John Katzenbach - Just Cause

'Why'd the trooper stop them?' Brown asked.

'He said because the driver was acting suspiciously. Weaving. Trying to avoid being looked at.'

'What page did your story go on?'

Cowart hesitated, then replied, 'Front page. Below the fold.'

The detective nodded. 'I know why the trooper stopped the car.' He spoke quietly. 'White woman. Black man. Right?'

Cowart knew the answer, but was slow to say yes. I Why do you want to know?'

Come on, Cowart. You were once quick with the statistics to me, remember? Wanted to know if I knew the FBI stats on black-on-white crime. Well, I do know them. And I know how rare that sort of crime is. And I also know that's what gets your goddamn story on the front page instead of being cut to six paragraphs in the middle of the B-section roundup. Because if it had been black-on-black crime, that's where it would have landed, right?'

He wanted to disagree, but could not. 'Probably.'

The policeman snorted. ' "Probably" is a real safe answer, Cowart.' Brown gestured widely with his arm. "If you think the city editor would have sent one of the reporters from downtown all the way out here if he wasn't damn sure it was a front-page story? Nah, he'd have had some stringer or some suburban reporter file those paragraphs.' Brown turned toward the restaurant door, speaking he started to cross the parking lot. 'You want to know something, Cowart? You want to know why this is a tough place to live? It's because everyone knows how close they are to the ghetto. I don't mean in miles.'

What's Liberty City, maybe thirty, forty miles away from here, right? No, it's the closeness of fear. They know they don't get the same dollars, the same programs, the same schools, the same any damn thing. So they have to cling to that dream of lower-middle-class status just like it was some life preserver leaking air. They all know what it's like in the ghetto, it's like it sucks away at them, trying to pull them back all the time. All those get-up-early-and-be-on-time-every-morning jobs, all those paychecks that get cashed as soon as they get cut, those little hot houses, are all that keeps it away.'

'What about in North Florida? Pachoula?'

'Pretty much the same. Only up there, the fear is that the Old South – you know, the backwoods, no plumbing, tar paper shack poverty – will reach out and snag you once again.'

'Isn't that what Ferguson came from? From both?'

The detective nodded. 'But he rose up and made it out.'

'Like you.'

Brown stopped and turned toward Cowart. 'Like me,' he said with a low edge of anger in his voice. 'But I don't welcome that comparison, Mr. Cowart.'

The two entered the restaurant.

It was well past the lunch hour and before the evening rush, so they had the place to themselves. They sat in a booth alongside a window overlooking the parking lot. A waitress in a tight white outfit that exaggerated her ample bosom, and a gum-chewing scowl that indicated that any suggestive remarks would be greeted with little enthusiasm, took their order and passed it through a window to a solitary cook in the back. Within seconds they could hear the sizzle of hamburgers frying, and seconds later the scent hit them.

They ate in silence. When they'd finished, Brown ordered a slice of key lime pie with his coffee. He took one bite, then speared another, this time gesturing with the fork toward Cowart.

'Hey, homemade, Cowart. You ought to try a piece. Can't get this up in Pachoula. At least, not like this.'

The reporter shook his head.

'Hell, Cowart, I bet you're the type that likes to stop at salad bars for lunch. Keep that lean, ascetic look by munching on rabbit food.'

Cowart shrugged in admission.

'Probably drink that shitty bottled water from France, too.'

As the detective was speaking, Cowart watched as the waitress moved behind him, into another booth. She had a razor-scraper in her hand, and she bent over to remove something from the window. There was a momentary scratching sound as she cleaned tape from glass. Then she straightened up, putting a small poster under her arm. Cowart caught a glimpse of a young face. The waitress was about to turn away when, for no reason that he could immediately discern, he gestured for her.

She approached the table. 'Y'all gonna try that pie, too?' she asked.

No,' he answered. 'I was just curious about that poster.' He pointed at the paper she'd folded under her arm.

'This?' she said. She handed it over to him, and he spread it out on the table in front of him.

In the center of the poster was a picture of a young black girl, smiling, wearing pigtails. Underneath the picture, in large block letters, was the word MISSING.

This was followed by a message in smaller lettering:

DAWN PERRY, AGE 12, FIVE FEET TWO INCHES, 105 POUNDS,

DISAPPEARED THE AFTERNOON 8,12,90, LAST SEEN WEARING

BLUE SHORTS, WHITE I-SHIRT AND SNEAKERS, CARRYING

BOOK BAG. ANYONE WITH ANY KNOWLEDGE OF HER

WHEREABOUTS CALL 555-1212 AND ASK FOR DETECTIVE

HOWARD.

This message was completed with a large print: REWARD.

Cowart looked up at the waitress. 'What happened?'

The waitress shrugged as if to say that giving information wasn't part of her job. 'I don't know. Little girl. One day's she's there. The next, she's not.'

'Why are you taking the sign down?'

'Been a long time, mister. Months and months. Ain't nobody found that girl by now, I don't suspect this sign's gonna make any difference. And anyway, my boss asked me to yesterday, and I forgot until just now.'

Cowart saw that Brown had started examining the poster. He looked up. 'Police ever come up with anything?'

'Not that I'd know. Y'all want something else?'

'Just a check, Brown replied. He smiled, creased the flyer and slid it onto the table between them. 'I'll take care of this for you, he said.

The waitress walked away to make their change.

'Makes you wonder, doesn't it?' Brown said. 'You get into the right frame of mind, Cowart, and all sorts of terrible things just pop right in, don't they?'

He didn't reply, so the detective continued. 'I mean, you hang close to death enough and unusual things just jump up, like they were so normal and routine you'd ignore them if you weren't thinking so hard about how and when people kill each other.'

Cowart nodded.

Brown leaned back after stabbing at the last few crumbs of pie on his plate. I told you the food would be fresh,' he said. Then he pushed forward abruptly, closing the distance between them.

'Steals your appetite away, doesn't it, Cowart? A little coincidence for dessert, huh?'

He tapped the folded flyer. 'I mean, it probably doesn't amount to anything, right? Just another little girl that disappeared one day. And it probably doesn't fit in, time and opportunity and all that. But it is interesting, isn't it? That a little girl disappears not too far from the highway leading down to the Keys. I wonder if it was from in front of a school.'

Cowart interrupted. 'Fifty miles from Tarpon Drive.'

The detective nodded.

'And absolutely nothing that indicates anything about the cases that happen to concern us.'

'So,' Brown said slowly. 'Why'd you want to see it, when the waitress was pulling it down?'

The policeman crumpled up the flyer into a ball and stuck it into his pocket as he pushed back in his seat and rose to leave the restaurant.

The two men stopped on the sidewalk outside. Cowart looked down toward the toy store at the end of the mall and saw that a blue-shirted man was sitting outside the door, carrying a truncheon at his side. Security, he realized. He wondered why he hadn't noticed the man before. He guessed that he'd been added after the kidnapping, as if the guard's presence would prevent another lightning strike from occurring in the same spot. He remembered that even with the police gathered outside, people had continued to walk into the store, and that a steady stream of adults and children, all carrying large plastic bags filled with various toys, had continued to emerge, ignoring the savagery that had started on the sidewalk.