William Haggard - The New Black Mask (No 5)

When Cora finished her story, we were skirting the edge of High Darktown. It was dusk; the temperature was easing off; the neon signs of the Western Avenue juke joints had just started flashing. Cora lit a cigarette and said, “All Billy’s people is from around here. If he’s lookin’ for a hideout or a travelin’ stake, he’d hit the clubs on West Jeff. Wallace wouldn’t show his evil face around here, ’less he’s lookin’ for Billy, which I figure he undoubtedly is. I—”

I interrupted, “I thought Billy came from a square-john family. Wouldn’t he go to them?”

Cora’s look said I was a lily-white fool. “Ain’t no square-john families around here, ’ceptin those who work domestic. West Adams was built on bootlegging, sweetie. Black sellin’ white lightnin’ to black, gettin’ fat, then investin’ white. Billy’s folks was runnin’ shine when I was in pigtails. They’re respectable now, and they hates him for takin’ a jolt. He’ll be callin’ in favors at the clubs, don’t you worry.”

I hung a left on Western, heading for Jefferson Boulevard. “How do you know all this?”

“I am from High, High Darktown, sweet."

“Then why do you hold on to that Aunt Jemima accent?”

Cora laughed. “And I thought I sounded like Lena Home. Here’s why, sweetcakes. Black woman with a law degree they call 'nigger.’ Black girl with three-inch heels and a shiv in her purse they call ‘baby.’ You dig?”

“I dig.”

“No, you don’t. Stop the car, Tommy Tucker’s club is on the next block.”

I said, “Yes, ma’am,” and pulled to the curb. Cora got out ahead of me and swayed around the comer on her three-inch heels, calling, “I’ll go in,” over her shoulder. I waited underneath a purple neon sign heralding “Tommy Tucker's Playroom.” Cora come out five minutes later, saying, “Billy was in here ’bout half an hour ago. Touched the barman for a double saw.”

“Simpkins?”

Cora shook her head. “Ain’t been seen.”

I hooked a finger in the direction of the car. “Let’s catch him.”

For the next two hours we followed Billy Boyle’s trail through High Darktown’s nightspots. Cora went in and got the information, while I stood outside like a white wallflower, my gun unholstered and pressed to my leg, waiting for a voodoo killer with a tommy gun to aim and fire. Her info was always the same: Boyle had been in, had made a quick impression with his army threads, had gotten a quick touch based on his rep, and had practically run out the door. And no one had seen Wallace Simpkins.

11 P.M. found me standing under the awning of Hank’ Swank Spot, feeling pinpricks all over my exhausted body. Square-john negro kids cruised by waving little American flags out of backseat windows, still hopped up that the war was over. Male and female, they all had mug-shot faces that kept my trigger finger at half-pull even though I knew damn well they couldn’t be him. Cora’s sojourn inside was running three times as long as her previous ones, and when a car backfired and I aimed at the old lady behind the wheel, I figured High Darktown was safer with me off the street and went in to see what was keeping Cora.

The Swank Spot’s interior was Egyptian: silk wallpaper embossed with pharaohs and mummies, paper-mache pyramids surrounding the dance floor, and a long bar shaped like a crypt lying sideways. The patrons were more contemporary: negro men in double-breasted suits and women in evening gowns who looked disapprovingly at my rumpled clothes and two-and-a-half-day beard.

Ignoring them, I eyeballed in vain for Cora. Her soiled pink dress would have stood out like a beacon amid the surrounding hauteur, but all the women were dressed in pale white and sequined black. Panic was rising inside me when I heard her voice, distorted by bebop, pleading behind the dance floor.

I pushed my way through minglers, dancers, and three pyramids to get to her. She was standing next to a phonograph setup, gesturing at a black man in slacks and a camel-hair jacket. The man was sitting in a folding chair, alternately admiring his manicure and looking at Cora like she was dirt.

The music was reaching a crescendo; the man smiled at me; Cora's pleas were engulfed by saxes, horns, and drums going wild. I flashed back to my Legion days — rabbit punches and elbows and scrubbing my laces into cuts during clinches. The past two days went topsy-turvy, and I kicked over the phonograph. The Benny Goodman sextet exploded into silence, and I aimed my piece at the man and said, “Tell me now.”

Shouts rose from the dance floor, and Cora pressed herself into a toppled pyramid. The man smoothed the pleats in his trousers and said, “Cora’s old flame was in about half an hour ago, begging. I turned him down, because I respect my origins and hate snitches. But I told him about an old mutual friend — a soft touch. Another Cora flame was in about ten minutes ago, asking after flame number one. Seems he has a grudge against him. I sent him the same place.”

I croaked, “Where?” and my voice sounded disembodied to my own ears. The man said, “No. You can apologize now, officer. Do it, and I won’t tell my good friends Mickey Cohen and Inspector Waters about your behavior.”

I stuck my gun in my waistband and pulled out an old Zippo I used to light suspects' cigarettes. Sparking a flame, I held it inches from a stack of brocade curtains. “Remember the Coconut Grove?"

The man said, “You wouldn’t,” and I touched the flame to the fabric. It ignited immediately, and smoke rose to the ceiling. Patrons were screaming “Fire!” in the club proper. The brocade was fried to a crisp when the man shrieked, “John Downey,” ripped off his camel hair and flung it at the flames. I grabbed Cora and pulled her through the club, elbowing and rabbit punching panicky revelers to clear a path. When we hit the sidewalk, I saw that Cora was sobbing. Smoothing her hair, I whispered hoarsely, “What, babe, what?”

It took a moment for Cora to find a voice, but when she spoke, she sounded like a college professor. “John Downey’s my father. He’s very big around here, and he hates Billy because he thinks Billy made me a whore.”

“Where does he li—”

“Arlington and Country Club.”

We were there within five minutes. This was High, High Darktown — Tudor estates, French chateaus, and Moorish villas with terraced front lawns. Cora pointed out a plantation-style mansion and said, “Go to the side door. Thursday’s the maid’s night off, and nobody’ll hear you if you knock at the front.”

I stopped the car across the street and looked for other out-of-place vehicles. Seeing nothing but Packards, Caddys, and Lincolns nestled in driveways, I said, “Stay put. Don’t move, no matter what you see or hear.”

Cora nodded mutely. I got out and ran over to the plantation, hurdling a low iron fence guarded by a white iron jockey, then treading down a long driveway. Laughter and applause issued from the adjoining mansion, separated from the Downey place by a high hedgerow. The happy sounds covered my approach, and I started looking in windows.

Standing on my toes and moving slowly toward the back of the house, I saw rooms festooned with crewel-work wall hangings and hunting prints. Holding my face up to within a few inches of the glass, I looked for shadow movement and listened for voices, wondering why all the lights were on at close to midnight.

Then faceless voices assailed me from the next window down. Pressing my back to the wall, I saw that the window was cracked for air. Cocking an ear toward the open space, I listened.

“… and after all the setup money I put in, you still had to knock down those liquor stores?"

The tone reminded me of a mildly outraged negro minister rebuking his flock, and I braced myself for the voice that I knew would reply.