Cop Town: A Novel

by Karin Slaughter

  “Hey,” Gail warned. Everybody knew Jett drank because he had a sick kid. “Mack McKay’s filing a lawsuit, too. Said he was demoted for complaining about a hostile work environment. Wear a coupla tits to work, Mack. You’ll see what hostile’s all about.”

  Maggie smiled at the image. “Chip Bixby walked out when they put a woman in his unit, but nobody fired him.”

  “Chipper’s not so bad.” Gail told Kate, “Back when I was so green I was shittin’ shamrocks, I ended up pinned down behind the counter during a bank robbery. Thought I was gonna die. Seriously. I was making my peace. Then from outta nowhere, up pops Chip Bixby, guns blazing. I truck it on out the back while Chip takes the heat. Dumbass caught a bullet right here.” She tapped her collarbone. “It was meant for me, but whattaya gonna do? Get ol’ Chipper drunk enough, he’ll show you the scar.”

  “I’ll put that right on my list,” Kate said, but she was obviously on to something else. “What about with men? Where do they go for sex?”

  Gail looked at Maggie. “That’s what we were talkin’ about, sister. They go to Five Points to get laid.”

  “I meant sex with other men.”

  “Listen to our gal.” Gail sounded proud that Kate even knew such a thing existed. “The queers go to Piedmont Park. They don’t have to pay for it. Lucky bastards.”

  “Piedmont?” Kate sounded offended. Her apartment was right up the street.

  “Talk to Jimmy about it,” Gail said. “He’s always doing fairy runs with the boys after work.”

  “Fairy runs?” Kate was doing the parrot thing again, repeating words. “What on earth are fairy runs?”

  Maggie explained, “They go into the park and beat up gay men.”

  Kate still sounded appalled. “Jimmy goes to the park and beats up homosexuals?”

  “Why wouldn’t he?” Gail tapped her cigarette out the window. “All of ’em do it. Bud, Mack, Terry, Vick. They’re just blowin’ off steam. Who cares if a bunch of faggots get their heads knocked in? They shouldn’t be doin’ that nasty shit anyway.” She took a drag off her cigarette. “Heads up, gals. We just went from Bandstand to Soul Train.”

  Maggie looked out the window. Black faces looked back. Some were curious. Others were perplexed. All were hostile.

  They’d just entered Colored Town.

  The area had sneaked up on her. Maggie hadn’t noticed the general dilapidation giving way to unpainted shacks and lean-tos. A long time ago, Gail had told Maggie that blacks and whites were separated by rocks. Blacks lived in houses built on dirt. Whites lived in houses built on stone foundations.

  Maggie didn’t really understand the difference until she saw it with her own eyes. Colored Town crawled through the West Side, which contained Atlanta’s last still-operating industrial area. Foundries and factories belched out black smoke. Tanneries spewed rotting flesh and chemicals into Peachtree Creek. There was a constant buzz from the massive power relay stations that dotted the main road.

  This wasn’t the projects. There was no government housing with onsite management and hourly police patrols. The people who lived in CT either didn’t want or didn’t qualify for government assistance. They were on their own. They made do with what they had. Bare plywood walls kissed wet Georgia clay. Newspapers plugged holes in windows. The plumbing was so primitive that outhouses dotted the bare backyards. Even in the dead of winter, front doors hung open to air out the odors.

  Kate started to cough. The smell wasn’t that bad, but it had a cumulative effect. Maggie had spent her first year on the job coughing up all kinds of disgusting filth. Delia had been appalled by some of the things she’d brought up. Maggie was constantly sick with a cold or the flu. Her doctor told her to quit her job or end up in an early grave.

  Gail craned her neck to look up at the houses. They were in one of the residential stretches that specialized in rooms rented by the week. She asked, “You got an address?”

  Kate coughed again before answering, “Eight-nineteen Huff Road.”

  “Shit,” Gail grumbled. “This is Huff, but ain’t a one’a these places got a number.”

  Ghetto landlords weren’t the only ones who didn’t post their street numbers. The problem plagued the city. Most calls, Maggie had no idea whether or not she was in the right location until someone started screaming.

  “There.” Kate pointed to a house. “That must be it.”

  She’d picked the nicest house on the block. The windows were clean. The dirt yard was swept. The steps to the porch were stacked concrete blocks that read PROPERTY OF ATLANTA WATERWORKS.

  As with all of the houses, the unpainted clapboard was weathered brown. The front door set it apart. The bottom part was red, the top was green, and there was a yellow circle around the rectangular window.

  Gail asked, “Where do you see a number?”

  “The door,” Kate answered. “Those are the colors of the Portuguese flag.”

  Maggie said, “The colored girls said the house was run by a Portuguese lady.”

  “Well, lah-di-da.” Gail pulled the car over, parking behind an old truck on blocks. “Portuguese. Where the hell is that?”

  Kate devoted her full attention to putting on Jimmy’s shoes. Maybe she was learning after all.

  Gail said, “This part of CT is on the outskirts of an area called Blandtown. We passed through Lightning and Techwood on the way.” She started pointing out landmarks. “Way over thataway is Perry Homes, which is a shithole you’ll see for yourself soon enough. Trains: there’s the Tilford Yard and Inman Yard between Marietta and Perry Boulevard. The Howell Rail Wye is what you’re hearing. All the trains go through there. It’s on the other side of the plow factory. Not wye for Y. Triangular. Don’t ask me why.” She seemed to miss her own joke. “That smell is the meatpacking plant. Place’ll turn you into a vegetarian. Found a dead hooker there once inside a cow carcass. That was some sick shit. Wish I still had the picture. You following this?”

  Kate nodded. “Of course. Thank you.”

  Maggie got out of the car. She heard the distant rumble of trains roaring through the Howell Yard. The low moan of a whistle pierced the air. The noise was a constant in these neighborhoods. Freight ran night and day through the wye. If you stood still long enough, you could feel the vibrations of the engines through the soles of your feet.

  The Portuguese house was in the center of the road. Directly across from it was an abandoned storage warehouse. The red façade was ubiquitous to the city, constructed of slave bricks that had been thrown from Georgia clay in between cotton seasons. The windows were gone. Some of the bricks had been chipped away, exposing the black tar paper behind them. There was a puddle of water on the ground at her feet. Instinctively, Maggie looked up to check for rain. She saw a hand resting on one of the windows in the upper level of the storage facility.

  “No, mama, listen,” Gail said from the front seat. She was on the radio calling in their location. She knew the dispatcher, so it took longer than usual.

  Maggie forced her gaze away from the storage building. There was probably a kid up there. Or maybe a bum looking for a place to hole up. She pulled the metal clips out of her front pants pocket and hooked them onto her underbelt. She was buckling her utility belt when Kate got out of the car. She held her belt in one hand and Jimmy’s hat in the other.

  Kate said, “The good news is that the shoes fit, so thank you very much for that. The bad news is—”

  Maggie handed over the metal clips that Kate had left on the dining room table. “Always put them in—”

  “The same pocket. Thank you.” Kate hooked the clips. She was better at putting on her belt today. It only took two tries.

  As a rule, Maggie never asked people about their personal lives, but she figured Kate owed her an explanation for the earlier outburst. “When did your husband die?”

  “Two years ago.” She straightened her nightstick. She clipped her transmitter onto the back of her belt. “I didn’t know the details were in my pers
onnel file.”

  “They do background investigations. Make sure you’re not a communist.” Maggie didn’t tell Kate that just about anybody could read your file. “It’s no big deal.”

  “Oh, I’m sure.” Kate adjusted her collar. She seemed ready to change the subject. “I’ve been thinking that I’m allowed one really big humiliation each day. Do you think I’ve hit my quota for Tuesday?”

  “You had your reasons.”

  “Come on, Lawson. I’d rather you think I’m an idiot than feel sorry for me.”

  Maggie smiled. You had to admire her spirit. “I still think you’re an idiot.”

  “Of course you do.” She smelled Jimmy’s hat. Her face soured.

  “No hats today.” Maggie threw her hat into the car. Kate did the same. “Check your gun.”

  Kate unsnapped the strap around her revolver. She pulled her weapon with a surprising fluidity. She ejected the cylinder, then clicked it back into place.

  Gail joined them on the sidewalk. A cigarette dangled from her lips. “She know how to use that thing?”

  “I hope we don’t find out.”

  Kate stuck the gun back in her holster. She was grinning, pleased with herself. “I practiced this morning.”

  “I think I liked you better when you were pathetic.” Gail reached into her purse and opened the drawstrings around the Crown Royal bag where she kept her gun. Her revolver had a pearl handle. The tooling around the muzzle wasn’t regulation. She hot-loaded her bullets with extra gunpowder, a violation that just about everybody on the force committed.

  Gail told Kate, “Peepers open, mouth shut. You hear?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Gail narrowed her eyes. The problem with Kate was that you couldn’t tell when she was being a smartass and when she was just being smart.

  “Fuck it,” Gail decided. She walked up the dirt path toward the house.

  Maggie tapped the leather safety strap on her revolver, indicating that Kate should snap hers closed. She didn’t wait to see if her suggestion was followed. If Kate was going to do this job—and it seemed like she was either too stubborn or too stupid not to—then she would have to sink or swim on her own.

  The stiletto heels of Gail’s ankle boots tapped up the cinder-block steps. The porch was small and sturdy. The boards were painted red to match the door, which gave the unsettling feeling that they were standing in blood. Maggie looked through the narrow window in the front door. She saw a set of stairs leading up to the second floor, but nothing else.

  “That’s called a Methuselah.” Gail nodded toward an ornate metal box nailed to the right side of the door. The top was angled toward the entrance. Gail clicked her tongue as she gave Kate a bawdy wink. “Jews use it.”

  “Gosh, how interesting.” Kate touched the box with the tips of her fingers.

  “Police!” Gail banged on the door so hard that the little window rattled. She told Kate, “I cracked one open once. It’s got paper inside. Funny little squiggles on it.” Gail banged the door again. “Open up!”

  There were shuffling footsteps inside the house. Suddenly, a few wild strands of black and gray hair appeared in the window. Maggie guessed they were looking at the top of someone’s head.

  “Unbelievable.” Gail kicked the door. “Open up before I break this goddamn door down!”

  Four locks and a chain were disengaged before the door cracked open. The old woman standing in front of them looked like a Victorian in mourning. Everything was black, from the high lace collar that fanned up her neck to the long-sleeved black dress that touched the tips of her black shoes. She was short, which is why she couldn’t look through the window. There was a mole high on her left cheek that gave her a walleyed look. Her long salt-and-pepper hair was spun into a bun on the top of her head. Maggie thought about what Delroy and Watson had said. She could easily imagine a nest of spiders living in there.

  Gail said, “Open the door, grandma.”

  “What do you want?” Her voice was deep and heavily accented. She sounded like Ricardo Montalbán—not the female version, but the actual guy from the car commercials. “I have work to do.”

  “So do we.” Gail tapped the police badge on Maggie’s chest. “We need to talk to Sir She.”

  The old woman’s eyebrows drawbridged up. She was smiling in a way that Maggie didn’t trust. Still, she opened the door to let them in.

  Gail flicked her cigarette into the yard before entering the house. She took in her surroundings, same as Maggie. Stairs cut through the central hallway that divided the house. To the left was a formal parlor, to the right, a dining room. The kitchen was at the back of the house. Maggie scanned each room. You never just walked into a space without looking for danger. Check the windows and doorways. Make sure you can see everybody’s hands. Gail always said female cops added another step: judge the décor and cleanliness so you can make value judgments about the witness and/or perpetrator.

  On this latter point, the Portuguese lady was blameless. Her hair was terrifying, but she kept a clean house. Dishes dried neatly in a rack by the sink. The runner down the hallway was straight as an arrow. The floors were swept clean. There were no cobwebs. Maggie guessed the furniture was from the old woman’s home country. The parlor contained a colorful, dainty-looking chair and a flowery settee with a curved, carved back. Doilies spotted every surface. There was a solid black tea set on the coffee table. Matching place settings were laid out on the dining room table.

  “Bisalhães,” Kate mumbled.

  Gail ignored her, which was usually a good idea. “Who’s in the house?”

  The old woman gestured up the stairs. “At the moment, I have three boarders. One is at work. The others—” She shook her head. “The paskudnyak and the freser. They think I’m running a shandhoiz.”

  Gail frowned at the foreign words. “What the hell?”

  “The pimp and his bodyguard,” Maggie guessed. She didn’t speak a lick of Portuguese, but the math wasn’t all that hard. “Are they upstairs?”

  “They rent two rooms. They do business out of the front one.” She shook her head again. “Meshugeneh, the both of them.”

  Kate looked wary. “How meshugeneh?”

  Instead of answering, the old woman called up the stairs. “Anthony!”

  There was a loud thump overhead. Heavy footsteps banged across the floor. Grit fell from the plaster ceiling. The chandelier swayed.

  “What it is, old woman?” An enormous black man stood at the top of the stairs. He was over six feet tall, and at least three-fifty. His head was comparatively tiny, like a joke snowman if the snowman was a knife-wielding psychopath. His eyes settled on Maggie, then Kate, then Gail, then the Portuguese lady.

  Gail said, “Jesus, Tubby. They find you on a meat hook at the butcher shop?”

  He wasn’t amused. “Whatchu white bitches want?”

  Gail grabbed the railing and pulled herself up the stairs. “I need to talk to your boss.”

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  “Every chance I get. You see these uniforms?”

  “I see a washed-up old whore and two bitches playin’ dress-up.”

  “Yeah, well.” Gail didn’t dispute the assessment. She stopped a few steps down from the big guy. “We ain’t leavin’, Fat Albert, so you might as well mosey on back to the Junkyard Gang.”

  There was a flash of silver, a series of clicks, and Anthony was holding a switchblade to Gail’s neck. “You wanna say that again, bitch?”

  Gail heaved a wheezy sigh. “I know you can’t see your dick, Lardo, but I’m pretty sure you don’t want to lose it.”

  He looked down. Gail’s gun was pointed straight at his crotch.

  She cocked the hammer. “See how my hand’s shaking? That’s ’cause it wants to pull the trigger so bad.”

  “No need for that, Officer.” There was another man at the top of the stairs. Maggie couldn’t see him, but she knew he wasn’t local. His accent put him from somewhere up north. He said, “
Anthony, let these women pass. The sooner we find out what they want, the sooner they’ll leave.” Anthony turned sideways. This didn’t help matters. Gail squeezed by him first. Maggie sucked in her stomach, but she still brushed up against him as she entered the hallway. She had to pull Kate by the arm to get her through.

  Sir She stood in front of an open doorway. He was tall, very thin, with skin the color of river water and a tight Afro that stuck out just past his ears. He had a red and gold scarf tied around his neck. His purple shirt was silk with white pearl snaps. His trousers were twill in a black-and-white herringbone. They were tight enough to show the outline of everything he had underneath.

  Maggie thought he was more of a J.J. Walker than a tranny pimp. There was nothing delicate about his features. He didn’t hold his hand bent at the wrist or wear makeup. The colored girls were right about his boots, though. They were vicious. Gold pointed triangles shaped the toes. The edges looked needle-sharp. Blood stained the white patent leather.

  The pimp zeroed in on Kate. He flashed a crocodile smile. “Lordy, lordy. You are the most luminescent creature I have ever seen. Your skin reminds me of bone china. And I could wrap both my hands around that dainty little waist.”

  So much for warnings. Kate practically preened. “Thank you.”

  Gail rolled her eyes at Maggie. “You’re Sir She?”

  His smile melted into a thin, angry line. “Sir Chic. Chic.”

  Kate laughed. Maggie knew she would.

  “Don’t you crackers speak English?”

  Gail said, “Word on the street is you’re a tranny fag.”

  He cupped his hand to the front of his pants. “I can prove you wrong right here.”

  “Nah, I already got one skinny coon got lost up my cooch. Hurts like hell when I sneeze.” Gail walked into his room. “Shit, it’s Fibber McGee’s closet in here.”

  Maggie saw what she meant. Compared to downstairs, the pimp’s room was a sty. Boxes were stacked everywhere. Trash filled the corners. Stuffing poked out of holes in the furniture. There were two wooden chairs with the backs broken off. They were pushed close enough together that Maggie guessed this was where Anthony sat. His half-empty glass of iced tea was on the windowsill. A baseball bat leaned against the wall.