The Devil's Own Rag Doll

by Mitchell Bartoy

  The slightly more reliable sources, other officers, had turned up nothing. I knew that some of the officers still on the force must have called themselves members of the Legion or the Klan at one time or another. The stories were as wild then as they were now, but it was said by many that the Legion had once claimed over a hundred thousand members in Michigan. Certainly few men on the force felt inclined to coddle niggers or anyone else. I began to wonder if I could count on anything from anybody on the blue side of the line.

  Maybe somebody had caught wind of Bobby’s leaning. Maybe I was too slow to see that some of my fellows had put it together this way: Some guys who hated niggers had sliced Bobby the queer. Bobby the queer, married to the German. Probably it wouldn’t be worth any special effort to track down those boys, and it could be that some on the force would go out of their way to lose any information that turned up. As I walked into headquarters, I lifted my head to take a really good look over all the officers milling about. Aside from a few nods in greeting, they ignored me, as always. It made me think that maybe Mitchell was right to be so tight-lipped about everything.

  I made my way down to the little room in the basement, where I found Johnson and Walker poring over books of old mug shots.

  “Detective,” said Johnson.

  “Johnson,” I said. “Walker.”

  “We weren’t sure you’d be coming in,” said Johnson. “Captain told us you had a few days coming.”

  “Hell with that,” I said. “What do you have to tell me?”

  “Roger Hardiman’s secretary has been tying up the phone lines trying to call you. He was getting so hostile that I told Mary at the switchboard just to tell him that you’re out of town for a few days. We thought you weren’t coming in. Your sister-in-law Eileen called, too. She said for you to call, it’s about the boy.”

  At the mention of Eileen, my brow muscled down over my eye, and I tried to bluff away the stab of emotion. “Hell with that. What kind of luck did you have tracking down the bastards?”

  Johnson looked at Walker. “Walker had a little talk with Horace Jenkins. Jenkins says—you tell him, Walker.”

  I turned my head toward Walker.

  “That’s right. The Reverend Jenkins dropped a little information about Toby Thrumm. He says he doesn’t know where Toby is right now. I can’t say if he was lying or not, but I guess if Toby was anywhere in this town staying with colored folks, Reverend Jenkins would know about it. So we don’t have any kind of way of finding Toby right now. But I also heard from Jenkins that old Toby was knocked about by two big fellas and a little guy—same as in Detective Swope’s case. Toby thinks it was the little guy who whipped him up.”

  I felt no surprise. I only felt that this new bit of information locked together a few things I already knew, and so I could be free to admit the truth to myself. Of course the thugs who killed Bobby were the same thugs who had killed Jane Hardiman. Of course—of course they had put Thrumm in the hospital. I remembered the feeling I had talked about with Bobby: Someone had been following us around. But that wasn’t so; I now guessed that the thugs were probably sitting in a car on Thrumm’s block, watching, waiting. Probably laughing as Bobby and I tore off toward Pease’s apartment, knowing that Jane Hardiman had already been killed and arranged for the unlucky bastards who found her. So—it was a good bit of thinking for me to do with the thought of Anna hanging over me now—I guessed Toby Thrumm did know a little more than he was letting on. He must have been mixed up in the whole thing somehow.

  Johnson said, “It’s the same three guys knocking colored folks around that killed—”

  “Don’t walk through your whole life being surprised by everything, Johnson,” I said.

  “Maybe it’s some out-of-town beef or a syndicate play—”

  “Hold off with the thinking, Johnson! If it’s the same guys, maybe that’ll make it a little easier for us, that’s all. So far as anyone knows, Jane Hardiman died in a riding accident. That’s how we aim to keep it.”

  Johnson was ready to bust, but he saw from the look on my face that he should keep his trap shut.

  “We’ll just keep on working like we’ve been doing,” I said. “Is that all right with you two?”

  Both men nodded grimly.

  What Johnson and Walker did not know was that I had seen the runt before, long before all of it. I wondered how they would look at me if they knew.

  “So I’m guessing from these mug books that we don’t have any tips about these boys,” I said.

  “We ran down a few tips, but it was nothing,” said Johnson.

  “I guess these guys are getting some help from somewhere.” I rubbed my stubbly chin. “Hell with these pictures. You two get out and talk to a few people. Wear out that shoe leather. Walker, go down and ask around if there’s been any other times lately where a colored boy has taken a beating like this. Johnson, get on the phone and see if you can talk up the sheriff where Pease used to stay in St. Louis. Don’t tell him anything specific but let him get a whiff of Pease hanging around the white girls.”

  “Yes, sir, Detective,” said Johnson.

  “I’ll do that,” said Walker. “I guess folks will be glad to talk about that.”

  “Listen, now,” I said, “you make sure you remember what you’re talking about to people. Nobody needs to know anything about Jane Hardiman and all of this.”

  After the two officers left, I made a few telephone calls. I finally located the bank where Robert Towne Swope held a safe-deposit box. I hung up the phone while the clerk on the line was still spewing legal mumbo-jumbo. I walked upstairs, grabbed a cup of muddy coffee from the pot in the swing room and headed out the door back to Bobby’s house to pick up Anna.

  There was no way around it: I needed her to get at the box. Since I suspected that the box might contain something really fishy—hell, I thought, every cop’s got a little stash somewhere—I had located the box outside police channels and had neglected to obtain a warrant or a court order to open it. It shook me up a little to bring the woman, but I figured I could use the poor-widow leverage. I thought about bringing the girl, too, but it was only half a thought. I wanted to bluff my way in and out without any mess. Because Bobby had been murdered in such a public way, the department brass would want a look at the contents of the box—if they knew anything about it. Any cash would certainly be taken and tied up forever, and I had decided that the money, if any, would go to Anna and the girl. I didn’t want questions or trouble from anybody I wasn’t sure I could handle. The way it was, I wasn’t sure I could handle Anna, either, but at least I knew for certain that she didn’t ordinarily carry a gun under her clothes.

  I pulled up to the bungalow and tapped on the horn. In a moment, the little girl ran out the door and off the porch and slipped through a bare spot in the hedge. She disappeared into the neighbor’s house. Anna stepped out wearing a fancy little hat and a severe skirt and a jacket, what they called a utility suit. She turned and locked the door behind her and stepped smartly toward the car. When she neared the door, she bent down a bit to look at me and smiled brightly, showing all her teeth.

  We spent a few fruitless minutes arguing with a teller at the bank.

  “What’s the trouble here?” The voice seemed fat over my shoulder.

  I turned slowly and eyed the natty prig.

  The teller drew a deep breath and said, “This lady here wants to get into a safe-deposit box held by her husband. But her name is not on the box. I’ve tried to tell her that it’s against bank policy, but she just—”

  “This woman’s husband was a decorated police officer who was just killed in the line of duty,” I said. “He couldn’t come here himself to open the box.”

  “Now, just a moment. Please lower your voice. I’m Mr. Nicholas, a vice president here.” He eyed my patch. “And you are?” He held out his hand.

  I took it and squeezed the soft pink thing a little hard. “Detective Caudill,” I said.

  “And Miss Perkins has
explained bank policy to you? That we can’t give you access to that box without a court order signed by a judge or a search warrant signed by a judge?”

  “My husband left no will,” Anna said, “and it could be months before the courts get through with everything. And in this meantime I need to find some way to get by without a man and to put food on the table for my little daughter.”

  “I sympathize, madam, but bank policy—”

  “We’re not leaving without having a look in that box.” I did not move my feet, but I insinuated my attention and my bulk toward Nicholas.

  He flinched and glanced nervously toward a security guard who stood near the door, ready to rush over at the slightest signal.

  “Why don’t we go into my office,” said Nicholas.

  We followed him across the marble floor to his richly appointed office. At the door, I barred Anna from entering. I had to push her outside the door so I could close it. The last thing I saw of her was the sharpness of her eyes. I followed Nicholas right around his oversized desk. Clearly, I thought, that desk is supposed to be imposing. And maybe that sort of thing worked when Nicholas was looking across his big desk at somebody coming cap in hand, begging for money. But when the little man sat down and turned to see me next to him, he jumped in surprise and tried to lean away.

  I took his flabby elbow and leaned to whisper in his ear, making sure he could smell my breath and feel the heat thrown off my head.

  After a few moments, I came out, followed by Nicholas. The three of us went to a private booth, and soon a clerk came in with the box. Nicholas shook himself out of the booth and left us alone.

  Anna said, “What did you say to him?”

  I said nothing and tried to ignore how hard she was. Despite the softer parts of her body, I considered that there wasn’t really anything extra to her; she was as tight as a wire and always sharp in her purpose. It was not clear if she already knew what was in the box, but I could feel how she strained toward it. I noted with worry that the box was far too light to contain any bundles of money or anything of value except perhaps a few tiny jewels; I might have thought it was empty except for the scraping of paper inside. Maybe an envelope, I thought, but not heavy enough to add up to much if it was cash.

  “What did you tell him?”

  “It’s always easier when they start out afraid of you,” I said.

  “Why should he be afraid?” She did not look at the box.

  “I told him I was going to send a big nigger over to rape his wife and daughter.”

  I looked for a reaction on her face, but there was nothing, no sign of disgust or humor, nothing. In fact, she seemed to be thinking of nothing. She seemed to be dancing to steps she remembered from long ago but didn’t really care for, like twiddling her thumbs to make time pass. I opened the box and pulled out the contents: an interoffice mail envelope from the police department with only one name on it. My own.

  I broke the seal and pulled out a short stack of glossy eight-by-ten photographs. Anna leaned closer when she saw that the photographs showed flesh. As I looked through the pile, sliding each topmost picture in turn to the bottom, Anna grew more intensely interested, and I turned my shoulder a bit to control her angle. They were peep photos, taken from behind a mirror, showing Bobby and his naked white ass, Bobby going down on another man. Near the bottom of the pile, two photos showed clearly that the other man was Roger Hardiman. Anna drew in her breath sharply and sent out her slender hand to grasp the pile and draw it closer. I resisted, angled myself between her and the photos, and pulled them free. She was quick enough to see plenty of money there, I guess, but I was just thinking how ugly human flesh could be in photographs.

  I reached the last photo, and it was my turn to draw in my breath. A coal black Negro, dead or thereabouts, was tied to a tree with a heavy rope around his waist, his belly smashed up against the rough bark. His face, lolling toward the camera, was just meat. Finger-wide gashes from a horsewhipping covered what was visible of his back. Both arms were behind him, shoulder-snapping, his wrists pulled hard by a rope held taut by something off the edge of the picture. Drooping in death and held up to the tree only by the thick ropes around his waist.

  In the background, a lineup of men posed as if with a hunting trophy. Smiling, elbowing each other, boys at play. One young boy looked up at his father. From the clothes, I guessed that the photograph had been taken some years before. I couldn’t see any face that might have turned into the runt’s sunken look. Taking pride of place next to the Negro stood a small man with military posture and round glasses, leaning on a cane, unsmiling. Around his head, someone had drawn a crude circle with a china marker, like a black halo. I leaned close to see if I could recognize the man. Nothing.

  But there was one man I did recognize. At the far left of the picture, arms crossed, staring blankly at the dead man, I saw my father.

  CHAPTER 10

  I couldn’t depend on my gut anymore. Driving toward Eileen’s house, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to vomit or if I was hungry like a Jap for rice. I wasn’t sure that I could bear to see her. I wasn’t sure anymore if I ever knew my father. When I heard about the men on the Briggs stamping line going out on strike because they were being forced to work next to niggers, part of me understood it. But when I thought of the two big boys beating on the poor nigger in the alley, my blood flamed up till I was sure I’d kill the boys on sight if I managed to track them down. So much of what I knew had been built on creaky information, I could see now, and it made me wonder what I had left to get knocked out from under me.

  So many people got hard in their ways as they got older. The oldest, most withered-up people got sharp and lost all their patience for disagreement because they thought they knew it all and didn’t see why they should spare the effort to suffer any fools. But it seemed that I was heading in the opposite direction. I wasn’t sure that I cared anymore what was right or wrong or if I could even put the proper names to them. The deeper I fell into all of it, the more I felt that I wouldn’t ever be sure about anything. The thought of brushing up against Eileen and maybe putting that germ into her made my skin crawl. Though I wasn’t clean enough to put my face before her, I had to do it.

  I made a pass by Eileen’s place and saw that the door was open, so I drove down the block, turned around, and parked in front. I sat for a while, but the engine kept ticking like a clock, so I pushed myself out of the car and onto her porch. My knock rattled the screen door, and I could see that the hinges were loose. Screws always work themselves out of wood over time.

  “Pete, thank goodness,” said Eileen as she hurried from the kitchen. “Thank goodness.” She pushed the door open and held it.

  I stepped inside, and the door clapped shut. As I pulled my hat from my head, she stepped close and embraced me lightly. In that short moment, when I sensed her straining upward, I bent my head low and let her lips find my cheek.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Sorry?”

  “Things have been—”

  “There isn’t a thing to be sorry about,” said Eileen. “Don’t be silly, Pete.”

  She seemed so small. I reached around her, not as an embrace but to pat her on the back; my hat sounded hollow as I did it. We were so close that I could feel the heat trapped between us. I couldn’t bear it.

  “I feel like I need to be sorry for something,” I said. I took a step away from her. “I haven’t been keeping up with things like I ought to.” I guess, thinking back, that I should have been able to find better words. More and more, the talk was failing me.

  She took my elbow and tugged me along to the kitchen. It hit me that her kitchen was laid out something like Anna’s. We sat down at the little table in the kitchen just as I had at Bobby’s house.

  “I wasn’t sure if I should go to Bobby’s funeral,” she said.

  “It wasn’t any fun.”

  “Funerals aren’t supposed to be fun,” she said. “But I couldn’t get a ride, and it was such a
miserable day. I wasn’t sure if you wanted to see me.”

  I looked down at her. “I like seeing you,” I said.

  She looked across the table at me. It might have been the light in the kitchen, which was situated in the darkest corner of the house, but it seemed to me that Eileen’s eyes had lost some of their brightness since the last time I had seen her. She kept her head tilted a bit, considering me, and then slowly reached across the table to touch my hand. With the table between us, I didn’t mind, but I knew that if we somehow wound up with our bodies pressed close together, I’d flame up again. It was more than I could bear or think through clearly.

  I let her caress my bad hand for a few moments. Her own hand was white and a bit plump, and her fingers grew more slender toward the tip. Her nails were fine, buffed but not painted. The two remaining fingers of my hand had begun to veer oddly away from the thumb at the first knuckle, either from a general tightening of the disrupted tendons and skin or from adjustments due to hard usage. Compared to Eileen’s clean white skin, my hand seemed foul and dirty and hard. My nails were thick and blunt and needed a trim. When I turned my palm up to grasp her hand, the whole effect was like a white hare or a dove clutched in the foot of an awkward and shy bird of prey.

  “I’m bound now to clearing a few things up,” I said finally.

  “I understand, Pete. I don’t mean to make any more trouble for you,” she said. “If you’d like to stop coming around—”

  “It’s not that,” I said. “Of course I don’t want—there are so many things I’d like to—”

  “Stop, stop, Pete. Just stop. There is no reason for any of this to hurt.”

  “But I just can’t see how to do it.” I was squeezing her hand a little too hard. “I’m no good. I’m no good for this.”

  “Oh, Pete.” She brought her other hand over and took up my bad hand as well as she could. For a few moments we sat there quietly. She began to draw in her breath more sharply, and I feared that she would begin to weep. I regretted that I had not removed my jacket. She looked at our hands and then looked up at me with a trace of a wry smile. She pulled in a deep breath, and when she let it out, I could feel it fall warmly on my hands and on my face.