John Gardner - The Sunlight Dialogues

Still Kozlowski said nothing. He was passing the ice plant, closed for over a year now. There were a couple of bicycles leaning against the fence. He glanced at Clumly, and Clumly pretended not to see. “Two more blocks,” Clumly said. “You know the place as well as I do, son.”

Kozlowski nodded. After a minute he said, “You gonna raid her right now? In the morning?”

Clumly compressed his lips, checked for an instant. But the hunch was strong.

“You think too much, Kozlowski,” he said. “It’s a bad habit, for a cop. Oh, I don’t blame you, you understand. Man can’t help feeling uneasy sometimes in this business. But I’ll tell you something. This is a democracy. You know how democracy works, son? Bunch of people get together and they decide how they want things, and they pass a law and they have ’em that way till they’re sick of it, and then they pass some other law that’s maybe wrong some other way. It’s like a farmer,” Clumly said. “Say he sets his alarm clock wrong and he gets up an hour too early, and then he sends his dog out after the cows for milking. You follow me? Well now the dog knows it’s an hour too early, and he ain’t happy about it, but he goes. Well, we’re the Watchdogs of Society. We do our job or we’re no use.”

“Cowdogs, you mean,” Kozlowski said.

“Correct,” Clumly said. “Same thing.”

“Shall I turn on the siren, Chief?” Kozlowski said.

Clumly scowled, annoyed, and said, “Negative.” He hated a man who would sass you right out. But Kozlowski was young, another of the new ones. He’d let it pass. The car pulled over and Clumly opened his door quietly. He hung motionless an instant, no longer sure of his hunch; but his doubt passed. “You go first.”

It was a low, dark-green house set back in the shadow of maple trees. The grass needed cutting, between the bare patches, and the plants were dead in the green metal boxes on the porch. There was a rusted car up on blocks to the right of the house, a legacy from some previous tenant. Weeds had grown up through the floorboards, and you could see them through the windshield like patient, brainless creatures waiting for a ride. They were people turned into thistles, maybe. The shades were drawn on all the house windows you could see from the street, and one of the windows had a pane of cardboard in it. There was a Negro child sitting on the porch roof of the house next door.

“Looks like business hasn’t been good,” Kozlowski said. “You remember the warrant?”

“Just ask her if you can come in,” Clumly said.

“According to the law—” Kozlowski began.

Clumly flushed. They didn’t need a warrant if she invited them in, and Kozlowski knew it. “Just ask her.”

Kozlowski nodded and adjusted his cap. “Positive,” he said. He went up on the porch, Clumly a little behind him, and rang the doorbell.

“Better knock,” Clumly said. “Those doorbells never work.”

Kozlowski knocked. Casually, Clumly stepped to the left of the door where she wouldn’t see him at once when she opened up. Kozlowski touched his cap again as if thinking of taking it off, then changed his mind. After a long moment he knocked a second time, more firmly, then folded his red hands behind him. There wasn’t a sound from inside the house, and they went on waiting, Clumly gazing down the street toward the grocery store at the corner of Harvester and Main, where there were more Negroes. A smell of pigweed came from the end of the porch. At last, though still there had been no sound, the doorknob turned and the door opened three inches. Clumly sidled back farther along the wall.

“Yes?” she said.

Kozlowski bent toward her, apologetic as a funeral director. “It’s nothing serious, ma’am. Do you mind if I come in?”

Clumly held in a smile, standing with his back against the cool wall of the house. Kozlowski would make a good cop, one of these days. She was going to let him in.

“All right,” she said doubtfully. She opened the door farther, keeping behind it. Kozlowski stepped in and when he was over the threshold turned as if inviting Clumly to follow. Clumly took off his hat and stepped in behind.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” Kozlowski said again. “My name’s Kozlowski. This is Chief Clumly.”

She looked at them, waiting. She had baggy eyes and cracks on her lips, though she was young. She was a white woman, but dark-complected. Eyes like a gypsy’s. Her henna-red hair was long and loose and didn’t look clean. The hair on her legs was black. She stood with one hand on the doorknob, the other clutching her robe together — quilted pink, badly faded. The livingroom behind her was gloomy and grimy, furnished like a cheap motel with low-lined overstuffed chairs, a daybed, three standing metal ashtrays that were probably stolen from somewhere. A bus depot, maybe. On the dimestore coffee table there were battered magazines— True Confessions, Police Gazette, Movie Life, The Astrologer. It didn’t look to Clumly like a whorehouse, and he felt a moment’s panic. But this was the place and, he remembered suddenly — and smiled, cunning — he hadn’t told Kozlowski which house; Kozlowski had chosen it himself. He frowned then, until his eyes were like two bullets, and tried to think what the smell was, filling the room.

“How do you do,” Clumly said, extending his hand.

She ignored it. “What is this?”

“Your name Rosemary?” Clumly said.

She did not answer and at first gave no sign that he was right or wrong, merely watched him, hostile and afraid. She bit her lower lip. She had long thin teeth with space between the two in front. Then, stupidly — Poor stupid woman, Clumly thought — she looked at Kozlowski for help. “You said there’d be no trouble.” Kozlowski pursed his lips and looked at the floor. She looked back at Clumly. “What is this? What do you want?”

Clumly covered his mouth with his hand, startled by his luck, and merely looked at her. So young, he thought. (It was time to pounce now: ask to see the bedrooms.) There was dirt in the cracks on her neck, and below the collar line, where the sun hadn’t hit her, her flesh was goosepimply and white. It came to him that the stench in the house, heavier, more concentrated around her body — a stink like rottenness, like death — was dimestore perfume.

“How old are you, Rosemary?” Clumly said.

She drew back a step, running her hand through her hair, with her left hand pulling the collar of the robe more tightly together. “Get out of here,” she said. She turned her face to Kozlowski. “What does he want?”

But Kozlowski went on studying the floor, red as a beet, moving the toe of his boot along a crack, three inches, back and forth, like a boy.

Clumly went on studying her with his hand around his chin. She could have been pretty, like anyone else, if she’d wanted. “How long you been in this business, Rosemary?” he said gently.

“Get out,” she said. Her black eyebrows lowered and her mouth grew taut. “Get out of my house or by Jesus I’ll call—” She broke off abruptly and laughed, her voice electric.

Clumly thought about it. Her anger was queerly touching to him, and confusing. He felt he’d been here before, the same conversation. He tried to think. “Very well,” he said a little vaguely, “we’ll go. But we’ll be back, Rosemary.” He didn’t move. “Young lady, if you want my advice—” He didn’t finish, and couldn’t. They had come to a standstill. Kozlowski knew it and wouldn’t help; probably couldn’t. Clumly waited, and time grew like a calm. He tried to think. Then, suddenly, she darted forward releasing the collar and letting the robe fly loose around her naked bosom, and before Clumly knew what was happening he was back inside time, she had slashed open the side of his hand with her silver fingernails and was reaching for his face. He was too startled even for anger. “That’s enough!” he yelled. “Stop it!” He caught her hands, his heart pounding painfully, and simply held her as well as he could for a moment by the wrists, not knowing what to do. Then, collecting his wits, numb with the image of her nakedness, he released her and turned away quickly, ducking his head, and half-ran through the door. Kozlowski came out behind him soberly, like a man coming out of a church. His lips were pursed. The door slammed shut, then opened again. “Bastards!” she yelled at them. “Sons of bitches!” She shook her fist, leaning out at them, shameless, oblivious, hurling obscenities like mud. Clumly held his chest with two hands to keep the pounding of his heart from splitting it, and he walked bent over more than usual, panting for breath. When he reached the car he fell into it and sat with his eyes shut, still holding his chest but keeping the blood from his scratched hand off his shirt. He was afraid he was having an attack. Kozlowski sat waiting, lighting a cigarette.