Atlanta Deathwatch

by Ralph Dennis

  She seemed to take a long time to answer. She folded and creased and recreased the filter paper for the Chemex coffee-maker. “Like you, Jim, I didn’t have any friends left.”

  Boom. Pow. There it was. We weren’t going to walk around it on our tiptoes. The door was open, and I could walk in and draw blood if I wanted to. But I drew back from it, not sure if I wanted to slash and rip and gut. I nodded and walked over to the breakfast nook and sat down, my back to the back door, watching her. “That was a long time ago. Sometimes, when I think about it, I almost believe that it was something that somebody told me had happened to them.”

  “I can’t get the same distance,” Marcy said.

  “Time,” I said.” It’s just a matter of time.”

  When the coffee was measured and the water in the kettle began its first faraway rumble, she set out cups and the sugar bowl and a small pitcher of cream. I looked at the cream pitcher and up at her. She swept the cream pitcher from the table and put it back in the refrigerator.

  “The girl next door . . . she’s in advertising . . . takes cream with her coffee.”

  “Lots of men take cream with their coffee,” I said.

  “None that I know.”

  “You’re still young,” I said. “It can change.”

  She stood with her back to the kitchen counter, hardly moving, staring through me until the cap on the kettle began its high, thin whistle. She blinked then, and put her back to me. As soon as the water was dripping through the filter, she put the kettle aside and sat down across the table from me.

  “Jim, why did you come in here tonight? You need a cup of coffee that bad?”

  I shook my head. “I’m not sure.”

  “What do you expect of me?”

  “I’m not sure of that, either.”

  “You used to be so sure of everything,” Marcy said.

  “That’s time for you.”

  “And stop saying those stupid, vague things.” Her voice was still under control, but there was an edge, a rough surface to it. “I’d rather you beat me, or stomped me, or kicked me. You still do beat and stomp and kick people, don’t you?”

  “I kicked somebody last Tuesday, but since then I haven’t had anybody around worth kicking.”

  “That’s the Jim Hardman I know.” She smiled. “Now I feel like I’m not with a stranger.” She looked at the Chemex and back to me. “I’m going to tell you a story, and I’m only going to tell it once. After that, I want your promise that you’ll never ask me about it again.”

  “Do I get to ask questions?”

  “Yes, after I finish. But ask all of them tonight. Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” I said.

  “And no interrupting?”

  I nodded.

  “This is about us, the book, chapter and verse. I didn’t set out to meet you. That was an accident. I went to the Upshaw party with Bill and Frances Rutledge, who lived next door to me at the Colonial Arms, and I didn’t even know who you were when I met you. In fact, if first impressions meant anything, I wouldn’t even be sitting here with you tonight. I thought you were the biggest slob and creep I’d ever met.”

  I could remember. I even remembered Bill and Frances Rutledge. I’d been in one corner of the living room, bored shitless by a short, plump woman who just wanted to flirt with me a bit to get her husband’s attention away from one of those leggy blonde types. And past her, I’d seen Marcy enter with another couple. I knew she wasn’t with Bill Rutledge. He didn’t look like man enough for her, and I’d decided right on the spot that I was, and made my excuses to the plump lady and headed for her.

  “Of all the clumsy pick-up attempts I’ve had to suffer through, that was the all-time low. Lady, is that your blue Mustang out front? You left your lights on. Oh, it’s not yours? Well, I’m Jim Hardman.”

  It wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t as bad as some I’d heard and some I’d used before. But her answer was the bone-crusher of the year. “I think you’ve got a pimple on your nose, Mr. Hardman.”

  “The next day I’d forgotten you, Jim, and it hadn’t been hard. But someone had seen me there, and they’d seen you following me around. Marsh said he’d heard I’d made a conquest. And it turned out that you were someone they were interested in, and I was told to cultivate you, to see if you had a price. I didn’t want to do it. I argued. But when Marsh said for you to do something, it was jump and do it. So I bumped into you again.”

  That was at Frenchy’s Pub, a place on Spring Street, Where I usually had lunch. The party had been on a Friday, and on the following Wednesday I went in for my corned beef and potato salad, and someone was sitting at my favorite table, the one near the window. It was Marcy, and it hadn’t been easy to get past the hard wall of disinterest that she put up to face strangers. But I pushed and pushed and knew when not to push, and soon we were meeting for lunch almost every day. From that, it wasn’t far to the evening, and dinner and a movie.

  “Now and then Marsh would ask how it was going, and I’d say that it didn’t look too favorable, and he’d drop it for a few days. Finally, he put me in a corner and said, yes or no, will he take? And I said that I was pretty sure you wouldn’t, and he said that was what everybody else thought, too, and I could drop you now, and thanks a lot.”

  I wanted to ask the question. Suddenly, though I hadn’t thought about it for a long time, I knew when she’d been told she could drop me. It was a puzzling day, one that stood out for me for all the wrong reasons. “The Falcon-49er game. That’s a statement, not a question.”

  “Yes,” Marcy said, “the Falcon-49er game.” The water had settled through the filter. She filled our cups and sat down again. “He said I could drop you on the Friday before the game. That was why I broke the dinner date that night. But you took it so well and didn’t get mad, and I knew I’d have to make a production out of it to really break it off.”

  It had been a good game. The 49ers must have been favored by a touchdown or two, but the Falcons toughed it out and won in the last seconds, when the Frisco kicker missed a chip shot. It should have been something to shout about, but it wasn’t. Marcy had been distant from the beginning, hardly speaking to me, only yesses and noes when she did speak. Until, by the end of the game, I knew what she was trying to tell me. I remember it hit me while I was crossing the parking lot, and I wanted to die right then. I thought, overmatched yourself this time, son, and I started trying to write it off as a loss. Taking her back through the happy crowds, back to her apartment in a dead silence. Leaving her at the door when I’d planned to take her to dinner. Then back to my apartment and a bottle, finding the bottom of the bottle sometime after midnight. And a terrible hangover the next morning on the job.

  “I found it wasn’t that easy, Jim. I saw you were hurt but you took it well, and when you just said good night and didn’t say anything about calling me, and you didn’t say, see you at Frenchy’s, I don’t think I’ve ever felt quite as alone. But I thought it was something that would pass as soon as I went back to doing the usual things. I even went back to having lunch at the Brass Rail, where the other girls at the office ate.”

  I stayed away from Frenchy’s for three days, and when I went in, Marcy hadn’t been there. The waiter said he hadn’t seen Marcy since the last time I’d brought her in.

  “The first week I told myself it would get better. I’d just gotten used to having a man around.”

  As I’d gotten used to having a woman around.

  “At the end of the first week, I took the first date offered me, a lawyer who ate with us now and then at the Brass Rail. But he wasn’t much fun, and talked too much about how much money he was making, as if that would make me fall over backwards and drop my underpants for him.”

  Art and I went bowling three times that week. The third time I dropped him at his house, I heard Edna say something about this being the damned limit. After that I left Art alone and cruised some of the bars with Hump.

  “And then one morning I woke up and looke
d at myself in the mirror while I was putting on my make-up, and I said you think you’re so smart, don’t you? and let’s see how smart you really are. And that day I didn’t go to the Brass Rail. I went to Frenchy’s, and you didn’t show up. The waiter said you’d been in the day before, but you weren’t as regular as you used to be. Not every day, like you had been. And I went back the next day and the day after that, and finally you showed up.”

  I might not have gone back at all. Not ever, not ever. But the waiter, Harry, called me around noon and said, that pretty lady is here now, and she asked about you, and I thought you might like to know.

  “From that moment on, from the time you came into Frenchy’s, every word I said to you was true. Nothing held back. No lies. There were no reasons for seeing you that weren’t my own personal reasons.” Marcy got the coffee and topped off our cups. “Now you can ask your questions, Jim.”

  “I don’t have any.” I stood up and pushed back my chair. “I believe you. But second things first. I’ve got to call Hump.” I left her and went into the living room. I dialed Hump’s number. Still no answer.

  When I came back to the kitchen, she was standing with her back to me, looking down at the table. Maybe, ass that I was, I hadn’t realized that she’d been waiting for me to show and tell how things were between us now. And I’d left her to make a phone call. Damn me, anyway! I put my hands on her shoulders, and she turned so quickly it almost caught me off balance.

  “I might still love you, Jim,” Marcy said softly, “but you’ve changed. You’re harder, and I’m going to need some time while I decide whether I still like you.”

  I said that was all right with me. And then I kissed her to see if we could jump over that year.

  Hump was in his kitchen, soaking his right hand in a dishpan jammed with ice cubes. When he moved his hand it sounded like a cocktail party in progress.

  “Trouble?”

  “Some.” He lifted his hand out of the ice water and flexed it. The knuckles were puffy and swollen. “Asking questions about The Man is not the way to be popular in that part of town.”

  “Any answers?”

  “A few. The stud with the Afro was talking some until it dawned on him that I didn’t seem to be asking the right kinds of questions. That was at the Dew Drop In Cafe.” He took the hand out and dried it gently with some paper towels. “So I moved on, and it was right strange, but it seemed that everywhere I went, the stud with the Afro showed up. So, about half an hour ago, we had a few words out in a parking lot, and he hit me in the knuckles with the hard part of his head.”

  I got the J&B bottle down and a couple of glasses. We sat across from each other at the kitchen table. I poured while he talked.

  “The Man’s in everything . . . dope, pussy by the pound, gambling all the way from a dime on a number to thousands on a ball game. He’s coining good money, and the word is that he’s got clout that reaches all the way up to some political people. No names given. Just the suggestion that some big, big ones are slopping at his trough.”

  “Emily C.?”

  “They had a thing going, hot and heavy. It was like she was trying to screw him to death. Some of his boys didn’t like it much. They thought he was getting careless, letting her learn more about the operation than was good for her. But all the boys did was mumble to themselves some. Nobody was about to do anything about it. It was worth your hide to show any attitude toward her at all . . . good or bad.”

  “So there’s no mourning among The Man’s troops?”

  “Not a bit.” Hump laughed. “You see, there they are, his men, out prowling around with those pictures of Eddie, and the truth is that they’re not sure whether they want to find him for The Man or give him a roll of cash, a pat on the back, and a way out of town.”

  “That might raise an ulcer or two.”

  “I don’t think they’re looking very hard.” Hump carried his glass over to the refrigerator, looked in the ice chest, and then went over to the sink to fish a few chips of ice out of the pan he’d been soaking his hand in. “And not looking very hard might be as good a deal for Eddie as the cash and the pat on the back.” He slumped into the chair and poured on some more J&B. “While I was out busting knuckles, what were you up to?”

  I decided I might as well tell the truth. He would know it in a day or two, anyway. “I got caught between a couple of matchmakers and an old girlfriend.”

  Hump grinned. “Anybody get hurt?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “I’m glad for you.” He toasted me with his glass. “Some other news. A flash on the radio a while ago said the town of Mason had put up a reward of twenty thousand dollars for the arrest and conviction of the murderer of Emily Campbell.”

  “It said the murderer, and it didn’t name Eddie Spence?”

  “That’s right. There must be at least one lawyer in that group.”

  “But the heat’s still on Eddie,” I said.

  “I wouldn’t mind a part of that twenty thou.”

  I said I’d consider cutting him in. I finished my drink and got ready for bed. It was the first time in a long time that I slept the whole night without the anger and gall surfacing. There were no dreams at all that I could remember the next morning.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The next day was Sunday. I got up late, and Hump was padding around in the kitchen. I shaved and showered and dressed. In the kitchen, Hump handed me a cup of coffee and the sports page. “Welcome to the bright new world,” he said.

  “Do I look that way?”

  “Not exactly, but I decided to say that this morning.” He grinned at me. “What’s on for today?”

  “I’d like to talk to Eddie Spence.”

  “He’s had a day or two to set it up. He’s had time to pick a spot where he can’t be staked out.”

  “So it might be today?”

  “If he really wants to talk to you,” Hump said.

  “How’ll he get in touch?”

  “I’d say by phone. That’s the way I’d do it. Too many people looking for him. Standing around on streets or in doorways, that’s too much risk.”

  “Then maybe I’m at the wrong phone,” I said.

  “Might be.”

  I finished the coffee and Hump followed me into the living room. He watched while I got into my topcoat. “I’ll be at my place.”

  “You want me along?”

  I shook my head. “He might try here first.”

  “Watch yourself, Hardman.”

  I said I’d try.

  The waiting seemed for nothing. I spent part of the time doing some chores around the house. I made up a laundry and a cleaning bag and put them by the front door, to be put out the next morning. I cut to size and taped in place a shirt board to fill in for the window pane that Eddie had broken. That would have to hold until I got a new pane in.

  Around two, I found I was hungry, but there didn’t seem to be much in the house. I hunted around and discovered a dusty can of black bean soup I’d bought on impulse a year or so before. I really wanted some lox or roast beef, but Eddie had ruined that. But the soup, when it was hot, was earthy-tasting, and I liked the faint trace of sherry in it.

  There wasn’t any pro ball on the tube. It was an open date before the conference championship games the next weekend. I watched a few minutes of a roller derby game, but got bored by the obvious phoniness. So I switched over to a history of the pro game, and laughed a little at the scratchy old footage and what seemed to be the jerky running styles of the backs.

  At exactly four, the phone rang. It was Marcy. “Since you aren’t going to call me, I thought I’d be the one to weaken.”

  I told her I’d been thinking about her, too.

  “That’s not enough. When do we start this marvelous courtship that every girl expects to tell her grandchildren about when she’s seventy?”

  I explained why I was waiting for a call.

  “I’ll believe you this time. Hump told me the same thing whe
n I called him.”

  I got her phone number again and said that I’d give Eddie another hour and then give up on him. I’d call her then, and we could go out to dinner.

  “Do I get to pick the restaurant?”

  I said no.

  She named a French restaurant just outside of town, one we’d gone to several times during the good days a couple of years before. “I’ve got a craving for something drowned in a beautiful sauce.”

  I said I’d try to come up with a French restaurant for her, but not that one.

  “I think you’re trying to tell me something.”

  That was for her to figure out, I told her. It just seemed to me, at that moment, that if we were going to start over, we might as well find ourselves some new bars and a new restaurant or two.

  “It sounds like a hell of a courtship,” she said, but she was laughing.

  I said I wouldn’t swear to that, but it was going to be the best one I could come up with.

  Seconds after we broke the connection, the phone rang again.

  “You’re pretty long-winded, Hardman.” It was a man’s voice, but not one I knew.

  “Who is that?”

  “You know.”

  “I don’t like guessing games,” I said.

  “You still eating that pink vomit?” He meant the lox, and I knew the caller was Eddie Spence.

  “It went bad, left out of the refrigerator overnight.”

  “It was bad before that.” A short pause. “I want to talk to you.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “No, face to face. You know the Music Museum in Underground Atlanta?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’ll take me thirty-five minutes to get there. I think it’ll take you twenty-five. So you wait ten minutes before you leave the house. Got that, Hardman?”

  “Yes.”

  “No tricks and no cops. If I see a cop, you’re dead.”

  The line went dead.

  Exactly ten minutes after he hung up on me, I left the house and walked along the stone walkway to the carport. My topcoat pocket felt strangely light: I’d decided against a gun. I wasn’t paying much attention, just looking at the lawn and wondering if it was worth it to pay somebody to rake up the leaves. I opened the car door and looked into the barrel of Eddie’s .45 automatic.