The Red Storm

by Grant Bywaters

  His attack was rapid enough that I had little time to counter a wild fist that was heaved at me. Even though Storm was much bigger, my advantage was that I happened to have more power and faster hand speed. Storm swung at me with everything he had, and I did my best to duck or avoid the full contact of the blows.

  Between slips, I tried to get hits in, but I might as well have hit a concrete wall with a rubber mallet. I switched it up, and victimized his kidneys and body, using my back foot as leverage to put more power behind my lead hand.

  The fight kept on at an unyielding pace. The furniture, walls, fixtures, and anything else that had the misfortune of being present in the room were destroyed. Ultimately the pain caught up to Storm. His stamina was slowing while his blows were getting weaker and loopy.

  That’s when Storm hit that last burst of desperate rage that large beasts have when they know their end is near. I didn’t see it coming, so I went for the power punches to finish him off. It was a risky move and often left you vulnerable to counters. Storm knew this, for he had once dabbled in prizefighting. When Storm had nothing left to hold him up but his shoelaces, I went in for the kill and threw a hard left. Storm hit me with a counterpunch with his potent right that sent me just about through the back wall.

  I didn’t black out, but time seemed to slow. Trying to regain my separated senses, I could see Storm sitting on the other side of the room. He was wheezing, and blood was coming out his mouth.

  “I thought you were better than that, kid,” he said.

  “Don’t be blaming me, you louse! You dug yourself into this. If you thought I’d sit by and let you kill some kid, that’s just you being a fool.”

  Storm laughed, which seemed to pain him. We sat like that for a while, until the distant sound of sirens came into earshot.

  “That brat must’ve called us in,” he said, as he stumbled back onto his feet. Maybe the kid did give us up, but it was more likely Storm was followed. No matter, I didn’t even attempt to get up. I merely watched as Storm lumbered toward the door. But before he left, he turned to me and said, “I’ll be seeing you.”

  I do not know how I was able to get back up and duck out before the law took the building down. I do remember lying low in my flat for weeks. I had more than enough money to sit on. I read the papers, and found that the boy was safely returned to his parents. As for Storm, the papers reported that he had stolen a switch engine and killed the driver and two flatfoots during his escape out of town. The police had put a dragnet out for him, but it was too late. Storm had slipped through and vanished.

  That was the last time I heard or saw Bill Storm, until he walked into a New Orleans diner more than fifteen years later.

  CHAPTER 2

  It was 1938, the sort of clear, sunny day that made living in New Orleans pleasant. I was sitting alone at a diner I often frequented, staring out the window, watching nothing in particular, and chewing over my choice of work. There hadn’t been any clients in some time. But that was to be anticipated. I was limited to taking on mainly other coloreds as clientele, since accepting white clients almost always led to problems down the line.

  The waitress, a rotund woman, topped my cup off while I aimlessly worked on the daily crossword puzzle in front of me. I was in the middle of trying to find a name of a web-footed bird that was five letters when a gravelly voice asked, “Mind if I sit with you?” With indifference, I didn’t look up from the crossword, but instead said, “Whatever you got to do, friend. I was about to go anyway.”

  It was when the man had seated himself and his looming shadow fell across me that I looked up. I had to almost lean all the way back in the booth to get him in full view. He was still tall, and big, yet his face was unrecognizable. Only the gray, hate-filled eyes I recognized. Even after all these years, they were impossible to forget.

  His face was sunken in and his skin was an embalmed gray color. His hair had fallen out long ago, leaving him bald and looking like a lopsided baseball.

  “Hello, Champ. Been a long time,” he said in a voice that sounded like a crowbar going through a meat grinder.

  “Yes, it sure has,” I said.

  “It hurts just walking these days.”

  I didn’t know whether he wanted sympathy out of me or not. If he did, he wasn’t going to get it.

  “What can I do for you, Storm?”

  He laughed, but like the last time I saw him laugh, it seemed to cause him discomfort.

  “Why couldn’t you ever just call me Bill?”

  “If we were pals, I might’ve. But we never were pals.”

  “No, I suppose we weren’t. I figure I was a bit crazy back then.”

  “I ain’t in any sort of mood to swap stories from way back when. Either you tell me your business, or I’m going to pay my bill and blow on out of here.”

  “Hey, don’t be like that. I came here because I need your services, you playin’ detective and all. If you don’t want to do it, just consider it evening the score.”

  “There’s no score to even. If you still think I played you, that’s your problem, not mine.”

  “Okay, fine. But at least hear me out. I can’t even take a leak anymore without pissing blood after what you did to me that night. Surely that’s worthy of you hearing me out, ain’t it?”

  “You got about the time it’ll take me to finish my coffee and pay the bill,” I said.

  “It’s like I was saying, I need your services. I heard you were playing detective these days, and I still can’t wrap my head around that one. I tried lookin’ you up, but you ain’t listed and you don’t got no office.”

  “I reckon this is as good of an office as any.”

  “And cheap rent, just a cup of joe, am I right?” he asked.

  I said, “Why don’t you just get on with what you want from me.”

  “I need you to help me find my daughter.”

  It took a lot to surprise me. Yet here I was, surprised. I suppose the thought of him having a daughter made him almost human.

  “I had her years before we ever met. Hooked up with some crazy dame, found out she was pregnant. Funny part is, I wanted nothing to do with having no kid, that is until the first time I saw her. Hard as it may seem, I was gonna go legit for that kid. Try to be some sort of decent father. But that didn’t happen, see. I came home to my flat to find out the witch took the kid and scrammed. Left this note saying she didn’t want a monster like me having anything to do with her child. It’s funny how she didn’t think of me that way when I had them legs wrapped around my neck. Doing the kinda stuff that got her knocked up in the first place. But I guess that’s dames for you.”

  “How old would she be now?”

  Storm inclined forward in his seat. “I figure she’s gotta to be in her late twenties by now.”

  “Let’s get to the part of you coming to me.”

  “I had been looking for her for years now. I almost lost hope of ever finding her, until a friend of mine who knew the witch told me he saw her here less than a year ago. Said he thinks she lives here. If she’s here, it’s a sure bet so is my daughter. When I found out you were working as a dick in this area as well, I figure things were working out just right.”

  “Just right for what?”

  “Look at me, kid; I ain’t gonna last much longer. I’m all busted up on the inside. Last doctor I saw said that I’d be lucky to live another year or two. I just got to see my kid before I check out.”

  It was hard to see Storm being emotional. The most emotion I ever saw out of him was a sadistic pleasure that came with inflicting pain onto people. Age had either made him soft, or that daughter of his had always been his weak spot.

  “Let’s say I want to help, which I honestly don’t, I can’t. I can only hire on colored clients, see. If I started hiring white clients, it’d only cause more trouble than I already have. Besides, you’re a felon. Don’t think I didn’t read about them John Laws you killed busting out of town.”

  Storm didn’t say a
nything for a while. In time he scooted out of the booth and got on his feet. “I reckon you’re right, kid. Don’t want to cause you no troubles. I just figure you could do a little lookin’ around for me, under the table. If you turn up something or if you don’t, I’d still pay you good for your time. I got plenty of dough to throw around.”

  “Is it hot?”

  “Not anymore it ain’t,” he said, pulling out a wad of bills.

  “Keep your damn confetti. I’m not interested in your blood money.”

  “All money is blood money, kid.”

  “I don’t want nothin’ linkin’ you to me. I’ll do some looking around for you this afternoon, see what I can find, but that’s it. After today, I don’t ever want to see your mug again.”

  “Fair enough,” he said.

  “Does the mother have a name, besides ‘the witch’?”

  “Frieda Rae.”

  “Where did this person you know see Miss Rae at?”

  “He said he saw her leaving some store at North Robertson and Canal. I checked it out myself, but I couldn’t get nothing.”

  “And you say he saw her less than a year ago?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Does this person that saw her have a name?”

  “No, he don’t.”

  “This doesn’t have to do with that whole loyalty jive of yours, does it?”

  “Maybe.”

  I didn’t press the matter. It was worthless, too. “You wouldn’t have a photograph of Mrs. Rae, by any chance?”

  “I figured you’d ask me that. Yeah, I do.”

  He jerked a worn leather wallet out his front coat pocket. From inside he took out a three-by-five photograph and handed it to me. It was an old black-and-white photo of a nude woman with her back toward the camera. She was sitting on her feet, with her head turned back toward the lens in a tantalizing manner. Her black hair cascaded down the curves of a shapely back. Above her left shoulder blade was a minute tattoo of a lightning bolt.

  “Quite a knockout, wasn’t she?” Storm asked. “She told me she wanted to be a model, so I took a few photographs of her. This is the only one I have. She took them all when she did the run-out, except this one. I always kept it in my wallet.”

  The photograph probably wouldn’t be much help. It was doubtful that Miss Rae would even look remotely close to the way she did from a photograph that was taken nearly a lifetime ago. Outside of that, the photo would be viewed by most people as obscene or inappropriate at the least. This would make it hard to even show the photo to anyone that might recognize her.

  “Where are you staying at so I can contact you later?”

  “I’ll give you a number,” he said. I handed him the pencil I was using for the crossword. He wrote his number on a blank margin in the paper. “I’ll be waitin’ for that call.”

  I didn’t say anything as he left the diner. Instead, I sat at the table for a bit, wondering if I should just finish the crossword, go home, and call him later saying it was a dead end. I didn’t feel any moral obligation to help him out, chiefly because I took no material compensation from him, outside of getting him out of my hair. But the desire to get out and do some sort of work after such a long delay was overwhelming.

  I glanced out the window once more, expecting to see the same clear sky I had been gawping at a just a bit earlier. Instead, all I saw was gray.

  CHAPTER 3

  There was only one person that could have given Storm the dope on his old lady, and that was Rollie Lavine. Lavine was Storm’s lackey in New York. Back then he was a freckle-faced kid that did whatever Storm told him to do or, as Storm put it, “He’s my monkey and I’m his grinder.” When Storm fled, Lavine leeched onto me and followed me to New Orleans.

  I’d stayed away from him for most of the intervening years, even though he did his best to not make it so. The last I heard from him, he was fencing goods among other things.

  I parked my 1937 Ford Club Coupe on Napoleon Avenue, in front of the one-bedroom cottage where Lavine was living.

  The cottage was rotting with siding stripped off from the humidity like peeled rinds. I knocked on the door several times. I knew Lavine was there. He was nocturnal, and spent his days sleeping.

  It took much pounding on the door before a “Who the hell is it?”

  “It’s Fletcher.”

  “I’m sleepin’. Get lost.”

  “Open the damn door or I’ll break it down.”

  The door opened and Lavine stood just inside the entryway. His eyes were tired and bloodshot. His auburn hair had once been a full mop, but it had thinned and lost most of its volume. He was wearing gray khakis and a stained yellowish undershirt.

  “What’d you want?” he said.

  I didn’t answer, but forced my way in. Clutter littered the flyblown main room and I had to kick things aside to clear a path. Along the wall sat a secondhand single-cushion sofa. Its upholstery was worn so thin that springs and stuffing protruded out. In front of the sofa a wooden crate stood in for a coffee table. A collection of drug and smoking paraphernalia, including a bag of rolling tobacco with an Indian chief on the front, a pipe, lamp, dispensers made of porcelain and a ladle, items all used for opium, were scattered on top of it. Insufficient ventilated air suffocated the room. It smelled of sweat, stale tobacco, and human decay. The unfurnished kitchen had a single-burner stove that had not been in use in some time. Old newspapers and mail were stacked on top in a state of disarray.

  “If I’d known you were comin’,” he said, “I’d have picked the joint up.”

  “Sure you would’ve,” I said. “I want to talk to you, but not in here. This place is downright disgusting.”

  He led me through the back door, which went into a courtyard that was stone-walled in to shield it from its adjoining neighbors. I took a seat at a wrought-iron patio table. Lavine accompanied me, but could not disguise his annoyance.

  “What’s dis all about?”

  “I want to ask you a few questions,” I said.

  “Suppose I don’t feel like answerin’ them?”

  “Suppose you start thinkin’ about your health because you’re startin’ to piss me off!”

  He tried his best to not sound intimidated. “Aw, you can’t scare me. You ain’t a fighter no more! You gettin’ old and soft.”

  “Do I look soft?”

  “No,” he said. “But you ain’t lookin’ too good either. I didn’t think you could get any uglier. All them hits to the face done a number on it.”

  “We ain’t here to talk about my beauty,” I said. “You been keeping in contact with our old friend.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “You know damn well who it is,” I said.

  “You talkin’ about Bill Storm? I haven’t chatted it up with him since he went on the lam.”

  “Stop talkin’ out of your hat, Rollie,” I said. “Storm came to see me this morning. Said someone here tipped him off about seeing his old lady. You’re the only one in these parts that would know who he is, besides me.”

  “Okay, so I jawed it up with him once in a while, they ain’t no crime in that.”

  “Except he’s a known fugitive that bumped off two cops,” I said. “How’d you stay in contact with him?”

  “By wire. I couldn’t mail him nothin’ because he’d move around so much, and he never left no forwarding addresses. He’d just send me a wire from time to time, askin’ about things. I told him how I thought everyone here was crazy, but you got to be crazy living in a city that’s six feet below the river.”

  “Nobody asked you to come here,” I said.

  “Yeah, I know that. Storm said the same thing. He also asked about you.”

  “What’d you tell him?”

  “Nothin’ much, seein’ as you don’t ever talk to me. I told him you turned shamus. He didn’t believe me at first.”

  “Of course he didn’t,” I said. “You told him you saw his girl on Canal. Is that legit or was it a ploy to get him
to come out here?”

  “It’s on the cuff. I met her before she took off. Real fine piece of leg, but I told Storm she can’t be trusted, and he best keep her on a leash or somethin’. I wasn’t surprised when she ditched him. That’s just women for you. They ain’t worth trustin’ at all.”

  “You sound like you’re talking from experience,” I said.

  “I am. See, I learned real fast about dames. Did you know I was married once?”

  I shook my head. I was married once too in what now seemed like another life. I tried to picture what she looked like, but couldn’t. Too many hits to the head, perhaps.

  “Yeah, it was a long time ago,” he continued. “I was just nineteen, and she was a real catch, if you get what I’m sayin’. But when we got hitched things were different. Nothin’ was good enough for her, see, and she spent the dough faster than I could earn it. Started racking up debts, until I cut her off. Thought that’d be the end of it, but I come home to find she stole my stash and shoved off. Didn’t see her again until a few years later when she came around asking for money. Said she owed some fat cats a lot.”

  “Did you help her out?” I asked.

  “Hell no. Told her she could go whore herself out for the cash. She cried and blubbered, but I didn’t give her a dime, see. Not one goddamn dime. I figured that’d be the last I’d be hearin’ from her till I get word from her sister that she went off and hanged herself. I still got her obituary tacked up somewhere inside. It gives me a good laugh every time I come across it.”

  “You are a bitter, ugly, little man, Rollie,” I said.

  He shrugged. “I’ve been called worse.”

  * * *

  With not much to go on, I had to take to the streets for leads. I hugged the curb adjacent to the small market stand on North Robertson and Canal, and gaited up to the elderly Creole man that was running the corner fruit stand. I showed him the photograph and it caused him to gape up at me in horror. He screamed an earful of vulgarity and told me to leave him alone, and that my business was not welcome.

  I liked most French Creoles. They were far more accepting of coloreds, like France was. Plus, a lot of them shared African blood. Yet some had an overly pretentious attitude that grew maddening at such times as this.