Breakthroughs

shoulder and saw Lucullus, Apicius’ son, waving at him. He didn’t grimace-not on the outside where Lucullus could see. Instead, he waved. Lucullus came toward him at a heavy trot: he was on his way to putting on his father’s massive bulk.

“What you want?” Cincinnatus asked him. “Whatever it is, you better make it snappy, on account of I’m gonna be late for work if I miss this here trolley car.”

“Well, ain’t you high and mighty?” Lucullus said. He was getting his own man’s confidence; he wouldn’t have been so sharp with Cincinnatus a year before. “My pa says, he got to figure out whether to fish or cut bait with you pretty damn quick, an’you won’t like it if he decide he got to cut bait.”

“You tell your pa that if anything happens to me, I got myself a little book,” Cincinnatus answered. “First thing that happens after somethin’ happens to me is, that little book goes straight to Luther Bliss.” He’d been bluffing when he said that to Joe Conroy. He wasn’t bluffing any more. Anyone who tried to bring him down would go down with him.

Lucullus screwed up his face. He could see that. He was no fool; Cincinnatus would never have thought Apicius’-Apicius Wood’s-son could be a fool. He said, “My pa says you ain’t got the right attitude, Cincinnatus. You is for yourself ’fore you is for the people.”

“I take care of myself and I mind my business,” Cincinnatus said. “That’s all I want to do. That’s all I ever wanted to do. Anybody tries to keep me from doin’ that, he can get lost, far as I’m concerned. I don’t care who he is.”

“You do got the wrong attitude,” Lucullus said reproachfully. “If the proletariat ain’t united against the oppressors, it ain’t anything.”

“And what about if the party of the proletariat tries oppressin’ me?” Cincinnatus returned. Instead of answering, Lucullus made another sour face and strode off. Cincinnatus watched him go, then hurried on to the trolley stop. The Reds wouldn’t leave him alone for no better reason than that he asked them to. He knew that only too well.

He threw his nickel in the trolley fare box and went to the back of the car with something approaching relief. While he rode the trolley, as when he was driving a truck, nobody bothered him. He sometimes thought those were the only times when no one bothered him. Oh, every once in a while at home, but that wasn’t the same.

New graffiti marked several buildings along the trolley route. Some were blue X’s, others three horizontal lines of paint, red-white-red. Only after Cincinnatus had seen several of them did he realize what they were supposed to suggest: the Confederate battle flag and the Stars and Bars. The diehards were busy again, then. Others in Covington were bound to be quicker on the uptake than he was. No sooner had that thought crossed his mind than he saw a work crew splashing whitewash over one of those blue X’s. No, the Yankees didn’t miss a trick.

Somehow, Cincinnatus was not surprised to find Luther Bliss waiting at the trolley stop where he got off. The chief of the Kentucky State Police didn’t get on the trolley, either. He fell into step beside Cincinnatus as the Negro headed toward the shed where Lieutenant Straubing’s crew gathered at the start of each new run.

“Mornin’, Mr. Driver,” he said, irony in his voice at addressing a Negro by his surname. “Hope I won’t take up too much of your precious time today.”

“Mornin’ to you, Mr. Bliss,” Cincinnatus answered. “I hope you won’t, too, suh. I don’t know nothin’ more’n I did last time we talked, and the Army gets powerful riled if I’m late to work-it don’t matter how come.”

Bliss gave him a nasty glare. He’d mentioned the Army on purpose; it was the one institution that had more power in Covington than Bliss’ secret police. After a couple of silent strides, the chief said, “I’ll make you a deal-you tell me who punched that bastard Kennedy’s ticket for him and you’ll never see my face again. That’s a promise.”

Cincinnatus laughed in the aforementioned face. “You don’t know who done it, an’ the Reds don’t know who done it, an’ the Confederate diehards don’t know who done it, an’you all reckon I know who done it. Only thing I know about Tom Kennedy is that I used to work for the man.”

He knew a great deal more than that. He also knew Luther Bliss did not know how much he knew. Had the secret policeman known that, Cincinnatus would not have been heading in to work. He would have been in jail, or more likely dead.

Bliss did know he wasn’t telling everything. “You only knew Kennedy because you worked for him, what was he doing on your doorstep better than two years later?”

“Damned if I know,” Cincinnatus answered. “He got shot before he could tell me anything. Maybe he was running from the Kentucky State Police.”

“Not right then, I don’t reckon,” Bliss said. “If he was running from us, he’d have been stupid to run to you, because he must’ve known we were keeping an eye on you, too. And whatever else you could say about the goddamn son of a bitch, Tom Kennedy wasn’t stupid.”

Bliss was undoubtedly right-nobody harassing Cincinnatus was stupid. Cincinnatus didn’t say anything about that. The less he said, the better the chance the Kentucky State Police chief would give up-give up for the time being, anyhow-and go away. But Bliss, with his odd eyes the color of a hunting dog’s, stuck with him like a hunting dog on a scent. Side by side, they approached the shed where Lieutenant Straubing’s drivers gathered.

Straubing was waiting outside. “Good morning, Cincinnatus,” he said. “You’ll have to tell your friend good-bye here.”

“Good-bye, friend,” Cincinnatus said at once, smiling in Luther Bliss’ direction.

Now Bliss laughed at him. “You don’t get rid of me that easy. I have some more questions that need answering.”

“Ask them some other time,” Lieutenant Straubing said. “Nothing interferes with my men when they’re supposed to be working. Nothing. Have you got that?”

“Listen, Junior, I’m Luther Bliss, and I’m looking into a killing,” Bliss said. Maybe the Army didn’t faze him after all. Maybe nothing fazed him. That wouldn’t have surprised Cincinnatus one bit. “Far as I’m concerned, that’s a hell of a lot more important than if one nigger hops in a truck on time. Have you got that?”

Straubing wasn’t any older than Cincinnatus. He was skinny and on the pale side. And, as far as Cincinnatus could tell, he never backed down from anybody or anything. “Sounds like you’re trying to sell me the Brooklyn Bridge,” he answered. “Cincinnatus didn’t kill anybody. If he had killed somebody, you wouldn’t be grilling him here. He’d be in prison. If it’s about somebody else doing some killing, I think it can keep-doesn’t sound like fresh news, anyhow. Now just who’s supposed to be dead, and why do you think Cincinnatus knows the first thing about it?” That was Lieutenant Straubing to the core: methodical, precise, unyielding.

“Why do I reckon he knows something about it?” Bliss asked with a chuckle. “Because the fellow who’s dead got his head blown off right on your little darling’s front stoop, that’s why. Bastard was a Rebel diehard name of Tom Kennedy.”

“Oh. Him.” Straubing waved a hand in a careless gesture of dismissal. “You may as well leave Cincinnatus alone, if that’s what you’re exercised over. He doesn’t know anything about it.”

“And you do?” Luther Bliss asked. Calm as ever, Straubing nodded. Bliss spoke in an exasperated growl: “And how come you know so goddamn much, Lieutenant, if you don’t mind my asking, of course?”

“It’s not very hard, Chief,” Straubing answered, still calm. “I shot that Kennedy bastard myself.”

“You shot Tom Kennedy?” For once in their lives, Cincinnatus and Luther Bliss said the same thing at the same time with the same intonation: one of astonished disbelief.

But Lieutenant Straubing only nodded. “I certainly did. He needed shooting. Cincinnatus is one of my better men, and Kennedy was distracting him from his work. He might even have managed to get Cincinnatus involved in something subversive if he’d kept pestering him long enough.”

Kennedy had got Cincinnatus into several subversive things, but Straubing didn’t know that. Neither did Luther Bliss, who proved it by saying, “We’ve never pinned anything on Cincinnatus here. But you shot Kennedy, Lieutenant? Why in hell didn’t you say something about it to somebody?”

“I don’t know.” Straubing shrugged. “It never seemed that important. I was only doing my job and making sure one of my men could do his. It’s not like Kennedy was anything but a Rebel diehard. I didn’t think anything more about it than I would have thought about stepping on a cockroach.”

Cincinnatus believed that; he’d had a long time to watch Straubing’s mind work. After some small pause for