Thomas Cook - Streets of Fire

‘Oh, sweet Jesus,’ Luther groaned as he stared at it.

‘Did you know Langley was caught up in stuff like that?’ Ben asked.

Luther shook his head. ‘I knew he wasn’t liked over in Bearmatch, that he was always busting up their shot-houses and roughing people up.’ His eyes shot up to Ben. ‘But no, I didn’t know he was into trash like this.’ He leaned back in his chair. His eyes settled onto the picture once again, held there a moment, then lifted toward Ben. ‘Do you think he killed Charlie Breedlove?’

Ben nodded. ‘Maybe.’

‘Why?’ Luther asked. ‘Because he thought Breedlove was an informer?’

‘Yes.’

Luther eased himself forward and placed his elbows on his desk. ‘But if Breedlove really was an informer,’ he said, ‘then who in hell was he reporting to?’

‘I don’t know.’

Luther stared at him accusingly. ‘Bullshit.’

‘I don’t know, Captain,’ Ben said firmly.

‘Well, how’d you know about this house on Courtland Street?’

‘I got a tip.’

Luther’s face turned sour. ‘A tip?’ he demanded. ‘What kind of tip?’

Ben didn’t answer.

Luther glared at him irritably. ‘Are you telling me that you’ve got your own little nest of informers in the Police Department?’

‘Not in the Police Department,’ Ben said. ‘That’s all I can tell you.’

Luther did not seem to know what to do. His eyes appeared to grow large and menacing, but with an anger which he could not direct toward anything or anyone. ‘All right,’ he said finally. ‘We’ll do it this way. You’re back on the force, Ben.’

Ben said nothing.

‘Do you want to be back on the force?’

‘I guess so.’

‘Good,’ Luther said. I’m glad to hear it. Because I’ve already got your first assignment for you.’

Ben waited, half-expecting it to have something to do with Martin Luther King.

‘The first assignment, Ben,’ Luther said, almost tauntingly, ‘is to find Teddy Langley and bring his ass to me.’

THIRTY-SIX

It took Ben several hours finally to spot Black Cat 13. It was parked under a shade tree in the heart of Bearmatch, and Langley was resting leisurely on the hood, a cigarette dangling from his mouth and a bottle of Double Cola in his hand.

‘I wouldn’t mess with me if I were you,’ Langley said as Ben approached him. ‘That shit at headquarters, that was a free one. It’s the only one you’re ever going to get.’ He took a hard pull on the bottle, then wiped his forehead with his fist.

‘I been trying to find you all morning,’ Ben said.

Langley laughed sneeringly, the cigarette bobbing up and down from the right corner of his mouth. ‘Well, maybe you got me so scared of you I was hiding out.’ He smiled grimly. ‘I guess that’s what ever-body in the department thinks, anyway.’ He plucked the cigarette from his mouth and tossed it out into the street. ‘But they don’t know everything. Not by a long shot, by God.’

‘Where’ve you been all morning?’ Ben asked crisply.

‘Here and there.’

‘Don’t you ever report in to headquarters?’

‘When I want to.’

‘Everybody else has to do it whether they want to or not.’

‘Everybody else works something besides Bearmatch,’ Langley said. This time the smile had an edge of bitterness. ‘Niggers got their own time, and that’s what I got to keep track of.’

Ben leaned against the tree, nudging his shoulder up hard against it. ‘Where do you live, Teddy?’

‘Right in town.’

‘I mean the address.’

Langley eyed him cautiously. ‘What do you care where I live? You ain’t invited to supper.’

‘I looked your address up in the personnel file,’ Ben said. ‘It said you lived in a trailer park on the south side.’

‘So what?’

‘Do you still live there?’

‘What’s it to you where I live?’ Langley asked resentfully.

‘Scottish Glen Trailer Park, is that right?’

Langley watched him irritably. ‘You doing the census?’

Ben let it pass. ‘What’d you know about Charlie Breedlove?’ he asked bluntly.

‘Nothing.’

‘Did you like him?’

‘Nothing special.’

Ben stared at him evenly. ‘You glad he’s dead?’

Langley shrugged halfheartedly. ‘It didn’t mean much to me one way or the other.’

‘Some people might think that’s a strange attitude,’ Ben said cautiously.

‘What do I care what some people think?’ Langley said irritably. ‘Some people think we should eat and go to school and have babies with niggers.’

‘Is that what Breedlove thought?’

A short, edgy laugh suddenly broke out of Langley. ‘Well, I’ll be shit, Ben, you must have figured Breedlove out.’ He slapped his knee and laughed again, this time more freely. ‘Hell, boy, you’re better than I thought.’

‘What are you talking about? Figured out what?’

‘That Breedlove was an informer.’

‘What makes you think that?’ Ben asked, astonished at Langley’s bluntness.

‘Hell, I’m no fool,’ Langley said. ‘It was easy to spot. He was always overdoing it. Nigger this and nigger that. Always yelling at them, pushing them around. He was always doing that kind of shit.’

‘So do you.’

‘Yeah, but with some people, when they do it, it’s for real. You can tell. They got blood in their eye, you might say.’

‘And Breedlove didn’t?’

‘Hell, no,’ Langley said. ‘With Breedlove it was all an act.’ He waved his hand. ‘I always knew that. It was just for show. There was nothing to it. He was just doing it to cover up for something.’

‘And because of that, you fingered him for an informer?’

‘Well, you figure it this way: Maybe it’s an act because he wants to be like the rest of us, a real tough guy, something like that. So. to look good, he slaps a dumb burrhead up against the wall once in a while. Or maybe it’s something else. Maybe he’s acting this way because these ain’t his real feelings at all. Matter of fact, his real feelings is just the opposite.’ He took an idle swig from the bottle. ‘That’s how I figured it with Breedlove.’

Ben nodded. ‘But did you have any proof?’

‘Proof?’ Langley asked. ‘That he was an informer? No, I never had no proof. I just knew it, that’s all.’ His eyes slid up toward the overhanging limbs, then dropped back to Ben. ‘Just like I know you for a nigger lover, Ben,’ he said. Then he smiled. ‘Course, you don’t make much a secret of that, do you?’

‘I guess not.’

Langley drained the last of the cola, then tossed the bottle into the yard beyond the cracked sidewalk. ‘They decide to put you on the case?’ he asked.

‘Which one?’

‘The Breedlove thing.’

‘You might say that,’ Ben told him.

‘Why you?’

‘Maybe because I’m a nigger lover.’

Langley laughed. ‘You know why I didn’t beat the shit of you back at headquarters?’

Ben did not answer.

‘’Cause that’s exactly what the niggers would want,’ Langley said. ‘A full-scale fight between two white cops would have got us both fired.’ He shook his head. ‘And then I wouldn’t be busting heads in Bearmatch anymore, breaking up their crap games, raiding their stinking shothouses, smashing their little basement stills and chasing their whores out of town.’ He smiled cunningly. ‘That’s why I didn’t whop your ass, Ben,’ he said with a sudden coldness. ‘But I can’t always be depended upon to control myself.’

Again, Ben kept silent. He could see the sort of rage that swept back and forth like a hot wind in Langley’s mind, and he wanted to cool it slightly, coax more talk out of him.

‘Where’s Tod?’ he asked finally.