'See, I don't explain nothing to no nigger. You got that, boy? We are here because we are here and that's all the goddamned hell you got to know. You got that?'
'Yes suh.'
'We be upstairs. But I don't want you going nowheres, you know what I am telling you? I and my cousins, we are here until we are done, and I don't want nobody knowing we are here and I don't want no nigger making any business about it, do you understand?'
'I do, suh.'
A stronger voice bellowed, 'Jape, you stop jawing with that nigger and hep us get this goddamned thang upstairs. Have the boy hep too.'
'You pitch a hand, now, nigger,' said Jape, ordering Memphis to assist with the labor. He went quickly over, as directed, and found himself given a large wooden crate, with rope handles. He lifted it?ugh, sixty, seventy pounds, extremely heavy for its size!?feeling the subde shift of something dense but also loose in some way, like a liquid, only heavier. He could read a bit, and he saw something stamped on it, first of all a black eagle, its wings outstretched, its head crowned and then words that he didn't understand: MG!08, it said, and next to that, in a strange, foreign-looking kind of print, 7.92 X 57 MM MASCHINE-KARABINER INFANTERIE PATRONEN.
At 9:45 Earl made a last drive down Malvern for a look-see at Mary Jane's. Again, it was surprisingly empty. A single white man sat at a table to the right, in overalls, with a low-slung hat down over his eyes and a half-full whiskey bottle on the table before him. His fiery glare seemed to drive most people away.
Above, a few gals hung out the sporting house's windows, but they were lisdess, almost pallid. Earl recognized fear of the paralyzing variety; he'd seen enough of it.
He pulled around the block for a look down the alley. It was deserted. He turned off his headlamps and drove slowly down the alley, pulling up about a hundred feet short of the rear entrance to Mary Jane's, and with binoculars studied the rear of the building.
It was a brick rear with a door that would have to be blown, but no windows overlooked it, so there was no worry of enfilade fire. There was no sign of life along the cobblestones of the alleyway, which shone not from rain but from the liquidation of the moisture in the air against the still warmish bricks. As the night cooled, the slickness would disappear.
Earl picked up his walkie-talkie, snapped it on, and pressed the send button.
'Cars one, two and three, are you there for commo check?'
There was some crackly gibberish, but then cutting through the squawks came the reply.
'Earl, this is car one, we are set.'
'Earl, same for car two.'
'Earl, I ditto for car three.'
'Car one, there's a white boy sitting at a table to the immediate right of the entranceway in the bar. Do you read?'
'Roger.'
''Less I miss my guess, there's your first Grumley boy. So when the initial entry team goes up the way to the door, I want you to leave one man behind at the car with a Thompson and I want that boy zeroed. If he rises from the table with a weapon, he has to go down. Got that?'
'Roger on that, Earl.'
'Be careful. Short burst. You ought to be able to bust him with three. Don't let the gun get away from you.'
'It won't happen.'
'You other two units, you are set. This whole damned thing turns on how fast you git through that back door.'
'Yes sir. We are ready.'
'Okay, you fellas, you do yourselves proud now, y'hear?'
'Yes sir.'
Earl felt like a cigarette. He glanced at his watch. It was 9:57. He flicked a Lucky out, lit it up, took a deep breath and felt good about the thing. What could be done had been done. It was clear there would be some surprises for the Grumley boys.
He slipped out the door of his car, letting it stay ajar, and headed back to the trunk. He popped it. Inside lay his vest and a 1918 Al Browning Automatic Rifle.
Fuck the vest. He was way down here where there was no shooting. He didn't need the vest.
He took the Browning, slid a twenty-round mag into the well, snapped it in and threw the bolt to seat a round. Then he pulled out a bandolier with ten more magazines for the gun and withdrew four magazines, which he put in his suit coat pockets, two in each for balance. He threw the bandolier back inside and closed the trunk gently.
But he could not help thinking: What is wrong? What have I forgotten? Am I in the right place? How soon will medical aid arrive? Will this work?
But then it settled down to one thing: What is wrong?
The call came from upstairs. It was Nathan Grumley, behind the big German gun, which was mounted on its sled mount just at the head of the stairs, with its belts of ammo all flowing into it.
'Jape, you see anything?'
'Not a goddamned thing 'cept these here fat niggers,' Jape called back. He sat alone at a table in the bar. Around him, the slots were unused. The place was practically empty but three boys had bumbled in and he had directed that they stand nonchalantly at the bar. If they didn't want to, he suggested they have a talk with his uncle, at which point he pulled back his jacket which lay crumpled on the chair next to him and revealed the muzzle of his tommy gun. All complied, though one wet up his pants when he saw the gun.
By a clock on the wall Jape could see that it was virtually 10:00. He took another sip on the bourbon, warmed by its strength, finding courage in it. He was a little nervous. The cut-face nigger was behind the bar, looking spooked as shit. Good thing he'd gone behind the bar and cleaned out the baseball bat, the sawed-off Greener and the old Civil War saber like his grandpap might well have carried.
Then, precisely at ten, a car pulled up, its lights off. Jape reached over and slid the Thompson out from under the coat, shucking the coat to the floor. The gun came over until he held it just under the table, ever so slightly scutding his chair back. He could see some confusion out by the car, but it was dark and he wasn't sure what to do.
'You niggers stay where you is!' he commanded. 'Nathan, I think they're here, goddammit.'
The sound of the big bolt on the German gun being cranked was Nathan's response.
'We gonna jambalaya some boys!' Jape crooned to the terrified black men.
'I don't want to die,' came a gal's voice from upstairs, high-pitched and warbly. 'Please, sirs, don't you be hurtin' me.'
'Shut up, 'ho,' came the response.
The raid team broke from the car and headed toward Mary Jane's.
Jape's fingers flew toward the safety of the gun, and pushed it off. By Jesus, he was ready.
Everything was lovely. Two State Police were bodyguards and there were a lot of guns in the room, carried by veterans who'd waded ashore at Anzio and Normandy and suchlike, so at last Fred Becker felt safe and among friends. He was able to put aside that gnawing tension that was his closest companion through all this mess.
He was meeting with his group of reformers, all men like himself, at Coy's Steakhouse, on a hill just beneath Hot Springs Mountain on the east side of the city. Three national correspondents and a photographer from Life were in the room too.
But the circumstances were only nominally political. The young men were here to celebrate Fred's success and what it would mean for them all, as they foresaw their own co-option of the levers of power in the Democratic party in the next election, and their eventual takeover of the city on a thrust of righteous indignation. For Fred and his raiders had given the town hope and loosened the grip of the old power brokers. One could feel it in the air, the sudden burgeoning spring of optimism, the sense that if people only stood up things didn't have to stay as they always did, locked in the hard old patterns of corruption and vice and violence.
All the wives were there. It was a grand evening. It was as if the war had been won, or at least the light at the end of the tunnel glimpsed. Toasts were made, glasses raised, people almost broke into song. It was one of
