Thomas Cook - Streets of Fire

Ben pressed his pen down on the paper.

‘How long will we stay in Birmingham?’ King demanded. ‘Not long. Because no lie can live forever.’

The applause now rose over the isolated shouts of ‘Amen’ and ‘Yes, Lord.’ It swept along the streets in a tidal flow, building more fiercely as it moved.

‘How long? Not long, because truth crushed to earth will rise again.’

Now the applause took on bursts of wild cheering which seemed to break like fireworks over the heads of the crowd.

‘How long? Not long, because although the moral arc of the universe is wide, it still bends toward justice.’

Now the cheers and applause mingled in a single sustained roar which moved back and forth from the church to the streets and back to the church again, building with each pass, feeding on itself, growing stronger with each sustaining wave.

Ben looked up from his notebook, his fingers loosening halfheartedly around the pen, his eyes now focused on the church, his ears attentive to the voice.

‘How long? Not long. Because God is tramping through the vineyard where the grapes of wrath are stored.’

The crowd began to jump and shout, sing and dance, hundreds of long brown arms swaying in the sweltering air.

‘How long? Not long? For His truth is marching on!’

The roar of the crowd seemed to rise in one long, mighty chorus, and as Ben stood beside the tree and listened to its fierce, rebellious glory, he found himself suddenly caught up and inexplicably lifted by its amazing grace.

‘What are you doing?’

Ben turned toward the voice. It was Coggins. He was staring at him lethally.

‘What are you doing?’ he repeated as he nodded toward the still open notebook.

Ben felt his mouth open speechlessly.

Coggins’ eyes filled with a strange disappointment as they returned to the notebook, then lifted up again and settled on Ben’s face. ‘My God,’ he said despairingly. He shook his head. ‘My God.’

For a moment Luther simply stared at the small notebook which Ben had placed on his desk. Then he picked it up and flipped through the blank pages. There’s nothing written in here,’ he said finally.

‘He didn’t say much,’ Ben said with a slight shrug.

‘Looks to me like he didn’t say anything at all,’ Luther replied. Once again he flipped through the empty notebook. ‘I didn’t tell you to write down whatever you wanted to, Ben,’ he said. ‘I told you to write down everything King said.’

Ben glanced away, his eyes on the window to the right of Luther’s desk. He did not speak.

Luther stared at him accusingly. ‘Did you go to the church?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did King make a speech?’

‘Yes.’

Luther lifted the notebook and waved it in the air. ‘Well, where is it? There’s nothing but a bunch of blank pages in this thing.’

‘I didn’t take anything down,’ Ben said.

‘Nothing?’ Luther said, astonished. ‘Not one goddamn word?’

‘No.’

Luther slapped the notebook down on his desk. ‘Then what are you giving me this thing for?’

‘I’m turning it in,’ Ben said suddenly, before he could catch himself.

‘Turning it in?’

‘Yeah,’ Ben said, this time more firmly. ‘I don’t want that assignment anymore.’

Luther’s eyes narrowed into two small slits. ‘Since when do you decide what your assignments are, Sergeant?’ he asked angrily.

Ben said nothing.

‘You realize how shorthanded we are?’ Luther asked.

Ben remained silent.

Luther stood up. ‘You have an official assignment,’ he said sternly. ‘I expect you to carry it out.’

Ben stared at him evenly. ‘No.’

‘I order you to carry it out.’

Ben shook his head.

Luther’s body tightened. ‘Turn in your badge, Sergeant Wellman.’

For a moment Ben hesitated. He had never faced anything more sweeping in its cause or transforming in its result, and for an instant he tried to find a way around it. But he felt his hand around the pen again, stark and inanimate, and he knew that he could never make it move across the page.

‘Your badge, Sergeant,’ Luther repeated.

Ben slowly pulled the badge and identification folder from his jacket pocket. It felt heavy, as if everything he had were attached to it. Once again he hesitated. Then he lowered it to the table and let it go.

Luther glanced at it quickly, then looked at Ben. ‘Don’t expect a good recommendation from this department,’ he said coldly. ‘As far as I’m concerned, you’ve deserted under fire.’

THIRTY-FOUR

Esther was sitting quietly on her porch when Ben pulled the car up in front of her house and got out. Several hours had passed since he’d left Luther’s office, and during that time, he’d simply driven around the city, trying to come to terms with what he’d done. At first it had been a relief, a sudden throwing off of the worries which had been accumulating during the preceding days. He had walked out of the headquarters with his head in the air, driven the streets of Birmingham in a spirit of exhilarating liberation, and then, as evening fell, found himself once again in Bearmatch. Esther sat up slightly as Ben edged his way past the little wire fence and stood at the bottom of the stairs, his hat in his hand, his eyes fixed on the dark, silent woman who watched him warily from her chair.

‘You don’t have to worry about me showing up at your door again,’ Ben assured her quickly. ‘I’m not on Doreen’s case anymore.’ He smiled. ‘Fact is, I’m not on any kind of case.’

Esther continued to stare at him mutely, her dark eyes trained on his face.

‘I sort of quit, I guess,’ Ben said. ‘Or got fired.’

‘From the police?’ Esther asked.

‘Yes.’

‘How come?’

‘They had me doing things that I didn’t want to do.’

Esther shook her head. ‘Lord, if everybody did that, there wouldn’t be a soul left working in Birmingham.’

‘I guess so,’ Ben said with a slight smile. ‘Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that I was off her case, and that’s all I came to say.’ He started to turn back toward the car, but her voice drew him around to her again.

‘Who’s looking into it, then?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Probably nobody.’

Ben nodded. ‘You could be right about that.’

‘So it’s all over then,’ Esther said. She fanned her face with a white handkerchief. ‘I didn’t think it’d come to much.’

‘I tried, Miss Ballinger,’ Ben said. ‘I surely tried.’

‘You think Bluto did it?’ Esther asked him pointedly. ‘You think he had the sense for it?’

Ben looked at her evenly. ‘Maybe the sense to do it,’ he said. ‘But not the meanness.’

‘So you don’t think he killed Doreen?’

‘I don’t know who killed her,’ Ben admitted. ‘I don’t have any idea at all.’ He shook his head mournfully. ‘I don’t guess you believe that,’ he said softly. ‘I don’t guess there’s any way to make you believe it.’

For the first time, her eyes seemed to embrace him gently, almost lovingly, as if to do the work her arms could never do.

Ben had been back in his house for several hours before he finally stopped trying to figure out all the things he wouldn’t have to do anymore. He wouldn’t have to fill out arrest sheets, sit for hours outside some courtroom, listen to the Chief’s speeches or drink coffee from the machine in the detectives’ lounge. He could hardly have been more willing to give up such things. But there were other parts of his job, as well, and there were a few he didn’t want to give up. He would not be able to search through Bearmatch anymore, or follow Bluto’s zigzag trail during the hours before he died, or pace the bare worn path which led from the torn storm fence to the cement drain where Doreen Ballinger had died. These things needed to be done, but they had been lost in the instant his badge had come to rest on Luther’s desk, lost with the coffee and the courtroom boredom. His badge was gone, and because of that, he seemed to weigh less now than before he removed it, to float from room to room, anchorless and without direction. The badge, his job, had served to hold him in place, guide him through the world’s confusion with a reliable set of duties and obligations. He had thought that it had only provided him with a living, but slowly, as the night wore on, he realized that it had also provided him with a reason to live, and that without it, he would have to improvise a certain part of his life until he could work out a new set of guidelines, hammer out a wholly different badge. He was making the first attempts at doing exactly that when, around midnight, Lamar Beacham knocked at the screen door.