Thomas Cook - Streets of Fire

‘Daniels,’ he whispered.

‘That’s right, Daniels,’ Luther repeated loudly. ‘Looks like he’s finally give it a wash.’

Ben nodded. ‘I wonder why,’ he said almost to himself.

‘Probably for Breedlove’s funeral,’ Luther said matter-of-factly. ‘They were partners, after all.’

FORTY-TWO

Charlie Breedlove’s funeral was held late in the afternoon at a small graveyard outside Birmingham. Several neighbors gathered beside the grave, but only Daniels and Ben came from the department, and they stood side by side, perched beneath a maple tree, and watched as Mrs Breedlove and her son wept softly in the fading light.

‘Nobody’s safe,’ Daniels said mournfully after the service had ended. ‘Maybe it’s true, you know.’

‘What?’

‘About how the good die young.’

Ben did not answer. He could see Breedlove’s wife and son as they stood peering down into the grave. He wondered how much Breedlove had told them, how much they knew of what he really was.

‘You know what really bothers me about all the trouble we’re having down here now?’ Daniels asked suddenly.

Ben shook his head.

‘The fact that so many innocent people get drawn into it,’ Daniels said. ‘White and colored. I mean, you take all these little kids they got locked up downtown. Shit, Ben, the most of them don’t have the slightest idea what they’re doing.’ He bowed his head slightly and dug the toe of his shoe into the ground. ‘And as far as Charlie’s concerned, we may not ever know what he did, or if he did anything at all.’

‘Well,’ Ben said tentatively, ‘we do know what happened to him, though.’

‘But we don’t know why,’ Daniels said. ‘At least not for sure.’

Ben added nothing else, and for the rest of the service the two of them stood together, watching silently until the last prayer had been said. Then they walked over to Mrs Breedlove.

‘I’m real sorry, Susan,’ Daniels said quietly as he shook her hand. ‘And I just want you to know that we’re going to find out who hurt Charlie, and we’re going to make them pay.’

Daniels stepped aside quickly and allowed Ben to shake Mrs Breedlove’s hand. Then the two of them made their way across the cemetery to the plain dirt road that wound its way through it.

Daniels shook his head regretfully as he walked slowly at Ben’s side. ‘They sure did get him in the ground in a hurry,’ he said.

Ben nodded.

‘I hear the department made them,’ Daniels added.

‘How could it make them?’

‘Otherwise it wouldn’t pay for the funeral,’ Daniels said matter-of-factly. ‘And you know how it is, nobody has any money. They wanted a rush job, and so they put the pressure on.’

‘Why would they want a rush job?’

‘Well, any way you look at it, Ben, Charlie was sort of embarrassing to the department.’ He shrugged. ‘I mean, on one side you got an informer, and on the other, you got a victim, right?’

‘Victim? Of what?’

‘The people who wanted him dead.’

‘You mean the Langleys?’

‘Whoever didn’t want to be informed on,’ Daniels said. ‘It could have been anybody.’

They stopped at Daniels’ car, pausing for a moment to look back toward the city. Its stunted skyline was barely visible through the summer haze.

Daniels’s eyes drifted back toward Breedlove’s still-open grave. ‘Do you think Charlie really was an informer?’ he asked.

‘Somebody thought so.’

‘You got any leads?’

Ben shrugged. ‘Everybody seems to figure it must have been the Langleys.’

‘Do you?’

‘I guess.’

‘You got any evidence?’

‘Well, Breedlove’s ring had to have come from somewhere.’

‘Yeah,’ Daniels said sadly, as if mourning the fate of his fellow officer. ‘Yeah, I guess you’re right.’

‘Unless it was a plant,’ Ben added casually. ‘Like a throwdown, something like that.’

‘Is that possible?’

‘Anything’s possible.’

Daniels laughed bitterly. ‘Yeah, in this kinda work, that’s the truth.’ He grasped the door handle of the car. ‘Well, I got to get on back to town.’

‘You on duty tonight?’

‘Naw,’ Daniels said, waving his hand. ‘Since I was Charlie’s partner, they’re giving me the day off. What about you?’

‘I’m still looking into a few things,’ Ben told him.

Daniels opened the door and slid in behind the wheel. He leaned out the window, loosening his tie, and took in a long breath. ‘I’m going to be looking for a new partner,’ he said. ‘You interested?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Course nobody could replace Charlie.’

Ben smiled quietly and stepped back. ‘I guess not.’ He drew his eyes along the body of the car. Daniels had done a thorough job. If there had ever been any tiny white flecks on the car, they’d long ago been washed off with a power nozzle and a buffing brush. ‘Looks like you gave it a good polishing,’ he said lightly.

Daniels chuckled slightly. ‘Yeah, and it needed it. The funny thing is, Charlie was always complaining about that. He said I shouldn’t let it look so dirty and beatup.’

In his mind, Ben saw Breedlove’s own car, battered, caked with an oily city grime. ‘He didn’t exactly practice what he preached, did he?’

Daniels’ eyes flashed over to him. ‘What?’

‘Well, he never kept that old Ford of his looking very sharp.’

‘No, he didn’t,’ Daniels said. ‘That’s funny, I never thought about that.’ He smiled quietly. ‘I’ll miss him, though. We didn’t get together much after work, but on the job, Charlie was a good old boy.’

Ben nodded silently.

Daniels hit the ignition. ‘Well, take it easy, Ben.’

‘Yeah,’ Ben said. He stepped back once again, edging himself onto the grassy shoulder of the road.

Daniels revved the engine slightly, then threw the car into gear and pulled away.

Ben watched as the car moved forward. A cloud of red dust swam out from behind it, and he could hear the sounds of tiny bits of gravel as the rear tires threw them up against the bottom of the car. It was the same sound he’d heard the night he’d pulled out of the chert pit, and he realized that what he’d heard was the sound of hundreds of bits of moist white clay as they collided with the bottom frame of the car. Still wet from the drenching rains of the day before, they must have clung to the complex steel underbelly of the car as they struck it with tremendous speed. Only the most thorough washing could have gotten rid of them entirely, and a wax job would have done no good at all.

Patterson answered the phone immediately.

‘Leon,’ Ben said urgently, ‘I’ve been trying to get you all night.’

‘I was at a VFW meeting,’ Patterson said. ‘You’re a veteran, aren’t you, Ben?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You ought to think about joining.’

‘Listen, Leon,’ Ben said. ‘I want you to do something for me.’

Patterson did not answer.

‘It’s important,’ Ben added.

‘Is this official business?’

‘Yes.’

‘About what?’

‘Breedlove.’

‘Well, I don’t know, Ben,’ Patterson said, his reluctance still in his voice. ‘What is it?’

‘I want you to call up Harry Daniels. Tell him you have something on Breedlove that he might be interested in.’

‘Like what?’

‘I want you to tell him that you’ve come up with something that you don’t know what to do with. Tell him it’s about Breedlove, and that you don’t trust me with it, and so, since he was Breedlove’s partner, you’ve decided to come to him. Then you pick him up at his house. Make sure he goes with you. I want him to leave his car at his house.’