Ed Lacy - Room To Swing

“So long for now, honey.” I hung up and didn't know what to make of things. Why hadn't the police said anything about the murder, why wasn't it in the papers or on the air? If they visited Sybil they knew about me, then why the big secret? Damn—if Sybil had been able to think of anything but her money I might have got some news from her. But she didn't know a thing. And how did the cops identify me so damn quick? Kay? Hard to say which side she was on. It had to be the same cat who set me up for the police.... Three little letters: w-h-o that could mean my life. K-a-y, three more interesting letters. Although the three letters I really needed were SOS.

The operator rang back to drawl politely that I owed another eighty-five cents. They were slipping down here; hadn't worked out any way for the operators to know if they were talking to coloured, so they could drop the politeness. I told her I'd have to get more change.

I put another buck on the counter and Fatty, who was leaning across the counter, asked, “How you know I got any more change, fancy boy?”

“Your phone. I can walk out and forget the whole thing,” I said calmly—I wasn't going to let this fat jerk bug me.

He finally got into motion, made change. As I dropped the coins in and hung up, he said, “Lot of money for just talk. A hot gal, worth—?”

“That was my mother,” I said, making for the door.

Lardy was comical as his fat face changed and he said, “Sorry, boy, I shouldn't have run my mouth like that. No hard feelings.”

I waved as I shut the door. Driving back to Bingston I couldn't make any sense out of what Sybil told me. Of course, if they were keeping it out of the papers, the police wouldn't tell Sybil they wanted me for murder. But from what she said they sounded so damn casual, like they wanted me for skipping a traffic ticket. Maybe they weren't after me for the murder? Nuts, they'd certainly want me for slugging the cop, probably want me worse for that than for a murder. And how could they know “a” Negro was me so damn fast? Who was masterminding all this, if it wasn't Kay? After all, I only had Bobby's word that she had picked me, not Kay.... Bobby would say anything to protect Kay. But even if it was Kay, what possible relationship could she have had with a punk like Thomas? And I didn't have time to check on her boss, this B. H.... That out-of-town alibi could be bunk. But again, what would a big TV executive be doing with a two-bit guy like Thomas?

I reached the Davis house before noon, washed and shaved. Frances knocked on my door. She looked very fresh in form-fitting slacks, a simple Italian-style striped blouse cut square across the shoulders—and she had real shoulders, not just bones. She was wearing red ballerina shoes and her hair was in a tight bun, with a kind of pearl necklace around it, the pearls in sharp contrast to her black hair.

Her lips were carefully painted a faint red. I watched the lips as she asked, “Did they make you a Kan-tuck colonel?”

“They gave me a citation for wearing out my gums saying 'sir.' We seeing this Tim Russell?”

“Soon as you're ready. I'll wait for you in the car.”

As I put on my tie and coat I heard Mrs. Davis downstairs asking why she was wearing her new outfit and Frances telling the old lady to please keep still. When I walked out, she was waiting behind the wheel of the Chevvy. As I got in beside her, Frances started the heap, asking, “Find out anything new?”

“No.”

“I spoke to Dad. No one has left town recently.”

As we came out of the driveway, a tall slim fellow in work pants, polished boots, and a plaid mackinaw waved at Frances. His hand seemed suspended in mid-air, and his light brown face with the carefully trimmed mustache showed shocked surprise. She waved back as we turned into the street. He shouted, “Say, Frances, I— Hey, wait!”

“No time now,” she called back, speeding down the street. “That's Willie.”

“The boy friend?”

“My, aren't we the detective. Well, he isn't. I go out with him sometimes—I have to go out with somebody. Matter of fact, because I play hard to get—I suppose—Willie's hinted he might consider marrying me.”

“Handsome fellow.”

“Willie is the big deal for coloured girls in Bingston; quite a catch, and he knows it. He was a paratrooper, the only one in Bingston, so that makes him something, and he has a steady job driving a coal truck, makes good money. He thinks all he has to do is ask and a girl will roll over and wag her tail like a dog begging. I don't think I could stand marrying him. But sometimes... When you're twenty-five Willie can look like all the excitement in the world... from here.”

I didn't want to get into her business so I asked, “What am I to tell this Tim? I mean, what am I supposed to be?”

“You don't have to tell him anything. He understands you're in a jam—without asking questions. He was one of the few whites who helped us in the fight to sit in the orchestra of the movie house. He's... I guess you'd call him the town radical. He's a very good guy. At one time I dreamt I was in love with him.”

I turned to stare at her. “Then what happened?”

“Nothing. I—we—never did anything about it. He's married now. I soon realized Tim was merely a girlish daydream, I had confused admiration for love.”

“This dawn come before or after he was married?”

“Before. Stop teasing me!” She snapped it out the way Kay had told me never to make fun of her.

“Sorry.”

We drove through the main street and after a few minutes turned into a muddy field that could have been a baseball diamond. There was a small weather-beaten grandstand we passed as she drove for a group of trees on the other side of the field and stopped next to a parked pickup truck. The guy behind the wheel was about twenty-three, crew-cut yellow hair that reminded me of Thomas', and a lean rugged face with sharp blue eyes. He looked like a middle-weight pug. He was wearing a work shirt and a dirty suede windbreaker. Frances said, “Hello, Tim. This is Mr. Jones.”

He said hello and reached out of the truck window, shook my hand. Maybe he was a pug; he had a dent in his short nose, and a scar over his left eyebrow. “What is it you want to know about my sister?” His voice was dry and plain.

“About the trouble she had with Porky Thomas.”

The eyes hardened. “I never called him that. He wasn't a— You're not one of these TV people that were here a month or two ago?”

“No.”

“I told them at the time I wouldn't rake up any mud for them. That still goes.”

“What was your sister May's reaction to the TV people?”

He ran a stubby hand through his short hair. “Look, Mister, I don't agree with May's ideas on most things, but I try to understand her. May—oh they buttered her up. Called her a promising young singer—she always wanted to be one. They made a recording of her doing a song, said she'd be on TV screens all over the country. She co-operated with them—I'm told.”

“You see May much?”

“No. It isn't that we're unfriendly. We're just not friendly any longer. There's a difference.”

“Did she leave town a few days ago?”

“No. She's never been out of Bingston, except to go shopping in Cincinnati.”

“But since you don't see her, she could have left—?”

“I know she didn't. I thought you wanted to ask about Bob Thomas?”

“I am. Do you know anybody here who might have reason to hate him?”

“Not enough to kill him. After all, he hasn't been around in years. He was forgotten more than hated.”

“What was your reaction when you read about his being killed?”

“Me? I don't know. I suppose most of all I felt sorry. We used to live in a shack at the end of town, place called the Hills. Bob lived there with his mother—I never saw or knew his father—and some other poor families. It's a garbage dump now, was then too, but unofficially. The junk heap gives it the name Hills. There was about seven or eight families lived there, white and coloured.” He looked across me at Frances. “Fran, you talk to Mrs. Simpson recently?”

“Not for a week or so.”

He toyed with his hair again. “Damn health hazard for her. Mrs. Simpson still lives out there. We've been trying to have her move.... But you want to know about Bob. He is—was—two years older than May, five years older than me. But we three hung out together, hunting rats with slingshots, building shacks... all that kid stuff. Sometimes when his Ma didn't show up for a few days, he'd eat at our place. My mother died when I was a baby and my father was a drunk. I guess he tried to raise May and me the best he could, only it was too much for him, and he kept losing himself in a bottle. What I'm trying to say is—we were a wild bunch of kids, hungry and ragged all the time. When I was nine an uncle came to live with us. He worked as a mechanic, taught me most of what I know about cars. More important, we started eating regularly—until he left a few years later. He liked to move about and—I'm giving you this in detail only because Fran said you wanted a complete picture.”

“That's exactly what I need,” I said, wondering if lover boy Willie called her Fran.

Tim studied me for a second, as if about to ask why, but he didn't. He said, “Bob used to eat with us a lot. His Ma was staying away more and more. She was a waitress in a dive over in Cincy. It was the end of the depression then and she had a hard time keeping herself fed. May was growing up a real beauty. She was fifteen when our uncle took off and—Mr. Jones, this is damn hard for me to say; I have to make it short. Pop died of exposure that winter and we kids raided farmers' fields, lived like animals. When May began bringing home money I was too young to even suspicion how she got it. Bob was crazy about her and by then they were—well—going steady, I guess you'd call it. Guess you know he did time at reform school after his Ma disappeared and—”

“What happened to his mother?”

“Later we learned she'd been killed in a car wreck over in West Virginia. We stopped a lot of the wild kid stuff. I even started going to school more and when Bob came back from the reform school, he always had a few bucks on him, and told me he was working for a dairy farmer. Of course May was giving him the money. And I knew what she was doing by then, I had to know. I tried to stop her. I left school and got a job, but how much can a kid make? Bob, he wanted her to stop, too, but he never held down a job for long. And what could he make? You understand, May wasn't any silly oversexed kid out for thrills. Way she saw it she was—well—she was selling her body, but then what does a factory girl do but sell her arms and legs?”

He paused, perhaps waiting for an answer. I said, “Guess that's one way of looking at it.”

“I don't know,” Tim said, as if thinking it over. He shook himself slightly. “In '50, when she was nearly nineteen, May found herself pregnant. She wanted Bob to marry her. He was willing but insisted she give up—what she was doing. She couldn't see that. Whenever Bob worked, he only picked up dimes at odd jobs and May had enough of poverty. He refused to marry her. May was getting big and upset about the kid not having a 'name.' Other people were getting worried too. May's 'work' was still pretty much of a secret, even in a small town like Bingston; only a few men were supporting her. Things came to a head when Bob was due to be drafted. She had to do something about her pregnancy—she had him arrested for rape. It was a lousy thing to do but she only did it because she thought it would scare him into marrying her. Needless to say the so-called respectable citizens who were keeping her liked the idea. It was an out for them. You probably know the rest—Bob was released on low bail, to give him a chance to marry May. He beat her so badly she lost the kid, and nearly died. Nobody has seen him here since.”