Darktown: A Novel

by Thomas Mullen

  “Jobs, what jobs?”

  “All he did was clean up the mess.”

  “You’re saying someone else killed her, and then it was Underhill’s job to remove the body?”

  “Hey, give that boy a cigar.”

  “Who was it?”

  “All we know is, he said he was paid to clean up a mess. That ain’t all that uncommon, son. That’s what they got the damned Rust Division for. We do the shit they don’t want to deal with.”

  “Rust Division?”

  “I figured you’d have at least heard of it. Could be you’re still too green. Rust Division is what they call the ones let go in ’44. We got the shaft for doing nothing worse than damn near every other cop in the city was doing. So sometimes fellows on the force take pity on us and offer us jobs that maybe ain’t quite up to the legal standards of normal police work. We ain’t an official division and we ain’t even an official ‘we,’ just six ex-cops who get bones thrown our way now and then.”

  “Except now there are only five,” Chet said, eyeing Rake in a way that suggested he did not yet find the rookie beyond suspicion.

  Rake had never heard of the Rust Division apart from those few overheard words between Dunlow and Underhill a few nights back.

  “So Underhill got called up by a cop and asked to dispose of a body to conceal a crime?”

  “What I’m saying is that I can put one and one together, and it appears that with some helpful encouragement, you can, too.”

  “Why would Underhill do that?”

  “Because they paid well.”

  “Who’s ‘they’?”

  “We don’t know. We don’t even know who that girl was. He didn’t want us to know.”

  Boggs had told Rake that the girl had worked for Congressman Prescott. That would certainly be the kind of person who could pay to hide an indiscretion. Had Prescott killed his maid? But she’d been alive and in Underhill’s presence the night of her death, according to Boggs and Smith. You can’t call up a fellow and ask him to dispose of a body if the person in that body is still alive: that’s murder for hire.

  He thought of mentioning the congressman, but held off. He’d rather keep that bit of intelligence to himself for now and go to them with it later, if he needed to. If he was alive later.

  “He still hasn’t explained why he was following Underhill,” Chet said.

  “I’ll be glad to. I was following him because I had him for the murder of that girl, whose name was Lily Ellsworth. And since no one else seemed terribly interested in solving it, I figured I’d try.” He almost didn’t add this, but he wanted to hear their reaction, so he did: “And I wanted to figure out how he was connected to Dunlow.”

  “Dunlow?” The bald one again gave Rake an almost pitying look. “Dunlow ain’t shit on a mule’s ass. I never liked that bastard.”

  Rake said, “I know he was chummy with Underhill, and he’s not the kind to have ethical qualms about how to make extra cash on the side.”

  “He’s too stupid to realize that the whole point of the Rust Division is that it’s ex-cops, so if we ever get caught for something, it’s just us who gets nailed, and not the Department,” the bald one said. “Even if one of us squealed, they’d never believe us, because we’re goddamn felons. We’re the perfect protection for them. Dunlow’s still a cop—which is a goddamn miracle, by the way—so if he thought he could get in on a job for extra cash, he’s a damn fool.”

  “The few who know about us,” Chet said, “think we’re something to envy. Or fear. Like we’re the bogeyman swooping in for the dirty work. You know what I really am? I’m a blasted security guard on the night shift at a mill. That’s what I am, thanks to that bullshit sting.”

  “We’re just doing what we can to get by,” his partner said. “Dunlow’s a moron to think we’re some underworld gang he can get rich with. Least he has a pension.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” Rake was still cuffed. “What do you expect me to do?”

  “This Rust Division stuff has been going on for a while. And we felt there was a mutual respect, that the ones still in the Department realize they’re lucky, and we’re unlucky that we got kicked out. There but for the grace of God and all that, so they toss us some bones. But whatever Underhill’s last job was, someone appears to have killed him to keep his mouth shut. That ain’t mutual respect.”

  Rake tried to puzzle this out. “Why would they kill him? If they used him to insulate them from a murder, why commit another one?”

  “We don’t know. We’re sure as hell trying to find out, from the outside. Maybe you can dig around on the inside.”

  With that, the bald man reached back into his pocket and took the pliers out. “Here, I’ll get you out of those cuffs.”

  “How about using a key instead of those?”

  “I don’t have one. Stop being a pussy about it.”

  He heard metal on metal and felt the tug as the man pulled one of the cuffs apart, then another tug and the cuffs fell. Rake tried not to sigh with relief too obviously.

  “Thanks,” he said. Then he stepped forward and, with his uninjured left hand, punched Chet square on the nose.

  Rake spun around, hoping to knock down the bald one, too, but the fellow had already backed up a step and had dropped the pliers in favor of Rake’s revolver. He thumbed back the hammer.

  “Why’d you go and do that?” the ex-cop asked.

  Rake looked at Chet, who was out cold and already bleeding heavily from his nose. “He and I are square for the finger now.”

  “Once he wakes up, he ain’t gonna feel you’re square.”

  “Then he’s free to come after me, but this time I’ll see the son of a bitch coming.”

  “You’re something, Rakestraw. You just might survive your job.” He looked at Chet and shook his head. Blood was pumping out of Chet’s nose but he still appeared to be breathing.

  Rake asked, “You mind not pointing my gun at me anymore?”

  “Why, so you can break one of my fingers to make us square?”

  “Don’t worry, I like you better than him.”

  The revolver’s hammer was rethumbed and lowered, but the fellow held on to it. Then he walked over to the shotgun and picked it up. More heavily armed now, he walked over and placed Rake’s revolver on the passenger seat of Rake’s car.

  “So,” Rake asked, “how do I find you if I learn something that might interest you?”

  “Drive up to Norcross and look me up at Second Baptist.”

  “So we can swap notes between hymns?”

  “Careful there. I’m a man of God now. That’s where I preach.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “Yes. I’m an ordained minister, and I don’t take part in the nonsense of my past.”

  Rake held up his hand. “You just broke my fucking finger.”

  “I will pray on my knees for forgiveness tonight. But some things just need to be done.” He nodded toward Chet. “Now buck up and help me get him in the truck.”

  “Hellfire. Do it yourself, Reverend. And don’t waste any prayers on me.”

  Rake walked back to his car, thinking about which emergency room he should choose for resetting his finger.

  The reverend replied, “I don’t believe I will.”

  29

  MAMA DOVE WAS halfway down the stairs after her customary afternoon nap when one of the girls told her there was a man here for her. Said in a very different tone than if this particular man was a john.

  The fans were blasting in the windows yet still it felt too hot as she walked through the foyer. It was hard to predict the impact of weather on her business. Men were funny about the heat, and though they hardly lost their sex drive, there were times when they were just too lazy to leave their stuffy houses and get in their stuffy cars to drive out to Mama Dove’s fo
r some stuffy sex. Some of her girls had only had a couple of men a night lately, and she’d been thinking of letting them go, too many mouths to feed for too little income.

  The door to the kitchen was open, the better for air to circulate. She immediately recognized his big old feet, kicked up on one of the chairs like they owned the place.

  “I told you never to call my house, Marla.”

  “So nice to see you,” she said, her voice flat. “Why don’t you come in.”

  Dunlow was sitting at the table with a tumbler and an unmarked bottle of whiskey he’d helped himself to.

  “You look fatter in your civvies.”

  He smirked at her and was unable to come up with a quick enough retort. He stood, not so much sucking in his gut as giving it more length to spread itself across.

  “Janisse keeps me well fed I guess.”

  She motioned to the bottle. “Little early for that. You want any coffee instead?”

  “What I want is for you to tell me why you called my house. At least twice that I know of.”

  “Well, my telegraph’s busted and the smoke signals don’t work so well anymore. How else am I supposed to tell you I need to talk?”

  His eyes were colder now. He didn’t need to say, You’re supposed to just wait your black ass until I choose to come here.

  She walked over to a carafe of lukewarm coffee. She drank it that way whenever it wasn’t winter, adding some sugar that always sank to the bottom.

  “I thought it was important enough to break your rules. You know all about breaking rules, remember, Lionel?”

  And like that he was beside her. It always surprised her how fast he was, man that big. She hated herself for flinching.

  “Suppose I do,” he said. She could feel his belly against her own, and though he was still holding the whiskey he let his right hand help itself to her hip. She was wearing a white nightgown, cotton and thin, but even that was too much in this heat, and his palm felt even warmer against her. Her rubbed her, moving down and slowly around behind. “And I know you do, too.”

  She was pinned against the counter and could smell the alcohol on his breath (exactly how long had he been down here drinking?). Then he was kissing her. It was familiar even if it had been years. He was rough and needed a shave. His hand was acting like it owned her, because it had once and it believed things never changed.

  When he stopped, she said, “You thought I called you for that?”

  Slapping him wouldn’t have been nearly as effective. He stepped back and the hunger in his eyes that makes even aging men look like puppy dogs was gone, replaced by the all-too-familiar pall of acceptance and defeat.

  “Why don’t you tell me why you were calling before I get even angrier and take it out on one of your girls.”

  “I figured you’d want to know that other officers have been by to ask about your girl.”

  “My girl?”

  She slanted her head, practically eyeing him sideways. Did he really not know what she was talking about? What would be sadder, his stupidity or the fact that Lily Ellsworth meant so little to him as to be not worth remembering?

  “The one who ain’t alive no more. The one I took in for your friend Underhill.”

  “What cops came by?”

  “Officer Boggs. Preacher’s son.”

  “Don’t you worry ’bout those YMCA cops. They can’t hurt you, I’ll see to that.”

  “Why you so sure I’m worried about being hurt? Maybe I was concerned that you had gotten yourself into trouble.”

  He smiled. At moments like this, fleeting though they were, the layer of fat faded, as did the years, and she caught a glimpse of the man he’d been, the confidence, the casual ease with which he used that smile and his body and the jokes that had seemed funny once, though never quite as funny as he’d thought them to be.

  “Now, Marla, you don’t need to be worrying about me.”

  “Who was she?”

  “I haven’t the foggiest idea.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “Well, believe it. I don’t mean to lower your opinion of me, but some things Underhill does, I don’t get told any more than you.”

  “You mean to say you didn’t even ask him what her story was?”

  “Did you?” He stepped back to the table, pouring a couple more fingers into his glass.

  “It’s not my place. All he told me was she needed to be removed from a situation.”

  She wondered whether some of her girls were in the hallway or maybe around the corner in the parlor, straining to hear every word.

  “Then that’s the truth.”

  “Well, I don’t appreciate having your fellow officers showing up and insinuating that I’m going to be arrested for helping your friends. It certainly seems to me there’s things I deserve to know about.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” Big sip.

  “Why don’t you just call him up and ask him what it was she’d done?”

  “Because he’s dead.”

  The ceiling above started creaking, quickly, so at least someone was making her some money right now. The sudden noise may have covered up her shock at his remark, but probably not.

  “What happened?”

  “Got himself shot.”

  “What the hell is going on?”

  “Nothing you need worry about.”

  The girl was dead and so was the man who had demanded Mama Dove take her in, get her the hell away from the family for whom she’d been working and causing so much misery. Just keep her in here, at all times. She ain’t allowed out until we give you the word. Put her to work and let her see what that’s like, Lord knows she can use it. But watch her close because she’s a damned thief and she’s got a particular taste for white people’s money.

  Then why on earth are you giving her to me? she’d asked. Put her ass in jail.

  Can’t do that. Gentleman she stole from ain’t the type to press charges. Ain’t the type to like attention.

  It had been explained to her that if this girl managed to extricate herself from Mama Dove’s, many a foul consequence would ensue, and they would all fall on the madam’s head. Lily was being put under house arrest, and Mama Dove was to provide the house. And the handcuffs, if the johns wanted that and paid extra.

  “You know I don’t worry easy, Lionel, but two dead bodies is enough to make my heart rate tick just the slightest bit up.”

  The ceiling stopped squeaking. The faster they were, the better.

  “She’s caused all the damage she’s gonna cause.”

  “Then why are you drinking so much?”

  He eyed her, then put the glass down. The bags under his eyes seemed about twice as big as usual, as if most of what he drank settled there rather than in his gut.

  “You don’t know who shot him, do you?” she said. “Or her?”

  “Officer Dunlow’s on the case.”

  That cocksure attitude had gone from grating to exasperating. “You . . . men really think women don’t talk to each other? You don’t think she might have opened her mouth and told me a few things, Lionel? You don’t think she may have confided in me?”

  He stepped closer. “We know damn well how women talk. Hear your voices in our sleep.”

  “I’m glad you notice.”

  “And if I didn’t know better, I’d say it sounded for a second there like you were threatening me.”

  Like before, his hands retook “his” property. One at the small of her back and the other at her neck. Not tightly but not gently either.

  “I’m not threatening you,” she said. “I’m just saying there are things I wish I didn’t know.”

  He wasn’t squeezing, yet. “The best thing to do in those circumstances, which you should know very well by now, is pretend you don’t know, and pretend you don�
��t know, and pretend you don’t know. And then, eventually, you forget.”

  She could tell he was enjoying this, holding her this way, letting her wonder whether he was going to strangle her or grab her ass again, kiss her or slap her. All of which he’d done before, and never had she been able to predict it.

  “And the next time a white cop comes by asking questions?” she asked.

  “White cops?”

  “Did I forget to mention that? One time it was Officer Boggs, the colored one. Another time there was a white one, Rakestraw.”

  He released her and backed up a step. “Rakestraw?” She had meant to hit some nerves before and hadn’t. But now, with this name that had been meaningless to her, he looked like he’d gone sick to his stomach.

  “Yes.”

  “Describe him to me.”

  “White. Dark hair. Your height, big. Not so hard on the eyes. In a way, he reminded me of you, minus a whole lot of long and tangled road.”

  Why had he needed her to prove who it had been? Who was Rakestraw to him? She decided not to ask. It was good to see him so unmoored.

  He walked back to the table, shaking his head. He muttered, but she couldn’t hear what.

  Then he threw the tumbler against the cupboards not more than a foot from where she was standing. She screamed and raised her hands to her head too late, the feel of something glancing against it, glass everywhere in the room now, always so many more pieces than you’d think could come from something that had once been whole. She rubbed the side of her face and hoped she would not see blood on her palm when she pulled it away, but other than that she was standing there stock-still and barefoot in a sea of shards as Dunlow’s boots crunched their way out of her house.

  30

  DRIVING HIS FATHER’S green Buick, Boggs pulled in front of the apartment building where Smith lived and tapped the horn. He’d never visited his partner’s neighborhood before and he did not fail to notice the general disrepair of the street, the bits of trash strewn on the ground, the worn-out laundry hanging from clotheslines, the drunk old lady on the opposite side of the street, muttering to herself.