Andrew Vachss: Two Trains Running

Tussy arched her eyebrows, tilted her head a fraction.

“Did I believe that myself?” Dett answered her unspoken question. “Maybe. It sounded like it made sense, kind of. But I didn’t really pay attention, because I was just there to do a job. But if you’re thinking, Did I ever argue with them?, no. I don’t know if that was because I was working undercover, or because I believed what they said. I didn’t think about it, not then.”

Dett put another cigarette in his mouth, lit it mechanically.

“It was just past ninety days,” he said. “I crossed off each day on my little calendar, just like you do in the county jail. I got to know who every single one of them was. I don’t mean just by face; I knew their names and what they did for a living, even where most of them stayed. I told all of that to the government men. I would just call them and talk, sometimes for a couple of hours. They would ask me questions, but they never told me what to do, exactly. They would just say I was doing good work, and to keep it up.”

Dett suddenly ground out his cigarette and stood up, startling Tussy.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to… I was just…” He quickly sat down again.

“On the ninety-second day, they killed a man,” Dett said, struggling with the words, but determined to go on. “Dragged him out of the shack where he was staying, took him out to a field, and whipped him. I think that was all it was supposed to be, but I… I just don’t know. One of them felt his neck, and he said, ‘This nigger is dead, boys.’ That’s when they got the idea-to string him up over a tree limb, like a lynching.

“In the morning, the word shot around town like a fire spreading. The sheriff went out to the field, and his men cut that colored man down.

“The head man called a meeting for that night. He said we’d have to lay low for a while, until things died down. Some of the other men argued about that. They said we had the niggers on the run now, so we should keep going, but the head man won out.

“I thought I was done then. I told the government men everything. I mean, I was right there. I even… I helped them do it, Tussy. I could say I didn’t know they were going to kill the man, and that would be true. But I can’t say what I would have done if I had known, so it doesn’t mean anything.

“The man on the phone said they had to have my story in person. I drove all the way over to Jackson to see them. There were a lot of men in the room they took me to. I showed them where it happened-they had a map of the area that was so big it covered the whole wall-and they had me put different-colored pins all over, everyplace something had happened. The last one, the killing, it got the only red pin.

“Then they made me go over what they called a ‘bracket.’ The twelve hours just before it happened, and the twelve hours after. They wanted to know how many people, how many cars, who spoke first, who made the decision to string the man up after he was dead-everything.

“It took so long that we stopped and had a meal. Sandwiches and coffee they had brought in.

“The more I talked, the better I felt, Tussy. Like I stuck a needle in an infection, and the pus was coming out. The more I told them, it was like the tighter I was squeezing, to get out every last drop, and be clean again.”

“Walker…”

“I have to say it all,” he said, inexorable.

She nodded, reached for still another cigarette. As she did, Fireball strolled into the living room and regarded her appraisingly for a moment before curling up at her feet.

“It was late at night when we finally finished,” Dett said. “And that’s when it happened.”

Dett closed his eyes, concentrated on his breathing.

Tussy watched, the cigarette smoldering in her hand.

“They told me I wasn’t done,” Dett said. His voice was thin, as if short on oxygen. “What I had given them was a good start, but it wasn’t enough. They had information that the most committed-that was the exact word they used-the most committed members were coming from all over, for one big splash. Alabama, Louisiana, Texas… everywhere. Not just the Klan, either. All kinds of groups. They were going to be making a statement. Do something so big that nobody would even think about trying to register the coloreds to vote, ever again.

“It was going to be a bomb, they said. A bomb big enough to blow up a whole city block. But that was all they knew. They needed me to find out when it was going to be done.

“I was… upset. I told them that wasn’t the deal we made. I thought all the people who had killed that colored man would have to answer for it. That would be like a bomb, too. Only a bomb for good, like the one we dropped on Japan.

“But the government men, you know what they said? They said, first of all, the man who died, it was an accident. I’d even said so myself, that they hadn’t started out to kill him, so what kind of witness would I be? Maybe a few men would go to prison, for a couple of years or so, but that wouldn’t do anything but make them heroes. ‘Just like you were,’ one of them said, pointing his finger at me like a gun.

“So I went back to work. I did everything they said I was supposed to do. That’s funny, huh? You probably don’t know who I mean by ‘they,’ do you, Tussy? Do I mean the government men, or the Klan? I was just thinking, even as I said it, I don’t know myself. Because I did what they both wanted me to do.”

Dett clasped his hands in front of him, took a deep breath, and looked into Tussy’s eyes for a long moment. She stared back, green eyes unblinking.

“I did terrible things, Tussy,” he said. “Not because I lost my temper, not because I was angry. Not even because I was scared, anymore. I did them in cold blood. I knew, when it was all over, I could never come back. I didn’t think about what would happen then. I guess I had a… fantasy, you could call it, about going to work for the government myself, in some other town. You know, being a spy. But, most of the time, I didn’t think about it at all. I just… did things.

“One night, three of them came to where I was staying. Parnell James, William Lee Manderville, and Zeke Pritchard. I remember their names like they’re engraved on my heart. Like someone took a chisel to the stone. They said it was time to ride, and I didn’t ask any questions.

“When I saw the car they had-it was a station wagon, and I knew it wasn’t any of theirs-I knew. Something was going to happen. Something terrible.

“We all had guns. In the back of the wagon, there were chains. Heavy chains, like you’d use to tow a tractor out of the mud. Zeke was driving. I was next to him in the front seat. He said there was this nigger, Lewis, I don’t know if that was his first or his last name, and he was stirring things up bad. Going around with some white boys. Strangers, not from around there. They were night-riding, just like we had been. Visiting the coloreds in their homes. Telling them they all had to register to vote. Signing them up.

“This Lewis, he was a big man, Zeke said. Not big in size, but in power. The coloreds were all getting ready to follow him. They, the other men in the car that night, they had their orders. It was time.

“We rode way out into the country. Lewis was staying in this sharecropper’s shack, on land that wasn’t being worked anymore.

“He was a squatter, they said. Didn’t even have the right to be on the land. ‘We have to sneak up on him,’ Zeke said. ‘Lewis is a real bad nigger, not the kind to just go along and take what’s coming to him, like most of them.’ He had a gun, and he’d use it.

“We got to where he was staying. There was no light on in the cabin. We came at it from the sides. I was the first. Because I knew all about sneaking up in the dark, from the army, is what Zeke told me.