Smoke-Filled Rooms: A Smokey Dalton Novel Page 8

  We were in one of the area’s better diners, and it was packed with Friday afternoon customers. The diner had air-conditioning that was struggling to keep up with the sweating bodies, the ovens, and the grill, but it was still cooler in here than it was outside. The waitresses were having to hustle customers out of their booths when they were done eating, just to keep the line at the door to a minimum.

  “Anyone watching me or Jimmy?” I had ordered a cheeseburger, which came on a Kaiser roll. The burger was so thick, I had trouble biting through the sandwich.

  “I didn’t know how to ask that specifically. So I asked about my family and friends. No one saw anything, Smokey.”

  I set the hamburger aside. It was good, but too much food for a hot afternoon. “What do you think?”

  “I think if you are being followed, it’s because of something different.” He finished the last of his corned beef.

  I nodded. “I’m thinking that too.”

  We stared at each other for a moment. Then he said, “I’ve got an idea. Why don’t I follow you and see if I can see this guy?”

  “If he’s as good as he sounds, he’ll notice you.” I sipped my ice tea. “But we might be able to flush him out.”

  “How?”

  “I think he lost me on the way here. If so, he’ll be waiting for me at the building. We’ll set up a route here, beforehand. You won’t follow me. You’ll be stationed. When I walk by, you’ll be able to tell if I’m being tailed.”

  Franklin smiled. “I like that, Smokey.”

  “We won’t catch him this first time, Franklin.”

  “I know,” he said.

  “But we have a couple of days. We’ll recognize him soon enough.”

  * * *

  We drove back separately, our plan mapped out. I parked in front of the apartment and went inside to give Franklin time to get into place, and to give my shadow a chance to notice me.

  The inside of the apartment was stiflingly hot. We hadn’t closed the windows or the curtains the way that Althea did. It was only the middle of the afternoon. The heat of the day hadn’t passed yet. Sleeping would be impossible that night.

  I poured myself the last of the lemonade and drank it in one long gulp. Then I grabbed a glass pitcher, filled it with water, and dunked the tea bags inside it. I planned to take the entire thing outside. If someone stole it, I’d replace it. But my hesitation in the front of the building had to look normal or our watcher would know he was being watched.

  I took the pitcher downstairs. To set it in the sun, I had to wedge it beside the stairs leading up to the building. A young boy, too young to be the missing child, watched from the sidewalk. I’d seen him before. He lived in the building.

  He was frowning at me. “Whatcha doin?”

  “Making sun tea.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Another way to make iced tea.”

  He came up the sidewalk, his frown deepening as if I were doing an arcane magic trick. “Never seen nothing like that before.”

  “You may not see it again if someone takes this pitcher. Are you going to be around?”

  “For a while.”

  “Keep an eye on it for me, will you?”

  He nodded.

  I stood all the way up. The sun was still high enough to hit the tea. I scanned the area as if I were looking for something he had just mentioned. Franklin sat on the stoop almost two blocks over. I couldn’t see his face from this distance, but his body language was not relaxed. I wondered how long it had been since he’d done something like this. I hoped the skills involved were the kind a man never forgot.

  “You live with the Grimshaws?”

  I started, and glanced at the boy. He was not looking at Franklin, as I thought he would be. He was looking at me. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his cutoffs, trying to look unconcerned. But the question had an edge to it.

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “Where’s Keith gone?”

  Keith was Franklin’s ten-year-old son.

  “His mother took the family to visit their grandparents.”

  “Did Jim go too?”

  It took me a moment to realize he meant Jimmy. I’d taken to calling him Jim on occasion, but I hadn’t realized anyone else had. “Yeah. He’s gone for the next few weeks.”

  The boy kicked at the sidewalk with his bare foot. His shoulders hunched forward. “That stinks.”

  “Why? Were you planning something?”

  He shrugged.

  “I’ll be talking to them. I can tell them you were here.”

  “My name is Brian. I live here,” he said in a tone that implied I was stupid.

  “Then I’m not quite understanding what the problem is.”

  “Everybody’s gone, okay?” he said, raising his head. His almond-shaped dark eyes flashed. “They’re gone. David’s gone. Even my dad’s gone. Everybody’s going away but me.”

  I didn’t know who his dad was. “I’m sorry,” I said. “They’ll be back soon.”

  “And summer’ll be over. This just stinks.” He pushed past me and went into the building. I watched him go, wishing I could have said something to make him feel better. I had a hunch the outburst had nothing to do with Keith and Jimmy and everything to do with his father.

  I sighed, glanced at the pitcher a final time, then started down the sidewalk, making sure I looked nonchalant as I headed to the store.

  There were a lot of people outside. Some kids were playing kickball in the street. Several adults were sitting on stoops, like Franklin was. One woman waved a paper fan in front of her face. She looked as hot as I felt.

  I tried not to act any differently than usual. I nodded at people if our gazes met, otherwise I continued forward, feeling like the stranger on the block. I knew that I was being watched—I could sense it—but I wasn’t sure if I had that feeling because of Franklin or because of someone else, the someone we’d been looking for.

  Some faces looked familiar to me: an elderly man standing in the doorway to one of the neighborhood’s few single-story houses. A middle-aged man sat on a lawn chair in the middle of the brown grass between two apartment buildings. He was reading the Chicago Daily Defender, but he looked up as I passed. His expression was cold and unwelcoming.

  As I got closer to Franklin, four boys in their late teens turned their heads toward me in unison. They deliberately stared at me, trying to unnerve me. I smiled at them, and they looked away.

  I did not walk up the street where Franklin was sitting. That would have been too obvious. Instead, I went a block past. I was about to cut across the street when I heard shouting behind me.

  I whirled. Franklin and another man were grappling on the corner. The man was yelling as if Franklin were hurting him. Franklin was using all of his bulk to shove the man toward the brick building on the corner.

  I hurried back. Franklin had managed to get the man’s arms behind him and was pressing his face against the building. The entire neighborhood was watching. I could feel the mixture of amusement and alarm.

  “What the hell are you doing?” The man was yelling. I wondered the same thing. We’d agreed that Franklin would note the face and then let me take care of it.

  “Franklin,” I said when I reached his side. “What’s going on?”

  “This is the one,” he said. “He followed you all the way up the block.”

  “Really?” I leaned against the building, arms crossed. His description was similar to the one Marvella gave me—he was tall and rangy, and he had an afro. But he seemed younger than I expected—eighteen at the most. I had expected someone in his thirties or older. “Have you been following me?”

  “I didn’t mean nothing,” he said, his face squished against the brick.

  So he had been.

  “You want to tell me why?”

  “Because you’re a cop, man.”

  I grinned. My gaze met Franklin’s. He was frowning. He shoved the boy hard against the building.

  “Don
’t make shit up,” Franklin said.

  “I’m not.” The boy struggled against him. “You’re hurting me.”

  “I’ll do a lot more if you’re not honest with us.”

  “I am being honest.” The boy’s voice rose. “There’s been a lot of cops here and he’s one. He even smells like a cop.”

  The boy had a good nose. Detectives and cops weren’t that far off, and since I’d moved here, I’d been uneasy and on alert. I could see how that would be interpreted as cop behavior.

  “And how did you get to be such an expert on the police?” I asked.

  He closed his eyes. Franklin shoved him again.

  “He’s not going to stop until we have some answers,” I said.

  “Son of a bitch,” the boy said, but he wasn’t cursing us. He was cursing the situation. “You are a cop.”

  “Actually, no,” I said. “I’m a security guard. That’s probably what you saw.”

  The boy looked up at me, his expression sullen. “You stare at stuff.”

  “Is that a crime?”

  “Cops do that.”

  “So, apparently, do you. Now, do you want to tell me what this is about or should I have my friend use that brick wall to scrape the skin off your face?”

  “I wasn’t doing nothing, man. I was just supposed to follow a cop to see if I could find out what they were doing.”

  Franklin shoved him harder. The boy’s face was pushed so hard against the wall that his features were mushed together. I glanced sideways at the street. None of his friends were coming toward us, although the four young men I’d passed earlier had come closer. People on their stoops were acting as if they weren’t seeing anything. And the kids had stopped playing in the street.

  “That’s all, man,” the boy said. “I wasn’t doing nothing else. Honest.”

  “What’s your name?” I asked him.

  The boy grimaced.

  Franklin pushed him harder. “He asked you a question.”

  “Malcolm.”

  “Malcolm what?” I asked.

  “Malcolm Reyner.” The last name was too unusual to be made up, at least by this kid.

  “I’ll be keeping an eye on you, Mr. Reyner.” I looked at Franklin. “Let him go.”

  Franklin didn’t move.

  “Let him go,” I said again.

  Franklin dropped his arms. The boy staggered forward, leaning his face on the wall for support. He probably would have fallen if he hadn’t been pressed so hard against the building.

  He stood up. He was taller than I was, but rail thin, and as young as I had initially thought. His left cheek was scraped by the brick’s uneven surface, and his left eye was swelling shut. Franklin was better in a fight than I thought he would be.

  “The cops,” I said, “are trying to scare you. Mayor Daley’s afraid the city will burn next week and he thinks we’re going to start it. Your behavior isn’t reassuring me. Could he be right?”

  “No way.” Malcolm touched his damaged cheek, then checked his fingers for blood. “We’re not doing nothing. Most of the guys have skipped. A few are going to Lincoln Park, but that’s for the war, man. The rest of us are lying low. We just don’t like the Man in our neighborhood.”

  “I don’t either,” I said.

  He looked surprised. Then he glanced at Franklin and back at me. “Shit. You thought I…?”

  Franklin nodded. I didn’t.

  “Je-zus. He looks more like a cop than I do.” He nodded toward me.

  “That’s the point,” Franklin said.

  The boy’s eyebrows went up. He seemed comical, suddenly, and very young. “You think they’re that undercover? But I seen white guys and guys in suits—”

  “You’ve seen cops,” I said, confirming his suspicions. “Stay away from them. Don’t follow them. They’re not going to be in the best mood.”

  The boy swallowed.

  “Now get the hell out of here.”

  He didn’t need a second invitation. He ran down the street toward the Grimshaw’s building.

  I moved closer to Franklin, so close that the people who were watching us—and that included most of the neighborhood now—couldn’t hear me.

  “What the hell was that?”

  “He was following you.”

  “And you were supposed to make a note of it so that I could take care of it.”

  “I stopped him.”

  “Thank you very much. I could have handled a kid.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  I let out a long sigh. “You think he’s the one Marvella mentioned?”

  “He fits the description and he was after you.”

  “Franklin, whoever’s after me is a pro. This kid saw me walking down the street and decided to check me out. I’d have stopped him when I got to the store.”

  Franklin shook his head as if he didn’t believe me.

  “You just let everyone in the neighborhood know that I believe someone’s following me,” I said.

  “Or that we’ve had a problem with this kid.”

  “Maybe they’ll believe that, but I doubt it. If I’m being followed for the reasons I think, then they’ll know who I am. And they’ll know I don’t handle punk kids this way.”

  Franklin ran a hand over his face. “I knew I’d get in the way. I just thought it would be because I couldn’t fight any more.”

  “I think that kid will disagree.”

  Franklin looked at me over his thumb and forefinger. “Really?”

  “He’s got a black eye and more bruises than I could count. Plus you got him to that wall in less than sixty seconds. Yeah, I think he’d disagree.”

  “Wow.” Franklin’s hand dropped. He seemed bemused by his own physical prowess. Then his expression changed. “Seriously. I thought my brains would help us, not get us in trouble.”

  “You haven’t done anything like this in a long time.”

  “I’ve never done anything like this. Maybe that’s the problem.”

  It was. He was too enthusiastic. But he knew that now. I’d have to be a lot more careful when I took his help.

  “Head on home, Franklin. I’ll go to the store and finish this.”

  “You don’t want me to keep an eye out?”

  I shook my head.

  “I blew that for us, didn’t I?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Let’s just hope our friend wasn’t watching.”

  “I didn’t see anything unusual.”

  “If he’s as good as I think he is, you wouldn’t have seen anything at all this first time.”

  Franklin nodded. He sighed and nodded again. “I’ll meet you at home.”

  “All right.” And then I left him. I clenched and unclenched my left fist as I walked, working out the anger, the adrenaline from the moment.

  Things had just gotten a lot harder. I didn’t like that at all.

  SIX

  THAT NIGHT, my dream chill was even worse. It mingled with the scrape-scrape-scrape of shovels on the icy earth, the hushed voices of the men trying to stay awake in the cold Korean night. The moon was full, sending an eerie silver light across the snow. I clutched my rifle in my hands, leaned against the edge of the trench, and stared at the empty hills.

  Someone was coming. Someone—

  Then I woke up. The chill lingered for a moment, and it took me a while to realize I was covered in sweat. The apartment hadn’t cooled down much, despite the fan we’d put in the window. We had faced it outward so that it would suck the hot air from inside and theoretically fill the place with cooler air. The theory hadn’t worked. There was no cooler air to be found.

  I only dreamed about Korea in times of extreme stress. Usually the dreams were not about the end of my service but the beginning, when I realized that being in an integrated unit not only meant that the whites had to put up with me but that I had to put up with them.

  I rinsed off my face, just like I had after the first dream, then went back to bed. But it took a long time for sleep to claim
me again.

  * * *

  Marvella’s note had said that she had been unable to reach her friend. She asked that I see her in the morning and that we try again.

  I went to her apartment, wishing I had never agreed to this. But somehow I always got hooked into cases I didn’t want.

  In Memphis, I would have been most content working for black insurance companies, banks, and lawyers, doing work in the black community that private detectives did in the white one. But somehow my caseload filled with troublesome cases: missing persons, stolen money, divorces.

  The man who trained me, Loyce Kirby, always said I had to be firm, to say no to anything I didn’t want, but I couldn’t. My imagination was too powerful and my conscience too strong. If I later learned that a fourteen-year-old boy met with trouble, I would have wondered if it were this boy and I would have regretted not doing all I could to find him.

  But I didn’t do this kind of work in Chicago, and admitting that I did made both Jimmy and I vulnerable. Our lives held against someone else’s. Mine didn’t matter that much, but Jimmy’s did.

  Apparently this was the week to test that theory. And if something happened to me, I’d have to trust Laura.

  I’d tell her when I saw her this afternoon. She had to know I was relying on her to make the right decisions.

  Marvella gave me an odd look as she joined me. “I know you don’t want to do this, but I appreciate it.”

  “I’m not the right person for this job,” I said.

  “I think you can help,” she said. “Don’t you want to help?”

  “I’ll listen. That’s all I can do.” I wasn’t going to make any promises. I didn’t dare.

  We left our building and went down the block. The complex’s door was open as it had been before. This time when Marvella went down the hall, she pushed open the apartment door.

  I followed slowly, trying to imagine being a fourteen-year-old boy growing up in this place. For all the difficulties of my youth, being raised in poverty was not one of them. My adoptive parents were comfortably middle class, living in a black neighborhood where racism touched us only when we ventured outside of it.