A quavering voice howled from the rear. “Help! Robbery!”
Sideburn’s faded jean jacket flapped open, revealing the butt of a revolver stuck in his waistband. Either from fear or drugs, the man’s pupils were wide, dark pits fixed on the glass door. He tucked a small brown paper sack under his arm like a running back and ducked his head, sprinting flat out and desperate.
Fu Manchu jumped to his feet and held the glass door open, spilling hot air into the store. “Nobody move or I’ll shoot!”
Stranger stuck out his black boot as casual as a businessman checking the leather’s shine, locking the fleeing man’s ankle as he charged past.
Sideburns slammed face-first onto the hard tile like he’d been heeled by a professional roper, landing with the smack of a dropped steak. The bag shot from his hand across the floor and slid to a stop beside a clearance display of unsellable plastic items from Japan, fanning loose, wrinkled bills everywhere.
Stunned by the impact, Sideburns groaned and tried to rise, blood pouring from a broken nose, crushed lips, and a missing tooth. Stranger kicked one arm out from under him and drew a Colt 1911 with the smooth, fluid ease of practice. He pointed the muzzle down the counter toward Fu Manchu. “Hold it!”
Moaning on the floor with blood spilling from his broken nose, Sideburns twisted, trying to draw the revolver from his belt. Stranger kicked him hard in the side with the toe of his pointed boot.
He dropped a bony knee on the young man’s neck and glanced up to see Fu Manchu squirt out the door. “Looks like your friend’s done run off.” He checked over his shoulder. The waitress’ eyes were wide and she held the receiver against her ear. “Helen, I believe somebody’s talkin’ to you on that thing.”
She snapped back and spoke into the mouthpiece. “Uh, somebody just tried to rob the Woolworth’s. Y’all better get somebody over here.”
Satisfied, Stranger returned to the unsuccessful thief on the floor. “Criminal, you make one more move and this forty-five’s liable to go off.” He flipped the young man over and plucked the snub-nosed .38 revolver from his waistband.
The big-bellied Woolworth’s manager appeared at his side, wiping sweat from his bald head with a wrinkled handkerchief. “My money.”
“Gather it up. It’s right there.”
The manager’s voice broke with relief. “I thought he was gonna shoot me.”
“Might have.” Stranger put the worn revolver on the counter and holstered his forty-five. “You’re under arrest, son.”
The manager raised an eyebrow. “You making a citizen’s arrest?”
“Naw. It’s a little more’n that.” He pulled his jacket back to reveal a round badge. “Texas Ranger, retired.”
“Sure lucky for you to be here.”
“It was, that.”
A siren wailed from the direction of the courthouse only a block away. The stranger smoothed his gray mustache. “Criminal, you roll over on your belly and lay right there and I won’t have to shoot you. Put your hands behind you, hoss.”
“I ain’t going nowhere.” The would-be robber’s pronunciation was mushy from the blood and missing tooth.
“I know it.” The Ranger plucked a pair of handcuffs from the small of his back and clicked them around the man’s wrists. “Now be still and you might prove to me that you’re smarter’n you look.”
He spat. “I’m bleedin pretty bad.”
“That’s liable to be another charge, spittin’ in public.”
A minute later a black-and-white sheriff’s car slid to a stop behind the vehicles parked in front of the Woolworth’s. A female deputy in a straw Stetson and khaki uniform popped out and rushed inside with a revolver drawn. She slowed when she saw the bleeding would-be robber lying on his stomach at the feet of an elderly cowboy perched casually on a stool.
She advanced and stopped with a pistol in her hand. “Sir, would you stay right there, please? And don’t touch that pistol there on the counter, either.”
“You bet.” Calm as a wooded stock tank, Stranger leaned his right elbow on the counter and laced his fingers. She kept an eye on him from under the brim of her straw hat as she glanced at the cuffs on Sideburn’s wrists. “Don’t move.”
Sideburns turned his head and grunted. “I done been told that by him. He threatened to shoot me.”
“You’re lucky he didn’t.” The deputy met Stranger’s eyes. “So you have a pistol?”
Using two fingers of his right hand, Stranger opened the sport coat to reveal the cold blue 1911 in a hand-tooled leather holster. “Yes, ma’am.” With the gentle motions of a magician, he flicked his coat with the other hand to reveal a badge stamped from a Mexican peso.
The deputy recognized it at once and relaxed. “Well, leave it right where it is.” She knelt to make sure the cuffs were tight and glanced up at the white-faced manager. “Pete, you all right?”
Pete stepped forward, wiping his mouth with a nervous hand, forgetting the handkerchief in the other. “This old feller stopped the robbery all by hisself.” He held out the bag of money. “They didn’t get a dollar. That man’s a hero.”
The deputy finally holstered her pistol and held out a hand to the old man. She met his gaze for the first time. “Deputy Anna Sloan. I believe you might be a Texas Ranger.”
“Retired.” He took her hand in a firm grip. His voice was as soft and calm as it had been when he ordered pie and coffee. “Name’s Tom Bell.”
Chapter Seven
We took our seats after recess on Monday. Things hadn’t changed much in our little frame community school since Mama and Daddy went there. The windows of the WPA project from way back in 1932 were open to catch any breeze, and the wooden floors echoed with the footsteps of those barely making it to class before they were counted tardy.
Green squares with cursive letters were stapled above the blackboard, and around one side of the room. Miss Russell called that type of writing the Palmer Method, and it was one of my favorite lessons. She’d erased our English lessons while we were outside and put up the day’s math problems. The board was filled with numbers and letters that were confusing to me as all get out.
She passed out our math tests and I left mine face-down on the desk. I knew I’d failed it on Friday the minute I looked at all the questions. I gave every problem a good try, despite all those letters that had no business being in there with numbers and minuses and such.
I raised my hand.
Miss Russell used her pen almost as a wand, granting me permission to speak. “Yes, Top?”
“May I use the restroom?”
“Is it an emergency?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“You may.”
I left the classroom, eyes stinging with the knowledge that I’d surely fail the next six weeks and would suffer the consequences. Grandpa, Miss Becky, Uncle Cody, and even Norma Faye would get on me, and I wasn’t sure I could take it.
My nerves vibrated as tight as guitar strings while I walked down the empty hall to the boys’ room. The windows were open and the fencerow full of oaks and hackberry trees out past the swing set was as tempting as a slice of coconut pie. The bathroom smelled like Lysol and was silent except for the drip of a leaking faucet.
Trying not to cry, I turned on the water to wash my face and that’s when the door opened on the only stall and in the mirror I saw Harlan Ketchum step out. His hair looked like it was cut with a brush hog, sticking up and gapped in several places.
His face widened in a grin, showing the space between his front teeth and the missing incisor that had never grown in. “Well, howdy Mouse.”
I ignored him and bent down to throw water on my face in order to hide the tears. It was exactly the wrong thing to do. As soon as I ducked my head, he grabbed me in a headlock.
“How does that feel? Huh! You like it?”
He was half agai
n my size and I couldn’t pull away. He ground down with his bicep and it felt like my ears were on fire. “Stop it!” My voice was high as a girl’s and even in a headlock, the squeal was embarrassing.
Harlan spun, nearly taking me off my feet. “How about I flush your stupid head?”
“Quit!”
My tennis shoes squeaked on the gray penny tiles and I struggled to get free. He let go with his left and punched me in the head. “Squeak, Mouse.”
“Stop it!”
“Squeak!”
We were halfway into the stall when I heard Principal Stevens’ voice in the hall. He was talking to someone just outside the restroom. Harlan turned loose of me and went out the screenless window like a shot.
I stumbled out of the stall just as Mr. Stevens came in. “What’s wrong with you, boy?”
My face and ears burned with shame and the exertion of fighting back. My nose was running and I wiped tears from my eyes. “I don’t feel good.”
He studied me for a minute, then pointed at the sink. “Well, wash your face and get back to class. And be sure to turn that water off when you’re finished. You kids are wasteful.”
My throat tickled and I swallowed down a cough. “Yessir.”
Chapter Eight
Constable Ned Parker was sitting in Judge O.C. Rains’ sweltering office Monday morning, arguing as usual. The two old men had been friends since before World War II and fussed at one another like an old married couple, flaring up and cooling off to laugh together minutes later.
“Goddamn it, O.C., I can’t believe Wes Clay’s back running the streets like nothing ever happened.”
“Me neither.” O.C. ran his fingers through a head of white hair. The barrister bookcases overflowed into every available space. His oak file cabinets were filled to capacity. Files and papers were stacked on the floor in constantly growing towers.
“But you’re the one who let him go.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with it. The Grand Jury no-billed him. Said cuttin’ up Olan Mayfield was self-defense.”
“Well, I don’t like it one damn bit.”
O.C.’s chiseled face remained as somber as it looked when he was on the bench. “Neither do I, but there ain’t nothin’ I can do about it. Go arrest his sorry ass again. He’ll do something sooner or later, and that’ll add up with the next jury.”
“I got better things to do than sit around and wait for Wes Clay to break the law.”
“You won’t have to wait long.” O.C. shot a look out the open window at the blistering sun. “But I’d sit in the shade if I’s you.”
“That’s a fact.”
They paused, faces gleaming in the airless office. The city council refused to provide the funds for refrigerated air conditioning or even water coolers, so everyone in the Lamar County Courthouse suffered in the last heat wave of 1968. Dark patches under the arms of Ned’s blue shirt widened.
O.C. picked up a wire flyswatter and slapped a fly walking on one of the many stacks of paper on his desk. The hot street below hummed with traffic noise. People on the sidewalks sweltered in the thick air that belonged three hundred miles south where the folks who lived in Houston suffered the heat, humidity, and mosquitoes by choice rather than whims of the weather.
He swept the corpse onto the floor to join a dozen others. “Well, it’s too hot to fool with you anymore. Let’s go down to Frenchie’s and get us a cold drink.”
Ned stood, hat in hand. “You only want to go watch her transmission shift every time she walks by.”
“It’s better than sitting here listening to you yak.” O.C. plucked his black coat off the rack and slipped it on over a limp white shirt. “I was already tired of your temperament back in forty-eight.”
“You’re gonna die in that coat out there.”
“I might. You be sure and have it cleaned before they bury me in it, though. I want to leave a good-looking corpse.”
Ned grunted and followed him into the stifling hallway. “It’ll be the only good-looking thing in that casket, that’s for sure.”
O.C. punched the elevator button and watched the half-moon dial creak up from the ground floor. It jerked to a stop, jolted up an inch, and they heard the accordion safety-gate rattle back. The metal doors opened to reveal the oldest man in Lamar County sitting on a tall stool beside the control panel.
“Mister Ned. Judge.”
Ned stepped aboard. “Howdy, Jules. You doing all right today?”
The wrinkled old man well over a hundred years old was born into slavery. He’d worked the fields until he took a job as the Lamar County Courthouse elevator operator where he worked for over fifty years, well past the time when most folks retired. “Tolerable well, sir. First floor?”
“Yep.”
Jules closed the outer doors, then the safety gate. “Y’all done been to breakfas’.” He knew the routine of everyone who worked in the courthouse.
O.C. grinned. “That was an hour ago. Now I need a cool drink.”
“Miss Frenchie’ll be glad to see you, but I doubt it’ll be cooler in there. That place ain’t got no circulation in the front, or the back.”
Though it was the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, white folks still ate in the front of the café while colored people took the rear.
“O.C. don’t speak for me. I plan to eat a bite.” Ned chuckled. “At least it’ll be a change of scenery.”
Jules wiped at the sheen of sweat on his forehead and steadied himself with one hand against the elevator wall. “Marse Ned. Mind we stop on the next flo’ and open the do’ fo’ some air? I ain’t feelin’ too good.”
Ned rested his hand on the old man’s shoulder. He’d never heard Old Jules speak that way. Though his usual speech reflected his culture and the people he lived with, the strange pattern sounded old…very old.
“Sure we can, Jules.”
The elevator jerked at the second floor and the old man reached a shaky hand to open the safety gate. Slightly cooler air flowed in. O.C. saw Jules’ eyes go glassy and fanned him with his hat. “I believe you might need to get out this box for a while and catch some air.”
“It sho’ was hot when I’s a kid in ’em fields down south. I reckon I can handle this little spell of weather.”
“You may be having a spell yourself.”
“Sho’ nuff, Marse Watson.”
Ned and O.C. exchanged concerned looks. Neither knew anyone named Watson. O.C. mouthed “stroke.” While the judge continued to fan Jules, Ned hurried out of the elevator to the nearest phone.
Jules shrank on his stool. “My daddy and mammy was Charley and Liza Bunton and Marse Philip Watson brung dem from Loosiana to Lamar County ’fore freedom. Dey was ten chillen and I’s borned when de Yankees come. My folks stayed with Marse Watson and he daughter Miss Em’ly till dey went to de reward where dey ain’t no mo tears.” Jules’ eyes rolled back in his head.
His voice full of fear for the old man, O.C. cried through the open door. “Ned, help!”
Jules went limp as a dishrag and it was all O.C. could do to not let him fall. The old man’s chin dropped to his chest as the judge lowered him to the floor.
Ned was back seconds later and knelt in the door. “They’re calling an ambulance.”
“He was talking out of his head. Sounded like them real old coloreds talked when I was a kid. Help me get him fixed right.”
“Let’s get ’im to the lobby.” Ned pulled Jules’ foot inside the elevator and punched the ground floor button. It was stifling by the time they reached the first floor. Though the lobby was far from cool, it felt like air conditioning. They took Jules under his skinny arms and pulled him out onto the black and white penny tiles.
“Watch his head, watch his head.” Ned cradled Jules’ neck as they stretched him out on the floor.
The lobby was empty, except f
or Albert Shames sitting on the stool in front of his shoeshine stand. He dropped his paper and rushed forward. “Lordy. What’s the matter with Jules?”
“He fell out in the elevator.” O.C. loosened the old man’s collar.
Jules’ eyes fluttered. He grabbed Ned’s shirt with a hand covered with tissue-thin skin. “Mr. Cody?”
“It’s still me, Jules. Ned.” He held the skinny hand that felt like it was full of bird bones. “O.C.’s here with us, and Albert. You lay easy. Help’s on the way.”
“Marse Cody. Thankyee for the water.”
“You need some water?”
“Dat water taste fine now.”
Ned and O.C. exchanged bewildered glances until Albert explained. “He’s talking about the drinkin’ fount’ns. It always bothered him to see the colored and white signs there, but he never said nothin’. When Sheriff Cody ripped them signs down here-while-back, I saw Jules almost dance in ’at elevator ’fore he closed the do’ that day.”
Ned’s throat closed up as his chin quivered. He squeezed Jules’ hand and patted the old man’s chest, barely feeling the life there. “Hold on old-timer. Help’s a comin’.”
“He here. Lily, I got to go.”
Ned glanced over his shoulder. The old man was talking out of his head. “Not yet, you don’t. Stay with us, Jules.”
“’at Angel’s right dere, I see her. She’s beautiful, but I’m held back, sump’n cain’t let go yet.”
The hair rose on Ned’s neck and a wave of dread washed over him. “Oh, no.” A low hum filled his head and his ears burned as if he were embarrassed.
Jules quivered, fighting something deep inside. His heels hammered against the floor with frantic rhythm.
Mouth dry, Ned felt a once-familiar electric charge build deep in his core and rise to his head. He quit patting Jules’ chest and backed away. “Not again.”
“Help him.” O.C.’s voice was sharp as it sounded in his courtroom.
The tone shocked Ned as much as a physical slap. He met O.C.’s eyes, this time with stomach-dropping fear. Dread weighted his shoulders and he shook his head. “I’m done with that. He’ll go.”
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