The Devil's Own Rag Doll (19 page)

“First of all, I've got some grave news about our own police force, which as you know I have been proud to serve on these many years. But it might not surprise you to know that even on our own force and higher up in the government, there are a few Commie- and nigger-loving bastards.”

Laughter rippled throughout the room.

“Some of you might read the paper or listen to the radio. You might have heard about Jane Hardiman dying, thrown from a horse, they say. That's a lie! I know for a fact that little white girl was killed up in niggerville on the west side of town! That girl's father is Roger Hardiman, and you know who he works for. If you don't, I'll tell you. Jasper Lloyd. You heard me right. Backstabbing, union-kissing, nigger-loving Jasper Lloyd. There's a man—you all know this—made himself rich off the sweat and blood of decent white folks, and now he's sipping whiskey on his yacht off Belle Island while the darky hordes are killing little white girls! And telling his flunkies to lie about it! What could be the reason for all that? I'll tell you! He's a goddamned coward, that's right! He made his money, and now he can afford to run scared while the Communists and their unions let in any old coon and his mother to take jobs away from the very people that made this country great! And that little girl laying dead! Raped by a nigger! How many y'all prepared to let that sort of thing go on?”

A roar went up from the crowd. Bottles were going around, and they were all getting plenty juiced up. I kept looking through the crowd for Alex and George Rix, and also for the runt and the two big blond boys I had seen in the alley. I realized that I might never recognize the two thugs if I saw them. They might have dyed their hair black and stepped right out of the feeble description I had been able to give. I kept looking, and since I figured it was just a matter of time before Rix or somebody else noticed I was there, I started to figure out how I might best draw the revolver with my right and drop the sap from my sleeve into my left hand.

“But I won't jaw at you all night,” said Rix. “There's someone here I know you've all been waiting to meet. And I hope you'll listen up. Because there ain't many times you'll ever get to hear someone of this stature up close. You want to meet a man that's not scared to stand up for what's right, here he is. You want to meet a man that won't run off with his tail between his legs when a big nigger says ‘Boo,' well, here he is. You want to meet a man remembers how the automobile industry made Detroit into one of the greatest cities in the world, before the Jews and the niggers and the unions started taking over everything, here he is. Ladies and gentlemen, only there ain't no ladies here, I give you the Colonel.”

There was a smattering of applause, but it died quickly as a hush fell over the room. Rix took a seat behind the table. I finally caught sight of a head of bushy red hair, what I took to be George Rix, sitting about midway to the back in the row of benches. Next to him sat Alex, watching with his mouth open.

A very old man with a grim-set mouth limped into the barn from the small door at the back. As he came into the light near the table, I saw his face bloom into view. Though it was wrecked by time and whatever else, I knew it was the same face I had seen in Bobby's photograph. The cane, the bearing, and the round glasses, thicker now, came together in a sharp point for me and made me sure of the identification. From the way my head was swimming, though, I could have sworn I'd seen him in a bad dream somewhere. My gut churned and churned, and I was sure, though I couldn't remember it, that I must have taken some lye. They say the appendix can burst and it'll eat your guts out like that. I guess they call it adrenaline, what pushes your heart faster. I raced through my options. With the two hard boys right next to me, I might, at best, squeeze off one or two shaky shots at the old man before they took me out. And that would be the end of me. They'd have me six feet under or ground up for hog meal before anybody realized I'd gone missing.

Alex would see all of it. He'd know me at a glance, he'd watch them take me down, and he'd feel nothing so much as
embarrassment
that he was related to me. I would never have any opportunity to explain or to try to talk sense into him. But Rix would be there to tell it to him, to fill the boy up with that easy food that says it's best for a man to be tough and not take any guff.

I thought I might just walk up and arrest the old man. Arrest him for what? For having his picture taken with a dead nigger who probably couldn't be identified as a murder victim anyway? What would it help? How much could the old man really mean to a barn full of men, half of them probably armed and ready to slit the throat of any unlucky nigger they could corner in a dark alley? It would be like kicking a hornet's nest. I held myself still.

Bam!
The man slammed his cane flat on the table, and the whole room jerked. He drew himself up to his full height and looked around the room, studying the faces of the boys and men. Then he poured himself some ice water from a sweating glass pitcher and sipped at his leisure.

He began to speak. “Now is the time,” he said in a reedy voice, “to choose up sides.”

The sound of his voice brought every man in the place to stillness. Only the moths whirled silently about the lamps in the rafters.

“The summer of purgation is almost upon us. We shall be privileged to bear witness to the joy and awe of a holy endeavor here in Detroit and across this great nation of ours.”

My head felt light. I wasn't sure if I had decided to move or if my weak knees made me topple forward, but I stepped away from the wall and began to jostle my way across the back of the barn. Foulness seeped from the speaker like noxious gas, and I only knew that I had to pull Alex away from it if I could.

“I do not doubt,” said the old man, “that you have heard it said many times, from your city fathers, from
politicians,
that we ought to welcome the Negro race with open arms. Welcome them into our factories and even into our
homes.
”

My feet were never clever, and now they scraped along the plank floor like carcasses being dragged. Many in the room turned to stare at me, as if the one thing they couldn't bear was rudeness. Rix rose from his chair and broke into an ugly smile as he recognized me.

“Never!” shouted the old man. “Not while I live and breathe!”

I stumbled forward to Alex's bench and reached to gather the boy's shirt over his chest. I pulled hard and dragged Alex from his seat, dragged him struggling toward the side wall and back toward the big doors.

“What's this? What's this, brother?” The old man whacked his cane down on the table twice. “Do I not speak the truth?”

At the old man's words, the men at the back closed up the opening before the doors and surged forward to surround us. I could feel hands on me.

“Leave him go! Leave him go!” The old man whacked his cane again. “He can turn his back on us now, but he knows in his deepest heart that there is no place safe for him to call home. When he looks in the mirror, he'll see a coward staring back at him every day of his life.”

They could have pulled me to pieces, but the old man's voice held them from it. The crowd at the doors didn't loosen up, so I bulled right through, still with an iron grip on Alex's shirt. The boy held tight to my forearm to keep the shirt collar from digging into his neck and armpits, and his sneakers pattered over the floor as we went.

I broke through the gang and sucked in a chestful of cooler air, shaking. I stood Alex up and took a grip on his upper arm, which was growing harder but was still scrawny enough for my hand to wrap all the way around. We left a trail of yokels as we made for the car, and I kept my ears open for the heavy foot of Rix. Alex would not meet my glare, so I yanked the boy along with me to my car and hoped I had done the right thing.

CHAPTER 11

Thursday, June 17

I had managed to grab three hours of jaw-grinding sleep, but I felt worse than bone-tired. If I had not slept at all, I would have been dry and tired, bitter and narrow-eyed. The little bit of sleep had left my body sluggish, still clutching at slumber. There was a delay in my reaction to what I saw. My breathing was slow and deep and regular, and I felt my prick getting stiff from rubbing inside my trousers, like it might do in the middle of the night. I shouldn't be driving, I knew, but there was no longer any choice.

I had not been ready for the scene with Alex and Eileen. Going in, I thought I was sure of myself and my position, but I could not find the words to convince Alex of any of it. Tommy could have found words, I was sure. Even if Tommy couldn't have moved the boy on moral grounds, he would have shown somehow that the cagey move, the smart move, was to stay clear of Rix and that gang. Tommy could have made the boy see the profit in it for himself. I wondered if it was a natural gift or if it had to do with Tommy's years in college. Was a college education a way to find the language to sway people over to your point of view? Our father seemed to think so. Fred Caudill was sure that Tommy would wind up as a mayor or senator or some kind of big shooter. I guessed that he might even have approved of Tommy's enlistment as a way of gaining the stature necessary for that kind of public sway.

I had the bulk to move people to my way of thinking—as long as I was in the room. After an hour of shouting and silence and a mother's crying, I had seen the softening of Alex's face and his posture. The boy kissed his mother before he went to wash up for bed. But I knew that things had not changed. Alex was smart enough to lay back and deflect the heat till it died down. And that was the sense of it for me. More hurt would have to come before the whole issue could be laid to rest. Without the gift of real persuasion, I could not hope to make a lasting change in his view of things. So, after my night of grinding and not sleeping, I decided that my best move would be to try to fight the problem at the root instead of messing with the boy.

Since everything seemed to revolve around “the Colonel,” as Rix had introduced him, it looked like I had tipped too much of my own hand by pulling Alex out of the meeting. Rix would be looking out for me now, or maybe coming after me, and all the strange faces at the barn would be able to spot my one-eyed face anywhere. It was like I had stepped into the light. Because of the eye patch, people wanted to keep from looking right at me, and that's usually how I played it. Now, at least as far as the dirty business went—and it seemed to go everywhere—I was front and center. I had an idea that I might be able to muscle Hardiman with the pictures, but to tell the truth, I didn't feel smart enough or like I had a strong enough handle on it yet. What I wanted was time and peace to think things over. I wanted to be left alone. It was because I couldn't let things alone that I was in all the mess.

Since I couldn't think of anything else, and since, playing like a detective, I figured that all the aspects of the case might be important, I decided to check out Bobby's little syrup racket as a way of wrapping up any leads. It was a part of the mess I could maybe clean up and put away. Though I couldn't see how the ridiculous little syrup business might tie into it all, a hunch told me that there might be some odd connection to the Black Legion there, too. Bobby had told me that the beet sugar had come from up near Mio, and I knew well that there were any number of country places north of Detroit where groups of hateful rednecks liked to gather and stew their grievances together. My mouth had a bad taste like metal from all the talking I had done the night before, and I had a thought that a little sugar might sweeten things.

Bobby's crazy driving had confused me about where the building was exactly. I rifled Bobby's desk at headquarters until I found the address in some of his papers. Then I picked up Walker and Johnson and we drove westward, past the alley where Bobby was killed, south along a dirt road following the railroad tracks, and up to the address. The corner of the building that Bobby rented looked like it was unused. The windows were papered over from the inside. The door was padlocked, so I sent Johnson for the crowbar in the trunk. I was about to twist off the lock when Walker hollered from the side that the alley door had been broken in.

I went through and turned on the lights. It didn't seem as if any of the Polack ladies had been in for some time.

“This is quite an operation,” said Johnson.

“Well,” I said, “this ain't the high-rent district.”

The place had been tossed, but gently. Papers were scattered over a table making duty as a desk, and Johnson began to shuffle through them. Walker, his hands clasped behind him, stepped gently throughout the room. On the wall nearest the alley, several gallon tins of syrup stood stacked near the door. Along the opposite wall lay the heavy sacks of sugar, untouched except for the rat-nibbled holes along the bottom row. I moved closer to inspect them. There was no inscription or indication of their origin. It was the same with the tins of syrup, though they had handwritten labels showing their flavors. Sensibly enough, I thought. It wouldn't do for black market sugar to holler out a howdy-do. The folks in Washington seemed to be taking the war pretty seriously. Anyway, I thought, it was clear enough where the sugar and syrup were going, to Pops Brunell and into his soda drinks. And Pops would be easy enough to find.

Johnson gathered all the papers and boxed them up, but I knew it was useless to search through them. What interested me was the source of the sugar, the supplier. I guessed that the search of the place had been made to ensure that Bobby had left no way to trace the source, and this piqued my interest. It was not surprising that black marketeers should lurk in the shadows, and it was common knowledge that Bobby had been killed. So anybody with a muddy hand in it might have come over to throw the joint. It didn't need to be anyone mixed up in all the rest of the mess; maybe there was no connection at all. The truth of it, though, was that the whole deal smelled odd to me. Bobby was a hustler and a hard worker, I knew, but still I wondered how Bobby could ever set up an ongoing deal to obtain rationed sugar in such quantities, and at a price—sure to be at a premium on the black market—that would allow a decent markup. Pops Brunell couldn't very well charge an arm and a leg for his juice in the part of town he did business in. I wanted to sniff the air for some confirmation that the sugar was indeed connected to the Legion and to all the rest of it, but my senses were dull.