Hard Revolution

Shadows, and Mike Douglas. Around the time she was looking at that crazy vampire show, he’d dress, slip out the house, and get on his way to his four-to-midnight shift.

“Not today,” said Vaughn. “I’m gonna get out early. Want to visit a few garages before they close.”

“For what?”

“This young guy got hit-and-runned last night. I’m looking into it.”

“He was killed?”

Vaughn nodded. “The car that was involved musta got smashed up good. It’s gonna need repairs.”

“You don’t work accidental deaths.”

“It’s a homicide until I learn different. I think it was a race killing. Whoever did it, it was like they were joyriding. You know, having fun. The boy was colored.”

“Frank.”

“What?”

“What color was he?”

“Huh?”

“He was black, wasn’t he?”

“Okay.”

“Then call him black.”

“Christ, Olga.”

He had to stifle himself now. Olga and her girlfriends. He bet they had taught her to use that comeback on him when he called someone colored. What color was he? Clever. Them, who had no black friends. Them, whose only contact with black people was with their black maids and the black man at the A amp;P who loaded their groceries into the back of their station wagons. And here they were, with their nails and their pool memberships and their mah-jongg tiles, thinking they were gonna teach him something, when he was out there in the actual world every day.

“What’s wrong?” said Olga.

“Nothin’, doll.” Vaughn’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “You just make me laugh sometimes.”

“You’re a real Neanderthal, Frank, you know it?”

“C’mere, baby,” said Vaughn, patting his thigh. “Bring them gunboats with you.”

“They’re gunboots, you dummy,” said Olga, already walking toward him.

Olga had a seat on his lap. Her face was caked with makeup and her helmet of black hair was frozen in place. But her eyes were soft, the same as the night he’d met her, at the Kavakos nightclub down on H Street, back in the early ’40s. They looked at each other as the bass from upstairs buzzed the kitchen walls. Vaughn kissed her on the lips.

Olga moved her rump around as she settled into his shape. He felt himself growing hard beneath her.

“What’s that?” said Olga with a lopsided grin.

“You said I was a caveman,” said Vaughn. “That’s my club.”

Beneath his next kiss, he felt her smile.

STRANGE AND PETERS drove down Georgia in their cruiser. They were on the tail end of their eight-to-four. Their day had consisted of some field investigations, a report made at a home break-in scene, a petty larceny, one domestic disturbance, and the usual numerous traffic stops: exceeding the limit, red- light runners, incomplete stops, and the like. Nothing involving violence or, on their part, the use of force.

Peters was having one of his talkative spells, going on about LBJ, who would succeed him, King’s scheduled return to Memphis, and what would happen down there next. Strange mostly nodded and shook his head.

He had been quiet since they’d made a stop at the station, where he’d overheard some comments made by a couple of white officers out in the lot. One of them called Peters “Golden Boy” as he and Strange were walking back to their Ford. The other called them “the Dynamic Duo” and added, “Better Peters than me.” This was the same cop, Sullivan, who had called his nightstick a “nigger knocker” within earshot of Strange a few weeks ago, then smiled nervously and said, “Hey, no offense, rookie. I mean, we’re all brothers in blue, right?” Strange had nodded but hadn’t even tried to mask the hate in his eyes. He could take a lot, and he did, but there was something about Sullivan’s face, those Mr. Ed teeth protruding out from thin lips, that just made Strange want to kick his ass real good.

“Derek, you got plans tonight?”

“Why?”

“Thought you might want to come over, have dinner with me and Patty.”

“Thanks. But I was gonna hook up with Lydell. We were thinking of checkin’ out this party he heard about, over near Howard.”

“Some other time, right?”

Strange didn’t think it was likely. But he said, “Sounds good.”

They crossed the intersection at Piney Branch and approached the Esso station. Out by the pumps, a big pale guy, sleeves rolled up to show his arms, looked to be arguing with another guy, had full black hair and a solid build. Both wore uniform shirts. The bigger of the two was working his jaw close to the other guy’s face. Peters recognized the smaller guy as the pump jockey they’d seen the day before, when they’d stopped to talk to Hound Dog Vaughn.

“Looks like something,” said Peters.

“I don’t think so,” said Strange.

“Maybe we ought to stop.”

“The guy with the black hair will walk away. He liked to fight when he was younger. But I don’t think he does anymore.”

“You know him?”

“Ran with him some when I was a kid. We did a little shoplifting together one day, a long time ago.”

“You guys get away with it?”

“I got caught. He didn’t.”

“His lucky day,” said Peters.

“No,” said Strange. “It was mine.”

SEVENTEEN

ALVIN JONES HAD been driving a green-on-green Buick Special for the last six months or so. It was a basic four-door, radio-and-heater, bench-seat, automatic-on-the-tree model, and it turned no heads. Despite the name, wasn’t nothing special about it. Point of fact, it looked like something an old lady would be driving, her white gloves at the ten-and-two position, sitting up on a pillow so she could see over the wheel.

The Buick was a ’63. Dealer made him pay for it in full with cash money before he got handed the keys. Four hundred dollars, not a whole lot, but still, he wasn’t accustomed to laying out the ducats on the front end. Contrary to what he’d told Lula Bacon, there came a time when people really did stop giving you credit, and his credit was about as fucked as a man’s credit could be.

Anyway, the price was right and it was his. Soon as his luck changed, and it was gonna change real soon, he’d be under the wheel of something right. Recently, he’d seen this white-over-red ’67 El Dorado coupe with factory air, vinyl roof, electric windows and seats in the showroom of Capitol Cadillac-Olds, on