“Clair had it tough, too,” he said.
“Oh, him.”
“Detective Maddigan spoke to Clair, to my friend Johnny Ellis, too.”
“Johnny’s your friend?”
“Yes, he’s my friend.”
“Did he know Suzy?”
“He’s met her. Did Maddigan talk to you?”
“Who didn’t?”
“Was Wajek among them?”
“Who wasn’t?”
He realized she was even drunker than he had thought; her plump brown hands kept undulating on the serape, her smiles flashed on and off her lips.
“Clair, your friend?” she asked.
“I can call him my friend now.”
“Why now?”
“He didn’t trust me before.”
“What are you now?”
“A friend.”
“Whose friend?”
“Of the Negroes. I was a white cop before.”
“What are you now?”
“A friend.”
“Of Randolph’s folks, his mother?”
“Of hers too.”
“You can’t kid me. You came here to ask about Suzy. Go on and ask.”
“You were the last person to see her. Maybe you can remember more about the man who — ”
“Wrong number. A white folks’ world, that’s what it is. Always was.” Her eyes were on him.
“What was that man wearing?” He would ask her questions of what she had seen and heard; it would be hard for her to continue lying consecutively and logically — if she was lying.
“Any kind clothes.”
“But what kind?”
“No, you don’t!”
“I don’t understand.”
“You want to trip me up.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Have a drink.”
“No, thanks.”
She tossed herself upright. “You won’t drink with people who aren’t white?”
“It isn’t that, Marian.”
“What is it?”
He stared, smiling falsely, for he didn’t feel like smiling. “I’ll have a drink if it’ll please you.” He had been blind not to have realized it; she hated whites as some whites hated Negroes. She got to her feet, walked to the kitchen. Over her shoulder she said.
“I’ll be right back.”
He heard her fixing a drink for him in the kitchen. What did he know about Marian Burrow? She had been on the make for him and yet she hated him. Earlier today, Clair had told him something of Marian’s background. She came of a good family; she had attended N.Y.U. for one year; she had tried to go on the stage; she belonged to Harlem’s cabaret and theatre society; the well-known Negro actor, Redding, famous for his occasional Broadway parts, was a friend of both Marian and Clair. Redding had got Marian her job at the H.E.L. But what was significant in this mass of details? He recalled that both Marian and her sister had broken with their family; both girls had hung around the fringes of hotcha Harlem. This explained Marian’s Hollywood swagger, her polo coat. It didn’t explain why she had tried to make him when she hated him as a white.
She returned, his drink in her hand. He took the highball and emptied a fourth of it. In her other hand, she held a half empty quart of rye. “Where were we?” she laughed, sitting down on the serape.
“The man who came to the office for Suzy.”
“Oh yes.”
“What do you think about that man?”
“Me?”
“You’ve got a head on your shoulders.”
“Thanks.”
“Who could have done it?”
Her nostrils flared. “That’s what you are, a cop!”
“I’m here because I’m crazy at what’s happened.”
She shrugged and her shrug knifed into him. He knew now that she was absolutely indifferent to anything that might happen to Suzy.
He said, “With the cops hounding you, you must be tired.”
“That low police trash.” She poured rye straight into her empty glass. She giggled. “Know why I drink?”
“Why do you drink?”
“To forget.”
“To forget what?”
“Everything.”
“What’s everything?”
Her eyes narrowed. “You got your nerve all right.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You kill that Randolph, kill him for a nigger and you got nerve to come to that Clair.”
“I tried to save Randolph.”
“Haw haw,” she said raucously. “Haw haw.”
“I didn’t want to kill him.”
“Haw haw. Don’t give me that corn. Play it for Clair and the other goodies. You’re a cop. A cop’ll do anything. You know my opinion?”
“What’s your opinion?”
She laughed. “I don’t believe you’re crazy about that Suzy. You’re a cop!”
He began to comprehend how utterly deep her hate was, how far apart he, any white, was from her. It was as if the rug had dropped into an endless hole and he was on one side, and she on the other. He gazed at her. Her hate kindled fire in him. She was the last person to have seen Suzy, he remembered vindictively. The damn bitch! The fire smoked and flamed in him, primitive and consuming. This damn bitch had tipped off the kidnappers! Even Johnny’d said it was a hundred percent Negro job! They were after him, the bastard muggers! He glared at Marian across the rug, the impulse in him to seize her by the throat and shake the truth out of her. “Marian — ”
“What do you want?”
“God, what do I want.” He rubbed his eyes. “Marian, all I want is Suzy back.”
“Go find her. I haven’t got her.”
“I know you haven’t.” He sobered a little. “Marian, Suzy wasn’t a cop. Suzy had no prejudices. You worked with her. You could see she was a decent person.”
“Washed pure in the blood of the lamb. Who wants to hear about her?”
“You’ve got to.”
“That girl, she come to Clair because she heard of me. She jealous of me.”
He looked at her in silence. His eyes slowly lost their shocked hardness and became sober and still in their sockets. She was diseased, he thought. She was sick, rotted from the inside. Somewhere, some time, he guessed the whites had struck the first hate and the hate had cancered. He sensed that it wasn’t only the violent externals of fascism that were dangerous, the beatings, the stink bombs, the kidnappings. There were other pus-like phenomena, the day-by-day drip-drip of small incidents and small words bloating the human being finally into a grotesque horror, the racist, the fascist with no allegiance to humanity. He said, “You’re wrong, Marian. So wrong — ”
“Haw haw,” she mocked him. “Wouldn’t you like to have me? Sure, you would. That’s why you’re afraid of me. There isn’t a white man alive who wouldn’t lay us and then kill us.”
She leaped from the couch as if the liquor heaviness was gone out of her plump limbs. In a second, she half-ran half-staggered across the rug. He expected her to stop, to say something. She reached him. Her arms tangled around his neck and she pulled his head forward against her body and her voice screeched. “Come on, white man! Don’t be a holy Moses!”
He pushed her away and stood up but still she clung to him, her hands strong with the rye, her whiskey breath and the woman breath of her body in his nostrils. He struggled, seized her wrists and forced his way clear. Hands on hips, she laughed uncontrollably. Her pink tongue showed between her teeth and her round cheeks had moistened with a fine almost invisible sweat. “The joke,” she gasped, laughing. “The joke — On me, the joke. You’re no stool pigeon — ”
“Who said I was?”
“No stool pigeon for the cops! The joke’s — ”
He understood now. She had thought he was a stool pigeon from the day he had come to Clair’s; and the way to confirm it was to make a play for him; a stool pigeon would never refuse her. But the play’d been real, real. And he didn’t understand after
all. His brow knitted and he stared at her. What else was there? And the answer shouted at him from the photographs of the Hollywood stars on the walls. Everyone in Harlem had known of him, the white cop, the killer cop. He was a celebrity and she wanted to make him, to be inside the sensation, the spotlight of sensation. Oh, God, he thought; she’s sick.
On the subway home, Sam thought of Suzy. All that day he had disciplined himself not to remember. With Hal Clair, with Rosenberg, with Vine and the others, with Marian he had been like a man feverishly engaged in building bridges that might lead to Suzy. But now he was alone in the subway.
All about him were the readers of the newspapers. To them, Suzy was another headline. He, himself, had read many such headlines in his lifetime; always there was the name of the woman or the girl or the girl child; always the facts of the rape, the mutilation, the murder. But Suzy was his girl…. His fingers clutched the subway support. The subway’s speed was swifter than the speed of bombers in the sky. He was on the speed and the speed was roaring him to her.
The revolving fans blew a blast of warm air into his face. He told himself that he musn’t give up so easy. Weren’t the police working to find Suzy? The police had worked to find other Suzys….
After awhile, he found himself looking at a small woman near him. The woman had on a black dress, adorned by a gaudy pin shaped like a spider. He focused on the woman and her pin. The woman was the outer world. He wanted to stay in the outer world. The outer world was a madhouse world but it was saner than the wax museums that had suddenly opened up in his brain. God, he could have done more today. He hadn’t done enough. It would never be enough. They were too efficient, too strong, too secret to ever be exposed. Like an army they suffered their casualties, leaders arrested, interned; some of their companies wiped out, but the army remained. Sam’s shoulders slumped and his tired face was doughy in the dim subway light. What next? What tomorrow? Who would be in tomorrow’s madhouse? Marian? Hal Clair, who only had faith while reading the writings of good men? Johnny, the unionist who had failed to convince his wife? Cashman, who was more like a fist and a slogan become a man than a man? Vine who treasured his words? Detective Wajek, the police machine? Matty Rosenberg, whose meals were what books were to Clair? Who would be in tomorrow’s madhouse? The white man with the scarred face? And don’t forget Sam Miller, again fooling himself into functioning like a Wajek. God Almighty, they were all mad. God Almighty, why hadn’t they left Suzy alone? He pivoted in the subway as if they had trailed him here in the shaking car on the shaking train.
He got off at his station, walked home as usual, rode up in the elevator as usual, unlocked the door as usual. “Here he is,” he heard his mother saying to somebody. As he entered, his mother charged on him from the kitchen.
“Sam, Sam, where are you the whole time? Again with her mother? How is she, the poor woman? They’re here, Sam. In the living room. It’s terrible. And you don’t even call me up, a call’s a nickel.”
He nodded at his mother. She was dressed as if for Friday night, for the Sabbath. Her dress was new, her grey hair tidy, but her eyes weren’t Sabbath eyes. They were bloodshot in the corners, bright and hysterical. “Who’s here, mom?”
“The detectives. In the living room.”
“Why didn’t you say so?” He rushed from her, hope in him that there was news. He saw his family at the radio, his father leaner and greyer in his grey suit, his sister Rose, his kid brother. On the couch, in a camp of their own, the detectives sat, a white detective in a double-breasted, pencil-stripe blue suit and a Negro detective built like a dock walloper. They smiled at him as he entered. The white detective’s long face cracked into large yellowish teeth. “I’m Detective Maddigan, Miller. This is Detective Blaine.” Blaine bobbed his closely cropped head.
There was no news then, Sam thought. There was only Maddigan. His family moved closer to the couch now that Sam was present; they seemed like different people because of the two detectives; home wasn’t home but a place invaded. “Miller,” Maddigan said. “I hope you’ve had your dinner.” His politeness was as formal as the carnation in his buttonhole. His eyes were blue in his closely shaven face. His smells were talcum powder, witch hazel and tobacco.
“I’ve had my dinner.”
“Could we have a little private chat?”
“Of course.” Sam glanced at his family. His mother had joined the others. He felt as if they were on some shore, watching him climb some gangway. His mother was nodding at him to be careful. He knew that nod. He remembered it from childhood. He led the two detectives into his bedroom, shut the door. He cleared the chair of some novels and newspapers and Maddigan waved Blaine into it. Maddigan, himself, sat down at the foot of the bed, twisting around to face Sam. Sam dropped down on the bed below the pillows. Maddigan pulled up his knife-edged trousers and inch or two. His ankles were shod in black hose, arrowed in red.
“Miller,” Maddigan began. “We didn’t wait for you over two hours to slap around. There’s no time for slapping around. So stick your chin out. You’re going to take it.” He smiled. “After Rosenberg left you this afternoon, he told his desk sergeant about that request of yours. That same request was passed on to me. I’m in full charge of the ring-around-the-rosie up in Harlem.”
“Well,” Sam said.
“For shit’s sake, Miller, we’re all in the Department together. Blaine and you and me.”
Blaine grinned.
“That’s right,” said Sam. He felt cornered in his own home. His lips dried. He looked at Blaine and then at Maddigan.
“Detective Wajek gave you a break,” Maddigan was reminding him. “He let you take Mrs. Buckles out to Queens. And did you see any sheet in this town connecting Buckles up to you? Did you?”
“No.”
“That’s because the Department went to bat for you. Now, Miller, I’m not going to ask what you’ve been up to today. That’s in the can. It’s flushed out and gone. It wouldn’t surprise us anyway. We’re hep to you, Miller. You’re young and you got a goose up your ass. You’ve been taken in by Reds like Hal Clair.”
“I haven’t been taken in by anybody.”
“I’ll prove it you have. That’s why I’ve got Detective Blaine here. We know you mean well up in Harlem. You just don’t know how. I want you to give Blaine your theory of who’s behind the ring-around-the-rosie.”
“My theory?” Sam stalled for time.
“Like you told Rosenberg and Detective Wajek. By the way, Rosenberg’s going to investigate the property damage in that synagogue.”
Sam rubbed his chin. Rosenberg had turned in a blow-by-blow account. “I’m glad to hear that,” he said, still stalling.
“We’re all in the Department together,” Maddigan expounded. “We’ve all got our religion. I’m a Catholic. You and Rosenberg are Jews. Blaine’s a colored Protestant. But when it comes to protecting our religion from the Reds we’re all together.”
“You think Reds did it?” Sam asked.
The talcum-powdered face crinkled at the eye corners. “What I mean is that we’ve all got something in common in the Department whatever our religion or color. Isn’t that right, Blaine?”
“Yes, sir,” Blaine affirmed.
“Are we for the Department first and last or are we for something else?” Maddigan continued. “That something else can be white troublemakers or black ones or red ones. Take Rosenberg. He’s a good cop and a good Jew. But how about you?”
“I’m trying to be a good American.”
“So you say, landsmann.” And Maddigan smiled.
“So I say.”
They looked at each other while Blaine glanced at Sam’s books. “Let’s eliminate the debate,” Maddigan said. “Tell Blaine who’s operating in Harlem.”
Sam turned to the Negro detective. “When I shot Randolph, a gang — ”
Maddigan interrupted, sneering. “What do you mean by gang, landsmann?”
“My name’s Miller.”
“Okay, Mi
ller. I’m getting tired of your doubletalk. By gang you mean fascists. Say so.”
“That’s true. I mean fascists.”
“Go on. To Blaine. Not to me, Mr. Miller.”
“After Randolph was shot,” Sam said, his pulse pounding, “feeling was hot. Harlem was sore at whites. So the fascists stepped in. They printed their program in their two leaflets and now they’ve started in on the Jews. I’m a Jew and also because Harlem’s sore at Jewish landlords and storekeepers. Harlem’s mixed up about Jews with the anti-Semitism there.”
“What about the Italians?” Maddigan prompted. “Don’t forget the Ethiopian War in your theory, Miller. What about Suzy Buckles? She isn’t Jewish or Italian. Are your fascists behind that too? Hold on, Miller. I’ve heard enough about you to make me vomit. The guy who went up to Clair’s office, was he a white man, a fascist, or a Negro?”
“A Negro, according to Marian Burrow.”
“Can fascists be colored?” Maddigan persisted.
“Yes.”
“Can Jews be fascists?”
“Yes.”
“What do you mean by fascists, Miller? That theory of yours has to have a definition.”
“Any man who thinks his nation or blood or color is better than anybody else’s is a fascist.”
“You make me vomit,” Maddigan cried. “Now, you put your chin out, rookie. Go on Blaine. Tell the rookie.”
“I’m not a rookie.”
“Blaine, go on.”
Blaine said, “Miller, you’re wrong. Like Detective Maddigan said, there are good and bad in all races. Harlem’s got its share of no-good colored people and some of the worst got the best reputations. I went to that mass meeting Sunday. Six thousand people heard that no-good talk. They went home and told it to their families. Multiply that six thousand by ten and you’d be safe in estimating sixty thousand people were discussing that meeting. That meeting was an incitement to riot as the Mayor said. And that’s what we’ve been getting. Riot in Harlem. That meeting lit the fuse.”
“Go on,” Maddigan urged as Sam made no comment.
“Harlem’s got its pool-room kids,” Blaine continued. “It’s got its muggers and low-class Negroes. That mass meeting mobilized all these elements. That mass meeting made you and all Jews the fall guy.”
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