“Don’t you know better than to give money to bums?” she demanded.
Maybe it was the sound of her voice that jogged the memory department of my brain. I knew then where I had seen that face before-on a rap sheet. My drunken bum was none other than Knuckles Russell minus his trademark four-inch Afro.
With no advance warning, one of Ben Weston’s missing student loan cosigners had magically reappeared, found by none other than Ron Peters, who had directed him straight to me.
“I’ve gotta go,” I said to Sue, backing away, heading for the door of the church.
“Where? I thought we could sit together.”
By rights, I should have invited her along, but Knuckles Russell had been very specific about that, and so had Ron Peters.
“To see a man about a dog,” I told her. “Don’t go away, Sue. I’ll be back.”
CHAPTER 24
I went into the church itself. There I met another black-suited, white-gloved man-a deacon presumably. I asked him for directions to the nearest rest room. There, after allowing a suitable interval, I ducked out through a back door that opened on to another parking lot. Hurrying over to Madison, I half walked, half jogged down the hill, knowing that eventually my bone spurs would exact a terrible price for such rash folly.
As I approached the appointed place, I wondered if the whole thing might be some kind of trick or if Ron Peters really was behind the mysterious message delivered by Knuckles Russell. If the news was that important, surely Ron would have come to convey it himself, wouldn’t he? Why trust a street-toughened gang member or even ex-member to carry missives back and forth between us? The closer I got to the deli in the swale at the bottom of the hill, the dumber I felt and the more tempted I was to call a halt and go back the way I’d come, but then I spotted Ron Peters’s K-car with its distinctive wheelchair carrier perched on top. It was parked on the street directly in front of the deli.
Inside, I found Ron Peters and Knuckles Russell seated in the far corner. Ron, alert and keeping watch, had positioned himself facing out. Knuckles, with his disheveled clothing straightened and minus the baseball cap, sat with his face averted and shoulders hunched, nursing a cup of coffee. Ron waved and motioned for me to join them. I stopped by the counter and picked up my own cup of coffee along the way.
“What’s going on?” I asked Peters as I sat down at the table. “I don’t have much time. I don’t want to miss the funeral.”
“I know you two have met before,” Ron Peters said, “but I don’t believe you’ve been properly introduced. Beau, this is Ezra Russell. Ezra, this is Detective Beaumont.”
I held out my hand. Ezra “Knuckles” Russell looked at it for a long moment before taking it. He nodded and shook hands but said nothing.
“What seems to be the problem?” I asked.
“Go on,” Ron Peters urged. “Tell him.”
“My friend’s dead,” Knuckles blurted, “an‘ I can’t even go to the funeral ’cause if I do, they’ll smoke me too.”
“Who’ll kill you?” I asked.
He raised his eyes and looked at me, unveiled distrust written on his face. “You maybe? And maybe this dude too? Ben says for us not to come back, no matter what. He says this be…this is our one chance to get away. But this One-Time here”-he motioned to Ron-“he says I gotta help. That otherwise Ben’s killer walks.”
I knew Captain Freeman had warned me to keep quiet, but if Harmon Weston already knew about Sam Irwin’s death, why shouldn’t I?
“Word’s out on the street that Ben Weston’s killer’s dead,” I told them.
Ron’s jaw dropped in surprise. “Really?”
“Who?” Knuckles Russell demanded.
“His name’s Sam Irwin.”
For a moment or two after I spoke it was quiet at our table as the news soaked in. “You mean Sam Irwin from down in Motor Pool?” Ron asked.
I nodded. “One and the same,” I said.
Maybe word about traitors in our midst was news to people like Ron Peters and J.P. Beaumont, but clearly Sam Irwin’s name was no surprise to Knuckles Russell.
“So?” He spat in disgust. “You think that motherfucker’s the only one? All he knows is cars and knives and cuttin‘ people. Sam Irwin’s not the brains. He ain’t runnin’ the show.”
“Who is then?”
Knuckles shrugged. “I dunno.”
“I’ve heard rumors that Ben Weston was in on it,” I said tentatively, just to see what kind of reaction the comment would elicit. The result was far more explosive than I expected. Ezra Russell half rose to his feet until his face was barely inches from mine, his features contorted into a look of sheer hatred.
“Don’t you dis’ my friend, One-Time. You say that again, and I’ll smoke you sure!”
I took Knuckles Russell at his word. No disrespect for his dead friend Ben Weston would be tolerated.
“Tell me about Ben,” I said, backing off, modifying my tone. “What made him tick?”
Unexpectedly, Ezra Russell’s eyes clouded with tears. He wiped them away angrily with the back of his hand. “Ben Weston was the onliest real friend I ever had,” he said despairingly. “The only one.” He broke off, his voice choked with raw emotion.
The whole time, I had been wondering how Ron Peters had managed to overcome Knuckles’s entirely understandable distrust and antipathy toward cops, how he had talked him into coming to talk to us. Now I knew the answer. Something about Ben Weston had engendered a powerful loyalty in the boy.
“How did that happen?” I asked. “How did you two become friends?”
He shook his head. “I dunno. Not exactly. I didn’t want it. Ben shows up at my door one mornin‘ and says he wants to talk to me. I say I don’t wanna talk to no cops. He says we talk anyway, he says he knows my uncle from church and my mama and Mrs. Davis, my fourth grade teacher. He says he knows I be…he knows I’m smart and do I want to be somebody’s smart homeboy and do their dirty work and get myself killed or do I want to have a life?
“I say to him you can’t come in here. My friends’ll say I’m turnin‘ on ’em, and Ben says that’s right, that’s the way it’s gonna look. He says he’s puttin‘ the word out on the street that me and him is good buddies, so if I doan wanna get my ass killed, I better be. And so he come almost every night and we talk. He talks ’bout my mama and my uncle and how family’s the most important thing of all. And he talks ‘bout how bein’ somebody’s homeboy’s no better’an bein‘ their slave.
“So word gets out that me an‘ him hang out together. The BGDs all say I’m spyin’ for him. Ben laughs and says that’s right, that’s the way it looks. So what’m I gonna do now? He axs me if I know Harriet Tubman. He says she run the Underground Railroad back in the old days. He says he’s startin‘ one of his own-a railroad to out, away from gangs and drugs. He axs me if I want to be on that train or be dead. I say that’s not much choice and he and says, boy, that’s the only choice you gots. And so I took it.”
Knuckles’s words had tumbled out in an almost breathless rush. Now he stopped and waited.
“Where did the railroad take you?” I asked.
“Ellensburg. Ben Weston worked some kind of deal to get me an‘ this other kid in over at Central. We both be…we’re both in this special English class. He helped me sell my car for this quarter and he was gonna get me student aid for the next one. All I gotta do is promise not to come ’round here, not to get involved. He says my family can’t even know ‘bout what I’m doin’ ‘cause they might tell the wrong people. He says he ain’t tellin’ anybody, not even his woman, neither.
“And so I’m over there workin‘ my ass off. I doan read no papers, doan see no TV. So when this One-Time here wakes me up at six o’clock in the mornin’, I think maybe some of my ex-friends’re lookin‘ for me to cause trouble. Instead, he tells me ’bout Ben and all those poor little kids.”
“You’ve been in Ellensburg the whole time?”
