When he came on, he was breathing hard. Maybe he spent every lunch hour working out. Maybe when the receptionist tracked him down he took a shot at her. Or maybe he was just fat off other people’s work. The world was what you made it. Sure it was.
“Bergeron here. Please. To whom am I speaking?” I told him.
“And you’re interested in employment, my secretary says. In what capacity, if I might ask?”
I sketched my background in paper serving, skip tracing, bodyguard and security work. Most of the last was pure invention, but set up by the rest, which
“Well,” he said. “Ordinarily we wouldn’t consider accepting an application over the phone. I’m sure you understand. But as it turns out, we find ourselves in need of extra help tonight-unexpectedly. A good and regular customer. Else we would have declined. And you do seem to be the kind of experienced professional we’re always looking for.”
“Had a feeling this might turn out to be a good day,” I said.
“First name spelled L-O-U-I-S?”
I corrected him, then went ahead and spelled my last name too.
“And you’re currently employed …?”
“I’m not-though not for lack of trying, I assure you. Generally I work freelance. Bodyguard work, collections, like I told you. And I walk a lot of paper for Boudleaux amp; Associates. But things have been getting thin for a while now.”
“Frankie DeNoux?”
“Yeah.”
“I know him. Everybody knows him.”
“Seems like it.”
“Your training?”
“Military.”
No reason to tell him I’d gone from civilian to MP back to civilian in a hop and a skip. More skip than hop, come to think of it.
“Address?”
“Wouldn’t do you much good. I move around a lot.” I had my fish, I could slack off now.
“I understand. Some place you can be reached, then? Since the law requires it.”
I gave him Verne’s address.
“Social Security number?”
“Let’s see …” I tried a couple of three-digit sequences. “Sorry. Can’t remember it just this minute.”
“No problem. Happens all the time. Just bring it in when you come by for your check.”
“Then I have work?”
“Are you free from seven to around twelve tonight?”
“I can be.”
“Then you have work. Pays four dollars an hour, four hours guaranteed, probably run between five and six. You’ll need to be at Esplanade and Broad by seven at the latest. Report to Sam Brown. Big guy, hair and beard completely white. You can’t miss him. He’s front man on this, and whatever he says, goes. Checks will be ready to pick up here by four tomorrow afternoon. We can cash your check on the premises, if you want. Sam likes you, puts in a good word, we’ll be using you again.
“Thank you for getting in touch with us, Mr. Griffin. Any questions?”
“Only one. What am I going to be doing?”
“Of course. I did fail to mention that, didn’t I. You’ll be working crowd control.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“Gentlemen,” Sam Brown said.
Bergeron was right, he looked like a fullback. Hell, he looked like two fullbacks. You could land fighter planes on his shoulders. He wore a black suit skillfully tailored to downplay his size, but man’s ingenuity only goes so far.
“Most of you here, I’ve worked with you before. And
“Tonight’s business is crowd control, people. You are intelligence, and intelligence only. You’ll be teamed in pairs, given walkie-talkies and specific watches. You’ll report in each fifteen minutes. You do not, repeat
“Officially the city anticipates that about three hundred people will show up tonight; they’re prepared to handle twice that. Police estimates are running higher, maybe as many as a thousand, they say, before it’s over, and the department has placed officers accordingly.
“The affair’s sponsors, however, have reason to believe attendance may be well in advance of expectations. And you, gentlemen, we, are their insurance.
“I repeat: intelligence only. Circulate, observe, reconnoiter, report. Police officers both in uniform and plainclothes will be on watch for legal violations or for any possibility of violence. Federal agents are also present. We are here expressly as their helpmates, an early warning system. And the lower profile we keep, the more effective we can be.”
Walking up Broad on my way here, I’d seen stragglers as far back as Canal, then as I approached Esplanade, more and more, until they were everywhere: stapled to telephone poles, abandoned storefronts and boarded-up houses, impaled on ironwork fences, stuck beneath the wipers of cars sitting on bare wheels at curbside.
CORENE DAVIS
TONIGHT!
COMMUNITY HALL OF
REDEEMER BAPTIST CHURCH
8 P.M.
HEAR THE TRUTH
“Who’s Corene Davis?” I asked the guy I got paired with. He was as thin as Sam Brown was broad. He could lie down, you’d think he was the horizon.
He shrugged with shoulders a sparrow would fall off. “Big shot in Black Rights, I guess. From up North somewhere. Man said your name was Louis?”
“Lew.”
“James. You worked this before?”
“Not for SeCure Corps. Usually work on my own-freelance.”
“Oh yeah? You ever need help?”
“Only finding customers.”
“I know what that’s like. Used to do sales, myself. Fine men’s clothing. Only trouble was, no fine men ever came in to buy it, and I was on straight commission.”
“What about you?”
“What about me.”
I gestured around us.
“Oh. Yeah, I score a job with them a couple, three times a month. SeCure’s good people. Pay a decent wage, never try to hold back on you. I’ve been trying to get on as a regular, but it’s a long list.”
The community center had already filled. Earlier in the day speakers had been set up outside, and now a huge crowd was forming, spilling off the sidewalk into the street and sidewalk opposite. It looked like Carnival had
