a professional game on TV, I made a thousand dollars by wagering that Mr. Evans would get to the quarterback three times that afternoon. I believe it was against Chicago.”

  “I think I had one good afternoon against them. Must have been that Sunday.”

  “It is not a thing I like to admit. You may misunderstand this admission. It may seem that I am trying to buy your good will. Perhaps you won’t remember. You were hurt in the game against Dallas?”

  “That was the one.”

  “When you were in the hospital waiting for the knee operation, you received a plain white envelope with ten new hundreds in it. No note, not even a paper clip.”

  “I remember.”

  “You may wonder why I’ve told you all this. I’d like you to believe that is because I have your interests at heart.” He looked from me to Hump, trying to read our faces. He broke it off when the maître d’ arrived with the bottle of cognac and three oversized snifters. Jocko waved the maître d’ away and poured it himself.

  “Go on to what’s on the bottom line,” I said.

  Jocko passed the snifters around. I held mine in my good hand and warmed it. Jocko looked down at his, swirling it around in the large glass bowl.

  “You seem to be a blunt man, Mr. Hardman. Very well, we can dispense with the dressing. I have some advice for both of you.” He put his nose over the rim of the snifter and breathed deeply. Then he tipped the glass and poured a small swallow onto his tongue. He took a long time to swallow it. “The advice is this. You are now involved in something that does not concern you. It is a dangerous business and the end is already known. It is as well-known as if it happened last year. Nothing you can do will change that. I suggest that Puerto Rico is nice this time of year. If you go to the Adams Travel Agency in the morning, you will find first-class tickets reserved and prepaid waiting for you. In San Juan there will be reservations at the Ocean Cabana, a suite. Unlimited funds will be available to you. Stay there for two weeks, rest and acquire a tan.” He stopped and gave Hump an apologetic smile. “At the end of that time this business will be finished.”

  “Tempting,” I said.

  “We are men of the world, not priests or Sunday school teachers. The fact that you are here means that you know or have guessed some connection I may have with the events of the last few days. I am willing to let that pass. A guess is one thing, a fact is another.” He took little cat sips of the cognac, waiting for me to speak, eyes on my face.

  “It sure is tempting,” I said.

  “Sleep on it tonight. The tickets will be there until noon tomorrow. If they haven’t been picked up by then, I will know that it was not tempting enough.”

  I nodded.

  “It has been a pleasure talking to both of you.” Jocko pushed back his chair and stood up. He turned me off, as if I didn’t exist anymore for him. He had one last thing to say to Hump. “Mr. Beck has taken a rather strong dislike to you for some reason, Mr. Evans. I would suggest that you not push your luck with him. He can be . . . unreasonable.”

  At first I wasn’t sure that Hump would answer him. The silence went on and on. Perhaps Jocko knew more than I did because he waited. “All this polite shit aside,” Hump said, “if you turn him loose on me you’d better order his r
eplacement from Sears and Roebuck.”

  “I don’t think I’ll quote that to Mr. Beck.”

  “He’s your animal,” Hump said. “Do what you want to with him.”

  Jocko left. The maître d’ rushed over and got his snifter and the bottle of cognac and carried it to Jocko’s booth.

  “It’s getting cold here in Atlanta,” I said. “How do you feel about sun and warm sand and all that?”

  “I can’t tell you. My back’s up.”

  Mine was, too. I waved at the waiter and we finished the thirty-year-old cognac while we waited for our bill.

  “A one-day reprieve.” We were in my driveway. The engine was idling and the windshield wiper squeaked against a fine frosty rain.

  “Or it’s a line,” Hump said. “Make you think nothing’s going to happen and then walk all over your backbone.”

  “You might as well take my sofa tonight. Hard for anybody to surprise both of us. You carrying?”

  Hump reached past me and tipped the glove compartment open. The .38 I’d taken from a drunk and given him was there. “Good by me, but first, I think we picked up company when we left The Gondola. Maybe the head-waiter made another phone call. He pulled up a couple of houses back.” Hump brought out the .38 and placed it on the seat next to his hip. “I’m going to take a short drive. I’d like to see if he follows me or stays here. Might tell us something.”

  “I’ll make some coffee.”

  I got out and walked across the lawn in the fine cold rain. Hump waited until I got the door open before he backed out and headed the way we’d come. The house was empty. I got the .38 from the nightstand beside the bed and put it on the kitchen table while I put the water on. I turned on the radio and got some music. After a couple of songs the news came on. The death of Heddy was the featured story. It was being treated as another of those rape-murders that seem to be a part of the Atlanta crime scene. I guess that was Art’s doing. He didn’t want Charleston to know that we’d tagged him for it. It was better to let him think that he’d covered his tracks well.

  The phone rang in the bedroom. It was Hump. “I’m at the service station down the road. He didn’t follow me. That means they’re more interested in you.”