Thomas Cook - Streets of Fire

‘You a lawyer?’ someone called desperately as Ben continued toward the rear of the cellblock. ‘You gone git me out of here?’

In response, a chorus of boos and low moans swept the cellblock.

‘You staying like the rest of us, chickenshit,’ someone cried, and a series of cheers and catcalls broke from the stifling cells.

At the last cell, Ben stopped and looked in. Scores of young men and teenage boys milled about, and near the center of the cell one of them was urinating into the single toilet.

‘Looking for somebody, Preacherman?’ someone asked suddenly.

Ben glanced to the right and stared into a face that poked toward him from behind the bars.

‘Leroy Coggins,’ Ben said.

The man studied him a moment, then called toward the back of the cell. ‘Hey, Leroy. Preacherman’s here to see you.’

The crowd shifted about and a space opened up, as it seemed, between two dark furrows. At the end of it, Ben could see Coggins standing idly, his back to the rear wall.

‘What do you want?’ Coggins asked.

‘To talk to you.’

‘About what?’

‘That girl.’

‘Ooo wee,’ someone cried in a high, mocking voice. ‘Leroy, you got a girl?’

Coggins smiled. ‘Not one that would have anything to do with you,’ he said.

The crowd laughed.

‘That dead girl,’ Ben said.

‘She’d sure have to be dead to have anything to do with Leroy,’ the same voice shouted, and once again the crowd laughed.

Ben smiled, his eyes fixed on Coggins. ‘How about it, Mr Coggins?’ he said.

Coggins hesitated a moment, then pried himself from the wall and ambled leisurely to the front of the cell.

‘I’ve already told you everything I know,’ he said.

‘I know,’ Ben told him. He glanced down the hallway. ‘Sammy,’ he called, ‘come here a minute.’

McCorkindale lumbered down to them. ‘What can I do for you, Ben?’

‘Open up,’ Ben told him. ‘I want to take Mr Coggins out for a minute.’

McCorkindale opened the cell immediately, but Coggins did not step out of it.

‘What’s the matter?’ McCorkindale said tauntingly. ‘Scaredy-cat?’

Coggins straightened himself quickly and strode boldly out of the cell. ‘Not of anything you crackers can dish out,’ he snapped at McCorkindale.

McCorkindale’s face reddened instantly. ‘You better watch yourself, boy,’ he blurted.

Ben stepped between them and took Coggins lightly by the arm.

‘This way,’ he said as he tugged him forward quickly and led him up the stairs. He did not speak to him again until they were back in the detective bullpen.

‘You got to want to die to talk to people like you do,’ Ben said, almost lightly, as he sat down behind his desk.

Coggins remained standing, his face grim. ‘Maybe a part of me wants to do just that,’ he said.

Ben looked at him seriously. ‘Well, let the other part take over for a while,’ he said, ‘because we both know you’ve got work to do.’

Coggins face softened suddenly, but he did not move.

Ben nodded toward the empty chair which rested beside his desk. ‘I’d be much obliged if you’d take a seat.’

Coggins studied Ben’s face a moment longer, then he slowly sat down.

Ben took the purple ring from his jacket pocket and handed it to Coggins. ‘The fellow that killed that little girl – this might be his ring.’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t know that for sure, but right now it’s all I’ve got to go on.’

Coggins looked at the ring. ‘Well, you don’t have much, do you?’

‘No.’

Coggins laid the ring on the top of the desk. ‘I’ve never seen it. Where would I have seen it?’

‘I’m not expecting you to recognize it,’ Ben said.

Coggins leaned forward slightly. ‘Well, what exactly are you expecting, then?’

‘That ring had chalk dust all over it,’ Ben told him. ‘The kind you use on a pool cue.’

‘So?’

‘It’s the kind of ring you see down in some of those shops on Fourth Avenue.’

‘Maybe,’ Coggins said. ‘Up until recently I hadn’t spent much time down there. I’m from Ensley, remember?’

‘I was thinking it might belong to a Negro.’

‘Well, you certainly wouldn’t want it to belong to a white man.’

Ben let it pass. ‘And that this Negro just might hang around some of the poolhalls down on Fourth Avenue.’

Coggins smiled. ‘You’re a regular Sherlock Holmes,’ he said.

Ben let that pass too. ‘The thing is,’ he said, ‘the people who hang out on Fourth Avenue aren’t in much of a mood to talk to someone from the Police Department.’

‘Well, maybe if you had some Negro policemen in Birmingham, you wouldn’t have that problem,’ Coggins said.

‘I can’t deny that, Mr Coggins,’ Ben said. ‘I really can’t. But right now I’ve got a little girl, and I’ve got to find out who killed her.’ He looked at Coggins determinedly. ‘I got to find that out right now, not a few months or maybe even years from now, when things may be different.’

Coggins eyes returned to the ring. ‘What do you want from me?’

‘I want you to come with me down to Fourth Avenue,’ Ben said. ‘I want to go in some of those poolhalls, bring this ring with me, ask a few questions.’

Coggins looked up slowly. ‘I’m not sure I can do that.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because of the way it would look,’ Coggins said. ‘I mean, working with you. The way it would look to my people.’

‘You think maybe I might have the same problem with mine?’ Ben asked pointedly.

Coggins smiled but said nothing.

‘He’s still out there,’ Ben said, ‘whoever it was who killed Doreen Ballinger.’ He shrugged. ‘That wouldn’t be all that much to think about,’ he added, ‘if more little girls weren’t out there, too.’

Coggins did not speak immediately, but from the look in his eyes, Ben knew that he had won.

NINTEEN

Ranks of fireman in boots, helmets and rubber slicks were lined up in the basement as Ben and Coggins made their way to the car. The Chief paced up and down before them, his voice echoing through the concrete chamber. ‘You all pledged to serve the City of Birmingham when you came to the department,’ he cried. ‘And you are going to be asked to render that service, no matter what.’

Several of the firemen glanced at each other apprehensively, but the rest stared expressionlessly at the Chief.

‘We are all part of the same city,’ the Chief went on, his hand sweeping out into the gray air of the garage, and we’ve all sworn an oath to protect it.’

‘What’s this all about?’ Coggins whispered as Ben ushered him around a concrete column.

Ben shrugged lightly and continued moving steadily forward, one hand gently held to Coggins’ arm, until they reached the car.

‘He’s a dinosaur, that old man,’ Coggins said as he glanced back at the Chief.

‘Get in,’ Ben said.

Coggins pulled himself into the car, his eyes still directed toward the Chief and the lines of fireman who stood in formation before him. ‘He’s like a bug trying to hold back the ocean,’ he said.

‘Think so?’ Ben said idly.

‘Just like a little bug, trying to protect its hole against the tide,’ Coggins added. Then he looked at Ben and smiled, almost tauntingly. ‘You don’t believe that, do you?’

Ben said nothing. He grasped the wheel and jerked it to the right, sending the car in a wide are through the garage.

Coggins returned his eyes to the ranks of firemen and the stocky little man who paraded back and forth in front of them. ‘No sense of history,’ he said, almost to himself. ‘No idea at all of how they’ll be remembered when all this is over.’