Smoke-Filled Rooms: A Smokey Dalton Novel

by Kris Nelscott

  I stood. “I’m looking for Elijah Kirkland. Anyone know where he is?”

  The chant got louder: Square, square, square. The bearded man who gave me the marker scurried toward me and plucked it out of my hand.

  “You shouldn’t go pretending you’re someone you’re not.”

  “I wasn’t pretending anything,” I said. “I was searching for Elijah—”

  “There’s no Elijah here,” a girl said. She had long blond hair and clear eyes. When I looked at her, she raised her chin slightly. Her words were forceful and also unnecessary. For the first time since I’d come to Old Town, I got the sense that my original hunch was right.

  “If you see him, tell him to call home.”

  “We don’t believe in home,” the girl said.

  “You believe in love, don’t you?” I asked.

  “Love and peace.” The girl crossed her arms.

  “Elijah’s mother loves him. She’s worried about him.”

  “It’s none of her business if he’s doing his own thing,” the girl said.

  I was getting tired of the rhetoric and the stench in the large room. My eyes felt swollen and dry.

  “Well,” I said, “he’s underage, and if he gets caught in here, you all get into trouble.”

  “Age is relative, man,” said the pencil artist.

  “Not under the law,” I said.

  “The law has nothing to do with us.” The bearded man spoke. “All it does is send us off to die.”

  “You should understand that, man,” the pencil artist said. “The law hasn’t done your people any favors either.”

  “My people,” I said, enunciating each word clearly, “are missing a fourteen-year-old boy and we’re afraid something bad has happened to him. A little cooperation would be nice.”

  The artist tucked his pencil behind his ear. “How do we know you’re not a pig?”

  “I’m not a cop. I’m just looking for a boy who may have gotten himself into some trouble.”

  The girl was still watching me, her gaze steely.

  “Anyone?” I asked.

  They were silent. The radio had moved onto playing “Eve of Destruction.” It was the only sound in the large room.

  Somehow, in the space of a few minutes, I had gone from a potential volunteer to the enemy. I understood their hostility: this generation’s dislike of anyone over thirty had been well publicized. What astounded me was that they had initially accepted me. It was either due to the color of my skin and the fake openness of their politics or it was due to the smoky haze in the room, and the fact that no one realized how old I was until I started asking questions.

  I reached into my pocket and removed a dime. I balanced it on my right thumbnail. “All right. You don’t have to answer me. But if any of you know Elijah Kirkland, have him call home. He doesn’t have to say where he is or what he’s doing. Just that he’s all right. I’ll even pay for the call.”

  I flicked the dime into the air. It flipped several times, a tiny missile barely visible in the smoke, and then it clattered against the wooden floor. No one had moved. I turned my back on them, and left.

  The sunlight seemed too bright after the darkness in that room. I breathed deeply several times to clear my lungs and possibly my head. I knew my eyes were red, and my clothing stank of pot and cloves.

  Before I went back to the “L,” I wandered the streets and alleys, looking at people as I passed. Maybe I would pass Elijah Kirkland on the street. If I were lucky—which, of course, I wasn’t.

  I saw a lot of stoned kids, though, sitting on porch steps, passed out in alleys. The other young people didn’t seem to notice. They were all busy with their own thing, as that girl had so quaintly put it, selling junk on the sidewalk or making signs or handing out flyers.

  The cops watched it all, not making a move, a solid blue presence that seemed to have grown since I went inside. They looked out of place in this environment, like soldiers in a foreign land.

  I remembered that feeling. I’d been on both sides of it, as a soldier in Korea and a black child raised in the South.

  * * *

  I showered before I went to see Grace Kirkland. I put the water on lukewarm and I spent extra time scrubbing, getting the smell off of me. I was a little hungry and a little woozy—signs I had probably gotten high in there—but I knew the feeling would wear off shortly. Besides, the lukewarm shower cooled me off. For the first time that day, I didn’t feel as if I were melting in the heat.

  But I had a new problem. I was going to look through the material Grace had gathered for me, but I still trusted my original hunch. The hostility of the girl in the room, and the way she had looked confirmed that hunch.

  I wanted to investigate further. But no one in that group would talk to me and we all knew it. That was why, in Memphis, I never worked outside of my own community. I needed the contacts, the networking, and the ability to walk in and out of various venues. I lacked all of that here. I was starting over, and I didn’t like it.

  I got dressed, grabbed the last of the salad that Althea had prepared, and then left the apartment.

  Heat shimmered on the concrete. It was a little after six, but it still felt like afternoon. Barefoot children stayed on the small patch of grass, playing a game in which they turned each other into statues. Adults sat outside, fanning themselves and conversing or watching the children. From somewhere nearby, I smelled the odor of lit charcoal and grilled hamburgers. A simple summer evening. I hadn’t had one of those all year.

  As I walked toward Grace’s, I scanned the block, looking for my shadow. Any good tracker would have come back to the apartment after losing me on the “L.” I had a hunch he was watching, but I didn’t see him. He was that good.

  The door to Grace’s building stood open, just like it had that morning. A child’s shrieking laughter echoed from the back of the building. I stepped inside, overwhelmed by the odor of frying onions. The hallway was hotter than it had been that morning—the heat of the day had been trapped inside—and now there were toys scattered on the scarred floor like booby traps for unwary adults.

  I picked my way around them and knocked on Grace’s door. There was a moment of silence, then a clatter as if something had fallen over, and footsteps running toward the door. I debated entering—thinking there might be a problem—and then the door was flung open.

  Grace stood there. She crossed her hands above her left breast and sighed heavily when she recognized me. “Oh, Bill. I’m so glad to see you.”

  “Did something happen?”

  “Come inside.” She grabbed my arm and pulled me into the apartment. It was hot too, but a breeze came from the patio doors. A single lawn chair stood in the middle of the small garden, a glass filled with soda and melting ice on the ground by its side.

  The end table near the couch had fallen over. Grace righted it as she led me into the living room.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “I had the strangest phone call.” She went to the garden and picked up her glass. Then she carried it to the sink and poured out its contents. The movements were by rote, as if she needed something to do, as if she were too restless to sit still.

  Maybe my visit to Old Town had borne fruit after all. “When?”

  “Just a little while ago. It was Daniel.”

  It took me a moment to place the name. Her eldest son. Curious. “Oh?”

  She nodded, then opened the refrigerator. “Can I get you anything?”

  I hadn’t realized how thirsty I was. It had been a long, strange day. “I’d love a glass of ice water.”

  She took down another glass, put ice in it, and filled it from the tap. Then she opened a can of Hires Root Beer and poured some into her glass. She brought the water glass to me.

  “What was strange about the call?” I asked.

  “He said he’d heard that Elijah was missing. He wanted me to tell him how that could happen.”

  “I thought Daniel was at Yale.”

/>   “He is,” she said. “That’s what so strange.”

  I suppressed a sigh. Obviously Daniel wasn’t at Yale. He had come home to Chicago without telling his mother. Probably for the protests. Considering how opposed she was to this type of political action, I could understand his need for independence.

  “What did he say, exactly?”

  “He’d heard from some friends in Chicago that Elijah was missing. He wanted to know if it was true.”

  “When did he hear?”

  “Just before he called.”

  “Had you told anyone besides me?”

  “All our friends,” she said. “But not anyone who would call Daniel.”

  “Do me a favor,” I said. “Call him back.”

  “I can’t afford…”

  “Call him back, Grace.”

  She licked her lips and went to the green phone hanging on the wall near the refrigerator. Before she started to dial, she consulted a piece of paper attached to the refrigerator door by a magnet.

  I peered over her shoulder. The slip of paper listed three numbers for Daniel: One for his dorm, one for his hall monitor, and one for his job.

  Grace dialed and then clung to the receiver with both hands. I could hear a faint ringing, and then a click.

  “Hi,” she said. “I’m calling for Daniel Kirkland.”

  I sipped the water. It had the metallic taste common to Chicago tap water. After three months, I still wasn’t used to it.

  “No.” She glanced at me. “That’s not possible.”

  I held my breath.

  “When?”

  I knew what the person on the other end was telling her. Daniel was in Chicago, and he hadn’t called her.

  “Is there someone else I can talk to?” Her small face grew even narrower. “This is his mother.”

  There was a longer pause. She turned her back to me, and I could see her shoulders shake.

  “Hi,” she said again in a different, more businesslike tone. “This is Mrs. Grace Kirkland. I’m calling for my son Daniel….I thought the term had one more week….No, that’s not possible. He would have told me. Besides, he can’t afford it….A protest bus?”

  She said this last weakly as if she didn’t want to hear it.

  “When do you expect him back?” She leaned her head against the wall, her entire body hunched away from me. “No, no. That’s all right. I’ll call then. Thank you.”

  Then she hung up.

  She didn’t move for more than a minute, as if the news had wounded her somehow, given her one more blow than she could deal with. I waited, not quite sure how to comfort her, or if comforting her was the right thing to do.

  Then she squared her shoulders and stood, facing me. “They say he’s in Chicago.”

  I nodded.

  “But you knew that already.”

  “I knew it when you said he called. I left a message that Elijah should call me. Apparently Daniel got the message.”

  “Why would he come home and not tell me?”

  I set my glass down. “I don’t think he’s here for a social visit.”

  “He sounded so worried about Elijah. What’s going on, Bill?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “If Daniel calls back, tell him I want to talk with him. Tell him I’m the one looking for his brother, and I may need his help.”

  She nodded.

  “In the meantime, did you get those names and phone numbers I asked for?”

  “Yeah.” She sounded distracted. Her entire world had changed—or maybe just her perception of it. Which meant that I couldn’t trust most of what she had told me that morning. I would have to find Elijah on my own.

  She went back into the living room and grabbed a sheet of notepaper. Names, phone numbers, and addresses were scrawled all over it. Beside them were the letters D, E, or G. She pointed to them. “I marked whose friend this was. I thought it would be easier.”

  It was, although, I noted, there were very few Es on the list. I didn’t like that either.

  She said, “Is Daniel in trouble?”

  I looked up from the list. “They said he took a protest bus?”

  She nodded.

  The white Chicago papers had said groups of students were coming from all over the country for the convention. The Defender had said a lot of the buses were canceled because people were expecting trouble at the convention. But if Daniel was already here, he had come as a leader, not as a follower. The main group of protestors wasn’t expected until tomorrow.

  “He’s exercising his rights as an adult, Mrs. Kirkland,” I said, “even though you and I may not think of him that way.”

  She put a hand over her mouth. “I wanted him out of here.”

  I nodded. “He’ll go back.”

  “Why is he worried about Elijah?”

  Why indeed? “You’re worried about him.”

  “But this was different. He sounded scared.”

  And that was my biggest clue. “I’ll see what I can find,” I said, and let myself out.

  * * *

  In a normal investigation, I would have returned to Old Town and looked for Daniel Kirkland. He hadn’t been in that room; I would have recognized him from the photographs in the apartment. I hadn’t seen him in the park or in the streets either. Someone had told him about my visit, someone who hadn’t been willing to tell me about him.

  I doubted those kids would talk to me. I was too old and, in their words, too straight. They had already confused me with the police once. I was sure they would do it again.

  So I had to come up with something else, and because of my limited resources, I had to take a risk.

  I retraced my steps from the day before when Franklin and I were trying to flush out the shadow. Halfway up my block, I saw the same group of teenagers, huddled together.

  Malcolm Reyner leaned against the wall, his arms crossed and his head down, pretending that he was asleep. He had apparently been standing like that when I passed him the day before. Then he had peeled off that wall and followed me.

  This time I went to him.

  The other boys grew silent. They glared at me. I was getting very tired of being stared at, and the heat wasn’t helping my mood.

  I grabbed Malcolm’s arm, nearly pulling him off balance. ‘You’re coming with me.”

  “I didn’t do nothing!” he said.

  “I know. You’re still coming with me.”

  His friends were milling now. They had seen the fight yesterday and had probably heard about it in even greater detail from Malcolm. They didn’t want to take me on. Malcolm wasn’t a big enough member of their little gang to make it worthwhile.

  I led him to an abandoned building nearby. No one sat on the stood. No one stood across the street, either. His friends remained on the corner, watching, but they weren’t going to do anything.

  “Sit down,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “Just sit.”

  “Fuck this, man.”

  I cuffed him lightly on the side of the head. “Be polite. And remember that I’m older and stronger than you.”

  “Older maybe,” he said, but he sat down.

  The stoop had a brick-and-stone railing. I leaned against it. “You know a kid named Elijah Kirkland?”

  “No.” Sullen. He didn’t even meet my gaze.

  “Sure you do. He lived down the block. You probably knew his brother better. Daniel Kirkland.”

  Malcolm shrugged. He glanced around me. His friends still hadn’t taken a step toward him. He was on his own and he knew it.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “I want you to answer my questions.”

  He lifted his head. His left cheek was badly scraped, and he had a black eye. “You don’t got me shoved against no building today.”

  “Not yet.”

  “And your fat friend isn’t here to defend you.”

  “I don’t need him to defend me,” I said. “I need you.”

  Malcolm snorted. “
Sure you do.”

  “How committed are you to those Rangers over there?”

  “They’re not Rangers,” he said.

  “Well, they’re either Blackstone Rangers, baby Black Panthers or the Devil’s Disciples.”

  “You don’t know nothing.”

  “Well, I know if they’re none of the above, they’re part of that little wannabe organization, the Black Machine.”

  His lips thinned.

  “You think they care about you?” I asked. “They watched while you got beat up yesterday. They’re watching now, and they know what kind of threat I am. You’re just an errand boy for them, and that means you’re dispensable.”

  He looked down at his hands. Apparently that thought had crossed his mind in the last twenty-four hours. He was as smart as I thought he was.

  “So,” I said, “you want to help me out?”

  “I don’t even know who you are, man.” He kept his head down. The tone was sullen again, like an unprepared student in an oversized classroom.

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Then why would I want to help you?” The rest of the question was implied. At the expense of his relationship with the boys who were watching us now. At the expense of all he knew.

  “I’ll bet they treated you differently last night, didn’t they?” I looked over my shoulder at the three of them and smiled. “Teasing, with nasty edge to it. No one helped you with your eye or your scrape. No one cared when you tried to talk about it. Someone told you that you just didn’t get the job done.”

  A flush started at the base of his neck and rose.

  “Maybe someone even said you were worthless or suggested that they had put too much time in you when you clearly weren’t Machine material.”

  This time, he didn’t correct my guess. His flush had moved to his cheeks. I was hitting home.

  “Has anyone spoken to you yet today?”

  “What the hell do you want, man?” He didn’t raise his voice, but he spoke with such intensity that it felt like he had shouted.

  I suppressed a smile. I had gotten through. “I told you. I want your help.”

  “And what,” he asked, with that same intensity, “can a loser like me do for an old fart like you?”