Room To Swing

by Ed Lacy

  “I always tell you anything flashy isn't any good,” the old lady mumbled.

  I undressed and stretched out on the bed, feeling wide awake. I lit my pipe and thought what an odd place Bingston was—South and yet not really South. That cop ready to break my head over a simple thing like a cup of coffee, yet when he asked about the Jag he had sounded as friendly as could be. And a chick like Frances, bitter and tough in her own way, yet sticking her neck way out to help me. Why? What was her why? That farmhouse—a little world of its own. And how did a young girl like Harry's wife take to living way out in the country, without electricity, probably no plumbing? Or Harry, how could he return to nothing after seeing California, the big cities, while in the army? If he'd seen Paris, London, Rome—would he still have returned? Sybil would raise hell at the very idea of living there. Me too, probably. Yet, in a way it was a far cleaner world than Harlem, or a big city. There wasn't any Mrs. James being dunned and cheated, or TV programs capitalizing on someone's misfortune to sell drugs. Kay and Bobby, they would seem like people from another planet— out on the farm.

  In a sense Uncle Jim was smart—no papers, TV, probably the battery radio didn't work most of the time. Hardly ever saw a white face either. Maybe that was worth kerosene lamps and chicken smells. They reminded me of a Negro couple I once met, middle-aged schoolteachers. They had— maybe still have—an old apartment up in the Bronx. Every summer they both went to Paris and during the winters, the moment they entered their apartment, they spoke only French, ate French food, read Paris newspapers.... Soon as they entered their apartment they were no longer Negroes in the Bronx, but back in Paris. Without realizing it, Uncle Jim had done the same thing on his farm, had...

  Then it hit me—like when you miss a hard tackle and the earth comes out and pounds everything out of you. I was lying here and thinking about the farm and Bingston as if I was a tourist, a spectator... as if Z wasn't wanted for murder!

  Fear gripped me so hard I had a cramp. What was I really doing here in Bingston, playing detective to the killing in this sleepy town? In fact, was there an answer? Damn, if only I hadn't hit that cop. Suppose I'd let him take me in, told my story—after all, what motive did I have for killing the jerk? With their labs and men, the police would have found the real killer. At least there would be pros working on the case.

  But would they have worked on it? Hell, they could say I was sore at Thomas for that coffeepot stuff, came back to kill him. Anything made sense—to whites—when a coloured man was involved. A jury wouldn't take my word either.... Hell, what was the point in all this if thinking? No one stands still for a pistol whipping. I had belted a white cop, and I was in this strange little Jim Crow town, with a few bucks, wasting precious time being philosophical about a lousy farm. I was doing nothing for myself. The trouble was I didn't know how I could do myself any good. I was a busher playing in the big league.

  To my surprise I dozed off, had a good night's sleep. The next thing I knew the sun was hitting my face. It was nine o'clock and I felt full of pep. I washed up, considered shaving with the mailman's old-fashioned straight razor hanging beside the medicine chest, then dressed and went downstairs.

  Mrs. Davis was in an old print dress, dusting, some sort of crazy lace cap on her gray head. She told me Frances and Mr. Davis had been gone for hours. “We don't sleep our lives away here.” I could have told her she didn't know how much she slept away her life but instead I stashed away one of those big country breakfasts—about a million calories in sausages, eggs, and wheat cakes swimming in syrup and butter. The old lady politely grilled me about my family, my busted nose, how long was I staying, had I ever been married. She had coffee with me, telling me the trouble she had with Frances. “That child has such queer ideas, I mean, the way she won't do a thing with her hair, or use powder.”

  She wanted somebody to talk to and told me about her first child, who had died because she had waited too long to stop working, how she hoped the son at college would enter medical school after he did his army time.

  When I finally pushed myself away from the table at ten, she told me, “I expect money in advance for room and board. Since I owe you a dollar, that will be three dollars for today and tonight.”

  I gave her three bucks, said I was going to see the countryside and would be back by noon.

  “I'll have lunch waiting. Please be careful, Mr. Jones. Remember the customs down here. You know.”

  I said I knew. The ancient Chevvy shook like a baby's rattle and still stunk, but the motor sounded okay. I stopped “downtown” for a paper, a change of underwear, a razor and toothbrush, then took off for ole Kentucky. There wasn't anything new in the paper, a rehash of yesterday's account. That didn't mean a thing, the police only give out the news that suits them.

  It was a clear day, almost warm, and like a moron I was full of good spirits. I took off my burberry, brushed it with my hand, tried to brush the dirty seat with the newspaper, and gave the Chevvy gas. I drove for about a half hour, passing some pretty country. I passed through a few wide-spots-in-the-road, one-store villages, wondered where I was. When I saw a gas station I drove in, asked a young white fellow, “Can you tell me how to get to Kentucky?”

  He stared at me; maybe he was looking at my Countess Mara tie. He said, “You must be new around here, boy.”

  “Yeah—sir.” I almost gagged on the last word. Was it as bad as this for guys in the army to “sir” me?

  “You're in Kentucky now. Where you going to?”

  “Why... Louisville.”

  “Better gas up, boy, you got a long ride ahead of you,” he said, and started giving me directions. He put in five gallons, told me it was $1.65.

  As I took out my wallet I glanced back at the pump meter and his long face flushed as he asked, “What's wrong, boy, don't you take my word?”

  I damn near ripped the wallet, I gripped it so hard. Then I gave him a sickly grin as I handed a five-buck bill out the window, said, “I was only looking around to see if you had a pay phone here, chief.” I could see a phone booth next to the office; I would have had to be blind not to see it.

  “Oh,” he said, relieved. As he gave me my change he added, “Keep going down this road a piece; you'll see a dirt road on your right after about a mile. Make a left on that for couple hundred yards. There's a coloured store there.”

  “Thank you, sir,” I said, and drove off.

  The “coloured” store was an enlarged shack with dusty windows that looked like a mild wind would take it apart. Inside there were several rows of canned goods behind a wide counter, a juke box, a wall phone, two homemade tables, and against the rear wall bottles of beer and soda were floating in a washtub full of ice.

  A slim fellow with a small sharp face, light brown skin, and wearing worn overalls was leaning on the counter, playing with an empty pop bottle. Behind the counter there was a joker about six-five and at least 350 pounds of fat. But it was fairly well distributed and he carried it so well he looked like an overpadded football player. His face was the size of a pumpkin, dirty tan in color, with a knife scar down one cheek. His oily hair was plastered on his big dome under a stocking cap, and the wool plaid shirt and dungarees he wore must have been made of iron—to withstand the strain of his fat.

  When I came in, Slim merely glanced at me out of the corner of one eye, while Fat-stuff asked, “New around here, ain'tcha, boy?”

  “Yeah, I'm new and I've heard all the boying I want for the morning. Give me a dollar's change, I want to use your phone.”

  He ran his eyes over me and didn't move. After a second he said, “I don't like no dark boys come busting into my store, asking me to do this and that.”

  For a second I wanted to reach over the counter and take this fat joker apart, then I relaxed, thinking: Sure, I'd be talking big at the front gate because he's coloured. But I kept my mouth going like Charlie McCarthy sirring that white jerk at the gas station. Be too easy, too ofay, taking it out on this tan slob. I put a dolla
r on the counter, told him, “Heavy, I don't know you, you don't know me—so don't give me a hard time over nothing. I only came in to make a call. Or don't you have a dollar's change?”

  “Sure I got a buck's change. I can change a hundred-buck bill too—any day of the week. Can you?”

  “No,” I said, patiently.

  “That's what I thought. Never saw a man in fancy clothes that had a full pocket.” He decided he'd made whatever point his fat head was bent on proving, dug into his pocket and slapped four quarters on the counter. I walked over to the phone, taking out all my loose change. I had the phone deal figured—I'd reach Sybil at the public phone in the employee's lounge, the way I usually called her to say I'd pick her up. Seemed to me there was no chance of it being traced. With Fatso and Skinny not even making a pretense of not listening, I gave long distance the number, talking in as low a voice as I could. It hardly seemed a second before a girl answered. When I asked for Sybil the girl said she was working. I asked if I could reach her and the girl said to hold on, she'd see.

  Another few seconds and the girl said she was still trying to find Sybil. I waited a couple of minutes. The operator told me to signal through. The tub of lard back of the counter remarked to nobody, “Sure an expensive call you making, Slick. I never seen a man talk so little.” He chuckled like a jackass. “All that nothing for so much money.”

  Finally I heard Sybil's sharp, “Who is this?”

  “Hello hon. How's things?”

  In a voice low, mad, and hysterical she said, “Touie Moore, you're going to cost me my job! The police came to my house last night!” She gulped as she said the word “police.”

  “And I'm sure a police car followed me to work this morning! Trooping into my house... and if the company learns—”

  “Slow down, honey. What did the boys say, what did they want?”

  “They asked if I knew where you were, when I'd last seen you. That's all.”

  “That's all? Didn't they say anything more? Did they say what—that is—why—they were interested in this fellow?”

  “What are you double-talking about? I told you all they said. I was never so embarrassed in my life. I thought it might be you and I was still undressing when I opened the door—you should have seen the way they looked at me.”

  “What did you tell them?”

  “The truth! That I hadn't seen you since the day before, had no idea where you were. Touie, I don't know what you're mixed up in but if you had a normal post-office job—”

  “You don't know? Honey, haven't you been reading the papers, watching TV as usual?”

  “You louse, are you checking up on me? You have your—”

  “No, no, I—eh—didn't mean it like that.”

  “What's wrong with you? You're talking in riddles.”

  “I'm at a public phone.”

  “When am I going to see you?”

  “I don't know. Soon, I hope. I'll be in touch.”

  “You listen, Touie Marcus Moore, you pay me back my money. All of it! I must have been crazy letting you take that money. God knows what you're doing with it.”

  “I'm buying an oil well for Kim Novak, what else would I be doing with the money? I'll call again. Now take it easy and don't worry.”

  “I have ninety-four reasons why I worry—!”

  “So long for now, honey.” I hung up and didn't know what to make of things. Why hadn't the police said anything about the murder, why wasn't it in the papers or on the air? If they visited Sybil they knew about me, then why the big secret? Damn—if Sybil had been able to think of anything but her money I might have got some news from her. But she didn't know a thing. And how did the cops identify me so damn quick? Kay? Hard to say which side she was on. It had to be the same cat who set me up for the police.... Three little letters: w-h-o that could mean my life. K-a-y, three more interesting letters. Although the three letters I really needed were SOS.

  The operator rang back to drawl politely that I owed another eighty-five cents. They were slipping down here; hadn't worked out any way for the operators to know if they were talking to coloured, so they could drop the politeness. I told her I'd have to get more change.

  I put another buck on the counter and Fatty, who was leaning across the counter, asked, “How you know I got any more change, fancy boy?”

  “Your phone. I can walk out and forget the whole thing,” I said calmly—I wasn't going to let this fat jerk bug me.

  He finally got into motion, made change. As I dropped the coins in and hung up, he said, “Lot of money for just talk. A hot gal, worth—?”

  “That was my mother,” I said, making for the door.

  Lardy was comical as his fat face changed and he said, “Sorry, boy, I shouldn't have run my mouth like that. No hard feelings.”

  I waved as I shut the door. Driving back to Bingston I couldn't make any sense out of what Sybil told me. Of course, if they were keeping it out of the papers, the police wouldn't tell Sybil they wanted me for murder. But from what she said they sounded so damn casual, like they wanted me for skipping a traffic ticket. Maybe they weren't after me for the murder? Nuts, they'd certainly want me for slugging the cop, probably want me worse for that than for a murder. And how could they know “a” Negro was me so damn fast? Who was masterminding all this, if it wasn't Kay? After all, I only had Bobby's word that she had picked me, not Kay.... Bobby would say anything to protect Kay. But even if it was Kay, what possible relationship could she have had with a punk like Thomas? And I didn't have time to check on her boss, this B. H.... That out-of-town alibi could be bunk. But again, what would a big TV executive be doing with a two-bit guy like Thomas?

  I reached the Davis house before noon, washed and shaved. Frances knocked on my door. She looked very fresh in form-fitting slacks, a simple Italian-style striped blouse cut square across the shoulders—and she had real shoulders, not just bones. She was wearing red ballerina shoes and her hair was in a tight bun, with a kind of pearl necklace around it, the pearls in sharp contrast to her black hair.

  Her lips were carefully painted a faint red. I watched the lips as she asked, “Did they make you a Kan-tuck colonel?”

  “They gave me a citation for wearing out my gums saying 'sir.' We seeing this Tim Russell?”

  “Soon as you're ready. I'll wait for you in the car.”

  As I put on my tie and coat I heard Mrs. Davis downstairs asking why she was wearing her new outfit and Frances telling the old lady to please keep still. When I walked out, she was waiting behind the wheel of the Chevvy. As I got in beside her, Frances started the heap, asking, “Find out anything new?”

  “No.”

  “I spoke to Dad. No one has left town recently.”

  As we came out of the driveway, a tall slim fellow in work pants, polished boots, and a plaid mackinaw waved at Frances. His hand seemed suspended in mid-air, and his light brown face with the carefully trimmed mustache showed shocked surprise. She waved back as we turned into the street. He shouted, “Say, Frances, I— Hey, wait!”

  “No time now,” she called back, speeding down the street. “That's Willie.”

  “The boy friend?”

  “My, aren't we the detective. Well, he isn't. I go out with him sometimes—I have to go out with somebody. Matter of fact, because I play hard to get—I suppose—Willie's hinted he might consider marrying me.”

  “Handsome fellow.”

  “Willie is the big deal for coloured girls in Bingston; quite a catch, and he knows it. He was a paratrooper, the only one in Bingston, so that makes him something, and he has a steady job driving a coal truck, makes good money. He thinks all he has to do is ask and a girl will roll over and wag her tail like a dog begging. I don't think I could stand marrying him. But sometimes... When you're twenty-five Willie can look like all the excitement in the world... from here.”

  I didn't want to get into her business so I asked, “What am I to tell this Tim? I mean, what am I supposed to be?”

 
“You don't have to tell him anything. He understands you're in a jam—without asking questions. He was one of the few whites who helped us in the fight to sit in the orchestra of the movie house. He's... I guess you'd call him the town radical. He's a very good guy. At one time I dreamt I was in love with him.”

  I turned to stare at her. “Then what happened?”

  “Nothing. I—we—never did anything about it. He's married now. I soon realized Tim was merely a girlish daydream, I had confused admiration for love.”

  “This dawn come before or after he was married?”

  “Before. Stop teasing me!” She snapped it out the way Kay had told me never to make fun of her.