Thomas Cook - Streets of Fire

Whatever it is you’re thinking, you’re completely wrong.

The cigarette burned down to his fingertips, and he quickly crushed it into the small tin ashtray on his desk, then lit another. Two mounted fans were whirring softly in the hot evening air, and he leaned back slowly, loosened his tie and let the breeze waft over him. The silence of the bullpen settled over him, and for a time, he simply sat, watching the blades in the gray half-light, until they seemed to watch him back, two dull eyes peering at him from either corner of the room. Then he sat up, blinked rapidly and shifted his vision over to the flat unshuttered windows which fronted the street from the high vantage point of the fourth floor. He stood up, walked over to the window and peered down at the city. It seemed darker than it had ever been before, wrapped in the thick musty heat, smothering like a child beneath a heavy black quilt. He wasn’t sure when he’d stopped loving it, or if he’d ever really loved it, or the South, or anything at all outside the few people who had been drawn to him by blood alone, and who were now gone far beyond recall, almost beyond remembrance, silent as their unbeating hearts.

He was back at his desk, going over everything once again, when McCorkindale came in. He sat up and stared at him, amazed.

‘What are you doing here this time of night?’

McCorkindale stopped dead in the dull light, then turned and flipped on the switch, flooding the room with a hard, bright light. ‘What do you like to sit in the dark for, Ben?’ he asked as he moved forward once again, heading for his desk in the corner of the room.

‘I’m surprised to see you here, Sammy.’

‘Well, I don’t live here like you do,’ McCorkindale said casually. ‘I got a family, and all kinds of shit like that.’

‘What are you doing here?’

‘Ah, my wife’s been sick and I had a prescription filled and left it at work,’ McCorkindale told him as he made it to his desk, snapped up a small paper bag and headed back for the door. ‘I figured she might be able to get through the night without it, but no such luck.’ He was now halfway to the door, still moving ponderously among the desks, the paper bag tucked under his right arm. ‘Thanks for getting that pistol back to Property,’ he said as he made it back to the light switch. ‘You want me to turn these things off again?’

Ben sat up slightly. ‘What pistol?’

‘The one you turned back into Property,’ McCorkindale said impatiently. ‘They’d marked it wrong, though.’

‘Who had?’

‘Morgue.’

‘Are you talking about a twenty-two pistol?’

‘That’s right. Cute little thing.’

‘It was used in a murder.’

McCorkindale laughed. ‘No way, Ben.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because it was missing from Property,’ McCorkindale said. ‘That’s where it came from. Same serial numbers. It was the only weapon that was missing when I was logging everything in a few days ago.’

Ben felt his body rise almost involuntarily. ‘Missing? You mean it had once been in Property?’

‘That’s right,’ McCorkindale said. ‘Confiscated in a holdup.’

‘Who made the arrest?’

‘Breedlove,’ McCorkindale said casually. ‘Good old Charlie Breedlove.’ Then he flipped off the lights.

THIRTY

The heat was still hanging like a thick web in the air as Ben pulled up just across the street from Breedlove’s house. It was dark, with the shades drawn tightly down over the windows, and not so much as a lone porch light to relieve the surrounding night. The plain gravel driveway was empty, and because of that, Ben knew that Breedlove was not at home. Like almost everyone else in the city, he lived by his car, and when it wasn’t at home, neither was its owner. He looked at his watch. It was almost midnight. He leaned forward slightly, wrapping his arms loosely around the steering wheel. The windows of Breedlove’s house were tightly closed, despite the heat, and Ben wondered if it was possible that Breedlove’s family, his wife and young son, were also gone.

For a long time he simply sat in his car and watched the house. Slowly, the long day’s weariness began to overtake him, a heaviness in his legs and arms that seemed to press him down in the seat. To relieve it, he stepped out of the car, lit a cigarette and walked for a while down the narrow, tree-lined street. All the houses were dark, their windows staring toward him like bruised eyes. The world was asleep, it seemed to him, but only fitfully. The tension in the city had not been washed away by the water hoses, and as he continued down the winding, cracked sidewalk, Ben tried to imagine what the next step might be. He could see the Chief’s white tank as it circled Kelly Ingram Park, and Black Cat 13 as it prowled the back streets of the Negro district like a marauding beast, slow, sullen, sniffing the air for prey. It was as if something had gone so deeply wrong in the past that it was no longer recoverable, and so the old weight only grew heavier with each day, sinking the city with it, drawing it down forever.

He made a right, walking silently, then another and another until he found himself back at the car. He pulled himself in behind the wheel, sighing heavily with the heat and his own still unrelieved exhaustion, and fixed his eyes on the house until the first hint of early morning light began to gather around it, betraying its flecked paint and torn screens, its pitted driveway and bleak, untended yard.

The light was still barely visible in the air when the first car came up the street only a few minutes later. Ben sat up, rubbed his eyes quickly and watched as it nosed around the far corner, moved slowly up the street, then halted in front of Breedlove’s house.

Ben leaned forward and rubbed the dewy mist which had gathered on the inside of the windshield with the sleeve of his jacket.

The car was black and dusty, like so many others, and Ben didn’t recognize it at all until he saw Luther pull himself out from behind the wheel, then walk hurriedly up the walkway, linger for a moment on the porch, his shoulders hunched over, his back to the street. He knocked several times, but the door remained closed.

Ben checked his watch. It was five-fifteen. He rolled the ache out of his shoulders, rubbed his slightly burning eyes again and glanced back at the house. The door was still closed and the windowshades remained securely drawn.

For a while Luther remained on the porch. Then he turned back toward the street, glanced left and right and finally stepped off the porch and headed hurriedly toward his car. He had already opened the door when he saw Ben coming toward him. For an instant he froze, his eyes fixed intently on Ben’s face.

‘What are you doing here?’ he asked sternly.

Ben stepped up onto the walkway beside him. ‘I was waiting for Breedlove.’

‘Why?’

‘That gun, the one that killed the little girl,’ Ben told him. ‘It came out of the Property Room. It was taken in a robbery. Breedlove’s case. I thought he might know whose gun it was.’

‘How do you know it was missing from Property?’

‘McCorkindale did some kind of inventory a few days ago,’ Ben told him. ‘He logged everything. It was the only gun that was missing.’

Luther continued to stare at Ben expressionlessly. ‘Is that all?’

It seemed an odd question, but Ben answered it anyway. ‘Yes.’

‘And you’ve been waiting here all night?’

‘Most of it.’

Luther thought for a moment. He took a deep breath. ‘All right, Ben. Since you’re here, you might as well come with me.’

‘What are you talking about?’

Luther nodded toward the car. ‘Get in,’ he said softly. ‘I have to go look at something.’