Black Night Falling

by Rod Reynolds

  I hunkered low, time my enemy, praying no cops would stumble across me before I could make my move. I tried to focus on what was coming, rehearsing how it would play out, hearing Sam Masters warning me against rash undertakings and thinking that description didn’t nearly come close.

  My concentration faltered. I steeled myself by going over it all in my mind. Run it back, the start: Layfield was there when Alice disappeared. Either he killed her, or he delivered her up to the men that did. Winfield Callaway as good as admitted to me he’d ordered her murder – but what the hell was his connection to Layfield? The only notion I could come up with was that Callaway had given the job to Bailey, and he’d contracted it out to Layfield – somehow known to each other on the cop grapevine. It made sense; Bailey would have needed someone who could snatch Alice from the hospital without being recognised, so an out-of-towner would fit the bill; he never could have reckoned on Ginny Kolkhorst being able to recognise Layfield. But the idea of a network of corrupt cops that reached far beyond Texarkana summoned back that urge to turn tail and run. It felt as though I’d charged into something that was bigger and deeper than even my worst fears.

  That meant Layfield was the key to everything that had happened since. I remembered Cole Barrett’s words, about how they killed Jimmy, ‘to protect the story’ – Glover, Barrett, the whole frame-up. I believed that to be true now. Coughlin orchestrated the whole deal and the more I thought about it, the more a motive became clear: they had to kill Robinson because he was the only man cared about the cover-up. The only man could follow Layfield’s string of murders all the way to Coughlin’s door.

  The only man apart from me.

  The last of the light was fading. If Layfield was smart, he would have reported Barrett’s death by now; got himself out in front of it so he could shape the investigation. He could lay out a version of events where I’d killed Barrett, and probably tried to kill him too. How we’d wound up out there by the lake would be a problem to explain, but it was his word against mine, and that was no contest. If that was the case, figure the first cop that saw me would shoot on sight. Whatever the official orders that were issued, there wasn’t a lawman in the country that wanted to bring in a cop-killer alive.

  That was assuming Layfield had talked. Could be he’d gone to ground and was planning to finish the job himself – that way forestalling any awkward questions about Barrett’s death. Somehow, that possibility was more unsettling – a killer lurking in the dark, waiting on his chance to put a bullet in my head. Layfield’s words on the jetty came back to me: ‘You know it all already.’ A taunt that I didn’t understand then; now, the dread feeling that I’d been blind and people were dead on account of it.

  It might not even be Layfield that came for me. I’d seen the price a life went for in this town, and it wasn’t more than the coins in your pocket; any man I passed on the street could be there to stick a pistol in my stomach. No way was I going to sit around waiting for a bullet to find me. My action was justified. Layfield and Coughlin were two heads to the same serpent. But one of them was easier to get at than the other.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  It was fifteen jittery minutes before Coughlin’s horses came into view, their hooves clacking on the asphalt.

  He slowed as he drew up in front of the building and that’s when I moved. I crossed the sidewalk onto the side terrace of the hotel, then made my way along it to where it came out by the top of the staircase at the main entrance. Roman arches lined the walkway, giving me some cover. When Coughlin appeared at the top of the steps, I dipped my hand into my pocket and wrapped it around Barrett’s gun. I walked up to him with my free hand extended to shake. He took it before he’d even looked at me – just another voter to glad-hand.

  I leaned close, flashed the gun just long enough for him to get a glimpse. ‘Walk with me or I use it. Don’t make a scene.’

  He kept smiling and pumping my hand. There was confusion on his face, and a flicker of disappointment made me realise I’d wanted to see his fear. An ugly thought flashed through my mind: pull the trigger. It jolted me enough I almost let go of the gun.

  He dipped his gaze and then looked at me again. ‘This a joke?’

  I tightened my grip on his hand. ‘I think you know I’m serious. This way.’ I pointed back along the side terrace.

  He started walking slowly, keeping the politician’s smile on his face even as his eyes darted about. ‘Do you really mean to kidnap me, son?’

  ‘I already have.’

  ‘This is my town. You harm me and you’ll be dead within the hour.’

  ‘I’m already on borrowed time.’

  We made it as far as the car with no trouble, my collar damp with sweat. I opened the passenger door and ushered him inside, made him slide across behind the steering wheel, then climbed in next to him and took the gun out of my pocket to hold on him. ‘Take off your hat and your jacket and put your hands on the wheel.’ Any passing cop would still make Coughlin in a second, but stripping him of his signature getup at least made him harder to recognise from a distance.

  He glared at me as he complied, defiant, but I saw his hand shake as he removed his hat.

  I trained the gun on him, keeping it low so it couldn’t be seen from outside. ‘Harlan Layfield just tried to kill me, and you ordered the fire that killed my friend at Duke’s. I want to know why on both counts. You can skip the part where you make like you’re not involved.’

  He turned his eyes to the windshield, flaring his nostrils. ‘I’m expected at dinner. In five minutes, people will be tearing up the place looking for me.’

  ‘You might not live that long.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘Cole Barrett is dead. Layfield killed him.’ He turned his head at that, looking at me sideways with his mouth ajar. ‘Figure that wasn’t part of the plan.’

  He looked away again.

  ‘No sentiment for your bagman?’

  I saw the muscles in his throat tighten. ‘Is that true?’

  ‘We’re sitting in his car.’ I pointed to my shirt where it was smeared red. ‘This is his blood. I couldn’t save him.’

  He glanced at the stained fabric. ‘That doesn’t prove anything.’ He lifted his chin to stretch his neck and I saw him swallow. He acted calm, but I could smell his body odour, the potent kind brought on by fear – sweat flooding his armpits and soaking his shirt. ‘If there’s a lick of truth to this, it sounds to me like your grievance is with Detective Layfield.’

  ‘I’ll get to him. Start talking.’

  ‘Whatever you’ve been told, you’re misinformed. I don’t know—’

  ‘I’ve had my fill with being lied to today. I know you’re protecting Layfield, so you tell me the truth, or I’ll put a goddamn bullet in you.’

  ‘If you meant to kill me you’d have done it already. You’re a reporter, not a killer.’

  The last part almost derailed me – a veiled admission he knew damn well who I was and what was spurring my actions. Stupid of me to ever think I’d been moving unnoticed. ‘Killing you isn’t the only avenue open to me.’ I put the gun to his knee.

  He tried not to squirm in his seat. ‘You don’t have the first idea what you’re doing.’

  ‘That right? Try this: I’ve got the gun Layfield used to kill Barrett.’ I swivelled towards him. ‘What happens if I hand it over to Samuel Masters and his men? When they catch up with Layfield, you think he’ll go along quietly? We both know you’re the prize they really want. What do you think they’ll offer him to start singing?’

  He looked me over, took in the torn and bloodied shirt I was wearing, the red veins threading my eyes, the mud-splattered gun I was holding on him. Figure he was sizing up the chance I was bluffing. ‘You’ve got me all wrong.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘What if we could help one another?’

  I opened my mouth and closed it again, caught off guard.

  ‘Layfield’s been a pain i
n my ass for longer than I care to think about.’ He looked at me again now, full in the face. His eyes were clear, his gaze steady. ‘I can deliver him to you.’

  For a second I was back on that jetty; I felt the tip of Layfield’s gun touch my skull again, and with it, that echo of a memory I couldn’t quite grasp. I blinked, dismissing it. ‘It was on your say-so, goddammit.’

  He was shaking his head before I even finished speaking. ‘You talk as though he’s my concern, but you’re misguided. Cole Barrett was a good man and a fine public servant. If Layfield killed him as you say, we have a common problem. I’m offering you the chance to solve it.’ He opened his hand on the wheel, flexing his fingers. ‘Do we understand each other?’

  His chutzpah left me reeling. The ultimate expression of his ‘Get along by going along’ bullshit; shake his hand and we’re on the same side. I wondered if this was how it started for Barrett, even Layfield – a dirty deal with Coughlin, borne out of anger or greed, that brought on the kind of moral decay that can never be reversed – and left them in his pocket. Even with that thought in mind, the part of me that wanted retribution on Layfield screamed to tell him yes.

  ‘You gone quiet on me.’ He cocked his head. ‘Maybe not the tough guy you thought you were. You want to run on home, instead?’

  He read my self-doubt as plainly as if I’d spoken it. I understood his power then: a gift for pinpointing a man’s weakness and exploiting it for himself. ‘Don’t sit there making out like this has nothing to do with you. You’re neck deep in this.’

  ‘Look, son, you’re the man with the gun, so I’m not about to sit here and try to hoodwink you. But get your facts straight before you start making accusations. Harlan Layfield’s troubles are of his own making, and he’s about run out the string. Now you can do something about it, if you’re so inclined.’

  ‘You son of a bitch, you could have done something any time you wanted. You protected him, goddamn you.’

  ‘I confess I gave him some rope. No more than that. And if Cole Barrett is dead because of that decision, then it’ll sit heavy on my conscience.’

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. A jolt of panic hit me, the fear that I’d got it all wrong. ‘I know what you did. You ordered the fire and you covered it up. I’ve got multiple sources—’

  ‘You have evidence?’ He looked at me dead on. ‘Or hearsay?’

  I glared at him, the jolt getting worse.

  He let out a protracted breath. ‘Look, I know Masters and his kind been in your ear telling you I’m responsible for everything bad happens in Hot Springs—’

  ‘It was Barrett gave you up. Not Masters. He told me you ordered the fire. And I know you called the fire chief the night it happened. You can’t wash your hands of this.’

  Instead, he held them up. ‘I’ll never repeat it outside this automobile, but if it’ll satisfy you, I’ll admit to that telephone call. You’re a man of the world, surely you can understand an act of political expediency.’

  ‘Call it what you want. You had a murder written up as an accident.’

  ‘There’s an election right around the corner—’

  ‘You trot that line out like it justifies anything.’

  ‘That fire was Layfield’s doing alone.’ He stabbed his finger into his palm as he said each word. ‘Whatever went on between Layfield and your friend, I wasn’t a party to it. Yes, when I found out what happened, I put politics first and called in a favour to get the can kicked down the road. But walk a minute in my shoes: if I’d have went calling for an investigation into a senior detective on my police force, my enemies would’ve beat me down with it. Masters and his GI boys are relentless; you can’t understand what they’ll do to this town if they win. Every second man will be out of a job and the Negroes will be running wild. The Lord didn’t create me perfect, but whatever decisions I made were for the civic good.’

  ‘Letting a killer walk in the name of votes?’

  ‘Not walk. I was fixing to deal with him after the election; all I did was forge myself a little breathing room.’ He went to rub his forehead, then turned to me, uncertain, as if asking for permission to move the hands he’d already taken off the wheel – a subservient gesture that rang hollow.

  I pressed the gun harder against his knee. ‘Barrett told me it was on your orders.’

  He winced, holding up his hand to back me off. ‘Cole blamed me for the upshot of the Glover case. He felt like I sold him down the river when I bailed him out with Masters. Consider that when you’re chewing on what he said.’

  I locked eyes with him. It was all so plausible: Coughlin the public servant, a victim of forces beyond his control. And it made a mockery of all the people that were dead because of him. He’d made a slip without realising it, and now I had him caught in his own lies. ‘I don’t trust you.’

  ‘I take exception to you looking at me like I’m the devil in a dress shirt, when you’re the one holding an elected official at gunpoint. Reflect on that, young man. You’ve put yourself in a bind and I’m offering you a way out of it.’

  It was a trap, I had no doubt of that. But I couldn’t see a better way to get to Layfield than to ride it out. I looked past him, gazing into the darkness of the small park on the other side of the street, as though I was considering my options. ‘You expect me to believe you’d just serve him up?’

  ‘He has to be dealt with.’

  ‘You’d put a bullet in me the second it was done.’

  ‘I’m not the man you think me to be. I considered Cole Barrett a friend, even if it wasn’t reciprocated at the end. Far as I’m concerned, taking Layfield off the board is doing the Lord’s work.’

  ‘What about your precious election?’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘Are you offering to wait that long?’

  I didn’t answer.

  ‘I thought not,’ he said. ‘Hell, I’m old enough to know expediency is a shifting beast by its nature.’

  I kept silent a moment longer, then said, ‘You know where he is?’

  ‘No, but I can find him.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I’m the goddamn mayor of this town.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Couple hours should be sufficient.’

  I rubbed my neck – part for show, part because I felt as though I was burrowing into a scorpion’s nest. ‘Drive then. You’ve got calls to make.’

  ‘Drive where? You let me go, I’ll find him and tell you where he’s at.’

  ‘No. You produce Layfield, and I’ll let you trade places with him. Those are my terms.’

  ‘Are you out of your mind?’ He kept his eyes on me, measuring me, then realised I was serious. He made to protest, but relented and started the engine. He acquiesced too fast; it felt like a show.

  He pulled slowly away from the kerb, turning north onto Central and taking us away from Bathhouse Row. It was dark now, enough that I was confident we wouldn’t be easily noticed in the car.

  ‘Where are you heading?’ I said.

  ‘My house. I keep an office there, we won’t be disturbed.’

  ‘No one’s home?’

  ‘My wife will be at the country club till late.’

  I stared hard at the side of his face. ‘If this is a trap, you won’t make it out of this car.’

  He glanced at me. ‘At some point, we gonna have to establish a level of trust here.’

  I looked away.

  We passed the Majestic Hotel, its name spelled out in giant letters across the roof, and after that there were no more grand buildings, only houses dotted up the embankment on the side of the road.

  ‘What happened to Cole?’ he said.

  ‘He took a bullet that was meant for me.’

  He shook his head in disbelief, taking it in. ‘So he saved your life.’

  I kept my eyes forward. ‘Just drive.’

  We rounded a shallow bend. ‘Was it quick? His passing?’

  I nodded so he could see, and said nothing more. But
the question played on my mind. It seemed like seconds to me, but what about to Barrett? Feeling his life slip away as fast as blood spills. Did desperation and regret make the seconds stretch? Maybe the way it goes for all of us. It was unsettling to think about, given the razor’s edge I was walking.

  We carried on north in silence a few minutes, the air in the car thick with tension. We passed unlit residential streets and a liquor store with a green neon sign that was on the fritz. Soon we left the town behind and the darkness of the countryside enveloped us, only the occasional light from a farmhouse visible. Maybe a mile out, we turned off onto an isolated road that led up a low hill. As we climbed, he said, ‘Does it trouble you that Cole took that bullet in your place?’

  There was no change in his tone when he asked it, but I would have sworn he was prodding at me.

  We drew up to a house – a large three-storey redbrick, recently built by the look of its pristine roof and paintwork. A turning circle took us right up to the door. He stopped the car outside it and waited. ‘Well?’

  I looked at the house. Two bright porch lights lit it from the outside, but all the windows were dark. I stepped out and made him do the same, keeping the gun on him all along. ‘Let’s go.’

  He went to the front door and opened it. I followed him through the doorway into a foyer dimly illuminated by overspill from the porch lights.

  ‘This way.’

  He led me down a tiled hallway lined with artworks I couldn’t make out in the dark. At the end of it was a heavy wooden door that he unlocked and pushed open. On the other side was a long and narrow office packed with papers, files and legal texts. A mahogany desk almost blocked off one end of the room. He went around behind it, took a cigarette from a silver case on the desktop, lit it and took a drag. Then he pointed at me with the end of his smoke. ‘We have an accord, you can put the gun down now.’

  I nodded to the telephone. ‘Make your calls. No games.’