Andrew Vachss - Two Trains Running

Dett stood in the same spot long enough to smoke another cigarette, never taking his eyes off the back door. Then he slipped into the shadows.

1959 October 02 Friday 22:50

The ’51 Mercury was a custom job: black with red-and-yellow flames on its de-chromed hood, chopped top, spinner hubcaps on whitewall tires, rear wheels hidden behind bubble skirts.

It was parked in a clearing off a narrow dirt road, surrounded by woods on all sides. A river ran somewhere nearby, close enough to be heard.

From the Mercury’s partially open windows came the doomed voice of Johnny Ace, “Pledging My Love.” In the front seat, brief flashes of color, signs of movement, sounds of sex.

“They never know you’re here, do they, Holden?”

Holden Satterfield didn’t jump at the whispered voice behind him. He didn’t flinch at the hand on his shoulder. He knew his friend Sherman would never hurt him. He sure could hurt me if he wanted to, Holden thought. Sherman’s a big man. And he’s a police officer, too. A detective. But Sherman knows I wouldn’t ever do nothing to people. I just watch them.

Wordlessly, the two men retreated from Holden’s watching place, their soundless movements as choreographed as tango partners’. When they got within sight of Sherman’s unmarked car, the big man said, “You got your logbook with you, Holden?”

“Sure,” the watcher said. “I always carry it, just like you said, Sherman.”

“You got anything in there about a different Merc? A newer one; a ’58, two-tone blue?”

“No, sir,” Holden said.

“You’re sure?”

“Sure I am, Sherman,” Holden said, in an injured tone. “You know I never forget a car once I see it.”

“I know,” Sherman said, reassuringly. “But even the best detectives, they write things down. To keep a record, like I explained to you.”

“Sure, Sherman. I know. Here,” he said, “look through it yourself.”

“That’s all right,” the cop said, waving away the offer. He knew Holden’s compulsive watching imprinted itself on the damaged man’s brain-the notebook was just to make things “official.”

“Most of them, I know them, right away,” Holden said. “They come back, over and over. But you have to watch close. Some of them, they bring different people in them sometimes.”

“Is that right?” Sherman said, absently. He understood that Holden believed the cars to be independent creatures, visiting the Lovers’ Lane of their own volition, carrying random cargo.

“Tonight, we had a ’56 Buick Century-you can tell by the extra porthole; ’57 Olds 98-they’re a little longer in the back than the 88; ’54 Ford, ’53 Studebaker, the Starliner; you can always…”

Sherman Layne stood in the night, oddly soothed by the sounds of Holden’s litany. Anyone who parks where Holden patrols, they might as well be signing a hotel register, he thought, proudly.

“… a beautiful ’55 Chevy, a Bel Air hardtop,” Holden went on. “I almost didn’t recognize it at first. The Bel Airs are all two-tones, you know. This one, it had the chrome tooken off the sides, except for one little strip. And it was this special red, all over. It looked like those apples you get at the carnival. You know, all shiny and-”

Harley Grant, sounded in Sherman’s mind. “You sure it was a ’55?” he asked.

“Oh, it was a ’55, Sherman,” Holden said, with absolute conviction. “They can’t fool me. I always know how to tell. Like, there’s a ’56 Ford that comes here all the time. Only, what it did, it swapped the taillights for a ’56 Mercury’s. Did you know they screw right in? You don’t have to do nothing to make them fit. So, if you just get a quick look at it, from the back, you can make a mistake. Now, the ’55 Chevy, the grille is different from a ’56; it doesn’t go all the way across. And it didn’t have fins, like a ’57.”

“You ever see it before?”

“No, I never did. I would’ve remembered it. That paint job, it was so beautiful, like the moon shined down on it special.”

“What did the girl look like?”

“You know I never-”

“Sure, Holden. I know,” Sherman said, gently. “I meant, did you notice anything about her? I mean, she was in this special car, so you’d think…”

“She had a kerchief on her head,” Holden said, stopping to think before each word. Usually, he tried to speak quickly, to make people forget that he had spent his whole life being called “slow.” But Sherman wasn’t like those other people. Sherman was his friend. Sherman called him “Holden,” not… other names.

“A white kerchief,” Holden went on. “But, underneath, her hair was dark. And she never once took it off. They just sat there. Together, I mean. He was smoking, but she wasn’t. I didn’t stay long.”

What the hell was Harley Grant doing in Lovers’ Lane? He’s one of Beaumont’s top men. He could afford a motel. And he’s got his own place, too. “Thanks, Holden,” Sherman said aloud. “You’re the best agent I’ve got.”

1959 October 03 Saturday 00:19

“He’s a pimp,” Rufus said, flatly.

“So?” one of the men seated around a makeshift wood table in the back room of a garage challenged. “Who here don’t have some kind of a scuffle going for him? This is a white man’s-”

“Everybody here sings that tune, K-man,” a tall man with a cadaverous face interrupted. “Omar doesn’t say things just to be talking.” He turned his head toward Rufus, expectantly. “Come on with it, now.”

Rufus nodded to the cadaverous man. “Thank you, brother. When I hear my true name-any of our true names-said out loud, it fills me with power. I don’t know where my father’s father’s father came from,” he began, “but I know, wherever it was, they didn’t have no names like ‘Rufus.’ The slavemasters branded us deep, brothers. And not just with their names. So we have to be two people-the one Mister Charlie sees, and the one he don’t. Here, with my own people, I’m not Rufus anymore. I’m Omar.”

As the others nodded approval, Rufus got to his feet, taking command. His voice was muscular but modulated, a high-horsepower engine held against a firm brake pedal.

“A black pimp is the white man’s living proof. They see a nigger with money, how did he get it? He stole it, they think. Or he sold some pussy. Or some dope. Doesn’t matter-the thing they know for sure, he didn’t work for it, right? And when the colored man scores some coin, what’s the first thing he does with it? Come on, brothers, tell the truth. He plays right into Charlie’s game. Gets him the biggest ride he can, drapes himself in the finest vines, and goes looking for a place to show it all off.”

Rufus held his hands at waist height, palms-down, creating a podium from the empty air in front of him. His eyes took in each man in the room, individually, before he spoke again.

“Stupid, ignorant motherfucker thinks he’s on top of the world, right? Got everything a big black ape could ever want, including a white woman. But does a pimp own anything? Does he have a legitimate business? Or even a damn house he can call his own? Where’s his money in the bank? Where’s his land? Where’s his power?

“Whitey goes like this,” Rufus said, snapping his fingers, “and it’s all gone. One day, this pimp, he’s king of the block. Next day, he’s down to the prison farm, digging in the dirt, while a man stands over him holding a gun. In some places I’ve been, that’s a black man, the one holding the gun.”

“A bank robber could end up the same way,” said a somber-looking man in a neat brown business suit two shades darker than his sepia complexion.

“Sure!” Rufus agreed, readily. “But… let me show you some pictures, okay?” he said, pointing at an imaginary photograph on the wall of the garage. “There’s one of some nigger in a suit with sparkles sewn into it, diamonds on his fingers, driving a big Cadillac. Now, over there, you see a picture of a black man with a gun, aimed right at the face of some bank teller. You’re a white man, which picture do you like? That one,” he said, gesturing, “you turn up the heat, he’s going to kiss your ass. But this one”-he pointed-“you get in his way, he might just take your life.”