Макс Коллинз - Quarry in the Black

Ruth smiled. “Nobody boos the Reverend.”

“Should you happen to spot someone in the audience,” Jackson said, “who you can identify as a Vietnam vet... are there ways?”

“Sometimes,” I said. “Clothing, usually. Sometimes a placard. You know.”

“Well, in that case you go up to them, identify yourself and shake hands and go, ‘Right on, brother.’ That cool with you, Jack?”

“Cool, Mr. Jackson.”

We talked for another fifteen minutes, and just before Ruth and I went out to get started on developing my phone spiel, Jackson said, “We’ll get you some quality time with the Reverend. I think he’s going to take to you, Jack. Take to you just fine.”

I said, “Thank you, sir.”

“No ‘sir’ necessary.” He lifted the big mustache with a small half-smile. “I was an enlisted man myself. Korea.”

As we exited the office, I heard muffled arguing across the way. A very handsome black woman in a fall coat and hat was standing in front of Lloyd’s desk, leaning toward him, gloved hands on the desktop. Now and then she thrust a finger out at the bullpen of staffers. He wasn’t saying much, though I had a hunch when he did, it was, “Now, dear...” You couldn’t pick out what she was saying, but you didn’t have to.

She was pissed.

“What’s that all about?” I asked Ruth.

“That’s Mrs. Lloyd,” she said. “Marianne.”

“Trouble in paradise?”

She shook her head. “Don’t ask. Please don’t ask.”

But there was an interesting quaver to her voice.

A different band was on stage at the Euclid Bar and Grill, a better one. Right now they were playing “Down by the River,” a nice job of it, though I could have done without the lead singer’s over-the-top Neil Young impression. It was closing time — two A.M., according to the bar clock, really one-forty.

I’d spent the afternoon working out my phone spiel with Ruth, which had taken about an hour, the rest of the time at a desk making calls, going through a list of registered Democratic voters. A lot of the time nobody was home, but those who were — usually housewives or college kids in apartments — were mostly friendly. A handful just hung up on me. A few insisted Nixon was getting out of Vietnam, and I pointed out it was taking him better than his four years in office getting that done, reminding them he’d got elected on his “secret plan” to get out of the Nam soup. A plan, yes, but the secret was four more years of war. And now he wanted four more years in the White House.

The whole Nixon thing actually came out of my brain, astounding me. I guess I knew more about what was going on than I thought I did. Thanks, John Chancellor. And here I’d thought the NBC nightly news was just background noise while I ate something off a TV tray.

I’d arranged to pick Becky up at the bar after she got off work, then spent the earlier evening watching television with Boyd. I picked up a pepperoni pizza at a place called Culpepper’s and we were eating slices off napkins — no TV trays — while The Odd Couple was on.

He grinned at me during one commercial. “I’m starting to feel like we’re the Odd Couple.”

“Me, too. You be the ‘odd.’ ”

Remarks like that usually made him laugh. This time his half-hearted “ha” barely qualified.

Next commercial, he said, “You’re going out with that little jig-hating twat, huh?”

“Yeah. I want to see what’s she up to. Also maybe fuck her again.”

“Well, at least you have a plan.”

Me and Nixon.

After Johnny Carson, I’d gone down to the bar and found a place to stand and lean. No booth tonight — it was more crowded than last night, chatter, laughter, packed dance floor. I went wild and had a draw Falstaff. I was in the same clothes I’d worn earlier, when I volunteered at the Coalition HQ, including the windbreaker. The only change in my wardrobe was the nine millimeter in my waistband in back.

I’d brought it along for two reasons. First, those knuckleheads from last night might be back to get even, and of course all they’d get was more of the same. Second, I wasn’t sure what to make of Becky, beyond her bedroom skills, and till I found out what she was up to, I needed something hard and long in my pants that wasn’t doing my thinking for me.

Now and then she would stop and say something cute or sexy and go on about her business. The smokiness and neon lighting gave a guy alone at the bar a nice anonymity. Shocking as it seems, no girl hit on me. I just drank my beer — well, actually two of them — and mostly enjoyed the band. After they played “Ohio,” about the college kids getting killed by the National Guard, a bunch of applause rang out. I assumed these kids weren’t applauding the Guard, but in this town who could say.

By a quarter after two (really five till), the patrons had filed out, and the trio of waitresses had cleaned up — tabletops wiped down, chairs on tables — and cashed out with the bartender. Becky came over and looped her arm in mine. Beaming up at me as we stepped out onto the sidewalk. Cool night but not quite cold.

“Shall we?” she asked, leading me to the door between hippie dress shop and bar.

I paused. “Isn’t there somewhere after-hours I can take you? If not a club, Denny’s, or a Sambo’s maybe?”

She shook her head and all that red cotton candy bounced, her hand on the door handle. “No thanks, honey, I’m too sweaty and smoky for that. But I could fix us a little somethin’.”

“Haven’t you done enough waiting on people for one night?”

“I don’t mind. I’ll take a shower and wash the crud off, and then maybe, I don’t know... maybe see what comes up?”

I laughed like I hadn’t heard that a thousand times and followed her up the stairs, not pausing at all on the little landing at the door to the stakeout pad. Up on her landing, she used her key and I followed her in and they jumped me.

Two of them, a tall skinny one and a tall not-skinny one, one on either side, grabbing me by the arms and hauling me in, then hurling me to the carpet. I rolled over and looked up at them.

They were in tan workshirts, tan chinos and brown work boots; short hair, no sideburns. Blank oval faces, though the skinny one’s was more narrow, his hair dark brown, while the other guy, who might have been a linebacker, had a Kirk Douglas cleft chin and the blond hair to go with it.

Neither one had a gun, but the linebacker had a blackjack in his right hand, having grabbed me with his left. Now he was tapping it against his leg, gently.

“We’re taking you to talk to somebody, mister,” he said.

He was maybe twenty-three. The skinny one, no older, was going over to the couch where several loops of rope were waiting, also some duct tape. Becky was standing at the open doorway to her bedroom, looking like she might cry, hugging herself like it was cold in here.

“Taking me where?” I asked, sitting up. “For what?”

He lifted the blackjack and waggled it like a finger. “Just stay put. We’re gonna tie you up. You might could live through this.”

He had that same faint Southern twang as Becky.

I said, “That’s might encouraging.”

He frowned, smart enough to know I was mocking him. But I had a hunch that was the extent of his smarts.

“Just you cooperate,” he said. “Somebody wants to talk to you.”

“You said that before. Becky! Honey. This your way of paying me back for sticking up for you last night?”

She said nothing, looked away.

“Becky is with us,” the linebacker said, like I didn’t know that. “She told us how you roughed up them creeps last night, and she’s grateful. But we got to be careful. If you’re who you might be, you’ll understand.”