A Dangerous Road: A Smokey Dalton Novel Page 7

  I hadn’t had lunch and my stomach was rumbling. I decided to make one more routine phone call, and then pick up something warm and spicy for lunch. I called an operator in Birmingham and asked her to look up three phone numbers for me: public records, city hall, and St. Mary of Mercy Hospital.

  “I have no listing for a St. Mary of Mercy Hospital,” she said.

  “Are you a native of Birmingham?” I asked. Operators were sometimes my best sources of information.

  “Yes, sir,” she said.

  “Can you give me the phone number of the hospital that used to be St. Mary of Mercy?”

  “No hospital has changed names that I know of,” she said.

  “Was there a St. Mary of Mercy there in 1939?”

  “No, sir. We have a Catholic Hospital, but it isn’t St. Mary of Mercy.”

  “Would you give me their number then?”

  She did, and I thanked her for her time. Then I sat at my desk and stared at my black phone. Never, in all my years digging up information, had I ever had someone give me the wrong name for a birth hospital. People lied about towns, they lied about dates, but not about hospitals. If they didn’t know, they simply said so, and then I tracked the information down.

  But people didn’t remember where they were born; this was information told to them, and Laura had hired me to find out about her parents. The mob connection, mentioned by the city editor, seemed a likely lead, although it wouldn’t tell me why Laura’s parents had lied about their origins.

  Unless there was something else in their past, something they were running from that wasn’t innocent, something that would be unforgivable if found out. Something, perhaps, connected to the underworld, which had branches from Florida to Los Angeles, with ports in between.

  I still hadn’t touched my cup of coffee. The Styrofoam had melted, leaving a film on top of the liquid. I grimaced in distaste, put on my coat, and picked up the cup. I carried it with two fingers as I left my office, set it on the ground as I locked up, and then headed to the street, where I poured the offending liquid under the wheel of my car. Then I crumpled the cup and tossed it in the full metal curbside garbage can, not that it would do any good. It was getting to the point where I would have to start hauling my own trash to the dump.

  There was music in Handy Park. Four young men wearing bright colors huddled on the north end of the park. Two were playing passable acoustic guitar, another was playing bass, and a third was playing fiddle. They weren’t good, but they weren’t bad either, and it was always nice to hear some blues, whether it was well done or not.

  I glanced at my watch. School was out, but Jimmy wasn’t sitting below the statue. I saw that as a good sign. I’d stop by the apartment on the way home, and give him the coat.

  It was too late to get a good lunch at Pantaze Drugs—their sandwiches were just passable; only their specials were fine—and I’d been to Wilson the day before. Long about four o’clock the Little Hot House started their evening specials, and if I arrived at the right time, I would get a free taste. It paid to be a regular who appreciated good food.

  I hurried past Schwab’s, with its cluttered window displays showing nothing of interest to me, then gazed longingly into the windows at Pape’s Men Shop. The clothes in there were high quality. I’d once bought myself a suit coat there, back in the days when I was feeling flush, and I was never able to buy anything there again. I promised myself the next time I got a windfall, I’d splurge in the clothing stores I saw every day—particularly Pape’s—but the promise felt more like a daydream.

  There was a gap between buildings that showed the parking lots and alleys, and then I passed two more doors before getting to the restaurant. It had a greasy menu pasted in the window and its Pabst Blue Ribbon sign was new. Someone had already taken in the sandwich board—which was promising for me—and the interior was light against the late February afternoon.

  I slipped inside, inhaled the smell of old beer, chili, and grease so baked in that the place would probably smell like that forever. The floor was wood and uneven due to varied materials used in the Depression when the place was built. The tables were scarred and round, the chairs mismatched, but I loved it inside. You could get some of the best catfish in Memphis here if you were willing to pay a little extra, and the chili was hotter than a four-alarm fire.

  There were a handful of booths down the stairs and to the right, and I took my favorite one near the narrow bar. Suzy, the waitress, was usually on this time of day, and she knew enough to give me my Coke and a filmy glass of water without asking. She also knew enough not to ask me what I wanted if the catfish was fresh, the chili was good, or chicken and dumplings were the special. She didn’t want an order, so I knew I’d get one of the three.

  I leaned my head back against the booth’s high wooden side. An exhaustion headache was building in my temples, probably exacerbated by my lack of food. I think I was dozing when Doc Shann punched my arm lightly.

  “Hey,” he said, slipping into my booth. “You buyin’?”

  I smiled and rubbed my eyes. “Food only.”

  “Yeah, sure.” He put his feet up and waved at Suzy. “Bring me what yer bringing him.”

  I didn’t complain. I’d known Doc since I arrived in Memphis. In those days, he played a mean tenor saxophone and I used to hit the clubs just to hear him. He had a wife and two children, a boy and a girl, and was proud of them. Now he played for change in Handy Park when he was sober. I never found out what happened to his wife; I assumed she left him. His son died in Vietnam two years before. I’d seen his daughter a few times, grown up and professional, fishing her father out of clubs long after midnight.

  Suzy brought him a Coke, and he didn’t complain. He would when he noticed it, but he had ordered exactly what I had, and she was following that order.

  “You been watching the TV?” Doc asked.

  I took a sip of Coke, hoping I didn’t know where this conversation was going, but fearing that I did. “Not too much, Doc. I’ve been busy.”

  “You seen them pictures they been sending back from ’Nam?”

  I had. They were getting worse by the day. The offensive that had started on January thirtieth was escalating into something ugly, and reporters were capturing it all on film. If you didn’t catch the news on television the night before, it was rehashed in the morning papers, the still images just as horrifying as the moving ones.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I don’t know what to think no more.”

  “Me, either, Doc.”

  “Cronkite’s doing a special tonight.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “About ’Nam.”

  “I figured.”

  He picked up his straw and shook it at me. “You know Dr. King.”

  “We went to the same school,” I said cautiously. “That’s all.”

  “He called it our sin. He said we sinned in Vietnam.”

  We’d been having the same conversation since Martin made his most important speech against the war nearly a year before. I suppressed a sigh.

  “He said we must all protest. All. That ain’t right. My boy, he died because he thought we was doing something right.”

  “I know, Doc,” I said softly.

  “And if it wasn’t right, then what’d he die for? You tell me, Smokey. You know Dr. King. You ask him for me, would you? Please?”

  “I’m not close to him anymore, Doc. I’ve told you.”

  “I know. I know.” He was shaking his head. “But I marched with Dr. King. I been beside him, been talking with him. And I don’t know no more. Because if he’s right, my boy, he died…”

  He shook his head again.

  Suzy met my gaze from across the room. She had to have heard that last. Everyone had. Doc was raising his voice with each sentence.

  “Now there’s them pictures,” he said. “You seen them pictures?”

  “Yes, Doc.”

  “It don’t seem right, but I tell myself it’
s war. My boy, he thought—”

  Suzy came up to him and put her hand on his shoulder. “Your order’s done, Doc. I’m going to serve it to you at the bar. Smokey’s got some business he’s got to do.”

  Doc didn’t protest. This had happened too many times before, and he knew that protesting might get him kicked out of the restaurant. He slide out of the booth and made his way to the bar, leaving his Coke behind.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  She smiled at me, and slipped into the booth for a moment. Suzy and I had a fling several years ago. It had been short, and it ended when I learned that she was married. Her husband left her later, but she wasn’t interested in me anymore. I think the demands of raising two children on a waitress’s salary had her mind on other things.

  “Haven’t seen you for a while,” she said.

  I shrugged. “Been busy.”

  “Me, too.” She glanced at the door. A large party was coming in. “Friday was hell.”

  She was referring to the riot.

  “The place doesn’t seem worse for wear.”

  “I stayed inside.” She shook her head. “I just want this thing to be over. I had to drive the restaurant truck to the dump this morning, and I got stopped. They told me I was crossing a picket line. Do you know what a mess it is out back? I have to get rid of this stuff somewhere.”

  “I know.”

  “Suzy!” The bartender yelled.

  “I’ll be back,” she said, and slipped out. She went to the large table and took their order, then went into the kitchen and picked up mine. She started to bring it to me, but I pointed at Doc. She set food down in front of him, then went back in the kitchen.

  The new party was loud and obnoxious, arguing about which was better, Motown or Stax. That was my first clue that some of them were outsiders. No one from Memphis would argue in public against our own studio. Motown may have been older, but Stax was the wave of the future.

  Suzy brought me chicken and dumplings and the morning papers, which I hadn’t seen. I ate and read about the upcoming New Hampshire primary, the latest developments in Vietnam, and the continuing stalemate in the sanitation workers’ strike. Someone started the jukebox, playing the Supremes at full volume, and I suspected I was in for a battle of the bands. I didn’t mind. It gave me something to listen to while I ate.

  Doc passed out on the bar, and the bartender struggled to wake him up. Suzy had her hands full with the new table, the men on one side grabbing at her and the boys on the other laughing just a bit too loud. I’d helped her through a couple of those situations, and usually she got mad at me. She always said gropers gave the highest tips.

  It took me nearly an hour to go through the Commercial Appeal and another half hour to peruse the Press-Scimitar. Then I left my money on the table, along with a generous tip, and stood. It was time to go home, get some rest, and let the brain focus on something other than Laura Hathaway.

  I was halfway to the door when I realized one of the faces at the big table was familiar. Joe Bailey was sitting on the end, wearing a beret, a new leather coat slung on the back of his chair. He looked cleaner than usual, though, and happy. When he saw me, he grinned.

  I did not smile back. I walked over to the table.

  “I took Jimmy to school this morning,” I said to him. “Apparently he’s been missing a lot of it.”

  The table grew silent. Several others, older men, were watching me now. One looked very familiar. He pulled his beret over his face and turned away so that I couldn’t recognize him. I didn’t look at him directly, although I did try to study him out of the corner of my eye. I wondered if he was the guy I saw in the park.

  “Jimmy?” Joe asked.

  “Your brother.” I let the sarcasm show my displeasure.

  “I’m not in charge of what he do.”

  “Really?” I asked. “I saw him meet you at lunch yesterday. He wouldn’t have been able to do that if he were in school.”

  Joe’s eyes narrowed. “That all you see?”

  I wasn’t about to tell him about the parcel, not in front of his friends. “Was there more to see?”

  “Jus’ me makin’ sure he ate.”

  “I bought him lunch.” My tone was flat. Joe had the decency to look away. He knew I’d caught him in a lie.

  I leaned forward so that I was as close to him as I could get. I could see the acne on his skin, the shadows under his eyes. Why was it that the Baileys weren’t sleeping? “You’re old enough to make your own choices. But Jimmy isn’t. He’s got a future, if you just let him try for it.”

  “A future doin what? Whatever some honky tells him?”

  That wasn’t a sentiment that Joe had ever expressed before. I glanced at the rest of the table. Black Panthers, or wanna-be Panthers. What passed for the Black Power movement in Memphis. I didn’t like Joe hooked up with them.

  “You want to introduce me to your friends?”

  Joe’s expression went flat. “They’re just friends.”

  “Mmm,” I said. “So this is what the Invaders look like.” The Invaders were a group of high school students who were beginning to make themselves known as militants. They had interrupted a few strike meetings already, trying to turn the strike into a Stokely Carmichael type of event.

  “We ain’t all Invaders,” one of the older men said, and the man next to him, the one who had been hiding his face from me, elbowed him.

  “Really?” I asked. “So I’m to believe you’re Black Panthers who’ve come all the way from California to little ole Memphis.”

  “Believe what you want,” Joe said.

  “I do,” I said. “I believe you’re poisoning this boy, and you’re letting him poison his brother.”

  “’Cause he don’t like bowin’ to the white man?”

  “Because he needs to grow up before he makes the choices you’re offering him.”

  “I’m grown,” Joe said, sitting up even straighter.

  “Not enough,” I said. “You don’t know what their philosophy will do.”

  “It’ll make our people strong,” the older man said.

  “That’s a bunch of horseshit and you know it.” I kept my hands on the table and looked directly at him. The other man in the beret still slouched near the wall. “This ‘burn, baby, burn’ crap will only get people killed. Good people, like Joe. And maybe like his ten-year-old brother. Our people.”

  “Careful,” one of the men said. “If he ain’t with us, he work for the Man.”

  “I don’t work for the Man,” I said. “I work for myself, and I pay attention to the black community. But there is a difference between you and me. And the difference is simple: I believe the system can be improved for black and white. You think it can only be improved for blacks.”

  “Was there somethin’ about bein’ a chil’ in Atlanta that makes niggers idealists?” The man who’d been hiding his face pulled his hat down even lower.

  I felt a shiver run through me. Very few people knew I had grown up in Atlanta. Most people thought I was from Washington, D.C. They thought my connection with Martin occurred at Boston University, not on Sweet Auburn Street.

  I wasn’t going to let him see that he had rocked me.

  “How can a man who believes in black power use that word?” I asked.

  The man beside him grinned as if I had walked into a trap. “We take it over, make it ours, use it so much it ain’t got no sting. We take their weapon from them and turn it on them. We do it with words, and we’ll do it with weapons. You wait.”

  “You run the risk,” I said slowly, “of becoming just like the white folks you hate.”

  He shook his head. “You been kowtowing to them so long you don’t even know when you’re doing it.”

  “I believe we all have to live together.”

  “And I believe we can break the system and remake it in our own image.”

  “You better have an idea which image you’re shooting for then,” I said. “Because if you’re not careful,
you’ll tear down their system, and rebuild one just like it. Only you’ll be the oppressors. You’ll become the very thing you hate.”

  “It’ll be different with the black man in charge.”

  “Will it?” I asked. “Will it really?”

  “Yeah, it’ll be different,” the man said.

  “I used to agree,” I said, and that got Joe to look up. I wanted to get him away from this group as quickly as I could. But I didn’t exactly know how. “Back in the days when people listened to Martin’s words on nonviolence. Our people were doing something different. We were doing something better. But now I hear rumblings about Martin in the black community that sound just like those from the white. He don’t represent blacks no more, people say. He abandoned us to talk about the war. He don’t think of us no more, not when he’s trying to take on poverty. But he’s right. The whole society is sick, and if you tear it down and replace it with the same sick structure, the wars will continue. Or worse, if you replace it with nothing, this whole country will burn.”

  Joe glanced at the others, then pounded his fist on the table. “I say let it!”

  I stared at him for a long time, so long that his enthusiasm dimmed, and his fist unclenched. He continued to look at me, but the light faded from his eyes.

  I finally let my gaze leave his. The other men were watching me, their expressions wary.

  “The thing about fire,” I said, “is that it’s very hard to control.”

  “The thing about fire,” said the man who knew me from beneath his beret, “is that it burns clean.”

  “Not when you want it to,” I said. “Sometimes it destroys everything you love, alongside everything you hate.”

  “You know how to do this better?”

  I shook my head. “I’m just one of those guys who knows what doesn’t work, not what does. It’s my job.”

  I didn’t let them answer that. I turned back to Joe. “You want to come with me?” I asked. “I’ve got something for Jimmy, so I’ll be going your way.”

  “I’m stayin’,” Joe said, and we both knew he wasn’t just referring to the Little Hot House.