The Devil's Own Rag Doll

by Mitchell Bartoy

  “I don’t mind shooting you,” I said. “Later I probably will. But I was thinking that it might be nice to find Jasper Lloyd and try to hash out this mess, just the three of us. I don’t suppose you’d know where he is?”

  Hardiman was looking me over in the rearview mirror. I wasn’t sure if he could see my gun, but I know he felt it pressed to the back of his neck.

  “Mr. Lloyd takes his rest on Sundays,” he said. “He often takes a cruise along the river in the evening.”

  “Get moving, then,” I said. “It’s worth something to me to hear how you’ll try to smooth it all over with Lloyd.”

  Hardiman said nothing. He drove slowly through the downtown area along Jefferson with both hands on the wheel, glancing now and again in the side mirror. Each time he stopped at an intersection, I leaned forward and pressed the nose of my revolver to the side of his neck. To our right, past the tall buildings of the downtown area and then the cool streets of the swanky side of town, we caught glimpses of the Detroit River rolling along. It felt like we were heading against the current, heading upstream to spawn.

  “If Lloyd isn’t on the boat, Hardiman, this’ll be your last stop. Like you say, I’m through. If you’re yanking my dick here, I’ll just figure the game is up and I’ll put a slug in you. Nobody knows anything about Johnson. He can just slip out and get clean of it. The thing is, I’m tired. Dog-tired. If the Old Man’s there, we’ll hash things out real nice. Otherwise, you’ll get it good, wherever we happen to be.”

  “He’ll be there,” said Hardiman. “Sunday is his day of rest and leisure, so to say.”

  “I wouldn’t figure the Old Man to be up this late,” said Johnson.

  “Maybe he doesn’t sleep well,” I said.

  “He doesn’t sleep at all,” said Hardiman.

  As we approached the foot of the Belle Isle Bridge, all the foot traffic, cars, and buses snarled things up, so the going got slow. I noted that Hardiman scanned the crowd in the uneven light, hoping for a cop or a familiar face. As we made the turn onto the bridge, I leaned forward and kept close. I whispered to Hardiman, “I hope it doesn’t cost too much to mop up your place out on the lake. Messy business it was.”

  Though the Belle Isle Yacht Club was not far from the bridge, it took Hardiman some time to navigate to the guardhouse at the end of the drive. Enormous crowds spilled onto both sides of the bridge, streaming homeward, hoping for a seat on the last of the streetcars and buses. Hardiman hugged the wheel as he drove through the largely colored crowd, his eyes wide. Nearby and in the distance, firecrackers popped loudly, pushing waves of pedestrians against the panels of the creeping car. I kept low in the backseat and watched the jostling crowds, noticing, too, the small clots of white picnickers huddling along.

  Maybe, I thought, I’m coming down with something. It can’t be this hot, not even July yet. And the sun already down.

  The guard at the gate seemed to recognize Hardiman’s car and lifted the flimsy wooden barrier to let us pass. Most of the boats were smaller pleasure craft and a few larger fishing boats. Towering above them, at the end of its specially built pier, Lloyd’s yacht swayed slowly and pulled at the creaking pilings. Hardiman pulled the Cruiser into a spot marked RESERVED and cut the engine. He put his hands in his lap and hung his head.

  “Give Johnson the keys,” I said.

  Hardiman did not move, so Johnson pulled the keys and slipped them in his pocket.

  “If he isn’t here,” I said, “I’m going to have Johnson drop off a little package down to the newspaper office, so everybody can get a clear picture of you after you’re gone.”

  “He’s here,” said Hardiman. “And you don’t need to act like you have anything on me. I know how things are as far as the newspapers are concerned.”

  I held the revolver in the pocket of my jacket. I got out. I opened Hardiman’s door and pulled him out by the collar of his jacket. Johnson moved to get out, too.

  “Keep still, Johnson.”

  “I should come, too, Pete. You can see that’s reasonable.”

  “Listen, Johnson, I don’t need lip from you, too. I get the feeling our boy is lying to me, and I don’t want you to be involved in what I do to him if he is. You sit here, and if there’s a ruckus, you plug whoever comes down off of that boat, if it ain’t me. You plug ’em or you get the hell out. I’ll leave it up to you. You follow me?”

  “I follow you.” Johnson turned away and looked at the yacht, which was lit from within, like many of the other boats, and quiet.

  “C’mon, Hardiman, let’s get it over with.” My mouth wanted something substantial, some good Scotch or rye whiskey, something to clean out the cotton. “It’s been a long couple days.”

  I kept Hardiman in front as we walked onto the docks. We passed through a wrought-iron gate that led to Lloyd’s private pier and stopped at an ornate stepstool leading onto the deck. As Hardiman’s foot touched the stool, the inboard motors rumbled to life and sputtered in the water. I rushed up and tossed Hardiman onto the deck, then jumped up after him. I cranked my head toward the captain’s chair up top but saw nothing. I pulled the pistol from my pocket, pressed against the cabin wall, and trained my eye to the fore end of the yacht.

  “You should have searched me, you fool,” Hardiman hissed, scrambling to his feet behind me. “You’d better believe I’m a good shot, even with this little thing. I never miss. So I guess you better hand that pistol over.”

  I slowly turned my good eye toward him and weighed the situation. Hardiman held a lady’s gun, a little derringer with two barrels, and pointed it with remarkable steadiness at my neck.

  “Hand it over, you pig.”

  I let the revolver dangle from my finger in the trigger guard, then moved it to my left hand and held it by the barrel. I reached to offer it to Hardiman, then gave a flip and tossed it onto the pier. It bounced and splashed into the water. There was a tremor in Hardiman’s hand.

  “It wouldn’t be right to let you kill me with my own gun,” I said.

  “Just shut up and toss off the ropes,” muttered Hardiman.

  “Do it yourself.” I turned to face him.

  Hardiman adjusted his aim mechanically and fired without hesitation. He wasn’t aiming to kill me; I was surprised to see the flash and let out a burst of air when the slug tore into the meat of my shoulder. I ducked down and hustled toward the front of the yacht. Though the report hadn’t been particularly loud, Johnson had heard it and now scrambled from the car.

  The engines roared and the yacht lurched forward, snapping the fore piling and dragging the aft piling and half the back end of the pier into the Detroit River. The pilings slipped through the looped ends of the lines and swirled off into the current. The yacht made a tight turn upriver, gaining speed quickly and washing up a tremendous wake over the seawall and onto the outdoor dining patio of the Yacht Club. My hard soles slipped over the deck as I scrambled to evade Hardiman. My brow smashed against the polished rail as my feet fell out from under me. Glancing back, I saw that Hardiman, too, had fallen. I held the rail with both hands and lurched forward. I had made it almost to the prow when I found myself staring into the double barrel of Barton Rix’s shotgun.

  CHAPTER 19

  Barton Rix kept his legs spread wide to keep his footing on the slippery deck. He aimed the shotgun from his belly and leered at me.

  “Should’ve come for me when you had the chance, nigger lover,” he said. “A gimp has to take every advantage he can get.”

  I said nothing but steadied myself and slowly stood upright as the craft settled. We were heading upriver at a good clip, toward Lake St. Clair. I knew how much of a man’s flesh a shotgun could remove, even with a bad shot, and so I made no move to escape.

  “Climb on in,” said Rix, tipping the gun toward the stairs to the interior.

  I stepped down slowly into the boat’s burnished brass and dark wood interior cabin. Though the electric lights were dim, I saw the two colored boatmen dead on the floor
. In the alcove leading to a little galley, I saw a pair of feet indicating another body—Carter?—lying facedown. On a settee along the cabin wall, in white Sunday clothes and with his hands trussed before him, sat Jasper Lloyd. He was chewing on his lips so furiously that his goat-beard pointed wildly around the cabin. Rix used his foot to shove me to a seat beside the old man. Then he sat on a stool and leaned back on the chart table, holding the shotgun loosely with one arm. Hardiman scrambled in after us, huffing and beet red with anger.

  “What’s it all about, Rix?” I said. “This seems like more work than you’re used to doing.”

  “I work better when I like what I’m doing,” said Rix.

  “The pay is good,” rasped Lloyd. “That’s what it all comes down to.”

  “You’re the businessman here, old man. You’d sell your sister for a buck. You got niggers working for you makin’ more than I ever made.”

  “What frightens you most, Mr. Rix, is the idea that a Negro man might be superior to you. It’s natural to be afraid when you are in a position of weakness. Young David, here,” said Lloyd, nodding toward one of the dead cabin boys, “was working for me to earn money for college.”

  “Old man,” said Rix, “if you keep talking, you can die gut-shot.” He stood up and pointed the barrel at Lloyd’s gut. “Same for you, Caudill. You got born into the wrong family, I guess—born to lose, the whole lot of you.”

  I could not think of a reason why I had not yet been killed. Even if Hardiman’s little pistol shot had not drawn any attention with all the fireworks going off on the island, the wrecked pier would surely draw some heat on the river, after the dimwits at the Yacht Club figured out what had happened. So there was some sense of urgency to the situation, and I, unbound, could only be seen as a threat.

  “What’s that stench, Hardiman? Some fancy French perfume?” asked Rix. “You’re riling up my asthma.”

  “Formaldehyde, I believe. You’ll have to ask our malformed friend here, the one with the bullet through his shoulder.” Anger and activity lit up Hardiman’s pretty face with a glow.

  I had forgotten about the wound, and at Hardiman’s words I bent my head to examine my shoulder. It was to the bad side, so I had to crane my neck painfully to get a look. I did not see Rix raise the shotgun. In the enclosed cabin, the blast slapped painfully in my ears. I looked up and then quickly away as blood and disintegrated flesh splattered from Hardiman’s face. The spray touched everything in a radius around him, wet and warm on my cheek and neck, brightly speckling Lloyd’s white suit. Hardiman fell backward to the floor like a boxer already out for the count after a haymaker, his arms gently rising.

  The violent scene gave new life to Rix’s pale cornflower blue eyes. He let his breath out through clenched teeth.

  “First and foremost,” said Rix, turning the shotgun to me, “a man should look after his own. A man that don’t take care of his family can’t ever be trusted to go the right way. You can’t turn your back to him.”

  Hardiman still writhed on the floor. I hoped Rix’s aim would be better in my own case. Most of the lower part of Hardiman’s face was gone, and he seemed to be struggling to understand what had happened to him. He sat up somehow, his one remaining eye turning wildly about. He was alert, but I knew that the blood coursing out of his open neck would shortly drain all the life from him.

  Rix turned the shotgun back to Hardiman, but I knew he could not fire again because the gun held only two shells, and he would need the last one for me. He put his face closer to Hardiman and grinned. “How’s that feel? Think you’ve got enough money to buy yourself out of this one?”

  Hardiman rolled his eye up at Rix like a baby just learning to see. His chest heaved, his throat sputtered, and his fingers were doing a little dance.

  I watched with great interest. I had seen dead men with similar wounds—but Hardiman was still alive and moving. The bright red blood and the exposed muscle and bone of his face and neck made his inner workings visible for that moment, and he seemed like a puppet.

  “Just lay down, shit-packer,” said Rix. “This time you lose. Did you think the Colonel would let you get away with doing something like that to your own daughter? What kind of a man would slip the pecker to his own little girl?” He lifted his foot to Hardiman’s chest and tipped him over. “Not so pretty now, lover boy?”

  “You’re no better,” I said. “Your men did worse to her.”

  Rix turned his attention back to me. His face had gone almost purple-red, and the whites of his eyes were as yellow as his teeth. “I’ll give you that much. I never understood why the Colonel let Frye go on so long. Well, you cleaned up that little mess for us, didn’t you? Between you and Lady Hardiman, you’re about to put me out of work.”

  He walked back to his place near the map table and tried to mop up his sweaty face with his shirtsleeve. “Look here, Caudill. You got it in your head that what we’re doing is wrong—but you don’t think it through. I don’t call it wrong to protect my way of living. You got no kids. You got no stake in how things turn out, see? You’re walking through your days like an animal, and you’re happy if you got a job and something to eat. You take the easy way through everything. Well, you’ve run out of people to do your thinking for you.”

  He turned away from me like I was making him sick and then looked down at Hardiman. “Listen, Hardiman, say hello to Caudill’s old man when you get down there. See if he’s still sore about you selling him out.”

  I felt the yacht make a slow turn back downstream. Then the throttle cut back and we stood almost silent, carried slowly by the current back toward Belle Isle. Through the hatch from above dropped a big canvas bag, flat-bottomed and gate-mouthed, like a mechanic might use to carry his tools. It landed heavily, though, without any crash of jangling metal. After a moment, with his cane crooked over his elbow, Sherrill struggled down the ladder.

  “Get up there, Rix, and don’t go until you hear the shots.” He pulled out a big nickel-plated Colt and turned it toward me. “This is Frank Carter’s gun,” he said. “I’ll tell you one thing: That man had a little pride in him before he died. He was a simpleton, but at least he knew something about loyalty. You should be proud to be shot with such a man’s weapon.”

  Rix stood for a moment at the base of the ladder, trying to figure out how to carry the shotgun to the upper deck. Finally he broke the gun open and climbed up with the stock held between his cheek and shoulder.

  “How much is in the bag?” I asked.

  “Money,” sputtered Lloyd. “That’s what all this is worth. If you would have come to me, I could have sent you away with that much, or more, and we could have moved on like businessmen.”

  “If money were all I yearned after,” said Sherrill, “I might have. But what I wanted was to make sure that everybody knew who wrecked this great city. What a stomach you must have to see them already naming libraries and schools after you. The Greeks called that hubris. You’ve allowed a plague of Negroes and Communists and moral degenerates to fester here, and it’s my task to make you pay for it.”

  Lloyd said bitterly, “You picture yourself the hero in an epic tragedy.”

  “I expect no bard to sing of my long labor,” Sherrill said. He seemed small and infirm, and his dim eyes were blinking and distorted behind his thick glasses. “And they’ll not sing of you, as I have my way in the matter. I could unfold a tale to make you see how your name will turn to dust—but time draws short. You’ll not see your beloved city as it burns tonight, Mr. Lloyd. But—do not doubt my word—after you’re gone, your name will accept the proper burden of shame for what you’ve done.”

  “My only shame is that I could not rid the world of you before now,” Lloyd said.

  “True shame and humility seem to have expired from the earth,” said Sherrill. “A pity. Yet I ask no pardon for the bit of money I reserve for myself. Perhaps it will be enough to secure a place where I can dwindle out my days—if there’s still a place on this earth where a man
can live without having to see a Negro scratching his backside every time he looks out his window.”

  I knew Sherrill would fire first at me, and I tried to judge whether the windy bastard had said his piece. I figured I could at least try to rush him, and maybe give Lloyd a chance to hop over the rail. But the settee was deep and soft, and it would take some doing to get off of it.

  “I’ll ask you once, Caudill. Would you care to sign up with us? Frankly, I’d rather have you about than Rix. You’re more industrious. You lack only direction.”

  I stared dully at him; I had given up, I guess, and I felt so tired that I wasn’t sure if my legs would move if I wanted them to. In a peculiar way, the sight of him hanging on to the satchel for his life made me feel sorry for him. But then I thought, Alex is out there somewhere. Sherrill has his hooks in him.

  I asked, “What’s your aim here?”

  “My aim is to settle this Negro problem once and for all, to kindle the final flame here and now, so this nation can go on to the greatness God intended for her. Now, I don’t expect that the Negro race will just lay down, but I’ll swear by all that’s mine, the last man standing will be a white man.”

  “Did you think I would sign up after all of this?”

  “No, I suppose not. But you do seem to have a touching concern for your family. And I had hoped that you might have an eye for the future.” He looked about the cabin with some melancholy. “I regret that the newspapers will make you out to be a villain in all of this mess. We had intended to blame the Negroes for Mr. Lloyd’s death—but once again you disrupt our plan. Fortunately, you’ll do nicely as a substitute scapegoat. Our men in the newspapers will write it up to seem—”

  He was interrupted by the sound of a painfully raspy cough from the steps leading to the aft deck. There was a clink of metal and the sound of heavy rope sliding.

  “God damn you, Carter, you yellow bastard! Can’t you stay dead!” Rix bellowed from above. The shotgun kicked and blasted. “Colonel, he’s at the hand-winch! He’s letting the dinghy go! We’ll be stuck here!” After a moment, the shotgun fired a second time.