Thomas Cook: Streets of Fire

Ben continued to stand by the table, and after a moment the attendant walked out of the back room and over to the opposite side of the body.

‘You want me to take her now?’ he asked.

‘I guess,’ Ben said. He stepped back slightly and watched as the attendant draped a clean white sheet over the body.

‘We found her over on Twenty-third Street,’ Ben said.

The old man did not seem to hear him. He walked to the rear of the table, grasped the handle and began to tug it backward toward the adjoining room.

‘What part of town do you live in?’ Ben asked as he followed along.

‘Thirty-second Street,’ the attendant said dully.

‘That’s not too far from where we found her,’ Ben said. ‘You know that old ballfield around there?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘That’s where she was. Buried under a goalpost.’

The old man said nothing. He continued to tug the table slowly forward, maneuvering carefully toward the open door behind him.

‘What’s your name?’ Ben asked him.

‘They calls me Davey.’

Ben grasped the edge of the table, stopped its movement, then pulled the sheet back to reveal the girl’s face.

‘You ever seen this little girl, Davey?’

The old man gave the small face a quick glance. ‘Naw, sir.’

‘Maybe playing in the park, something like that? Maybe just walking along the sidewalk?’

‘I ain’t never seen her,’ the man said. He drew his eyes from the girl’s face and gave a tentative pull on the table.

Ben held it firmly in place. ‘Who runs things over in Bearmatch?’ he asked.

The attendant kept his eyes downcast. ‘The Black Cat boys,’ he said quietly.

‘I don’t mean them,’ Ben said. ‘I mean your own people.’

The old man said nothing.

‘Lots of things go on in Bearmatch,’ Ben said. ‘Somebody has control of it.’

The attendant shook his head. ‘It ain’t my business,’ he said softly. He waited a moment, then gave another tug on the table.

Ben released it, then followed it into the adjoining room. He leaned against the wall and watched as the old man opened the freezer door and pushed the table inside. When he turned back around, he seemed surprised to find Ben still lingering in the room.

‘You ask the Black Cat boys what you wants to know,’ he said. ‘You one of they own.’

Ben smiled quietly. ‘You trust them, Davey? You trust the Black Cat boys?’

The old man said nothing, but he looked at Ben knowingly.

‘I don’t either,’ Ben said. ‘That’s why I want to talk to somebody else about this girl.’ He paused, letting it sink in. ‘Give me a name, Davey. Just one name.’

The ancient brown eyes squeezed together slowly as he turned it over in his mind.

‘They’re going to bury that little girl tomorrow,’ Ben added. ‘I think her mama ought to be there.’

The old man’s face lifted slightly, as if with sudden pride. ‘Roy Jolly,’ he said.

FIVE

Night had begun to come down over the city by the time Ben left the chill, white corridors of Hillman Hospital. The sirens which had filled the air all day were now silent, and as he walked to his car in the pinkish-blue light, he could almost imagine that the worst was over. But he knew that it wasn’t, and the evening quiet only reminded him of the sort he remembered from the war, when, after a day-long assault, Japanese and Americans would retire to their encampments and wait nervously for dawn. He knew that that was more or less what was happening now, and when he pulled into the cavernous basement of the station house, he was not at all surprised-to find ragged lines of state troopers oiling their rifles, checking their cartridge bags, or edgily adjusting the plexiglass shields of their helmets.

He nodded to a few of them as he walked toward the cement stairs that led to the first floor, but he didn’t stop to talk. The unventilated basement always smelled faintly sour, but now the odor was even denser, and Ben realized it came from the overheated tires of the paddy wagons, rubber which had melted slightly, as if from hurtling back and forth down streets of fire.

It was better upstairs, where the large rotating fans whirred continually, and Ben took a deep, refreshing breath as he walked into the detective bullpen and sat down at his desk.

‘Anything come in, Sammy?’ he called to McCorkindale in the back corner of the room.

McCorkindale glanced toward him, then shook his head vigorously.

‘Captain Starnes around?’

‘Just stepped out to take a leak,’ McCorkindale said dully.

Luther walked back into the office a few minutes later, still pulling casually at the zipper of his trousers.

‘Heard you sort of strongarmed the guy in the Coroner’s Office,’ he said as he strolled up to Ben’s desk.

‘A little.’

‘Good, good,’ Luther said happily. He took a chair from another desk and sat down. ‘Well, what’d you find out?’

Ben took out the original report and handed it to him. ‘That’s all Patterson had from his first look at her,’ he said, ‘but he didn’t learn much more after a full autopsy.’

Luther glanced briefly at the report. ‘The rape looks good though,’ he said. ‘If it was a race thing, some kind of KKK killing, something like that, there wouldn’t have been a rape.’ He slid the report back onto Ben’s desk. ‘Good job, Ben,’ he said. He reached over and squeezed his shoulder. ‘I think that’s about all we need.’

Ben leaned forward slightly. ‘For what?’

‘To close the case,’ Luther said matter-of-factly.

‘I just started on it.’

‘And you already got as far as you’re ever going to get,’ Luther told him. He smiled. ‘It’s a Bearmatch thing, Ben. If you’d ever worked that part of town before, you’d know what I mean.’

Ben’s eyes drifted down toward the report, then back up toward Luther.

‘I have a lead,’ he said.

Luther looked at him doubtfully. ‘A lead? What kind of a lead?’

‘A name. Somebody who knows a lot about what goes on in Bearmatch.’

‘What name?’

‘A Mr Jolly,’ Ben said. ‘Roy Jolly.’

Luther’s face broke into a broad grin. ‘Mr Jolly?’ he said with a chuckle, ‘You mean old Roy-Joy? That’s your contact?’

Ben nodded slowly.

‘You know who Roy-Joy is, Ben?’ Luther asked. ‘He’s the biggest pimp in Bearmatch, maybe the biggest in Birmingham, maybe even the biggest in the whole goddamn world.’ He stopped, then looked at Ben coolly. ‘Who gave you his name?’

For an instant, Ben started to identify the old attendant. Then, suddenly, something stopped him as fully and abruptly as if a hand had shot up to cover his mouth.

‘It was just something I heard on the street,’ he said with a slight shrug. ‘Nobody in particular.’

Luther placed his hands palms down on Ben’s desk and leaned into them. ‘If you want to know about things in Bearmatch, you ought to ask the Langley boys. They been working it for the last two years.’

‘I’ll do that,’ Ben said.

Luther straightened himself. ‘Look, Ben,’ he said quietly, ‘if you want to work this case a little more, go ahead. It just makes the department look better if you do. But you’ve still got to cover King until all this shit is over.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘He’s scheduled to make a speech at the First Pilgrim Baptist Church tonight at eight o’clock. Be there.’

Ben nodded quickly. ‘All right.’

‘And as far as this little girl goes, talk to the Langley brothers,’ Luther said insistently. ‘They should be chowing down at Smith’s Cafe right about now.’

‘Okay,’ Ben said.

Luther started to leave the room.

Ben touched the sleeve of his coat to stop him. ‘That picture you took of the little girl,’ he said. ‘You got it with you?’