44.
BURKE SAT BESIDE Jackie in Rickey’s office.
“Killer was a known killer for hire,” Rickey said. “The police presume it was a case of one criminal shooting another.”
“Fairly close,” Burke said.
“You did a hell of a job, my friend.”
Burke nodded.
“I’m doing more harm than good,” he said.
“Oh?”
“There’s a personal thing going on here,” Burke said. “I’m not protecting Jackie anymore. I’m bringing trouble to him.”
“Do you care to discuss the, ah, personal thing?”
“No.”
Rickey nodded slightly, as if to himself, and took his cigar from his mouth and examined the glowing end for a moment.
“It’s a woman,” Jackie said.
“How often that’s true,” Rickey said. “What is it about the woman.”
“That’s up to Burke to tell you,” Robinson said.
Burke glanced at him. Even in repose there was a kind of energy charge to Robinson. He was not simply black, he was blue-black, Burke thought, and showed no sign that he wasn’t proud of it. Rickey looked at Burke.
“And you, sir?”
“I’m quitting,” Burke said. “You need to get somebody else.”
“I thought you were in this to the end,” Rickey said.
“This is it,” Burke said. “The shooting was too far along for me to stop it by quitting. Now there’s time.”
“Jack?” Rickey said looking back at Robinson.
“No,” Jackie said. “I won’t work with anyone else.”
“You mean that,” Rickey said.
“Burke knows I do,” Jackie said.
It was true. Burke had never known Robinson to say something he didn’t mean. He could feel the force in Robinson, and realized, fully, for the first time, what his passivity in public cost him.
“I’m not preventing trouble,” Burke said. “I’m causing it.”
“Then we’ll deal with it,” Robinson said. “I started this with you. I’m not finishing it with somebody else.”
“Maybe you’ll have to.”
“No,” Robinson said. “I’ll finish it with you. Or I’ll finish it alone.”
Robinson looked steadily at Burke. Rickey was quiet, waiting. It was the morning before a day game. There were peanuts roasting somewhere and the scent of them drifted through the office.
“What about Rachel?” Burke said.
“Rachel would say the same thing.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“How the hell can you be so sure?” Burke said.
Burke had an inarticulate sense that he might be talking about more than the present issue.
“Rachel and I aren’t separate people,” Jackie said. “We are two parts of one thing. She can speak for me. I can speak for her. She feels the same way I do.”
Burke was silent. He rocked very slightly in his chair. What the hell would that be like? Two parts of one thing? He and Robinson looked at each other. Then Burke nodded with only the slightest movement of his head.
“I’ll stay,” he said.
Robinson said nothing at all. But he nodded too, if possible, an even smaller nod than Burke’s.
45.
THE PHONE RANG in the dark. Burke turned on the light. This time it was 4:00 A.M. Burke was pretty sure who it was.
“Hello,” he said.
“Congratulations,” Lauren said.
“For?”
“Thwarting Louis.”
She had trouble saying thwarting. Burke knew she was drunk again.
“Thanks,” he said.
“Couldn’t have without me,” she said.
“I know.”
“You grateful?”
“Sure,” Burke said.
She was silent. He was silent. The emptiness hissed quietly on the phone line.
“How grateful,” Lauren whispered. Her voice sounded hoarse.
“Lauren,” Burke said. “Why are you calling me up?”
“Remember the Cardinals game?” Lauren said. “Couple of weeks ago? Me and Louis?”
“You and Louis,” Burke said. “Almost fucking in public.”
“Did you like that?”
“No.”
There was silence for a time.
“So whyn’t you do something,” Lauren said.
“None of my business,” Burke said.
“So cold,” she said.
“You don’t like him,” Burke said. “Walk away.”
“And be with who?” she said.
“Up to you,” he said.
“But not you?”
Burke took in a big lungful of smoke.
“There is not enough of me,” Burke said, the smoke drifting out as he talked, “for you. I can’t give you what you need.”
“How the fuck you know what I need,” she said.
“I guess I don’t,” Burke said. “But I know what I need.”
“What is that, Burke? Just what the fuck do you need?”
“I need to be safe,” he said.
“Safe?”
“Un huh.”
Burke sniped out his cigarette and lit another one.
“Safe from what?” Lauren said.
He thought she was probably drinking as she talked. Four in the morning. Burke was silent for a time.
“Safe from what?” she said again.
“I don’t know,” Burke said. “I need to stay inside.”
At the other end of the phone, he could hear her swallow.
“And what about me?” she said. “I can’t live like this.”
“Like what?”
“Burke,” she said, “I’m getting worse. I let him handle me like that in public. He does it all the time. I let you see him do it. I’m drinking more. I’m drinking now. It’s four something in the morning, and I’m drinking gin on the rocks.”
“So stop,” Burke said.
“And drugs,” she said. “He gives me drugs, and when we have sex he likes to . . . he degrades me.”
“Get away from him,” Burke said.
“I can’t, not without you, I can only stop if I’m with you.”
“Then I become him. Then I’m what you can’t live without,” Burke said. “I don’t have that in me.”
“If you’ll come and get me,” she said, “if you’ll take me and keep me with you, I’ll . . . I’ll go to a psychiatrist. I’ll go to a hospital someplace, I can be all right, I know I can.”
Burke was silent.
“Jesus, God,” Lauren said. “Other people went to the war. They came back. What happened to you? Did the war take all of you?”
“Ex-wife took some,” Burke said carefully, his voice entirely flat.
“Don’t you understand? We’re connected in an awful way. I need someone to care about me.”
“I know,” Burke said.
“And you need to care about something,” she said.
He didn’t speak.
“Burke,” she said in a clotted voice, “I love you.”
Still he didn’t speak. The silence hummed between them over the phone line. Then she hung up. Burke sat hunched naked on the bed with his cigarette in his mouth and his arms across his chest. He was shaking. His face was clammy. He felt sick. In the dead silent room he heard his own voice.
“I love you too,” it said.
46.
THE TRAIN CROSSED the west branch of the Susquehanna River south of Lock Haven. Burke sat in the aisle seat beside Robinson in the back of a Pullman car on the way to Chicago. The second western swing of the season.
“Bob Chipman’s going tomorrow,” Jackie said. “I see him good.”
Burke nodded, looking past Robinson at the central Pennsylvania landscape.
“You miss your wife on road trips?” Burke said.
“Yes.”
The train slowed as it went through Clearfield. They were behind the tow
n, where the laundry hung and the trash barrels stood. Behind sagging barns with tobacco ads painted on the siding. Tangles of chicken wire. Gray scraps of lumber. Rusted stove parts. Oil drums. A sodden mattress.
“He was really going to shoot me,” Robinson said.
“How’s it feel?”
“You got shot at,” Jackie said, “how did that feel?”
“Scared the shit out of me,” Burke said.
Robinson nodded.
“You scared?” Burke said.
“I been scared since I said I’d do this.”
“You could quit.”
“No,” Robinson said. “I couldn’t.”
“Why?”
“You think I should?” Robinson said.
Burke thought about it for a moment.
“Disappoint a lot of people,” he said.
“You think I don’t know that?” Robinson said.
“It wore me down,” Burke said. “Scared every day.”
Jackie nodded.
“This is more public,” he said. “More, ah, concentrated. But being a Negro man in America in the twentieth century . . .”
He shrugged.
“So this is like your life already,” Burke said. “More of the same.”
“Cranked up a little,” Robinson said.
“You get used to it?”
“No.”
The train had left Clearfield behind, and picked up speed again. The card game that had begun at Penn Station was still being played. The same people were playing. Sukeforth, Reese, Gene Hermanski, and Eddie Miksis. Some of the players slept. Shotton, the manager, read a book.
“How about you?” Robinson said. “You get used to it?”
“Being scared?”
“Un huh.”
“I was scared all the time, every day, it got to seem like the only way there was to be.”
“Yeah,” Robinson said. “That’s the feeling. You still got it?”
“War’s over,” Burke said.
“That’s not what I asked. I asked you if you still felt scared,” Jackie said.
The train passed a small cluster of brown cows standing near a gate. Waiting for feed.
“I don’t feel scared,” Burke said. “Or much anything else.”
“Bother you to shoot that man?” Robinson said.
“No,” Burke said.
Robinson was silent for a time, then he said, “Tell me about the girl.”
“What’s the girl got to do with anything?” Burke said.
Jackie shrugged. They watched the fields of western Pennsylvania lumber past them. Burke had adjusted to the movement of the train the way he had adjusted to the troop ship. It had come to seem the norm.
“I was her bodyguard,” Burke said. “Keep her away from a guy named Louis Boucicault. He didn’t like it.”
“You and the girl?”
“Yeah. For a while.”
“And?”
“Things got out of hand. I had to shoot a couple of people. I got fired.”
“And the girl?”
“When I left she wanted to come with me.”
“Why didn’t she?”
“Her father said no.”
“I seen you work,” Robinson said. “I wouldn’t think that would stop you.”
“Girl’s trouble,” Burke said.
“So am I,” Robinson said.
Burke looked at Robinson, but didn’t say anything. They were both quiet for a long time, before Robinson spoke again.
“Being scared alone,” he said, “is worse.”
Burke didn’t answer. Robinson had nothing else to say. They sat quietly together as the train crossed into Ohio north of Youngstown.
47.
BURKE SAT WITH CASH at the bar in Freddy’s. It was evening. The piano player was doing a delicate version of “Shine,” his hands barely touching the keys. The room was full of men in summer straw hats and gray suits having a drink, maybe ten, after work.
“What’s on your mind,” Burke said.
Cash stared straight ahead at the mirror behind the bar.
“Paglia wants me to shoot you but not kill you,” Cash said.
Burke looked at him silently and waited.
“That make any sense to you?” Cash said.
“No.”
“I told Paglia that,” Cash said. “It don’t make any sense.”
“What’d he say?”
“Said it had to do with Robinson not getting killed.”
“Paglia?” Burke said.
Cash nodded and turned his gaze away from the bar mirror and looked straight at Burke for the first time.
“I was wrong,” Cash said. “Paglia was involved in that deal to kill Robinson.”
“With Boucicault?” Burke said.
“Here’s how it was supposed to go,” Cash said. “Boucicault, the kid, wants you dead. But his old man, you know, Frank?”
Burke nodded.
“Frank says no. Says he’s made a deal with another guy that leaves you out of it.”
“That would be Julius Roach,” Burke said.
Cash nodded.
“I know who he is,” Cash said. “And Paglia has had a hard-on ever since he got faced down up on Lenox Avenue by Robinson and a roomful of niggers.”
Burke nodded.
“But he’s got a lot of interests uptown,” Cash said. “And if he kills Robinson, then Wendell Jackson closes him down.”
Burke nodded again.
“So, Paglia and Frank Boucicault move in the same circles and one way or another, young Boucicault and Paglia get together,” Burke said.
“You’re starting to see it,” Cash said.
“And they make a deal. Boucicault kills Jackie, and Paglia kills me. Boucicault doesn’t get trouble from his father and Paglia doesn’t get trouble from Wendell.”
“Yep. And, here’s the part I like. Boucicault is pressing Paglia to kill you. He says he made a good faith run at Jackie and Paglia owes him one.”
“So Paglia wants to fulfill the bargain enough to keep Boucicault in the deal,” Burke said.
“But if I kill you,” Cash said, “then he’s got no bargaining chip to make Boucicault try Robinson again.”
“So you give him a little,” Burke said. ” You shoot me, but you don’t kill me. You that good?”
“Oh, hell, yes,” Cash said.
“You gonna do it?”
“No.”
Burke nodded.
“Paglia broke the rules.”
“Yeah,” Cash said. “He did.”
They finished their drinks, and ordered two more. The pianist was playing “Avalon” with a lot of gentle right hand.
“This has to end,” Burke said.
Cash shrugged.
“You want to help me end it?” Burke said.
“What are we ending?” Cash said.
“Paglia and Robinson, me and Boucicault. Lauren. The whole thing.”
“Lauren?”
“Julius’s daughter.”
“Lauren,” Cash said.
“Yeah.”
“What’s in it for me?” Cash said.
“Nothing.”
Cash nodded.
“Sounds like a hell of a deal,” he said.
“You in?” Burke said.
Cash drank half of his whisky and sipped water behind it.
“Tell me about Lauren,” he said.
48.
BURKE WAITED outside the apartment building, until he saw Julius leave. Then he went in. A Negro maid answered the apartment door.
“Tell Mrs. Roach that Mr. Burke is here about Lauren.”
“Mrs. Roach is rarely home to anyone,” the maid said.
“She’ll see me,” Burke said and handed a $100 bill to the maid.
“Of course, sir. If you’ll wait here in the living room.”
Burke sat. The vast apartment was oppressively quiet. The maid came back.
“Be our secret?” she said.
“Promis
e,” Burke said.
“This way.”
Burke followed her into a high-ceilinged room that looked out over the park. The furnishings were white, the voluptuous drapes that bunched on the floor were white. The carpet was white. There was a white marble fireplace in which, Burke suspected, no fire had ever been set. On a chaise near the window, where she could see the park, was a silver-haired woman in a white dressing gown, with a white comforter over her legs. Burke thought she looked beautiful. She was drinking sherry from a small fluted glass. The maid lingered near the door.
“Hello,” she said. “You’re Mr. Burke.”
Her voice was tentative.
“Yes,” Burke said.
“You know my daughter,” the woman said.
“I do,” Burke said.
He was close to her now and realized that she wasn’t beautiful, though once she might have been.
“Would you like some sherry?” she said.
“No thanks,” he said.
“I hope you’ll not mind if I sip mine,” she said.
“Not at all,” he said.
She nodded at a white satin chair near the chaise.
“Please,” she said. “Sit down. Tell me why you’re here.”
She finished her glass and took a bottle from the windowsill and poured it full again.
“It helps with the pain,” she said.
“Are you ill?” Burke said.
“I think so,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” Burke said.
“Life,” she said. “Life makes one ill sooner or later.”
“It can,” Burke said. “Can’t it.”
“Why did you say you came here?”
“I’m looking for Lauren,” Burke said.
“My daughter.”
“Yes.”
The woman nodded. They were quiet.
“Would you like some sherry?” the woman said.
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