by David Fulmer
He could have had that. He was clever and could have done something worthwhile. Instead of that, he made a living by stealing things that belonged to other people.
He stood there for a while longer, with a chill in his bones, looking at nothing. He knew the feeling was temporary and he always managed to chase it away. Though this time it had an uncommon weight. Or maybe he was just tired.
He had come to Atlanta with nothing on his mind except another stop in his wandering. As always, he would stay a few weeks or months, make a score or two, dally with Pearl until she got too deeply under his skin, then move on. Something was always happening somewhere.
It wasn’t working out that way. He was up to his neck in trouble. He thought about poor Jesse giving up the ghost, poor, frightened Robert Clark shot down in the rail yard, a beating for him, and jail for Pearl and Sweet. It was a crazy disaster any way he looked at it. And now May Ida Jackson, the wife of his tormentor, had pushed into the middle of it. Beneath that sweet flesh and inside that foolish mind some other kind of creature lurked, a coiled serpent that had been waiting for a chance to strike.
With all that, Joe knew there was nothing to do except move, and so stepped back into the lobby and crossed to the telephone booth to call Albert Nichols at police headquarters.
Quietly, Joe told him what he had found out without mentioning the source. Albert listened and when Joe finished, he didn’t say a word. Joe felt like he could hear the gears grinding over the line.
Nichols got it; he was not a stupid man. “What the hell’s wrong with you?” he blurted fiercely. “Have you lost your mind? There’s three people dead already. You want to be next?”
“I might be anyway, if I don’t figure a way out of this,” Joe said. “So I’ll take what I can get. However I can get it.”
There was a pause and then they both laughed a little.
Albert said, “You really are a lunatic.”
“I can bring his lousy ass down,” Joe said.
“Bring him down? You poke a bear like him with a stick and he’ll take you down. You and your sweetheart and her brother, too.”
“That’s why I need you.”
“Why, so I can go down with you?” The detective fumed for a second. “I don’t need to be in the middle of this.”
“Who else?”
“What about your friend Collins?”
“He works for the Captain.”
“That’s not his choice.” Albert was quiet for another few moments, mulling. “All right, now what?” he said.
“You need to get out of there so we can talk. But first I want you to go check on something.”
“I’m on a desk.”
“Get off it, then.” There was no reply. “Come on, Al.”
The detective huffed with exasperation. “Check on what?”
“Any arrest reports from the last couple months that involve Jesse Williams.”
Al didn’t say yes and didn’t say no. What he did say was, “And then what?”
“Then come out and meet me.”
The detective paused, and Joe thought he was going to tell him to forget about it. “You know the place,” he said, sounding gruff.
“When?”
“An hour. Maybe a little more. Just wait.” He clicked off.
Joe put the earphone in its cradle and stepped out of the booth. He glanced over toward the desk, to see the clerk who had been staring at him quickly look away, and wondered if there was anyone in the city of Atlanta who wasn’t in his business.
Albert Nichols felt eyes on him as he pushed the telephone set away. He glanced to the other side of the detectives’ section to see Lieutenant Collins lounging with his feet up on his desk and gazing at him with an expression that seemed absently curious. Collins sat forward as if he was about to say something, then seemed to think better of it and returned his attention to the papers in his hand.
Albert did not look in the direction of Captain Jackson’s office. Though there hadn’t been a sound from that dim cave, he could feel the Captain lurking like an alligator in a swamp, half submerged and waiting for its next meal. He reached out to pull another dusty file from the endless pile and opened it to study a crime that had been committed more than a decade ago and would never be closed, no matter how long he sat there.
When Pearl finally reached Lyon Street, all but staggering the last few paces along the broken sidewalk, she found the front door of the house hanging open on its hinges with the cold air blowing inside. Stepping closer, she saw that the frame had been splintered and the lock broken off with it, likely by the kick of a heavy boot.
She looked up and down the street. No one was about, and the shades in all the neighbors’ windows were drawn down tight. It was as much a signal as if someone had shouted it out. The police had paid a visit, and no one around there wanted any part of that kind of trouble.
She crossed the threshold to find that the house had been tossed from one end to the other. All the furniture had been upended and every drawer pulled out with the contents dumped across the hardwood floors. Pictures lay facedown on the floor, the glass shattered. The lamps had been knocked over, too, and one was in pieces. Clothes and papers were strewn from wall to wall.
In a daze, she wandered through the bedrooms to find that they had received the same rough treatment. It looked like a hurricane had blown through, and she felt a moment of dizzy weakness that welled up to force a quivering sob from her throat.
Standing among that wreckage, she knew who had done it, and why, and swore that same somebody was going to pay.
At the same time, she knew it was her fault. Her wild ways had brought this calamity to their door, and the only good news was as far as she knew no one else was dead. Sweet, God bless his good soul, had been right about everything. She should have listened to him, right from the beginning. She should have stayed away from the speaks and the rounders who frequented them. She should have left the whiskey and the cocaine be. She should have lived a life on the right side of the law. And she never should have laid down with Joe Rose, the white man or Indian or whatever he was.
She mused for a few moments, and decided that she wasn’t quite sure about that last one.
Detective Nichols pretended to work for another hour and a half, until Captain Jackson finally stepped out of his office, stalked through the detectives’ section, and went out the door. When another quarter hour went by and he didn’t return, Albert got up and ambled into the hall without telling anyone where he was going, taking one folder from the hopeless mountain as camouflage. From his desk, Lieutenant Collins glanced at him but said nothing.
The detective descended one floor and made his way along the corridor to the Records Room. He had spent enough time there doing bits of research on his dead files that the two clerks barely lifted their heads when he walked in.
The room was arranged into rows of two types of file cabinets. Down the middle were cases of drawers that contained four-by six-inch index cards, upon which officers had noted the bare essentials of particular incidents: crime, perpetrator, victim, date, and location. The more detailed reports were kept in the full-sized cabinets that lined all four walls, except for gaps for the doorway and the clerks’ desks in back.
Albert knew his way around and soon found the card drawer that matched the dates Joe had mentioned. He went about his work, reminding himself every couple minutes to look over his shoulder, and keeping the bogus file close at hand. At one point, he asked to use the telephone set on the clerk’s desk.
A half hour later he slipped out of the room, leaving the dead file he had brought with him in the basket. Down on the first floor, he located a patrolman whose initials were attached to one of the reports he had found. He asked a few questions, then thanked the cop and hurried into the hall to leave the building by the side door. Crossing Decatur Street, he jagged from one corner to the next until he reached Mississippi Alley. He had left his coat on the rack to complete the deception and now kept his
hands in his pockets and moved at a quick pace to ward off the chill.
He found Joe huddling in the space between two buildings, and the two men walked in silence to a doorway at the end of the alley. Joe rapped a knuckle, and after a few seconds the door opened and they stepped out of the cold afternoon light and down a few steps into the dark refuge of a speakeasy, one of those that was closed until dusk except for certain patrons.
They were the only customers in the low-ceilinged basement with its damp stone walls. A bar made of slat wood took up one side and some mismatched tables were pushed against the other. From the back corner, a squat, cast-iron woodstove threw out dry heat and an orange glow. A smaller room behind the bar held supplies and an icebox containing some vittles. Two ship’s lamps threw faint swaths of yellowish light. It smelled of tobacco, rusted pipes, and stale beer.
Without a word, the short, fat, and bald fellow who went by the nickname Pudge relocked the door, leaned his broom, and went behind the bar to fetch two whiskeys for his visitors, who had crossed the floor to slouch against the bar.
Albert quaffed his drink in a quick swallow. He cracked the glass down on the bar and Pudge poured him another one.
He waited for the bartender to go back to his sweeping to turn a baleful eye on Joe. “Are you crazy calling me like that?” he fumed. “Jackson was sitting twenty feet away, for Christ’s sake!”
“You think he knew you were talking to me?” Joe said.
“In case you haven’t noticed, you got a damn bull’s-eye on your back,” the detective said. He took a sip of his drink and stopped to snicker darkly. “He seems to think you’re the cause of his troubles.”
“He’s just the suspicious type,” Joe said.
Albert wasn’t amused. He went into his coat pocket for his cigarettes and offered one to Joe, along with a light. He took a drag, then coughed. Catching his breath, he said, “You know your lady friend was released this morning.”
Joe stared at him. “When?”
“’Round about eleven thirty.” The detective saw something come over his friend’s face and said, “What?”
“Nothing,” Joe said. “What about Sweet?”
Albert shook his head. “They’ll keep him for as long as they need to. And use him, if they can.” The detective puffed on his Chesterfield.
Joe frowned, pondering this. “What did you find out about Williams?” he said.
Albert glowered. “You know, I had to sneak out of there like some goddamn—”
“Yeah, okay,” Joe said impatiently. “What did you get?”
“I found the card,” Albert said. “Williams was arrested and booked on a gambling charge in November. I talked to one of the beat cops who was sent to break up the game. He said he was surprised because as far as he knew, Williams had always paid up. No reason to bust him.”
“Did he say who gave the order?”
“He told me he didn’t remember. He just didn’t want to say.”
Joe said, “The Captain.”
“Could have been,” Albert said. “But that’s all I could get. I could tell I was making him nervous, so I let it be.”
“What was the date?”
“November twelfth. But when I went looking for the file, it wasn’t there. No record of the disposition of the case.”
“Then he destroyed it.” He saw Albert’s wry expression and said, “What?”
“I telephoned over to the Tower. Got hold of someone who remembered Williams being brought in. I had him check the papers. He was released the next day.”
Joe said, “Anything else?”
“I went through Williams’s other arrest records. Did you know he was picked up as a suspect in a burglary?”
“I just heard about that this morning,” Joe said.
Albert waited for him to take a sip of his whiskey. “It sounds like your research was more interesting than mine. So let’s hear it.”
Joe put his glass down. “It was Jackson set up the Inman Park job,” he said directly. “But you probably already figured that.”
Albert said, “I’ve had suspicions.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“You’re not a cop, remember?” The detective puffed on his cigarette. “Christ! So he’s got the stones?”
“No,” Joe said. “That was the plan, but it didn’t work out that way. Something went wrong.”
“Do I really want to hear this?” the detective said. “I mean, considering the source.” Joe shrugged. Albert hedged for a second, then said, “All right, go ahead.”
“The whole idea was to make sure the mayor and Chief Troutman couldn’t get rid of him,” Joe said.
Albert nodded. “They were about to kick his ass out the door. The word was January first and he’s gone.”
“Yeah, well, before they could do it, he set up a burglary during one of the most important social events of the year. The richest people in Atlanta were there. It really did take some damned gall, but I guess he was desperate.” Joe laughed shortly as he conjured the scene in his head. “He must have been planning it for a couple months. He had his officers break that game Jesse was running so he could toss him in jail. Then the charges were dropped and he was let out.”
Albert said, “So he could burglarize the mansion.”
“They must have made a deal and the Captain told him what he wanted and how he wanted it done.”
“He thought he was smart enough to pull that off?” Albert said.
“Wait a minute,” Joe said. “The plan is once it’s done, he’ll come to the rescue. He breaks the case, delivers the jewels back to the Paynes, and he’s got his moment of glory. He’ll have his name in the paper. There’s no way they can fire him. He’d be a hero. Maybe even get chief of detectives.”
Albert grunted dismissively. “They’d never give him that job.”
“Well, that’s what he was after,” Joe said. “He thought it was all set. But right away things started going wrong.”
“What things?”
“First of all, he got crossed.”
“By Williams?”
“No, not by him.” Joe kept still for a few seconds. “By Pearl.”
The cigarette fell from Albert’s mouth, bounced off his overcoat, and tumbled to the hardwood floor with a small shower of sparks. “Pearl!”
Joe crushed the burning butt under the toe of his shoe. “Jackson planned it right down to telling Jesse to find her and tell her to go down and get hired on for that party. And she did.”
“Why would—”
“Because of me. Jesse must have made up a story that he was setting up a caper and that I was in on it. Or maybe he didn’t even have to say it. She’d think of it herself.”
“So she gets hired for the party . . .”
“That’s right. And when the night comes, he gets someone, maybe Baker, to hand this other girl a note to give to Pearl. It’s signed with a J.”
“As in ‘Joe.’”
“Or ‘Jackson.’” Joe grimaced. “His idea of a joke. Anyway, she goes down and unlocks the cellar door. When I don’t show, she leaves it open. He figured she would. And that it would put both of us in the middle of it.”
“He wanted you that bad?”
“He’s never been able to lay a hand on either one of us. Sounds like a solution, what do you think?”
“I think he’s not bright enough to pull it off.”
“He’s not bright at all,” Joe said. “He made a fucking mess of it from the start. Pearl probably caught on right away.” He stopped to sip his whiskey. “Hiring Logue to get rid of Jesse was another mistake.”
The detective blinked in confusion. “What?”
“The Captain’s the one who paid Logue the two hundred dollars to kill him,” Joe said. “That was part of the plan, too. Jesse was just another damn rounder, and he’d never talk if he was dead. So he set him up to get in and grab the jewels and then paid Logue to shoot him once it was done.” He sipped his whiskey. “Except he picke
d the wrong man and Logue didn’t finish the job. Two nights later, he sent Baker out to kill Logue. Or he did it himself.”
“Wait a minute,” the detective said. “You came up on Williams after he was shot.” He raised an eyebrow for emphasis. “That was some coincidence, pal.”
“Not really,” Joe said. “I heard about it out on the street. I went over there and found him and Willie. That’s all.” He finished his cigarette and stubbed it out in the ashtray. “That should have been the end of it. Except that Jesse lived. And there was a witness.”
“Robert Clark.”
“He ran off, but he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. The word got around that he saw. I had been looking for him when he was killed. Baker probably did that one, too. The Captain figured that would be the end of it, but there were already too many loose ends. No way he could put it back in the bottle.”
“Well, goddamn,” Albert said. “That’s some story.” He thought it over for a few seconds. “So where are the jewels?”
“Pearl might be holding them,” Joe said. “Or maybe Jesse stashed them somewhere. If he did, they might never turn up. What I do know is that the Captain doesn’t have them.”
“So he’s in a hell of a corner,” Albert said.
“He thought he had the whole thing figured out,” Joe said. “He didn’t.”
The detective drummed his fingers on the bar, then leaned back and waved to Pudge for another round. After the bartender had poured their drinks, he said, “The person who gave you this . . .” He made a point of not mentioning her name. “Why’d she do it?”
Joe shrugged. “She hates him, she wants to fix him good. That’s why.”
Albert tilted his head thoughtfully. “And it sounds like Pearl wanted to fix you, Joe.”
“I don’t know what she wanted.”
“So why didn’t Williams go ahead and tell you?”
“I guess he was waiting for the right time.” Joe was quiet for a few moments, thinking about Jesse in his last hours. He heard Willie’s tenor voice echo in his head as he sang the lines he had composed for Little Jesse.